Last year I found a great client; good team, excellent leadership, profitable company. The project was (well, is) ambitious and novel. I felt part of the leadership team, I contributed to the development of their MVP. And then, a more expert designer joined and I was out. I had an interesting chat with my client, and he explained me exactly why the decision. It made sense, I learnt a lot. Still, it hurt because everything worth in life hurts a little.
Now that it’s one month since I joined GSC Game World, I already feel there is something very different in the way of managing high-quality projects compared with mobile f2p. Mobile needs pragmatism: you are chasing big numbers because you are investing huge amounts of money to give a highly technological product in the hand of distract people for free with the hope to engage their attention. High quality games, on the other end, are for people who decide to light a console up to be immersed into an experience they paid for.
And this leads to a fundamental difference: (product) management is what leads mobile, while creative direction is what leads high quality games. Of course, I am passionate and prepared designer and I can tackle any challenge, plus I have a certain age and experience so I can be a great leader. But mobile games are managed in a McKinsey-an style, and companies chase perfection. And the best way to avoid the risk of not having it is to hire people with a real pedigree (which I don’t have). On the other end, PC/Console single player high quality games (open world, FPS, survival) look for people capable of prototyping and realize the creative vision being away of design pillars, vision, and so on.
Two different worlds that I am sure can learn from each other. I know I will bring learnings from premium to mobile, and viceversa.