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Tag: professional

Answers that matter

Published by Paolo on 23/01/2024

Every time I say to someone that I design video games, the common question is this. “Can you show me the game you made?“. And my answer is that I can, but my games are not Mario or Quake.

this is one of the games I helped make. Probably the most successful one, for sure one of the dumbest

Others in this industry would give the same answer. It is what makes an industry, in the end. You don’t ask a car worker “Can you show me a car you made?“. The worker is one of the dozens who worked on a car. Still, you ask that to a game designer because we have this idea of a very personal thing. Which indeed is true, but reality is deeper than that.

The reality is that you hardly work on a project you love. And the few people who work on those projects are the ones that achieve recognition at a certain point. I mean, if they insist and persist in their goals.

I want to celebrate everyone that is building in this moment. Because you will be the future of the industry. You decide to build something in which you believe. You can be an indie or a new team inside of a big corporation. Many sides of an industry that permits different exits.

I cannot really show anything, because I have always worked on games belonging to ideas and vision which came from others. Maybe that is the right answer to the first question of this article.

A sit at the table

Published by Paolo on 16/01/2024

Companies hire game designers (and other profiles) to build their business. Game designers have a specific focus on features and content. When we design features, the best way of showing their value is to focus on the benefits of that feature.

  • Business leaders love to hear about the impact of a certain feature, more than the quality of it.
  • It’s better to speak about the benefits of reducing cognitive load instead of selling a “cleaner” design.
  • One of the goals of feature design is to improve the long-term profit, more than improving the gameplay.
  • Things like accessibility, inclusivity, and so on are useful to reach untapped markets. They are not just a good thing to do.
  • Managers love to hear how to improve the path to purchase, more than vague concepts like flow.

If more designers take this approach, we will see less of them switching to Product Manager roles just to get a sit at the table.

Are you on the right path?

Published by Paolo on 03/01/2024

This is a question that pops out often while you are making a new game. Especially when you lead business discussions as a game designer. You often need to see your work greenlighted by some marketer or business guy. That’s because they are often at the top.

But the question focuses on the outcome, on something that nobody can control. Often, there are “fortune tellers” in companies that win the internal battles just because they can be very convincing. But nobody can predict the revenue of a game in development.

You can have the top talent and a system that is informed with data. With that, you can cope, adjust, and leverage the unpredictability. That’s it, and it’s more than enough!

Do you want to know if you are on the right path? Are you making the best game you can with the resources you have? Then, you are.

Wishes and hopes for 2024

Published by Paolo on 29/12/2023

I want to spend two words to write down my hopes and desires for 2024. I will not write any forecast, those are for non-creative people. People with no vision, people who look for an impossible low risk. A forecast is something to convince people to give money to other people, nothing more. I am a creative person, I don’t believe in forecasts and I prefer to write my wishes.

First of all, I hope that next year will be at least the start of a new way of making games. Companies should think of new kinds of contracts and compensations for their employees. Currently, a professional contributing to generating billions will eventually fall in a round of layoffs. Imagine, you create a new character like Spider-Man and other people will get lots of money. And then you are fired. The others, instead, will continue to make money forever. This is plain absurd. Since job stability does not exist, also contracts should adapt.

I hope to see new fresh concepts for mobile games, as second thing. Currently, the industry is trapped in concepts that have nothing to do with actual game design. Good game design is about understanding an audience and its needs. The industry, instead, is talking about “User Acquisition”, hybrid casual, web3, and things that are not interesting for the Players. I hope to see more fresh concepts, with a renewed interpretation of genres.

Third, I wish to see more people building businesses that last 100 years. We are too much immersed in the mentality of fast success. When we see the most successful businesses, they are built in decades, not years. All these people that have been fired this year, plus the people that will be laid off next one, could build awesome things. They have also the power to let fresh energies enter the industries. Start from team building, maybe creating content for Fortnite or Roblox. Start from the team, while you build a strong vision.

The web shops are popping out, so I hope to see more platforms that will help create a community among gamers. This is my fourth and last wish. Things like Steam but not so focused on PC games. Something that relates also to mobile games. Maybe letting the Players add mods and content to some games. That would be awesome. Too much AI bullcrap this year, the best content comes and will always come from real human beings!

Have a great year y’all!

The most sincere form of flattery

Published by Paolo on 28/12/2023

Clone

  • a plant or animal that has the same genes as the original from which it was produced
  • someone or something that looks very much like someone or something else
  • a computer that operates in a very similar way to the one that it was copied from

You will never be a professional game designer until you understand the art of cloning. From a first perception, it may seem like something unfair. You are stealing, copying, and ripping things off. But it’s not. Cloning is the most sincere form of flattery.

The risk of copycats

The problem with cloning in companies is that businesses are led by business people. People working ON the game. And business people are not designers (usually). When they see that there is something successful, they want to replicate the success. The smartest ones dream to make it grow better than the original.

And that becomes a problem, often, for designers. More in general, for developers. For people working IN the game. While we struggle to find the best way of understanding why something is working and how to improve it… Looking for other games that the same core audience is playing, to find how to integrate… the “orders” we receive is to put “that thing that the CEO’s son saw in that game” in. No discussions.

What to do?

The non-obvious solution, to me, is that designers should earn a sit at the table. And to do that, you need to learn the business language and adapt to it. If your company decides it will dedicate its effort to hybrid casual games (it’s a mere example), it’s a loss from a creative point of view. Your Players will never look for a hybrid casual game. They will look for a simple game to play on their mobile phone. It makes no sense, from the client’s perspective, that kind of wording. So our goal is to understand how to communicate with the business in their crazy way while we work for the Players.

Game design is not fortune telling

Published by Paolo on 18/12/2023

One of the mantras of game design is that you should be able to predict the future, somehow. This is something that I read a lot, but that is plain wrong in my humble opinion.

You cannot predict the future. You should read and analyze your audience and try to understand how to bring meaning to them in a novel way. It’s not about prediction, game design is a practical craft. It’s empathetic, it’s about the present (and why not? also the past).

Leave predictions and forecasts to consultants, focus on creation instead.

PRO TIP: creativity is about cutting off things, not add more stuff.

Things I cannot accept anymore

Published by Paolo on 07/12/2023

Many game companies after the first interview send you an assessment to complete. You have usually between 4 hours and 10 days available to complete the assessment. Some company gives you free time, as long as you complete it.

There was that TV show on Netflix called Vikings. Among the many storylines, there is one about a person who has a serious handicap. He manages to use his disadvantage to become the king.

I have never passed a single test. Every time I get these assessments my mind goes automatically in “you are working for free” mode. I sent the result of my assessment and someone (I imagine her with a bored face and a cup of horrible machine-made tea) skimmed my assessment. And of course, it was a no. My bad will meets with the bad will of the reviewer, what do you expect? That is one handicap I have. And I made it a strength in recent years!

I have developed and hired outstanding designers for companies. True talents. Within 3 hours with a dashboard and a laptop with a game engine running and a spreadsheet, I can run a complete interview. The people I have hired are still there, crushing it.

When I am on the other side, nowadays I want the same. You send me an assessment, I say you “give it to me”. Then I read it carefully and write down exactly what I should do to complete the exercises and a time and cost estimation. I send everything via email, it’s better than simply rejecting the task. Writing all of this down often takes me 2-3 hours.

Again, nobody pays me for that. And of course, it doesn’t work. Don’t follow my suggestion if you really want that job. I am in a different position nowadays. I am not “open to work”. I work as a game designer every single day, I just don’t let anyone decide if I have a job or not. I want to work with you if you want to work with me, simple as that.

Assessments are free to work that no one pays. They are made to filter people out. They do not consider diversity and they are made to exclude. Companies love to claim “diversity and inclusion”. Well, this is part of it.

I am quite happy as a freelancer, a “warrior without a king”. Still, I don’t close myself up to any opportunity. But I need to feel that the company wants me, not the other way around!

Freelancing is not a therapy

Published by Paolo on 06/12/2023

When a client hires me usually is for a whole project preproduction. It can be the startup for a new game or the research stage for a new feature of a live game. I help them during the whole process of finding the right formula. I work per day, every day is one slot. Every client can get from 1 to 3 slots per week.

Happens that during my service I realize that my help is not needed. It may happen for a lot of reasons. Sometimes I see that the team is on the right track and I am slowing things down. Other times I see that the client that hired me didn’t want my help with game design, so that I am useless.

In any case, my business is not like a therapist. When I realize that I am not needed anymore, I let go the client. I speak with them and explain any reason. It was a pleasure to be there, please leave your testimonial. You will not lose your money, I will not lose my time. Everybody wins.

(and very few of them leave the actual testimonial)

AI making games

Published by Paolo on 04/12/2023

“Someday a generative AI will be able to create a release a complete videogame. Can you imagine that?“

Yes, I can. But I am very skeptical about the quality, the value, and the timeline for that.

The creative process is very uncertain and risky. Specifically, you could work for months on something and then earn nothing. Many non-creative people would like to mitigate that risk. I get that for the true capitalist that’s juicy.

Now, think about yourself as a Player. You are downloading a fantastic new game that you purchased. And you know that a machine made the whole game. As a Player, you know you have to beat some useless obstacle not created by a team of people. You don’t have a true mind challenging you and presenting an opera. A machine did that and a company is asking to pay for it.

Can something like that be appealing to the people?

As a developer think about passing your days writing prompts and editing the results. Or better, remove the editing part. You have an idea and TA DA! Compile a superb game. A game you feel you couldn’t even imagine. And you didn’t have to pitch, discuss, get approvals. You didn’t have to struggle to find the right art style, the good coding structure, the best mechanics. You have it all in a few minutes.

Now think about it: how would you feel if you have to sacrifice one of the most important parts of being a person for speed, success, and revenue?

At the present time, I feel that there will be a split in game developers in case of the realization of this crazy prediction.

Hard times in the industry

Published by Paolo on 01/12/2023

I must create a system,

or be enslaved by another man’s.

I will not reason and compare:

my business is to create

William Blake

Every week I am reading news about layoffs in games industry. Every week a friend tells me she has been fired for whatever reason. Happens especially at big companies.

A friend of mine, who yesterday wrote a testimonial on me that made me cry, confessed that was laid off. He was in a senior position in one of the biggest companies in the World. This system is clearly not working to me. You work for a company, spend many hours putting your energy in. The company is very profitable and when the year ends they fire you because their investors must have their share bonuses. Incredible.

And then many people goes back to the hamster wheel. Posting on LinkedIn that they are doing assessments and interviews. Saying they are unemployed since months.

Honestly, I am out of that. I don’t care if at some point I have to work elsewhere to pay my bills. But I have to try to build my own thing. The games industry is too unfair. We prepare a lot to be able to make games. We study many hours, we stay updated on the industry trends. And for what? To make other people make tons of cash while we have to find the next job after 5 years? I am out.

Is that enough reason to start my thing? Of course it isn’t. My life is not for everyone. But I am very happy of my little thing. Because nobody can remove that from me.