That Vision Thing

Section: 

No matter what you
do in life, there is one constant to any human endeavor. From Â"this
shirt is marketed toward young metrosexual life-spendersÂ"
to Â"Crazy
Hakba'hs House of Falafel is flapneh hutzpah!Â"
there's always
something you can count on. Buzzwords. The second some poser shows
up nodding and smiling, it's inevitable. Â"Yes, that does increase
team synergy and structurize the process management,Â"
says a young
man in khakis as he nods his head vigorously. He could possibly be
followed by several people taking notes like he actually just said
something when in reality he just read the back of a pamphlet.

Even our little
corner of the economy has it's buzzwords and the wannabes who create
them. Ever hear of an interactive multimedia experience? I think I
just described Microsoft Paint. Just go to your favorite gaming
store, pick up a box and read the back. It's like a gaming buzzword
dictionary with every purchase. For example, Â"The ultimate sport
of kill-or-be-killed is now an explosive new experience, with
mind-blowing new ways to move like lightning and annihilate enemies.Â"

Back of the UT2004 SE box. Even great games have buzzwords on the
back of the box. Even so, buzzwords give me the creeps. You just
know there's somebody out there who thinks this is insightful
analysis. Well, what's so bad about that? I'll tell you. I'll tell
you good.

As I
was reading the blog
of Seth Nickell, a developer on the open source desktop environment
GNOME,
he was talking about NASA. He was discussing an
argument made about NASA, stating that even after adjusting for
budget and inflation, they were much more productive in the 1963-1971
timeframe than they are today. The reason? They had lofty and
concrete goals to shoot toward, goes the argument. Not to repeat
Seth's words, but he basically said that this also applied to GNOME.
If the project didn't start setting loftier but still concrete goals
they would get left behind.

So this got the hamster wheels in my
head to rotate just a bit. About the only kind of news I read
anymore (besides GWJ) are interviews. Interviews with game
developers are interesting because I can get some sort of sense of
how much they Â"get itÂ" by reading them, given that the
interviewer isn't a 3 year old girl. Take for instance this old Deus
Ex 2 interview with Harvey Smith and Crhis Carollo.
At the time I didn't see it, but in retrospect this interview is
really interesting. In the entire interview the devs don't really
answer any Â"whyÂ" questions. They keep answering Â"why notÂ"
questions. They spend 3 paragraphs talking about how the skill
system doesn't make sense, they don't want to be like all the other
RPGs so they don't need skills. Why unify the skills and bio-mods?
Â"because the bio-mods work better in a videogameÂ". I think the
verdict
is in on that game by now. In my opinion all the parts were there,
but it simply lacked anything compelling.

Not to pick on them though, Harvey
Smith and Chris Carollo are great developers. In fact, it's my point
that it has nothing to do with skill. Do you think the dev team
working on Mary Kate and Ashley: Licensed to Drive was unskilled? I
mean, you have to have ungodly willpower not to hang yourself in the
closet instead of going to work. I'd love to see the ingenious ways
they kept from killing themselves every morning. Having a note at
the bottom of their to-do list, Â"Don't kill selfÂ". Hiding their
bullets behind a box of chocolate and tequila. Buying a basket of
kittens and putting it in front of their shotgun.

The vision of that game however, was
somewhat lacking. At least that's what I can tell from the final
product. Just reading the mini-review by Supertanker screams Â"cash inÂ".
I can almost see the marketoid that came up with the idea, Â"Let's
make a party game, with Mary Kate and Ashley!Â" That's it. They
didn't try to strive for anything creative or original, they didn't
strive for excellent implementation. Just slap something together
and get it out the door. Though maybe I'm just bitter because they
actually made money doing it.

My point is, you can have all the
skills in the world but you can't save an idea that makes no sense.
You can't define a game by saying what it's not and you can't define
a game by only saying what it's like. It's missing the point, you have to know what the game is.
Without vision, you just end up with a bunch of words, feature lists
and PowerPoint presentations. You start speaking in buzzwords and
genres, never really saying anything. The game ends up without any
substance, a meal of condiments. Not the good kind either, it's like
relish or something.

If you give a million developers a
million typewriters, they still won't make a game. You'll just end
up with a lot of wasted money, time and probably some very creative
ASCII porn.

Pyroman[FO]

Comments

Pretty well put. I have the same thoughts on government programs. I also think the same way with my homework; if I don't put a concrete goal on it, it takes ass-loads of time to finish (if it gets finished).

and probably some very creative ASCII porn.

Articles are always better when there is a zinger on the end, preferably about Porn, nude women, or free liquor. God bless you Pyro. God bless you for doing that.

'Twas quite the delightful article, but ye bewarned: foul NOT the likenesses o' thy Olsen Twins.

A link to said creative ASCII porn would be nice... err umm did i just type that?

Vis a vis buzzwords: What we're really talking about is a shift in the paradigm of value-added marketing. If gaming companies began to think outside the box, we might see a synthesis in the way that distributors enhance the product-image in the global marketplace. Oh, and ASCII pr0n Roxx0rz.

http://www.digitalbloc.com/200310/ru...

I'm not sure if your company woud see this as offensive or not. The russians do though. Work safe? Who knows. Not I. That's not who.

Vision in itself never gets anything done sadly...

One can be a visionary and be lauded for it...but behind every visionary are people who have the talent and ability to execute that vision into something concrete.

It's rare that one is a visionary and also has the technical and real world skills to execute (JC for good example, Peter Molyneux for bad example) Both could be considered Visionaries and rightfully so. And in fact one would even consider Molyneux a greater visionary. But their results are widely different. Where JC can execute on his vision via spectacular technical achivements, PM tends to fail in his execution of his vision resulting in half baked products.

Is that a failing of the individual or the team? I guess thats hard to answer since we dont get much in the backstory of the innerworking of Id and Lionhead.

Whats my point? I'm not sure...but like many instances in my life where I've met visionaries many times I've been dissapointed in their real world results.. Projects that languish in churn mode for years eventually being abandoned.

Personally I like my style...I'm not much of a visionary but I make up for it by sheer bulldogness. I'll brute force my way through projects to get them executed. What I may lack in vision I make up for by execution. Many times the results while less pretty make for better long term results and return on investment.

And usually theres alot of screaming involved.

Vision in itself never gets anything done sadly...

I agree completely, you notice the article isn't named "Vision is all you need"

I mean look at John Romero, king "Design is Law". That didn't work out at all.

My point was that you're equally sunk if you have no idea where you're going. Now in an entirely technical area, you always know where you're going. You have to get it to work. That's the goal, concrete and still lofty.

However in an area that's not as grounded in reality, people often work themselves to death thinking they know where they're going when they really have no clue. People just keep working thinking they'll get there. This works with more realistic and grounded projects because the goal is assumed. With gaming, it's much harder to do that, you don't know what "just work" means.

I whole heartedly agree on the buzzword thing.

I have an MBA, and as I was finishing it up, I realized that the only thing I really learned was how, and when, to use buzzwords effectively, either in a strategic, marketing, or financial context. That's really all there is to it.

Walk into a room, listen to a speaker prattle on about something, make a helpful comment about some Porter 5 forces analysis of the competitive environment, and call it a day. Really all there is too it.

If you are lucky, you might even be able to create an "action item" to "enhance the synergies" inherent in the "business process".

And there are 1000's more like me out there.

Yikes, I was considering going for an MBA but I was afraid that's all it was. Disturbing.

baggachipz wrote:

Yikes, I was considering going for an MBA but I was afraid that's all it was. Disturbing.

Well worth it. + 25000 in salary to start, whole new career path, have MBA will travel. I don't mind making money off buzzwords.