How to Kickstart a Game Project in 3 Easy Steps

Have a great idea for a video game but no money? No problem! Follow these 3 easy steps to Kickstart your dream game! 

1. Be a famous, world-class video game industry talent!

2. Have a sequel to a beloved and well-known video game!

3. Create a brilliant campaign to promote your game and grab the attention of your players!

Now, just lay back and wait for millions of dollars to roll in! 

The Secret to Being a World-class Video Game Designer

Who wouldn't want to be world-class? The trick if you're a video game designer? Stop playing so many video games

Who doesn't want to be extraordinary in whatever they do including video game design? I mean, who doesn't want to be the goddamn Batman? There's actually a significant body of work about achieving world-class behavior popularized by Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers" and Colvin's "Talent is Overrated". Its the 10,000 hour rule - to be world-class at something, you need to practice it for 10,000 hours.

Originality in Video Games and Speaking in German

When creating successful video games, truly original thinking is rarely a virtue. Oh yeah, that's right - I went there.

Let us start with the very basics. Video games are commercial art. The art part is all good times and laughs but the commercial part puts food on the table. And so, assuming you wish to live with a bit of financial security and die with both of your ears still attached to your skull, you will have to consider the audience for your game and whether they want to pay for it. And so then, like so many things, originality in video games creates a lot of Sturm und Drang among professionals. But it's rarely a black and white issue, rather its shades of gray - not to mention black and blue at times.

Video Games and the Art of the Fail

They say success has many fathers and failure is an orphan. But I say failure has dubious parentage but everybody sure wants to stare at the ugly little bastard. 

I have had my fair share of exposure to cancelled games, aborted projects, shutdown services, less-than-spectacular releases and thunderous earth-shattering meteor impacts. And make no mistake, failure is a spectator sport.

Why Game Development Experience is Largely Overrated

Why the "experienced" old dog game developer probably hasn't learned the tricks you really need.

Have you ever had the experience of listening to an exalted Deity of Game Design - and you suddenly realize what they are preaching is hopelessly out of date? Let's face it, experience in game development is highly over-rated. As hiring managers, we chase experienced candidates because it gives us a warm, reassuring feeling to have a CV with a long list of years behind it. Hiring is scary - a bad hire can be disastrous in so many different ways so hiring "experience" is a balm against our fear of lost development time, burned budgets, morale problems, lawsuits, etc.

The problem is that "experience" is an illusion.

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?

Anatomy of a Video Game Industry Hit

The video game industry has Hollywood's problems but less upside. And I don't mean the lack of starlets and coke.

In the video game industry, can you be both a hit and a flop at the same time? Red Dead Redemption and Take Two show us the way. On the day Take Two announced Red Dead Redemption had sold 5 million units, the response from Wall Street was to pummel the stock 7.7% with the company shedding almost $70 million dollars in value. 

A video game developer might credibly ask: "WTF?!?"

Why Studying Game Design is (Largely) a Waste of Time

Presumably, it’s not enough to just get a job as a video game designer. You probably want to be a successful game developer. 

Maybe you even climb to the point where you’re directing your own eager minions what game we’re all making. To ascend to the rarefied summits of game design, you figure you’d better have the right skills. Naturally then, you want to study all the game design theory you can lay your hands on, right?

Wrong – because overall success in game development relies on skills outside of game design.

7 Principles of Good Video Game Design

As the Apple faithful descend on WWDC, we ask what can Steve Jobs teach a game developer about good video game design?

If "child"-proof bottle tops, blinking VCR clocks and Apple's iPad teaches us anything, its that good design makes a difference. But as game designers, we often struggle to define "good design". Design in the vocabulary of the games industry spans everything from the video game narrative to character visualization to the game combat mechanics to the statistical curve of the level progression. So how do you come up with meaningful criteria for separating the good from the bad? Is there an objective way to evaluate design? Or is good design purely in the eye of the beholder?

5 Video Game Stories to Make You Smart - and 1 to Make You Dumb

Here's Friday's run down of 5 video game news stories to make you smart - and one to make you dumb. 

1. First it was Dungeons and Dragons Online, now Lord of the Rings Online has embraced the free-to-play model. 

Why game developers should  care: not long ago, monthly subscriptions were the only game in town for MMOs but with WOW continuing to crush the competitors, under-performing online games can be resuscitated with a shift in business models. Being online gives you a second time at bat (maybe).

Starting a Game Company the Way for Developers to Survive?

Are game designers an endangered species? Is the new breed of game developer the "Game Entrepreneur-nus Rex"?

Game development is in upheaval. It's being shaken by the seismic forces of online and mobile gaming rising up from the bottom while the imminent deep impact of crushing AAA mega-title development costs comes streaking out of the sky. The products that are relevant to the market are changing with the mid-range titles eking out an existence in a precarious niche.

Game Developers: The Argument for Taming the Business Side

Your typical game developer has mixed feelings about business types. In the way a mongoose feels about a cobra.

It's something in the DNA of most game developers. They're instinctively repelled by talk of Brooks Brothers, ties and addressable markets. Many game developers wear their ignorance of business issues as a badge of honor. To be a "suit" is a bad thing. But there's actually a pretty good case for every dyed-in-the-world game developer to master the game of business.

5 Game Industry Stories to Make You Smart and 1 to Make You Dumb

Here's your Friday recap of 5 stories to make you a smarter game developer - and 1 to make you dumber.

1. Red Dead Redemption looks to be a big hit for Take Two. They moved 250K copies on the 1st weekend in just the United Kingdom. This is a win for Rock Star and Take Two, for while the company has GTA, those do take a bit of time to develop. Wall Street likes it when a company makes a profit every year.

Project Natal Tells Game Developers the Xbox 360 is Broken

In case you missed it, Project Natal (or Wave or whatever) is an huge admission that the next generation of video game consoles are FUBAR.

Departing Xbox Godfather Robbie Bach described Natal as a "midlife kicker for the 360". Now, if my math is correct, mid-life generally comes close to the halfway point of a life. With the Xbox 360 launching in Nov. of 2005, that means we can enjoy red-ringing for another four to five years. To put that in perspective, the entire life cycle of the original Xbox was five years.

Back Again For More: Sequels in the Video Game Industry

If your video game idea is so awesome, then why not double your fun and make it again?

One of the things you notice in the game industry is sequels. Lots and lots of sequels. A mountain of sequels. Holy crap, there's a lot of sequels.

This is not because game designers as breed can be a bit repetitive, sometimes unoriginal in their thinking and have a tendency to lock their jaws on to something with the tenacity of a demented bulldog.

Dear Jesus, Won't You Fund My Video Game Start-up?

First, let me thank you Jesus for hearing my video game company pitch. 

It wasn't easy getting your Sand Hill Road address but I appreciate you making time for a meeting.

I figure, with you being the Lord and omniscient, you've probably heard about the whole real life as a video game design thing. The idea that we can use video game mechanics to make everything from buying toothpaste to filing your taxes to exercising a part of a big game design that you get points for.

Well, here's my pitch to you Jesus:

World of Churchcraft.