Macguffin Games

IGDA Elections – Mike Worth

February 18th, 2010 by Macguffin in Uncategorized

If you’re coming to this post without having seen the lead-in, you can find that post here.  It links to all the other assessments I’ve posted.  You can also find my disclaimer there – I’m on the Boston IGDA chapter’s board and support the candidacy of Darius Kazemi.

Mike Worth

UPDATE – Mr. Worth got back with a series of detailed replies to the questions, below.

Mr. Worth lists as one of his greatest strengths his, “almost limitless energy, and passionate enthusiasm.”  It shows in his statement.  From what he says, he’s been right in the middle of most of the success Philadelphia has had in the game dev arena recently, including Philly’s recent game dev tax credits and last year’s GameX conference.  He’s also an Emmy winner and successful entrepreneur.

Questions for Mr. Worth:

You mention that one of your three priorities while on the board would be “Webinars, articles, and blogs to help educate professional game developers…” Isn’t the IGDA already doing this?  What do you propose to add or change?

I’m glad you asked that question!  Let me take these three categories one at a time, with my proposed solutions at the end of everything.

Articles: Okay, I’m going to be a bit harsh here. Go to the IGDA website, and click on the “articles” link on the lower left. Here, here’s the link:

http://www.igda.org/articles

Now, look at all the articles, and find the most recent one. The most recent article posted on the IGDA website, in any of the categories, is May 2007. That stinks.  Clearly, we can do better than this. I want us to do better than this. The articles are a great idea, and there are so many benefits to the IGDA doing it!

• People do much of their industry research on the web, so putting articles on there is a great way to A) benefit industry pros, and B) provide great exposure to the IGDA!
• By linking to Gamasutra and Gamedev.net articles (for example), and cross-connecting back to us, we create a web of useful information, supporting and being supported by our industry trade sites.

Webinars: Joshua Caulfield and Joseph Sapp are doing a great job of driving the webinars, and they are a total success so far. However, there will probably need to be a dedicated webinar manager/producer going forward, so I can envision that being a need to fulfill. Additionally, I’d like to expand the webinars to include some point/counterpoint discussions about industry topics, post-mortems (especially programming postmortems), and “Chapter Highlights” webinars.

Blogs: I know that we have two blogs running right now, the IGDA Board Blog and Staf Blog. Those are providing useful information to the IGDA members about how the leadership is progressing the IGDA’s mission. However, in terms of professional development blogs, I have not seen any. However, I have seen an RSS feed that feeds all the posts from all the SIG’s, so I’m operating under the assumption that the SIG’s posts are the blog posts. In this case, I have not seen very many blog posts posted on the SIG’s (Programming and Visual Arts have no posted public blogposts). Now, it could be that many of the SIG’s have private mailing lists; and that’s totally fair and a good way to disseminate info. In that case, I’d like to more proactively advertise the SIG’s to members, to encourage the members to join up and receive valuable content.

Having said that, I believe that our Special Interest Groups are a highlight of our association. They consist of passionate people, and their forums have high-quality content. I’m particularly impressed with the quality of posts and information on the Tools SIG, for example. I’d like to have more of that! So, without further ado, two solutions I propose:

• One solution I have is for each SIG to commit to writing and posting one article a month about their discipline. This article would then be cross-posted on the IGDA article area, and also on the SIG’s page. This would guarantee more exposure of the SIG’s, promote inter-SIG awareness, and generate more content and information to benefit the members.
• Second, I propose more “cross-pollination” articles and posts, involving two or more SIG’s. For example, Robin Arnott (chair of the Audio SIG) is reaching out to the Writer’s SIG and Localization SIG, to do articles/podcasts on Dialogue in Games. Brilliant! Incorporate several aspects of the game design into one blended article. I want to help the IGDA create more of that!

You also mention, “High-value “GDC Quality” lecture and panel discussions”.  Where would these take place?  Can you elaborate any more on this idea?

This idea came out after seeing a great IGDA New Jersey lecture (shout out to Coray Seifert for putting together a fantastic meeting). Marty Stoltz (Big Huge Games) and Richard Rouse (Kaos Studios) presented a very high-value, very functionally beneficial lecture on borrowing cinematic techniques and incorporating them into gameplay. I have rarely seen such a great lecture outside of a major conference, and I want to make that type of lecture the norm.  So, to answer the first part, I would want to see these GDC quality presentations take place in two areas. First, at local chapter meetings, which means we need active support and buy-in from the local game development people who can offer these great sessions. Two, as “sub-tracks” at larger industry events. For example, so many of us are at E3, it would be great to have an IGDA afternoon, where presenters from multiple areas do industry-to-industry sessions.

Regarding your second points, here’s my elaboration on my idea/vision:

1. Focus on making these presentations valuable to individuals with 3-10 years of professional experience (either independent or part of a larger studio). I think we need to excite and bring in that demographic of members to help the IGDA grow and flourish. I want people with that level of experience to gain value from the IGDA, and this is one area we can give this to them.
2. Get IGDA buy-in/excitement from established studios and experienced members at those studios, so that they are willing to put together these presentations. Often, studios are a little leery about exposing too much proprietary information; if the studios, and individuals in the studios believe in the IGDA’s mission, they’ll be more likely to contribute with presentations.
3. Merging of talented presenters into cross-geographic sessions at larger industry events. i.e. get an Austin and San Fran dev programming duo to talk about specific techniques of physics programming, compare/contrast, all that.

Your third priority listed is, “Industry mentoring for people just entering the industry, including how to interview for a game industry job and choosing your career focus.”  How do you propose doing this?

I think a great route is to do the following. First, reach out to existing studios around each chapter, and get a list of people willing to mentor. For those of us in Philly, Grant Shonkwiler (incoming Philly IGDA chair) is a great example. He blogs about how to design games, how to make your portfolio pop, etc. Second, go and visit the local universities that are positing that they want to graduate game developers. Now we have our pairings. (Of course, a non-student who wants to break in from a different industry can contact the local chapter to get a mentor).

Then, (and this is the important part), you have the IGDA create clear documentation as to how the mentorship works (number of times a month they meet, what resources and exercises the protégé should implement, etc). The appropriate SIG should also be providing documentation and suggestions of what to help a protégé with, skillsets to learn, possible career routes, etc. All this is centralized on the IGDA website. If the protégé doesn’t adhere to these guidelines, the mentor does not have to continue the program with that individual. This will help mitigate “wasteful mentoring” meetings with people that are not willing to take charge of their careers (see point below).

Funny enough, the IGDA already has a great program in motion, which covers a lot of this. (http://archives.igda.org/women/gmo.html) So, why are we not using this to its full effect? I think that we need to get more SIG’s to cross-pollinate and collaborate, especially on a large initiative like this. And, we need to publicize this much, much more effectively.

You note that you think the biggest issue game devs face today is a lack of mentoring/coaching, brought about by the rapidly changing business environment.  Can you explain why this would be a bigger concern than Quality of Life or the high turnover caused by recent economic conditions?

I think that these three aspects you mentioned actually influence and are influenced by one another. When a game developer chooses to “go pro”, I feel that they should have the ablitiy to learn all the appropriate career management skills necessary for them to A) self-evaluate, and decide what types of games they work best on, B) what studios are a good fit for their specific skills, and C) how to research those studios to see if their lifestyle needs fit the studio’s work requirements.  I think that if a game developer gets caught in a work environment that’s a bad fit, then that may have been a result of him/her not knowing what to look for in a potential employer, how to find out the lifestyle in that studio at the job interview, and how to confidently choose or choose not to work at a particular studio. Game developers are the lifeblood of our industry, and the more empowered they are to drive their own careers, choose which studios to pursue that fit their lifestyle and creative passions, then the happier work environment they will create for themselves.

And that’s the statement I want to come back to; I want to empower game developers, empower them creatively, as craftsmen, and as business people (either driving their own careers, or driving a studio they’ve help found).  I think the IGDA can be the single greatest resource to empower professional game developers, not just students breaking in, but industry pros with 3+ years of experience, who find themselves having to navigate our rapidly changing industry environment.

This ties into your observation of the importance of addressing he high turnover rates in our industry. I think that the effects of that turnover can be mitigated on an individual level, if that individual has strong career management skills developed through coaching and mentoring. For example, if a game developer has a good strategy to develop his own game with a team of 5-10 people, pitch to publishers, and ship on a premium download channel (Wiiware, XBLA), then he or she can weather a layoff by creating games on their own steam. These skills are completely teachable, and can give the game professional the flexibility to move into and out of jobs, as the industry changes, while still making games they love, and building their career.

Since the game industry has always been marked by tons of ambitious but unskilled people trying to break in, how would you propose to manage the IGDA’s members and resources in mentoring new developers?  There seems to be the potential that we could spread ourselves very thin, possibly on people who will not have a future in this industry regardless of their mentoring.

Hoo, boy, you asked a good question there! I understand exactly what you’re saying, and now I have to be a bit cruel. The truth is, this is a very hard industry in which to succeed, and one must be truly excellent at what you do. Oftentimes, people try to enter this industry, and don’t have “what it takes” to succeed.

But, here’s a truth that I believe in, and, in fact, Scott, your awesome post about that concept artist who worked for 5 years to get his craft in shape (link here: http://www.macguffingames.com/2010/practice-trumps-talent/) talks just about that.

My best friend (Avish Parashar, www.motivationalsmartass.com), is a success coach, and he talks a lot about what it takes to be successful in any industry. It’s a harsh truth, but it needs to be said (because I agree with it).

You have to be willing to do what others in your field are unwilling to do, to be unforgettable in your field, knowing that life will probably not ask you to do what others are unwilling to do.

Weird Zen koan, but what it means is: How badly do you want this? Are you willing to get up at 5:30 AM every day and write music for an hour before going to your day job? (I did this for 2 years while breaking into TV).  Are you willing to work for free on nights and weekends for 10 months to polish and re-polish your game for a pitch to Sony?

I believe that 80% of the time, when someone is “ambitious but unskilled”, then they are not “putting in the time” to be absolutely amazing at what they do. People who train themselves to be amazing at what they do get hired. In fact, there are only two things we need to do to be successful in any career:

1. Be unforgettably amazing at what we do.
2. Ask a whole lot of people to hire us.

If a person fails, it’s because they either:

1. Don’t know how to achieve points 1 and 2, or
2. They are unwilling to “suck it up” and put the time in to do points 1 and 2.

Mentoring should only help people learn how to achieve points 1 and 2. “Putting in the Flight Time” is the responsibility of the protégé.

So, it comes down to: how do we manage a coaching/mentoring program so that people who want “easy solutions” aren’t bleeding our members dry? Well, I have several ideas:

1. First, we create core documentation and skill-building documents,exercises, and projects that people who are “breaking in” must read and implement before they can sign up for a mentor-partner. This will ensure that the people are willing to take charge of their career, and aren’t just looking for an easy way in. Darius Kazemi’s networking blogposts are a great resource for those types of drills/documents, and I have a bunch of articles and resources I will provide as well.
2. Mentor meetings have mandatory “homework” in between meetings. If the protégé/mentored doesn’t do the homework (sketching three background terrains, calling 5 game companies, etc.), they don’t get their next meeting. Period. Mentors are giving their time, and they deserve the courtesy of having their students actually take and implement their advice.
3. Protégés must give back to the community. Examples could be volunteering to set up/break down IGDA chapter events, promoting IGDA events/content on their facebook and twitter, etc.

If these three ideas are implemented in a mentoring program, I think we will drastically reduce the “waste of mentoring resources”, as well as separate the people who are willing to do what it takes to build their career in this industry, from the people who are “ambitious but unskilled.”

Tags: igda