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Tag: professional

Fight for more value to creativity

Published by Paolo on 03/10/2023

Do you know why companies spend so much on marketing, especially advertising? Because once the game is done, all the effort has been made they HAVE to sell it.

Probably if they would spend more on keeping and growing talents they will have better games and should spend less on marketing. And I am ironic when I say “probably” because that’s for sure.

The more I work with my creativity the more I feel the urge to learn how to negotiate better my conditions. Because a simple design can become gold for someone in the future.

A prompt to start them all

Published by Paolo on 02/10/2023

If your manager or client gives you a specific goal, you should be able to think of everything you need to consider your tasks done.

Game design is also design, so that is also solving problems. Frankly, it’s hard to predict precisely everything you will encounter on your path.

Use the help of the AI to improve this part. AI will probably give you lots of wrong information, too. But it’s great to not have to start from scratch.

Try out a prompt like this:
“You are the lead game designer for a new game. [add here more detail on the game]. Your manager gave you 2 weeks to complete a {task}. Write in a table format all the steps needed to reach the goal successfully. Please, use this {columns} format.

{task}: tutorial
{columns}: days, tasks title, description, KPI, needs”

(you should edit and tailor this prompt, it’s just an example NOT a template)

When you have the output, work on that table and prepare to make the right promises to your manager/client.

PRO TIP: it’s better to promise 1 thing and deliver 3 than 3 things and deliver 1. Fight for your rights! If you see 5 tasks that you can do in 2 weeks, tell them you can do 2-3. Then surprise them with the rest, in case you manage to be fast! We suck at estimations, and that’s a human feature, not a bug. But the reason for that is for another post.

Choosing your visual style

Published by Paolo on 25/09/2023

There are two lenses with which to check the visual style of your game. Consider them in this exact order.

  1. The first is the lens of invitation to play. The marketer calls this user acquisition (horrible naming, as always. :P). The people watch a video or an image showing your game and decide to take a step into your magic circle. Users decide to install your game, using that cold terminology of business. You are investing money to reach your audience so the visual style is very important at this stage. You should consider the devices from which the people will watch your trailers.
  2. The second step is the realization of the fantasy proposed to the Players. People made the step into the magic circle and became Players. The game makes them a promise and offers a fantasy. If the visuals unmatch their expectation, they can feel something is not OK. For instance, in my case, I have played RPGs my whole life. When I open a modern gacha-based RPG from Asia nowadays, I see boobs and sexy poses everywhere. That hypersexualization makes me step out of the magic circle. Using the boring business language, I will not retain (really business guys? retain? What a terrible word choice, honestly…)

Common visual styles are cartoon, stylized, low poly, and realistic.

Remember: first there is the invitation to play and then the realization of a fantasy. To balance those two things is an art. The art of game design. Especially the marketing and art department are responsible for that. Game designers help their communication.

Game design connected with empathy and culture

Published by Paolo on 21/09/2023

I was walking with a friend and we were thinking about why so many f2p games aren’t good, from a design point of view. So excluding bad market research, imprecise budgets, lack of planning, and things like that.

There are games that are enjoyed by players more than other games that are essentially identical. Is it due solely to the firepower of marketing? Or is there something in the design?

For me, there is a great responsibility in game design. Game design intended as the collective effort of the whole team, from the head of product to the junior QA.

On the one hand, there is the problem of copying, without understanding why a certain type of game works. A desk is a dangerous place from which to see the World, John Le Carré said.

At the other extreme we find teams capable of empathizing, but who do not share the typical practices of free-to-play. They never spend a cent on a game downloaded for free, they don’t put themselves in the players’ shoes. Even if they have the ability to empathize, they do not.

Games that fail do so for a thousand different reasons. Those that are successful, however, have always a clear reason behind it: a team that believes in the product. And it does so because empathizes with the Players. There is a cultural discourse that must be taken into consideration.

The company culture is shaped by each person who comes in with their own energy. You can define the values you would like in your team, but people are much more complex. It’s about understanding what people are with you and what you can create with that. The empathy starts with you.

  • Empathy doesn’t mean your child likes the game your company is playing.
  • Empathy does not mean achieving a good D3/D1 ratio.
  • Empathy does not mean that the reviews are positive.

Empathy means putting yourself in a player’s shoes and participating in the event you launched this weekend. Become a player of your game, play your game every day. Be present in playtests where unknown people try your game and also other similar games. If your team connects with people, a social casino game can be very stimulating even for a technical artist who wants to create RPGs.

When the boss gets in the middle

Published by Paolo on 19/09/2023

Every game designer has experienced at least once in their life the horrible feeling of being deprived of their ownership.

You design a new game mode, a mechanic, a progression, an economy. You spend your attention and energy on it, perhaps for weeks. And the person in charge of the project, a producer or product manager, changes everything without warning.

It’s hard, I’ve even left companies for things like this. But it happens. It’s a huge lack of respect disguised as “sorry, but the project needs this“, “the data speaks clearly!“, “I wasn’t convinced…“.

The reality is that there are very few true creative leaders and changing numbers on a spreadsheet or in-game setups requires no skill. The pressure that some people feel leads them to this disastrous behavior. So what to do?

Seeking an agreement and understanding the problem is the first step. Many people want to be successful, others want the team to be successful. Some think more broadly about the entire company. We need to understand what motivated the choice.

This is a wrong choice, in every sense. A serious mistake. But we do it too, let’s remember this. I therefore recommend staying calm to make the correct decision.

Making games is hard…

Three ideas on ads

Published by Paolo on 18/09/2023

Ad-based monetization mechanisms have established themselves in the mobile market in recent years. There are many providers and related SDKs that need to be implemented in our games. From a business perspective, they make completely sense. Players get free entertainment and in change they are exposed to promotions.

To date I haven’t met a single game designer who likes ads. Why?

The answer is very simple, ads work against the game itself from a gameplay perspective. You are participating, you are involved in the game and you are offered to see an ad. This advertisement may also take you out of the game to install a new one. Generally, in fact, advertisements in games are for other games.

This is working against your own game, risking losing the players’ attention. In the long term, among other things, they can be really boring and affect people’s retention. Too many announcements, I’m not coming back!

I as a player, and I’m sure I’m not the only one, use ads as breaks. I start the ad to get a benefit, I move away from my cell phone to do other things. The ad is a pause.

But does it have to be this way?

Advertisements are an opportunity for entertainment and television has demonstrated this. The ads could be very funny.

  1. We could show things more related to the universe of the game itself. If we refuse privacy permissions, the advertisements are generic and random.
  2. We could integrate the content with the characters and lore of the game we are playing. Instead of starting a generic video, the characters could give us purchasing advice. With new programs that use machine learning algorithms, this blend is very workable.
  3. You could show ads alongside recommendations for the game we are playing. You play the ad, and a video plays that explains specific things about the game. In the bottom half, the announcement of another game. This way, seeing a video makes sense and we will also show an advertisement.

Freedom, security and work-life balance

Published by Paolo on 15/09/2023

In our career, like in other areas of our life, we play with two main things: security and freedom. The general rule is that the more security less freedom. The more freedom less security.

  • When you go alone as a freelancer, you have more freedom but less security, in theory.
  • When you work for a company, you have more security but less freedom. Also, in theory.

The reality is that often is safer to go as a freelancer. In fact, if you lose one client you have another couple backing you up. And regarding freedom… well, you have the worst possible boss: yourself.

When you work for a company it’s true that you have less freedom of choice, but the security thing… You can see the latest news, companies are firing the people who contributed to making millions. Is that security? I feel more safe as independent, honestly.

It’s about work-life balance

How to deal with security and freedom? Think about your work-life balance. And with that term, I don’t mean the same that everyone means. I don’t mean the time you spend at work versus the time you spend with the rest of your life. That is not the way I see it.

To me, work is part of life and not a separate thing to balance against life.

  1. Where do I want to live?
  2. Why am I doing this?
  3. Who are the people I am dealing with every day?
  4. What are the challenges I am facing right now?
  5. How will I solve the problems I have?

In this order, in my case. Work-life balance to me is about working on the balance of work-related things in my life.

Right now I am a freelancer with great clients. Tomorrow I will be leading a team in a big company. Or tomorrow I will run my own agency. It doesn’t really matter.

The important thing is to focus on the present because that influences this very moment. It’s a matter of security and freedom, looking at them with the lens of discernment. Work-life balance it’s not about what it could be. It’s about what it is.

We will live more!

Published by Paolo on 14/09/2023

Any technology and platform, like all human things, has a beginning, a development, and an end.

Some of the technologies we use today to make games, and the platforms we distribute them on, will be gone in 3-5 years. It’s hard to keep up with time, which is why so many video game creators from the past no longer deal with it.

If our intention is to try to last longer in the industry, we must develop a true love for the profession and also try to avoid situations that can restrict our potential.

  • I’m not a mobile level designer, I’m a game designer
  • I’m not a Unity developer, I’m a game developer
  • I’m not a realistic-style concept artist, I’m a game artist

Specializations are great at the beginning of a career to find your first job. If your personal brand says “casual games economy designer” and it works, that’s fine.

But inside, in our moments of study and passion, we cannot and must not limit ourselves. Trend passes and the company that develops that particular technology doesn’t survive. If we love the main branch of our work, the generalist thing, there is no problem.

We will be able to see the practical benefits even in a completely different environment. We will live more!

Shape up your game development!

Published by Paolo on 13/09/2023

I am studying Shape Up these days, a new way of working with remote and asynchronous teams created by 37signals. Game development is software development so I believe that Shape Up can be adapted.

Instead of working on a product backlog, that oftentimes becomes huge and gives guilt (a good feature now can be not a good feature in 3 months), you work on giving form to the ideas. In game design, we call them concept documents. In Shape Up they call them pitches.

Your job as the creator should be to develop your taste and motivate the appetite of the team. Shape Up is based on betting on specific pitches. At every iteration, instead of reordering priorities on the product backlog, you sit at a table and decide on which concept document you will bet on.

Your team is composed of adult people, they should be able to self-organize to complete a project in a 4-6 weeks fixed time frame. Maybe this time window may vary with game development, we have a heavy art pipeline.

The constraint here is the time to complete a project. Other processes require the team to be involved in too many meetings and to estimate the time of each task. With Shape Up you don’t need any of that, so you can just focus on bringing value to the table.

Seems to me more agile than agile!

Raw ideas, good ideas

If an idea is a good idea you will see it very often. From your collaborators, community, and critics.

There is no need to store all the ideas on a list.

Instead of doing that, land ideas down preparing concept documents. Spend time on giving values to good ideas, not on storing every idea.

Concept document structure

  1. Problem (Use case) – What motivates this idea
  2. Appetite (Constraints) – How much do you need to spend developing this idea
  3. Solution (Overview) – bullet point list with core elements needed to properly realize the idea
  4. Rabbit Holes (Risks) – Detect all things that are not central to the concept and can slow down the development
  5. No Gos (What is NOT) – Define well what is NOT included in the idea

At every iteration, you sit at the table and review all the concepts. Then you decide with which you proceed. It’s a bet, you need a taste.

Get rid of product backlogs

Product backlogs kill productivity. They are a list of things to do that grows over time. You spend time looking at them, you may also feel guilty.

Get rid of product backlogs! Some raw ideas that seemed interesting 3 months ago probably are not anymore. Your team is designers, artists, and engineers. They need autonomy to work on concrete, well-shaped ideas. They are not ticket-pickers.

What to do instead? Develop your appetite for ideas, and train your taste.

  • What motivates you?
  • How would you define sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami?

Find the right partners

Published by Paolo on 12/09/2023

My grandfather told me once: Stay with those who are better than you. He intended humanly better, of course, not to those who have more futile stuff.

Understanding who is humanly better than us is an art and often we make mistakes. The important is to strive to stay with the best that we meet on our road.

Partners are the most valuable predictor of success. This is valid in all areas of life. Want a better career? Find the right partner. Starting a business? Find the right partners. Looking for a job? Find the right partners. Launching a new game? Find the right partners.

When you hire a freelancer, you are the client of a 1-person business. At the start, we have to test each other from both sides.

  • Will this person be the right one to delegate this job?
  • Will this new client pay me on time?

Oftentimes, after a couple of weeks, we may become partners. The company found someone to produce faster. And the freelancer found a business from which to learn to spot and solve more problems. This helps us to be faster with future clients, too. In fact, we see every week different kinds of situations and challenges. Many sources of data and very different readings of those. Wide picture.

Treat freelas like partners!

My suggestion then, is to treat your freelancers not simply like service providers. The best clients I have ask me “How are you doing?” “How do you feel?”. Speak to us also of other struggles you have, maybe we can help. This creates bounds. This fosters a partnership. This creates value.

Maybe you do not need our service anymore at some point. Our job is done. We can still be a partner, though. You can recommend us to other businesses, for instance. Write to us the updates on your product. “Hey, I am coming to this conference next month, what about you?”.

Be a good partner first, and you will find the right partners. Gigs, businesses, and jobs come and go. What the people think of us stays for a long time.