Where do bad games come from?

Servant of Two Masters #4: That Game Sucks!!

It’s like these people think that all bad games are the result of the people who make them not knowing or caring about what they are doing. While this is surely the case in some instances, it isn’t always how it goes down. I’ve been involved with or have watched other games that were on a track to possibly be a good game, slowly get churned into a giant steaming piece of crap through no fault of the people directly working on it. Developers, for the most part, all want to make a great game and will work themselves to death to get it done. But sometimes no matter how hard you work, someone more powerful than you is going to come in and stick their d!^* in your peanut butter.

...

And fortunately or unfortunately, the customer is always right. That means that no matter how bad I think an idea is. That means no matter how unreasonable the request or how STUPID the last thing they said was, in the end they write the check, so they get to decide. I can voice my opinion. I can tell them what I think because that’s what they are paying me for, but ultimately, if they decide that something must be in the game…then you can bet your sweet ass it’s gonna be in the game.

I think, in general, the publisher gets the game that matches (1) what they were willing to pay for it and (2) what they tell the developer to make.

Obviously there are exceptions - in spite of the best efforts of the publisher to turn a game into "a giant steaming pile of crap" sometimes it comes out okay. It's these rare instances that inspire independent development houses to try, try again.

© 2006 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

Maya Rap

(Imagine rap beat in the background.)


Maya is my bitch
She does just what I say
I say connect this node to that
And then she renders all the way

Sometimes I scrub the slider
slide it forward and then back
Make my character jack off
and do all this and that

I can build me worlds
Export them right away
Watch them run on Pee ess pee
Then fuck that bitch

BECAUSE
she'll
fuck
me!

I've got my world set
I've got my timing down
I've got my world working
And then it all GOES DOWN

My work is gone like that
No backup done for me
I have a deadline looming
Must recreate from memory

Try to save more often
Extend my micro-drive
Because if I don't save my self
This game ain't going live

I love that Maya bitch
'Cause I control her nodes
But dammit if that bitch
Won't
Fuck
Me
Up.
And make me prematurely old.


© 2006 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

Lost was lost but now has home

UBISOFT AND TOUCHSTONE TEAM UP TO CREATE “LOST” VIDEO GAME

Interactive Game Based on ABC’s Emmy Award-Winning Hit Series to Debut in 2007

Paris, FRANCE – May 22, 2006 – Today Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, announced a long-term worldwide licensing agreement with Touchstone Television to develop and publish a video game based on the Emmy Award-winning television series ‘Lost.’ Developed by Ubisoft’s award-winning Montréal studio and scheduled to hit retail shelves worldwide in 2007, the game will be offered for home and portable consoles as well as PCs.

EALA's Neil Young

GameDaily BIZ: Interview: EALA's Neil Young:

"BIZ: So let's talk a bit about the quality of life issue. Ever since the whole EA Spouse blog post EA has been criticized for quality of life issues. Recently, however, the company settled with its former employees and I hear now that you've really cut back crunch time with something called '5 great days.' Can you talk about how this was enabled and what it means for the workers?

NY: Well the basic underlying idea sort of stems back to that concept of creating intellectual property. Right, so crunch, managed crunch if you like, is built around maximizing execution productivity. And what you really want to do, is you want to maximize creative productivity. You want to create the type of environment where people have the best ideas, you know the first time, instead of a mediocre idea because they're tired and they then have to iterate 9 or 10 times to an OK idea. All of this, '5 great days,' is really just one system with a catchy name. But the whole idea is let's take, in the case of the studio in Los Angeles, which is the studio I run, let's completely rewire the culture. And if you believe that the work is a product of the culture, then the question to ask yourself is, 'What are the things that we need to change in order to deliver a culture that can consistently produce great work?'

And that's about the tone that the management team sets, the talent that you have in your organization and how you work with that talent and how you treat that talent, and you know, the practices that you have in place to be able to move those creative ideas through your organization. And so, really, speaking for Los Angeles, that's really what we've been focused on and I think over the course of the next few years you'll see the results of that and I can tell you that."

Neil Young used to 'work for me' at Virgin. I put 'work for me' in quotes because people like Neil Young and Dave Perry don't really ever 'work for you'. They are genuine self-starters and so the best idea is to create an environment where they can work and then let them go. I also believe in the inverted pyramid view of management - management exists to provide services to the people that do all the work. So in a way it's more accurate to say I worked for Neil and Dave and everyone else in development at Virgin Interactive. In fact, I had the view that Virgin Interactive provided a publishing service to developers. This is definitely in contrast to how most publishers view developers. Most publishers feel that developers are the ones providing the service, which makes sense, since that is the way the cash flows. But I digress.

One thing that Neil did that I really admired was the game Majestic. It was a flop commercially but I was really impressed the way that Neil went out on a limb creatively and technically with that game. I think that modern cell phones have matured to the point where the entire game (which had streaming video and phone numbers you dialed and got clues and things like that) could be played on just the phone. All of the browsing and video and obviously the phone calls could be done by cell phone. The fax portion of Majestic could be converted to text messaging. I think it would be cool if someone resurrected the assets for that game and made it work on modern fancy cell phones.

One thing about Majestic was that it did a pretty good job of making a fake world integrate with the real world, sort of the way Lost (the TV show) is doing with the Hanso Foundation.

On 9/11, 2001, I awoke to find an email in my inbox that one of the World Trade Center towers was on fire. Later I got another email about the second tower being on fire. As I was a beta tester for Majestic I thought these emails were part of the game! Later I received another email about the first tower collapsing and I paid more attention and I realized that these messages were from the alert service I subscribed to from the NY Times. Like everyone else, I instantly ran down and watched the disaster on TV all day.

However, the impact of thinking that the horrible events of 9/11 were fictitious was pretty astounding. (After all, who could have imagined it happening in real life?)

Anyway, I think Neil is really having a positive impact on EALA, which has to be one of the most difficult assignments in the world. Hollywood doesn't 'get' games in general (Spielberg might be an exception) and hiring people who have worked on visual effects to work on games is highly problematic, which is going to be the likely situation if you're located so close to Hollywood. On the other hand if you can integrate with the schizoid Hollywood environment (for instance, by clever use of contracting, which is fairly normal there), you can get a pretty good development engine going.

So good luck to Neil and EALA.


© 2006 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

Security Now!

We've been beefing up security around the house recently. For instance, we now have a double-firewall with the Wi-Fi stuck in no-man's land.

One cool thing is that Wi-Fi web cams are really cheap now. There are even outdoor ones. And there are see-in-the-dark infrared web cams too. So it is pretty easy to surround your home with web cams that record that last few days activity to a hard drive.

Pretty sweet.

I mentioned the double-firewall idea to a friend, because I wasn't sure it would really work very well, and he pointed me to the Security Now! Podcasts by Steve Gibson. These come out once a week and are pretty good! A lot of the stuff I already knew but it was nice to get a refresher course. I've listened to all of them now - I think there are about 37 of them available as I write this.

I really like the iTunes Podcast interface. There are some great Lost TV Show Podcasts, including the official podcast from the show producers.

Speaking of Lost, last night was a bit of a surprise, eh?

© 2006 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

Gamasutra - E3's Into the Pixel Competition Artists Selected

Gamasutra - E3's Into the Pixel Competition Artists Selected: "Arenanet's Daniel Dociu has two pieces in the show, Floating Mosque and Rooftops, both from Guildwars."

Griptonite's Next Game

Pirate Babys Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006 - Google Video: "Paul Robertson's Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006 is a masterpiece ... all » animation based on the graphic look and feel of platform handhelds. A kind of machinima recursion; where animations inspired by games have inspired animations."

Marketing?

It seems to me there are two views of marketing organizations. One view is that they exist to package and market whatever they are given and make it as successful as possible.

The other view is that they are supposed to be in touch with the market and therefore their input and even complete specification of what a product should be is considered paramount.

Either way, someone has to decide which products are made and for whom.

Sometimes, in smaller companies, that person is the founder(s).

Frequently (and certainly during the dot-com bubble) many product ideas were brought forth for which there was no market at all. Or a market existed for a free product but not a product that people would pay for.

Ultimately it is up to the person or organization that chooses which products to make to take credit for the success or failure of an enterprise.

© 2006 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

The Family that Slays Together ...

Far-Flung Families Unite in Cyberspace -- And Kill Monsters

Guild Wars is featured in this Washington Post article about MMOs and CyberSpace.

At our house, when I have time, four of us get together on our computers, log in to Guild Wars, which does not have a monthly subscription fee (which makes it a lot more family-friendly!), and using TeamSpeak coordinate our activities.

"The family that slays together, stays together."

It's a boatload of fun.

(C) 2006 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

"The family that slays together, stays together." is a trademark of Stephen Clarke-Willson. Ah no, it isn't. A simple Google search shows that it isn't original at all. Oh well.

Undercapitalize

Undercapitalize. The American Heritage� Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

TRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: un·der·cap·i·tal·ized, un·der·cap·i·tal·iz·ing, un·der·cap·i·tal·iz·es

To supply (a business or government, for example) with so little capital that operations are hindered.

I think that talking about whether a business is undercapitalized is probably one of the most emotional things a person could do. Why? Because talking about money is always emotional and talking about whether a business is undercapitalized is highly subjective.

It's certainly one of the best excuses for failure one can have. "We just never had the money to do what we needed to do to succeed in that market." Maybe, maybe not! Maybe you just weren't clever enough with the money you had. That was certainly true of so many of the dot com companies. They had money and no brains.

So, undercapitalized and incompetent are pretty hard to differentiate. (Of course, you could be undercapitalized, and not think so, in which case you are undercapitalized and incompetent, but thinking about that makes my head hurt.)

It's an important question that VC people have to ask all the time - do we pump more money into this venture, because this is a rocket that is waiting to take off, and it just needs more fuel? Or is this a rock that won't launch no matter how much fuel we burn?

Ultimately it's a judgement call. And a difficult one at that.

Blue Ball Machine

Game company executives who spend too much time reading my blog should stare at The Blue Ball Machine.

A colleague at work said, "Look at that guy. He's got a case of blue balls." See if you can find him in the picture.

You can also find animated tiles that connect, and find certain blue balls that work their way across the whole screen.

You know, I just can't get over the fact that the CEO of a game company felt the need to post here that everything is okay. It's as if my opinion matters, when it clearly doesn't.

Here's a story:

About eight months ago a couple of guys emailed me to find out if there is a huge game industry wide blacklist administered by a huge publishing company. I told them, of course, that is ridiculous... Because everyone knows I am the one that controls the industry wide blacklist. I assured them they were not on it.

The way the list works is that someone will call me up and say, "Should I work with {person, company} so-and-so?" Of course, it would be legally imprudent to answer such a question. So, if I cough a certain way, that means the person is a loser.

One time I accidentally destroyed a person's career because I cleared my throat at the wrong time. (Sorry about that.) Another time someone didn't hear me cough because of a bad cell phone connection and someone that should have been drummed out of the industry became a vice president!

So, it's not a perfect system.

----

Now, I feel the need to explain that this is a story. It isn't true. Nobody has that kind of power, do they?

(c) 2006 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved

The Development Abstraction Layer - Joel on Software

The Development Abstraction Layer - Joel on Software: "Management's primary responsibility to create the illusion that a software company can be run by writing code, because that's what programmers do. And while it would be great to have programmers who are also great at sales, graphic design, system administration, and cooking, it's unrealistic. Like teaching a pig to sing, it wastes your time and it annoys the pig."

This is great. As a person who has created two reasonably large (not huge) software development organizations, I can tell you that what Joel says is true: the vast majority of people believe that organizations are they way they are because that's just the way they are. In fact, every organization is designed, either by default, in which case it is horrible, or by conscious design, where a productive supportive, almost invisible environment of productivity reigns.

Both of my organizations fell into disrepair after I left. That's because those that followed thought things were the way they were just because that's how things should naturally be. In fact, the development organization was something alive that needed to be fed and tuned and supported and gently reorganized as times changed. Without that care and feeding it spirals into a Dilbert comic strip.

I wish I knew how to make a software organization that would survive on its own but I don't. And I know some other successful "software organization architects" whose creations have fallen into disrepair.

As soon as the top-level management support beam that believes in nurturing and tuning and massaging the development organization is gone, the whole thing sinks.

What a bummer.

Another cool date

This Wednesday, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be ...

(drum roll please)

01:02:03, 04/05/06.

(See also 5/5/5 or 5/6/5 - and - Nine Nines!)

© 2006 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

Half Full or Half Empty?

© 2006 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

Old School

After all these years, someone finally asked me a question.

We were so spoiled at Virgin. (In a good way.) The poor schmucks working at most publicly held game publishing companies have nowhere near the freedom we had as a privately held company owned by a billionaire (Richard Branson). To be sure, the company was run with strict financial controls, which I liked quite a bit.

I used to present these incredibly detailed budget plans to Robert Deveraux, who was in charge of the Virgin publishing section of the Virgin Group, and which included us. He'd generally approve them in 24 hours. He once said I was the best manager in the Virgin Group. People asked me why he approved my requests - sometimes for significant sums of money - so quickly. My answer was of course that I presented well thought out plans... which was true.

I learned about budgeting from my wife. Without years of practice tracking our cash outlays, generally down to the penny, I would not have had the experience to produce such detailed budget plans. On a trip to Walt Disney World around 1990, I kept track of every penny. I showed my spreadsheet to David Bishop, who wanted to know how much it would cost to go to Walt Disney World, and who saw that I had noted the price of a two-pack of Tums for $0.27. The funny thing is that I thought there was nothing special about that level of detail!

Ah, the good old days ...

Cheap shot?

View MicroPoll
Online Survey

The small number of votes is proof positive that hardly anyone visits here. Or at least people that do visit don't do online polls.

Satire is an interesting thing. For instance, this golf poll is only funny within a certain context.

Another example is a posting I made of a partial listing of books by Michael Waite on teaching Christian values to children. Why would anyone take offense at some free advertising? And yet someone did. I find that strange. Mostly likely, that list, when presented in a different context, is hilarious beyond belief.

© 2006 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

The Surprising Truth About Ugly Websites

The Surprising Truth About Ugly Websites

I always thought a flash-heavy web site was a bit of a waste of effort. It just slows a person down. First the download takes time, second just figuring out how to navigate the site takes time, and finally, ... sometimes getting Flash installed takes time.

Light Sabre

I continue to rethink the nature of this site. Most likely I will fork off (that's Unix talk) several sister-sites. I am getting pissed enough I might even start writing about politics!

In the meantime, this is a great Star Wars fan video:

Your Father's Light Sabre

© 2006 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

Pandora

Check out this radio station I created:

http://www.pandora.com/?sc=sh15928173

or this one that Andrew Berg created:

http://www.pandora.com/?sc=sh12424850


Both were created with Pandora, the worldest greatest internet radio station.

Pandora uses the database from the Music Genome Project to find music that you will like!

Interestingly, I'd been thinking recently about the tune "Green Onions" by Booker T and the M.G.s, and wondering where I would find more music like that.

Andrew told me about Pandora, so I created a station based on that one tune, and then dug listening to similar music for an hour!

I used to do this sort of thing with Music Match Radio, which tries to do the same thing, but not as well, and plus it costs a little $$ to get decent quality.

The music quality at Pandora, by the way, is excellent.

And the UI, built entirely in a web browser, is excellent.

And the accessability is excellent - it's so easy to get started.

Two big "thumbs up"* for Pandora.

© 2006 Stephen Clarke-Willson - All Rights Reserved.

*I think "Two big thumbs up" might be a registered trademark of Roger Ebert.

Airsoft Tips - by Thomas

My son Thomas (age 10) wrote this and would like to share it with everyone:

These are tips on Airsoft safety.

A basic tip for safety: Do not do an airsoft game where you’re shooting each other. To make this a lot safer, wear some kind of eye protection because BB’s can hurt and do something really bad damage to your eye. If you do not want to feel any pain while you’re doing an airsoft battle, wear at least a jacket for armor. That should block the BB’s.

By the way, if you want a full auto airsoft gun, when you get onto the airsoft web site and you want to order one, look at the blue letters above a picture to see what kind it is.

By the way, when you’re ordering keep in mind you could have at least five more dollars because of shipping and handling. So look at the price tags and think about it before you click on the order button.

Look at letters next to a picture and you should find out stuff about a picture and what you could order.

Keep in mind that some Airsoft guns, in fact quite a few, you may have to cock every shot. If you don’t know quite what I just said means, it means that every time you shoot, you may have to cock. It’s not for all of them.

By the way, you may not want to order ones that cost $300 at max because if you look hard enough, you can find a full auto as well. If you find something called a gas-powered gun, it means you have to buy gas for it every time you run out. The benefit of this means that you can get semi-auto instead of cock, then shoot, cock, then shoot, you can just shoot, shoot, shoot, but it’s not full auto. Keep in mind that they can cost from $20 to $70.