They may not make a ton of sense if you weren’t there, since I used the slides as visuals to highlight or counterpoint what I was saying.  I plan to do the talk again at Boston Post Mortem at some point, and when I do, I’ll either get it recorded or update my notes to high enough quality that I can post them.

Death of an Indie Studio
Wyvern Theatre
Friday, 3:00pm – 4:00pm

This year, Boston area indie studio Macguffin Games closed its doors. In three years, Scott Macmillan took the studio from a one-man shop to a 4-person startup with paid employees, launched two games (one of them for Facebook), and then finally shut the whole thing down with no regrets. At this talk, he’ll discuss the big lessons he learned, what worked and what didn’t, and take lots of questions from the audience.

Just Because You Have an Idea, You Are Not a Game Designer
Wyvern Theatre
Saturday, 10:30am – 11:30am

Many of us have worked with some amazing designers over the years, and they are much more than walking idea factories. Passion for concepts is great, but don’t confuse passion for skill. In this panel we’ll talk about the characteristics that make a good game designer, and specific skills we look for when hiring on new talent. We’ll also spend some time to point out the differences between good ideas for projects, theoretically good ideas, and bad ideas that you think are good.

Panelists include: Ichiro Lambe [President, Dejobaan Games], Chris Oltyan [Producer, Dire Wolf Digital], Eitan Glinert [President, Fire Hose Games], Scott Macmillan [President, Macguffin Games]

Start Your Own Damned Company
Cat Theatre
Sunday, 4:30pm – 5:30pm

Sometimes, people have great ideas for games. We’re happy for you, we are. But you know what? Our studio isn’t gonna help you realize your vision, and chances are no other company will. It’s shocking, but the reason we dove headfirst into the start-up ocean full of shattered dreams and razor blades was because WE ACTUALLY HAVE A GREAT IDEA FOR A GAME TOO! If you really feel passionately about your idea and want nothing more than to see it live then go make it your own damn self, we’re busy. But we’ll throw you a bone with this helpful panel full of tidbits on how to get started. Let us regale you with tales of wonder and woe, led by our fearless moderator Ichiro Lambe. Only the brave will survive, no refunds.

Panelists include: Chris Oltyan [Producer, Dire Wolf Digital], Eitan Glinert [President, Fire Hose Games], Scott Macmillan [President, Macguffin Games], Ichiro Lambe [President, Dejobaan Games], Damian Isla [Director of Technology, Moonshot Games]

In essence, Macguffin as it was previously – a four-person full time team of developers – is no more.  But after looking at ways to wind things down, and taking some time to evaluate what I want to do with my spare time once I have a job, I’ve decided to keep Macguffin around for my future gaming projects.

One of the big things I’ve learned in doing the past three or so years of game development is that I really do love creating games, doing the coding and game design.  Since shutting things down and starting to look for a job, I’ve begun coding and designing again on my own – and I’ve been having a blast.  Regardless of where I land I fully plan to keep working on games and blogging about it.  Who knows, perhaps I’ll even have something for the market someday.

Right now I do not have plans to return directly to All Heroes Die.  I say this for Therlun’s benefit (I know you’re out there!).  The two big problems with AHD are the limitations of BlitzMax, and the sheer scope of the endeavor.  Neither of those gets solved by me working on it nights.  The most likely path forward is that at some point I do a game inspired by chunks of AHD, or redo the game with a slimmed down design in another language.

In the meantime, I’ve been working in Unity using C#, and may have some upcoming posts about how that’s  been.  It’s also near time for the IGDA to begin its elections, and if I can get some help, I plan to cover the candidates again.  More on that shortly.

Although we gave it a great try with Mustache Mercenaries, we weren’t able to turn things around fast enough to keep the company going.  We knew that was a risk when we started, and I’m not unhappy at all with what we accomplished with the time we had.  I’m thinking about doing some post mortem blog posts over the next couple weeks, and if I do, I’ll delve into some of what went right and wrong.

We’ll be leaving the Mustache Mercenaries servers up for now, but they’ll most likely come down in the next week or two.  So play now!

In regards to the Kickstarter – thank you to everyone that contributed.  In the end, even if we had hit our goal, that alone would not have been enough.  In order to keep the company going, we needed a couple things to break our way on the business side.  Sadly, they did not.

I started Macguffin Games because I love game development and although this company is going away, the people that  brought it to life are not.  We’re still here and will still be making games.  On my part, I’m looking forward to having more time to devote to various game projects, as well as to the excellent Boston indie community.  The experience of starting the company and of working on All Heroes Die and Mustache Mercenaries has been an amazing one; I have learned more in three years of doing this than I would have in 10 working at my old job.  I wouldn’t trade this for anything.

So, to our friends, two things.  One – thank you.  You’ve all been fantastic, and we wouldn’t have accomplished what we did without you.  Two – don’t be sad.  There is more and better to come for all of us.

In the meantime, don’t worry about Macguffin Games.  It was, after all, only a plot device.

We now have our first limited-time only item in the store, the amazing Turkey Cannon!  Available for for the paltry price of 35 coal.

It’s a fowl wind that blows turkeys your way.  Feather or not you like it, the Turkey Cannon is here!

• Engine Charge! – Up until now, the action on your engine did not do anything – it just skipped your turn.  Now, it adds one turn worth of steam.  Be careful!  Using this can get you from near empty to almost full steam in one full round… it’s easy to overload.  Let us know if you end up with any serious steam issues, like first turn explosions.
• Invitations – The invitation button at the left on your Friends’ bar now works.  Invite your friends to play as well!
• New Weapons and Robots – We’ve put a bunch of new higher powered weapons, robots, and other parts into the store.  There are items for both Steambucks and Coal.
• Encroaching Robots bug is fixed – We finally fixed the bug where robots will slowly migrate across the battlefield.
• “Locked” in store – the Store now tells you if an item is locked because you are too low level for it.
• Art on Battle Cards – We now have art for the battle cards.  More art will be going in over time.
• Special Borders for Coal Cards – The two cards you always have in your hand,
• Animations Hooked Up – We’ve hooked up a number of weapon animations that were previously all placeholders.  Laura Ingalls Wilder’s mailbox will no longer shoot fireballs.
• Robot Workshop Share Button - The Share button in the robot workshop now works.  We’ll be working on enhancements to that in the near future.
• Streamlined Combat Log – We’ve removed some unnecessary text from the combat log to streamline it.

Thanks!  Have a great weekend everyone, and email us at mmbugs@macguffingames.com if you have any issues.

In other news, we’ve launched a Kickstarter for Mustache Mercenaries.  We’ve tried to set it up with a number of interesting prizes, such as a sew-on patch for the Research Society for Rampant Robots, authentic Mrs. Macguffin Chocolate Chip Banana Bread, Limited Edition in-game items, and even having the Macguffin team take a weekend and make you a game!  Please go check it out.

We’ve been working hard on a revamp to the in-game store for Mustache Mercenaries, as well as putting in a number of small fixes and changes.  We plan to have the build up some time on Monday, at the latest Tuesday if something huge blows up.  We’ll keep you posted.

We’ve gone live with a new build of Mustache Mercenaries on Facebook.  Here’s what we’ve got:

Friends Bar!
Now you’ll be able to see a random selection of friends that are also playing Mustache Mercenaries on Facebook.  Not incredibly exciting in and of itself, we grant you that.  But!  We’ll be enhancing this as we go, and it leads directly to…

Dueling!
You can now duel your friends.  Each duel costs you one point of Energy, and you can duel your friends once every six hours.

This is a first pass on dueling so we can get your feedback.  We are planning on a bunch of additions to it in the future, including the addition of NPC allies on one or both sides of the fight based on differences in the power level of the robots.

Lots of bug fixes and tweaks!
We’ve also done a ton of work to make tweaks and fixes.  Such as:

• Fixed a handful of bugs that blocked progression in the game.
• The Plank Shield no longer allows the player or NPC to target anyone.  Now autotargets the wielder.
• Fixed a bug where all your robot’s slots would disappear while in the Robot Workshop.  Oopsie.
• Added an Exit button to the FIGHT! screen.
• A bunch more tooltips.  Buttons that don’t do anything yet now tell you that.  Display elements often tell you more than they used to about what they’re displaying.
• Story text is now larger on the FIGHT! screen.
• Fixed a number of the fight locations on the maps – more will be forthcoming when we get more map assets in there.
• Added two more mechs to the catalog for purchase.  You may also see these fellows in as enemies in some sections.
• Engines that used to often overload on the first turn have now been tweaked to not do so.
• Fixed the “null” cost on the Moderate Steam Engine.
• Added a tooltip to the Energy bar to explain why the time goes up so far if you’ve played a lot – once you pass 50 actions taken in a day, we slow down your rate of regeneration a great deal until the next day.

As always, please let us know if you find bugs or have comments and suggestions – we’re all ears, folks.

To tide you over, I give you this picture of our lead programmer Justin from this Halloween weekend:

Friends Bar!
Now you’ll be able to see all your friends that are also playing Mustache Mercenaries on Facebook.  Not incredibly exciting in and of itself, we grant you that.  But!  It leads directly to…

Dueling!
You can now duel your friends.  Each duel costs you one point of Energy, and you can duel your friends once every six hours.

This is a first pass on dueling so we can get your feedback.  We are planning on a bunch of additions to it after Monday, including the addition of NPC allies on one or both sides of the fight based on differences in the power level of the robots.
Lots of bug fixes and tweaks!
We’ve also done a ton of work to make tweaks and fixes.  Such as:

• Fixed a handful of bugs that blocked progression in the game.
• The Plank Shield no longer allows the player or NPC to target anyone.  Now autotargets the wielder.
• Fixed a bug where all your robot’s slots would disappear while in the Robot Workshop.  Oopsie.
• Added an Exit button to the FIGHT! screen.
• A bunch more tooltips.  Buttons that don’t do anything yet now tell you that.  Display elements often tell you more than they used to about what they’re displaying.

There’s more than this, but we’re still doing stuff – we’ll have the full set in the patch notes on Monday.

• We’ve added up and down arrows to the campaign screen.  Now, if you have more than three campaigns available, you will be able to see them all.
• The Fight button screen now preselects your earliest uncompleted location.
• Resolved other bugs with the Fight screen that created duplicates of the map locations.
• Now, when you swap weapons in and out in the Robot Workshop, your robot won’t get permanent extra weapon slots.
• We’ve altered some under-the-hood stuff for new players selecting starting robots.  This will hopefully prevent some wonkiness (that’s a technical term for it) we’ve seen with people starting the game.
• We think we’ve fixed a bug where sometimes, if you go into the Robot Workshop, then back to the lab, then to the Campaign Selection Screen, your campaigns would not load up at all.

Since our team is pretty small, it is difficult with some of these fixes to be 100% sure we nailed it – if you see anything that is still borked (another technical term), please drop us a line at mmbugs@macguffingames.com.  Thanks!

Mustache Mercenaries is now live! Welcome to the Beta!

We’re sure there are tons of bugs – we’ll be sorting them out as fast as we can, as well as adding new features.  If you run across bugs, please feel free to put them up in our discussion forum on Facebook, or to email them directly to us at mmbugs@macguffingames.com.

First, our wonderful logo screen.  We feel this one is self-explanatory.

Then, to the lab!  The lab is your hub for all activities in Mustache Mercenaries. When the beta launches this week, the two big features that you access from here are going into fights (via the glowing yellow map screen), and reconfiguring your robot (via clicking on the glowing green door).

You’ll also notice our genteel ambassador, Mr. Brain.  He’ll be spouting advice and nonsense for your benefit whenever you’re in the lab.

Finally, a battle!  Here we have Abraham Lincoln in a borrowed mech, fighting against some of John Wilkes Booth’s henchmen.

A number of the items here are placeholders – that toolbox in the lower part is a help button (Use your imagination! Tools are helpful!), and the big black square there is our placeholder art for Battle Cards.  Both of those will be replaced by Friday.

What are Battle Cards you ask?  Find out tomorrow!

We think there’s a ton of room on Facebook (and in the wider social media world) for quirky games that appeal to people already identifying themselves as gamers.  People that think all Facebook games are just like Farmville.  People (like myself) that just don’t have the time to play anything for hours at a time on their XBox… but still want to play a good game.

And in the end, who DOESN’T want to have JP Morgan in a giant robot with spats on?

We’re extremely pleased to announce the new Macguffin Game, Mustache Mercenaries.

Mustache Mercenaries is a turn-based game of robots.  Robots powered by steam!  Robots fighting each other!  Robots with pilots!  Pilots like… Laura Ingalls Wilder?

Well, yes.  In fact, Laura has been interrupted one too many times by people that want her to keep crops from withering and to build general stores, and she’s had it up to here.  I’d stand back if I were you.

Mustache Mercenaries is what happens when you decide that what the Little House on the Prairie needed was steam-powered legs and the ability to thrash someone with a mailbox.  It’s what happens when The Emancipator doesn’t refer to Abe Lincoln, but instead to his handy axe.  Said axe happens to be inscribed with a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, but that might just be coincidence.

At launch, we’ll have the main single player component of Mustache Mercenaries live – a series of campaigns where you can play Laura Ingalls Wilder, Abraham Lincoln, J.P. Morgan, and Harriet Tubman as they pilot their giant robots through old-timey America.  John Wilkes Booth doesn’t stand a chance.

And once we get done with the initial launch, we’re going to be working full time on adding new features and new content into the game at an astounding clip.  We’ve just scratched the surface of what we want to accomplish with the game – we are planning new modes of combat, expansions to the functionality of your lab (Oh – yes, you have a lab.  It’s where Mr. Brain hangs out for the most part.), new mech parts you can purchase or find in fights, and a pile of other stuff.  We also plan to bring you folks into the loop – we want your suggestions on what pilots and features you want next, and anything else you want to tell us.

We’ll be launching the beta of Mustache Mercenaries some time in the next week.  We won’t be publicizing it at first – we want a little time to make sure everything is working right – but if you’d like to know when it goes live, please join our mailing list.  Once we’ve worked out the kinks, we’ll also be publicizing it as widely as our thin little indie pocketbooks will let us.  We’ll be counting on you folks to help us spread the word.  Please also feel free to Like the game on Facebook!

Our goal here is to make a Facebook game that doesn’t suck…  something with substance.  Silly substance, but substance none the less.   Welcome along for what we hope will be an awesome ride.

Since not many indies are working in the social games space, we wanted to riff on that experience a little.  We hope you enjoy.

Overall, the case can be easily made that game size doesn’t matter.  Great small games have already been made – one of my favorites that pops right to mind is Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, a space exploration game where each game takes 20 minutes.  We can also look at the AAA market, where games have been getting shorter for years, and people are still content to pay just as much for them.  As indies, thank God for this.  If the only way to succeed in finding fun was to crank out 100-hour experiences, few of us would be making games.

Something important changes, though, when you get into the social media space.  If you want to make money in today’s social media (read: Facebook) market, you’ve only got a couple ways open to you.  The biggest is virtual goods.  But if your game is really small, how do you go about legitimately creating lots of content for it?  If your game takes ten minutes total to play, good luck selling a bunch power-ups and decorative items for the experience.

The solution we see goes back to the basics of making a good game – come up with something with elegant, interesting, and simple core mechanics – and then enable your designers to create content that extends the game’s dynamics.

For those not familiar with the mechanics-dynamics-aesthetics model of game design, it posits that a game is made up of those three things.  Mechanics are the rules the game operates with – like in poker, how many cards are dealt, if you can exchange some of your hand for new cards, etc.  The aesthetics are the thematic and other elements that lend to the experience, but don’t directly impact the gameplay – such as what kind of poker chips you’re using, if you’re playing at a felt table, etc.

The dynamics – what I’m focused on in this post – are the gameplay considerations that arise with the framework created by the mechanics.  So, again in poker, dynamics are things like a player deciding to bluff.  They bluff by using mechanics in a certain way (for example, making a big bet), but the bluff itself is a result of the core rules, not a part of them.

With our unannounced Facebook game, we’re working on a small set of core mechanics that will support being extended as we add more content to the game.

So say, just hypothetically, that our new game was a steampunky mech game.  It then makes a lot of sense to have interchangeable mech parts and a toolbox of different effects each attack and defense can have.  The combinatorial possibilities of the parts help create many possible dynamics, just like deck building in Magic: The Gathering.

Most of this comes down to simply good game design.  But in the social media space, this sort of thing becomes essential if your game is free, your team is small, and you are relying on virtual good transactions to pay the rent.  If you don’t keep content in your pipeline, you can assume that revenue will dry up as well.

A small set of core mechanics means your development time to beta is shorter.   The reliance on content to extend the game means your designer can contribute to the game’s bottom line on a regular basis with only light support from the rest of the team – something that you’ll all appreciate.

Please read some of the other great posts in this giant cross-blogging extravaganza:

If you want to watch it, you can find the full video of it here, courtesy of my good friend Darren Torpey.

“What is Indie” = Useless

During it, I got onto a good rant about “who is indie”.  Eitan loves to get a good argument going with these panels – which is great, no one wants a snooze fest.  So this time, he did a lightning round – all three panelists had to answer “yes”, “no”, or “maybe” to the question “Is such-and-such a studio indie?”

My stance, then and now, is that the question of “Who is Indie?” is utterly useless.  And as a game developer, “useless” is one of the dirtiest words I can think of.

We cannot afford spending time on useless things.  We have way too much to do, to create, to explore.  We usually have way too little time and money.  We must be ruthlessly utilitarian in pursuit of what we think is really important.  Unproductive navel gazing and deciding who is not in our special club is useless.

Exactly like in film and music, there is an indie brand now – it’s a certain kind of game, a certain style of art, a certain set of people.  That’s fine.  But do not make the mistake of assuming that this is what you need to be as a game developer and artist.  That brand will see its rise and fall, just like every other creative movement in the history of culture.

If anything isn’t indie, it’s the idea that your creative output should be forced to fit into someone else’s preconceived notions for it.

Indie is an Aspiration

To me, the indie is an aspiration.  It is a desire.  Indie is wanting to make your mark, creatively, to learn and grow and share something new and special with people.  Indie doesn’t meant making a certain kind of game, fitting within a certain budget, or not sitting in a certain office.

I think there is a high correlation for successful people and companies not taking creative  risks.  This makes perfect sense to me – once you have something to lose, it’s harder to risk throwing it all away.  But spending time trying to figure out if someone “is indie” makes no sense.  How does that help anyone make art?

My Soapbox Manifesto

What does indie mean in video games?

Indie is the aspiration to create something new, interesting, or different.  Something you as an artist find worthwhile.

That’s it.

It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, if you make any money on it, or anything else.

So go make a game.  Make something new, even if only to you.  Learn something.    Then challenge yourself to go make another.

GameLoop is on Saturday, August 28th in Cambridge, MA.  It’s a self-organizing game conference, and it goes something like this:

• 9am-10am: People show up and spend an hour getting to know each other’s shared interests
• 10am-11am: We informally vote on proposed sessions and put those up on the big board
• 11am: the conference begins!

There are rooms for people to meet in, and a big board with a schedule grid to coordinate it all. Last year’s GameLoop was a huge success: we had about 90 attendees from about 35 companies, including local companies like Irrational Games, Harmonix, and Rockstar New England as well as developers from places like Bethesda Softworks, EA Mythic, and Vicarious Visions.

The signal-to-noise ratio at a conference like GameLoop is pretty astounding.  The big thing here is that it’s just developers talking about stuff they are interested in. It’s a refreshing change of pace if you’re starting to feel like the big conferences are the same people saying the same things every year.

We’ve had sessions about procedural animation, ethics in rulesets, distributed version control, iPhone shaders, illusionary gameplay, prototyping, and many others. Some sessions are incredibly small and focused – just three really passionate people that just met, discussing a topic they care about.  Other sessions can be more like standard conference lectures or roundtables. You can see the whole 2009 schedule along with some audio and notes from the sessions.

Registration for the event is $40.  Via our generous sponsors Gamespy and DINO Interactive Studios, we will provide lunch, and a T-shirt – we’ll also have breakfast if we can find a sponsor for that.  After the conference groups of people head to dinner to hang out.

To register, go here: http://gameloop.eventbrite.com. We accept PayPal and major credit cards, as well as cash at the door (but you still need to register).

We hope you can make it!  We also hope you’ll pass the word on to other industry types that you know, maybe even send a note to your company’s internal boards or lists.

I’ve gone ahead and resized the image for some desktops – enjoy!

• 800 x 600
• 1024 x 768
• 1280 x 800

And please, sign up now!

Things are coming along fantastically with the new game – we’re waiting on announcing it in part to get the logo.  More as soon as we have it.

Without prior planning, FOUR of the articles written for the newsletter were authored by Boston-area indie game developers. As a member of this awesome group of individuals, I take great pride in seeing Boston Indies in the spotlight.

Amen, brother!  Check out Alex’s post at the link above, and the IGDA newsletter here.

(And yes, it’s for Facebook.)

The quick summary is that AHD is a huge game, and we are nowhere near done.  With the resources and time we have, it’s also one that currently can’t support the company.  Graham and I have both been working without drawing any pay for our entire time on the project, and we’re at the point where we can’t continue doing that.

We very much want to return to it when we can, but we don’t know when that will be.  Right now, we’re just going to take things one step at a time.  We still believe in AHD, and we want the finished game to see the light of day.

This isn’t the end of the road for Macguffin Games, either.  In fact, the reason we’re halting development is so we can work on another game – this one in the Social Media space.  I’m sure some of you will be disappointed to learn that; I understand.  We think there is an opportunity to make great games there, make enough money to live, and to do it in a reasonable time frame.  Our creative goal with this new game is to make something that we can be proud of, something unlike most of the offerings out there.  We’ve begun prototyping the design and art direction, and we are all extremely excited by it.  We hope you will be, as well – more details will follow as things shape up.

Thank you so very much to everyone that has supported us for the wild ride that has been All Heroes Die.  I started development on it  just a bit over 2 years ago, teaching myself how to code, alone in our guest bedroom.  Since then, I’ve met literally hundreds of people whose support, enthusiasm, and good will made it possible to keep going.  Two people in particular must be mentioned: my wife Anya, without whose support (both emotional and financial) this never would have happened, and Graham Sternberg, the man who created most of the AHD setting, most of the art, and who talked me off the ledge on more occasions that I’d like to admit.  I’d also like to mention Heather Wilson, Mike Faulk, and Phil Krzeminski for their work on game events, game events, and art respectively; thank you folks for all your excellent work.

Finally, thank you to all of the wonderful people in the Boston Indies community; because of them, I seriously believe that Boston is the best place in the world for someone to be an indie developer.

EDIT: When I originally published this, I forgot to mention, we are planning two more builds for now – one to fix a number of bugs that came up in the last build, and another with Warfare in it.  The first will happen sometime in the short term – the next several weeks – and the Warfare one some time before or around fall.  I’d like to give a better estimate, but it all depends on how everything else is going.

EDIT EDIT: I’m an IDIOT!  I didn’t thank Whitney.  This game would not have gotten 1/4 as far as it did without her, and it sure as hell never would have launched for PAX.  Her fantastic and awesome coding skills were all that got us to that first Beta build.  Whitney, thank you so much for you amazing work.

The new plan is that we will be putting a build out next Friday, May 28th, come hell or high water.  How much of the Warfare stuff it contains is still up in the air, but it will definitely have new art, new events, and a number of improvements based on the revamped targeting system.  We also found a really nasty inefficiency in our load sequence, and have lopped off 20 seconds of load time and 3/4 of our used memory (!!).

So, what is this targeting system, you ask?  In order to explain that, I’ll give you a really brief overview of how game events work in All Heroes Die.

A game event in AHD currently targets one of the heroes (the player controlled members of their noble house), and consists of text describing the situation one of your hero faces, a piece of our event art showing the scene, and several text choices for how to resolve things.  You might think of it as a computer-enabled choice in a Choose Your Own Adventure book, where your choice is hooked up to the stats of your hero and everything else going on in the world.

Under the hood, we do a number of things in order to select what event will be run (I gave a more detailed explanation here in the forums).  One of the first ones is to make sure we have a valid target.  If an event requires that the hero we run it for has the trait, “Star-Blooded”, then we test all your heroes to see if one fits that bill.  If not, the event is discarded; if yes, we run it with that hero as the primary target.

But then, what do we do if you have more than one target in the event?  What if the game event is, say, between a parent (the hero) and their child?  Up until recently, we only did this kind of event very rarely.  It used a hacky implementation that only could deal with hard-coded targets.  This is thing we shifted Whitney over to working on – now we have a for reals system for secondary targets.

We’re really psyched about the possibilities here – this sort of further control allows targeting setups like:

• An older hero and their young spouse.
• A hero and their non-hero parent.
• Two family members, neither of which are player controlled heroes.
• A hero and their magically talented niece or nephew.  (to be more specific)
• An intolerant hero and their mentally unstable family member.   (to be very specific!)

This system will eventually be expanded to tertiary and further out targets.

One of those scenarios above – two family members, neither of which you control – really excites us.  This allows us to have events that target two people around you, giving a better sense of the world not just revolving around your main characters.

So, this is where we’re headed.  We’d love your feedback and thoughts on what’s going on, either in the comments or the forums.  Thanks!

The HIB, as we’ll call it, consists of all the following games: World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru, Penumbra, and Samorost 2.  They usually have a sticker price of something like $100.

Remarkable Thing One: All these folks got together and said, pay us whatever you think it is worth.  You can go and get all this for as little as $.01.

Remarkable Thing Two: You can then split the money you pay up between the developers and two charities – The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child’s Play.

Remarkable Thing Three: The bundle was on sale for about a week, and now has been extended a couple days further.  To date, they have had almost 125,000 separate contributiors and made over $1,140,000 in revenue, about a third of which is going to those two charities.  Several of the developers are also now releasing their games as open source, with Lugaru already out there.

Holy crap.

As Jay Barnson pointed out on the Rampant Coyote blog, they’ve shown how powerful some indies working together can be.  Without no marketing budget to speak of, they’ve galvanized over 125,000 people to pay money for their game.  These numbers don’t even include the pirates downloading it off BitTorrent and such!  Repeating this exact thing event would be difficult (if not impossible), but this should encourage all of us indies to be audacious and to try big things.

Another big thing to note is, they were really frigging smart about this.  They set up something that was pretty easily doable with out-of-the-box technology + the web skills they possessed.  For a minimum time investment, they set up what may turn out to be the most significant business event to date for game dev indies.

I’d encourate everyone to go buy the Humble Indie Bundle.  If nothing else, you’re getting some seriously kick-ass games at whatever price you think is a good one.

I apologized, and then for a good chunk of yesterday I was really bummed about the fact that we’d screwed that up and gotten quiet.  I mean, I know that one of our big advantages is that we can talk directly to our players.  How had we gotten to that spot?

In part, it was because I’d been busy on non-AHD stuff – for the most part boring stuff that I didn’t want to tweet about.  But I realized that another reason is that we haven’t made communication a priority.  One thing I know is that good communication isn’t just something you can layer on top of your company or team, it’s something that you need to imbed bone-deep into your culture.  So, I decided to get cracking on that.

Today I went into the Wave where we keep our Big Picture, did a quick clean-up, and just now posted it in the forums.  This is a high-level brain dump of what we’re trying to do with the game… our roadmap to v1.0.

The list isn’t perfect – in fact, I’m sure that it is deeply flawed.  It is probably already out of date, I know it is missing important items, and most of it won’t make sense to people outside the dev team.  But that’s why it was important to get it out there.  I think a large part of why I’m not saying more about the game is that I’m waiting for things to be perfect before talking about them – and that won’t work at all if we’re doing anything near open development.  It’s going to be messy.  So, here’s our current plan, in all its glory.

Please feel free to come by our forums and tell us what you think of it – we’d love your input.  We’ll be updating it regularly.

Joe is a great friend of mine from our days at Blue Fang Games, where we worked together on many zoo-related games.  He is bar-none one of the best and brightest designers I’ve ever worked with, and digs RPGs as much as I do, if not more.  I’m incredibly psyched to be working with him again.  For a while now Joe has been excited about All Heroes Die, and has offered me advice here and there… and every time I took that advice it made the game ten times better.

Joe is coming onto the team to to help continue our push through Beta towards v1.0; the hope is that him jumping in on a lot of the design stuff will leave me more time to talk with our players, update the blog more often, and deal with the marketing and PR that will be so important to the game’s success.

Welcome, Joe!

Since PAX

Since PAX we’ve had a fantastic response to the Beta.  We got a good chunk of sales from that weekend and onwards, some great buzz, and a small legion of awesome beta testers!  These folks have been playing the game, reporting bugs, and giving us suggestions at a rate and quality level that far exceeded my expectations.  You folks are fantastic, thank you.  You can read their comments and thoughts in our forums.

Info on the Event Systems & Children

I need to do a full blog post on the All Heroes Die event system, but here’s a good chunk of information on how it works.  This system represents the core of the game – it’s how we handle storylines and plots.  We’ve designed it to be very open-ended; our goal is to allow content creators to take the game and turn the story around 180 degrees if they so choose.

I’ve also shed some light on how heroes spending time with their children works.  Essentially, the system is pretty opaque at this point – when we put it in, it was something of a “well we need SOMETHING here right now” moment.  It will be getting a heavy revision in the future, and we’d love your feedback on what that could end up looking like.

Next Build

Our next build is going to focus on the Warfare system.  Our current tentative date for that release is May 7th, but this depends heavily on some conversations Whitney and I will have this weekend about the coding tasks.  We’ve had a lot of this feature finished for a while, but we’ve never had the time to get it to a point where I was happy.

Rather than get into a long dissertation on what this will be, I’ll just describe it generally for now – we’ll follow it up with some visuals as soon as possible.

Warfare in in All Heroes Die is based in many ways off the system used in the indie cult-classic King of Dragon Pass.  Combat forces will consist of soldiers and their leader – for the player, that will be one of the heroes from their family.  The player will have knowledge of the tactical situation based on that hero’s skills – the better a hero is at certain things, the more information they can discern.  Once the player has selected tactics and a goal for the fight and hits “go”, we’ll figure out and present the results.  There are also several chances throughout the fight for game events to fire that can significantly alter the course of the battle – as well as for game events afterwards dealing with its aftermath.

We’ve intentionally kept the Warfare system a high-level affair, like many other things in All Heroes Die; it lets us tell the big story we want to tell without too much micromanagement and detail getting in the way.  The catch, of course, will be for us to keep the player’s choices interesting while doing that.  We’ll have more details as soon as we get a bit further into this build; if possible, I’m going to get a FRAPS video up or similar where we can show you what we have going on.

And finally, thanks again to everyone that has supported us by purchasing the Beta (still only $5!).

• New portrait system – A hero’s portraits will now change from young to middle aged to old over time.  This is done based on the file names of the portrait files.
• Explore revisions – We’ve made some tweaks and changes to explore.  Since we’re still nailing down how this will be for Friday, I’ll stay quiet on this one for now.  :)
• New Events – We’ve done a series of events that will fire earlier on in the game, giving a bit more flavor to the early decisions the Nef Loviisans make in this new land.
• Bug Fixes – Various.

Thanks very much for playing, folks!

In the interests of just getting this damn thing up, I’m going to just get the whole Beta and PAX story out in one post.  This might make it a bit long, we’ll see.

Given that, I’ll tell you the upshot right here:

• PAX itself was an amazing validation of the game we’re trying to create.  We were received with open arms by lots of gamers that think this is an awesome idea.  Many have since shelled out an electronic Abraham Lincoln and snagged the beta!
• The other non-game highlights of the week were that I was on NPR (around 25 minutes in) with Mike Dornbrook of Harmonix, and that I and other area devs Ichiro Lambe (Dejobaan Games), Damián Isla (Moonshot Games), and Eitan Glinert (Fire Hose Games) were on a PAX Panel called, “Indies Will Shoot You In The Knees”, which apparently went over like gangbusters at the conference.
• We intend to get our our first update this Friday, with a pile of bug fixes, at least one new piece of event art, and several new events.

Also – pics by fellow Boston Indies crony Mike Carriere.  There’s some of me later in the set.  I look like I’ve been awake for years.  Good times!

So, on with the show!

Thursday Night

Thursday night was the “Made in MA” party, held at Microsoft’s NERD (New England R&D) Center at Kendall Square.   The party was organized by the Mass. Tech. Learning Council, a non-profit that does a lot for the tech sectors here in MA.¹ For a while, MA companies have wanted to make sure people know how much there is going on here in MA in games – this party was part of that effort.  A big shout out to my buddy Darius Kazemi for heading up a lot of the effort in organizing the thing, as well.

Prior to the party Whitney, Graham, and I were all working feverishly on the game.  We wanted to hit Beta that night, and I needed a build to show at the party.  I’ll admit, by the time the party was starting, I was freaking out.  It felt to me like we were in an endless sea of bugs.  It’s always hard for me to see past all the things that are wrong, or do not yet work in the game, and that always gets worse when we’re near a big deadline.  By the time I left for the party, I was kind of a mess.

The party turned out to be the start of what ended up being a whole weekend of people seeing the best things the game promises – something that blew me away.  It’s one thing to think the game is awesome when you’re working on it – it’s another thing entirely to have complete strangers think the same thing.  Special shout-out to Naomi Hinchen, an  undergrad student at MIT’s GAMBIT lab that I had to keep kicking off the game so I could show it to people.  You rock.

The party did a lot to steady my nerves, and it helped even more to get back to the office and find that Graham and Whitney were calm, collected, and fixing bugs at an astounding rate.  Graham sat me down, pointed me to the Wave he was writing with all our bugs to fix for the night, and told me to get cracking.  I did.

At about 3am, we were done with the first build.  We still had bugs left, but we’d gotten the most egregious stuff out of the way.

Friday Morning

Friday morning consisted of me levering myself out of bed, quickly getting the build up to Plimus, our transactions provider for selling the game.  Exchanged some IMs and emails with our top notch web designer K. Adam White to get some stuff sorted out – this was the first time we were using Plimus in a serious way, and there were all sorts of little issues to work out.  Then I ran out of the house and off to Hynes Convention Center and PAX.

The first thought I had once on the Expo floor was, “Oh, it’s E3 all over again.”  It had that feel, although everything was a good bit less berserk.  The expo floor was a complete maze of boothes – very few long lines of sight.  I staggered around half-asleep until I ran into Tovah from Fire Hose, who pointed me over to the GAMBIT booth where we’d be exhibiting.

The GAMBIT booth was something else.  Half way to the hall’s ceiling, they had a huge circular GAMBIT sign, beneath which there were enough lights for a small theater.  GAMBIT folks were running around in white lab coats, and the union folks were wiring lights and running around as well.   I hooked up with Gene and Rik, the two (also fantastic) GAMBIT staffers running things, and got the build loaded onto the computer.  I realized I still hadn’t eaten breakfast, but by then Graham had shown up to spot me, and I was off to NPR.

NPR

So, due to the grace of God and a timely plug from Darius, I was going to be on Radio Boston with Mike Dornbrook, the COO of Harmonix.  We were to be interviewed by Meghna Chakrabarti on the eve of PAX about the state of the local games industry.

They asked me to get there at 1pm for a 1:35 segment.  I got there about 1:10 because I had to wait 20 minutes for a B line train to show up – typical B line shenanigans!  I ran in, completely out of breath, but was told that everything was fine.  They brought me in to the control room next to the recording booth, and I sat and chatted with Mike and Steph from the HMX Community Team.  Little known item – Mike and Steve Meretzky roomed together in college, where they both ended up working for Infocom.  I told Mike that they both actually have a lot of the same speech patterns – if I closed my eyes, it’s almost hard not to confuse them.

The show went well!  You can listen to it here if you are so inclined – Mike and I are on around 25 minutes in.  Overall, I’m really pleased that, given the lack of sleep and food, I didn’t break down into, “bluh bluh bluh” at any point.  Afterwards, Stephanie and I went to Upper Crust next door and I inhaled two huge slices of pizza.  Then we were both back off to the Hynes.

The rest of the day from there until the hall closed was somewhat a blur – it consisted mostly of me talking about the game to anyone who came near me.  As at the Made in MA party, I was incredibly psyched to see people look at the game, understand the point we are at with it, and then concentrate on the possibilities of what we are constructing.  It was amazing.

Friday Night

When the floor closed, I staggered over to Ichiro and asked if they wanted to get food – we only had an hour until we did our PAX Panel.  He bowed out, but noted to me that there was a vendor social hour now, and it had some food.  So I hopped in line, snagged two pieces of roast beef, a roll, some raw carrots to make this all sound vaguely healthy.  At that point I got a text from my friend and fellow Boston Indie Kevin to let me know the line was waaay out the door for our panel.  I had a thought similar to, “Oh crap, now we have to really not suck,” as I headed over.

I ended up plunking down at our talk table in there – the room was already packed with people sitting on the floors, and they had dispersed the rest of the line – and finally got going on my roast beef.

The talk went really well.  We had the idea to take questions from the audience, both on Twitter via a hash tag and via scribbled notes, and that worked out extremely well – like we figured, those were some of the best questions of the night.  Eitan did a great job of moderating the panel, and I think all three of Ichiro, Damián, and I did a good job of giving people our varied takes on things.  Afterwards, I got to talk with several people either contemplating going indie or who were in the middle of doing so, and it was awesome to have been able to help them in some small way.  As I’ve found out from some GDC talks, it’s often great to be confirmed that you are doing some of the right things, even if you didn’t learn anything new in the talk.

Then I went out, drank a lot, and crashed at a friend’s house for 8 hours.

Saturday and Sunday

Saturday and Sunday were a lot more of similar awesomeness.  Two big notable things…

The first is the continued interest we received from people we showed the game to.  Without going over the top any more than I already have, it was fantastic.

The second was that I got to have dinner with a bunch of fellow indies, including the great folks at Klei and Hello Games, Lively Ivy, and I was really, really pleased to finally meet Wadjet Eye Games’ Dave Gilbert.  His “you must be crazy” move into making adventure games for a living was a key event that helped give me confidence that our own craziness could work.  These folks are all amazing – all of them are taking big risks every day making games they believe in.  As Graham would say, rock on, you rockers.

Future Plans

This week, we’ve gotten right back on the job and are working like hell.  If you’re interested, you can follow our development (with a side dish of inane chatter) on the All Heroes Die Twitter account.

Our current plan is to get a build out this Friday with a bunch of bug fixes (including the infamous Frost Giant Diplomacy crash), a new piece of event art, and several new game events.  I’m also working on our longer-term plan for what features and content we’ll have and when, but I don’t think I’ll have that presentable by Friday.

Once again – thank you very much to everyone who has supported us – all of you who’ve been pulling for us for a long time, and all of you who have just joined in.  It’s an incredible relief to be at the end-of-the-beginning, and we’re all looking forward to what’s ahead.

1 – I have hope that some day I will be able to leverage MassTLC’s connections to the robotics and bio-sciences community to create some sort of awful 90 foot tall cyborg that… plays games?  I’m going to have to think on this one a bit more.

PAX has been amazing.  So far my experience with people seeing the game has been really, really positive – people seem to understand the stage we’re at in development, and a lot of people have really been excited about what we’re trying to do with the game.

Tomorrow is the final day of PAX, and I’ll be doing the booth again for the whole day.  Monday I’ll start going through all my email and chilling out a little bit from our big push – Tuesday the team will be back at work, and we’ll start getting more info out to all of you about the game, better instructions, our schedule on releasing updates, and things like that.

Thank you so much to all the people who have supported us, showed interest, and bought the game.  This weekend was an amazing validation that the concept we’ve had is something that resonates with people, and that this ridiculously ambitious pipe dream is indeed actually becoming a reality.  It means more to me personally than I can really explain.

Now we just need to continue to execute on the promise of All Heroes Die.  We have a duty to all you folks who showed us in $5 bills.  We’re going to honor it.

I feel I should put more of a marketing spin or something on this message, but that was about all I had left.  Thanks, everyone.

We’ve created the AllHeroesDie account on Twitter.  On it, Whitney (code!), Graham (art and game event writing!) and I (design, biz, etc!) are documenting our dev tasks in entertaining 140 character bursts.  Come on by and say hi.  We’re also looking for people to ask us specific questions about the game, to further spur me to get off my arse and write the belated blog posts.

So please, join the party.  Hilarity will ensue.

Right now, we’re working hard to get ready for our “$5 Beta” at PAX East.  I’ve been asked a lot about exactly what the $5 Beta is, and wanted to take a few minutes to explain it.

What I call the $5 Beta is a release strategy that has been used by a number of smaller / indie studios, as well as by many other products in other industries.  With it, you are looking to release your game in a very rough form; in some ways, the rougher the better.  It’s a very Web 2.0 philosophy: ship early and often.  Get your game into the hands of the people who will play it, and then use their feedback to develop it further.  It’s a strategy that I first saw used by TaleWorlds’ for Mount and Blade, and also is being used by the gorgeous indie MMO Love.  The indie devs Wolfire are also doing something similar with their game Overgrowth.

There are some advantages and disadvantages to this strategy…

Pros

• Start getting real feedback on your game.
• Start building your game’s community.
• Get some actual cash flow!
• Reduce the risk of continued investment in the game by gauging the market’s interest.

Cons

• It feels somewhat like that dream where you show up to school with no clothes on, and are just waiting for everyone to notice.  (You know that dream, right?  Right?)
• You risk forming poor first impressions.  These may be hard to break, especially for media folks who look at tons of games all the time.
• You are increasing your workload with an added component of community interaction and community management.
• You’re now seriously on the hook to deliver to your fans.

Overall, we feel that this strategy is a great one to take for first-time game makers like ourselves – to us, all the cons I’ve listed are overcome by the first pro point – real feedback.  The amount of time and energy you put in to a game means that you’re going to have blinders on regarding your gameplay and UI – you’re eating and breathing this thing, and you most likely long ago made your peace with dozens of issues that will completely vex your players.  Getting honest feedback on these things is paramount.

Personally, I’m quite interested to see how this strategy turns out for us, and I’ll definitely be blogging our results.  All Heroes Die is a curious mix of old-school and new-school, in terms of its technology and business model.  On the one hand, we’re using an installed .exe that people download – very close to the shareware model that was pioneered by Apogee and ID in the early 90′s.  On the other hand, we realize that our success is tied on almost every level to having a robust and engaged online community – something that brings us a lot closer to the social games of today.

Actually, their new DRM scheme will only stop you from playing your game when you don’t have a constant internet connection to their servers.  If it gets interrupted, you essentially get booted.  Details here on Ars Technica.

I’ll be up front – I loathe software piracy.  Even though it is unrealistic for me to do so, I want everyone to play by the rules.  If I spend a chunk of my life making a game, and I say it costs $30 to buy it, then please do me the service of either paying for it or not playing it.

On the other hand, like awesome indie master Cliffski, I believe that DRM is less than useless.  It actively penalizes the people who buy your game, and does nothing to inconvenience the people who are BitTorrenting ripped versions of it.  This is why, no matter how much I hate the idea of people taking my game without paying for it, we won’t have any DRM on All Heroes Die.

Ubisoft folks, other publishers – here’s the mental calculation you make me do every time I see a game that does something ridiculous like this:

• I think about how hard I want the game.
• I contemplate having that DRM on my system.
• I then think about, if I really need that game on my PC, that I’ll probably purchase it from you, then look into BitTorrenting a cracked version. (I pay for all my games these days. I’m also have no qualms about circumventing their DRM if I’ve done so.)
• Then I decide this is all too much work, and I go buy or play a different game.  Bye, bye lost sale.

C’mon guys.  Think this one out a little more, won’t you?

Mike Worth

UPDATE – Mr. Worth got back with a series of detailed replies to the questions, below.

Mr. Worth lists as one of his greatest strengths his, “almost limitless energy, and passionate enthusiasm.”  It shows in his statement.  From what he says, he’s been right in the middle of most of the success Philadelphia has had in the game dev arena recently, including Philly’s recent game dev tax credits and last year’s GameX conference.  He’s also an Emmy winner and successful entrepreneur.

Questions for Mr. Worth:

You mention that one of your three priorities while on the board would be “Webinars, articles, and blogs to help educate professional game developers…” Isn’t the IGDA already doing this?  What do you propose to add or change?

I’m glad you asked that question!  Let me take these three categories one at a time, with my proposed solutions at the end of everything.

Articles: Okay, I’m going to be a bit harsh here. Go to the IGDA website, and click on the “articles” link on the lower left. Here, here’s the link:

Now, look at all the articles, and find the most recent one. The most recent article posted on the IGDA website, in any of the categories, is May 2007. That stinks.  Clearly, we can do better than this. I want us to do better than this. The articles are a great idea, and there are so many benefits to the IGDA doing it!

• People do much of their industry research on the web, so putting articles on there is a great way to A) benefit industry pros, and B) provide great exposure to the IGDA!
• By linking to Gamasutra and Gamedev.net articles (for example), and cross-connecting back to us, we create a web of useful information, supporting and being supported by our industry trade sites.

Webinars: Joshua Caulfield and Joseph Sapp are doing a great job of driving the webinars, and they are a total success so far. However, there will probably need to be a dedicated webinar manager/producer going forward, so I can envision that being a need to fulfill. Additionally, I’d like to expand the webinars to include some point/counterpoint discussions about industry topics, post-mortems (especially programming postmortems), and “Chapter Highlights” webinars.

Blogs: I know that we have two blogs running right now, the IGDA Board Blog and Staf Blog. Those are providing useful information to the IGDA members about how the leadership is progressing the IGDA’s mission. However, in terms of professional development blogs, I have not seen any. However, I have seen an RSS feed that feeds all the posts from all the SIG’s, so I’m operating under the assumption that the SIG’s posts are the blog posts. In this case, I have not seen very many blog posts posted on the SIG’s (Programming and Visual Arts have no posted public blogposts). Now, it could be that many of the SIG’s have private mailing lists; and that’s totally fair and a good way to disseminate info. In that case, I’d like to more proactively advertise the SIG’s to members, to encourage the members to join up and receive valuable content.

Having said that, I believe that our Special Interest Groups are a highlight of our association. They consist of passionate people, and their forums have high-quality content. I’m particularly impressed with the quality of posts and information on the Tools SIG, for example. I’d like to have more of that! So, without further ado, two solutions I propose:

• One solution I have is for each SIG to commit to writing and posting one article a month about their discipline. This article would then be cross-posted on the IGDA article area, and also on the SIG’s page. This would guarantee more exposure of the SIG’s, promote inter-SIG awareness, and generate more content and information to benefit the members.
• Second, I propose more “cross-pollination” articles and posts, involving two or more SIG’s. For example, Robin Arnott (chair of the Audio SIG) is reaching out to the Writer’s SIG and Localization SIG, to do articles/podcasts on Dialogue in Games. Brilliant! Incorporate several aspects of the game design into one blended article. I want to help the IGDA create more of that!

You also mention, “High-value “GDC Quality” lecture and panel discussions”.  Where would these take place?  Can you elaborate any more on this idea?

This idea came out after seeing a great IGDA New Jersey lecture (shout out to Coray Seifert for putting together a fantastic meeting). Marty Stoltz (Big Huge Games) and Richard Rouse (Kaos Studios) presented a very high-value, very functionally beneficial lecture on borrowing cinematic techniques and incorporating them into gameplay. I have rarely seen such a great lecture outside of a major conference, and I want to make that type of lecture the norm.  So, to answer the first part, I would want to see these GDC quality presentations take place in two areas. First, at local chapter meetings, which means we need active support and buy-in from the local game development people who can offer these great sessions. Two, as “sub-tracks” at larger industry events. For example, so many of us are at E3, it would be great to have an IGDA afternoon, where presenters from multiple areas do industry-to-industry sessions.

Regarding your second points, here’s my elaboration on my idea/vision:

1. Focus on making these presentations valuable to individuals with 3-10 years of professional experience (either independent or part of a larger studio). I think we need to excite and bring in that demographic of members to help the IGDA grow and flourish. I want people with that level of experience to gain value from the IGDA, and this is one area we can give this to them.
2. Get IGDA buy-in/excitement from established studios and experienced members at those studios, so that they are willing to put together these presentations. Often, studios are a little leery about exposing too much proprietary information; if the studios, and individuals in the studios believe in the IGDA’s mission, they’ll be more likely to contribute with presentations.
3. Merging of talented presenters into cross-geographic sessions at larger industry events. i.e. get an Austin and San Fran dev programming duo to talk about specific techniques of physics programming, compare/contrast, all that.

Your third priority listed is, “Industry mentoring for people just entering the industry, including how to interview for a game industry job and choosing your career focus.”  How do you propose doing this?

I think a great route is to do the following. First, reach out to existing studios around each chapter, and get a list of people willing to mentor. For those of us in Philly, Grant Shonkwiler (incoming Philly IGDA chair) is a great example. He blogs about how to design games, how to make your portfolio pop, etc. Second, go and visit the local universities that are positing that they want to graduate game developers. Now we have our pairings. (Of course, a non-student who wants to break in from a different industry can contact the local chapter to get a mentor).

Then, (and this is the important part), you have the IGDA create clear documentation as to how the mentorship works (number of times a month they meet, what resources and exercises the protégé should implement, etc). The appropriate SIG should also be providing documentation and suggestions of what to help a protégé with, skillsets to learn, possible career routes, etc. All this is centralized on the IGDA website. If the protégé doesn’t adhere to these guidelines, the mentor does not have to continue the program with that individual. This will help mitigate “wasteful mentoring” meetings with people that are not willing to take charge of their careers (see point below).

Funny enough, the IGDA already has a great program in motion, which covers a lot of this. (http://archives.igda.org/women/gmo.html) So, why are we not using this to its full effect? I think that we need to get more SIG’s to cross-pollinate and collaborate, especially on a large initiative like this. And, we need to publicize this much, much more effectively.

You note that you think the biggest issue game devs face today is a lack of mentoring/coaching, brought about by the rapidly changing business environment.  Can you explain why this would be a bigger concern than Quality of Life or the high turnover caused by recent economic conditions?

I think that these three aspects you mentioned actually influence and are influenced by one another. When a game developer chooses to “go pro”, I feel that they should have the ablitiy to learn all the appropriate career management skills necessary for them to A) self-evaluate, and decide what types of games they work best on, B) what studios are a good fit for their specific skills, and C) how to research those studios to see if their lifestyle needs fit the studio’s work requirements.  I think that if a game developer gets caught in a work environment that’s a bad fit, then that may have been a result of him/her not knowing what to look for in a potential employer, how to find out the lifestyle in that studio at the job interview, and how to confidently choose or choose not to work at a particular studio. Game developers are the lifeblood of our industry, and the more empowered they are to drive their own careers, choose which studios to pursue that fit their lifestyle and creative passions, then the happier work environment they will create for themselves.

And that’s the statement I want to come back to; I want to empower game developers, empower them creatively, as craftsmen, and as business people (either driving their own careers, or driving a studio they’ve help found).  I think the IGDA can be the single greatest resource to empower professional game developers, not just students breaking in, but industry pros with 3+ years of experience, who find themselves having to navigate our rapidly changing industry environment.

This ties into your observation of the importance of addressing he high turnover rates in our industry. I think that the effects of that turnover can be mitigated on an individual level, if that individual has strong career management skills developed through coaching and mentoring. For example, if a game developer has a good strategy to develop his own game with a team of 5-10 people, pitch to publishers, and ship on a premium download channel (Wiiware, XBLA), then he or she can weather a layoff by creating games on their own steam. These skills are completely teachable, and can give the game professional the flexibility to move into and out of jobs, as the industry changes, while still making games they love, and building their career.

Since the game industry has always been marked by tons of ambitious but unskilled people trying to break in, how would you propose to manage the IGDA’s members and resources in mentoring new developers?  There seems to be the potential that we could spread ourselves very thin, possibly on people who will not have a future in this industry regardless of their mentoring.

Hoo, boy, you asked a good question there! I understand exactly what you’re saying, and now I have to be a bit cruel. The truth is, this is a very hard industry in which to succeed, and one must be truly excellent at what you do. Oftentimes, people try to enter this industry, and don’t have “what it takes” to succeed.

But, here’s a truth that I believe in, and, in fact, Scott, your awesome post about that concept artist who worked for 5 years to get his craft in shape (link here: http://www.macguffingames.com/2010/practice-trumps-talent/) talks just about that.

My best friend (Avish Parashar, www.motivationalsmartass.com), is a success coach, and he talks a lot about what it takes to be successful in any industry. It’s a harsh truth, but it needs to be said (because I agree with it).

You have to be willing to do what others in your field are unwilling to do, to be unforgettable in your field, knowing that life will probably not ask you to do what others are unwilling to do.

Weird Zen koan, but what it means is: How badly do you want this? Are you willing to get up at 5:30 AM every day and write music for an hour before going to your day job? (I did this for 2 years while breaking into TV).  Are you willing to work for free on nights and weekends for 10 months to polish and re-polish your game for a pitch to Sony?

I believe that 80% of the time, when someone is “ambitious but unskilled”, then they are not “putting in the time” to be absolutely amazing at what they do. People who train themselves to be amazing at what they do get hired. In fact, there are only two things we need to do to be successful in any career:

1. Be unforgettably amazing at what we do.
2. Ask a whole lot of people to hire us.

If a person fails, it’s because they either:

1. Don’t know how to achieve points 1 and 2, or
2. They are unwilling to “suck it up” and put the time in to do points 1 and 2.

Mentoring should only help people learn how to achieve points 1 and 2. “Putting in the Flight Time” is the responsibility of the protégé.

So, it comes down to: how do we manage a coaching/mentoring program so that people who want “easy solutions” aren’t bleeding our members dry? Well, I have several ideas:

1. First, we create core documentation and skill-building documents,exercises, and projects that people who are “breaking in” must read and implement before they can sign up for a mentor-partner. This will ensure that the people are willing to take charge of their career, and aren’t just looking for an easy way in. Darius Kazemi’s networking blogposts are a great resource for those types of drills/documents, and I have a bunch of articles and resources I will provide as well.
2. Mentor meetings have mandatory “homework” in between meetings. If the protégé/mentored doesn’t do the homework (sketching three background terrains, calling 5 game companies, etc.), they don’t get their next meeting. Period. Mentors are giving their time, and they deserve the courtesy of having their students actually take and implement their advice.
3. Protégés must give back to the community. Examples could be volunteering to set up/break down IGDA chapter events, promoting IGDA events/content on their facebook and twitter, etc.

If these three ideas are implemented in a mentoring program, I think we will drastically reduce the “waste of mentoring resources”, as well as separate the people who are willing to do what it takes to build their career in this industry, from the people who are “ambitious but unskilled.”

Paul Skiera

Mr. Skiera’s statement strikes a somewhat apocalyptic tone, starting with the definitive statement that, “Traditional education is broken and cannot be fixed using 20th century instructional practices.”  His statement hammers on that single nail – his purpose if elected would be to “ensure [the] IGDA and our members are the cornerstone partners working with the researchers, policy makers and educators to transform education in the 21st century.”

Mr. Skiera has not posted his Q&A answers as of the publication of this profile.

Questions for Mr. Skiera:

• Why run now?
• Will you be posting your Q&A?
• Given the mission of the IGDA, “to advance the careers and enhance the lives of game developers by connecting members with their peers, promoting professional development, and advocating on issues that affect the developer community,” how do you justify making it a goal of the IGDA to effect a major revision to the American educational system?  Would you attempt to revise the IGDA’s mission?
• Your statement seems to imply changing the American educational institutions.  Even if this were the mission of the IGDA, would this be a worthy goal for an organization that bills itself as international?
• What do you see as the immediate concerns of “rank and file” developers, and where would these fit into your priorities?
• What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?
• Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

Coray Seifert

UPDATE – Mr. Seifert got back to me with answers to my questions – they are inline below.

Mr. Seifert’s statement is easily the peppiest of the bunch so far; it is informal, conversational, passionate – and at times hyperbolic.  His main goal is specific and limited – he wants to set up elected regional coordinators to mentor the heads of local chapters.  Past that, he would like to see an IGDA-related awards program.

Mr. Seifert is the only current board member running for another term.

Questions for Mr. Seifert:

Please tell us specifically how you have helped the IGDA become more transparent in your role as Secretary.

I would say there were two main initiatives that I drove to make the IGDA a more transparent org.

The first and most lightweight initiative was encouraging other board members to blog and tweet progress reports on their various projects and initiatives. I think we had some good success with our blog and twitter over the past year, but there is still a ton of room to grow in this department. Hopefully, whoever takes over for me as secretary (2 terms is enough for me!) will take this to the next level.

The second and vastly more important initiative was to get some actual informational content in the meeting minutes. While this sounds simple, there are a ton of legal implications in revealing too much information in meeting minutes, as it exposes the board members involved in those minutes to legal risk, should their individual opinions go against an employer, distributor, investor, etc.

That said, I think the compromise that we ended up with is a good archetype that I hope the IGDA will continue to follow. In each release of the meeting minutes, we have the summary of motions and procedural (aka unreadable, cryptic stuff) at the top of the document, and then we break down some of the action items, recommendations, and resolutions and provide as much information as possible at the bottom. While it is definitely more work, it is extremely valuable for IGDA members to understand the motivations and processes behind the decisions that shape the org. I hope that we can continue to follow this meeting notes format in the future.

Please tell us specifically what the Programs & Membership committee, along with you as its chair, has done to better the IGDA during your term.

When I took over the P&M Committee in 2007, things were in a pretty rough state. We had realized that our current chapter setup was pretty rough. Traditionally, anyone could wave a flag and say “Hey! I’m an IGDA Chapter!” which meant that those chapters had no liability insurance (if someone slices their hand open at an IGDA meeting, they could have sued the chapter coordinator PERSONALLY), there was no way for the IGDA to directly support the chapters financially, and there was a whole legal mess that, quite honestly, I still don’t fully understand

I was elected chair amidst a pretty intense debate over whether to adopt a chartering system that would resolve these issues. Unfortunately, the previous board member running the chapters had proposed some pretty heavy-handed stuff and basically told the chapters “Hey, you’re doing this now!” which our hard-working, passionate chapter coordinators (including me at the time) did not appreciate. So, I worked with the coordinators for the bulk of 2007 to find a compromise that both allayed the existing issues with the chapter system and also gave the chapter enough latitude to stay functional.

The result was a successful deployment of the chapter chartering system that provides chapters with liability insurance, structures for formal elections, and perhaps most importantly, allows each chapter to have a bank account and mechanism for the IGDA to directly support them.

Similarly, we extended a similar chartering system to the SIGs, and opened some funds for the SIGs to work on special projects. Since the SIGs were much more simple to get set up (little to no physical/geographical concerns), we were able to get them direct funding much faster. Some of the projects that were funded by that program include the Global Games Jam (IGDA Education SIG) and the Writers Quarterly (Writers SIG) as well as a bunch of other really awesome programs.

The major issue we ran into with the Chapter and SIG chartering program is that the IGDA basically ran out of funds for non-essential programs when the economy hit the tank in 2009. While I fought hard to try to keep some funds available for this program, unfortunately we weren’t able to fund grants in 2009 or this year, yet.

That said, I think we’ve done a great job of setting the table for the chapters and SIGs and I look forward to returning my focus there if elected this year!

Do you really think that professional game developers are treated like calculators?

I think that – in the worst cases – yes, game developers can be looked at in the same way that a factory might look at a robot; they are a resource that can be used, exhausted, worn down, and then replaced with a newer model. To be clear, I feel this is the WRONG way to run a game development business, but it still persists in a few dark corners of our industry. I hope that as we learn more about how to make great games as an industry and as long as entities like the IGDA continue to fight the good fight and against poor Quality of Life, we’ll get to a place where these situations are cautionary tales of old, not the current state of affairs.

To clarify, my current employer, Kaos Studios, is wicked awesome about Quality of Life. Look, no place is perfect, but by and large the management team at Kaos does a great job of balancing the needs of the project with the needs of the individual and they treat their people like artisans of their craft – the way it should be! It’s an awesome place to work and I am definitely NOT referring to them with the above sentiments.

You note the efforts of the Quality of Life group, the SIGs, and the local chapters as contributing to “the IGDA [providing] a voice to help the individual game developer…”  Do you feel the IGDA is doing a good job of this right now?  What, if anything, do you think can be improved about this?

I do think that the IGDA is doing a good job of this, but I think we have a long way to go to fully realize our potential as the voice of the game development industry. I think, as Darius has pointed out, that strong chapters are a big component of this, as  detailed in my statement. I think the work of Judy Tyrer and the Quality of Life SIG is also extremely important and is an initiative that we should continue to support and evolve (more whitepapers! more best practices! more articles!). The bottom line is that while the IGDA has done a great job advocating on behalf of the game development community, there is so much more we can be doing!

What do you think of the IGDA’s current elections process?  Is there anything you would like to change?

I think you should run the elections, Scott

Seriously though, this is exactly what the IGDA Elections need. Commentary and dissection of the candidate statements. For example, reading Tim Langdell’s candidacy statement a few years back, I was pretty impressed! The dude seemed like he had been around for a while, and had some experience working with the AIAS, so I voted for him. If someone had dug into his background, like you’re doing now, I think we would have found out that he probably wasn’t the right guy for the board.

Specifically, I think there are 2 important tweaks that we can make to the election process for next year:

1. Make things more centralized and concise: There is a ton of information out there now, which is great. Now we just need to get all of that information onto the page where you vote. If you go to the voting page, you just see a list of names, while the information on the candidates is on other pages or other sites entirely (like this one). We should have a central repository for all available information about each candidate right where you’re about to vote, and it should be in concise, readable format.

2. Get the bigs involved. While blogs like these 100% must be involved in the election process, to provide independent critiques and discourse on the elections, we need to get the big dogs involved. Gamasutra, in my opinion, should be the CNN of the elections. They should have exclusive interviews with candidates, their own analysis of the candidate statements, and we should try to tightly integrate them with the entire election process, both as a way of making sure the voting body has as much information as possible, and as a method of making sure that as many people as possible know about the elections.

What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?

I think our role should be to continue to drive home the idea that good Quality of Life = Good Games. Providing decision makers in our industry with the information that they need to make the right decisions about quality of life is absolutely essential, and the IGDA is uniquely positioned to be the voice of the game developer in this discussion.

I think we need to continue to drive home this message, not only on a national level with press releases and statements, but on a local chapter level. From what I’ve seen, the people who are involved with the IGDA are the people who advocate good quality of life, and who are the people who truly believe that good quality of life can be used to create hit games.

Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

I find myself conflicted on the issue. A few years back while working at Large Animal Games, a 10-person independent studio, the owners signed up the studio for the IGDA Studio Affiliate program. As an employee of that studio, it felt great to be working for an employer that believed in the causes that I did. It made me feel like I was truly appreciated and that I was working at a place that did things the right way.

So, in and of itself, the studio affiliate program is a great initiative. However, I understand the concern. If we are beholden to the affiliate studios that support the IGDA, we become the voice of the studios, not the game developers.

The solution to this problem is to increase the value of the IGDA to every game developer out there, to the point where studio memberships are a small fraction of the overall membership. Whether through better chapters, stronger SIGs, more advocacy programs, it should be a no-brainer for every game developer in the industry to be a member of the IGDA. While we’re not there yet, I am confident that if we stick to our core mission, continue to evolve our programs, and keep working to make the IGDA stronger every day, every week, and every year, we’ll get there!

Ian Schreiber

UPDATE – Mr. Schreiber got back with answers to my questions, and I’ve inserted them below.

EDIT – I removed the line, “Additionally, wouldn’t your goal to advocate for individual developers possibly exacerbate financial woes for the IGDA?” from the last question in this profile – that was a cut and paste error on my part.

Mr. Schreiber comes to us with a wide breadth of experience – programming, academia, and design – and he notes that as one of his major strengths.   Currently he teaches and freelances.

Under the time question, Mr. Schreiber notes that he has “not much” (much like everyone else), but that he does have practice juggling a hectic schedule.

There isn’t a lot to pick at in his statement and Q&A, since the majority of his outlined goals stay outlined.  He does talk a good bit about the communications and problem solving he would bring to the table, and notes that often solving issues in a short time with little money requires “willingness to get to the heart of the matter and find alternate solutions.”

In his profile, he notes his email address again and his Twitter handle, and urges us to ask him questions.  Well, here we go.

Why run now?

Well, I ran last year too, so it’s not like I am choosing this year specifically. I started running for Board when I felt I had reached a point where I could make real contributions, and I will continue until I reach a point where I feel I cannot. Additionally, this year I was nominated by at least one other person (in previous years we were expected to “nominate” ourselves), so I took that as an extra vote of confidence.

You note that you’ve been involved with a number of SIGs and committees, but for the most part not in what capacity.  Can you elaborate on your involvement with these groups?

Great point — the people in those SIGs know what I did, but of course anyone who was not actively part of them would have no way of knowing.

For the Education SIG, I’m active on the mailing list, which in practice means being an industry voice that is available for any professors looking for information for their classes or curriculum. I was also one of many contributors to the 2008 Curriculum Framework, an Ed SIG project to provide a starting set of guidelines for the creation of game-related educational programs. In particular, aside from the general proofreading common to all contributors, I provided the first draft of section 2.1 (new to the 2008 version) and proposed some new topics under the Game Design section. I’ve also contributed some of my course syllabi to the IGDA Curriculum Knowledge Base. I’ve attended and presented at the Education Summit at GDC since 2007. And of course, I evangelize the IGDA and the Education SIG to any game educator I meet who hasn’t already heard of them.

For the Sex and Games SIG, primarily my role has been forum moderator, which mostly means keeping the board clear of spam (as you might imagine, we get our fair share of this). I also provided occasional content for the blog, back when the SIG was younger.

Credit Standards Committee might sound a bit different from my other endeavors, but I’ve attended the Credits Roundtable at GDC since 2006 and have been a member of the committee ever since. It’s a subject dear to me, given that I was uncredited on the first three games I worked on (the online card games Chron X, Star Trek:ConQuest Online, and WWE With Authority — I joined the company after initial release and worked on expansions and updates). Mostly I have offered comments when new revisions of the Standards are sent around.

You mention as a goal you’d like to “[increase the] IGDA’s role as a voice and advocate for individual developers, not just corporate studios.”  Can you speak to how you’d go about leading this effort?

This ties in with some other questions you ask about QoL and whether individual or studio rights come first (see below), and I will answer those specific questions in the other sections.

Other than that, I want the IGDA to position itself as the first place that developers think of when looking for an advocate. If some scandal breaks about credits or QoL or other issues important to developers, the IGDA should be releasing a clear statement of its position in a timely manner. It should also be a place for unified community discussion, and eventually action. While we do have forums and SIGs and local chapters, I think we can do a better job bringing these resources to developers and providing a safe and open forum so that developers can take positive steps together.

One of your other goals is, “Supporting more ongoing events like the Members Only Webinars and Global Game Jam that add value to developers’ lives.”  What kinds of events do you envision here?

The blessing and curse of the IGDA is that it is largely a volunteer organization. The curse is that most people don’t have the time or inclination to actually volunteer for much. The blessing is that every now and then, one person comes up with a really awesome idea AND the energy to get the ball rolling on it.

I use the word “support” in that statement deliberately. This is not about the Board coming up with a Great Idea for an initiative. It is about encouraging members to find their own initiatives, and then provide total and ongoing support for those who do so. So, I see the IGDA more as a conduit than a source. I see its role as providing a way for people to promote their initiatives (through emailings and the IGDA newsletter and website), seek help (someone who has an idea but needs a partner to supply skills they personally lack), and share resources (perhaps someone with web space or a hosting company can provide discounted rates for IGDA initiatives) — these kinds of things, to get people the help they need to take their own volunteer projects further, and get them promoted.

So honestly, I’m not envisioning any specific kinds of events — rather, I’m envisioning that the incredibly creative and talented people in this industry have THEIR visions, and I want to help bring those out into the open for the benefit of everyone.

You say that “the IGDA should be front and center” in any discussions about alternate employment arrangements, such as a Hollywood style contractor system or unionization.  Do you see this as a role where the IGDA advocates for one side or another, a more neutral informational role, or something else altogether?

A long time ago, I was confused about this. After all, the IGDA seems to straddle both worlds (individual developer and studio), as evidenced by a number of studio heads on the Board and also studio memberships. What happens when the needs of the individual conflict with the needs of the studio — where does IGDA stand?

It turns out that the Articles of Incorporation are very clear on this, as I was informed when I originally asked. The IGDA is not a trade organization; that is, it was founded very specifically to assist individual developers and not development companies. So, I see the IGDA as advocating for the individual, as per its stated mission.

What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?

Given my previous answer, this should be obvious: it should come down solidly in support of safe and sane work practices, and as a front-line advocate for the rights of developers. I think GameWatch.org was a great start, as a potential place where employees could anonymously report the working conditions at their studio (good or bad), and I think it is a shame that this was less of an IGDA initiative than an Erin Hoffman initiative. I would love to see the IGDA take more steps in this direction.

The thing that really kills me here is that there is a large body of documentation already showing that excessive crunch is detrimental not just to the individuals but to the company as well, so this really should be an area where developers and studios have aligned interests. But it seems like some studios still do not understand this, and in these cases the IGDA needs to advocate for the individual developers.

Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

The IGDA is admittedly in a difficult position here. On the one hand, it’s a great revenue source at a time when everyone is struggling financially, and it provides a fairly low-cost benefit that employers can offer to their staff as one more part of a competitive benefits package. On the other hand, it makes it difficult for the IGDA to act decisively in situations where developer advocacy necessarily means alienating the studios that they work for. As an example, if some day the IGDA evolved into a union-like organization, how would studios feel about paying union dues so that their own employees could go on strike?

So, this is a conflict of interest. On the other hand, as I noted before, most of the time it is minor. Studios and individual developers usually want the same thing: to make great games that ship on time and on budget and make lots of money.

In the short term, studio memberships and sponsorships are likely not going away (at least, I do not feel comfortable promising otherwise). Long term, I would like to see the IGDA offer individual developers sufficient value that they are willing and able to pay their own dues, and seek alternate revenue sources that are not conflicts of interest, in order to wean itself off of studio-based income without experiencing a devastating revenue shortfall. First steps I see are to identify those other revenue sources and act on them.

Charles Schultz

UPDATE – Mr. Schultz’s answers below.

Mr. Schultz comes from a long background of mobile development, management, and Quality Assurance.  He has worked, amongst other places, for Motorola and RiM.  He’s also taught, wrote books, and he notes a couple times that he holds 16 patents (most look to be related to music and/or mobile devices).

His stated goals are to Engage, Encourage, and Envision – engage more small studios and individials in the mobile and social media areas, to encourage “responsible gaming across all genres and platforms” for both game players and designers, and envision the ways the industry will develop in order to help prepare educators to teach for it.

Mr. Schultz doesn’t say how much time he’d commit to the board, but notes that he has had a long history of non-job activities – most of which he lists in other parts of the profile – and says he would make the IGDA his top priority amongst them.

Questions for Mr. Schultz:

Why run now?

My unique set of experiences and skills – development, testing, music, communication, education and innovation – seem relevant to the current period we are in with the emerging prominence of mobile and social games and being in an in-between period with respect to game console and technology cycles. I have served at the local level for a number of years and would like to contribute to the industry as a whole.

You note that you would like to have the IGDA identify more with “responsible” gaming.  The IGDA’s description of its charter value of Expression notes, “We oppose any effort that would treat games differently from other forms of art and creative expression.”  Historically, calls in other media to behave responsibly have been associated with censorship, such as with the Production Code and the Comic Code Authority.  Can you explain further what you mean by more responsible gaming?

I am not calling for censorship here. What I do expect, as we do from other artistic bodies such as the movie and music industries, is that the IGDA can do its part to encourage and enable the creation of games that have positive benefits to communities, society and individuals. The Games for Health movement is a good example of this.

Additionally, the IGDA should promote responsibility on the part of the individual gamer. In-game cheating and stealing, hacking games and crashing servers, excessive and obsessive game playing to the detriment of work and family can all be explicitly discouraged. This message can be peer-driven at the chapter level and promoted at national and local events like GDC and the LA Games Conference.

Also, game developers should be more responsible to provide games that are not prone to hacks, cheats, etc. which become detrimental to other player and ultimately spoil the reputation (and income) of the game, studio and publisher. This is bad for the industry as a whole. Better SV&V and software development techniques can be introduced to reduce these occurrences, and we can utilize subject matter experts to provide information and training for game development professionals by sponsoring conference tracks, webinars, etc.

You note in your statement that you are, “a proven innovator with 16 US patents, able to work with the board to anticipate possible futures and how we will get there,” and that you would use this to help the IGDA prepare educators and companies for the future of gaming.  This seems like an extremely ambitious project; can you explain how you would want to tackle such a thing with the limited time and money of the IGDA?

To me this is not ambitious – it requires the application of a few proven techniques that I have used in the past, along with the participation of subject matter experts. My role would be to gather information from the right experts, include them in the process of generating results from the tools and methods at my disposal, rank the results and then provide the findings and directions to the industry at large. The Board and the IGDA in general would certainly be instrumental in contributing the right expertise to arrive at the best conclusions and courses of actions to take, including educating artists, developers, technology and tool providers, and educators as a whole through vehicles such as webinars, instructional videos, courseware and white papers – all of which I have developed in the past.

What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?

My initial instinct is that each individual decides for themselves what conditions and hours they are willing to accept in return for the salary and benefits they receive. Still, this must be done within the framework of labor laws. Having said that, there do seem to be extreme forms of dedication that are implicitly required for workers to participate and remain employed in some game shops. Once the expectations have been set for a game, it does become a matter of survival for a studio to deliver the goods on time and budget in order to remain in business – leaving the dilemma of working more and continuing to have a job in the industry versus being out of work for a period and possibly ending up back in the same situation with your next employer. In order to break the inertia, perhaps some studios could promote and brand themselves as “fair work” shops – kind of like the “fair trade” coffee brands. This could become a recruiting tool to attract top talent which would force other companies to follow suit or risk having a depleted pool of talent left for their projects. Some consumers may also support those shops in the same way, by favoring or paying a little more for games produced by those shops.

Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

I have not studied this matter to decide for myself whether the present situation is bad or good. Simply depending on studios or any other entity for funding can be benign if the sponsor is not using it as a lever to gain an advantage in the industry or cause the watchdogs to look the other way. Those would be the kinds of problems I would want the board to address rather than “who” is funding things.

Ron Schaffner

UPDATE – Answers from Mr. Schaffner below.

First off, I can say that this Ron Schaffner is NOT the same one that hunts for Bigfoot.  I’ve looked at pictures, and they’re two different people.  Trust me on this.

Mr. Schaffner’s statement is relatively short and concise, but isn’t followed up by any Q&A answers.  His goals are to create more programs helping out-of-work game devs, the encouragement of indie development, and the continued global expansion of the IGDA.

He makes a point to mention that he is inspired by the IGDA’s Code of Ethics (which can be found here), and promises to follow it if elected.

Questions for Mr. Schaffner:

Will you be posting your Q&A answers?

If you don’t have these answers in your Q&A, can you elaborate on how you plan to effect your three goals above?

Thank you for doing this! Regarding my Q&A answers, I did submit them earlier this month; I have since requested Joshua and Joseph to post them, which I expect will be done shortly.

Why run now?

A current IGDA Board member approached me, telling me that he would nominate me to run. Prior to that conversation, I honestly did not think about running. I am currently on the board of my local Little League organization, and contribute in support of my children and the local community. When thinking about being part of the IGDA Board, I remembered the shock that I felt last year over the event that eventually saw one Board member resign. I thought about if I can contribute to IGDA as a Board member, putting the organization ahead of my personal interests. I concluded that I could work with the new and existing Board members to continue to grow IGDA’s impact to our industry. I then decided to accept the nomination.

What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?

First off, as a business owner myself, as well as an employee at a large organization, I can relate to both sides of the issue. In my company, my personal attitude is against forcing or putting employees into a position to give up all else for their job, to meet a project deadline. When such situations arise, our colleagues typically take pride in delivering on-time and at the highest quality, and put in the incredible effort to deliver. However, when this becomes the norm, it is a situation of abuse by the employer. We have no labor union or any other strong voice in our industry. IGDA must remain involved and at the forefront of such discussions.

Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

I can understand concern around an organization accepting money for sponsorships, but believe that IGDA is structured to minimize or prevent any inproprieties from taking place. IGDA helps individual members, providing growth and educational opportunities, which in turn, also benefits the studios, whether they sponsor or not.

Jane Pinckard

UPDATE – Ms. Pinckard came by and answered the questions below.

I’d encourage you to read Ms. Pinckard’s statement – it is both concise and to the point.  The three things she identifies that she’d like furthered are Education, Diversity, and Partnerships – and she talks with some specificity about all three.

Ms. Pinckard is, frankly, all over the web.  You can find her on seasons 1-3 of the 1UP show, her blog GameGirlAdvance, and in various and sundry interviews and whatnot.  I’d encourage people to look at those, too – it’s far too much for me to do anything more than give some of it a cursory examination.

Questions for Ms. Pinckard:

Why run now?

While I’ve always supported the IGDA, there seems to be a sea change happening in the organization, with a lot of opportunity for expansion and pursuing new directions. It’s like the start of a whole new administration – with room for some new ideas and new ways of approaching solutions to problems. I think that candidates who get in the door now would be able to have the chance to contribute a lot to the structure of a stronger, more expansive IGDA.

You mention partnerships with organizations like the MacArthur Foundation.  What sort of partnerships do you envision, and to what end?

In cases where the goals of the IGDA are aligned with other groups it makes sense for the two to seek ways to collaborate. The MacArthur Foundation has made digital and interactive literacy in education a priority. We can possibly partner with them to roll out programs in schools or to advise on initiatives in the educational sector. I envision something like a smaller task force changed with building these sorts of relationships.

Do you have any specific ideas for how to “activate the network of members to more effectively match up qualified workers with positions”?

I’ve been participating in the Women in Games SIG’s game mentor online program. It’s a very direct way of communicating and motivating young women and students who are thinking about pursuing games as a career. But there’s so much more we could do. The networking available at IGDA on a national level is largely untapped, I think – and could be a very valuable resource for education as well as for recruitment. We could focus on creating more networking events; alternatively, we can create events like the Leadership Forum with an emphasis on managing a game development career to match up the skills to what is currently needed in the market. And in order to get that data, we could commission a Skill Survey among hiring studios so each year we have a very clear idea of what skills employers are looking for.

How do you plan fpr the IGDA to increase diversity in game development?

The Women in Games SIG has already done a lot, just by its existence, in promoting the idea of women in game development as well as supporting the women who are working (and aspiring!) game developers. We can go further in recognizing and highlighting the accomplishments of women; and what about having an event for people of color in games? But I think when I say “diversity” I also mean it in very broad terms – I would love to see crossover from other disciplines, and perhaps we could set up a presence at film conferences, digital arts and media events, and web 2.0 events to share knowledge. So many people outside of our industry are interested in and curious about games – we could create a lot of goodwill and positive press by reaching out proactively to these people. And if we can fold in some of them to our industry, so much the better.

What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?

The IGDA needs to take a leadership role here, and it can — we’ve got the white papers and the research and the passionate, committed people to backing it up. The problem is that it’s not enough to simply make statements supporting the QoL initiative – we have to actively show that it’s in employers’ best interests to reform production practices, and to support them by teaching them how. There are some studios that do not crunch (or crunch rarely). What are they doing differently? How do they manage? Let’s collect best practices here and actively campaign employers to adopt them by showing them that in the long run, they are also the beneficiaries as they will see greater performance and greater employee retention. In my view longterm changes to QoL issues won’t happen without getting both employees and employers to the table. It won’t be easy – it’s going to take a long time to turn around a system so embedded in our development culture.

Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

As you all no doubt know, the IGDA took a real hit last year and raising funds is one of the priorities of the organization, and studios are an important revenue stream. But part of my goal as board member is to explore alternative revenue sources: grants or donations for specific programs, research and whitepapers offered for purchase, more events that are of value outside the IGDA membership. We can also launch a campaign to increase membership and explore ways to offer events or services that are exclusive to IGDA members.

Ed Magnin

UPDATE – Mr. Magnin stopped by and answered the questions I asked, as well as offered a couple corrections.  Apologies for misreading his website – I confused older GameBoy Color games for DS games.

Mr. Magnin is a long time industry vet who started in 1979 and has continued to still make games until at least recently – his company Magnin and Associates last had a DS game in 2000 and a couple iPhone games / apps since.  He’s also been teaching for the last 12 years according to his statement (and linkedIn profile) at a couple different institutions.  The website also has a section with a lot of useful information for people trying to get into the game industry, although some of it is rather dated.

He also mentions that he has, “Prior board experience includes the Greater Los Angeles Council on Deafness, JCS of San Diego, and the IGDA Foundation.”  The first one looks like it was for one year in 1979, according to his linkedIn profile.  I can’t manage to track down what JCS of San Diego is – it is neither listed in his linkedIn profile nor can find anything I can link to him via some quick searching.  I’m also unable to link his name to the IGDA Foundation via the Foundation website (side note – the fact that the IGDA Foundation website doesn’t list its current or past trustees is unhelpful).  I’m not trying to insinuate that Mr. Magnin hasn’t been involved with these non-profits, but it definitely gives me a few follow-up questions.

As with many other candidates’ statements, Mr. Magnin doesn’t directly answer the question of how much time he’s committing to the board, but instead assures us that he will find the time.

Questions for Mr. Magnin:

• Why run now?
• Can you please elaborate on your role with the IGDA Foundation, and the period of time when it occurred?
• Can you tell us what JCS San Diego is, and how and when you were associated with it?
• In the final part of the Q&A, you didn’t answer the question as to how you would accomplish your goals – namely, being the voice of reason to publishers in the Quality of Life discussion.  Can you tell us how you’d go about doing that?
• Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

UPDATE – Mr. Magnin’s replies:

I will try to answer your questions but first a couple of corrections:

Thanks again for the chance to make a couple of corrections and answer your very well thought out questions.

Michael Lubker

Mr. Lubker is the coordinator of the IGDA’s Indies SIG, a member of the Austin chapter, and contributes to several other SIGs.  His statement strikes an unabashedly populist tone, saying that he hopes to represent small and indie developers, and to make the IGDA more active in responding to Quality of Life issues.

Questions for Mr. Lubker:

• One of your stated goals is, “Reorganized chapter leadership structure – a board structure containing a caucus of Pros, Students, and Indies from the local area.  Encourage participation from indie and student members.”  Can you explain this proposal more in depth, and make a case for why it needs to happen?
• Regarding the above initiative – my understanding of how chapters are organized right now makes me think that this would be a very invasive departure from the IGDA’s usual processes.  At least in the Boston chapter, the relationship is one of equals; wouldn’t the local chapters perhaps balk at this kind of top-down restructuring?
• The list of efforts you plan to champion includes at least 16 different objectives.  Do you think it is realistic that you can make headway on that many things during your term?
• If you were forced to pick one of the efforts you’d like to see succeed, which one would it be?  Why?
• What, in your opinion, does the Indies SIG offer that indies can’t find in other indie communities such as the Indiegamer forums or TIGSource?
• Regarding Quality of Life, you say, “The IGDA should get the lawyers it needs to combat the situation and implement the wall of fame suggested by some members.”  Can you detail what these lawyers would do, and where the funds would be found to pay for them?
• Given the number and scope of your objectives and the fact that you cite two weeks as the upper timeframe for responding to IGDA issues, can you to be more specific on how much time you would be able to spend on board activities?  It seems like accomplishing objectives of this scope may require a lot of time.

Genevieve Lord

Ms. Lord’s goal, from her statement, is to increase the diversity of the industry and its content, and she couches this in terms of a WoW analogy – she wants to be the groups healer.  Her work experience encompasses a great deal of production and management, along with her academic experience in her current job at the Director of the Montreal branch of Champlain College.

A bit of digging turned up the postmortem to Myst IV on GamaSutra, which Ms. Lord produced.  There are also numerous other hits out on Google with various interviews she’s conducted.

Ms. Lord is one of the co-founders of the Positive Impact Games SIG, “a fairly new group informing the public on the positive aspects of many of the traditional games”.

As with a number of other candidates, there is no firm answer to how much time Ms. Lord plans to apply to being on the board.  She assures us that she can manage her time well, and that the amount of time isn’t an issue when it involves something she loves.

Questions for Ms. Lord:

• Why run now?
• You mention in your statement and in the Q&A that you feel lack of diversity is the biggest problem facing developers today.  It could be argued, though, that this is a problem facing the medium or industry overall, as opposed to the developers.  What do you feel is the biggest problem facing developers right now?
• In the first Q&A question, where you note lack of diversity as the central issue, you don’t say how the IGDA should be involved with resolving this issue.  Can you give us some specifics for how you’d like to approach this?
• In the final question of the Q&A, you say, “Any projects that do not cause our existing member’s community and/or new members to be involved within a specific period should be considered as not useful to them and therefore not worth the time investment.“  Can you give us some more detail on this idea?  How long is long enough?  Also, how will you ascertain if the idea is really not useful, as opposed to just poorly publicized or implemented?
• Please tell us a bit more about the Positive Impact Games SIG.  You say in your statement that, “Until now, we have focused on insuring thought provoking presentations at major events such as GDC and MIGS.”  What is the overall plan for the SIG to influence our industry, and what are the next steps?
• What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?
• Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

In essence, Gareth looks at a guy on DeviantArt who decides, inspired, that he is going to start painting and drawing, and keep going until he’s good.  I’ll leave it to you to click the link and see the results.

Starting my own studio has an exercise in ignorance.  Just about every day I’m asked a question or confronted with a decision that I have no basis for dealing with.  And hey, I’m supposed to know all this stuff by now, right?  It’s not like I started this all yesterday.  And man, I hate making mistakes.

Seeing this guy’s art… that’s inspirational.

Courtesy of the Rampant Coyote.

Darius Kazemi

(So, as the disclaimer above notes, I’m good friends with Darius and support his candidacy.  I’m going to try to be as hard on him as I’m being on everyone else, but I know I’m not unbiased.  If other people want to do a profile on him, I’d welcome it, and be happy to link to anything that looks even-handed.)

UPDATE – Mr. Kazemi has updated his campaign blog with answers.

Like David Edery, Mr. Kazemi comes out of the blocks with his statement strongly focused – in his case, it’s local chapters.  His statement goes a bit farther than the others I’ve read advocating local chapters, in that it envisions how this could be useful to topics like Quality of Life.  He also, at the end of his statement, advocates that we all do our candidate research and cast our votes wisely.

Questions for Mr. Kazemi:

• Why run now?
• You say that the biggest issue facing us as developers is establishing our status as professionals, and that fixing this is a long-term thing.  What can the IGDA be doing in the short term to address things you note as symptomatic of this – like Quality of Life?
• If not covered by the above, what do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?
• You note that you are up on the cutting edge communication technologies, and can help the IGDA with this.  What, if anything, do you see as poor about the IGDA’s communications practices right now, and how specifically would you improve them?
• Can you please talk about the big issues the IGDA itself faces as an organization right now?  What do you think is the most pressing one, and how would you work to resolve it?
• Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

UPDATE – Mr. Kazemi has updated his campaign blog with answers.

Sean Kane

UPDATE – Mr. Kane came by and answered the questions that I’d posed, answers below.

Mr. Kane is a Manhattan lawyer who handles game and intellectual property related cases and speaks at a lot of conferences on legal matters, especially as they pertain to virtual worlds.

(I tried to dig into his lawyerly record a bit, but with no luck – if anyone else is able to do that and report back, that’d be excellent.)

His stated goal in getting elected is to promote, “professionalism and growth in the industry, as well as a sense of community and information sharing among members“.  In regards to the biggest problem he sees developers facing these days, he feels it is a lack of respect.

Amongst his virtues, he mentions his being a small businessman, his handling of all sorts of game industry related legal matters, and his insider status in the American Bar Association as useful in influencing its stance on various game-related items.

Questions for Mr. Kane:

Why run now?

I have been involved in the IGDA now for several years.  For the first few years I was trying to learn as much as I could about the organization and how it operates.  Unfortunately, this was somewhat difficult since it seems that the IGDA previously was a not a very formalized organization.  From what I saw the individual chapters seemed to work almost autonomously with little input from the governing body of the organization.  Recently the IGDA has begun to change the way it operates by attempting to create a more formalized structure and have its individual chapters all comply with central guidelines and mandates.  Given my strong organizational skills I thought it was a great time to position myself and seek a leadership position.  I feel that I can assist the IGDA as it strives to formalize the organization into a body of professionals with a central focus and mission.  Moreover, my legal skills will be invaluable in assisting the organization in clearing the legal hurdles it will surely face as a centrally organized enterprise.  For these and other reasons I thought that now was the right time to run for a board position with the IGDA.

Can you talk to us at all about the kinds of clients / cases you tend to work on?  I’m not sure what you can and can’t say, given client confidentiality, but knowing that most of your work was for homeless indie developers or well-heeled publishers would certainly say something about your point of view.

You are correct in assuming that I cannot speak with specifics about any of my clients.  That said, I can speak about the type of clients that I work with.  I have clients that range from small iPhone developers, to social network game companies all the way to the creators of AAA titles.  I have worked with both publishers and developers so I am aware of the issues that both face.  As a lawyer I am often asked to view issues for more than one perspective and I plan to use this skill as a IGDA board members.  To answer your underlying question, I am not beholden to any particular sector for my business so I can be impartial in my representation of the IGDA’s interests.

A case could be made that, while the biggest issue we face as an industry is respect, individual game developers are more often dealing with pocketbook and quality of life issues.  How do you feel the IGDA is currently dealing with each of these things?  What would you like to improve, and how?

I do not really feel that the IGDA is dealing with pocketbook or quality of life issues to any great extent at the moment.  While a lot has been said about quality of life recently, for the reasons stated in response to your question below, the IGDA is limited in the power it has to change these things.  The most the IGDA can do at this point is make suggestions on how things should be but the organization has no real authority to change things.  It is really the members of the IGDA that have the power to affect change by working together to make it happen.  If I were on the board I would seek to discover what the rank and file IGDA member’s biggest concerns are and work to find ways to address them.

Can you please talk about the big issues the IGDA itself faces as an organization right now?  What do you think is the most pressing one, and how would you work to resolve it?

I feel that as an organization the IGDA’s biggest issues is to decide what it wants to be when it grows up.  The IGDA can merely be a resource for its members providing industry information and a place for members to meet.  Or it can also seek to be the liaison between the development community and the public at large.  The large membership base of the IGDA potentially puts it in the position to be the speaking arm of the development community.  The IGDA can demonstrate to the public at large what development is and how it affects everyone’s lives in some form or another.  If the IGDA wishes to address this issue it must be organized and lobby for its members concerns.  This may include working with such organizations like the ESA and the EMA to advance the industry as a whole.  While we have our own unique concerns that those other organizations do not share it does not mean that we should not be speaking with them on issues we all do share.

What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?

Quality of Life is one of the most important issues that face the membership of the IGDA, but it is also one of the most difficult to resolve.  As the membership knows whether you are creating iPhone games, facebook games or AAA console titles you are always under a deadline to finish.  In fact many of the publisher contracts contain both a carrot and a stick for developers.  They may provide a completion bonus, as well as having a penalty for late delivery.  These factors put the publishers and developers in a difficult position.  If the IGDA is to work to ensure that its members have a reasonable quality of life it must be empowered by the members themselves.  Of itself the IGDA does not have any real power to change the way the industry behaves.  If it is to really have some power to affect change in the industry it must have the support of its large member base to engage in a form of collective bargaining with publishers and developers.  Moreover, the IGDA could put out quality of life best practices and lobby publishers and developers to accept them and self police the industry.  That said, if the IGDA’s base does not care enough to participate in ensuring that their own quality of life issues are addressed the governing body of the organization will be hamstrung to act by itself.

Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

Studio sponsorship can be a neutral thing depending on what the studios expect in return.  If studios are expecting that the IGDA should scrap any guidelines on how developers should be treated then that is obviously a bad thing.  However, if the studios are funding the IGDA because they believe in the industry and want the IGDA to work to make the industry as great as it can be then it is not a bad thing.  Since I do not have any information about what every sponsoring studio wants from the IGDA I can not fully respond to your question.  That said, there are other ways to fund the IGDA as an organization.  The IGDA could look to their members to pay more in annual dues.  The IGDA could plan more events to raise funds and seek out available grants.  I would really need to know the full financial position of the IGDA to suggest other options.

I hope the foregoing answers your questions.

Chuck Hoover

UPDATE – Mr. Hoover stopped by and answered the questions below.

Mr. Hoover’s statement has some generalities to it, but also some intriguing specifics.   His goal, he states, is to help make the IGDA something we can all be proud of.  He puts forth three ways he wants to do that:

• Developer credits should be tied to our IGDA accounts to make them a more persistent and important part of our careers.
• Creating more knowledge sharing events, following the example of the IGDA Leadership Forum.
• The IGDA could issue ‘IGDA Approved’ certifications to studios that meet its quality of life standards.

In the Q&A, when asked the biggest problem facing devs he responds with a range of items (“lack of stability at major studios, quality of life concerns, digital piracy, and the rapidly changing economic landscape”).  He then says the IGDA needs to continue with “meaningful support of its members and local chapters”.  Good sentiments, but again, lacking specifics.

No firm commitment on time, but what comes across as a credible (to me) assertation that he’ll do what needs doing.

Questions for Mr. Hoover:

Why run now?

From the moment I joined this industry, I was excited about the possibilities of all that the IGDA could offer. I came to realize that the gap between what I thought a professional organization could be, and where we were as the IGDA, was pretty large.

At this point in my career, I feel like I have the drive, desire, and time to join the board and help improve the IGDA.

How would tying developer credits to IGDA accounts be better than, say, making sure your MobyGames entry is up to date?

One of my stated goals is to make the IGDA an organization we are all proud of. That goal can be attacked from multiple angles. First, is to increase the relevance of the IGDA’s initiatives, from studio sponsorship to actually supporting local chapters and their events. We have national events, such as the global game jam, but it’s ultimately an event that has a very loose structure for its participants.  We are an organization chock-full of game designers; shouldn’t we do a better job of designing our game jams to include more of a reward structure for the extraordinary games that come out of them?

The second angle is to make the IGDA membership more attractive to developers and students.  Many of us pay our forty eight dollars every year, but how often do we utilize the IGDA to maximize that payment we made? Making the website a place where people want to spend time is an example of this, as is tying our developer credits to our IGDA accounts makes our membership intrinsically more meaningful.

Can you give us more details on your proposal on other knowledge-sharing events like the Leadership forum?  What subjects would you want to do?  Would these be local or national events (I’m calling the Leadership forum national for this purpose)?

As game developers, we have a plethora of conferences every year (many more than most industries) and because of this, it’s difficult to create a conference that speaks to a new audience. However, I do think there is space for more knowledge sharing events like the IGDA Leadership Forum, one of the most successful IGDA events.

I feel there are three major aspects of this event that can be further explored in other forums:

1. Focus. The Leadership forum is an extremely focused conference.  It’s clear who the target audience is and it’s not trying to be all things to all people.
2. Global attendees. It’s more than a local or national event, it’s global. This means that it can attract developers with a wide range of backgrounds for a more diverse experience. Knowledge is typically shared amongst studios on a regional level, but when you can gain perspectives from developers around the world, these events can reach a new plateau.
3. Cross Discipline. The leadership forum focuses on developers of all disciplines who are interested in leadership, how to become better at it, and to learn from those who are already leaders. These broader topics create opportunities for meaningful dialogue between all the difference’s disciplines that we work with on a daily basis.

Why not take the trail blazed by the Leadership Forum and create our conferences not based around the job titles we hold, but rather the challenges we face as an industry.

My limited understanding of the Quality of Life SIG’s work is that they have already been working on a proposal for IGDA certification on QoL.  What is your understanding of their work on this, and what issues need to be resolved to make it happen?

That is my understanding as well and I think it’s an excellent proposal. This is a perfect example of how the IGDA can be more integrated into the industry. From my background in Architecture, I’ve witnessed the proliferation of The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System. This certification took that industry by storm, because it seized onto something people cared about and defined metrics for it that were quantifiable.

We know that we as developers are just as passionate about our work life balance as we are about making games. What we need to do now, is make sure that the metrics this system is based on are measurable, that the certification carries real weight, and that we get this correct right out of the gate… all in the aim of making an “IGDA certified studio” something meaningful.

What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?

It’s clear that the IGDA is poised to take the leadership position on these discussions.  We have taken strides towards this, but until something like the certification process is put into play, and I’m concerned that the IGDA’s role will become limited to discussions and white papers. The IGDA studio certification would be a great start and in my opinion should become the core of the quality of life initiative.

Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

I absolutely don’t think the IGDA’s dependency on studio sponsorship for funding is a negative; I actually feel the opposite is true. Both studios and we developers have a responsibility to our industry to keep the IGDA alive and well. What I do see as a negative however, is the lack of reciprocation from the IGDA back to the studios.

Just as many of us still feel like we need clearer value for our membership, studios deserve that same value for their sponsorship. If we can add a value proposition to studios sponsorship, we can increases the IGDA’s visibly; we can in turn use that visibility to increases membership.

After all, this has been done before. The USGBC’s membership increased 4 fold in the first 2 years after the inception of their LEED certification. If we can emulate their strategy and capture even a part of that success, then I see no reasons to transition away from sponsorships. People will pay for the IGDA and we will be able to find funding. The part we need to worry about, is making sure our organization is worth it, and is something we can be proud of.

Chris Hood

UPDATE – Mr. Hood stopped by and gave us some answers in the comments.  I’ve placed them below.

As I’ve now seen with a number of other statements, Mr. Hood puts forth a number of high-level goals he’d like to accomplish, but doesn’t really get into how he’d accomplish them.  Mr. Hood takes direct credit for reenergizing the IGDA in SoCal (“…I recently reenergized the IGDA in Southern California.”), but doesn’t lay out exactly what his role was in this.

Questions for Mr. Hood:

• Why run now?
• What exactly has your role been with the LA IGDA and its reboot?
• You lay out five high-level goals that you’d like to accomplish.  Some of these, the IGDA is already doing (“Offer a way for professionals to find career opportunities and grow their experience”, “Supply a voice and increase visibility for the game industry to the national media.”)  Can you tell us what you think the IGDA is and is not already doing well?
• Also, for your five goals, can you lay out specific things you would like to do to accomplish these goals?
• In response to the question of what you see as the biggest challenge facing game developers today, you responded, “money and work, public relations, quality of life for developers and growth of our industry.”  Of these four things, which do you think is the most important?  What specific steps would you like to see addressing that issue?
• What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?
• Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

From Mr. Hood:

“First, thanks Scott for putting this together.  I think one of the keys to this election process is to get our candidates out in front of the members more, and with a recommendation I made to Joshua Caulfield, you’ll soon see a few more opportunities for the candidates and members to interact with questions and answers.  I believe one of the concerns you have with the candidates statements is simply a lack of time and word count.  I’m confident we’d all love to go into a great amount of detail about how goals and how we’d like to accomplish them, unfortunately, with a limit of 400 words, it’s quite difficult to outline everything.  So again, with opportunities like this, we can share more and hopefully dive deeper into the concerns our members actually have.  I’ll answer your questions in as much detail as I can below, but I would also invite anyone who is interested in contacting me personally to do so.  I’m available for email or phone at any time.

In response to IGDA efforts in Southern California.

Over the last 2 years, the activity of the IGDA local chapters in Southern California have been greatly declining.  In fact, over the last 2 years in Orange County alone, there was only one meeting.  After coordinating chapter meetings in the DC Metro and Virginia area in 2008, I relocated to Southern California in 2009 and was disappointed to not see any activity.  My stance was simple, it was unacceptable for our area not to be connecting on a regular basis.  With no local network, I put an outline together for monthly IGDA meetings and in August 2009, IGDA Orange County relaunched with 50 people.  Since then, under my coordination and leadership, the Orange County chapter now averages 150 members a month.  We have had 7 straight monthly meetings and have seen signficant membership growth.  With the success of the Orange County chapter, in December 2009, I began coordinating the efforts for the Los Angeles chapter to reboot and get back on track.  In January 2010, uner my leadership and with the assistance of a passionate steering committee, the IGDA Los Angeles chapter restarted with a meeting that attracted 100 local professionals and students.  My goal is to continue developing our local chapters not only in Southern California, but to find ways of strengthening and building our local video game communities everywhere.

Throughout rebuilding the local IGDA chapters in Southern California, my philosophy has always been “it just needs to happen.”  We just need to get things done and do it.  No one else was stepping up to the plate, so I just made the chapter meetings happen and I would like to continue making things happen for the IGDA.  The IGDA is going through a lot of change right now, and I’m excited to be a part of it.  I feel my background and experience would be helpful in the IGDA’s efforts moving forward over the next three years and I’m ready to help in the process.  Joshua Caulfield is doing a great job in my opinion, and I’d love to work more closely with him and the other Board members to continue growing the IGDA.”

NOTE: Due to emergency surgery and subsequent hospitalization, Michelle was unable to answer the IGDA Q&A or answer the questions raised on this page.  I wish her the best with a speedy & complete recovery.

Michelle Hinn

Ms. Hinn has an excellent statement that is, sadly, not backed up by any Q&A.  Her career bio paints her as a crusader for accessibility in gaming, a topic that is often completely glossed over or forgotten in many of the games our industry creates.  The lack of Q&A, though, is easily overshadowed by Ms. Hinn’s recent resignation from the board of a non-profit.

A bit of digging on the internet uncovered the fact that Ms. Hinn recently resigned from the board of the Able Gamers Foundation ahead of a vote to remove her.  The press release for AbleGamers notes that the vote was being called, “for alleged misconduct, conflict of intrest [sic], using AbleGamers limited resources for presonal [sic] gain, and knowing misleading [sic] the board on issues vital to AbleGamers Foundations core mission of forwarding Game Accessibility.”  It further notes that the board has accepted her resignation and is considering legal action.

Regardless of the merits of this issue (which I cannot ascertain in the time I have to work on this), this sort of thing must be addressed.

Questions for Ms. Hinn:

• Why run for the board now?
• Can you explain the Able Gamers situation?
• Given the controversy outlined above, how do you justify your running for the board with those issues unresolved?
• When can we expect your Q&A to be posted to the IGDA site?
• What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?
• What are you bringing to the table here that makes you a better candidate than the other nominees?
• Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

John Hight

UPDATE – Mr. Hight answered my questions below.

Mr. Hight’s entry here will be short, because there isn’t much to go on.  His statement reads like a lightweight biography and has no posted Q&A, so there is almost nothing to go on for specifics.  I finished the entry knowing that he has a great deal of experience with game creation, but knowing nothing about the specific issues he thinks developers or the IGDA face.  Most of the candidate statement can be summed up by one of the closing lines, “If elected I would lend my voice and my experience to shaping our industry and helping my fellow developers succeed.”  Sure, but how and to what effect?

Questions for Mr. Hight:

Why run now?

I’ve been interested in running in the past but never had the time to commit. I’m finishing a long-term project, God of War 3, and I will have more time to contribute.

When can we expect your Q&A to be posted to the IGDA site?

I will submit my answers tomorrow. I assume IGDA will post them shortly thereafter. These last 2 weeks have been pretty hectic for me as we final a big project.

Can you please list out specifics for what you think the IGDA is doing well right now, what it is doing poorly, and what you’d like to help change?

Right: Raising Quality of Life Issues, Lobbying for Anti-Censorship, Sponsoring information exchange via seminars/meetings/white papers.
Needs work: Speaking with a unified voice, Gaining publisher acceptance for issues, e.g. QOL and Credits, Establishing criteria in education/training for various game development professions.
What can I do in these areas?
– Unified voice: I would work collaboratively with my fellow directors for consistent and focused efforts.
– Publisher relations: I’ve held high-level positions on the publishing side and I can help facilitate discussions/negotiations.
– Educational outreach: The future of our industry depends on having well-trained talent. My experience on the job and in the classroom can help guide IGDA efforts. I am personally very interested in this activity.

What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?

IGDA should continue to champion in this. Real progress can be made when the concerns for both employer and employee are addressed. I worked prolonged crunch on five projects myself. I know firsthand how painful it is to maintain relationships and families when this takes place. I also know that the consequences of missing a release window can be devastating for companies and ultimately their staff. I am hopeful that an open dialog with clear goals for success can help create a balanced work life for developers and more reliable forecasting for publishers.

What are you bringing to the table here that makes you a better candidate than the other nominees?

I’ve programmed games, designed games, and even made art for games. My experience includes starting new teams, inheriting existing teams, working as a publisher, working as a small developer, and working as a large developer. I play a lot of games from major retail releases to small indie efforts. I have respect for developers, passion for product, and 20 years of experience. This industry has been great to me and I would like to give back. I am confident that my knowledge and drive will be useful to the IGDA.

Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

It’s a good thing – as long as it doesn’t skew the focus away from addressing the issues of developers. We can’t take on the big issues without the financial support of both studios and developers.

Eric Francksen

UPDATE – Mr. Francksen came by and answered the questions I was asking – they’re below.

Mr. Francksen is the president of the Wisconsin chapter of the IGDA.  His statement is well written, and he comes across as very committed, but the whole thing lacks specifics.

It begins with, “The IGDA currently has many strong programs to help its members reach out to colleagues all over the world.”  What are these programs, and how are they effective?  One of the things I’ve heard repeatedly is that the IGDA doesn’t do a great job of reaching out and working with non-USA chapters, so I’d like more detail here.

He later says, “As a Board member, I intend to help focus our mutual efforts towards strengthening both our local and remote communities with specific initiatives geared at taking advantage of the IGDA’s corporate resources to help support the needs of local chapters.”  Again – specifics, please.  Which efforts?  What specific initiatives?  Also – how would these be funded?  From reading the 2008 Annual Report, the IGDA lost around $90,000 in 2008.  I can’t imagine 2009 was any better, given the economy.

In the Q&A, he cites Quality of Life as the biggest obstacle in front of the dev community, but says he intends to help “collaborate, as a community, and help establish best practices which we can bring back to our workplaces in order to help reduce burnout.”  Are we not at a point already where we know those practices, and it’s more about getting the bad apple companies to care about them?

Questions for Mr. Francksen:

Before getting into these questions, I’d like to address a comment you made in the second paragraph.  You bring up a very good point regarding the IGDA’s outreach to non-USA chapters.  I am not only concerned about accessibility for these groups but other IGDA members who can’t afford the money or time to make it to conferences or chapter meetings.  This is why I intend to support web-based networking resources, such as the webinars, which have the ability to tighten our entire community with limited cost to the organization.  

Can you describe some of the international IGDA programs you find effective, and tell us why you find them so?

If the IGDA’s goal is to help better our industry through communication and awareness, we can take a look at several effective programs.  In particular, we can discuss the summits which pool together professionals from across the globe, the leadership forum which allows our decision-makers to be better prepared to face industry needs and changes, and of course the chapters and SIGs.  All of these initiatives directly serve the IGDA’s goal of strengthening the game development community and bettering our crafts.

Can you give us some details on the “specific initiatives” you want to strengthen if elected?

If elected, my focus would be to see initiatives which reach the greatest number of members strengthened.  Specifically, I see room for growth within our online resources.  For years the Wisconsin chapter has posted videos of their meetings online and I’m sure other chapters have done the same.  One improvement I envision is the creation of an online resource where we can organize meeting videos on our group websites and in one general location where they can be accessed by subject, chapter, or date so that all of our members can benefit from the speakers at our local meetings.  We are all required to post our meeting minutes to our websites to share with the community.  Adding video, not as a requirement, but as an option would be a great use of our resources.  Another initiative, which I mentioned in my Q & A, would be to broaden the use of our webinars to host round table discussions as well as the guest speakers we already host.  These ‘borderless’ initiatives can be used to network local and remote chapter communities with one another no matter where they are located, geographically.

What “corporate resources” do you wish to use for local chapters?  Can you elaborate on this with details?

What I refer to when I talk about “corporate resources” are less financial and more social.  The IGDA Board of Directors has a unique opportunity to represent us, as a community, to other groups which may help strengthen our chapters and groups.  Jane Pincard, an IGDA member who is also running for a Board position, mentioned the MacArthur Foundation as a good example of the sort of organization the Board can network with on behalf of the IGDA and its members.  Another example would be the Project Management Institute, which has many software developers as members.  A partnership with the PMI could help our producers network with other software project managers and discuss how to better their craft from a perspective outside of games, thus enriching both communities.  As an individual chapter coordinator, I have been able to negotiate sponsorships and resources for my chapter with groups such as ATI/ AMD.  As a Board member, I intend to continue this work at the corporate level in hopes that sponsorships and corporate relationships can further help benefit local chapter members, worldwide.

Putting aside the question of establishing best practices, can you discuss how you would want to try to get bad apple studios to pay attention to them?

Simply put, I hope to increase communication on the subject.  In the ‘bad apple’ studios I have seen or heard of, it should come as no surprise that I have also noticed major communication problems.  In situations like these, when important issues such as quality of life or role identity are not safe topics, it can be the role of the IGDA to offer a forum where thoughts from all sides can come together and be discussed.  Whether this is done on a case by case basis or as a running discussion would have to be addressed by the community, but the idea of the IGDA as a mediating group for these issues would be one means of safely re-opening communications.  We do, however, have an opportunity to reward affiliated studios with recognition for outstanding business ethics.  For example, we could offer ethics certification to studios who apply for it.  The studio could then be reviewed and, if IGDA standards are met, could then be awarded this recognition.  Likewise, a studio’s recognition could also be challenged if issues were to arise.  Thus, the IGDA can help support studios which excel at upholding the values of the IGDA.

What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?

I have a great appreciation for the work that the Quality of Life SIG continues to do to support sustainable business practices.  I do know that the IGDA receives some criticism for not having any muscle to back up its beliefs, such as some sort of excommunication power.  I, on the other hand, support the IGDA’s commitment to inclusiveness.  Remaining open to studios and professionals who may violate quality of life standards is a greater good than chastising them.  In this way, I hope to see the IGDA help mediate and resolve these issues in a non-hostile manner.

What are you bringing to the table here that makes you a better candidate than the other nominees?

We have some great candidates running for the Board and I would be privileged to serve with any of them, so let me rephrase your question by answering what makes me unique, as a candidate.   Although I’ve worked in production and QA positions for the past several years, it is my experience as a chapter founder and president that will make me a strong addition to the Board.  I have seen and experienced, firsthand, the needs and benefits of local chapters.  If we are to reach out to the world on behalf of our members, it is critical that the Board have an understanding of just what their members would like to see from the organization.  I have a great deal of experience and passion for supporting this sort of grass roots leadership and I look forward to the opportunity to express this as a Board member.

Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

I believe the studio affiliation program is a good resource for studios, their members, and the IGDA.  I do not think it is inappropriate for studios to sponsor the IGDA if they find benefit within the organization for themselves and their employees.  To answer your question regarding the dependence, I think it’s standard for the beneficiaries of an organization to pay the dues of that organization and, because there are services within the IGDA which need to be financially maintained, I do not find this to be a bad thing.

David Edery

Mr. Edery’s statement is easily the best I’ve ready so far in the series (I’m not reading ahead, so everything up to the “D”‘s.)   It comes across like a real political platform – it’s easy to see that thought has gone into it.

He comes right out of the gates and tells us why he’s running – he feels the IGDA is a mess.  He says that he wants to bring people back into the fold by giving them lots of specific benefits for their $48 a year – including remote access for all IGDA members to the Leadership forum content (a cursory search of 2009 Leadership forum videos on the Googles leads to precisely nothing), expanding the Webinar series, and introducing a legal program similar to the current medical insurance program.

Mr. Edery’s background is on the business-side, and this comes across – partially because of his tone and partially because he hammers these credentials.  He was the Worldwide Games Portfolio Manager for Xbox Live Arcade until last year, and since then has his own games consulting company.  The picture painted by his LinkedIn profile, his blog Game Tycoon, and his candidate statement (linked above with his name) are of an intent and intelligent biz dev guy who wants the IGDA to succeed, and feels that the road it has been traveling the last couple years leads straight to irrelevance.

He deals straight-up with the time question, saying that he’s done research with the current board and is ready to commit the same time as they have found is needed, plus extra in order to get his priorities accomplished.  He also notes that, since it’s his own company he’s working for, he has a lot of control over his schedule.

Questions for Mr. Edery:

From your blog’s profile, you live in the Seattle area.  The Seattle IGDA chapter has been a ghost for a long while, only recently getting back off the ground.  Do you attend meetings with the local chapter, and what do you think the Seattle chapter should do to continue becoming more vital?

RE: the Seattle SIG, I’ve been discussing its resurrection with Tom Buscaglia (who also happens to live in the area) and have already agreed to join the advisory board. We’ve discussed a variety of ways to make the SIG more vital, including networking events featuring “local celebrities” and frankly, some opportunities to have fun.

Ms. Burkett feels that the best way to revitalize the IGDA is to revive local chapters; your stance is that we should instead make membership more attractive by offering more tangible bennies.  Will this not just lead to more disinterested, disconnected members?  Where do the local chapters fit into your strategy for the IGDA?

RE: member benefits — there’s no inherent reason why better benefits would equal “disinterested, disconnected members.” Better benefits = more reason to join, pure and simple. What we do to engage the membership is an important, but separate, question.

What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?

RE: QoL — the IGDA needs to promote case studies and research which clearly demonstrate the strengths of a healthy work environment. The IGDA should also showcase studios that are truly positive examples. (In other words, focus on the carrot; there’s already a “stick” in the form of negative publicity caused by upset spouses, former employees, etc.)

Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

RE: studio sponsorships — I shared some thoughts on this very subject a while back. (http://www.edery.org/2009/04/the-future-of-the-igda). Bottom line is that there’s no simple answer to this question. The IGDA is already struggling like so many other not-for-profit organizations during this recession. Transitioning away from studio sponsorships won’t be possible until the IGDA is confident that enough people will pay for membership on their own. Which leads me back to increasing the value of membership…

Just a quick note on some updates:

• Updated Phil Bourke’s page with the answers he provided.
• Updated Wendy Despain’s page with the answers she provided.
• I’ve also revised the profiles of all the candidates I’ve done so far (John Ardussi, Phil Bourke, Ann Burkett, Wendy Despain, and Dino Dini) to try to remove as much subjective material as possible.   I may do a more op-ed piece at the end of the series with my evaluations, but until then, I’ll try to keep this as objective as possible.

Dino Dini

UPDATE – Mr. Dini responded to my questions below on his blog.

Mr. Dini is an interesting fellow.  His statement is very well put-together, but raises a couple questions.

Mr. Dini lays out his experience, his point of view, and what he’d like to accomplish.  His main aim, he writes, is to foster a better sense of community within the IGDA.

He doesn’t answer the hours question, but does say flatly that he’ll find the time to do what is needed.

(I’m not trying to focus hardcore on the hours thing.  I’m just trying to call it when I see a question not answered, and this question seems to not get answered a lot.)

The biggest question raised by his post -and a little internet digging – concerns something he brings up a couple times: forum trolling.  A number of Mr. Dini’s threads on the IGDA website’s forums go on a great length in arguments with other posters.  I’m not saying he’s a troll, mind you – there’s a lot of food for thought and a ton of useful discussion in many of the posts – but by his own words, he has a problem with “[being] able to continue to say what [he thinks] without getting distracted or pulled into a troll fest hell.“

So, the question is this – Mr. Dini puts forward that he’s an excellent communicator, which can be seen clearly in his well-crafted statement and Q&A.  But the thread linked above provides evidence of the opposite.  Or perhaps, it’s the continuation of communication well after the point of diminishing returns has been reached.  The question, then, would be to ask which Mr. Dini would show up to the IGDA board meetings.

Questions for Mr. Dini:

UPDATE – Mr. Dini responded to my questions below on his blog.

• How exactly do you plan to improve the sense of community and involvement among the membership?  Can you give us some specific actions you would take?
• What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?
• What are you bringing to the table here that makes you a better candidate than the other nominees?
• Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

Update: Ms. Despain came by and answered the questions I had posed – both questions and answers are below.  She also calls me out, correctly, on morphing the question she was asked in the statement Q&A into something else.

Wendy Despain

As a note, while I’m writing this, Ms. Despain’s Q&A isn’t up on the IGDA site.  She did submit it yesterday, though, and provided me with a copy of it via email.  I’ve put up an .RTF version of it here on my site.

Ms. Despain’s statement is well-written – which makes sense, since she’s a professional writer.  Her statement opens with her saying she wants to focus on the future and on work on bringing together the IGDA’s supporters and critics.

In regards to the biggest challenge facing game devs today, she has a couple things to say.  The first is that we perhaps face a meta-challenge – namely, figuring out the answer to what our biggest challenge is.  This is a good point – with an all-volunteer organization like the IGDA, focus is always going to be a potential issue.  That said, I’d like to hear her top three or top five items.

One problem that she does raise, though, is the issue of cross-border regulations regarding games and hardware.  But is this more important than, say,  organizational credibility?  One could make the argument that the big companies, with their giant profit motives and their lobbyists, will make this happen.  Why should the IGDA spend its precious time on this?  Does it seem probable that the big companies will solve this issue in a way that harms individual developers or small dev shops?

She does give us straight answers to how much time she’d spend on IGDA matters.  There is no answer to a portion of the last question, though – how will you accomplish your goals?  It would be good to know if she has a draft plan for getting the ball rolling on something as large as an international consensus about cross-border games.

Her bit in the last question regarding the IGDA creating “masterpieces” vs stuff held together by “duct tape and hope” could easily be a veiled reference to the IGDA website debacle, which has haunted the organization for years and cost piles of money.  It is brought up only in passing – Ms. Despain is, at least in her Q&A, sticking to the idea that we keep moving forward.

I appreciate that I’m able to ask questions like this regarding Ms. Despain’s statement – she’s put specifics on the table, which in turn allows me to ask more specific questions back at her.

Quesitons for Ms. Despain:

Why are you running for the board?

I guess I skimmed over this too quickly in my candidacy statement. Happy to elaborate. I’ve been an active volunteer in the IGDA Writing SIG for many years and elected chair of that SIG for three years. When I joined the SIG, most game developers had no idea what a writer could do for games. Several of us were employed doing the job of writers in interactive entertainment, but none of us had that title. Some were labeled as designers, others like myself were labeled producers. When I tried to call myself a writer, I got very confused looks from game developers.

Today is different. Writers are a respected discipline, even though devs are still figuring out exactly the best way to use us – at least they’re using us, and appreciating our contributions. We’ve come such a long way. And I don’t know any other organization other than the IGDA Writing SIG whose sole focus was on improving the careers of game writers. I think it’s fair to give the SIG some credit for making a difference.

Now, I acknowledge that this is a difference that doesn’t directly impact very many devs. It’s niche. It’s hard to crow about it. I get that.

But here’s where I get back around to why I’m running for the board. I’ve made some great friends in the game industry. Not just writers, but programmers and designers and musicians. They’re all great people, struggling with problems unique to their disciplines. I’ve almost been feeling guilty that I’ve helped to make such a difference for writers, but not for all the other developers in games.

I’ve had some experience with working within the IGDA to make a difference in the game industry, and I’d like to leverage that experience out to other disciplines other than writers. If I’m elected to the board, I can have a wider influence, not just niche.

But I’m not trying to remake the game industry according to my single-minded vision. I’m not a programmer, for instance. I don’t know what they need the IGDA to help them with. But once we find out, then we can make a plan and execute on it. I guess it’s the producer in me coming out. Please don’t hold it against me.

How specifically do you plan to facilitate cooperation across the IGDA, and to dig up and employ its hidden talent?

I have a few ideas about where to start. I’m willing to keep trying things until I understand what works. I just know that there are a lot of great people in the IGDA and they want to help, they just don’t know what to do or how. I’ve seen the eager posts from newcomers. I’m a huge fan of delegation. This organization does not have to rest solely on the shoulders of a few dedicated overachievers. We can spread the load, we just need to understand better how to work together.

Some concrete examples of what I would like to try (or in some cases, try more of):

• clear calls for volunteers for clearly delineated projects with clear project leadership
• speaking of leadership, that’s an area we can improve on – training existing chapter and SIG leaders and starting with good examples of leadership on the IGDA Board.
• i’d like to try some “town hall meetings” as well – where board members meet with members to talk things out. (virtually as well as at conferences)

If these things don’t work, I’ll do more research and brainstorming and consulting with smart people and we’ll come up with more things to try. I firmly believe this is a solvable problem.

Can you give us your top three to five items you see as challenges to for the IGDA?  Priority order or not, either way is fine.

I’m going to be a bit of a nitpicker and point out that the question asked by the board was what’s the biggest problem facing *game developers* not the IGDA. I have different answers for these. Just warning you. But I’ll answer the question you asked.

The top three to five problems for the *IGDA* in my opinion are these:

• Credibility with our members
• Credibility with game devs in general
• Public relations and marketing of/for the IGDA and videogame devs

Can you explain why the IGDA should get involved with intra-country regulation of games?  Isn’t this something that the big companies can sort out on their own?

If we leave this problem to the big companies, they’ll act in their best interests, which is fine. But the solution they work out for themselves may not be what’s best for games as an art form – or for small companies and true “indies”. And this problem definitely impacts them as well. For an overview of the problem as I see it, I’ll refer you to the article I wrote for the escapist and linked to in my other answers:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_170/5334-Legislating-The-Virtual-World.3

This is a problem even for people making facebook games after they finish their college homework. It just hasn’t bloomed into the full-fledged disaster it’s fixin’ to be.

What is your plan for getting the ball rolling with the regulation you talked about?

I don’t think the IGDA should be legislating, but I think we’re in a unique position to bring people together and help with educating legislators about games. Some governments are seeing problems ahead as their citizens are interacting across borders in online games and cultures are clashing.

Some lawmaking bodies around the world are overreacting to what they see as a threat and creating very restrictive legislation. Others are paralyzed by indecision, their neglect quietly setting themselves up for conflict.

So I think the IGDA should participate in the conversation and help educate game devs about the legislative issues and legislators about game industry issues.

I’d love to see some smart volunteers brought together in a committee, workgroup or whatever you want to call it to write whitepapers, provide assistance to other groups out there who are working on this problem, and frame the IGDA’s position on the problem.

What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?

I think the IGDA should be a place where the various parties can come together on safe ground and learn more about the problem, talk through their differences, and come to a resolution.

That said, I believe the IGDA should have a strong stance in on the side of developers, rather than management. Not that developers are of a single opinion, but if we can’t have the conversation here – where can we?

What are you bringing to the table here that makes you a better candidate than the other nominees?

Here’s the thing – five people are being elected this time, and voters can vote for as many people as they like, so it’s not as if everyone has to decide which one person they like better than everybody else. So I’m not going to try to convince people of that.

I do want to convince people that I’m in the top 5 of the candidates. Sure. But one benefit to having so many seats open on the board is that candidates don’t have to try to position themselves as being the be-all-end-all game developer. Voters can put in a slate of people with different strengths.

I’m good at communications, community management and getting things done. That’s what I have to offer the IGDA, and I hope they’ll see that as valuable enough to include when they sit down to vote for their ideal slate.

Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

Yes. It’s never a good idea to have all your eggs in one basket. I don’t think we should turn away studio sponsorships, but I think we should have multiple strong income streams.

If elected, I plan to do a lot of research and problem-solving and asking everyone I know for ideas. This is one area where I believe our new Executive Director, Joshua Caulfield can help us with his broad experience running associations. Money is awfully helpful when it comes to getting things done – even if we’re just buying a round of beers for a chapter meeting.

We need to find as many honorable revenue streams as we can get. I’m confident we can (and have already gotten a good start in some ways).

Ann Burkett

UPDATE – Ms. Burkett’s answers at the bottom.

Ms. Burkett’s statement has been written in a conversational style that at times makes it somewhat difficult to follow, at least for me.

Ms. Burkett is the chair of the Silicon Valley IGDA chapter, and this is the cornerstone of her campaign – most of her statement is framed around it.  She cites, amongst other things, a roughly 1000% increase from 75 to 720 people on their Google mailing group in her tenure as indicators of her ability to grow and help run a chapter.  She also implies that that chapter growth will help the Quality of Life issue, and that it is a key element to the IGDA’s health.

I also want to know more specifics about how building the chapters will help the IGDA and its members, and how she plans to go about doing this.  Specific concrete proposals would be great.

Again with this candidate, we are given no straight answer to the question of how much time she would spend on their IGDA duties.  Combined with her stated ambivalence about running (“How do I feel about running for the board? Somewhat ambivalent.”), this perhaps leaves some big concerns about her commitment to being on the IGDA board.

On the final question of how she would get things done in a short time and on a small budget, Ms. Burkett assures us she can do so, and then turns the question around to ask why things are always done in that manner.  While a fair question, it leaves the initial question of how she would cope with that situation.  More importantly, she also leaves unanswered the question of how she would go about accomplishing her goals.  Again, concrete specifics are lacking.

Questions for Ms. Burkett:

• If, as you say, the biggest problem facing the IGDA right now is jobs, what direct action can the IGDA take to help this situation?
• Can you elaborate on your thought that strong local chapters would help with the Quality of Life issues many developers face?
• Can you please give us specific proposals on how you plan to strengthen the local IGDA chapters?
• Can you please answer the question of how much time you would plan to spend on the IGDA, and how much you think is appropriate?  Also, how would this impact (or be impacted by) your work with the Silicon Valley chapter?
• How many people usually attend the Silicon Valley IGDA chapter meetings?  What were the numbers like when you started as coordinator?  While not the end-all-be-all indicator, I think it’s an important piece of data in judging the chapter’s overall growth.
• What role did the other chapter leaders play in the chapter’s growth, and what role do they play on a regular basis in its operation?
• What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?
• What are you bringing to the table here that makes you a better candidate than the other nominees?
• Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

Ms. Burkett answered many of these questions in the comments.  Here is her reply:

Hi well first of all it was kind of some people let me know about the “review” and even kinder to have shown support.

There are few that have been as committed to building the chapter as I have and the data on chapter growth supports that. There is nothing more concrete than data. No yapping about how much time one would or wouldn’t spend or how one juggles is really relevant, what is really relevant is results.

Talk is cheap. Ambition is cheap too. Criticism is exceedingly cheap. Action is expensive and rare.

I’m ambivalent because I’m happy doing what I do. Would think that’s a good rather than a bad thing.

Yes I can deal with low budgets and tight schedules however if the IGDA is complaining about a crunch time mentality in the industry they should address their own. I don’t know how to be any clearer.

As far as jobs, fun, connection and quality of life go, to site one example, we had a game project connection night which was oriented towards people finding jobs, and it was during an ugly ugly time when people thought the economy was falling off the cliff. Noah Falstein was awesome, check it out here http://www.siliconvalleyigda.org/projectnights/ and yes I do know people who astoundingly did make connections and get jobs even in that wretched environment through the networking on that and other events and friendships through the IGDA chapter. Have gotten feedback from other chapters which was “can you come help with our chapter event” to which I respond “plane ticket and I’m there”. Have also stated it’s a personal goal this year to build a widget that separates jobs by locations for people and dump it into the blog. For now we have a nice linked in jobs section which is active http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1853608 look under jobs

This is a volunteer position, lots of work, lots of criticism, unpaid time and huge expectations. In fact it seems like the more people promise usually the less likely they are even to attempt delivery.

So I want to be very careful about what I focus on and not pretend I can change the economy or labor laws to get a vote and instead focus on things I have some inkling how to improve like how chapters touch peoples lives and do some good for them.

The IGDA went through quite a lot of upheaval last year and it was probably appropriate for the chapters to maintain their independence, I know ours did. They IGDA came out on the correct side of most of the upheaval and now seems like an appropriate time to work to strengthen the chapters and the central IGDA.

I would be committed towards active chapter enlargement (which I am proven to do well) and taking that to the next step with the help of others which is connecting strong chapters to the IGDA and using that to make quality of life improvement.

Money and the chapters is something I’ve been very straightforward about saying is an issue and not just the issue the blogger mentions. Developing sources of income in conjunction with the chapters would be a serious goal. I have a high level idea of events or activities that might fit. It would make sense to develop them further if elected.

And if I don’t get elected, sounds good too – more attention what I do now, up to you all.

Update – Mr. Bourke came by in the main thread and answered the questions I had for him.  His answers below.

Phil Bourke

Mr. Bourke, going by his statement and a quick Googling,  is an academic in Ireland that teaches game creation at the Tipperary Institute.  His candidate statement and Q&A answers leave a number of questions open.

• In answer to the question of how much time he would spend on IGDA matters and how he’d manage that, he says, “I maintain a daily, weekly and monthly task lists under various headings. I hope to be in a position to create a new heading for prioritized IGDA activities.”

This does not actually answer the question, instead substituting stated intent for a firm commitment.

• In his statement he pledges that,”As an IGDA board member I would actively seek to engage and understand the issues facing both members and non-members…”
• And in regards to the biggest issue facing the IGDA he says it is, “Winning the eyes, ears, thumbs and digits of gamers.”

These last two answers betray no knowledge or stance on what many consider the large issues the IGDA has been trying to deal with for the past year and a half – quality of life, large studio closures, and the credibility issues the organization has faced.

Digging into Mr. Bourke’s work experience shows several impressive accomplishments – the Games Fleadh festival he founded looks like a rallying point for Irish game development, and it appears he was a driving force in making that happen.  He also seems to be considered a quotable fellow in the area of games and education, but I did not have time to dig into that very much.

Questions and answers for Mr. Bourke:

Can you please answer the question of how much time you would plan to spend on the IGDA, and how much you think is appropriate.

Initially I plan for four to five hours per week for two to three weeks. Post this two to four hours per week – more time for priority issues.

When meeting people from industry and those interested in the games industry – I will also dedicate part of those meetings to representing IGDA.

BTW its currently 21:00 in Ireland, and I’m still working (from 06:00 am) – not the best situation when considering your next question.

What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?

The IGDA needs to set and update policy for QOL best practice and lobby industry to adopt best practice. Each country has its own industrial relations vehicles and IGDA policy needs to respect those mechanisms. Members and non-members also have a role to play in ensuring the profession is a respected one, both by their employers and the industry in general. No amount of policy will improve things if people accept unacceptable conditions.

What are you bringing to the table here that makes you a better candidate than the other nominees?

I am not in a political party and so feel very comfortable stating the following.

There are 20 excellent candidates and I don’t consider myself better than any of them.

What do I bring to the table – over 20 years experience in working with international organisations.

Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

Yes – if the IGDA main modus operandi is solely industrial relations.

No – as the IGDA core values are Community, Professionalism, Expression, Innovation, Impact, Leadership and Fun – through working to improve the lives IGDA members – the industry benefits.

My answer is no.

As the industry is a beneficiary the IGDA is a beneficiary. This symbiotic relationship will only work where there is inclusion that encourages contribution. This can take many forms – financial or benefit in kind (examples include support of community involvement, CPD – continual professional development, supporting attendance at industry events)

John Ardussi

Mr. Ardussi, according to his LinkedIn profile and candidate statement, has been making games for a long time, in a lot of different capacities.  He also indicates that he’s worked with the non-profits Habitat for Humanity and the National Apple Users Group Conference.

On the other hand, his Q&A section is completely missing from his statement page.  (UPDATE – since this was originally posted, Mr. Ardrussi’s Q&A has gone up on the IGDA website.)

Lacking the Q&A, I am forced to look at his position statement for his intent and motivation in running for the board.  It looks like he simply wants to be helpful.  The statement, however, doesn’t contain a lot of specifics.

Questions for Mr. Ardussi:

• Why run now?
• When can we expect your Q&A to be posted to the IGDA site?
• What exactly did you do with Habitat and the Apple group, and how specifically will it be relevant to helping lead the IGDA?
• What do you think the IGDA’s role in the industry-wide Quality of Life discussions should be?
• What are you bringing to the table here that makes you a better candidate than the other nominees?
• Do you think the IGDA’s dependence on studio sponsorships for money is a bad thing?  If yes, what will you do to begin changing this?  If no, why not?

The jist of my plea at Post Mortem was — the IGDA has had its share of wounds in the last two years.  Many of these are self-inflicted.  But we, the members of the IGDA, bear ultimate responsibility for the people we elect.   Especially if they later turn out to be asshats.

So, it behooves us to elect non-asshats.

The point I keep hammering any time I get to talk to someone higher-up in the IGDA is that we need a more thorough and transparent election process.  The IGDA has taken a big step in this regard – instead of just a short statement with each candidate’s headshot, they now also have a series of questions and answers as well.

This is a great start – but now, we the members of the IGDA need to take it a step further.  We need to read these statements, come up with questions, and get the candidates to answer them.

So.  I’m chronically short on time (no pun intended).  This may not be the most thorough examination of every candidate in there, but my hope is that it is picked up as a starting point.

It is my hope that people will repost this series in various places to help get the discussion going.  If you see more info from the candidates in other places, let me know about it at IGDACandidates@macguffingames.com and I’ll link it myself as well.   I feel that if we crowd-source this election scrutiny, we can get some awesome coverage on these candidates pretty quickly.   Help me out here.

The one thing I ask is that people not make this scrutiny personal.  These people are all our peers and deserve our respect for running.  Let’s keep it professional.  I realize that my assessments could be considered tough on the candidates, but I think that we simply must have a conversation about this stuff, and that we need to set a high bar.  I apologize for any personal discomfort it might cause to the candidates.

Disclaimer: I’m a good friend of Darius Kazemi, one of the candidates running for the board.  I support him in his campaign.  I’m not worried about conflict of interest in my overall effort here, mostly because I still need to vote for 4 other candidates.  But I do think that I won’t be the best person to critically analyze him as a candidate -  so others should ask what questions they can.  I’ll do my best, but you should take what I say about him with a grain of salt.

So, without further ado, here are my thoughts on the candidates, starting with the first three.  I’m going to try to do 3-4 more each day until done. Done!

1. John Ardussi
2. Phil Bourke – (updated Q&A answers)
   
3. Ann Burkett – (updated Q&A answers)
   
4. Wendy Despain – (updated Q&A answers)
   
5. Dino Dini (Mr. Dini posted his answers on his blog. Link inside his profile post as well.)
   
6. David Edery (updated Q&A answers)
   
7. Eric Francksen (updated Q&A)
8. John Hight (updated Q&A answers)
9. Michelle Hinn
10. Chris Hood (updated Q&A answers)
11. Chuck Hoover (updated Q&A answers)
12. Sean Kane (updated Q&A answers)
13. Darius Kazemi (Mr. Kazemi posted his answers on his campaign blog.  Link inside his profile post as well.)
14. Genevieve Lord
15. Michael Lubker
16. Ed Magnin (updated Q&A answers)
17. Jane Pinckard (updated Q&A answers)
18. Ron Schaffner (updated Q&A answers)
19. Charles Schultz (updated Q&A answers)
20. Ian Schreiber (updated Q&A Answers)
21. Coray Seifert (updated Q&A answers)
22. Paul Skiera
23. Mike Worth (updated Q&A answers)

The Indie Game Challenge

Today we found out the finalists for the Indie Game Challenge.  This is a contest sponsored by GameStop, SMU’s Guildhall, and the AIAS.  We have FOUR finalists in there from our area.

• AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! — A Reckless Disregard for Gravity by Dejobaan Games
• Fieldrunners by Subatomic Studios
• Miegakure by Marc Ten Bosch*
• Waker by a team at MIT’s GAMBIT Game Lab (game link leads to the Indie Game Challenge entry page.)

ModDB’s Indie Game of the Year

Five minutes later, I heard that Aaaa! had been named ModDB’s indie game of the year!

IGF Nominations!

Slightly older news – Miegakure and Aaaa! are both up for awards in the Excellence in Design category for the Independent Games Festival, which takes place at the Game Developers’ Conference this March.

And Finally the Global Game Jam

And all this came just after I finished up being a participant in the Global Game Jam this weekend.

For those that don’t know, a game jam is when a bunch of people get together for a weekend and make games. Usually you’re given one or more constraints to work within.  At the end of the weekend, you show off whatever you get done. The Global Game Jam in particular is put on by the IGDA, the International Game Developer Association.

The Boston area had 3 sites doing game jams – Northeastern, Worcester Poly Institute, and MIT’s GAMBIT Game Lab.  (Incidentally, I was at the third and was on the team for RunRunRunJump.)

All told, at these three sites we developed SEVENTEEN games in a weekend.  Granted, a lot of our games are barely functional… but that’s not the point.  The thing is, over seventy five people got together in Massachussets this weekend, made games in 48 hours, and then published them for all the world to play.

Way to kick some ass, folks.  I’m extremely proud to be a member of the game development community here in MA, and I’m incredibly proud of all my colleagues and friends who are fighting the good fight – be that at big studios, small indies, at colleges, or anywhere in between.

* For the record, Marc Ten Bauch lives in Rhode Island. But until someone claims him for some RI located dev meetup, I’m totally lumping him in here with us.

EDIT – I forgot to mention that Aaaa! won the ModDB Editor’s Choice Best Indie Game.  Woo!

A huge thank-you to Meaghan Glynn for not only doing a great logo, but doing it in a record amount of time, and with a nasty cold to boot.

Indies Will Shoot You In The Knees – Why We Don’t Play Fair

Everyone is talking about Indie games — titles like World of Goo, Braid, and AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! — A Reckless Disregard for Gravity are making press and making money. But they’re fighting against games with $200 million dollar budgets and 100+ person dev teams. How do Indies compete? Three Boston-based Indie developers will check their water-guns at the door and tell you why and how Indie games are kicking more ass, taking more names, and chewing more bubblegum than their AAA rivals. You will hear from the Ichiro Lambe (IGF Finalist Dejobaan Games, Aaaaa!), Scott Macmillan (Macguffin Games, All Heroes Die) and ex-Bungie AI wizard Damián Isla, founder of the new indie Moonshot Games. The panel will be moderated by Eitan Glinert, founder of Fire Hose Games.

Right now we’re scheduled for Friday March 26th from 8-9pm, in the Naga Theatre.  Hope to see you there!

1. Penny Arcade is coming to Boston with PAX – the Penny Arcade Expo – this March.
2. We’re going to be launching the “$5 Beta” of the game there!
3. Penny Arcade announced right around the end of last year that they’re going to also be doing a Boston Indies Showcase, something analogous to the PAX 10 from the west coast show, except that you need to live within X miles of Boston to be eligible.
4. The deadline for submitting to the showcase is this coming Friday, 1/15.

So we’ve been busting our butts to get the game working!  Things are in overdrive.  Graham is drawing like a madman when he isn’t working with the couple people we have helping write game events.   Whitney has been coding like some sort of crazy proficient coder-person, doing the last couple features we want for the deadline and then working on tweaks and bugs.  I’ve been switching from design to coding to getting the game events into XML, and whatever else.  It’s kind of nuts.

This coming Monday morning, we’ll sit down at Betahouse and play the game for the first time.  I’m extremely excited to do it, and I’ll be spending the rest of the weekend making sure we hit that spot.  Then we have five days to get it into some sort of proper shape for Tycho, Gabe, Robert, Lindsay, and whomever else in the Penny Arcade crew will be playing it.

No problem!

… going to get back to work now.

Macguffin Games has come a huge way in the past twelve months.  What was originally me trying to figure out how to code in my guest bedroom has turned into a project with three full-time developers (more on that in a minute), over 11,000 lines of our own code, and an impending 1/15 deadline for PAX East that I’m 100% certain we’ll hit.

And speaking of three full time developers, I’d like to officially welcome Whitney Sternberg to the Macguffin Games team as our main coder.  She is indeed related to Graham – they’re siblings.  I’ve known her for over ten years now, and have always been impressed by how responsible and serious she was.  As a note, this is in stark contrast to Graham… sometimes we wonder about his getting dressed in the morning.  I personally think he has some sort of Wallace and Gromit contraption that catapults him into his fashionable clothing.

When Whitney was interested in working on the game full-time, I jumped at the chance to have her.  It was a fantastic decision; in a nutshell, she’s one whole hell of a lot better at it than I am!  Life may take her in other directions past PAX, but I will try to tempt her into staying with the huge wads of cash we’ll be flush with at that point.

Err.. yeah.  Moving on.

As I’ve said in a previous post, I realize there isn’t a lot out there about the game yet… that’s a good thing, I think.  Prior to the last couple months, there was way too much about the game that just existed vaguely in my mind.  With the addition of Whitney and the looming presence of our deadline, progress has accelerated hugely.  I expect that after our 1/15 deadline we’ll be able to talk intelligently about the game on the blog.  And heck, maybe even in other media outlets.  Who knows?

So – from all of us here at the Macguffin Games team, we wish you a Happy New Year!  2010 is going to be a big year for us.  Stay tuned.

In part, what was at first an instinctual thing on my part became a conscious plan – I haven’t talked too much about the game and how it is shaping up mostly because it’s been changing a lot.  The ideas we had on paper changed as they became functional features, which in turn changed as we moved towards integrating those features with each other, and then again as we are starting to create the first game content.

I promise we will be letting more information out as time goes on – we just want to time it properly and have decent odds the features won’t change in a day or two.

As far as work on the game is progressing: it’s going very well!  Graham and I have been working hard on all fronts.  We may not have something for friends-and-family to play in December, but that’s not a bad thing – we’re finding lots of obvious changes to make as we continue with what I outlined above.  I’ll avoid saying what else I expect for our schedule for now, since I tend to immediately make a liar of myself.

In other news, we will be changing the name of the game.  We have winnowed things down to a handful of favorites, but are going to sit on them and think about it for a bit.  Sadly, “Heritage” is de facto trademarked by The Settlers, or rather the rebranded “Heritage of Kings: The Settlers“.  Because of how trademark law works, they could pretty much argue that any video game title that starts with Heritage is a violation of their trademark.  Somewhat a bummer, but so it goes – since I wouldn’t be surprised that they had to change that title because of friction with Settlers of Catan, I can’t get too bent out of shape about it.

Thanks for reading!  Hit us with any quesitons you might have in the comments.

But wait!  Scott, aren’t you a seasoned project manager?  Haven’t you produced games before?

Yep.  And it didn’t help.  Here’s why.As an associate producer and then producer on larger projects, I found it relatively easy to keep my mind focused on what mattered – are we on time?  How far off are we?  What are our unknowns and risks?  What are our plans for mitigating them?  But in those cases, I was wearing one hat, that of the producer.

Now, I’m wearing… I don’t know, five hats?  CEO, Marketer, Designer, Programmer, and Project Manager.  CEO and Marketer aren’t a problem in this scenario – I’ve been mostly focusing on the other three roles.  So on any given day, I’ve been working to some extent on design tasks, programming tasks, and here and there some project management.

Recent studies are saying that multitasking makes getting anything at all done more difficult.  I knew that was the case for me already, so I would try to focus on one thing at a time each day.  Since the largest pile of short term work I had was programming the game, I tended to spend a lot of my time on that – much less on the design and the project management side.

That was problem number one – not enough time spent being the producer.

I also realized something very interesting about wearing all those hats – it makes you a little crazy.

My friend Matt Burns and I ended up discussing this yesterday.  When your job role changes, your perspective changes.  He and I both started off in QA at our respective organizations, and then moved into production.  Once in production we found that we didn’t have that same crystal-clear focus on quality – we were more interested in shipping a game on time, on budget, and at an acceptable level of quality.  That includes making sure the right bugs are fixed – but never all of them.

Now we’re both indies, and find ourselves designing.  We’ve both now had to make decisions with our designer hats on that would have made us scream bloody murder as Producers… But again, we care about different things than producers do.  As a designer, I care about shipping – but first and foremost I want that game to be awesome.  Note that “acceptible level of quality” to the producer is often at odds with “this game is awesome” to the designer.

Ok, so I have to deal with these different roles, all bound up in me.  Fine.  Those amounted to:

• Producer: Will we meet our deadlines?  Is this a sustainable pace? What are the project’s risks and how will we mitigate them?
• Designer: Is this heading in the direction design-wise I want it to go? I don’t want to nail down things until I can play with them in a coded form.  I know I’m a noob designer, and that things are always different than what is in your head when they hit the computer.
• Programmer: What’s the next task? How does this new system fit in with everything else? I need to make sure my code is relatively clean and bug-free before I move on.

I concentrated mostly on coding the next task, not only because I had a ton to do, but because it was easiest!  Then I didn’t have to worry about design questions that I maybe didn’t know how to answer, and I certainly didn’t need to worry about the tough job of project managing a completely noob programmer (i.e., this guy).  When forced to answer project management questions (mostly by Graham, who was getting a bit concerned about our never being where we wanted on the date we thought we’d would), it was hard to do it as a project manager… there was also this programmer arguing that if we just keep coding, everything will work out, as well as this designer saying that we need to get further before we can make firm decisions about design stuff down the road.  All in all, this development cacophony meant that my answers were to sort of wave my hands in the air and keep coding.

That was problem number two – when I was actually trying to project manage, all the voices were talking at once.

So, we’re doing a couple things to mitigate these issues.  The first is that we’re moving to something like a schedule.  We now have a google doc that we’re listing out our tasks, our initial estimates, our time spent on that task to date, and our current expectation of how long much more work until that is done.  For any indies out there, I highly recommend this light-weight approach to scheduling, because if you do it it will help you become better at estimating your own tasks.  I could write another post on how to use a tool like this, but I don’t want to clutter up this post.

Second, I’m taking a full day every week to concentrate on non-programming, non-design stuff.  This means the biz dev aspects, the marketing and PR, and especially the project management.  Every Friday I’ll put on that ol’ producer hat and take a hard look at where things are at.  We’ll update our estimates and see where things stand.  If we aren’t going to hit our goals for December 1st, I want to know immediately and be able to correct course.

Probably this approach is a bit to “The Man” for some indies.  That’s fair – we’re building a really ambitious game here, far more ambitious than I ever advise any first-time devs to make on their own.  So I’m treating myself to stronger medicine than would maybe be needed for a smaller project.  I don’t think the updates will be onerous to us – the main downside is that Graham and I will annoy the hell out of each other with reminders to update our task lists.  That should settle down once we get in the habit.

So, yeah.  Listen to the voices.  But tell them to get in line and be civil.

We’re going to skip entering the IGF this year.  In short, the game just isn’t ready.  Even with all the ass we’ve been busting, we’re juuuust now about at a first-playable state.  Going through our to-do items left for the 11/1 deadline, there are just about as many high-level tasks left to do as there are days left in the month.

We could submit no matter what, and then update the build over the next few weeks after that.  The downsides there are that it would be a poor initial submission that doesn’t technically meet the rules of the competition (you’re supposed to be feature-complete), and that I’d pretty much kill myself for the next 5 weeks getting a build I could live with.  After talking with Graham, we decided that the best course of action is to keep focused on bringing the game along as best we can, as fast as we can – but without crunching like crazy to come up with what we would consider a substandard entry.

I’m pretty disappointed, frankly, that we’re not going to be able to make this work… but as all good project managers know, it’s not about what you get in a perfect world – it’s about the choices in front of you.  And I still feel our longer term deadlines are realistic.

Tomorrow Graham and I sit down and do a soup-to-nuts review of the game.  Our goal is going to be to set a deadline (probably 12/1) where we can have a fully playable alpha to pass around in the Boston dev community and get some feedback.   I feel really confident that we can make that kind of schedule work – but we’re going to put in some good planning and analysis to make sure.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still incredibly psyched about everything that has been getting done on the game to date.  We’ve come a terrific distance in less than 11 months – especially considering this is Graham’s first video game project, and the first that I’ve programmed or designed.  I think our issue with the IGF deadline was in my not realizing we were biting off more than we could chew.  As my good friend Patrick said to me today, “Think of all the ways you could have f***** this up, and didn’t!”

He’s got a great point.

So, yeahhhhh.  Interesting day.  It’s weird to have the excitement I’m feeling with how fast the game is coming along but head-to-head with the frustration of missing a deadline.  I mentioned to Graham as I was dwelling on the whole thing today – I realized I had never missed a deadline in 8 years of making games.  Every milestone I ever was associated with, every game, shipped on time.  I’m not sure I was prepared to actually fail at getting the game into the IGF – I don’t think I’d ever really considered the possibility.

But, that’s fine.  A good bit of the reason I wanted to go indie and start my own company was to learn about doing this all from top to bottom.  And you can’t learn very well without failing a couple times here and there.  So, learn we will.

And this game is still going to be pretty spectacular.

If you’re asking that question, then this is obviously your first time on the internet since 2004 and–just between the two of us–you’re going to need to toughen up a little before you go to any other sites or–god forbid–turn off SafeSearch.

That being said, today I -do- have a substantive post to make.  BEHOLD:  tantalizing concept art!

What we have here is a sketch detailing the player civilization’s capital city (showcasing the kind of unfinished door that’s very In this year.)

I’m looking at a few things in this image:

• What time period is this particular civilization supposed to be evocative of?
• What real-world cultures form a touchstone for this civilization?
• What are the overall cultural attitudes that are being expressed by this image?

Time Period

I’m trying to work within a time period that is somewhat later than a lot of fantasy–straddling a line between the heavy nautical themes of Colonial era Europe and the rougher architecture and more militarily utilitarian design of medieval cities.  Since creating a compelling, flavorful and interesting visual aesthetic for a game-world involves being very specific about the choices you make, the historical middle ground of these two time periods isn’t entirely useful in this instance.  Both components of each time period (focus on sea-travel and trade / claustrophobic fortressing) are important for the player civilization in a way that they just weren’t during the bulk of the Renaissance.

Touchstone Cultures

This issue is really a lot more complicated than I’m going to get into here, and is likely to be the subject of a future blog post (in 2010, if my previous track record is any indication.)  So, assuming that I’ll talk about the difficulties (and necessity) of real world touchstones in world building later, I’m just going to quickly discuss the choices that we -did- make.

In order to provide a somewhat grander setting than the dark and hunched castles of medieval Europe, while maintaining the sense of isolation that they do so well we decided to expand the enclosed city in the one direction available:  up.

This meant that we were taking cues from a lot of coastal and mountain cultures; in particular towns in Greece and Italy.  You can see that influence in the way that buildings are clustered together (although that also speaks to the influence that came from London) and in the way that they hug cliff faces.   On the other hand, the aforementioned London influence (courtesy of a trip there back in May) is evident in the construction of the buildings themselves.  There’s something briny about all the stone in England that, to me at least, is indelibly associated with the more dangerous aspects of maritime life.

I suppose what I’m saying is that the water of the Mediterranean is just too inviting for our purposes.  It’s nothing personal.

Overall Cultural Attitudes

Clearly, we were looking for this architecture to describe a strong maritime bent to the culture without resorting to ham-fisted representations of an oceanic theme.  Frankly, we’re creating a nation of ex-sailors, not Aquaman’s Atlantis.  In addition to this, however, we want to communicate that the culture the player is going to take control of is traditionally fairly formal and backward-looking.  In that end, we went with architectural styles that, while not reserved, was less than ostentatious (sturdy stone and wood over filigree and flash).

Conclusion

So, there you have it: a sneak peek into our art direction.  Next time, we’ll talk about the difficulties that arise when you try to create a fantastic world while maintaining your progressive street cred.

(Note from Scott – when he talks about having progressive street cred, he’s on his own.  I’m lucky I can spell that term correctly.)

Graham and I are working hard towards the November 1st deadline to get Heritage into the 2009 IGF.  I’m coding like crazy on the core systems, and Graham is completing the look-and-feel exploration of the art style and Heritage’s world.  Yesterday we sat down and scoped out our content needs for 11/1 – overall, I’m very pleased.  Things look realisticly do-able.  Which, based on my previous experience in making games, probably means we’ll crunch like hell all of October, but get something done we’re pleased with.

This weekend is Boston GameLoop, the game dev unConference I co-run with Darius Kazemi – so I’m hoping (praying!) that my time can be 100% focused on Heritage after that.  We’ll see.

In the meantime, Graham has a piece of our concept art that he’s going to be getting up online some time tomorrow, along with some commentary on its creation.  We’ll catch you tomorrow!