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.
This week we had a 4 hour long Presentation marathon at work. 16 ten minute presentations were held by team members in front of almost the whole team … at least 40-50 people. Obviously i can’t talk about the content and purpose of these presentations.
But i’m more interested to talk about how the speakers presented their ideas anyway. As you might be aware, what’s often said about presentations is that 90% of them suck. I think we were definetely above the mean but there were clearly bad presentations as well.
What helped me in my presentation was the book “Made to Stick” which arrived just the day before we held the presentations. There wasn’t much time to make any major adjustments but just by reading the book’s Introduction i could make some changes to steer my presentation in the right direction.
Of course this book doesn’t help you come up with a fresh idea in the first place, nor does it teach you how to speak in front of an audience. But it will be helpful if you have to present your idea as the thirteenth presentation when the audience is already tired and due to information overflow harder to impress. It could give your idea and the presentation of it the “kick” it requires to stick. To have people talk about it afterwards.
It will also make you more confident in your idea and how you present it – in that regard maybe it actually can help you get by all the nervosity? As for me, i was definetely nervous, i was a complete wreck. The whole day up to the presentation i felt going-on-a-first-date times ten kind of nervous. When it was my turn to present, suddenly it all went away because i knew what i had to say, i had confidence in my idea and its presentation. That was a complete turnaround emotionally, and that feeling stuck. If not the idea, then the confidence i have in it and that’s what you need to get it across.
Getting to the other presentations, the ones i felt failed to impress the most were those that were created to be the “obvious candidate” as much as possible. My opinion is that you can’t sell an idea by making it as attractive as possible to those who decide about it. You have to have a vision and present that as a fresh idea – you should be prepared for questions about feasibility but don’t present anything just because it’s “possible to do”.
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