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This is uttery essential reading for anyone interested in the role of platform and distribution methods for any product or service (though it focuses on video games): http://www.lostgarden.com/2011/03/gdc-2011-game-of-platform-power.html

No.

You can only manage that kind of effort temporarily. Soon your work goes into the shitter, despite feeling that you're getting more done. And you need an equivalently long recovery period just to get back on track afterward.

Being asked to do it for an indeterminate amount of time isn't a good sign.

So what you're saying is, every so often he can push them until they nearly break, and then back off? ;)
-Taylor

No.

You can only manage that kind of effort temporarily. Soon your work goes into the shitter, despite feeling that you're getting more done. And you need an equivalently long recovery period just to get back on track afterward.

Being asked to do it for an indeterminate amount of time isn't a good sign.

I got tired of the 50-to-60-hour work weeks.

The worst part is, it actually hurts productivity after a while. It only makes sense to do it for the very last couple of weeks of a project.

Many of the other developers in their 50's are putting in 60+ hour weeks (and have been for several months).

Here's a graph you might find interesting: Productivity, 40 hours versus 60 over eight weeks.

From the same presentation:

Working more than 40 hours per week leads to decreased productivity

- Less than 40 hours and people weren't working enough.
- Greater than 40 hour work week gives a small productivity boost.
- The boost lasts three to four weeks and then turns negative.

Ford chewed on this problem for 12 years and ran dozens of experiments. As a result of Ford's experiments, he and his fellow industrialists lobbied Congress to pass 40 hour a week labor laws. Not because he was nice. Because he wanted to make the most money possible. We like to think of a 40 hour work week as a 'liberal policy' when in fact it was hard headed capitalism at its finest.

Final warning to Nintendo: Compete or die. It's the law of economics... Unless you're GM...

I think that there are plenty of indications that Nintendo competes just fine, thank you very much. Have you read http://lostgarden.com/2005/09/nintendos-genre-innovation-strategy.html? It's just a true today as it was four years ago.

I found this article a while ago.

"Software Development's Evolution towards Product Design"

http://lostgarden.com/2006/02/software-developments-evolution.html

Here's the PDF. You'll love it.

I found this article a while ago.

"Software Development's Evolution towards Product Design"

http://lostgarden.com/2006/02/software-developments-evolution.html

Here's the PDF. You'll love it.

to repost from earlier

Exactly. ...having discussed things on the GIMP Usability Forum, it's obvious that the GIMP developers (to misquote Kanye West) don't care about designer people.

The general attitude is "We're not going to change anything because even though the similarity of constant anecdotal 'complaints' may actually constitute user testing, we refuse to believe it until someone does systematic user testing." Of course, imgimp is the answer to their request, but automated testing does nothing. They're missing the point that assisted user testing is needed, where you give someone a mock up and ask them where they expect to find things, and how they expect to do things. What they've been getting, in droves, is people who are GIVING THEM THIS EXACT INFORMATION, in forums, in blogs, in wikis and slashdot posts. Things like "Why are script-fu and filters two different things?" and "what are Xtns?" not to mention "Why does the palette take up so much space?". Then there's the whole MDI/SDI thing. The horrible fact is that the GIMP is an MDI application. There is a shared set of tools that act on multiple document windows. Gasp. Unfortunately most X window managers have no idea what this means, and the concept of 'tool windows' is meaningless (i.e.: if I have 8 tool windows open, I have 8 task items in my task bar, and sometimes you have to click-to-focus and click-to-invoke on a non-focused window).

There are some very simple things the GIMP developers could do to fix the application:

1. Rename the damn thing. I'll say it again: would you suggest the GIMP to your grandmother? My grandmother wouldn't even visit 'excite.com', lest it turn out to be salacious. They should call it SPORK (the GIMP fork)!
2. use the existing preferences infrastructure to:
   • make the palette at least 2-column so it leaves more space for the document window
   • set the 'tiny' UI style to the default
   • make the 'File Xtns Help' menu a popup menu, and rename Xtns to something sane. Or; make them buttons that open popup menus
   • Reorganize the menus themselves to group common functionality. I don't care if it's familiar to photoshop users. I care if the menus make sense. move "Tools Dialogs Filters Script Fu" into a hierarchy that matches their function, and name them per their function.
3. Also, the entire "select" system is hard to grasp for people used to other programs. Not just photoshop. PhotoDraw, PhotoPaint, MacPaint... whatever.
4. Add layer grouping. Do away with new layer dialogs.
5. Group tools on the tool palette
6. in general look into shrinking the space taken up by the various palettes. On some screens fully half the layer palette is taken up with labels and buttons. God help me, but part of the reason Adobe has its own widgets is because the windows standard ones take up too much space. Except you have no excuse because GTK widgets were DESIGNED FOR THE GIMP AAAA!

7. For the love of God, do some paper testing.

   Get real designers, and I don't care if they're familiar with Photoshop... hell, Adobe just redesigned the damn thing on us so it's not like we're shocked by the New. Get them and sit them down with paper mockups and ask them how to do common design tasks, common painting tasks, common editing tasks.

   Admit that a lot of us have done this already ourselves. Sure a lot of it seems to you to be "oh that's just because they know photoshop", but damnit man, it's not photoshop we know, it's everything. Photoshop, MacPaint, ColorIt! (yeah, I said it), PhotoDraw, whatever. There is a common language to these tools and you keep trying to miss it just to be different.

8. Look again at this [lostgarden.com]... especially the part about "All that touchy-feely junk is the main reason why people are bu

The problem is the development team: there's not enough of it, and there's no leadership strong enough within them to commit to a roadmap.

Exactly. ...having discussed things on the GIMP Usability Forum, it's obvious that the GIMP developers (to misquote Kanye West) don't care about designer people.

The general attitude is "We're not going to change anything because even though the similarity of constant anecdotal 'complaints' may actually constitute user testing, we refuse to believe it until someone does systematic user testing." Of course, imgimp is the answer to their request, but automated testing does nothing. They're missing the point that assisted user testing is needed, where you give someone a mock up and ask them where they expect to find things, and how they expect to do things. What they've been getting, in droves, is people who are GIVING THEM THIS EXACT INFORMATION, in forums, in blogs, in wikis and slashdot posts. Things like "Why are script-fu and filters two different things?" and "what are Xtns?" not to mention "Why does the palette take up so much space?". Then there's the whole MDI/SDI thing. The horrible fact is that the GIMP is an MDI application. There is a shared set of tools that act on multiple document windows. Gasp. Unfortunately most X window managers have no idea what this means, and the concept of 'tool windows' is meaningless (i.e.: if I have 8 tool windows open, I have 8 task items in my task bar, and sometimes you have to click-to-focus and click-to-invoke on a non-focused window).

There are some very simple things the GIMP developers could do to fix the application:

1. Rename the damn thing. I'll say it again: would you suggest the GIMP to your grandmother? My grandmother wouldn't even visit 'excite.com', lest it turn out to be salacious. They should call it SPORK (the GIMP fork)!
2. use the existing preferences infrastructure to:
   • make the palette at least 2-column so it leaves more space for the document window
   • set the 'tiny' UI style to the default
   • make the 'File Xtns Help' menu a popup menu, and rename Xtns to something sane. Or; make them buttons that open popup menus
   • Reorganize the menus themselves to group common functionality. I don't care if it's familiar to photoshop users. I care if the menus make sense. move "Tools Dialogs Filters Script Fu" into a hierarchy that matches their function, and name them per their function.
3. Also, the entire "select" system is hard to grasp for people used to other programs. Not just photoshop. PhotoDraw, PhotoPaint, MacPaint... whatever.
4. Add layer grouping. Do away with new layer dialogs.
5. Group tools on the tool palette
6. in general look into shrinking the space taken up by the various palettes. On some screens fully half the layer palette is taken up with labels and buttons. God help me, but part of the reason Adobe has its own widgets is because the windows standard ones take up too much space. Except you have no excuse because GTK widgets were DESIGNED FOR THE GIMP AAAA!

7. For the love of God, do some paper testing.

   Get real designers, and I don't care if they're familiar with Photoshop... hell, Adobe just redesigned the damn thing on us so it's not like we're shocked by the New. Get them and sit them down with paper mockups and ask them how to do common design tasks, common painting tasks, common editing tasks.

   Admit that a lot of us have done this already ourselves. Sure a lot of it seems to you to be "oh that's just because they know photoshop", but damnit man, it's not photoshop we know, it's everything. Photoshop, MacPaint, ColorIt! (yeah, I said it), PhotoDraw, whatever. There is a common language to these tools and you keep trying to miss it just to be different.

8. Look again at this... especially the part about "All that touch

You know that Linux is ready for governments and businesses when a 30 day review points out DVD and photo editing as the main weaknesses -- and not because there are no Free Code replacements, but because they aren't quite good enough yet. The reviewer only tried two applications, GIMP and Kino. I share his feelings towards the GIMP photo editor, which I regard as an "old school" Free Code project where the developers would rather tell the users why their program is, in fact, highly usable than conducting serious usability tests and making improvements. To be fair, the existing GIMP user base, which is used to the current implementation, may also resist significant changes.

That is not to say that the quite remarkable GIMP functionality could not be wrapped into a nicer user interface. GIMPShop is one such attempt, which I have not tried. I hope that it will become a well-maintained fork; I don't have much hope for GIMP itself to improve in the UI department. I am personally partial to Krita which, while still young, seems to have generally made the right implementation decisions, and is truly user-focused (as is all of KDE -- I love those guys). I am not a professional photo editor, so I don't know how mature Krita is for serious work. It is good enough for everything I do.

i disagree. i think nintendo's strength has always been making unique game experiences. sony and MS would do well to treat nintendo as free R&D. sony and microsoft can battle head to head over technological superiority since they have the money to do so. MS is especially focused on delivering a highly polished titles from well established genres that appeal to hardcore gamers (shooters, GTA clones, major league sports... etc.) nintendo is much smaller, and does well making fun and quirky games with familiar characters that we fall in love with.

halo is a great game, but at the end of the day, it's just a highly evolved first person shooter. nintendo invents whole new categories of games, such as the party game or the team racer, using it's extensive library of characters to promote it. thier games appeal to more casual gamers like kids.

the only reason the wii fanbase currently loves sports and minigames is because those titles are so unique right now. once a new unique title comes out there will that will become the new fanbase favotite.

There was this unsavoury comparing a good video game plot to multiple female orgasms, with plateaus and peaks all over the place, linked to on Slashdot some time ago. Not exactly the most academic illustration, but it has a point.

I read an article on a similar idea, where the writer tried to develop a system of gameplay notation. I think the idea is worthwhile: when designers find out that the first third of their game is boring as hell, we'll see a lot less grind.

Lost Garden: Nintendo's Genre Innovation Strategy

Tycho of Penny Arcade called it the "probably the most interesting article I've ever read.". That article is longer than TFA, but definitely worth reading and digesting.

You are absolutely right; I was not sufficiently clear. I was referring to 'padding' from the game mechanics standpoint---in my explanation, I was taking the interactions (i.e. the things I do with mouse, keyboard, or joystick) to be the crux of the game itself---the "game" in game. From that point of view, everything else---including plot---is filler material, in the sense that you could swap the plot around entirely with essentially no changes to the game mechanics.

The Final Fantasy series is probably the best example of this. Around FF VII, the tried-and-true game mechanic they had developed---turn-based, level-relative combat---had been not only refined to a fairly pure form, but it had been done to an extent that divorced it from the plot of the story. What I mean by that statement is that the interactions in combat situations are only loosely related to the 'reality' of the Final Fantasy world. The death of Aeris is a perfect example of this---in combat, character death can be immediately handled by phoenix down, but a plot death is a different entity altogether. Square/Enix could have taken the turn-based combat and replaced it with, for example, a card-style system, tactics-style system, or even Tetris without changing any significant aspects of the game plot. So from the point of view of the combat and leveling mechanics, the plot is 'filler' because it is completely modular; it could be changed in broad, sweeping ways without any major changes to the game mechanics.

In that sense, the big problem I have with that flavor of RPGs is that the Final Fantasy-style level-based combat system---where damage is dealt at an abstraction based essentially on what weapons I'm carrying and who I've defeated with little intervention on my part---is very boring to me, and the plot of the vast majority of them isn't compelling enough to keep grinding through a hundred tedious combat interactions. Standing in stark contrast to this are the Bioware RPGs. Knights of the Old Republic has a varied enough storyline to keep me going in spite of a traditional RPG combat system. Jade Empire doesn't have a traditional RPG combat system, which makes it exceedingly compelling to me. And I'm greatly looking forward to Mass Effect for the same reasons.

There's an excellent essay in this vein at http://lostgarden.com/2006/07/ze-story-snobs.html In short, a game with a compelling story cannot be salvaged by boring play, and game designers would often do well to consider the mechanics of play first and story second.

My dislike of the combat in most RPGs is certainly a personal opinion. For me, Dragon Warrior combat was boring in Dragon Warrior, and it's only gotten worse.

> the vastly opposing directions various consoles and chip makers are going technology-wise

Erm, isn't it, like, Sony and everyone else? The XBox 360 has 3 symmetric cores for its CPU. PCs are heading towards 2-4 symmetric cores. The Wii has, from what I can tell, only one core. The PS3 is the odd one out with 8 asymmetric cores. I'd also imagine this would bother them a lot less if they didn't burn out their developers by keeping them in near-permanent "crunch mode", until they snap a few years in and go do something more rewarding ( http://lostgarden.com/2006/04/joyful-life-of-lapse d-game-developer.html ), meaning there just aren't many experienced coders out there writing games...

While I'm at it; what _really_ gets me is that Battlefield 2142 costs about $6-8 more than any other game for the PC, in the UK. Not, we're paying the same price for advertising supported content, no, we're paying EXTRA. If they had a regularly priced version with advertising, or even a reduced cost version, and then the premium no-adverts version, I'd probably buy the premium version, but there's no way I'm paying premium prices for an average product that has adverts.

Those a little confused about the separation of concerns between designers and developers should read the following blog entry from one of the MS Expression developers. Designers. Whatever. Just read it:

http://lostgarden.com/2006/02/software-development s-evolution.html

the real money is in hardcore gamers

Are you sure?

The article implies that Spore will 1) be wildly popular, and 2) be the beginning of a revolution in game development and design.

I assert that it WILL prove to be a fantastic game; but that the rest of the game industry will be notably UNrevolutionized... because this is exactly what happened before.

2000. The Sims is released. This is a totally new type of game; in some ways, a totally new form of fun. It sells through the roof, and to this day, there probably hasn't been a week that's gone by without The Sims or one of its sequels or expansions being somewhere on the Top 10 best-selling games list.

Logically, this should be a watershed. In terms of the game industry's history, this should be on the level of the release of Wolfenstein 3D, or of Dune. In other words: a game this fun and money-making should spawn many other games like it; which will at first be sneered at as "rip-offs"; but in fact people come to realize that this is a new genre, and each new entry brings something new to the table. Then, sooner or later, someone (e.g. Blizzard in the RTS and MMO genres) will create a fantastically polished new entry that pushes the genre to its next level.

But what happened with The Sims? We got "Singles" and "Playboy: The Mansion." That's pretty much it. There was no rush to make new "people simulators." The Sims still has essentially no competition - it is its own genre. Why hasn't it spawned a new genre? Lost Garden has some ideas about this. I think it's a combination of being unwilling to take on the difficulty of a really hard game design problem; combined with an ironic risk-averseness (what could be less risky than following in the footsteps of The Sims? oh, I know, continuing to crank out FPS and RTS games); combined with developers being too proud to make something someone might call a "rip-off."

Whatever the reason, I think it's going to repeat with Spore. Game developers have become too narrow-minded. Not only do they not try to conceive of a radically ambitious new type of game - like Spore - but even when one plops in their mist and draws the multitudes to it like the Monolith in 2001, they look at it for a moment and then go back to picking fleas off each other (i.e. making platform games) like they've always done... because they like doing that... and that's they're used to it... and they'll be totally safe doing that... until they get their skulls bashed in by the few apes that were smart enough to learn from the Monolith, that is.

The game industry as a whole - mainly publishers, but many developers as well - is resisting change. They didn't attempt to adapt to The Sims, and they'll be similarly complacent in their response to Spore.

"there is increasingly a distinction between 'normal' authors and 'high-end' authors who are explicitly trying to get their articles 'featured'."

Wikipedia, just like many other community sites, has some elements of a game. This can be both a good and a bad thing. The good thing is, this sort of rewards usually encourage more people to participate in the site by creating new content. The bad thing is, more and more people will eventually come to realize that it's just a game, and start taking advantage of this -- and of other people -- in order to 'win' (on Slashdot, this could mean Karma or Friend whoring). This, I think, can seriously hinder them from reaching (or even working towards) their goal of creating an encyclopedia "of the highest possible quality". We won't see more incorrect information because of this, but we might start seeing (or not seeing) more and more behind-the-scenes fighting, which could eventually lead to many people leaving the 'game'.

From the linked article:

"Developing a game title will often consume years of your life. Making a game that is only 'moderately innovative' simply is not worth the effort. Each project must choose its focus.

• Are you a craftsman who lovingly polishes an established genre?
• Or are you an innovator who creates new genres?

If you fail to chose, you risk being stranded in the no man's land that lurks between the two strategies."

Shock advertising comes into play when someone always increases the viciousness of their ads in an attempt to compete in a market where the emotional rawness of your product is a major selling factor. Customers have two reactions. They can either leave gaming behind in disgust or they can learn to ignore the shock ads. Over time, the shock ads have increased in potency in order to reach an increasingly jaded, distrustful and hardcore audience.

Of course, non-gamers see gaming ads as well. They assume that the highly prevalent shock ads display the true nature of gaming. There are massive generation issues at work here, but gaming ads are structured in a way that deliberately and intentionally provokes an intense negative response from outsiders. A gamer would retort, "They are meant to be shocking, duh."

IIRC, the only announced launch title for the Revolution so far is the new Smash Bros, which will almost certainly be more than a gimmick, given the quality and depth of the Gamecube version. Also hinted at as a launch title is the new Mario. Again, practically guaranteed not to be just a gimmick.

So I think that the gimmick argument won't hold up when we actaully see the games, given that we're at least about a year out away from the launch, and there is already one (if not two) games slated for launch that have every reason to be great. That's not to say there won't be gimmicky games, meaning simple games that use a unique new gameplay mechanic but leave out things like depth and story which you would expect in a more mature title. But at least they'll probably be fun to play (for a short time at least, which is more than can be said for some of the 'gimmicky' (i.e. pretty graphics) games we'll surely be seeing on ps3/xbox360), and some of those gameplay mechanics could be good enough to spawn new genres and become fully developed franchises in their own right. Lost Garden talks more about this development of genres here.

I don't mean to come off a Nintendo fanboy here, I am looking forward to both other next-generation systems (and yes, they are all next-gen Mr. Rein). But, I think that Nintendo is getting a lot of undeserved flack when the only games they've announced for Revolution so far sound like gold.

The DS game Brain training has handwriting recognition already.

Two takes:

(Humorous)

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2005-01- 10

(Thoughtful)

http://lostgarden.com/2005/10/game-business-model- learning-from.html

Based on your comments, I would guess you're ignoring Nintendo. You're hamstringing yourself by doing so. The Revolution controller will create entire new genres of games that we've never played before, and add new twists to existing genres. It will likely lead to RTS's being viable on a console for the first time ever.

Obviously, Nintendo is not the market leader and doesn't really want to be. The success of the Revolution will not stop the crash if the PS3 and 360 both tank. Which could very well happen, because I completely agree with you that there has never been a less compelling next generation. That's just the business side. For gamers, the future isn't that dim. There are a lot of neat things emerging on the DS, and I expect the same to happen with the Revolution. Sure, Madden '06 isn't worth buying, but if you want to play football just load up 2K5. That's what I do.

The XBox and PS lines are going to suffer from the same thing that's killing PC gaming: genre fatigue. The latest iterations in established genres are going to become less and less compelling. That doesn't mean gaming is dying. It just means you need to try out something new.

As one replier said, there can and needs to be both. One of the best articles I have read on the subject (though its applied to console games) can be found here.

The genius over at Lost Garden keeps falling under the radar. He consistently has the best articles on the net. His piece on the revolution, and Nintendo in general, is no different. If you read one thing about the revolution, make it this.