Disqus - Latest Comments for jgostylo

Re: Hey Whiners, the iPhone Market Owes You Nothing

jgostylo — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 00:26:08 -0000

Ah ha ha ha ha! This post is awesome! I remember the lesson my father used to try to drill into me when I was a kid. "You're smart, but no one gives a crap if you are also lazy." It took longer than it should have for that lesson to drive home with me.

It sounds like the people who Jeff is ranting against have not learned this lesson yet. If it is easy everyone will do it. If everyone starts doing it, it suddenly isn't easy anymore. People who aren't lazy will always make sure lazy people don't take what could be theirs.

Even if these developers get their closed markets, they will still be vulnerable to market darwinism and will be attacked by much more savvy, determined, and ruthless opponents.

Re: Game Pricing, Look Out Below

jgostylo — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:00:50 -0000

I think you assumed something that I was not. I never said anything about making great music or even making a living playing music. There are 4 million bands on MySpace but how many of them make a living at it? I thought we were talking about the aggregate community. I am saying that the reason so many people make a band and have a go at it is because they can find small, fruitful, and closely spaced activities as a reward for their efforts. Very true that so few of them will make it big because that is really hard.

I think the confusion was that my wording was off. I did not mean making a game is more conceptually difficult, but I think THE IDEA of making a game is. Most people don't get even rudimentary training with computer programming or
design concepts when they do get some music training. I think it is hard for people to conceptualize what really goes into make a game because they have never seen a game get made. Many people still consider the computer to be a "magic" box when they innately understand the most basic concepts of musical instruments. And while being able to play an instrument is different than making money in a band, most people know someone who started a band while few know someone who tried making a game.

Mastery of both requires exactly what you have stated but I am trying to say that most aspiring game developers get stopped at the door while 3.999 million MySpace bands spend years getting nowhere with dreams kept on life support by small gigs. I think that is because the idea that I can make a game is more conceptually difficult.

My opinion is that it is easier to make a living making games than being a musician, but I still think more people believe they can be a musician than a game maker.

Re: Game Pricing, Look Out Below

jgostylo — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:29:23 -0000

I always thought game prices were too high as well, but I thought that was because I was a cheap bastard.

To pull some differences from starting a band with making a game, I think making a game is still much more difficult conceptually for most people. I agree that prices are going to $0 but I think that will be driven more by alternative revenue streams than oversupply where a band is the opposite. I think the difficulty of games lies in the idea of a finished product vs. a gig. In a band you can make some money relatively quickly along the way as you progress. With a game you have to finish the game. Most people see that last 75% of the work to be done and decide it's not worth it to put in the rest of the effort to see if it pans out.

The second point I want to make is that I believe piracy is forcing this issue just as much as supply. World of Goo was reported to have something like a 25% purchase rate vs. full version games being played. It is already important to think of alternative revenue streams because the supply of your software is not controlled by you and counting on initial sales won't cut it. The real winners in this situation will be the ones that can give people what they want (games for free) and think of a different way to get money out of them.

Re: Woohoo, Grunts: Skirmish Has A Logo

jgostylo — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:34:11 -0000

I resubmitted my e-mail address. It has my last name in it so it should be pretty recognizable. I could not find your e-mail address anywhere. I tried to send the mini-resume to catch_all like it has at the bottom of the PBE page but that got rejected.

Re: Woohoo, Grunts: Skirmish Has A Logo

jgostylo — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:24:28 -0000

Can you give me any hints as to when you might be allowing more people into the closed beta? I am working on a Flash game which is probably half way through and I am chomping at the bit to try out PushButton to see if it can help me and my team out.

Re: One Way To Divide Your Company Equity At Start Up

jgostylo — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 16:02:06 -0000

I think that is where Jeff got it right by putting a person's market wage in the calculation. It needs to consider both what they could be making as well as the skills they will be using for the project. An installers expert usually gets paid pretty well but if that person is just going to put in his time testing the game it should be based on what they are doing.

On the other hand, I am working on a project where I am TRYING to put in the most effort because the other guy is doing stuff way beyond my level of experience and if that fell on my shoulders there is a chance the project would have to be abandoned.

Re: One Way To Divide Your Company Equity At Start Up

jgostylo — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:46:28 -0000

Jeff, I like the way you divide the project up algorithmically. Very intuitive. I think that your particular level of professionalism with your game product is a little outside the scope of anything I would be part of right now.

So far when dealing with a project that involves multiple people I have always gone with the approach that you just divide things equally. My viewpoint is that at my level I won't be gaining much by getting a bigger slice and stand to lose the interest of my partners. Also, if I learn nothing from my work and this current project will be the best I will ever do, I never deserved more than equal share because the success was a fluke.

Since my funding is always $0 I like to reserve 50% of the equity for the budget which is only payable by team members. If we have to spend $1500, I don't want to be the one contributing all of it. I want to make sure it is worth everyone's while to pitch in financially. If I do have to contribute it all then I will be glad to take the lion's share of the profits.

I think the biggest thing that needs to be agreed upon is what happens when a partner bails on the project and when can partners kick each other out for non-contribution as unfunded projects tend to run into that a lot.

Re: Woohoo, Grunts: Skirmish Has A Logo

jgostylo — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:14:39 -0000

So is Jeff's comment saying you are not in open beta meaning for the engine? I submitted my e-mail several days ago. Are you not yet ready to respond to those requests?

Re: How Much Work Does It Take To Become A Great Game Developer?

jgostylo — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:19:53 -0000

Keeping economies running smoothly in an MMO is definitely part of where I want to go. I want to create interfaces that allow people to exert complex control intuitively over an economy. I want games that I am involved in to make economic sense and not detract from the game with their arbitrariness. I am a person driven toward creating uniqueness so I would love to come up with a new economic paradigm for game use. I realize that I need to go through the motions with more classical systems because it is easier to solve problems and not try to create in a vacuum. And if I have enough exposure to the classical systems I would still probably be valuable to a game team even if I never do pull a John Nash.

Maybe trying to specialize that much in games is more of a +1 type of endeavor. "I am an experienced game designer, oh and by the way I am also one of the top designers in the world at creating game economies" would not hurt your chances at landing a position. Possibly the niche for that kind of specialization is just as a contractor who comes in, evaluates, and refactors games for other companies.

Re: How Much Work Does It Take To Become A Great Game Developer?

jgostylo — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:31:28 -0000

Jeff, a Seth Godin reader? See, we do have a lot in common.

It seems that the idea of being the best to command the market is becoming a popular theme. What are your thoughts in field specialization versus being well versed in many areas? For my part, I always wanted to do game design, and more than that want to specialize in designing game economics. I find that in order to see anything of mine put into practice (and have a demonstrable product) I spend most of my time working on things outside this specialization. Maybe that is not a bad thing as game companies, especially smaller ones, seem to want people (especially designers) that can wear many hats. It seems that other positions on the game team are given greater allowance to specialize but with a small enough team this becomes less true.

Re: What Is My Game’s Sales Potential?

jgostylo — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:10:35 -0000

I believe the answer to this is the same as investing. You are making one game. That is a very high risk business plan. It is not something I would ever put money into unless I had total control or really loved and believed in the person. No diversification, all your eggs are in one basket. Possible payout lies between losing everything and total market saturation with odds pointing towards losing everything. The risk is mitigated by the passion you have for the project and your experience. You will do everything you can to make sure your baby flies. If you are not willing to do everything then your chance of failure skyrockets.

A real business plan for games would include playing the averages but if you want to claim that then you need to have enough games to statistically justify using an average. I think that is what being a publisher is all about.

Re: What Is My Game’s Sales Potential?

jgostylo — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:24:22 -0000

Holy crap this is insightful! And I mean that statement to NOT be taken sarcastically.

Having broached the idea of "I will just publish and distribute my own damn game" I have always run into the reality that even coming close to being effective takes more money than I am interested in putting into it. You almost have to use some sort of established portal. Your 'big hit' will always do substantially worse in your hands than a portal that really knows what they are doing unless you are a hard working savant.

The other thing I like is Jeff's discussion on averages. It is the same for every product. The number one product in the field will command the lion's share of the return. Sports is like that on crack. Think of all the people that love to play football. What percentage of them play in the NFL? I would say 99% of people that love to play football pay someone for the chance to play on an organized team let alone get payed to do it. Hell, even in the NFL the pay difference between the star receiver and the backup tight end is very significant. You have to be the best at the niche you are filling and the only way to even start that is to be passionate about it.

So I agree with Jeff that the answer is you have to ignore game ideas you are not passionate about and go with ones you are. This passion actually becomes more important after the game is complete because whether it is very different or looks the same as a host of other games, you are really going to have to sell people on it and demand it gets the coverage it needs to succeed.

Re: Grand Theft Share Price, Corporate Doublespeak, pt. 2

jgostylo — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 01:33:30 -0000

I totally agree with you about not investing in Game Publishers but precisely for the reason that they are Rock Stars and fast cash. There is very little stable about them. You may look for those huge returns but the risk is you will lose a good deal of the time. That is why they are not a good investment.

Now time value of money and opportunity cost are incredibly important factors to weigh in with investing, but looking to make a quick buck is precisely the way to lose over the long term. Stock owners usually demand the quick buck and I am saying it is a shame is all. In the end it does not help them.

I am playing devils advocate because given even odds, I would wager precisely as you called it where the decisions made were poor. This is especially in Yang's case.

Given Taketwo's success record, though, this might be a great time to buy their stock given the bad feelings current investors may have. It's all about if the price justifies the risk. And I would not count out the possibility that you are wrong on the call that they will never be valued at the offer they blew even time value adjusted. I would just say you are probably right.

Anyway, I think you are correct that stock in game publishers is a terrible investment idea. I also think that you come to the correct conclusion via an incorrect or only mildly related path. It is not an investment if the options are make 8x my money or crash and burn unless you directly influence the outcome.

Zelnick was hinting at something very correct when you quoted him. You should own the stock if you believe in the position of the company. If you bought the stock based only on the belief that EA would pay $2BB for the company then you go down on your paper ship. That is a gamble, oops you lose. I will reiterate by pointing out that their stock went to $26.89 (roughly the value of the offer). I am sure the people selling at that level realized there was no upside to holding the stock (as it was near the same value they would have gotten anyway) and huge risk if something went wrong. Maybe the ones holding were the greedy ones hoping Zelnick could squeeze a little more out it.

The reason I am taking time to point all this out is, as you said, that your article is why to not invest in game publishers. You position yourself as someone with expertise and, in my opinion, your argument does little to actually validate your premise. Since you post about investing in game publishers and have a comments section, I wanted to fill in the holes I think you left.

Re: Grand Theft Share Price, Corporate Doublespeak, pt. 2

jgostylo — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:12:42 -0000

Have I ever owned stock in a company? Nice question. I am still pretty young so I have only been in the market for 10 years and have purchased individual stock of some 40 companies along with whatever crap went with my 401k/IRA.

There are several camps of investors and I know what you are preaching has been a very popular camp for decades. The one I choose to follow was started by Ben Graham and was picked up by his disciple Warren Buffet.

Your camp is one of Rock Stars and fast cash. It is gambling and it is destructive. I think the reason you got out of the market so long ago is that you were burned by what you were told was investing. You were right to flee from what you had been doing because you were doing it wrong. You should invest, not gamble. You don't lose your shirt investing. And don't reply that many investors lost their shirts in this recent crash cause I will reply that many dumbasses lost their shirts. My portfolio is still doing quite alright because I don't invest like a rock star.

Bottom line is you have no clue if Zelnick or Yang were right or wrong. Nothing has been proven. Short sighted people say that it has. Yang we will never know because he was forced out, Zelnick time will tell. My point is that sometimes it is the correct decision to not sell out. Sometimes you can build a bigger and better company than what the buyout would give. It has happend. You could be right, but saying you definitely are is wrong.

Re: Grand Theft Share Price, Corporate Doublespeak, pt. 2

jgostylo — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:04:24 -0000

I am sure there was a lot involved in the negotiations on both of those deals and it is presumptive to say that greed/ego was necessarily the determining factor. And while maybe it can be chalked up to ego to say that you can do something way better than the large entity trying to buy you out, maybe you are correct.

Sometimes the offer is just too good and you need to cash out and move on. But who is to say where EA/TT or MS/Yahoo will be in 2010 or 2015.

One mistake I see in business all the time (and people gripe about this all the time) is that fiduciary duty is linked to short term gain instead of making the correct long term decisions.

These cases are a bit extreme where it seem like the buyer was willing to pay an outrageous premium, but last I checked Yahoo is still profitable and TT may have some really good IP it believes in that is already in the pipe and does not want EA calling the shots.

Re: Big Ass Design Documents

jgostylo — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:37:12 -0000

The site you linked had a link to a great power point presentation on making good design docs. http://www.zenofdesign.com/...

It mentions using automated processes for your design doc creation. Are there tools available that do something like this already or are most of these automated processes just developed in house?

Re: Make It Big In Games New Design

jgostylo — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:43:11 -0000

Ok, my system crashed and when I brought it back up the new layout worked in Chrome. I'm not even going to try to guess.

Re: Make It Big In Games New Design

jgostylo — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 13:35:51 -0000

I have deleted everything (cache, history, cookies) and verified that other sites have no recollection of the past and the site still comes up in the old style with "Right About Lively, PC Mag Closes, Corporate Speak" as the top article.

It sounds like it is just my issue though. I can use Firefox.

Re: Make It Big In Games New Design

jgostylo — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:10:23 -0000

So this site does not work in Chrome as far as I can tell. What's odd is that it loads the old page (before the style change) verbatim. Maybe you know it does not work in Chrome and when you detect it you route them to the old stuff?

Re: Right About Lively, PC Mag Closes, Corporate Speak

jgostylo — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:29:37 -0000

Maybe I am alone in my feelings for the print magazine business, but I am the opposite of nostalgic. Ever since broadband every single mag I picked up was a refresher course in what I read weeks ago. And I don't know how many times I read articles in dead tree print where I actually looked for the search functionality, especially if I had already read it.

It had one saving grace for me in that with print I tend to read things I normally would not and every so often I would come out better for it. That still happens with the internet, but not quite as much. Anyway, just like retail stores, I tend to have a feeling of loathing toward print mags as an expensive way to do something inefficiently and incompletely. Good for what they did when they were innovative. Time to move on.

Speaking of doing simple things in an inefficient and expensive way, good to see that Lively is shutting down too. I have no idea why anyone would want to duplicate Second Life. I feel like that game owes me something for trying it out.

So the last thing you need to take at face value is what a CEO says in a press report. Usually is a big dissemination of non-information formed to sway opinion. Always sounds better than "we screwed up". I think you were pointing in that direction already, but just to crystalize it.

Man I am being curmudgeonly today. But, given the current economic environment...

Re: If Robert Zemeckis Can’t Cross the Uncanny Valley, What Makes Us Think We Can?

jgostylo — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 11:12:08 -0000

I disagree with that. I think stylization is an effort to exaggerate traits and not replicate reality.

Most entertainment is an exaggeration of traits. Sports features freakishly tall, strong, quick people. Acting exaggerates emotion through overdone tone and body language. I think stylized art is just trying to do the same thing. It is conveying information visually. I think it is so effective because we learn faster visually than through sound. Also, we can learn through both senses simultaniously so it becomes even more effective. The reason for stylization is it reduces ambiguity. Real people are good at holding their cards close to their vest. The more real you get the more subtle the message becomes and the less your audience may get it.

As for the A Scanner Darkly argument, the real goal when trying for immersion is to give visual consistency. If the whole screen is the same style, our brains give it a bye. For Beowulf and Yoda there were two contrasting styles occupying the same space.

Another out is when your audience understands and appreciates the inconsistency as in the case of Roger Rabbit. Still it helps to get the physics right. My favorite scene in Roger Rabbit is when the head Weasle splashes Eddie's wash water. Very well done.

Re: Design Crutch: Artificial Obstruction In Games

jgostylo — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:13:21 -0000

I like what the article has to say and I am sure that there is not enough storage on Jeff's server to store the words required to split hairs on what games benefit from artificial barriers and what games are hurt by them. I think Jeff's intentions and what he has in his head is spot on.

@ori - The game wizard comment hearkens me back to the days of the Game Genie that finally allowed me to see the end of a lot of the Nintendo games I had. I felt dirty using it until I still could not beat Battle Toads with it. And I could get to level 15 on my own with that game which I have come to find out was impressive.

My biggest gripe was that most games back then operated under the CoinOp mentality of X lives and then you start from the beginning. That was the worst. I remember getting Contra as a little kid and then crying because I thought the first level was impossible and I had wasted my money. Then it saved itself when I learned about the Konami cheat code for 30 lives. I ended up playing the game so much that I ended up able to beat the whole game on one life. It might have been nicer if there was just a menu option to start with 3 or 30 lives. But, Contra along with Ikari Warriors were the first to open my eyes to the idea that games did not have to be ALL punishment.

As to the copy protection comment, that is really interesting. I think the biggest determinant of how you truly feel about copy protection is if you step back and say, "would I just steal this game if there was no copy protection on it?" For me the answer is usually yes. Even if the game is $10, that is $10 I would rather have in my pocket. Usually the copy protection reminds me that indeed the developer wants to get paid for their work. Now I am interested to hear if Jeff has an anecdote on how well the no DRM worked for him at Dynamix when digital distribution was no easy feat.

My friend just released a game on the iPhone. Not having an iPhone I romanticized the relationship between developer and end user. The end user is locked onto the platform playing by Apple's rules so they can use the device as a phone, and the developer releases their app at an incredibly reasonable price. In his case $2. Who would not pay $2 for a game if it looked interesting? What I have come to learn is that you can jailbreak the iPhone, still use the phone service, and get these really cheap apps for free. And a sizable percentage of the people that own one do just that. What happens to the copy protection argument when people won't pay a stupidly low price for a game?

I guess you can argue that Apple forces you into their scheme so once you have found a way out of their scheme it becomes really difficult to do the right thing.

Re: Don’t Fear the Economy, Start Your Company Now

jgostylo — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:42:13 -0000

Great post Jeff. Historically, budget entertainment has always done well in bad economies. The boom of comic books, low budget theater serials, and penny arcades were great depression artifacts.

People will be looking for escape if the economy gets bad enough. People will be more apt to go for that entertainment if they don't feel bad about the amount of money they are putting towards it.

I guess this makes a better argument about learning Flash. People will be less ready to update their home computer and high budget games that depend on bleeding edge tech will be hurt the most.

Re: Flash Games Are Best?

jgostylo — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 10:17:23 -0000

I have friends that are working on flash 3d engines. Computing power will turn this into a stark reality and we will all be back to where we started.

The great thing about Flash was that the global expectation for what your game should look like was so low. There was visual forgiveness in the community! But everything old will be new again and the brilliant engineers will make tools that push public opinion towards the idea that fun games don't matter as much as professionally polished games. People won't give fun games the time of day without the large budget. Make your fun cheap games while you can. We'll be back in the quagmire soon enough.

Is that the WTF you were looking for Jeff?

Re: Inspiration From Other Forms Of Media

jgostylo — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:46:11 -0000

Thanks for the tip. I will see what I can do. Unfortunately for the layout of the page my strengths of rules and guidelines for games far outpace my skill for visual layout :).

Your comment about inspiring media makes me wonder whether your inspiration from other media and not in lecture of game topics speaks more of your veteran status as a game maker or your personality.

I would assume it is mostly personality but I would not totally discount the other. I love seeing how other people go about solving what they perceive as problems. Maybe you have been there and done that and have seen the same thing too many times.