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Paolo's Blog Posts

Distribution is challenging

Published by Paolo on 20/11/2024

Consumption habits have changed a lot in the last few years. Nowadays that is a significant number of people that buy a console to play a single game. Usually, that game is Fortnite.

Games are not underground like before, now they are mainstream. This brings a lot of challenges to distribution. They are cool, they are the normal thing one does. Before it wasn’t like that.

How to face this challenge? Phil Spencer said “less Excel” yesterday, and maybe he is right. It’s not about using a budget to push the thing out, but more about trying to have a conversation with the right crowd.

Why not “best DLC”?

Published by Paolo on 19/11/2024

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is a candidate for “best game of the year” at The Game Awards. But it’s not a game, is it?

It would be wonderful if these events kept up with the times. We are clearly in the era of games no longer as artifacts but as entertainment. Living games, updated to keep the public’s attention for many months.

It is absurd to reward only the new, when an update or a DLC, as is the case of Elden Ring, receives so much admiration from the public. The Game Awards should start considering awards such as “Best DLC”, “best live event”, etc. The market moves on completely different perspectives than 10 years ago when these awards were created.

Embracing creative

Published by Paolo on 18/11/2024
  • creative: a person whose job involves producing original ideas or doing artistic work (Definition of creative from the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus)
  • creative director: a person in a company or advertising agency who is in charge of the work involving original ideas about how to design, advertise and sell products (Definition of creative director from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary)

I don’t know if Cambridge University is to blame, but there is a substantial difference between business and design/art in the concept of “creative“.

Concretely, in business, it is important to think about how to sell a creative product with original ideas. However, we often ignore this nuance when we focus on the more artistic part of our work.

It took me a while to understand that a game designer works for someone, not for players in general. In the sense that we have no control over what will come out at the end of the production process. What we have is the responsibility to facilitate this process, which is very different.

When you understand this and accept it, you live much better!

Iterations beat best practices

Published by Paolo on 15/11/2024

Now that money is moving toward financially responsible games, I am studying indie more and more. When I listen to people who have created successful products, everyone has found their way and that way is unique and difficult to repeat.

It could be a kid who has generated hundreds of thousands of euros with a game made with friends, or a company with financiers behind it and a business plan. Knowing some details and how to overcome concrete challenges is interesting, but human creativity is inimitable.

That’s why I do not believe too much in best practices as solutions. They are great starting points; knowing them speeds things up. But then you are in your context, with your skills, and you have to deal with specific challenges. Doing things repeatedly, possibly with the same group of people, is key. Not best practices, everyone can get them easily nowadays.

Setting up the day for success

Published by Paolo on 14/11/2024

I am a morning guy. I never set an alarm because I naturally wake up very early. I made my things to start the day and then I like to do my first tasks, usually related to communications. You know, reading and answering emails, thinking about my daily posts. Stuff like that.

And then I can start to work for my clients and bosses. This is something that only remote work is possible. And the value of this is huge also if often leads to work more time. Having no people around this first hour, maybe two is unpayable. Sets up the day for success.

A fact on career development

Published by Paolo on 13/11/2024

When you work for a company, full-time, you become skilled at working at that company. That’s all.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you will fit well in a similar project with a competitor. For creative jobs, like game design, you become skilled (or “talented” if you prefer) when you have the opportunity to interiorize, write, and develop your own strategic way of doing things.

That is hard to reach if you only work in a single company for years.

It’s the struggle, instead, the willpower and hitting your face against walls over and over (also with shitty and personal projects) that makes the talent.

Maradona came from a very poor situation playing at night with a broken ball hitting it against a dirty wall over and over.

The most talented people I know do not fit in the majority of corporations out there.

They earned my silence

Published by Paolo on 12/11/2024

Maybe it’s because I started on a new project. Maybe it’s because a company that canceled the position when I was the last candidate republished the position again. Maybe it’s because I am tired of influencers. Or maybe it’s because they use content to train shitty algorithms to produce empty content faster.

Maybe it’s because I don’t want to constantly check out likes and notifications there. Or maybe it’s just because I got bored.

I decided to commit to (at least) a period of silence on LinkedIn. I will continue to write here and on my Substack, though.

What do you do the first day?

Published by Paolo on 11/11/2024

You are a game designer and for the first day you are on a new project. The game is not your idea, it belongs to a company that wants to improve its business. What do you do?

You play, that’s what you do. You play a lot, and you take notes. And you ping your colleagues and try to understand their point of view.

The rest will come, avoid jumping directly to solutions. Good game design is about connecting elements and removing superfluous. In the first stages, the risk is adding too much. A simple technique is to write down a story of a player playing your game from a first-person perspective.

I am going indie!

Published by Paolo on 08/11/2024

Yesterday a client of mine hired me as lead game designer on a new game. I cannot say much about it, but it will be a Steam game, 3D, premium. The game will feature emerging narratives and I will care about the gameplay systems to support that.

Plus I will manage a team of game designers, which is something that I love. I am happy because I am trying to switch sector since quite a while.

Mobile F2P is broken, for now. A total race to the bottom with unrealistic expectations. Plus, the survivors are not looking at the future. They look at the past. They want people ex-<PutFamousCompanyNameHere> to repeat formulas. They hope the dramatic situation with distribution will change someday. It will not. They should look at the future instead.

I was happy to collaborate on f2p projects, but a little frustrated with this way of running businesses. Do you start a race following other runners? That’s wrong in so many ways.

That’s why I am happy to finally work on something truly creative. The expectations are not surreal. I am happy, thank you!

Respect your Creativity

Published by Paolo on 06/11/2024

Yesterday in a post I shared a GDD of a personal project. I found the right collaborators for my case, I thank all the people who helped me.

I edited the message and removed the link, it is no longer necessary to share. You can write to me privately if you are interested, no problem.

I work in this sector with great passion. But one should not confuse passion with professionalism. I love my job, but it is still work, the way I support my life.

I say this because some people wrote me quick messages like “Hi, I use Unreal Engine, I would like to help you with the game. I’ll do it for free.”

I respect everyone’s will to make it out there, but I would never dream of putting someone to work for free on a commercial project.

  • You didn’t tell me who you are and what you do and what you have done
  • You didn’t ask me for details about the project
  • You offered to collaborate for free, giving me a “cheap” image of you.

This is one of the problems of our sector, and if we want to improve it we have to do it “from the bottom”. That’s why I see smart people accepting “technical assessments” that are nothing more than unpaid jobs, in the hope of a position. Then we end up working for companies that don’t respect our work, on projects that don’t go anywhere.

Let’s be serious! I have experienced first-hand the frustration of not having a job and not seeing opportunities. I also cyclically find myself having to review my strategy. But we must never lose sight of the great creative capacity that we all have.

It’s better to work on your shitty project than to work for free for anyone.

It’s better to send a message of “Look what I did, can you give me your opinion?” rather than “I’m looking for a job, help me”.

It’s better to focus on improving your knowledge than showing unfinished projects to others.

I’m the first to not follow this advice. Human consciousness works unpredictably. But it’s still important to share them. I am not a master here, I am just a voice.