Tadhg Kelly

Inexperienced designers often think that their value comes from presenting the problem, but that's only useful to other designers. The result is often cryptic to outsiders, a forest of pages of documentation or whiteboards from which they are, what, supposed to glean the solution? Presenting the problem is really presenting unfinished work. Presenting finished work, on the other hand, is presenting solutions. That's the thing that really gives confidence that you know how to help the team go forward. Which, as a game designer, is your actual job. The team will push back and question and ponder and ideate anyway, by the way, but doing so from a place of finished rather than unfinished work is what makes game design good rather than bad.

As someone who worked in AR/VR for quite a while, you should only get into this space if you’re 100% built for it. It’s not just a feature that you can add on to your current stack and the unique challenges of developing well for it are as different as any platform can be.

I know, I know, you're thinking "My episodic game saga could be the one to break through because games are in their infancy and it's all hit driven anyway..." Stop that. You're wrong. Games are not in their infancy and there are structural reasons why hits become hits in addition to "we made a great game". Every platform presents unique physical affordances and constraints (from control size to viewport) as well as audience and financial expectations. It is VERY hard to get past them. It's why big AAA style experiences don't really work on mobile, for example, or why complex strategy games don't really work in VR. That said, what you can do in each platform is pretty wide, but rethink the "grand idea" so it makes sense for its platform.

Resistance arises because a stakeholder can't "see" the game. They can't see why it's fun, why it fits in the market, or what the path to developing it looks like. Your success depends, in other words, on who you're talking to, and that often requires two things of you: 1. Writing clearer materials 2. Communicating in your stakeholders language The second of these is much harder. Most stakeholders have a fixed view of what they consider games to be, and it's almost impossible to get them to think differently. VCs see games in certain ways, publishers in other ways, creative directors in other ways etc, indie developers in other ways. And they don't change. You won't get sign off from a stakeholder if you don't pitch in their language.

If a team is demotivated, it's leadership's fault. The fix is almost never applying some formula like SMART. Very often designers feel demotivated because they're dealing with an intractable problem. This happens a lot, but designers often feel too intimidated to speak up or deal with an argumentative manager who just relays what leadership wants. You need to understand why a designer might be demotivated. Sometimes the fix is to just to listen. Sometimes it's small scale problem solving. Sometimes it's to insist on AFK time. Sometimes it's a lack of training (many younger designers are not fluent in game loop or economy design but get thrown in the deep end regardless). Goals can help, but only from a place of understanding.

Sometimes "flaws" are features. UX is an important lens, but it is not everything. It's very important in casual game design, for example, and for narrative-driven console experiences. Any game where it's important to direct the player's attention probably needs UX. But many thriving games are deliberately obtuse. A lot of heavy simulation and crafting games, for example, are hard to figure out. A lot of sports games assume you know the sport. A lot of core casino games never teach you how to play. A lot of 2D fighters don't tell you their moves. Fun, remember, is learning. Sometimes that means learning hard things with no help. Sometimes that's fun. So before assuming these things as flaws, ask whether they're actually features.