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Building Better Games Highlights & Recap
Currated Content and Insights
Benjamin Carcich
October 17, 2024
Where I’m At:
The last few weeks have been wild, and the next few will continue the trend! I’ll be giving a talk in Ohio at the Shawnee Game Conference, then headed to India for the India Game Developer’s Conference, and I just finished teaching a two day course on “Reframing Agility” to an amazing group of game devs.
Lots of exciting stuff! I have also had less time and creative energy with everything going on, so I’m doing something a bit different for this newsletter: I’ve grabbed a few of my more engaging LinkedIn posts from the last few months and I’ll be sharing them here, as well as some solid write-ups from a couple other newsletters you should check out!
Enjoy!
The Efficiency Lie
Game producers: Stop trying to make everything more efficient.
There are so many ways to become more efficient. You can become efficient in time, efficient in quality, efficient in people, efficient in scope.
And none of them may solve the underlying issues your team faces.
I get that we're incentivized to say, "We got 20% more art assets completed this quarter than last quarter thanks to the new pipeline I developed!" and everyone claps and you look good and all that.
Did you need 20% more art assets? Most places I've seen need about 60% LESS art assets.
Or perhaps a better way to say it, most studios need to figure out what art assets actually matter and stop treating artists like machines on a factory floor.
That's what you should be doing. Not just chasing, “More, Faster, Cheaper!” but stepping back, seeing the whole, and figuring out how to improve the game’s chance of success.
It's almost certainly not by shaving 10% meeting load out of the week.
Figure out what's going to stop your team and game from succeeding. THEN go and make the RIGHT THINGS more efficient.
Shipping A Good Game Is Hard - Be Excited If You Do
I remember a quote from Jeff Kaplan (paraphrased):
"In your career in video games, you might make a good game. If you're really lucky, you could make a great game. There's a very small chance you make a 'lightning in a bottle' game.
"If you make a good game, be proud. Making a good game is really hard."
It was years ago, but I've never forgotten that quote.
Evaluating A Leader’s Success By Their Absence
One way to know you're succeeding as a game producer:
You step away unexpectedly for more than a week, and the team continues to execute AND IMPROVE the way they work, stays focused on the vision of the game, and challenges themselves in healthy ways.
There is a never-ending journey producers are walking. There will always be ways to improve any team, and get more and more nuanced (and interesting).
If you can't get past the basics by remaining a crutch and dependency for the simplest things, you never get to go on the journey to high performance with your teams. You'll get to a "functional" level and stall.
Your job isn't "running a work system," it's making the team/org/studio you lead more effective. You may start at the lower levels, but be careful not to get trapped there.
A Valid Game Dev Assumption
In game dev, a good assumption is to assume most of your assumptions are wrong.
Great Reads
Finally, here are some game dev related articles I enjoyed from the last few weeks.
Ryan Rigney does a dive into how the existing and mature live service products are shifting the game dev market.
My TL;DR: Live Service may not be the path to success it was once thought to be!
Joakim Achren takes a look at some of the Web3/Crypto madness of the last few years through the lens of an investor, and also with the insight of a founder who built a Web3 game during the craze.
My TL;DR is probably a bit different from Joakim’s. He asks the question, “When will the next crypto boom be?” and for me, that question looks more like, “What makes you think a next boom WILL happen?”
Ryan and Joakim are both insightful writers who have a lot to contribute, so I hope you get a chance to check out their work.
That’ll wrap it up for this week!
Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you…
—>Courses built by game devs for game devs - check out “Succeeding in Game Production” HERE.
—>Regular deep dives on critical game development topics on the BBG podcast
—>I’ve helped many high-profile game studios save a ton of money & time through building clear vision and leveling up leadership. If you’d like to work with me, please reach out at [email protected].
“Action expresses priorities.”
“One thing at a time, all things in succession. That which grows fast withers as rapidly; and that which grows slow endures.”