Tiny Subversions

Note: This is part of a series of articles called Effective Networking in the Games Industry. I'm writing these articles in no particular order, so I'm sorry if this seems scattered. I promise I will collect it all and put it on my permanent webspace for future reference.

I'm going to make this one short and sweet.

I am willing to network with pretty much anyone. That said, I have met people at industry events and immediately did everything within my power to get the hell away from them. This is because they smelled like a sweaty old sock filled with cheese that was recently marked as the territory of a paranoid ocelot.

It saddens me that I have to give this advice. But I do. So please, if you don't already: bathe regularly.

Labels: networking

Randy Smith (desinger; Thief, Thief 2, Thief 3) just posted his review of Resident Evil 4. The awesome thing about this review is that it's in interview format. He's watching his friend Richard play the game and engaging in dialogue about the game itself. My favorite bit of dry humor from the review:

Randy: "So what's one of the shining moments in this game that you really remember?"

Richard: "All right, you know how monsters progress, right?"

Randy: "Yes, they strive for self-actualization."

This reminds me of what Darren and I did when we played through Halo on co-op mode. I think there's a lot to be gained by engaging in (and publishing) dialogue about games, dialogue that occurs as they are being played. Sort of a Socratic approach to game reviews.

I saw a link to a website which collects bad video game covers from over the years.

While the website is amusing, I noticed that practically every box has a picture of a goofy-looking guy on the front. Meanwhile, there were no game covers that featured the common "babe that has nothing to do with our game" trope. Apparently, the author of that site doesn't consider ridiculously proportioned females on a box cover to be bad cover art. Sigh.

Marc Mencher usually writes "how to get a job in the games industry" type stuff which is targetted towards newcomers to the industry. As such, I've never had much use for his articles and books. I've always wondered if he could write some decent "advanced" stuff. And now I've seen that he can.

On Gamasutra today he has a great article about why you should never accept counteroffers from your boss. (A counteroffer is when you try to quit your job, and your boss offers you a raise if you stay.) His basic points:

• Your current company is acting in its own best interest by offering you the raise.
• Your current company should have given you a raise earlier if they really thought you were worth it.
• If you stay at the company, you will be seen as untrustworthy.

So yeah, take it from Marc: don't accept counteroffers!

Edge Online has an article up about the rise of Keita Takahashi, the creator of Katamari Damacy.

But just how do you accelerate from unknown newcomer, through cult hero, to toast of the establishment in the time it takes most developers to produce a single game? Back in 2003 Katamari Damacy was unknown, a demo disc given away at the Tokyo Game Show which was dismissed by many as a one-note wonder – a novelty game which no one would play for more than ten minutes. Then, some neat timing: just a fortnight after the game’s release in Japan, and the early flurry of word-of-mouth from those whose interest had been piqued at TGS, Takahashi presented the game at GDC’s experimental game workshop. It was the perfect audience – curious-minded and enthusiastically evangelical – and word of Katamari started to spread in the development community. [Edge Online - "Everybody Loves Takahashi"]

I attended the Experimental Gameplay Workshop in question. And I have to say, the feeling in that room when Keita showed Katamari was just electric. It was just amazing to see all these game developers, literally the best of the best in the world, in complete awe of this weird little game. At the end of the presentation, when he said there were no plans to port it to the US market, everyone was just devastated. 'Course it didn't work out that way, happily.

I've never had a conversation with Keita, but I've been in his presence and listened in on a few interpreted conversations. The thing that strikes me the most about him is his humility. Just a very, very humble and nice guy.

Labels: gdc

I like that I can have conversations with certain people where I get to say something like, "So let's look at game design patterns from an MDA standpoint: you're saying that patterns should concern... just Mechanics? Just Dynamics?"

I dunno. It's just cool that I get to talk like this!

For those of you who asked for more information about my GDC lecture, here's the relevant info:

http://www.cmpevents.com/GD06/a.asp?option=G&V=3&id=189282

Labels: gdc

Here are two parts of a very excellent and saddening read over at BuzzScope, concerning sexual harassment in the comic book industry:

Part 1
Part 2

I'm linking this in my video game blog because I'm surprised that I've never seen any similar commentary on the video game industry. And yet we'd be idiots to assume that this kind of stuff doesn't happen in our industry. It certainly happens, because it happens in every industry. Soo why the silence? Probably because the industry is small, word of mouth travels, and it's easy to get blacklisted.

I'm not implying that we can realistically eradicate sexual harassment from our industry. What bothers me the most is the silence on the topic.

Gamasutra now has slides, session notes, and related papers for every GDC since 2000! Check it out on the GDC Archive.

Some stuff of note from the archive:

• Matteo Bittanti's Make Better Criticism presentation, which inspired my thesis.
• Katherine Isbister's Perform Or Else
• the panel on Persistent vs. Instantiated Spaces

So, it looks like I'll be accomplishing one of my long-term goals as a game developer quite early in my career: this March, I will be speaking at GDC.

Specifically, I'll be speaking on March 20 during the first day of the Serious Games Summit. This is pretty cool; I was involved in the very first serious games roundtable at GDC 2003, which then morphed into the first full Summit in 2004, that I also attended. I was even at the first D.C. Serious Games Summit in October of that year. And now I get to be a speaker, discussing some research I've been doing with Games for Health.

So, if you're at GDC, stop by SGS and see me (and Bill) speak!

Labels: gdc

I was just browsing through my favorite Chris Crawford book, The Art of Interactive Design, and I found this quote:

Whenever you design an interactive application, you are not delivering reality to your user, you are imposing a worldview on your user.

Possibly self-evident, but still very important to remember.

I love the International Game Developers Association (IGDA). I've been a member for three years now. They're the non-profit professional organization for game developers, along the lines of what IEEE is for electrical engineers. The IGDA is still a little bit in the up-and-coming stage, but has released excellent white papers in areas like quality of life and online games, and has also done a lot of work on developer advocacy and anti-censorship. One of their other lofty (and admirable!) goals include the formalization of the production process. You can read more about the organization in their summary page.

If you are an aspiring game developer, you should join (some more reasons why are on the linked page). There's cut rates for students, a measly $30! Do it!

But the real reason I'm posting here is that I wore my IGDA T-shirt to work today for the first time. And people who have been in the industry for one, three, eight (!) years have asked: "What does that stand for?" It's disheartening.

I think the reason this happens is you get people who really want to make video games. They finally get a lucky break, and they enter the industry, and they think, "Hey. I'm done. I'm in." And they're not thinking about the future of the industry, and they're not thinking about professional development. And even if they are thinking about that, it doesn't occur to them that there might exist an organization that cares about those very same things.

One way to solve this is to have a corporate ambassadorship program. Word of mouth. If I went around to everyone at my company and spoke of the virtues of the IGDA, I bet I could convert about 10% of the people I talk to. I also bet I could convert about 30% of the people I talk to if I were given recruitment materials by the IGDA. Pamphlets to put in the lunch room? A "Proud IGDA Member" plaque for my cubicle? Even just a sample form letter I could send out would be awesome.

Maybe the IGDA already has such a program, and I'm out of touch?

Note: This is part of a series of articles called Effective Networking in the Games Industry. I'm writing these articles in no particular order, so I'm sorry if this seems scattered. I promise I will collect it all and put it on my permanent webspace for future reference.

I already wrote about the importance of making a striking first impression. Equally important is the ability to profile a person: that is, the ability to accurately extract as much information as you possibly can from a first impression. I'll say right now that I'm not an expert on this topic, which is best exemplified in the media by crazy TV detectives. People have written rather long books on the topic of profiling, but the problem with long books is that you can't remember what was on page 274 while you're being introduced to someone over breakfast. What I'm going to do is break down the act of profiling, for the purposes of networking, into something so simple (and oversimplified) that you'll be able to use it wherever you go.

The Talker/Listener Axis

Let's say you've just been introduced to someone. We'll call her Jane. Your very first task is to figure out whether she likes to talk, or whether she likes to listen.

Wait a minute.

I hope you caught my mistake up there. The world at large is not built of dichotomies, and no single person is a talker or a listener. (If you ever do meet someone who only does one or the other, I guarantee you that it's okay to run very far away, as that person is certainly not worth knowing.) Almost everyone likes to talk about themselves. Almost everyone likes to hear a good story. The question is how much of each activity Jane likes to experience. First I'll explain how to deal with the three basic talker/listener configurations, and then I'll explain how to spot them.

Three Kinds of People

If Jane is like most people, I'd place her at about 50/50 on the talker/listener scale. This means that when you speak to her one on one, you should keep a rough mental count of how long you've spent talking to her. If you've been speaking for two minutes, and you've come to an okay stopping point in your conversation, sit back and let her talk for a while. Only start looking for ways to cut in after about two minutes have elapsed.

Then again, Jane might be a talker, say 70/30. Talkers are incredibly easy to please. Just. Shut. Up. And. Listen. Keep in mind that "shut up" and "listen" are two distinct skills. The former involves keeping your mouth closed and not emitting any noises. Shutting up is largely a passive skill. Listening, on the other hand, is by all means an active skill, that can be broken down into three parts:

• comprehending what someone is saying


• indicating to him or her that you comprehend


• encouraging the talker to keep on talking

A lot of people practice the first two points, but totally miss out on the third. The best way to practice the third point is to ask a lot of pertinent questions. Let's say Jane has been talking about her latest project, a serious game funded by the U.S. government. Let's say she also mentioned, just before you were formally introduced, that she got back from a skydiving trip with her husband. It would be a good move to ask her if she's considered doing a game to train paratroopers. Or maybe you could pull on your general knowledge of the serious games industry and ask if she thinks the market is saturated, or perhaps if she thinks defense contractors will start hiring game developers, or really anything at all that will allow her to impart her wisdom to you. Because she's a talker: keep feeding her talking points, and she'll love you for it.

The most difficult personality to deal with is the 30/70 listener. Listeners can be divided into two basic categories: those who listen because they are truly interested, and those who listen because they're shy. So if Jane is a listener, your first goal is to determine whether or not she's interested or shy. Interested listeners are great, because the only pressure on you is to think of interesting things to say. And if you're educated, memorable, and do interesting things—well then, you're pretty much made in the shade. If Jane is a shy listener, things are much tougher. You don't want to pressure her into talking, because that will make her completely shut down, conversationally. But you don't want to talk too much, because you'll come off as a jerk. A one-on-one situation with a shy listener can be very difficult, and only other advice I can give for that kind of situation is to tread carefully, and to be as empathetic as you possibly can. A lot of the times, larger groups are better for shy listeners, as you can draw them into a larger conversation where they feel less pressure and you're less likely to look like a dominating bully.

How to Detect the Three Kinds of People

Okay, how do I come up with these numbers for people? I don't, really. The numbers are fudged. I actually keep a normal distribution graph in my head and just slide people around. Don't panic! It's not as complicated as it sounds. I promise.

As I said before, most people are 50/50 on the talker/listener axis. I made a graph of the bell curve, just to elucidate my point.



Playing the straight probabilities, when you meet somebody you should approach them as though they're right in the middle. Most of the time, you'll be right.

But in the first five minutes of conversation, you should be looking for signs. If while you're talking the person looks impatient, or is constantly interrupting you, visualize the bell curve in your head and start sliding that person to the left more and more. You should change your conversational tactics to the talker ones I mentioned above, namely shutting up and listening for larger and larger portions of the conversation as the person continues to slide to the left on your mental chart. If you're having trouble getting more than a few words out of the person, or you see their face turning red, slide them to the right, mark them as shy, and adjust accordingly. If there's a lot of head nodding and smiling, and the person asks you pertinent questions, then you have an interested listener on your hands! Slide to the right and bask in the glory of your own fascinating personality, you ham!

This might all seem pretty complicated. But the easiest thing to do is to ask questions. It's like Dr. Gregory House says: "Everyone looks smarter when they're asking the questions. It's infinitely preferable to the blank stare of the person trying to answer."

Why Go Through the Trouble?

When you accurately profile someone as a talker or a listener, you are engaging them in the way that they would like to be engaged. And that's a fantastic way to make friends—which is what networking is really all about.

Labels: breakingin, law, networking