Dopass.com

In my last blog I mentioned some of the frustration I feel over the fact that I can't really make games for me - that the market segment I represent is too small to finance games of the size and scope said segment prefers. Interestingly enough, something similar to that thought came up at work recently and I was delighted to find out that some of the folks I work with and for don't agree that that's true. I can't and won't go into details, but it was refreshing. Let explain why...

Most efforts and game design in this industry have worked (traditionally) something like this:

1) Someone has a great idea for a game
2) That idea is pitched
3) That idea is rejected because it's too new, too risky, too edgy, etc.
4) The idea is then watered down and retooled so that it pleases those with the power to green light its birth.
5) That idea is pitched
6) Steps 3-5 are repeated until it's approved
7) Preproduction begins
8) Designer's bring every ambition and idea to the table
9) Anyone sane panics at the amount of work and money necessary to achieve the ideas presented in step 8.
10) Repeat step 4 but substitute "green light its birth" with "implement the design" - iterate until step 9 no longer occurs.
11) Production begins
12) Repeat step 4, but substitute "green light its birth" with "pay the moneys to keep everyone alive and employed."
13) Release now watered down and boring game to market
14) Watch it flop
15) Watch marketing blame development for it sucking.
16) Watch development blame marketing for not selling it.
17) Drink copiously until you feel able to repeat step 1, or until you're given a shovelware licensed IP to complete to spec.

The exception to this tends to be games made with a single strong vision (say a "jaffe" game), or games made by students/indies, or games made by people who done those 17 steps so often they finally have the time and money to hole up like some sort of game hermit and do their own game (which I suppose is just an indie, but I didn't want to insult the indies by including the jaded cynical iconoclasts by default).

Even strong vision games often end up full of compromise, but it tends to be in ways you never notice - a polish tweak here, a ui fix there - because they either do make things better, or don't matter at all. Game development really is all about making clever compromises.

I can't emphasize that enough so I'm going to say it again:

The key to getting a team to make a good game isn't to eschew compromise; it's to make those compromises clever, informed, and intelligent.

It is not OK to think you have all the answers (Even when you do). Just as, it turns out, it's not OK for me to think that no one cares about serving niches - I wasn't right about that, even though I'd never been proven wrong about that in the dozen odd years I've been doing this.

Unfortunately, most of us game developers are total fucking nerds. I mean dorks of the highest order. Metanerds. I mean, we're the nerds that look down on physicists because they're not cool enough. If the world were Jurassic park, we're Jeff Goldblum and all other nerds are Sam Neil (with the possible exception of nerdcore rappers, who might be Richard Attenborough). We have that same nerdly smug self-assuredness that you see in the guys in those Alltel commercials ("DM's don't have levels! Dork!")... all of us. (Well ok, that's not entirely true, some of us are legitimately cool, but those folks are the exception)

Why do I mention this, you ask? Why do I say 'unfortunately,' you add? (wow you really do like to interject, don't you?) Well, honestly, it's because this smug self-assuredness makes us our own worst enemies.

We're always so convinced we're right that we end up being dogmatic about it. Maybe it's not true of everyone, but it's certainly true of the majority of us. A game-dev who is a fan of WoW might, for example, campaign and argue endlessly to make his not-wow MMO project into a "wow-too" project, because WoW is so fun and perfect - he's sure of that - that how can you fail by making your game more wow-like? Worse, because of the nerd-ego thing, that same person will argue belligerently with any differing opinions, bullying them until they shut up or bully him back into caving on his own point, replacing it with their -equally prejudiced- ideals, instead. At no point, does this clash of nerd egos ever really lead to anything remotely close to legitimate discussion or exploration of concept.

Instead, doctrines will clash and fight, in a sick and twisted mirror religious war and/or party politics.

Even if that dude is right - even if making the game more wow-like is the answer - he'll miss anything positive his "opponent" has to offer because that opponent's opinion has to be completely disregarded in order for our example dev's ego to be salved - for him to savor the victory of being right.

You see me bitch about compromises that make games worse all the time, usually I'm talking about compromises due to outside pressure like market segments and the like, but that's not the only way bad choices get made. It's probably not even where the majority of bad choices come from. I suspect they come from the smug self-assuredness I'm talking about more often than they do from anything even remotely resembling true research, thought or reasoned discourse. The marketer is so sure that making a game like wow will mean you get 9 million units that he will actively campaign against making any MMO project that isn't wow-like.

Similarly, the designer or engineer (or engineer that thinks he's a designer) that is so convinced that WoW is the best game evar, will ruin his game in the quest to make it more like wow. To make him feel more right.

OK, so maybe I'm ranting, maybe I'm just angsty lately, but maybe what I'm trying to do here is warn you indies and the like out there that eschewing compromise because you think you're right -- even if you are right -- is just as bad as making endless compromises to make everyone happy. It's almost better to pretend there are no other games out there, while you weigh the impact of the choices you have to make in the course of working on your game.

By going with your gut - by sticking to your guns - you might be missing the opportunity for some left-field (even wrong) idea to inspire you.

Besides, do you really want to be the guy to see your massive project flop just because you refused to accept that you could be wrong? That would eat me up inside, I think.

Thankfully, no one ever listens to me anyway, so it's not like I've ever been a position to know what that feels like. ;)

The best game dev advice I can give anyone is the old engineer's motto (That would be physical engineers):

Question Everything
Learn Something
Answer Nothing

It's the last one that's hard. I mean, what better way to score some approval as a nerd than by answering questions and showing off your knowledge? But every question you answer is a lost opportunity for another question to be asked and every question asked could bring you one step closer to the ultimate breakthrough: Learning something new.

- Snipehunter