The Trooper

The trooper was pissing him off. The workhorse of the game. The plasma trooper.

The cubicle was a pool of lamplight in the darkness, amidst a small labyrinth of other "cubes". Don was the last one there. In "design-crunch", cranking in extra hours on the design to deliver to the team, so it could get to work Monday without confusion or delays. He was tired. The others had gone to see the new movie that was the buzz there, but he had opted out. He was sucking it up, as he had done before. That's what it took.

He had defined the unit properties days ago. Starting with the "workhorse" - the plasma infantry. Now he was on the advanced units - anti-grav tanks, heavy walkers, psion floaters. Giving special attacks, special powers. Making them unique to their factions. Now coming back to the plasma troopers he realized he had defined the properties in a way that wouldn't work.

They were trying a new combat feature, one mainly relevant to the advanced units. But he built the unit properties starting from this workhorse unit the plasma infantry, and working out to where he was now - adding the desired features to the advanced units one at a time. He realized this now made plasma infantry untenable. It wasn't just a data balancing issue - the key combat ability depended on how they deployed, but they weren't supposed to deploy this way. Anyway it now looked like he had to rip them apart and rebuild, but in so doing he was going to have to rip apart all the units and start over. Now he was trying to figure out if there was a cheat, some way he could use to utilized the existing unit data structure and just append a new property so he didn't have to go back and rebuild it all. He tried one, but he knew it would have this weird effect that the plasma infantry would be more powerful than some of the advanced units, throwing everything off.

Whose idea was this goddamn new feature anyway? Oh, that's right: it was his. Well, it was, originally... in a different form, based on an idea he got from a story he read. But it somehow got changed when he talked to the producer. Got really changed to something... unrecognizable now, really. But they were there committed to doing it. So here he was... Ah, shit. That's right. Get it done. Suck it up.

He was hashing things in his mind. He pushed the chair back from his workstation. Closed his eyes and rubbed them. Turned his brain off for a moment.

This sort of thing was par for the course in design.

What's the time? God, it's past midnight.

He hadn't slept much the prior night either. Lately, sometimes when he stood the ground would spin. He thought it might go away, it was just fatigue, but maybe he should see a doctor.

"Hey, Don."

He recognized the voice of Chris, the receptionist. He looked up, but didn't see her. What was she doing here? He knew they had given her a task, but the receptionists never crunched like the rest of them. (They were sane.) Maybe she was playing solitaire and lost track of time.

"What's up?" he asking, standing up. She must be in the front room.

Chris was nice. Had a warm smile, and a good sense of humour though stuck admist a crew of mostly male geeks who lived in odd sand castle worlds. Sometimes when he passed by her in the morning and said hello he got this vague feeling she was looking around the place in a kind of disbelief - like it was some kind of a trick being played on her. That she was an ordinary person who went to work in a strange Neverworld Disneyland. Her eyes seemed to betray a feeling that at any moment someone would point out the hidden camera trained on her, but that she was going along with it anyway, staying in on the joke, even though no one would admit to it. After all, it was a good job.

He remembered one time, working on a title similar to this, Chris walked by his cube and saw a grunt unit on the screen like the one Don was working on now. The walking animation attracted her it seemed, and she looked down and started to ask about the little trooper, who he was, what he was doing, what his name was, what his dreams and ambitions were. It seemed an odd thing to ask, Don thought.

"There's someone here for you," Chris said.

What? At this time?

"Who is it?"

"I really think you need to come here."

Don got up, walked toward the reception. As he turned the corner something struck him as odd. From here, across the cube farm, he could always see clear through to reception at the other end of the studio. But it was empty.

"He's waiting."

Chris again. From somewhere else. Maybe she went to get this person a soda.

He shrugged. "Okay." Walked to reception.

He looked at the floor, the carpet sliding by, as he walked. Rubbed his forehead. It was probably someone back from the movie; maybe they left something. But why would they...?

Into reception and-

Dead stop.

He stared, and the breath rushed out of his lungs.

"Reporting in," it said.

What the fuck? "Ummm... What are you?"

"Five Delta, reporting in."

This must be some joke. The guys were back, yah... But that costume! My god, it looked real! They must've had it custom built. It looked just like-

"Wow, that's good, guys," Don said as he looked around to see where the others were hiding. He walked over to get a closeup look, to touch the battle armor.

The trooper stood rock still.

Don touched the costume and stopped dead. He was expecting to feel vacuum-formed plastic or styrofoam or something. That's not what it felt like.

It was metal. He looked closely at the details on the equipment belt. Holy shit that looks real. The trooper's... plasma rifle: it was radiating heat! The visor covering his helmet: pocked and scratched from shrapnel. He looked at the visor, could not see the face, the eyes behind it. But vaguely he sensed it... looking at him.

"No fucking joke, sir," the trooper said.

What the hell was this?, Don wondered. This is impossible.

"Who are you?"

The trooper slung the plasma rifle over his shoulder. "I already told you, sir. Five Delta reporting in."

Don didn't know what to say.

"The situation is this," said the trooper. "Our platoon is holed up in an outpost waiting for reinforcements. They are going to get overrun if they don't get help. The commander sent me because all the guys in my squad are dead anyway..."

Don rubbed his heys. The room started to spin slightly.

"I don't want to lose those men, sir. The commander told me you would know what to do."

Don looked away, then at the trooper. This wasn't happening.

The trooper walked up to him. "You know who I am right?"

Don stared at him.

The trooper took his mask off. A face emerged from behind, looking at Don in the eyes. It scared the game designer.

"You know who I am don't you."

Don was freaking. "Fuck! Yah, I know who you are. I made you!"

The trooper's eyes narrowed. "You telling me you've got nothing for me? No orders? No reinforcements? Nothing to bring my men?"

"Your men! What men? Hell, I spawned your men! If they all die I'll just respawn them again. They're just a class. A type. An entity declaration. A property set, nothing more."

The trooper looked steadily at Don. Don didn't like the feeling the look gave him.

"What the fuck do you want with me?," he yelled at the trooper.

The trooper took a step back and looked up at the ceiling toward nothing in particular. Don saw his whole expression change for a moment. For the barest moment. As if a stone cracking into softness, if that could happen - he saw it in his eyes.

Then the hardness swept back over his face. The trooper dropped the plasma gun. He dropped his helmet. He took off his equipment belt. Next his chest armor. The rest of it. All clattering off, lying in a big heap on the ground. Stripping down to basic fatigues. He stood over it, looking at Don now.

"This is yours," the trooper said. "This pile of junk."

Don said nothing.

"It's useless without me, but it's what you know."

Suddenly the trooper turned, sharply, with honed reflexes. Slid out the door.

"Wait," Don said, running after him. Running out, he caught a glimpse of the trooper, flying silently down the stairwell. Moving fast, as if on some secret mission. Don ran after him. The trooper went past the ground floor. He went down into the basement. Don found himself underground somehow, the plasma trooper ahead moving as a shadow through the chambers and tunnels. But he couldn't keep up. The trooper slipped away, disappeared from view.

* * * * *

Don sat in his cube. The spinning had faded.

What happened? God, he needed rest.

He looked again at the spreadsheet. At the logic sequence for the current cell. He knew he had a long way to go. Needed to soldier on to get it done - brute force, power his way through this design.

The numbers looked back at him. The mechanism and matrix he made. Something about it seemed confused. He thought again about soldiering through. And he felt confused.

He didn't like that feeling.

He thought of the trooper.

He thought of the game. What were they trying to do with it?

He thought long and hard, but it seemed the more he thought the less he could see.

What time was it? My God it's late. He needed to sleep.

Still he couldn't shake this. What happened? What did he see?

Somehow, this didn't bode well.

He looked at the calender on his cube wall. He saw the days til the next milestone. But then he flipped through the months. And in his mind he flipped through the years. The years ahead. They looked grey.

He thought of the trooper, the real one he met for a moment - slipping out, away from his life. Suddenly he longed to speak to the trooper. Questions came, flooding, but knew he couldn't ask them. Because he was gone. Because he missed the chance.

And for a moment, for a second, it scared him. Something about the years ahead of him. It scared him. Just for a second...

It didn't bode well, and he knew it.

It did not bode well.

Dead Game Designers Society

A classroom. The first day of school. Sam, Mike and several other young students, all uniformly dressed uniquely, file in.

Teacher: Hello. Have a seat. Welcome to Game Design 101. No time to waste - open your assigned textbook.

The class sit at the evenly-spaced desks then dutifully retrieve and open their thick textbooks.

Teacher: Sam, is it?

Sam: Yes.

Teacher: Please read. Page one.

Sam flips to the correct page.

Sam: (reading) Central to the issue of game design is the notion of fun. It goes without saying that you, as a prospective game designer, wish to create a game that is fun. What is fun? How do we achieve it in our game designs? (pause) A methodical analysis of the problem of fun points us to techniques we may use to ensure our products deliver this core commodity. Examine, if you will, figure one.

The teacher walks to the whiteboard at the front of the classroom. Mike retrieves his laptop, flipping it into tablet mode. Sam continues.

Sam: Assuming for a moment we take the setting or genre of our game as a constant - say, a routine science-fiction or military shooter, it doesn't matter which - we may then isolate its quantity of fun in the form of a chart. Across the bottom is the axis of playing time, which can also signify the progression of levels. The height of our table forms the axis of playing action, which is a measure of the number of significant interactions the player must execute via the interface in order to progress through the game (a value we can easily isolate through keystroke recording).

The teacher draws a corresponding chart on the whiteboard. Mike duplicates the chart framework on his tablet. Sam reads on.

Sam: We can then shape the volume and density of significant interactions in a rising manner over the game's time axis so as to assure our game is easy at the beginning and then difficult at the end.

The teacher plots a line on the chart, moving in a wiggling manner across it in a gradually upward motion. Mike mimicks the line with his stylus.

Sam: This analytical methodology has been proven to yield the optimal output of fun per unit of time. If we then multiply this quantum by the graphic quality factor (which will be addressed in chapter three) we can go on to interpolate a total appeal quantum for the game. We must however define certain-

Teacher: Okay, Sam.

Sam stops reading. The teacher examines the whiteboard for a moment.

Teacher: Excrement.

The teacher turns to the class. The class looks at him in silence. Mike stops drawing.

Teacher: Excrement! Rubbish. Horse-hockey. Can you think of any other words?

Mike deletes the chart he just drew.

Student: (surprised) You mean, garbage?

Teacher: (points) Exactly!

The teacher moves in among the class and crouches.

Teacher: Students, gather in. Huddle up, huddle up.

The students crowd in around the teacher.

Teacher: (low voice, almost a whisper) I'm gonna tell you a secret. Anyone who knows basic math and can use a calculator can analyze a game design to figure this shit out. This will tell you how much activity the design generates - how well your game will distract the player until he is distracted by the next game with loud graphics and marketing. But it can't tell you one key thing...

Mike: Which is...?

Teacher: Why? Why make the game? And therefore, why play it? Why playing it will make you feel alive! Unless you ask why - and ask that not within the confined context of gaming, but out in the open context of human experience; of a living breathing human being who chooses to devote his time to playing your game as opposed to reading a good book, starting a new business, visiting his relatives, travelling to the Himalayas... or any other healthy thing that contributes to the human race! Unless you ask why, and speak on those terms, you won't have a goddamn clue how to make anything fun. How to make it really compelling.

Silence.

The teacher stands and walks to the front.

Teacher: Now I want you to rip that page out of your book.

Mike: What?

Teacher: You heard me. Rip it out. In fact, rip out the whole first chapter.

The students meekly begin to tear pages out of their textbooks.

Sam: But I paid fifty dollars for this book!?!

Teacher: How ironic, Sam.

The tearing of pages slowly picks up its pace.

Teacher: Come on, I'm not hearing enough ripping!

Sam starts to tear the pages. He looks at Mike. They smile.

(To be continued...)

What They Don't Tell You On The Game Design Job Description...

Lead Game Designer - [City, State]

Job Code: 8995836438
Job Category: Designer
Job Location: [City, State]

Job Description:

[Company] is seeking an experienced Lead Game Designer to join our team developing games for [console] and other next-generation platforms. The ideal candidate will have developed and released multiple games in the role of Lead Designer. Experience on consoles, handhelds, or casual games is highly valued. We are located in [some bland suburban place with cheap rent; you can't walk, bike or take transit there, ensuring you pile on extra pounds and diabetes] minutes [via car] from [big exciting metropolis, which we are too cheap to have an office downtown in] and we have a highly collaborative, low ego culture headed by game industry veterans [meaning we want you to be passionate... but not THAT passionate...].

Responsibilities:

• Lead the overall design vision for the game [Yes, we want you to be a visionary. Visionaries, we acknowledge, are seers, prophets, people who can read the future, or who, through their sheer passion and willingness to suffer for a cause, create the New which society depends on to shed the Old so that we may all experience rebirth. Or at least, this is what visionaries have been through all of human history. Well, that's what they tell me at least... I know there's some guys around here who "reject the notion that the visionary must suffer over their art". 'Course they've been working in the industry for fifteen bloody years and never produced much you could call "visionary" - maybe some nicely done stuff, but visionary? C'mon... Anyway, this is why we are hiring you. To be the visionary...]
• Drive the game design through every phase, from concept, presentation, implementation, tuning, and release [Yes, all the prosaic and necessary work you have to do. You will have passion to do this game somebody else told you to do.]
• Develop working and final design documentation, including but not limited to play mechanics, game systems, asset lists, and game fiction [You know: all the nitty-gritty stuff. I mean, all that "vision" stuff, well, that's okay, you know. As long as it fits inside these formatting requirements, that's okay. Did we say you were a visionary? Even visionaries need to learn the tools, right.]
• Foster consensus and enthusiasm for the game vision within the development, production, and marketing teams [Did we say you had a vision? Well, if you really had a vision, like Moses or Van Gough or Stanley Kubrick or whatever, well, it's only a vision if we say it's a vision. I mean, you didn't really believe it was, you know, a real bonafide vision did you? We don't need any weirdos here, sorry.]
• Collaborate across departments on level and asset creation to deliver exceptional and compelling play experiences. [Right, again. That "vision" thing. If the lead artist thinks it's too, like "out there" for him. Well, the vision thing just has to be... You know... It has to be a nice little vision. One we can all agree on.]
• Oversee and assess work created by other game designers on the project. [You know all this shit we're saying to you now? Well, here we need you to say it to them. Easy. Next...]
  
• Ensure the vision is realized within the game. [Ah yes... The vision... That one that we all have to agree on... The one that flooded your mind's eye with a white light; but then - in grasping its size, its sheer magnitude, the depth of its beauty - left you in a pool of hopelessness for its fleeting retreat from you; a hopeless struggle with yourself over the possibility you might ever truly attain it. The one that left you in the dark of the soul's night, wrestling with the slings and arrows of your misfortune. That made you wonder how you wasted your life on a dream; a dream that somehow you might have made a game that bettered the human lot... That held a mirror to the world and the human story, and given not only entertainment... not only gratification... but insight. Insight... Yes, that vision... Well, I have the number of a good shrink here...]
• Assume responsibility for ensuring the critical and commercial success of the product. [Right. It's gotta be critically and commercially successful, plus we all have to agree on it before it goes out the door. And even though we will compromise your vision, and you will not only accept that you will damn well like it - you (not us, you) are on the hook to make sure it makes money. Don't fret about it being a critical success - any game with 90fps, a million polys and "insane physics" is a critical success these days (lame-ass "game journalists"). What we really need is for that beyotch to make us the dough. But don't worry, if it does make millions, and it really was your vision (one you somehow got past the group's consensus; one that, through compromise, did reveal itself as an acceptable version of "your vision"), don't expect you will either get your name on the box or even a slice of the monetary return commensurate with your input. I mean, we like visions and all, but let's not go crazy here...]

Qualifications:

• Full product life cycle experience, with two previously shipped games. [Yes, did you say you had a vision? Well, okay as it happens, you have to have a vision, but we need guarantees here. I mean, we want you to be vocational - to feel you have a calling - but WE don't want to be the ones who take a chance on hiring you first, say if you came from another industry or fresh out of school or something. We need you to be professional, too. And indoctrinat-- erm... experienced. (What's that, Frank? Vocational and professional are opposite things? Sit down and shut up, Frank.) Where was I... I mean, vision or not, hell you could be some psycho off the street for all we know!]
• Excellent interpersonal and verbal skills. Able to communicate effectively and objectively with programmers, artists, and other designers. [If you actually say "no" to this sentence, you will be the only candidate in our 20-year history who has. In fact, Frank, can you tell me why in hell we have this sentence here again? I think this is the idiot-test question.]
• Demonstrated ability to motivate and lead other team members. [That means two things: one you describe your vision, but then when the team cuts it down you just shut the hell up and take it. Two: you really get around to doing what we want you to do, to transform your vision into something everybody in the group - from the topmost producer to the lowliest QA guy - can get... can understand... right off the bat. Because believe me, if we don't understand it right away, it ain't gonna fly. I mean, who the hell do you think you are, Stanley Kubrick or somethin'? There ain't guys like that in game dev, boy. Let me tell you.]
• Passion for games and the ability to articulate that passion clearly and analytically. [Frank, this is another one of them sentences we left in for why?... Because everybody else has it in their job spec? Yah. Okay, candidate. Listen. I'll be honest. Nobody here knows how to articulate a damn thing. We just kind of talk a lot out of our asses. We say "cool" and "like" and "whoah" a lot. And we don't know how to write worth a damn. Just go with it, it'll work... But now tell us you can articulate. It's a hoop. Jump for me baby, jump.]
• Clear and concise writing ability demonstrable through writing samples. [Not that anybody will read that shit anyway. I mean, you know, you'll write it down then we'll glance at it, MSN your ass over to our cube and just ask you to explain it all anyway, like with talk, right. Though I will agree, we mainly do that because all the game designers we had before, well, frankly, maybe ten percent of these game designers can write worth a damn, if that. Most are wannabe screenwriters or novelists who write these gawdawful specifications that go on and on and on, but are preciously dry on actual specification. The rest are essentially gamers-at-heart (I don't care how many years under their belt) who produce cluster-fucking messes of exposition on what the game "can" or "might" or "could" be, full of useless info like how many stun bullets are in the main character's sidekick's familiar's ankle-holster pistol (which is an owl by the way, the familiar that is), interspersed with masses of inconsistent numbers and acronyms that are so confusing the programmers just send the poor bastards out for Starbacks and then sort it out on their own time... Ah, we know you'll say yes to this question anyway, so just say yes and get it over with. We don't pay much attention to it anyhow...]
• Willing and able to travel internationally at least once per quarter. [Yep. Of course, we're going to drag your ass across the continent already to take this job, maybe even from another country (and that is after a different company dragged your ass to an entirely different continent for a different job) - and unbeknownst to you we really expect this job to evaporate after this game is done (in which case you will have to move thousands of miles again), unless somehow it turns into a hit franchise (in which case your ass will be stuck remaking this "vision" over and over and over in umpteen sequels until we've milked it for all it's worth. Bitter irony for a visionary, huh?). Anyway, we heard about this thing called the Internet, that would let you maintain a stable life in one place so you could work remotely and move around as a free agent from project to project and develop your creative breadth, and which, come to think of it, we could use to hire the best designers out there as well... But as I said above, we don't like free agents, and we don't really read any of the design shit you guys write anyway, and we want you to stand over us at the desk and tell us how the game works while we code it (I think they call that Xtreme Programming or something); or at least how you say it works [we'll have a say about that - vision or no]. So I hope you're ready to rack up some air miles, buddy...]
• College degree or equivalent game industry experience. [Again, you could be some weirdo off the street for all we know. (Of course, I won't bother to mention the supreme irony that our "creative" director has a software engineering degree. The guy you're replacing made the mistake of trying explain to him what compositional aesthetics were, or some damn like that.) Anyway, we heard that in other creative professions - like writers, musicians, web designers and whatnot - they make decisions based exclusively on portfolios and stuff, but in game design we know your work on your last project is so totally enmeshed with the work of everyone else on your team - and again, the design or "vision" you had that last one is so totally different from the actual piece of software they churned out - that we need to make all these little bullshit hoops for you to jump through to figure we are doing our job in really screening you. Because to tell the truth, I have been so indoctrinated in making software code that I have forgotten any really deep understanding of people I might have picked up from English classes way back in high school...]

Desirables:

• Developed and shipped multiple titles as a Lead Designer or other lead role. [Again... you ain't some weirdo, are you? We need proof, right. Hoops, baby...]
• Proven track record with AAA console products and/or online game development. [Again... vision or no... we want proof. Not that it really means anything, or really does prove that this new game you or anyone else will be worth a damn, but it's comforting to us... Think of all those shitty games out there made by people with "proven track records"...]
• Significant experience in another game development role; preferably art or engineering. [Okay, this is helpful. Helps if you know what the other guys go through. Frank, you were smart on this one. Gotta recommend you for a raise. What's that Frank? You say that for a game designer maybe it would help if he had work experience in a field outside game development? To try to break out of the self-insulated, derivative nature of game development? Jeezus Frank! Stop making this harder than it already is, all right!...]
• Demonstrated ability to work under tight schedules and reliably hit milestones. [Okay, yah yah. You got us! All this vision stuff... Yah, okay, we admit it. It's all just bullshit. What we really want is for you to crank something out as fast as possible so we can hit the milestone deadlines. Yah, I heard that visionaries might take years, sometimes go over budget or over schedule. I also heard some visionaries weren't so self-indulgent, but that with a little support - a little actual belief in what they were doing - they could crank out some good stuff in a damn short time. But damnit! We don't move at the pace of the creators here! I don't care how many countless successful films, pieces of software, music albums, books, volumes of scientific work or what have you that took so long to make yet weren't released until they were ready. See, that stuff was for real. For real, man. This is just game development! I mean, look at me. Look at me! We both know this ain't really significant shit, right? It's just, you know... games man! Nothing major. Just some poor dope wasting his life away in his basement. Right? You do agree, right? Right? Might as well take some of his minimum-wage burger-job money while we can, right? Well, maybe we could create something of value for him and the rest of the human race, but I don't think we should look into that. Much better to just churn out entertaining garbage that doesn't challenge or demand much. I mean don't you agree? That we feed him white bread? That we don't really take this stuff seriously?... Don't you agree?... Don't you?...]

[Whoah! Got carried away there. Tryin' to prove somethin' to myself. Tryin' to avoid somethin', maybe. All this talk about visions... Anyway...] Please submit your resume (in MS Word format) with cover letter with “Lead Game Designer” in the subject line.

Please note that only qualified applicants will be contacted.

Gamecock and Other Schemes

Maybe you've heard about Gamecock - the new publisher that is going to focus on an unmet need - getting indie games out there. Their entry into the world of game publishing is sorely needed. Well...

I appreciate Gamecock's entry into this business but, you know what, in a way they are still playing yesterday's game. They say we all need to lighten up. I say we need to grow up. I laud their courage to jump into the fray, but I don't need to be talked to like a teenage kid who needs sugar pops to convince him to eat his vegetables. I am a game designer who just wants a square deal. Talk to me straight. All this jumping around says to me you aren't entirely convinced of what you're doing. If you're self-confident you don't need a chicken suit.

The main question I want to ask is this: How is this Gamecock business model coming to terms with the reality of outsourcing and the complexity of game development and production today? You honestly think an indie game developer can do all and be all like it could in the 8-bit days? You need to come to terms with the reality on the ground now; and that is outsourcing.

People don't understand outsourcing. They think it's primarily about sending work to China to get it done cheaper. Wrong! It's about growing up. It's about being professional. It's about deepening your view of design, and that means going off and pursuing a thing to its farthest ends, even if that means we must leave others behind. When we were kids we built tree forts and played the Three Musketeers and swore we would never leave each other and that we would live in the same neighbourhood and go to the same school forever. And we made games like that - as if we were really playing in a playground. (That's understandable. They're games after all...)

Well, reality check. Games are too complex now, the game audience too sophisticated, the possibilities of the medium fracturing into too many complex offshoots. Design needs to follow suit. (Why do you think they complain about how dreary games have become?) People who make games need to specialize because the challenge of making the individual parts simply requires too much expertise. And the challenge of doing something new needs the fire, dedication and evangelizing that only individuals can bring. That's what outsourcing is about. I mean do you honestly think you can support both game developer stability and innovation. Come on? Innovation has always been financially risky. If you want to be part of a company that is stable and lives forever make a service company and hire yourself out to others. If you want to design innovative new games, design them - but don't expect a smooth ride of it. Any team will always want stability. If you want to explore, you have to strike out for the wilderness - in very small, agile groups, or even on your own. That is what the next generation of designers must be prepared to do.

Maybe you watched the TV show "America's Got Talent". If so you would remember a telling moment when one of the judges told one musician that he was brilliant, but his musical partner (who was his brother) was medium-good at best and if he wanted to be serious about his career he needed to strike out on his own. Naturally, the musician didn't want to hear that - he loved his brother. But do you understand the need to sacrifice? This is what people need to do if they want to bring something to its fullest, strongest potential. They need to sacrifice, including the collective mentality. Frank Capra said he knew of no great work of art created by committee. Michael Caine expressed the idea that the more decision-makers there are on a team, the higher the chance of something getting messed up. Any coder or engineer can tell you - the more working parts that need to interact, the higher the chance the design will be flawed. It's the same thing with game design. If a talented designer drafts a breathtakingly original design, the more people he has to sell (including teammembers in today's finance-prototyping-out-of-your-own-pocket indie dev model), the more likely it will go wrong, or not get off the ground to begin with.

I specialized. I am a game designer now. That's all I do. I write design docs and I work on improving design for other companies. I contribute to games what they need. I see that the teams I often work with are all very insular, very "group-think" and collectivist - but I am not constrained to this. This means when everyone in the team says "yes yes yes" to a stupid idea just to follow suit - just to not get in the bad books of the others - I will be the lone guy who says "no, this sucks". Because I can be the bad guy. But that's okay. I'm not paid to be liked, I'm paid to do quality work. I specialize in certain types of games. I work for different companies. I move from game to game. Because I am professional. I follow the games, not the companies. Some companies do different kinds of games with the same team. I do different companies and teams but focussing on certain types of games. People talk about hiring me and the first thing I ask is "what is the game we are talking about". They find it an alien question, but to me it's the 600-pound gorilla in the room they never manage to talk about. When you want to hire designers, that should be the first thing to ask: Does this game fit this designer? People talk about design as if it is a factory position; as if it's one-size-fits-all. It has become that way in the big studios. And you wonder why so much dreck is produced. When I talk to recruiting game companies today they say they want to hire you to work for a company permanently. I reply that if anyone claims they are a really good game designer, why would they sign up to work for one company permanently? Such a designer will not cares what game title comes down the pipe, they will always see it as churning out pulp by formula.

I say if you are looking for a hot game designer why do you think this person would tolerate sitting still and sacrificing their vision to stay as part of a team? Static with whatever the team could consensually agree on. I means its nice to have friends but why wouldn't that person follow their vision wherever it took them?

I say that you have two issues here: production company quality and game design quality. A good production company IS a team. But a good designer is fundamentally an individual voice. Has to be. The two are mutually exclusive. The needs of the production company versus the needs of the design. Why? Because its plain conflict of interest. Because there will be a moment of disagreement between these elements, as there is between the needs of a building's architect and the needs of the construction company. At that moment, the team player will sacrifice their vision (which means it never was a vision in the true sense of the word) to go with the flow; the dedicated professional will uphold the fidelity of their vision (this also includes facing financiers who are rigidly married to deadlines, even at the expense of good work and burning out the production team). Mature professionals understand this, and can work around it. They negotiate. Immature people act like high school students and gossip destructively when someone isolates themselves.

To be honest, I don't give a good gawdamn about making a game company with a static roster of members and a static roster of games in the pipeline (say, 10 titles, all basically the same...). On the other hand, I care totally about making good games. A good game can live forever. Game companies, on the other hand, come and go. Again: growing up and facing the coffee. You either focus on making games or a game company. Today, if you want to be in a solid stable company, make one that provides services. Or become a marketing hub for various games external to you (which is what a publisher is; and, hate it as you may, they are a lot more stable than the developers). If you want to make games, though, welcome to the frontlines. Here's a helmet, keep your head down. There's no stability in it. At the indie level each game is effectively its own company. That's the reality. Even if the team bullheadedly says, "No. *This time* we'll make the awesome new game AND achieve financial stability." I don't think so. You're in a dream world.

Here's another idol to slay. Don't tell me that your game development company is full of people who have good ideas for games. So what? You can walk onto any film set, walk up to the microphone operator or the lighting person and ask them if they have a good idea for a movie. Odds are they'll say yes. So what are you doing being a factory worker? Why are you working on other people's product if you have such a shit hot idea? They'll say to pay the bills, but if you push them I sure you'll agree that hot idea has languished on their hard drive for years, collecting cobwebs. I could ask this of anybody in a game development company with a proverbial "great idea for a game". Why aren't you pursuing your great game idea? Either you really, deep deep deep down, don't believe in your idea, or you're just in it for the money and the steady gig. Or both. There's nothing wrong with wanting a steady gig, but realize that's what you want. If you have vision and passion, you will do what passionate visionaries do: lay it on the line. Risk failure. As GK Chesterton said, if you don't want to risk failure - if you absolutely have to succeed - you have to come late for the battle, once its half over, so you can be on the winning side. If you want to be a visionary, you have to be prepared to fight for seemingly unwinnable causes. Such as that new design everyone says won't work.

Gamecock this is what I think you should do. Package game projects. Focus on incubating game designs, not fledgling game companies. Take in the individual designs at the early level with the fewest number of people attached to them. The fewer the better. Stripped down small teams, like special forces units advancing far into hostile and dangerous territory. Let someone or a few people come to you with a design. Like they say in the film biz, focus on the script first. You can make a bad film from a good script, but you can't make a good film from a bad script. Same with design. Then develop the design with that tiny two or three person team, until it works. Let him/her/them make a tiny little prototype for you - even if its just a small flash game, or a pen-and-paper/board game you can play out on a table in your boardroom; just to test out core ideas - and work on the design design design! You'd be surprised at how much design bang you can get out of this, for absolutely miniscule buck. And if you get a design you like, but can't produce it now, nothing is lost. Put it into storage. Patience, young Jedi.

But if the design flies, package it! Attach a good technology solution: a programming company and a good engine license. Attach a good art production company; and a good QA company. These external players will all contribute to the design of course (in fact, they now hold significant creative power in their decision to endorse or not endorse a given project); but they will also have the stability that comes from being external and focussed on the work they do best, and on their own prosperity (their survival not tied to any particular game concept that may or may not fly). And on the other side, now the design is not constrained to an internal one-size-fits-all technology or art solution the way it must when you are game-company- rather than game-design-focussed. Alfred Hitchcock knew that 75% of his work as a director wasn't in the work he did on the set: it was in casting. Same here. It amazes me that game companies actually think that the art director who worked out so well on their horror game will have the same feel for their upcoming military game. Hey! Pay attention to casting! A technology or art person or solution that was good for a horror shooter is not necessarily good for a military RTS or what have you. It might be a tiny little difference, but professionals focus on tiny little differences (as they all add up). Let the designer focus on what they are good at: developing an original game concept, writing it up as a design document, and then working with the team for the duration of the game as an individual, professional voice.

When production is over, let everyone exit, but in a way that they gain from the benefits of the IP that is created. This means, as before, let the game be its own company. You can negotiate residuals, license fees and so forth from there. But don't tie me to this team or this company. Again, I am design-focussed, not game-company focussed. I have 5 or 10 other game designs I am working on, and though, yes I like the guys in this team, I'm sorry but I also need to advance my designs, and these guys might not be right for this other design ("not right" is NOT to say that they aren't good; it's just that this other design might require a different feel or approach). That's the real nature of creative vision. It can't be - or shouldn't be - caged. Come to terms with that. The revolutionary things in life always broke the mould.

The focus of true game design is not fitting into a genre. That is formula design. Rather it is in creating new genres. That is a mysterious and risky thing. You claim to want to make these original games. Well, let's make them then.

Time To Roll Initiative...

My name is Grassroots Gamemaster. I work as a professional game designer. I have worked as a lone freelancer, with small teams I put together and managed, and on the staff of larger developers.

I call myself Grassroots Gamemaster for three reasons.

First, I need anonymity. I am here to speak candidly about this field, game development, and so need to protect myself. I am here to write honestly. I won’t speak in a diatribe tone, but I also wish to say that what follows won’t exactly be a rant. To call it a rant would be kind. I am here to eviscerate the mutant thing that has become game design. If a rant is a hand grenade then I am here to deliver a fucking thermonuclear explosion.

Yet no one shatters the foundations of anything in written form by screaming at the reader. The power to smash it to its very core, to drag the abomination kicking and screaming into the light of day, where it can whither and die – and also then let us heal from its harms – is something I intend to earn through good writing and a reasoned, passionate tone.

Next, the name elicits my roots – the heart I followed that brought me into game design. It invokes a spirit of gaming that I find sadly gone today. In my own life, yes, but also I think in our industry.

But before I get into those reasons, the remaining one is literal: I was a gamemaster in a small town. I was a grassroots gamemaster.

Think back to the 1980s (if you can). It is a day when gaming was rich and alive; on the fringes. I would dream up, write down and moderate – i.e. gamemaster – gaming adventures for all my friends. Our board games, wargames and roleplaying games were a springboard to tinkering and modding in all sorts of ways that let us follow our imaginations and dreams. I would devise homebrew rules and game systems and scenarios. We also had a lot of crazy adventures outdoors as well – insane live-action escapades that, today, would go by the tepidly dry, but comfortable and pigeon-holeable term “alternate reality” games. (I never tried our escapades in the city – when I moved there – because I was afraid of getting a SWAT team called after me.) Hey, it was a small town out in the wilderness.

There’s a difference between being a gamemaster in a small town and a city. I’ve done both. In my small town when I was young, before the Internet, there are so few hardcore gamers that you were forced to get along with those you could find. You were all each other had. In a big city, there are so many people with similar interests – no matter how obscure – you can afford to excise others out of your life and just focus on those few with the same narrow views as yours. It has the effect of reinforcing the eclectic – sometimes to the point of weirdness. There’s a monoculture to it – a retreat into self-insulating cliques, where gaming culture is not only creative but also a reinforcement of your fears and prejudices. It becomes sad, and is probably why many who were not gamers then looked down on these isolated souls with distaste.

But in my small town, my friends came from all walks of life. Their parents were professionals, moved here from all over – teachers, managers, engineers, et cetera. There was government, tourism and natural resources to manage, and so on. Their children, my friends and I, were the only ones into this new thing called gaming. Fantasy, sci-fi, military and spy roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons, Traveller, Recon, Twilight 2000 and Top Secret. Wargames like Squad Leader, from Avalon Hill and SPI. Tabletop miniatures like Striker and Warhammer. And, yes, Commodore 64 and video arcade games. We were the only ones who played, so we took pains to seek each other out; and then we had to get along, despite our differences, so we could game. We were different. Different backgrounds, different views. One of our gamers was the captain of the high school basketball team, popular right in the school mainstream (my sister would go ga-ga when he came over for a game session). Another, a joker. A few of us teachers’ sons. We came from all walks. Yes, we were nerdish, but not overly. I recall us being more “normal” than the stereotypical nerds of popular culture. What held us together was the glue of gaming – the love of the magic of it. And the one who took up the torch to make the adventures, to spin the worlds and devise the structures that made those worlds run, more often than not was me.

But now I find I have come to a place in my life where I ask hard questions about games and game design. I don’t like the answers that come back. I wonder where games fit into the larger human story. I look at the tremendous fun and adventure of those days way back when (which, really, I continued right on up through the 1990s), and they seem long gone. My gaming heart taken with them. What’s left? Gaming as an industry. As a way to make money. But dead. Dead inside.

I’m not the only one who feels this way. A friend of mine, a veteran designer working with a large company, reflected with me on games. What they have become. “Junk food for the mind” is how he so aptly put it. How did I arrive here? How did we arrive here?

I call myself Grassroots Gamemaster because that is the part of me that holds game design as a vocation. Today, in the outer worldgame design is treated exclusively as a profession. That is partly why it is so empty and hollow.

When I play a game – yes, a major first person shooter, for instance – there are vast questions that I find myself wanting to ask about the design and designers. Who are these people? Why did they design this? What does it mean? What is the thinking behind this design? What was there reasoning? Who wrote this? What is the feeling behind it? The industry looks back at me with a mute opacity. Something caused by that view that design is a profession not a vocation. That games are chiefly of a feat of technology and not of human imagination.

You know the difference between a vocation and a profession? One is done for the love of it; the other for money. That made by the other may be damn good, but no matter how good it looks, no matter how expertly executed, no matter how many external criteria are met, to the person with a beating heart and insight there is something dull, something dead in it. The former may have pennies (if that) for a budget, may result in 8-bit pixels or pencil sketches instead of elaborate 3D graphics, but there is something far more alive in it than everything a multi-million dollar mediocrity could ever hope to deliver.

A grassroots gamemaster designs games because he loves them. He doesn’t need the fancy technology because the reward comes from the look in the eyes of the players; the excitement in their voices. (If he can use his talent and experience to make good electronic games, so much the better – but that is not a primary motivator.) He plays them with his friends – in the same place, the same room – as a way to spin an adventure in the here and now; a spontaneous unplanned adventure that emerges out of the dialogue, the relationship, of the creator to the players. The game, indeed, serves as a catalyst to foster a larger relationship – one that goes beyond the mere confine of games. His passion for what he does is infectious. He just needs some room and a little time to weave this magic, and his friends are sure to join. He is a poet. He hasn’t forgotten what makes the best things tick.