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Tag: professional

The power of asking

Published by Paolo on 25/07/2022

I notice a tendency of show off everything on social networks instead than asking for help. Especially from Gen Z, I see that many times they are worried more with their personal brands that with building meaningful relationships. The few of them who ask will receive.

There was a moment in my career in which I found myself alone, without a job and thinking seriously of leaving the industry. Naturally, I started to speak with every friend regarding this. Also with new employers. I worked as waiter and as data scientist, always thinking in making video games someday. I also started a blog in Spanish in order to make myself visible, but there was a single activity which I was committed: asking.

I asked everyone I could for help. Most people will try their best, believe me. Asking is way more useful that put a screenshot of a Unity session on LinkedIn saying “first trials with new video pipeline!”. That is not useful at all, there is no polish in what you’are publishing and it’s only noise. Ask instead something to some expert of your field. Ask them everything you can, on all channels you can. Use comments but also DMs. Ask and insist asking for help. Ask is so powerful!

Love your manager

Published by Paolo on 20/07/2022

I want to design games at work. I love to do it and I put all my effort in it. I study everything in detail, I try to understand the problem, the context and also the competitor’s choices. Then I come up with a vision for a new game or feature. And the politics start!

Usually, I work for managers: product managers or producers. Many times they come with a lot of ideas already regarding what to do and what not. So that it’s important to understand well those ideas first, because anything out of those ideas is really hard to get approved.

I would love to not having to deal with politics, not having to defend my work always. Sadly, this is not possible in the company context. So that we should embrace it and love it. Love it by loving our teammates, first. This is very important: do you love your manager?

Love is an act of empathy and humbleness, in this case. You don’t love your manager as you love your wife, of course. Love is to really try to understand your manager and the vision and the background that brought to that vision. Love is to listen the reasons and be able to discard your own brilliant ideas in the name of theirs. Love is wanting your manager to shine, because if the manager has success, the whole team has it.

Deserving the position

Published by Paolo on 19/07/2022

A friend of mine, indie game developer, is trying to join the industry. He managed in a brilliant way getting his first interview. He study their game and made a feature proposal for them.

A few months ago, I sent my CV to the same company and for the same position. I have far more experience than my friend, still they rejected my application. He was smart and proactive. I didn’t, I just applied. He deserves that position!

Today he asked me for a way of preparing for his interview. I suggested him to get informed regarding the main KPIs, key performance indicators. Those are very important when you are giving the core of your service for free.

Then you have to study the company’s game and at least 2 competitors of the same game. Look on Game Refinery and Deconstructor of Fun for more depth on the genre.

This post is for my friend. He deserves the position!

Remote processes

Published by Paolo on 18/07/2022

I work remotely for companies since 2016, more or less. I am very specialized in game economies and UX, so that for them is easy to deal with my tasks and responsibilities.

Game development, instead, is never so easy. You cannot rely just on freelancers to build successful products that potentially may last years. You need a core team fully involved every day. And in order to keep it working properly, you need to set up the proper processes. Also the companies that state that they don’t believe in processes, end up setting up (scrappy) processes in the end. To me, it is better to embrace the process as part of the development. In my opinion, processes are very important.

In 2020 everything shifted online. Remote work was forced by the terrible situation of the pandemic. We had no time to prepare, we had to act fast. In a lot of cases, the same exact process employed before was translated to the asynchronous remote work. Some of the most “boring” things were also eliminated. In their place, nothing new was developed. The new process, then, was like Frankenstein.

Nowadays, many are arguing that we need to return to the office because is not the same online. They are right, online is not the same. But, are you sure you did your job, testing and iterating alternative processes?

The reality of giving games for free

Published by Paolo on 15/07/2022

You start a new project with your team, and you read that someone is getting rich with a f2p mobile game. There are people, called whales, that are willing to spend thousands of euros each month. You can be rich too! You have a great idea!

Then you find the right investors and you build your team. You study the market well, mitigate all risks and put your product in soft launch, after 2 years of development. Then you struggle with metrics. Day one, day seven, day thirty retention. Average revenue per user, lifetime value.

You spend two years more in development. Investors want to see their return on investment. Your team is tired, many of the original members are gone. And you fail.

Was you a disaster? No, you are just the regular situation. Read here:

Link to the original post

I asked to this expert how to prove your KPIs potential early. He answered me that:

And I tell you: it is NOT easy all of that. First of all because when you are under pressure is super hard to admit that your KPIs are not promising to the investors. You need talented people, and that’s pretty uncommon.

Many of us feel that F2P is dominated by white collar people full of money and addicted “users” that cannot stop play. The reality is super different. The reality is that 99.71% of projects fail. That’s the regular situation.

Everything is clear

Published by Paolo on 14/07/2022

You are at your desk, everything is clear in your mind. The new game mode should feature a new energy system which permits to spend energies in change of doing a whole set of special actions in your RPG. You can throw bolts, run away from fights, hit with a sword. All with this energy system.

Then the engineer writes you on Slack: hey, can you check this? You see that nobody understood the vision, so that check your documents. “Look, is all there!”. They didn’t read the comments under the flow, your document was too long to read. The leader of the project says it’s too late. And the leader starts imposing own design, without thinking too much. Discussions starts, but in the end the vision changes.

You update your documents.

Documents that no one, except from you and maybe QA, will read. Satisfied you will shut down your PC. And hope for the best.

Play the build

Published by Paolo on 12/07/2022

Game designers play the build. Everyday. At least for a couple of minutes. Then we play other builds too, during our working day.

And then maybe we play again the build. Just to check out all the differences.

Someday this rule is not respected. Sometimes those days are many. Sometimes are in the row.

And when this happens there is the possibility that the game is not so engaging to you, anymore. Ask yourself if it’s time to move on.

When a game designer steps in

Published by Paolo on 11/07/2022

There has been a lot of talk lately about the usefulness of video game fairs. This year at the most important fair in Brazil, BIG Festival, game designer Mark Venturelli confirmed their usefulness.

He envisions a show fully sponsored by new brands that have received massive funding to promote their pyramid schemes. Imagine seeing logos of brands that have never created a successful video game or console invade your spaces little by little.

This is where heroes like Mark Venturelli enter the scene. With the excuse of presenting a speech on the future of game design, Mark instead explained why NFTs are a nightmare. Explaining the obvious, but giving a pure game design base, our hero got a standing ovation.

Video here:

Slides in English here:

Friday, I’m in love

Published by Paolo on 08/07/2022

I would love to build my own company, after many years serving many projects and teams. I have developed a vision, I feel I can somehow foresee part of the future.

I would like to focus on gameplay first short games. I would probably start from PC games. 3 months development, plus 3 refinements and then 6 months to see the return on investment.

I have everything clear, but I don’t want to stay behind burocracy, contracts and all the things. I guess I will have to, at some point of course. If I want to really put in place all the knowledge I had those years.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a guru or something like that. I know for sure that I am wrong in so many ways. I just feel that in order to really grow more I need a period building something I really believe in, in a way I feel the best.

As Italian, I am a fan of the stories of Olivetti and other entrepreneurs like him. To me a company needs to improve the society where it is founded, in a meaningful way.

And I think I have this way, I just need to try.

Getting inspiration

Published by Paolo on 01/07/2022

We want to create a new game, often times because we played one. So that we got inspired and somehow we want to make our own version of it. Maybe we are working for a company which spotted a market opportunity. So that we start studying the games belonging to that market, try to reproduce the best things.

Games industry is very endogamic. We tend too much to take inspiration from the inside of it. But if we see the best products out there, they take a lot from the outside and bring it to the inside.

Days ago I was talking about the TikTok of puzzle games. That is a way of looking outside. You just study the apps market and think in a better UX for some classic game. It often works like that. If you look at games like Royal Match, they took well known mechanics and the real twist is completely on the UX side.

Another great reference is nature. From nature many game designers created memorable gameplay experiences. Think in Japanese legend Shigeru Myiamoto and the story of how The Legend of Zelda was conceived. If you like to walk and you really start observing you notice that nothing in nature is wrong. Recent game The Ants: Underground Kingdom is another evidence of the power of nature. Especially if you want to get better ideas on gameplay and lore, nature is the way.

Art, toys and objects without purpose are also a great way of getting inspired. The history of videogames is full of examples like that. Think in the indie success GRIS or the mobile game Monument Valley. There is not a superhigh challenge, nor a specific deepness in their economies. The Players can just enjoy the overall game feel.