Breaking The Wheel

Informal Power featured image of a rusty gate
– Posted Under: Business School Mini-Lesson, Management, Partnerships, Practical Guides, Production, Self-Improvement, Soft Skills, Tips for Indies Leave a comment

Informal Power, Or: Why It Always Pays To Be Polite

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines power as (among other definitions) “possession of control, authority, or influence over others”. Nothing terribly shocking there. But it’s worth digging into how power induces that influence. There’s the obvious, overt “Do this thing because I said to do the thing.” We’re all familiar with that one. But there’s also a different form of influence that comes not from influencing people, but circumstance. And on any given day, this informal power is far more likely to cause you grief.

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The Time Value of Fixes Featured Image of a Bug
– Posted Under: Management, Operations, Practical Guides, Production 3 Comments

The Time Value of Fixes, Or: A Fix in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush

The premium game model of development has a general cadence: pre-production, production, alpha, beta, and certification. There are variants of course, but that tends to be the gist of it. Alpha, beta, and cert are, of course, where we divert our attention from making features to the grueling task of fixing bugs. And, dear lord are those weeks painful. One house of cards to the next. But that’s just how it’s done, right? Yes that’s how it’s done. But it’s also incredibly inefficient. This model of delayed quality assurance means we fix bugs when it is maximally expensive to do so: at the end. After they’ve been buried under other bits of code that rely on those bugs being broken in exactly the way they are broken.

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Game Planning With Science Preface Featured Image
– Posted Under: Game Planning With Science!, Management, Operations, Production, Tips for Indies 1 Comment

Discovery Versus Process – A Preface to Game Planning With Science!

How can we wrap our heads around the chaos of game development? By understanding that the famous phrase “find the fun” implies something important: discovery. How do you manage the creative process? By acknowledging the latter word of the phrase: process. If you can understand how those terms related – and where they differ – you can appreciate something vital to effective production. That nothing we do in game development is completely devoid of process. And, if you can learn to separate the process from the discovery, then science becomes a weapon against the dark forces of development hell.

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Perfection Is The Enemy Of Productivity featured image of Paste Pot Pete
– Posted Under: Founding, Management, Production, Self-Improvement, Tips for Indies 3 Comments

Perfection is the Enemy of Productivity, Or: Why You Should Be Like Stan and Jack

I will continue to tell anyone who will listen that Jim Collins’ Good to Great is the best business book I’ve ever read. Or, at least I will until I read something better. And in that wonderful tome, Collins’ presents a mantra: good is the enemy of great. His meaning: by being content with simply eeking along (being good), you will never take the steps necessary to be great. I totally agree with him, but I think there’s a corollary: perfection is the enemy of productivity.

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Black Shell Media Corporate Logo
– Posted Under: Founding, Guest Post, Management, Operations, Soft Skills, Strategy, Tips for Indies 3 Comments

New Guest Post: If You Want To Lead, Know Your Values

This week’s post…is hosted elsewhere. I wrote a guest post for my new friends at Black Shell Media. The post, “If You Want to Lead, Know Your Values”, is about a topic near and dear to my heart. Values matter to any organization, no matter the size. They matter from a company culture standpoint, certainly. But they also matter operationally and strategically. The most successful companies in the world have well-defined corporate values. But what are their values and, more importantly, how should you pick your own? Click this link to read on!

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A picture of guest post author Tom Ketola
– Posted Under: Founding, Legal Concerns, Partnerships, Practical Guides, Tips for Indies Leave a comment

Real World Contract Law

If you’re both the entrepreneurial type and the game developer type, then Tom Ketola is your guy. Tom and I were brothers-in-arms at Wideload Games, where we shared a love of profanity, terrible fashion sense, and a complete disregard for status quos. Tom’s career includes stints at Activision, Jaleco, Konami, and Midway. And that’s just his career in the games industry. He’s also been involved in a number of start-ups, and seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of contracts. After reading my post about conversations for studio co-founders, Tom had a, shall we say, voluminous round of comments on the nuances of shares, acceleration, and vesting. Rather than abandoning me to badly interpret his thoughts, he took pity and offered to share his experience with all of you. I leave you in his capable, knowing, manly hands. Enjoy!

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An image of a director, because they direct game advertisements
– Posted Under: Advertising, Management, Marketing, Partnerships, Practical Guides, Production, Strategy, Tips for Indies, Video Game Marketing 1 Comment

Game Advertisement Review: How To Effectively Critique Your Ads

In the corporate world, as a general rule, marketers and brand managers do not get involved in the creative aspects of advertising. Their job is to determine the strategy behind an ad campaign and then let the professional creatives do their thing. The job of the brand manager is to ensure that the ads are on strategy, but to leave the actual creation to the pros. Of course, as game developers, we are the creative pros. So that guiding principle just doesn’t sit right with me in the context of game development. Besides, I’d guess many or most indie studios probably can’t afford to hire professional creative agencies or trailer makers. So, to make the best use of the post, I’m going to walk through some of the important concepts behind ad creation. I’ll leave the decision as to who will craft the ad to you.

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A picture of a director in a chair, because we're talking about advertising strategy. Look, I'm tired, alright?
– Posted Under: Advertising, Management, Marketing, Practical Guides, Strategy, Tips for Indies, Video Game Marketing 2 Comments

Video Game Advertising Strategy: Ladders, Bridges, And Sniper Rifles

Everyone knows what advertisements are and why they are necessary to drive awareness. But making an effective ad is not as simple as just slapping some captured video into a YouTube upload and calling it a day. Your target audience is bombarded by ads all day, every-day. Your conscious mind spends much of its life practically bathing in them. So crafting a successful ad means assembling something that can cut through all of the noise and provide information that will stick. And the first step is determining a strategy for your ads.

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A crossed out rubber stamp, because the law of one price says copies are bad!
– Posted Under: Business School Mini-Lesson, Management, Strategy Leave a comment

The Law of One Price – A Business School Mini-Lesson

Finance is hardly the most riveting topic, especially compared to video games. But, if you want to run an effective studio, you need to understand it. The implication of financial theory don’t just apply to your bank account. It should impact the calculus behind any strategic decisions. In this post, I talk about the “Law of One Price” and why it should give you pause before trying to imitate a successful game’s design.

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An image of a white space analysis diagram
– Posted Under: Design, Marketing, Practical Guides, Strategy, Tips for Indies, Video Game Marketing 2 Comments

White Space Analysis: Avoiding The Commoditization Trap

Marketing has the same basic premise as football, judo, and hacking: find the opening and exploit it. In terms of your competition, the opening is known in marketing as the “white space”: the area of the canvas without any color. How does one identify the white space? With a simple exercise called, appropriately enough, a white space analysis.

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