I must say, that I didn’t think I will be able to even get this far in my train of thought, but it does feel good to continue making notes on my experiences. Okay, onward! This part is about us interacting with each other on a scale of around 100 people in the same lecturing room. I have never participated in an activity that would constantly maintain an amount of people that big (my personal record would be 30 people at most). And this brought out a somewhat different dynamic than the one I was used to.
You know what helps in a group of around 100 people? A nametag! I’m horrible at remembering names. This way, maybe, I could at least stand a chance! Or just start shoving your phone into people’s face so that they can Facebook you on the spot? This is especially true for us, pour souls, with the exotic foreign names. And as far as the Facebooking goes (and it pains me to admit this…) – use your damn face as your profile picture. I know we are all special snowflakes with deep personalities, but if I talked to someone and then I go “Hey, I should probably send a friend request to that guy/girl/Apache helicopter”, finding them by their profile picture is what I will try to do. I was one of those people with an avatar picture instead of my face at the beginning of the first year. Then someone pointed that out to me and I was extremely annoyed at first. But then I realised that this complaint was legit. And if you feel that you aren’t photogenetic or anything, there are plenty of people around who can take your photo in a great way! Leave your avatars to the gaming forums or until you have established yourself as someone who is known to everyone.
If you have no voice – you have no face. This is an unfortunate truth. In a group of around 100 people, those who are quiet among us will mostly go unnoticed. Even in a small group of 20 people, like in my design class, I still don’t know some of the people as well as I would like to. And by “knowing” I mean that I have almost no impression of them. I could have gotten that from hearing them voice their opinions in the class. This is partly my fault for not reaching out, but those people could have left this impression by simply participating in discussions more. Now, imagine the teacher’s perspective! They need to process several hundreds of students each year. If you don’t take initiative to talk to them, voice your opinions and questions or discuss things, you will remain a blank face in the sea of faces.
Networking? Duh, you dummy… I know this is obvious, but I’m guilty of not embracing this because of my personality. So, talk to people, I guess? There are many interesting personalities that possess different knowledge and expertise. Expose yourself to that knowledge to gain a wider understanding of the world, to reinforce or weaken your opinions. This is especially important for designers (the designers I will talk about eventually in the end of these series) but also to grow as a human being in general.
Recognise the veterans (second and third-year students). These people have already seen some shit and know about a lot of traps and tricky spots on this bumpy ride. Talk to them, ask them for an advice or guidance. You don’t have to become their best friends or anything. My general impression left me with a feeling that older students like to mentor noobs on their way to a great game. So, don’t be shy. The worst-case scenario is that you will get bitten. No big deal!
In a hindsight, I think this was the point of the scrum masters during our first production. But, I guess it didn’t work out exactly as planned. Again, a lot of confusion was caused by the title “scrum master” itself. This wasn’t what they needed to be, they needed to be our mentors instead of … whatever the hell they were.
Artists, share your art. I mean it. Start making silly looking portfolios to use them just in our courses. And several of you already have some heavy guns on the display (not mentioning the names, hehe). The sooner the better. I, personally, want to see what you people are capable of if I’m to work with you. You are showing your strong and weak sides this way, but also the progress you make on your journey. And this goes for the workflow as well! Show the team your work in progress, it will most likely make it better. Seeing people work on things is inspiring, to say the least.
Game jams. Go to game jams! Those are a great way to learn the interaction between each other inside of the game development process. Unfortunately, the game jams within the university are badly adjusted for THE designers and the producers. Only the artists and the programmers are fully functional in those events. My impression was that people were unclear on what producers and designers are for. Another reason could be the format of the event where the main accent falls on the creation of assets in a short time frame, which leads to a diminished significance of the design and workflow. Just guessing here. Still, this an opportunity to develop a secondary skill in the art or programming department if you just warn people about your level of skill. I am grateful to the people who let me join during the two jams I visited this year. The funny thing was that both times the teams took home Best Interpretation…
The show of respect and the recognition of the team’s work. This idea has a high chance of backfiring in my face, but I will voice it anyway. When something is created, no matter how bad it is, it deserves recognition. One must learn to show the respect for the collective effort of another team. One must also learn the ability to see past the bad form and into the idea that people tried to realise. Bad execution doesn’t necessarily mean a bad idea. Also, most people are aware of the flaws in their creations. A word of praise or encouragement can help them get to the next stage of the journey. This is easy to observe during an event like GGC (Gotland Game Conference http://gotlandgameconference.com/2017/ ). Please note, that I’m talking about the collective effort, not the individual effort.
Pre-emptive profiling. Once again, if you think that you are a special snowflake and a complete mystery, then I would like to try to try and disprove that. At this point in time, most of us left a digital information trail which is just a click away. Even more so, when it comes to the game development sphere since many us are active internet users. People can google you, people can find your social media profiles. Be aware of what is there, an opinion can be formed from just a quick browsing through your drunken party pictures. You might brush this off in the context of the college studies, but already most employers do the same thing. Do you really want those embracing pictures there when you are applying to [insert company name here]? I’m not saying you should start keeping a full track because this is highly subjective, but just be mindful of this.
Person’s rating, Blacklisting and venting. Our actions and behaviours in any social context dictate what people will think of us. And people will observe and take mental notes. It’s is in our best interest to be on the positive side of this rating if we want to work in a good group now and in the future.
The third worst scenario is to be a talented individual with a horrible personality. This turns you into a high-risk investment. People might choose someone mediocre that doesn’t disturb the peace too much over you, who is talented but also is a drama queen.
The second worst scenario is the people with both a bad temper and little to no talent. These should be cut from teams for obvious reasons and are easy to identify.
And the worst-case scenario of them all are the people with nice personalities and no productivity. Why are they worst, you might ask? Because their personality might obscure their productivity. The fact that they are nice could play on your fillings, making you want to give them a second chance, a third chance etc. But know, that their low contribution will backlash at your projects in awful ways. Especially in the production cycles, where the wasted time is something we can not afford.
Blacklisting is a mental list of people that end up on the bottom of a possible team member at the creation of a new team. Or the people with whom individual refuses to work together completely. This is something subjective which varies from one person to another. This encompasses a whole spectrum of personal abilities. But I assure you, you are being rated by other individuals the whole time you study and your flaws will be revealed with time. So, don’t do stupid things like openly announcing your laziness and such. You think people would want to work with you?? Absolutely not. Do yourself a favour and shut up. Or don’t. It will make it easier to spot you at once and not waste our time figuring you out for what you really are.
So, what about venting? Venting the way for us to share the rating with others. Once the project is over people will talk about it with others and will voice their opinions about the individual effort of the team members. This is how we know with whom we should strive to work with and whom to avoid. Most of your flaws will be apparent to the team members by the end of the production cycle and the word of the bigger flaws will reach the ears of those who are interested in this type of information. For that reason, you need to able to compensate for your flaws with other talents. For example, it can be excused that you are lazy if you deliver great things at the last minute.
The end of the year as the time for personalities and characters to emerge. Summing up the things I have mentioned above, by the end of the first year most of those who have made the journey to the one year milestone will be profiled, their strengths and weakness will be known to those who keep their eyes and ears open to this type of information. It is inevitable and I can only hope I’m not hated by everyone at this point =D
This concludes the first part of my notes that was centred around some more broader subjects that I got to experience over the year. The next set of my blog posts will touch the subject of working in a smaller group. As always, all comments are welcome and thanks for reading!
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