Video Game Management and Radically Rethinking Compensation

The incentives video game companies dangle to make us productive - options and bonuses - are an insult to creative people. 

Every video game company wants to motivate their game developers to get the maximum creative juice and effort out of them. It's in everybody's interest to incentive game developers to great work. But the funny thing is that incentives don't work.

Let me repeat that for the dimmer light bulbs in the back of the room.

Why Video Game Developers Hate Business Types

Pull up a comfy chair Mr. Business Suit Guy and please allow me to explain to why game developers hate your guts.

I know, it's practically a cliche - video game developers don't get along so well with the business types. "But why?" you ask. "Don't I smile enough in meetings, chit-chat in the break room and throw up the high fives in the hallways?"

Make no mistake - things seem cordial on the surface but we game developers seethe with anger and resentment towards you clean-shirt-with-no-holes-that-lacks-a-video-game-logo types.

It's instinctual - and here's why:

OnLive + iPad = whoa....

For an E3 Friday, I simply offer this - a video of OnLive being demoed on an iPad.

- Sean Dugan is The Boss Monster’s founding editor and all-too-frequent contributor.


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The Game Industry - Breaking Down the Console Business Numbers

For game development execs at E3, I'll expose Kinect's business problems with easy-to-grasp bullet points, pictures and expletives.

Okay, I admit I have already offered a few choice comments about how Natal, er, excuse me, Microsoft's Kinect is an admission the video game industry's console business is effing broke. But it's such a good topic, I cannot resist flogging the dead horse...er, I mean, thoughtfully exploring the topic in careful non-incendiary terms.

Video Game Design: Striving for Perfect v. Good Enough

When is a video game shippable? When it's as perfect as it can be - or when it's good enough to not embarrass a game dev?

More than a few video game designers have a few credits on our resume which we are, shall we say, less than proud of. Let's face it - most of us have a few real stinkers. Nobody sets out to make a bad game but sometimes circumstances dictate otherwise. Video game development is a commercial art. So by definition, game designers struggle to balance the demands of a business alongside their creative aspirations. Eventually, everybody needs to ship or suffer the ignominious fate of Duke Nukem Forever. But the eternal question for game developers is when is the product done?