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Tag: myself

Start with WHY

Published by Paolo on 26/02/2024

Experts always say you should start your projects with WHY.

Sinek, love him or hate him. I like him!

Others say you should have a philosophical base on everything you start. I don’t know if that’s a universal rule, but I am sure it helps to write down why I am tackling this new UEFN project.

There are two sides to the medal. One is a personal improvement side, and the other is a practical business side. I have identified opposites on these two sides. I love it when everything comes together in a meaningful way. Maybe a little obsessive, dunno.

  • FUN <-> REVENUE: First of all, I am motivated and engaged in doing that. I prefer to invest 40% of my time doing that than playing video games, for a while. And of course, the ROI is higher in this case.
  • SKILL <-> GROWTH: I see opportunities to build a team, meet new people, and teach what I discover in the future. I love to teach.
  • IMPROVEMENT <-> PURPOSE: I am also playing lots of Fortnite to study my new competitors. I see that most of these experiences have no progression, and no storytelling, there is just chaos. Most of them look like a bunch of incomplete experiences. My will is to silently teach the history of good old FRAG deathmatch to the new audiences that are playing Fortnite today.

We need time and silence

Published by Paolo on 23/02/2024

The issue of many of us who work with creativity is that we don’t read enough. By “read” I don’t mean just reading texts. I mean reading also other products, playing games critically is a form of reading for example.

We are often too busy working on the “data” we have. We should create things that work, and that are successful. To do that, we need to focus on finding what it works and put it in our creation.

In my case, retention, monetisation, and other weird words came from business jargon. The marketer dominates completely the discourse. And we designers accepted it, in the name of having our job.

A good game designer, instead, should study Scott, Schell, Zimmerman. We should dominate our skills. Not look at numbers on a Tableau dashboard. This is the best way in which companies can prosper thanks to our work. Look at the history of games, look at what made Blizzard games great.

It’s too simple to think that you can create based on benchmarks and breakdowns. We need time for silence and study to create something new. Look out there, look at mobile top charts. It’s always the same game, in the end.

Build a better future company

Published by Paolo on 21/02/2024

The network is flooded with bad news and hype around new technologies. Then there is the good news that comes from games like Lethal Company or Palworld. All these games share something: are made by inexperienced people. Juniors, to use the corporate jargon.

I see many experts explaining the possible benefits of blockchain, AI, Apple Vision PRO, and other new things that do not have demonstrated anything to the World. They do this to attract investments or offer their consultancies. I get it, I am a consultant too.

If I ignore the hype, thou, I see some bad trends. Corporations are not experimenting really with gameplay. They are chasing formulas, using old IPs, creating remakes, and also producing new GaaS games that add NOTHING to the market value. Like water, you can have different bottles and brands. Still, it’s always water. We can discuss the minerals inside of that water, but yeah… it’s water!

I really believe that the best way to build the company of the future is to hire more juniors and let them work, not investing in new technologies just because is cool.

Don’t get me wrong: I really appreciate the experience, but experienced people like me are very biased too. Maybe we should focus our efforts on guiding these new energies in a meaningful way. Preparing roadmaps, and supporting their ideas with no bias. And in 5-10 years, I am sure, you will have a very strong company with cool IPs.

New project: UEFN Good Ol’ FRAG

Published by Paolo on 15/02/2024

Starting today I want to explore more the world of UEFN. I played a little with the experiences you have available on Fortnite right now and… oh my goodness, they are complete disasters from a level design perspective. What are we feeding our kids??? what?? *dramatic*

So I had this idea: recreate the most beloved maps from classic FRAG multiplayers within Fortnite. I need of course to tweak for 3rd person these maps, but my vision is pretty much this: to recreate classics in Fortnite. Because I want the kids to grow with serious stuff! (and if I can generate some income meanwhile, better)

I started by going on Copilot to look for data:

You are the lead game designer of a new project that involves Fortnite. Using UEFN, the project is to recreate the best maps that belong to classics of frag games (quake, unreal, and so on) in Fortnite. Converting them into modern versions. Make a table with the most enjoyed maps. On one column put the map name, on the second one a map image, third one the game, fourth column put the year and last column put notes on how to give them a modern touch

Prompt for Copilot

And I got a whole spreadsheet with a couple of tweaks:

I added some metadata and screenshots for the maps. So I am ready to start exploring classics!

The problem with the “Microsoft Game Day Commercial”

Published by Paolo on 13/02/2024

I am European, so I don’t know if Microsoft made this commercial for the Super Bowl or what:

Many thoughts come into my mind, though. I can define the message as worrisome at the very least. I don’t believe in ghouls but I can see greed. Still, I tend to always find the good part in everything. Let’s go with the plot analysis

The ad starts with young people worried about their professional future. One of them wants to have a business, another wants a degree, and so on. The message focuses on an invisible enemy (“they say I can’t…”). My expectation for the rest of it was a revenge-based narrative. Something like “They say this, I show them I can do that”.

Instead, the protagonists accept what “they say” and start using a powerful AI to do the things they love. “Write me the code for my open-world game…”. My? Are you sure that game is yours? “Generate storyboard images for the dragon scene in my script…” Did you feed an algorithm that stole hundreds of artist’s works with your script? So lame!

The campaign perpetuates society’s renunciation of the growth of their future, young people. MS is saying that they should renounce their dreams and put them in the hands of the corporation. I know that they want to announce their service, but the cake is a lie. LLMs are very limited right now. The fact that they are trying to convince creative people to give up on their creativity drives me nuts.

I am also worried about the environment, how much energy and water are these services using?

When the junior is your client

Published by Paolo on 05/02/2024

When you gain some experience, you happen to work with junior profiles. They are people who need to grow and it takes considerable management and mentoring work. At first, you are inevitably slowed down, but then you see the benefits.

It then happens that you work for clients and your client is the junior. It explains badly, it defines things badly. In that case, you cannot treat him as you would treat a junior in the company, as a subordinate. And that’s great because it helps you understand how to treat people in the best way possible.

I understand a lot of things that I could have handled differently in the past. Considering a subordinate as the expert, which we are forced to do when working with a client, opens the door to many learnings.

Join the Scott Rogers Fundraiser Event

Published by Paolo on 02/02/2024

Scott Rogers, game designer, master and author of fantastic books needs some help. We are organizing a FREE online conference to raise funds for him.

You can join the conference here. It’s on Sat, February the 3rd. Event link here.

I will give a speech. From Books to Games: My Freelance Journey as a Self-Taught Game Designer

Years ago I had to create my opportunities in game design because the scene here in Barcelona was hard to navigate, to say the least. Thanks to books like “Level Up!” I managed to create my method of getting there. Tomorrow, I will share this method at the conference.

See you there!

Avoid the scarce mentality

Published by Paolo on 30/01/2024

Many talented people have been unfairly laid off. You can start thinking: “Hey, there are seniors from Blizzard open to work, they will never hire me. I am completing my engineering grade!”.

Let me tell you this is a fallacy. When we look at job openings we see very few positions for juniors or for people who didn’t work on a TOP game. Still, the possibilities are many.

The games industry is smaller than you think in number of people. But the games market is huge, opportunities are much more than you believe. Companies often don’t have to publish offers because internal employees know reliable people to hire.

You need to build!

Build your network, build your games, build your career. The job market is not meritocratic at all, it’s not the best that gets the job. The job market is a lot about being in the right place at the right time. Instead of spending your whole day doom-scrolling layoff news, build your future!

Please, stop it

Published by Paolo on 26/01/2024

People are complaining on a platform owned by Microsoft about the bad decisions that Microsoft made in many people’s lives. This is SO 2024, right?

We need to evolve as a collective. I don’t know the solution, but I think we should first state the problem well. It’s not a black-and-white situation. There are lots of nuances, posting a quote from Satoru Iwata doesn’t reveal the real problem.

The problem is not just greed. There is a whole situation to consider, we spent the last 3 decades experiencing dramatic shifts. It’s easy to lose the big picture. Easier to point the finger.

We need to evolve and think of new forms of collaboration, and different ways of financing projects. We need to improve our way of treating others like we are still doing.

The first step is to stop complaining, feeding the algorithms belonging to the same people that we are criticizing. That’s ridiculous, we are looking like the Pals! A clone of something already seen, now repurposed to serve as milking cows. Stop doing that!

Are you an artist or an entertainer?

Published by Paolo on 25/01/2024

There is a World crisis and our beloved games industry is not immune from that. 2024 just started and we are already seeing many people losing their jobs. Everyone is worried, someone wants to help with suggestions and experience.

One of the most common messages is “Have you lost your job? Build your own thing!”. I am not sure I agree with that statement. I have learned the hard way that you are either the artist or the entertainer.

In case you are an artist, you will tend to obsess with something. You can get lost in small details, but there is great news: you have the chance to become very wealthy. If you want to make money with games you should do your games.

In case you are (like myself) an entertainer, I am afraid that is better to work on projects made by others. Help them land down their visions. Facilitate the right tools to decide how the game will be. My bank account will never have seven figures like that, but hopefully, people will remember me as a great guy to work with.

Not any tips are good for us, the first thing is to understand who we are deeply. And to do that you need to try things out. Can I be an entertainer and an artist? Or, can I be 5 years an artist and 10 an entertainer? Who knows, maybe I can.