This “quote” came into my mind yesterday. I don’t know if it holds any truth … i think it does but then, i haven’t actually thought about it. It’s more a gut feeling. Am i right if i’m thinking that the greatest games come either from small but dedicated teams, or a team lead by a game-designing maestro – and a passionate leader – and an occassional dictator? And why do i have to think Peter … Peter … hmmm … english guy with a french surname. Darn, can’t remember.
Yet another thought … i’ve been doing that a lot lately btw. All in preparation for a possible GDC talk. So, here’s the thought: don’t lock yourself in, or out (no, i’m not talking about forgetting your keys). You may think you do the best of your work alone. And while that may be true, it is absolutely critical to balance that with collaboration, participation and socializing. Easier said than done … more often or not, you can’t lock yourself out to get work done because you’re working with others, sharing a room or even a hall. You have basically no way to escape the collaboration, participation or socializing that happens around you, distracts you. Since you don’t get any quality work done you get anxious, easily upset, and eventually frustrated or even depressed. I’ve been there. In turn, you’re trying to avoid that as much as possible (been there too) so you end up with less and less collaboration, participation or socializing. It’s a downward spiral, behold! Don’t look into the light!
Share your passion! I was wondering if i should name my talk “Share your passion!” even though i’m not even sure what kind of message i really want to convey, or how. But it feels like a good start. It’s just … i don’t think i showed passion for a long time, not for a prolonged time certainly. So it’s also a reminder and a reinforcement to myself to do that more often. Stay true to your words. Put my money where my mouff iff. Ippf rylly haad to takf wipf a moufful off monee!
Passion is contagious! True. The bad thing is, people can also get really passionate about all the wrong things. Blow them out of proportion. It too ends up infecting people, spreading like a virus, hurting morale and motivation. It’s a double edged sword, swung to the wrong side by doubt and pessimism. So for a leader, or any role model, it’s really important to be passionate in just the right ways. Jesus Christ, that’s f**king hard! But someone’s gotta do it. After all, we’re but humans and have to learn our ropes. I believe the best leader is both a caring teacher and a motivated student. If in doubt, inquire! And don’t squeeze out cheesy motivational speeches, yikes! Yay, doing great, huray, gratz, we love you all, see you next year.
Blogging. In a way it’s what i did 15 years ago on Compuserve. Putting myself out there. Earning respect. Getting feedback. Being recognized. Almost inadvertently summoning opportunities. Here i go again!
“I was just following orders.” … an excuse we know from soldiers. But, is that something that also applies to (large) game development teams? Not happy with a design decision but implementing it anyway? Don’t like the art style but still drawing those awkward squiggles? Questioning yourself why you’re doing this but still doing it? And how seductive is a steady income, stock options and a 9-5 job really? Enough to let all the passion go and just do yer frackin’ job?
It really matters who you’re working with. So obvious, right? But how does it matter? Not so easy. And typically, people around you aren’t all that bad – it’s just that you have to work with them. And you got work to do, too. So you would rather avoid them, instead of cooperating? Or on the contrary, how about collaborating with the people at work because they’re also your friends after work? How much better is that? … Of course team size matters, too. On a small team, you even go to dinner every day with the people you don’t like. You’re still connected because you’re all in it together. On a large team, you can basically just do two things: spread yourself thin, meaning keep shallow connections with lots of people – or maintain strong relationships with only few people, creating either a jelled team or a clique of jerks – depending on how you’re seen from the outside. And what the team/clique thinks overrides anything the company, or management, desires from you. So it’s crucial to build small jelled teams and align them with the business goal(s). But how? Ah yeah, see above: must … have … great … leaders. Will pay money. Go directly to hell. Do not collect tax. I should mention that it’s really incredibly hard to break people out of habits. It can’t be forced, it can only be encouraged and must be nurtured. Ever tried that on yourself? A diet maybe? Quit smoking? Switching from car to bike?
I once had passion for computer hardware. Building computers and fixing them. I worked part-time for six years in a small shop with very limited budget. The costumers were basically “hand-picked”. We got to buy the hardware cheap and learned what was useful and what wasn’t without having to buy it ourselves. It was fun and a learning experience for the most part. I then worked for a company which had their own two-story office building. They sold computers mainly to institutions like schools. They had an amazing repair shop with all the tools and plugs and spare parts you can imagine. They even had an assembly line and a warehouse, and a super-hot blond desk lady everyone was secretly obsessing about. I got to drive through half of germany for weeks on end just basically re-plugging gfx cards or replacing memory sticks and if that didn’t help, bringing the computers back home, occassionally staying on the road in hotels of my choosing. I made a lot of money from paid overtime i spent in traffic jams listening to the radio. I quit after just 6 months to start my career as a Gameboy game developer.
One word of caution: don’t suck too bad at your job, no matter how bad you feel about it, how much you’re not motivated right now, how much you’re pissed off because of your boss, coworker or the stupid bugs that only you are getting. How to do that is anyone’s guess. I don’t have a success formula for that, other than: don’t suck!
You are not the greatest, either! Keep that in mind. No matter how much you believe in what you do, always be open for suggestions. Don’t try to convince people, listen to them, incorporate some of their suggestion in your work where it doesn’t hurt or matter, then keep doing what you believe in. It’s the best way to make both sides happy. But again: no success formula for that. How do detergent companies and bio yoghurt companies come up with their formulas? Ah, i remember now … they pull them out of thin air and make them sound good by applying effective-sounding words like “bio” or “dura” or “mono” or “pH neutral” or other such things. It makes your gut bacteria go crazy just to hear them. Hmmmm ….
Tell people only what they need to know. You have no time and lots of people to inform and also more important things on your mind. It’s understandable you want to get this over with quickly. The game needs to move forward and the decision is righteous and sufficiently researched. Have an answer prepared for any critical question that may pop up. Just don’t consult with the people who are affected by the decision before you make it. That will just slow you down. This was sarcasm. Or was it cynism? I always get the two mixed up.
Games have a set of defined rules. The best games are said to be easy to learn and hard to master. Teams, on the other hand, have no set of defined rules. Developing great games is hard to learn and almost impossible to master. Wait a minute, don’t we have a code of conduct? Naming guidelines? Coding conventions? Acceptable behavior talks? Sexual offense education? Disciplinary actions? Fixed meeting schedules? Rules for properly flushing the toilet and refilling toilet paper after each use? Don’t fool yourself: how often are these rules broken? More than they are followed is my best guess. And that affects only the team … did you know that great games are sometimes made by breaking the rules at the right times? You should be happy you’re having such a team of non-conformists.
On a related note, i can wholeheartedly recommend reading this Book excerpt on Gamasutra: How Game Developers Choose Leaders
Ever since i got notice that the GDC Europe in Cologne is looking for lecturers i’ve been thinking wether i should take that opportunity and submit a lecture proposal. Moreover, and more specifically, i’ve been thinking about what the heck should i be talking about?
Soon i was questioning myself: what am i really good at? Do i have anything to say that intelligent people of the games industry would enjoy hearing me talk about? What kind of knowledge, or experience, do i bring to the table to justify the talk, to be taken seriously, with the necessary authority. Like most potential lecturers (i assume) i don’t want to come across as a douchebag who is talking about something he doesn’t really have a clue about, experience with or worse yet, lecturing to people who actually know a lot more about the subject matter.
So i’ve began wondering … somewhere in the 10 years of my experience as a professional game developer has to be something compelling, some concentration of knowledge that is so utterly groundbreaking, earth-shattering that everyone would just love to hear me talk about. I did not see it. I did not find it. But i knew it was there, it was just hiding. That thing that would make the crowd roar. Which would everyone leave the session with a feeling of joy.
What could it be?
I digged. I digged deeper. I even went as far back as my childhood. Still, nothing. Is my professional game developer life really all about, well, scripting Lua? (that’s just too basic and boring) Or grinding through numerous localization problems? (i’d prefer to never touch that subject again) What is it that i perform well … writing an excellent database frontend tool? (most of my internal users would beg to differ) Producing great code under pressure? (i’m not even a great coder to begin with) Or … what?
It left me stumbling for quite a bit. I even considered reverting to the obvious … something like a BattleForge Postmortem. Most of which i would have to piece together through interviews with various of my coworkers, and honestly, there would be better people for that kind of lecture. Producers or Manager with the oversight, and insights into the business side. Who experienced all the difficult decisions first hand. No, it would feel like i would just be a representative of something bigger. But my consideration was to take the lecturing opportunity for two reasons:
- Attend the GDC. Network. Learn from others. And to get myself out there.
- Lecture about something that i really feel passionate about – because that’s when i can deliver great lectures.
I didn’t think it would be so hard to find something i’m really passionate about. It was actually (and is?) kind of depressing. I’m questioning my whole life here – as i do frequently, i mean just for fun, you know. We all do it. So i do what any man would do … i called my girlfriend for advice.
I asked her: “What am i really passionate about?”
Without even a fraction of a second thinking about it, she answered: “Sex.”
…
Well, not quite the topic that i could present during the GDC, i believe … but it got me thinking. I asked for more examples but she just couldn’t think of anything else other than sex – weird, because that’s normally how my brain is wired. Anyway, at least i knew I was looking for something that is really comparable to passionate love, or lovemaking for that matter. And then i wondered … when was the last time i felt like this? Absolutely passionate about what i do, how i do it, and why i do it. I was slowly unfolding the things that made me happy when i do them. Like being helpful, enabling people to do their job, to solve problems for them. Most problems … hmmm, for most of them, anyway. So the team factor is also important for me. But there’s more, for example developing something i truely believe in, something that would make everyone’s job better, easier and would allow them to work more efficiently. Like that SpellForce 2 dialog scripting language i wrote a few years ago. There were some more examples but actually they aren’t the point.
The point is that i realized: the work i really loved doing and kept coming back at with joy, is the work i started on my own accord and (for the most part at least) owned it. I drove the direction of the work, i designed and defined it, i improved it by working in the feedback i got. I thrive on feedback if it is given properly and i have my hands free to do that work the way i want it to be done, and when. But it all works best if i can feel that others around me work on their tasks with the same passion than i do. Otherwise, it can quickly turn frustrating and depressing. Wrong people, wrong time, wrong tasks – and it all goes downhill before plummeting into a bottomless, black pit. I’ve been a programming, thinking and designing tool who put the work and dedication into what i did so others who may be “technically challenged” can benefit by leveraging the powers invested into the tools by me.
Now if that tool is a game or used to build a game’s core features … then that’s my passion. It’s as simple as that. Helping others make great games, and making great games myself. Directly without outside influence unless it comes in the form of user feedback and meaningful suggestions.
Still, i got no further with my idea for the GDC lecture. What am i going to say … that i’m a helping hand, putting myself in the service of the greater good? That i deliver such outstanding tools that everyone watching my lecture should listen to my every word in awe?
Eventually i pondered about this back and forth, going from enthusiastic to giving up on myself – until i realized: all i really need to do is to talk about passion! How passion affects us all and how not doing what you’re passionate about will ultimately lead to a 9-5 job (or drive you insane). And the seductiveness of that. How easy it is to lose your passion, giving up hope (unless used as a strategy), and just doing your job as good as you can under the circumstances – each and every day, thinking you’re just passing through a depression in your life and everything isn’t as bland as it seems. How it should actually be great, if it weren’t for …. things like wether the light is too bright in the room, the noise outside is too much, it’s too hot or too cold and bickering with your colleagues about all of that. No big fights … just nuisances. Every day a little bit. And trust me – people obsess about that irrelevant stuff as if it were heartfelt. With passion, if you so will. I know i did, too.
In that situation, the only thing you can agree about with your coworkers – due to a lack of common interests or shared goals – is the fact that the others aren’t really doing their job like they’re supposed to. How the recession is just going to fuck us all up. How utterly wrong and completely ignorat decisions are being made. Stuff like that. Things that we obsess about only in the absence of passion. And the worst part is: that kind of behavior/thinking re-inforces itself.
While on the other hand great work was and is done if it is done with passion. And i usually didn’t even realize that it was passion that made me love my work, that helped me crack the hardest coconuts and allowed me to push through mundane tasks without taking some form of cellular brain damage. Just like good sex makes you feel more powerful even though you’re completely exhausted. For the moment.
And that is what i would like love to talk about during this year’s GDC Europe. No authority needed, just passion and a long experience going through uphill joyrides and downhill battles. Giving my experience to the audience – with passion. And maybe throwing in a sex joke here and there.
If they let me.
Hi And Welcome!
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