I recently read an interesting comment from a director at Pixar, Andrew Stanton about his views about creating content in the animated movie industry.  Below is an excerpt from the article which I first saw on Ragnar Tornquist’s website:

The day we start thinking about what the audience wants, we’re going to make bad choices. We’ve always holed ourselves up in a building for 4 years and ignored the rest of the world, because nobody are bigger movie geeks than we are, so we know exactly what we are dying to see with our family and kids. We don’t need other people to tell us that. We trust the audience member in ourselves.

Anyway, I have to say that I agree with this statement full-heartedly.  I have personally experienced games being made at companies based solely on user testing.  It’s truly amazing to see a game designed with passion and excitement by the team involved and seeing it destroyed by integrating too much marketing, user testing, and what people think the audience wants.  What started out with some really interesting characters, storyline, and gameplay got morphed into something that was flat, boring, and in general no one on the team liked.

It always amazes me how marketing has the innate ability to turn something that is marketable into something that is completely unappealing based purely on market research.  Furthermore, I have also seen how “making what the audience wants” has severely impacted the development of a game that people on the team thought was good.  This in the end lead to detrimental results.

Beyond just making something that appeals to an audience, I think there is something to be said for creative content created by a sole visionary.  Having a singularity of vision is another reason why creating something for an audience can be particularly bad.

So I’m sitting here contemplating what to do next with my independent game.  I think making a game is similar to writing a book or making a movie in that in all of these creative pursuits you hit a point where you have developed enough but just don’t know where to take it after that.

I find myself in this exact position.  What do I do next?  I feel like there is a brick wall standing in my way, preventing me from seeing the brilliance that lies ahead.  How do writers get past their writer’s blocks?  What I need to do is just keep on writing.  The hope is that if I just keep on writing, something will come out that will be good.  Even if I can’t see the destination at this point, I need to push ahead in order to make this work.

After Chinese New Year, it has been hard to reset and get back into the working mentality again.  You really have to convince yourself to move forward.  So, little by little, I’m just gonna push past this wall.  Once I get over the hump, it will be no problem.  Right now, the wall seems insurmountable… or even possibly not worth climbing.  Nonetheless, I am going to push through this.  I still believe I am doing something really revolutionary.  Only time will tell the answers, and I’ve just gotta go with my gut.

I read an article on Kotaku recently about how some of the people involved in Insomniac’s Resistance: Fall of Man game left to start a studio in China.  I find this very intriguing because it is exactly the same thing that I have been noticing about the US games industry as well… but even more so, I think this is a problem with the American culture and work ethic.

People in the US live to work.  People in other countries work to live.  For example, people in the US wake up every day go to work (often doing 12 hour days), then go home and sleep.  This happens 7 days a week!  And, I’ve seen this not only in the games industry, but in the financial, medical, and advertisement industries too.  In other countries, people work their 8 hour days and guard their remaining 16 hours and 2 days on the weekends with their lives.

So this is a really an endemic problem with working in the US.  Chris Pfeiffer made some really good points that I have been saying ever since my experience working in the games industry in Australia:

I am simply a guy that has been in the industry approaching 13 years and knows that something has to give. If we as an industry are going to keep raising the bar, the attriton rate of top people has to decline

 and

there’s a better way to work, and live, than the way western studios currently operate

Finally, Pfeiffer expresses a point that I have been emphasizing ever since I left the coal mines at Electronic Arts:

We want to make great games while living a good life

Is that too much to ask?  Do I have to move to another country to get it… right now, I think the answer is a definite YES.

This song is just too awesome for words. It’s written and sung by Jonathan Coulton I totally felt this way at my last job… as I mentioned in a previous post. It really hits the nail on the head as to how I felt about that girl.

A couple of the lines that really strike a chord with me are:

Code Monkey have boring meeting, with boring manager Rob.

Code Monkey have long walk back to cubicle, he sit down pretend to work. Code Monkey not thinking too straight. Code Monkey not feeling so great.

Code Monkey have every reason to get out this place. Code Monkey just keep on working. See your soft pretty face.

This job fulfilling in creative way… such a load a crap!

Talk about the story of my life! Jonathan Coulton you are a genius.

Why is it that management thinks it’s a good idea to lie to their employees?  I’ve recently been moved to a project that I am not excited about working on.  Originally I was hired to work on new IP on handhelds.  My team was great, but we got bounced around from project to project until they finally decided to move us all onto the big uber project for the company.  If I had known I would end up on that project, I would have never worked for this company.

Anyway, when I expressed my concerns over moving onto the uber team, I explained how working on that team did not fit in with my career goals at all, which were:

1. Work on something new and original
2. Work on a smaller team
3. Work on various aspects of the game
4. To not work mad amounts of overtime

I told my manager that this project fulfills none of my needs.  My manager then responded: “If you remove those concerns, would you want to work on this project?”  I told him that is impossible because those are things that are inherent about working on that project.  So I was given a choice, I can be on loan to this uber team for a month, I can move onto the uber team permanently, or I can move onto the smaller team that I really wanted to be on.  I told him that being on “loan” really was the same thing as being on the team permanently, yet he assured me that this was not true.

Apparently, I was never given the choice because management made the decision for me and moved me onto the uber project.  Still, my lead assured me that I could still move onto the project I really wanted to after a month.  I never believed him… not for a second.  Now, 3 weeks later, it’s abundantly clear that I am not on loan at all.  I will be on this team permanently.

So, why do managers do this?  I know that they are trying to satisfy everyone, but it is not my job as an employee to work in the best interest of this company.  If I don’t get anything out of this, then there really is no reason for me to be there anymore.  I’m angry, I’m disappointed, and I’m depressed.  So what is a disgruntled employee supposed to do?

I told them how I felt about the project and they still put me on it.  I’m going to talk to my lead on Thursday and tell him the truth: if this company is not working in the best interest of my career goals, I am going to look somewhere else.  I figure this is the best thing for both sides.  If the company knows that I am looking to leave, they will start aggressively looking for a replacement.  If I tell them I am going to leave, then the people I work with will not be so angry at me when I don’t do the mad amounts of overtime that they are doing and I leave in the middle of the project.  I still don’t want to burn any bridges… this industry is way too small.

Anyway, the only way for employees to not be taken advantage of is if those employees know they have options.  This forces companies to effectively compete for the limited resources that are the employees, thus forcing working conditions to improve.  This is what happened to the dot com companies.  I’ve got options, and the time is coming where I’m going to make it perfectly clear that I do.

They say that you know something has made it big when someone makes a parody of it.  Well, the Final Fantasy series is one of my favorite games… not really for the game mechanics in particular (I actually really hate grinding to level up), but mainly for the deep characters and story.  Anyway, looks like someone made a pretty entertaining real life parody of Final Fantasy:

I have to say that I would be really flattered if I worked on a game that people spent the time to make fun of.  Also, it says something about the games industry in general if people are willing to spend the time to put together such an elaborate production as this.  Really impressive!

Now everyone who knows me knows that I am the biggest adventure game fan around.  I play so many adventure games and I am always on top of the latest adventure game releases.  Also, it is always adventure games that inspire me and make me want to continue working in the games industry.  How ironic then is it that I have yet to ever work on an adventure game?

The genre “adventure” has been tagged on a lot of very non-adventury games before… so let me clarify.  The adventure games I like usually involve a very good story, great characters, mostly non-action oriented puzzle gameplay, and integrate the puzzles tightly within the story and game environment.  That last point is the main reason I’m not a fan of games such as Myst or 7th Guest.

Anyway, I read an article recently about how to get unstuck in adventure games.  Anyone who has ever played an adventure game understands the frustration that is felt when you get stuck and don’t know what to do.  Many people who are opponents of adventure games say getting stuck is the main reason why adventure games died off.  Whatever the reason, this article written by Greg Collins is a good read for any adventure game fans.

I think what strikes me most about the article is how much the process of solving the puzzles in an adventure game is similar to the process of brainstorming.  Collins writes things such as:

The real trick to getting unstuck, I suspect, is abandoning your preconceptions.

and

Think of something else. Stop obsessing. Come back later with a cleared mind and renewed interest.

These quotes could have come right out of a book on how to come up with new ideas.  Maybe this is why I love adventure games so much.  It’s a similar process to what you need to do to come up with new ideas.  It’s a similar process to the creative process.  The only difference is that you get a reward at the end for thinking about the problem enough to come up with the solution that will continue the game.  In my mind, there isn’t much difference between what is needed to get a writer past writers’ block and solving a tough puzzle in an adventure game.

One thing that is strange is that I don’t like getting stuck, but I do like getting unstuck.  You can’t become unstuck unless you get stuck in the first place.  I guess for me, the good feeling I get from getting unstuck overrides the bad feeling I get when I get stuck.

So I went to the Sony Metreon in San Francisco the night before the Playstation 3 launched.  It was truly a sight to see.  All these people waiting in line to be the first to have a chance to own a Playstation 3.  I have conflicting feelings about the whole thing.  Part of me thinks, “wow, it’s great that people are so into gaming that they are willing to wait up to 72 hours just to buy a console”.  Part of me thinks, “do people even care about games at all, or do they just care about cool technology?”  Nonetheless, I think this is really a pivotal moment in the games industry.  The future of games lies in the hands of who wins this console war: Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo.  Or more importantly, it depends on who loses.

I talked with a few people in line to buy the PS3, and there were two things that really shocked me:

1. A LOT of people were buying the PS3 in order to sell it on ebay for a hefty profit.  If you do the numbers, a PS3 60GB costs $600.  The next day, the consoles were going on ebay for about $3000.  So for about 48 hours of standing in line, the profit margin is $2400 or about $100/hr.  Not a bad return.
2. There were no PSPs in sight and there were Nintendo DS’s all over the line.  It was wierd that a Sony event would be such a good advertisement for Nintendo products.  Also, there was one person I talked to who had a PSP and wanted to bring it, but in a wierd twist of irony, he said that his PSP ran out of batteries so he couldn’t bring it.

In any case, it was definitely a good experience.  When I was walking up and down the line, what I was looking at were the people.  I wanted to know the types of people that are playing games these days.  I wanted to know who these people were that I was working so hard to entertain.  Seeing all those people, you realize that gaming is really a cross gender, cross cultural, cross generation phenomenon.  It will get harder and harder to deny this fact.  On the other hand, the PS3’s focus on technology over games is such a startling contrast to what I want from the gaming industry.  From statistics that I am reading about, people are buying less than one game per console.  Then why are these people buying a console?  If it is just because it is cool technology, I think it is a bad reason.  If it is just to make money, I can kind of understand it.  But, what keeps me in the games industry is the potential of games, not technology.

So I was going to talk about a game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney which I just played for the second time because I am about to get the second part soon Phoenix Wright: Justice For All.  Instead, I just heard some really big news for me… one of those moments that takes your breath away, yet one of those moments that you feel so helpless to do anything about.  So, here’s my story:

When I was in Melbourne, I met this one girl… lets call her D.  At first, I didn’t know too much about her.  I thought she was too quite and shy, but I was really curious and wanted to find out more.  I saw her every day (since she worked at my company), and eventually we got to talking with each other.  I found out she had a boyfriend, and we went to lunch with others from my company every once in a while.  One time, we went into the city to buy a present for a friend’s birthday.  It was just me, another coworker, and D.  We eventually decided to buy a board game, which both me and D were really into.  Like I said, I was very interested in talking with her, after all there aren’t many women in the games industry.  I really respect that fact, and the fact that she is a programmer no less!  Anyway, after we bought the present, the other coworker had to go, and I asked D whether she wanted to go get dinner.

This was the first and only time I actually ate dinner with her alone.  Other times, I went with a group.  In any case we got to talking… we started talking about the games we liked and what our goals in life were.  I still remember the exact location we were at… sitting outside on the balcony of Chilli Padi.  It’s one of those moments you run through your head forever.  I’ve never met someone that I have so much in common with.  It was like she knew me already; it was like I knew her.  Something really struck me that moment… this was someone that I wanted to be around.  This was someone that I needed to be around.

Afterwards, we went to get dessert at my favorite chocolate cafe, Max Brenner.  Funny how food reminds me of things.  I remember we both wanted to get dark hot chocolate drinks, and we both wanted to get a chocolate souffle but were too full to eat a whole one… so we shared!  I decided to enquire more about her boyfriend.  It was something that was bothering me the whole evening.  I wanted to know… no, I needed to know… who the lucky guy was to have snagged someone like D.  We started talking about how important it is to have dreams… how could she read my life like a book?  How did she know?  I decided to tell her about the girlfriend I had recently broken up with, lets call her M.  M had been a good friend in college and we started dating the year I graduated.  After that it was a long distance relationship from then on out.  What bothered me about my relationship with M was not the fact that it was a long distance relationship, it was the fact that she had such a hard time figuring out what she wanted to do in life.  I am a very goal oriented person, and I just couldn’t resolve the fact that the person I was with had no idea what they wanted.  It made me wonder whether she really wanted me.  If she couldn’t be sure about anything, how could she be sure about me.  In any case, when I told my story, D opened her eyes up wide and said that she understood exactly how I felt… because it was the same thing between her and her boyfriend.

I wish I could have told her how I felt at that moment.  I wish I could feel that comfortable with someone forever, but she had a boyfriend, and she was my coworker (not only that, but I kind of could be considered a manager to her).  From then on, we talked a lot, hung out at board games meetups, and discussed books and games that we were both into.  When I left my company, I was leaving two things I loved behind… Melbourne and D.  I wish she knew that.  From then on, we went our separate ways.  Like me, D was a traveler,  I came here to SF, she went to Singapore.  I never had a chance to tell her the truth.

The big event that I found out today was that she broke up with her boyfriend.  I wish I knew how she felt about me.  I would leave on a plane tomorrow if I knew she felt any part of the way I felt for her.  You don’t meet people like that every day.  It’s not every day you meet your soulmate.  Do I regret not telling her?  I do… I regret a lot of things.  I’m not a smooth talker and I’m not a romantic, but in my heart of hearts, I know that there is someone out there that knows me… really knows me.  Maybe one day we will meet again, and it won’t just be bad timing or an everlasting one sided love.  So, you wouldn’t think I would be able to gain inspiration from a video game themed around being a lawyer, but I did.  Phoenix Wright said:

No one can change the past.

The only thing we can do is strive to make up for our mistakes.

Why must we make up for our mistakes, you ask?

Because in so doing… we can find our way back to our path,

And once we’ve found our path, we can move on from our past mistakes towards a brighter future.

I look forward to this brighter future… wherever and whenever it is.