Punk, Hip Hop & Videogames

With the passing of Malcolm MacLaren last week I just had to post one of my favorite tunes from his work with World Famous Supreme Team. Although Malcolm McLaren's biggest (and most controversial) contribution to music was as part of the Punk movement and his work with the Sex Pistols, his interest in Hip Hop was real.



As a Hip Hop junkie growing up in the 80s, I loved the passion, fierce independence and amazing creativity of this powerful youth movement that was not (at that time) supported by the established industry but regardless was pushing creativity and invention in every direction.

I guess every generation has its own youth movement, that brings a powerful voice to challenge the status quo and bring change to the established way things are. Hip Hop Culture was mine.

Malcolm McLaren was also a fan of at least one aspect of videogames, writing an article in 2003 championing 8-bit music. In an interview for Swindle magazine, he said;

There was some anarchic element in the culture of early interactive video games that inspired them. They wanted to grab that sound and use it to express music of their own kind. They love those machines, the consoles, the Game Boys. They weren’t ass lick or as well programmed back then. There was a rawness in the sound and imagery. They produced a sound that had a connective spirit to the world of punk rock, because it was so DIY, equally disobeying of overly slick productions, equally trying to deconstruct and get down to the roots and rawness, equally using source material instruments that they aren’t necessarily in control of. That world, to me, was the next stage.

To all those aspirational indie game makers, this is your time, your movement. Make a real change in the world with the games you make.

And in the spirit of this post, I'll mashup my point with a quote from Robert Kennedy in a post about Punk and Hip Hop!

“There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”

Two of my favorite things collide - 8 bit invasion of NYC

I tweeted the link to this but its so awesome I had to post it here too. This video is created by Patrick Jean for One More Production.

TED Talks: Jane McGonigal

Apologies for the delay in my pt2 thoughts from GDC. It's coming but my new independent life has been keeping me busy! In the meantime here is Jane McGonigal's great and inspirational talk on the good and importance of games in our real world.

Cave Story - A love that spans continents

The story of this games development is pretty well known by now but is such an inspirational one, and with the Wiiware version due soon I wanted to give it some props.

Daisuke Amaya (AKA Pixel) created the game, on his own, over a period of 5 years. A PC version released in 2004 (download here) . There is an interview with Pixel here, that gives you the background.

I also found this beautiful little interview piece on on youtube, about how Tyrone Rodriguez and Daisuke Amaya worked across continents to bring the game to Wiiware. (thanks to IndieGames.com for the link).

Check it out! Be Inspired!



The Wiiware version comes out next week (March 22nd). For more info you can check the official website.

GDC Inspiration Pt 1 - The Indies

Last week was GDC and a great time to take the pulse of the industry.

The previous year, all the heat was around casual and iPhone. This year the big buzz was the incredible growth of casual/social games, with a certain amount of fear as to a perceived threat of facebook games to the wider medium.

My take is different. I think this was the most inspirational, exciting GDC I have been to. One that represented the diversity of our industry, from the amazingly consistent quality of big budget games last year, to the increasing prominence and growth of the amazing beautiful indie games scene, to the explosion of social games that show that gaming is something for everyone.

I feel that our industry is on the cusp of a major evolutionary step.

In fact Will Wright spoke of this in his ‘secret’ keynote. Describing us as poised at the beginning of our own Cambrian Explosion.

I have a lot of notes from various talks I went to so I'll be breaking them up over a series of posts over the next week or so.

Here is my Indie update from GDC.

IndieFund

I went to the Ron Carmel talk about IndieFund. You can find an excellent writeup of the talk here.

Everything he said was inline with what I had expected the fund to be about, but this is an exciting development for the industry. If they can be successful it may start attracting more capital to our industry. It's also great to see the successful Indies coming together to provide a channel for the next wave. This is one of the most amazing aspects of the Indie scene, there is a sense of togetherness and community that comes from everyone pushing out and trying to make it on there own.

One part of the talk that puzzled me was Ron's claim that Publishers are investing too much into indie games. He says that Braid & World of Goo cost in the $120k to $180K range and that Publisher investments of $500k-$1M were risky and destined to lose money.

I do believe that a lot of Publishers have been burnt with their early experiments in XBLA but I don’t believe it’s related to budget but rather quality of product. Braid would have made money even at $1M dev cost. It sold because it was a great game. To pick 2 other XBLA hits, I don’t believe that Castle Crashers or Shadow Complex could have been developed for $200K and they have been commercial and critical successes.

I believe whether you are developing a $200K game, a $2M game or a $20M game we are living in a time when only best is good enough. Regardless of cost, you need to be best in your class.

It’s possible to develop a great game for $200K, as both Ron & Jonathon Blow have shown, but there are other game experiences that are going to require bigger teams to deliver. The market on XBLA is going to continue to grow and will ultimately support games with bigger budgets.

Moving on, the IGF booth is one of the highlights of GDC for me. Each year the games are getting more and more polished. What’s really clear too, is the rebirth of 2D. It feels like perhaps we’ve explored 3D gaming as much as we can and now we are in this process of rediscovering old gameplay that had been lost a little bit. There are 2 games I want to talk about, very different and yet I believe, there are universal elements that tie them together...

Limbo

Wow. What a beautiful game. We had looked at the early concept video for this as an inspiration when we were in pre-production on Lucidity. Then no new information came to light but at GDC I got to play it. Check out some footage from the GDC build here. It’s coming on XBLA in the summer and is a Day One purchase for me.

What really blew me away, however, was that it’s been developed over a period of 3 years, with a team of 8-16 people! Wow! I don’t know what the man month costs are like in Denmark but that would run about $2-3M to develop here in the States.

Could this be the most expensive ‘Indie’ game ever?

Joe Danger

Fantastic game. Absolutely polished and just reeks of FUN at every level. Check out the trailer here. Amazing to know this has been developed by 4 people. 3 programmers and one artist. Met Sean Murray and he was a super nice guy. It’s been announced as coming to PSN in the summer.

I think this is going to be huge. It’s like Trials HD, crossed with Sonic, crossed with Little Big Planet, made by Pixar. Sean himself is way more humble about its chances. I really admire what they have done in staying true to their vision and not letting anyone come in and knock them off course.

Both Joe Danger and Limbo were stand-out games for me. They were both amazingly well polished and brilliantly executed. They were also very very different, showcasing the diversity of game experiences that the indie space is delivering.

This got me thinking, what makes a game truly 'Indie'?

1. Is it Self-Funded? Joe Danger is self-funded. Flower is funded by Sony and wins IGF GOTY.
2. Is it budget? Limbo clearly has a budget that even Publisher funded XBLA games aren't spending.
3. Is it the Conceptual Premise? The indie 'feel'? Joe Danger is a nakedly commercial, fun game whereas Limbo reeks of 'indie' emotion and artistry.

I can imagine there will be fierce debates on this to come, much like the 'Are Games Art' debates of previous years.

Joe Danger may not 'fit' the notion of an indie game because of its bright sense of fun and mainstream sensibility, but these guys made a game they WANTED to make and they completely self-funded it. (Interestingly, I've heard that Limbo has benefited from some significant Arts Funding from the Danish Government)

Personally, I subscribe to the belief that Kellee Santiago eloquently vocalized at GDC, that Indie Developers don't have to suffer for their art. Developers need to eat, need to pay mortgages and support families and there is nothing wrong with the support for that coming from a Publisher or private investor.

It is the intrinsic motivation to create an interactive experience that comes from the heart, one that reflects the creators personal passions and voice that, to me, makes a game 'Indie'.

For the Hello Games guys, that's Joe Danger, for PlayDead that's Limbo. I'll be celebrating that diversity with my $$ when both games release.

More GDC updates to come soon!

LucasArts - A Fond Farewell

After 3 years at LucasArts the time has come for me to move on. It's been a fantastic experience for me. If I could go back and tell my 10 year old self this was in my adult future maybe high school would have been a lot more tolerable!

I worked with an amazing group of talented people. Some of the most talented, passionate developers I have ever known. Together we had a great team culture that allowed us to weather every storm. We never gave up and kept meeting each new challenge head on. The team carried me on their backs as often as I carried them.

We got to build a team culture built around the concept of togetherness, empowering everyones creativity and the idea that no one person is bigger or better than the team.

I got to spend hours with George Lucas, sharing my creative ideas with him, and enjoying his own enthusiastic ideas (the part that would have made my 10 year old self's head explode).

And we had success! Our team relaunched the companies interest in its Heritage, with the development of Monkey Island: SE, which has led to the recent announcement of its sequel, Monkey Island 2, led by my good friend Craig Derrick.

We also got to create Lucidity. For me, this was a deeply personal game. Creating a game around a little girl who's is on a 'metaphorical journey of dealing with the death of her beloved grandmother' is not exactly an established gaming premise but the company stood behind our creative muse and let us take it all the way through. It was a great experience and I'm proud of the game we delivered in such a crazy short development time.

As to what I will be doing next, as an independent I have some great ideas and a post GDC inspirational tailwind to carry me forward. Hopefully I will be able to announce something soon. In the meantime, to all my great friends and colleagues at LucasArts, thanks for the great memories!

DICE 2010: Richard Lemarchand on Naughty Dog's creative culture

PS3 Games - E3 2010 - Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Richard Lemarchand is a good friend of mine, and an amazing industry talent that I am often in awe of.
He gave a great talk at DICE this year, on Naughty Dog's culture that allows them to deliver such amazing games as the Uncharted franchise.

The talk starts at minute 5:40 of this G4 feed.

He discusses three critical pillars at Naughty Dog.

• Empower the Team
• Open Communication
• Cross Discipline Collaboration

As Richard himself notes, the most radical aspect of this may be the steps they take to ensure team empowerment. Naughty Dog has a sum total of zero Producers on their team. That is not to say they do not do production, rather production responsibilities are devolved down amongst the teams and discipline leads. This means that the people creating and tracking deliverables, are the same people responsible for their execution.

This is the secret sauce.

Game Developers want to deliver amazing work, its why we all came into games. To create memorable moments takes passion. By giving the creator responsibility for the timely delivery, you maximize the efficiency of the work. The developer feels ownership of the date as well as the quality. They will strive to deliver as good work as they can in the time they have given themselve.

This is not an open invitation to take as long as they want. Having a tight knit team culture, as Naughty Dog clearly has, means that people have a sense of responsibility to each other. A team member is self-motivated not to be late, because it lets down friends and colleagues, who have there own dependencies.

At LucasArts, I created a team built on very similar principles. Ours were;

Flat Heirarchy - responsibility was taken on case by case, by whoever had the passion and was able to do the work. Anyone could own a major part of the games development. In fact we had an intern creating all enemy animations for one of our games by his second week.

Everyone Creating Everything - people had to be prepared to perform any task that might be needed to get the job done. For people who embraced this, it meant opportunity to develop skills in areas they would not typically get the chance to. Through this, a System Designer became a more rounded creative by developing level design chops. A concept artist became an Environment Artist and got to implement her artistry directly into the game. In every case, the results were awesome, largely due to the passion and desire for learning that the person brought.

Other tenets of the culture that were never formally written down but were implied and in constant practice, mirrored the pillars that Richard talks about.

So here's what I learnt from my own experiences. It works. Absolutely. No question.

This is why small indie teams are often so successful. They rarely afford specialist Producers, typically have to wear many hats, and work closely together, thriving or failing on how openly they communicate and work together as a team.

What is particularly impressive about Naughty Dog's accomplishments, is that they have been able to take this small team mindset and scale it up to a studio of 120 people delivering AAA big budget games. (By the way, I have heard that Valve similarly operate along the same governing principles).

I also think its important to note the value of what Richard describes as being 'led by artisans'. Game development changes so fast today that at some point, people who stop creating and start managing, start to lose track of the latest evolutions. I can't imagine a piece of them inside doesn't die, at losing the very thing that they loved that brought them to games in the first place. My Art Director at LucasArts was ADAMANT that a big chunk of his time HAD to be doing production work on the line. Similarly, my Lead Designer had been both a designer AND an engineer in past lives, and oversaw the design as well as making his own code tweaks to balance gameplay.

Ed Catmull has said something about the culture at Pixar that they know they are doing there job right if people go into a room and solve a problem and he only finds out about it after the fact. The scale of the projects are so huge they NEED people at the lower levels to be making independent decisions. This emphasizes the importance of devolved decision making that comes with a flatter team culture.

In many ways this is how a successful military operates. Command sets the objective and then the men on the ground take on the responsibility of how to get the job done, based on what obstacles they see ahead.

Some additional thoughts.

You HAVE to have everyone on the team to buy into this concept. Your job leading a team, is to find every way to unlock people's passions. Its this passion that leads to greatness.

What I have found is that giving people ownership, a sense of there own destiny, and as Dan Pink says, a "sense of Mastery, Autonomy and Purpose" will time and time again give results more creative than a top down command and control organization.

Oh...and one last thing...Naughty Dog have never missed a ship date!