The Leaders Speak to the Masses [GDC '09]

So. Apparently the current recession was caused by greedy bankers abusing the banking system. Apparently said bankers ended up in positions of power as a result of experience and promotion and who then proceeded to gamble on their company's assets in return for a quick short term profit regardless of the cost to others. It's much the same in the gaming industry too though obviously not quite to the same extreme. People suddenly become experts in their field and suddenly they are all over the media preaching people on what gamers want and how they want it even though the reality is very different. Being a boss of of a "games" company doesn't qualify anyone to be an expert in gaming - they are merely hired because they know how to milk the most money from a cow! Yet that doesn't stop them in their tracks : one ex- Nintendo president once famously said that online gaming would never be popular and he should know, shouldn't he? Last week the industry got together in San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference to listen to the experts lecture them on how things should and could be done on the subject of game development.

In the media, they lapped it up and reported every word : no-one thought to question them on whether they were correct or not because these people know what they are talking about , don't they? Nintendo's great president himself , Satoru Iwata , stood up and gave a speech on why they were so successful and others weren't. He gave the example of a spiral : the idea was that all too often developers become trapped in a "Death Spiral", the result of financial pressure, which in turn leads to less development time, poorer quality games and therefore less sales:

"Once you enter the Death Spiral, it is difficult to escape,"

he added. On the other hand, Nintendo's success in the past few years is due to the "upward" spiral because of people "such as" Shigeru Miyamoto's ability to see game ideas in everyday life. "His concepts almost always begin in the same place - by simply observing other human beings," said Iwata. "He loves doing this. He's curious, and when he sees something people enjoy he'll consider over and over what part of that activity people think is fun. By now, you know how his personal hobbies have turned into games. When he started gardening, pretty soon there was a game called Pikmin. When he got a new puppy, his development team was not surprised to find they would be working on a new project called Nintendogs." etc etc

The reason Nintendo succeed, according to Iwata, is that Miyamoto "scorns long-winded design documents in favour of simple ideas, and favours early prototyping - his "Upward Spiral" ideas are everywhere, so that even as one project starts, he's observing other people having fun in other ways." Ok , let me point out a few facts to Mr Iwata, who I personally find a very nice and agreeable person : just a bit shortsighted!

(1) The number one reason Nintendo are what they are is 100% down to Miyamato himself. He has singlehandledly been responsible for almost every hit title Nintendo have ever made. And he has been churning them out for over 25 years. The man is a complete genius : of an extremely rare breed that understands what makes gamers tick and what they want.

(2) With Miyamato on board and overseeing almost every project, Nintendo have the luxury of trying out new ideas and experimenting because they know what the end result is : a colossal hit, time and time again. If Miyamoto wants to cancel a project , let him. Nintendo don't know the meaning of financial pressure whereas the rest of the world do : they have to scrimp and save in order to get their game made and they have to pitch their ideas to publishers. One bad game and it's bankruptcy these days : they certainly cant afford to do too much early prototyping and experimentation!

Anyway, let's move on! One other lecture that made me giggle like a schoolboy was Rod Fergusson, executive producer of Epic Games who gave a lecture on his "methodology" for producing Gears of War 2. He said

"I am a believer that if you’re going to make a great game, I believe that crunch is necessary. I believe it’s important because it means your ambition is greater than what you scheduled out. Going in with that idea that crunch is necessary means you can plan for it. It shouldn’t be a surprise. Crunch should be driven by the ambition of the team, and not the inaccuracy of the schedule.”

I mean the cheek of the man : he presides over arguably the biggest messup of this generation of games and here he is preaching about the importance of deadlines and the need to crunch! Over ambition was the main reason this game failed as well not to mention the fact that it was released when it was below the required standard of its predecessor. It wasn't all bad of course : at least some people are decent enough to acknowledge their mistakes and share what they might be able to learn from them. Other people should learn to acknowledge that budget plays a big part in development : if you going to work on Halo 4's AI , please accept that your allocated budget means you have a lot more choices and possiblilties than someone working on the sequel to Castle Crashers. No game or game developer is ever perfect : mistakes are always made but we all need to be human and stop pretending to know everything just because we got promoted a while ago.

And on that note, I seem to have run out of time so I would like to thank you all for listening to my lecture.

More like this from Roger at www.gamebusinessdaily.com