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Tag: myself

Interior chaos, dancing stars

Published by Paolo on 02/10/2024

I read with interest the reflections of some journalists, because of the release of Jason Schreier’s new book on the Blizzard company. The attention is focused, as it should be, on the projects and budgets.

Interesting details about failed attempts and canceled projects appear here and there. Some conclude that internally the situation at Blizzard seems chaotic.

Well, I’ve been working in the industry since 2007. I’ve never worked at Blizzard, but I’ve worked on projects that have had a fair amount of success in their small way: the internal situation is always chaotic. I’ve never seen, in my career, a single project/team where absolute chaos doesn’t reign.

“Only from internal chaos can a dancing star be born“, wrote the teenage girl in her diary when I was a teenager. There, that.

I went to IndieDevDay24

Published by Paolo on 30/09/2024

I was at IndieDevDay24 and I came with good insight. Only one selfie, this is me waiting for a free piñacolada.


Game development is getting faster thanks to growing technologies.

I was impressed by an overview of Construct that a nice guy gave me. You can make a prototype on the web as quickly as editing a video for TikTok.

Instant games combined with live elements can bring audience to small creators.

Another thing, you will read everywhere that tens of thousands games are published every year on Steam and that the market is overcrowded.

But then you meet people doing games for Steam and you discover that a huge portion of them made their plans on the concept of “hope”. They hope to find a publisher, hope to finish the project, and hope it will work.

Hope is not a good strategy. I get the beauty of tackling game development as a liberal discipline, without servile constraint. And I love it, but you should make a discerned choice.

Speaking of which, the best emotion for me is to meet former students. They always call me loudly, they make me sit and play their games. They take notes on my comments. I love to teach, also if there is a bureaucratic wall around teaching that pushes me away from it. But I always try to come back in some way.

You can control your development time and your budget. You can design good games around that. Game design is removing things!

Tens of thousands publish every year on Steam, but few take care of these things.

There is still much space for indie games, market saturation is just a Chimera.

Sorry for not posting a couple of days

Published by Paolo on 20/09/2024

I am currently stuck in a limbo, and I will not come out easily from here. But I will do it.

I am preparing all the material needed to participate to the IndieDevDay24. I have hired a freelance artist to help me to the promotional material (one pager and pitch deck) of Pawtners Case.

For now, zero publishers accepted to meet me. I don’t know if this is normal because it’s the very first time I am willing to pitch to indie publishers. Anyway, the experience is worth to me. I am doing something different, at least.

For the rest, here’s the limbo: from one side I have companies that are offering very high positions to me, but then they disappear because I have never held that same position in another company. From the other side I am getting in touch with smaller realities that value well my work but they are offering too low compensation.

That’s a mess, and it’s hard to be patient with money running out of the bank every month. Wish me luck, if you read this.

3%

Published by Paolo on 13/09/2024

To understand the situation in which we are in the video game industry, I propose to make a parallel with the downfall of rock music.

  • In the late 90s, in the USA, a legislative change allowed large corporations to decide on radio programming.
  • After years of glory and the climax of Nirvana’s “Nevermind”, music production became homogeneous because a few influential producers controlled the sound.
  • Managers began to exploit budgets to their advantage, driving costs skyrocketing and leaving very little to the artists.
  • Napster arrived and music consumption changed radically. The greatest impact was on record sales.
  • The collective experience of enjoying music diminished, given the little appeal of the bands in circulation. Everyone wanted to produce predictable and already-heard sounds, like those of Nickelback.

Consolidation led to a loss of diversity and originality in rock music. Barriers were created for capable artists by producers interested in the short term. The arrival of Napster led to fewer record sales and also to more isolation in listening to music. Before you went to the store to chat, now you were alone casually looking for something to listen. The experience of listening to rock became fleeting and fragmented.

Today new platforms allow rock artists to find and cultivate their audience. This suggests the potential for a new era of creativity, which will probably not reach the ancient glories.

I want to leave every parallelism open to your interpretation today.

Mine is certainly too biased.

Have a great weekend!

Inspiration and steal

Published by Paolo on 12/09/2024

I come to your house and I like your sofa, a lot. Then I can decide:

  • I’ll go buy one from my own apartment
  • I’ll steal it!

The first choice is similar to taking inspiration. Inspiration is doing my thing inspired by yours. It is different from stealing, which is taking your thing to do mine.

The current trend, I am sure it will end soon, is to use tools that take other people’s job and give it to you mixed with other robbed stuff. Which is worse than stealing, at least when you steal you know the victim. Here we’re talking on another level, completely.

It’s inevitable, they say. Well, it’s not. I am against that. You should too.

My doubts on current leaders

Published by Paolo on 11/09/2024

The ex-president of SONY Computer Entertainment Europe, Chris Deering declared on a podcast that “if money isn’t coming in from consumers on the last game, it’s going to be hard justifying spending money for the next.”

And I agree with that. But after watching the presentation of PS5 PRO yesterday, featuring games as old as The Last of Us 2 (2020, 4 years old) to show the power of a brand new thing I have serious doubts about this kind of leadership.

Yeah, ok, he WAS a president. Still, he has influence somehow.

A team’s ability to create hit games improves over time. The more a team works together, the higher the chances they will make something better. I have 2 questions:

  • If you hire and fire that easily, how can you hope to get better games over time?
  • If you have worse games how will you sell more expensive consoles?

The “deconstructor” is not fun anymore

Published by Paolo on 09/09/2024

It’s easy to talk about other projects when we are off the hook. Using strong words is also easy to gain traction. That’s what the whole business of podcasts is based on, in the end.

Enrico Fermi used to say that you should never read a book on inventions written by someone who has never invented anything.

The same is valid for what we decide to watch and listen, I guess.

On success and failure

Published by Paolo on 30/08/2024

I posted a question on my LinkedIn, and most of the answers misinterpreted it. It’s part of the deal of posting thoughts on something so noisy as a social network.

Someone claimed that you should work on something trend-setting when you work on a game. You shouldn’t follow trends. I do agree, but let’s be real: that rarely happens.

If you have the luxury to work on a videogame, you will probably work on a game that never ships. And if it ships, the probability that nobody will play it is high. And if people play it, they will very likely find it a boring or average game. And if instead, it is a good game, the odds are that it will be not great…

What’s the point of my rant? I prefer to focus on the beauty of my craft, intended to my progress within it, and the people I work with. Because making games to be rich and famous can be too much delusional for someone like me.

Pawtners Case first blockout

Published by Paolo on 29/08/2024

This week I have worked intensively on my indie game, Pawtners Case. You are a police dog and you have to help your colleagues to solve cases.

The first level I am prototyping is a medium one. The goal is straightforward, you need to reunite with your colleague, Agent Quinn, and escape a warehouse. There is a bomb to dismantle, too.

This week I have implemented a lot of features, and a blockout. You can see the result here:

For the blockout, I started by looking for references and setting up a moodboard:

Then, I proceeded to create a notepad where I defined my goals, the sequence, and so on. Later I created a map:

Then, in Unreal Engine I set up the level, iterating on the concept. I have to say that I find Unreal Engine versatile for a game designer. It has integrated a gameplay framework that makes things easier. I am happy with my choice!

Why do you make games?

Published by Paolo on 28/08/2024

You will likely work on a project that will not ship when you work for a company. If it ships, the odds say that the game will fail. If you and your team manage to get over the odds, it’s a little miracle.

The same thing is valid when you are on your own. You control the vision of your creation, but the numbers are there.

Are you working in games to be successful or are you doing it for the craft?