Transforming the Games Industry into a Well-Oiled Machine:
The Check List, Natural but Not Plentiful, and Talent is Talent – Part 5

Go To Part 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6

This is part 5 of 6 in my response to the Gamasutra.com opinion piece entitled “Making the Game Industry an Attractive Place to Work,” written by Electronic Arts' current head of European talent acquisition, Matthew Jeffery. Click HERE to read the original article.

December 10, 2008

By Eric M. Scharf

The Check List (That Solves Everything)

Matthew poses a short series of general questions he feels need to be asked when considering how to encourage the efforts – and enrich the opportunities – of games industry employees.

– Do employees feel challenged?

– Are employees well compensated?

– Are employees supported by their manager?

– Do employees enjoy their job? Is it fun?

– Do employees have an appropriate level of work / life balance?

– Are employees working on world class games?

– Do employees have an opportunity for promotion?

– Are employees receiving training and career development?

– Are employees ideas valued?

There have always been – and will continue to be – a low percentage of robot-perfect employees in the world . . . who do not need occasional encouragement from their teammates and supervisors in order to be fully engaged in their work towards excellent results.

A manager – in all fairness – is ideally expected to furnish an employee with a reasonably well-crafted list of tasks on a daily, weekly, monthly, or annual basis . . . depending upon the length of the employment commitment. If a games industry employee cannot quickly discover the mentally-stimulating challenge that comes with the development of nearly every video game, then . . . that person may be struggling with their particular role – versus the distraction of their personal goal – within a given development effort.

While the core goal of commercial game development is to deliver endless fun to the masses, some development tasks are not always going to be absolutely fun or ideal. There are glamorous tasks (“Hey! Look at ME!”) which give a project that WOW factor, and there are thankless tasks ("Hey! What about ME?") that ensure the project achieves Gold Master. While a good manager will always aim to give a developer as many challenges as they can handle, an employee – who wants to be a game developer (and "needs to start somewhere") – needs to accept (and be willing to accept) the best available tasks for the greater good.

The greater good – in this case – comprises (1) an employee’s burning desire to be involved in game development, (2) a game development team’s us-against-the-world mission to deliver the very best possible product to their target audience, and (3) the ability of a game development employer to pay for employee salaries and benefits.

An employer – by the very collaborative nature of game development – should regularly pursue product concepts generated from anyone within the development staff (the very people they have charged with generating great products). The employees – knowing their ideas will receive serious consideration – must follow the industry-standard, one-page “high level concept” delivery format. Some ideas will prove to be better than others (regardless of an employer’s sometimes natural preference to receive ideas only from proven veterans) . . . while other ideas that are great, simply push too far beyond available resources.

Employees must be prepared for this possibility and be gracious towards the consideration provided . . . given that it is provided. Employees will know that company management was paying attention to their ideas – and through association – their daily job performance, as well. While not all companies follow this pathway . . . it is clear, simple, and loaded with encouragement towards other facets of an employee’s existence within a given company.

While I have presented a few viable, experience-based, common-sense opinions, all of the questions Matthew has posed will ultimately receive different answers from the different vested entities (game publishers, game developers, and employees) . . . each of which may bring (significantly) maligned goals to the table.

Even if a company is functioning like clockwork, employees are exceeding expectations, and products are generating good-to-great profit . . . it is still up to the employer to recognize this dynamite domino effect (preferably without artificial stimuli) and take reward-based action as soon as is reasonably possible. It is still up to the employer to have established a plan for addressing potential performance bonuses / raises within operational budgets versus far less flexible project budgets.

It is also incumbent upon the employee to professionally approach his / her supervisor – if necessary – about the possibility of an accelerated performance review and associated raise. If the employer stands pat in the face of such a quality performance , the employee will almost certainly become unnecessarily upset and view the employer as completely oblivious, greedy, or both.

And heaven help the naturally quiet, somewhat-anti-social employee who is uncomfortable approaching a manager about any topic, let alone rightfully asking for a salary increase, for quality work that has been recognized by all on the team and within the studio.

“Mr. Lumbergh told me to talk to payroll and then payroll told me to talk to Mr. Lumbergh, and I still haven't received my paycheck and he took my stapler and he never brought it back and then they moved my desk to storage room B and there was garbage on it” – Stephen Root as Milton Waddams in “Office Space.”

Natural but Not Plentiful

Matthew suggests that an employee’s relationship with his / her manager is key to achieving job satisfaction and career development, and, through association, he also notes that just because people are great in their crafts does not make them leaders of people, which often distracts them from their real given talents.

One of the biggest strings attached to this article-long issue of making the games industry a more attractive place to work is the long-standing act of encouraging people with excellent, discipline-specific talent but low-grade communication, leadership, and management skills, to accept a position that requires far more than they are ever wired or willing to deliver. Every industry is guilty of understandably wanting to combine two goals into one by converting such people into interdisciplinary success magnets, within a team, a studio, or an entire corporation.

The downside to this choice involves other talented-and-capable individuals and teams who, unfortunately, voluntarily exit-stage-left, or who, unbelievably, have even been terminated, over the delinquency and discomfort of a poorly-chosen manager, who has no people skills and cannot even make eye contact with you during important decision-making moments. You absolutely need to keep the requirements of your development teams in mind, as your highest priorities, when choosing your managers.

Product development is a team effort, and you are only as good as your weakest link, which, ideally is not your manager. This point establishes the need for a solid, reliable human resource manager, who are familiar with game development operations, and who can assist in seriously reviewing the character traits of a management candidate. If you have mistakenly hired a team of talented-but-slacking developers, and milestone payments are at stake, it is understandable that you would pursue a new manager to crack the whip, thus, getting an improved return on your “seated salaries.”

Bringing in such an in-the-moment firefighter, rather than someone who is also equipped with a good bedside manner and an eye for smooth, long-term plans for your team, is simply too much of a risk. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one,” (Leonard Nimoy as Spock in “Star Trek”) unless the many are being selfish, short-sighted, or just plain lazy (in which case, you are left seeking out viable replacements as quickly and covertly as possible).

Not only is people management a real art, as Matthew states, I believe it is also an aptitude. Yes, the military has been known to churn out leader after leader from people made of lesser stuff, but many of those resultant leaders represent forced-leadership (where someone is chosen during supervision of the way they have performed within their respective unit to become a leader of that unit, or the best available person for that position).

A true leader and manager of people (and their product development tasks) actually wants to manage for his / her teammates, as part of a greater whole that can benefit from his / her superior communication, leadership, management, and organizational skills, rather than simply manage-to-achieve (which wrongly kicks the team and the product to the curb in favor of personal gain).

A true leader and manager actually wants to take one for the team, being a true buffer between untimely or unnecessary interruptions to the creative process and the jobs his / her teammates were hired to perform. True leaders are natural but not plentiful.

Talent Is Talent

Matthew points out how video games have historically catered to young males, but that times are changing, as is the ratio of games for males to females. I am in full agreement, but times cannot change swiftly enough, because the games industry has barely scratched the surface of games for several target audiences, beyond the still-primary group of males from age 20-35.

While Matthew believes the depth and quality of the games industry work force should be in lockstep with the changing composition of the games industry, through the hire of university graduates, we need to take that desire a step further, with the category of prized graduates including both men and women.

Keeping up with the changing composition of an industry, in turn, means being able to offer target consumers a more flexible, farther-reaching product line amid ever-changing market conditions. You also need to augment the work force with a more well-rounded collection of personnel (young and established, men and women), bringing with them fresh ideas and perspectives, which are required to continually guard against stagnant, copy-cat product development.

I know I am in the minority in suggesting that we should transform the games industry from a fraternity into an alumni group of men and women. I have close friends and talented colleagues who completely disagree with me and believe the games industry is no place for women and that their presence simply exposes the social anxieties and immaturity of so much existing games industry personnel. This either makes me socially flexible, in need of new friends and colleagues, or both.

Unfortunately, an industry that seeks to create an ever-widening range of products for an ever-widening range of audiences, using a work force widely-and-generally built on boys-to-men, will not be nearly as efficient as hoped. Focus groups, that include women, have been used, from time to time, as a safe alternative to including women on a team charged with developing a project that requires front-and-center knowledge and experiences that only a woman can truly provide.

My own work experience compels me to believe that women belong, have much to offer, and will succeed in the games industry, at least as much as men, and that such inclusion should not be treated like the right to vote. Most-but-not-all jobs are given-and-received based upon merit, and the games industry should be no different, especially when it comes to Matthew’s coveted university graduates, both men and women.

And, as the slanted story goes, “How can we simply allow women into the industry if they have no tangible experience to offer our development teams?” We start by encouraging them, as “allowing,” in this case, is completely inappropriate. Joining the games industry, like any other industry, involves an inquiry, proof of skills, and a choice – barring a serious mental or physical disability that completely prevents a person's inclusion, of course.

People can certainly be turned down for a position and temporarily turned away from realizing their goals, but encouragement is the key. If there are two game development candidates (one being a man and another a woman), where each candidate (1) has effectively played the same games, (2) same number of games, (3) same number of hours of games, (4) written the same number and quality of critiques of those games, and (5) pursued discipline-specific entrance tests with the same quality results, then, may the best candidate attain a full-time, in-house position within their game development studio of choice and achieve yearly, long-term success.

I welcome development teams composed of collaborative men and women, especially the resultant social maturation process. Talent is talent, regardless of gender.

Go To Part 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6