Tyler 2016-01-05 16:49:02

I too love the idea of having a studio in the future; it will be a dream come true. After my current project, I will make some heavy IAP games until finances are stable. Then once secure, make some cool, original works with an expanded team that shares the same habitual vision.

Marketing is super confusing, I agree. I feel like everyone today and their mom "does marketing"; but how to find someone good and appropriate for games is beyond me.

PS. I am very honored to be in your #3 list. Let's make our goals happen.

TomFulp 2016-01-05 17:19:07

If you and Antony move to PA and got Tyler to come back closer to the office, you could all pull up desks here!

Reading that post makes me feel so self conscious... Er I mean it makes me assess my personal strengths and make note of goals for improvement... Yeeeeeah that sounds right.

Part of me feels like that list is "Emotional vs Analytical" and people just personally fall into different categories... But that sounds like me just making excuses for being an amateur. Or maybe a good team does have both types of people; inspired emotional types who focus on core strengths, and analytical business types who make sure everything leads to profit.

Promoting the Supporter Upgrade is something where I'm trying to get over the "I feel like a scam artist when I write business copy" mentality. I want to really figure out the best way to sell it this year, so we can maximize results. What promotion will generate 50% more click through to the sales page? What messaging will generate 20% more sales when they get there? I want to do it justice because I believe in it so much and believe everyone will be happy with the results of it's success.

I hope you get to do your studio!

Afro-Ninja 2016-01-05 22:56:48

Woah, also very flattered!

I've struggled with this a lot myself- as creators, we always dream for bigger and better. As we advance our skills, we get closer to our dream goal. But there comes a point where a big jump has to occur. When you go from a team of 1-2 people communicating online to a group of 3-5 that need to meet in person. You have to eat certain 'start up' costs just to get that up and running, and then worry about stability. I fear I'm too careful and calculated to risk something like that. But hey, you gotta take those risks too.

But another issue that stems from this: we all want to be leaders. We all want to direct our dream project. But that doesn't work either :( It's the whole reason we started this in the first place, instead of working for someone else.

Yeah, it's rough. I'm constantly re-evaluating what my real goals are and should be. But I guess as long as I'm making *something* I'll be happy.

Tyler 2016-01-06 00:31:28

Wanna follow up to afro's comment about leadership. Assume a group of driven individuals who like to do their own projects put their heads together. I think they could probably all come up with something completely new or shift leadership (designer) roles with each project. Member A gets control of game 1, Member B gets control of game 2 and so on.

freakworld10 2016-01-06 06:01:59

Good Luck if you really go on to do this!

PsychoGoldfish 2016-01-06 11:25:37

Man, I've been wanting to get involved in a proper game studio for years. My biggest frustration over the past several years has really been having so many ideas and no real time to outlet them.

I have a lot of envy for the NG users who have taken that plunge and even just tried making a commercial game. Maybe in my younger days, before I had so many mouths to feed, the insecurity involved wouldn't have held me back like it has.

Don't get me wrong, I love NG, and I like my job, but like any job it comes with a certain degree of soul crushing. My only real tie to active game development these days is our API, and I don't get to work on that as much as I'd like because we always have so many other higher priority projects that need to get done.

Instead of dreaming up fun things people can play with, we have to worry about things like maximizing advertising, updating the NG experience for the mobile age, promoting content to generate more traffic, getting more users to upgrade to supporters, etc etc. And we have so many sub communities we need to appeal to... artists, animators, game devs, musicians, forum users, etc etc.

But still I cling to the dream, that ONE day, NG will get to a point we don't need to put in as much work, or we can afford more programmers, and we can create an in-house game studio where I can finally get some of these ideas out.

PS - Also flattered at being in your list of picks. I'm glad someone finally recognizes how good I am at #2's.

matt-likes-swords 2016-01-06 12:21:52

I might be strange in that I've never wanted to start a game development studio. I'm not a fan of managing people or even working with others in general. I like working from home and being able to take time off whenever I want. I *usually* like the control and variety that comes with doing almost everything myself. I like that my games are all me and no one else can take credit for them (except the music of course!). Working with a bigger team sounds stressful, especially with the extra possibilities of a much bigger failure.

Now that I'm financially stable, I prefer to work less rather than working on bigger and riskier projects.

Having said that though, I haven't tried working on a team project, so who knows, maybe someday I'll try it and I'll like it. And I'm still young, so maybe someday I'll feel like I should try to do more with my life, but so far I'm pretty satisfied working on one-man projects.

matt-likes-swords 2016-01-06 12:24:33

Maybe when Flash is totally 100% dead and I'll be forced to change my workflow, I'll consider working with a team. But I'll try to keep doing what I'm doing while it still works for me.

TomFulp 2016-01-06 12:44:24

I'm INFJ...

"Mentor - Bringing light into the darkness.

You always want to seek deep signification among your thoughts, your relationship with other people and material life. You try to understand the motivations of other people and have a sharp insight on people. You are so meticulous when doing things and loyal to your own values. Your vision is to provide better service for all people. As you are completing this goal, you can keep courageous, resolute and organized."

That seams reasonable, I guess!

I enjoy working completely alone when I can but also like working with a small team. Emphasis on small, though... I become less comfortable as things get bigger.

One conflict for me is that I like the comfort of a clear plan - meaning if someone else has put together a plan that I like, it is comforting to have a clear path forward. However I don't like to be managed, so that makes me want more of a leadership role for the sake of freedom.

I use The Room game as an example of something that worked well for me - the movie gave us a very clear roadmap in terms of the script and the sets - but we also were self-managed and free to add our own creative twists. It made the experience more pleasant than having to build a complete world from scratch and all the uncertainty that comes from that, as rewarding as the outcome is.

Tyler 2016-01-06 12:45:18

ENTP. My answers varied throughout time. The E and P fluctuate to I and J every now and then, but the NT has always been the same.

Afro-Ninja 2016-01-06 13:12:19

ISTJ, so pretty close. The answers are tough, as you can usually clearly see what type of category they are trying to put you in ahead of time. In many cases I only partially agreed with either answer. I took one of these a long time ago, wish I could find the results. Ironic, considering my apparent propensity for organization ;)

TomFulp 2016-01-06 13:22:56

Wow, I'm reading page after page of this and it's pretty spot on with describing me... Then I wonder if it's like a horoscope, where anyone could read it and say "That sounds like me!" but it even sounds like what I had just wrote about myself in that last post:

"These needs are hard to meet in a corporate structure, where INFJs will be forced to manage someone else’s policies alongside their own. For this reason, people with the INFJ personality type are more likely to, despite their aversion to controlling others, establish their independence by either finding a leadership position, or simply starting their own practice. As independents, sole proprietors in the parlance of business, INFJs are free to follow their hearts, applying their personal touch, creativity and altruism to everything they do."

The whole "reluctant leader" description has always fit me well...

"Further complicating things are INFJs’ eloquence and persuasiveness, which lead to a lot of (unwanted) attention and popularity. Their quiet, determined idealism and imaginative expression naturally draw influence, and if there’s anything INFJs avoid, it’s the accumulation of power over others – and the people who are drawn to that type of power. INFJs will find themselves more sought after than they’d ever care to be, making it even more difficult for them to find someone they truly have an affinity with."

Pretty much everything here describes me... Although I will note that I would like to be successful...

"They are decisive and strong-willed, but will rarely use that energy for personal gain – INFJs will act with creativity, imagination, conviction and sensitivity not to create advantage, but to create balance."

I DO want personal gain but I want to feel good about how I do it; I don't like ever feeling like it came at the expense of someone else. NG always gave me this sort of "survivors guilt" because I was able to make a living off of it while other people who upload content here don't generally have that same level of success.

I feel like I've paid penance for that by carrying NG through a lot of rough years, though. I also feel that as long as I find success in my own game development projects, I may never need to lean on NG again, although I would like NG to be successful enough that it COULD support me if I ever needed it to. I would at least like to stop bleeding money into NG. I don't feel 100% altruistic (altruism comes up a lot in the INFJ summary) but I do think I have very good intentions and I'm trying to create balance and equality.

PsychoGoldfish 2016-01-06 13:46:16

I came out as INTP

"Thinker - Analyzes problems deeply with intelligence.

You always try to find a logical explanation for something you are interested in. You like things abstract and theoretical. You have more interests in acknowledgement rather than social communication with people. You are calm, retained, flexible and tolerant. You have an extraordinary ability to deep research. You are quite skeptical, so you always analyze problems. Sometimes you are a bit too harsh and ruthless."

Most people wouldn't think of me as introverted. In any social environment, I'm quite the butterfly and genuinely enjoy getting out there and meeting new people. I even like being the center of attention at times. But what people don't know is the whole internal exchange that happens to get me there.

I am definitely introverted. But I'm also always thinking. If I'm in a social environment, I am observing people, drawing clues to things we have in common. I always feel a little anxious going in to any gathering, but I've done enough of them to know when I meet people I have fun. I do have to will myself to get into those situations, but once I'm there it's always a good time.

In my professional life, I've always been content to fill a job, but given time find myself in some leadership position. I always have mixed feelings when that happens. I have a hard time having to be dependent on other people. I need to feel confident in the people that work for me, because ultimately my job is dependent on their ability to deliver. Managing people is not something I enjoy at all.

That said, I get why I end up in those roles. When I have to manage people, I typically lead by example. When people don't pull their weight, I let them know. When they are struggling (but may not ask for help) I can catch it and give them whatever push they may need. When they have legitimately good ideas, I can acknowledge and implement them without my own pride being a barrier.

And the reason I even accept those roles (other than the fact they usually mean a pay raise) is also the same reason I hate being a manager. When I'm part of any team, I take that seriously. even if I'm at the bottom of the totem pole, I consider the entire team's performance as a reflection of my personal performance. I can't just sit around and hope things get better. I'm a man of action, so I ultimately end up taking charge of things if nobody else is willing to.

I've been in teams where the leadership was really passive, but some of my teammates have been very similar to myself. That has also been an issue. What ended up happening is we all tried to pick up the reigns to lead a project and ended up with too many cooks in the pot. Sometimes it worked well if we were on the same page, but other times we'd have vastly different priorities and nothing from the official leadership helped us determine which way to go.

The projects I have the fondest memories of have always been 2-man projects. Just 2 people in constant communication with no other factors breaking the dynamic. I can always find common ground with people, but I can't always get 2 other people to find common ground with each other.

MSGhero 2016-01-06 13:52:32

If it was up to you, what would your team name be?

I'm ISTJ and so is Afro, so maybe all game-engine programmers are that :)

Tyler 2016-01-06 13:55:59

Interesting read. It's making me think about myself very differently.

It's weird. I love to argue, play devil's advocate and get controversial. I like people and I get along with people very well, too. Unless what I say offends them ha.

"Likeminded types get along well enough with people with the ENTP personality type, but more sensitive types, and society in general, are often conflict-averse, preferring feelings, comfort, and even white lies over unpleasant truths and hard rationality."

I think it's quite important to be open and highly critical when doing something like making game design decisions. Helps me cut to the heart of problems quicker. This works well in every aspect of life except socially. I tend to tone it down because I think most people hate realities harshness and the bearer of such realities even more.

"ENTP personalities love to brainstorm and think big, but they will avoid getting caught doing the "grunt work" at all costs."

This might be a blessing and a curse. If there is conflicting vision between me and another on a team, nothing gets made. I've had trouble with others who aren't willing to compromise and put me into a non-leading role on games I'm not passionate about (basically, only jams). On the upside, I think it helps push all parties to a better idea.

There sure is a lot of information to digest here. I'm glad you brought this up haha

PsychoGoldfish 2016-01-06 14:17:59

Actually, I don't have that big of a fear of failure.

To me, failure is simply trying something and it not working out. Any failures are simply learning opportunities.

I actually do like to take risks too, but I always weigh the consequences. The only risks I'm not willing to take are the ones that would hurt my kids.

11 years ago, I took a risk. I quit a steady job to make flash games full time, and I had a good run. Ultimately it wasn't a sustainable path, and thus a failure. I was never really afraid of failing though, even when things started going down hill. I left my job on good terms and could always go back if I had to. I had also done a lot of networking and skill building in those days, so I was also more qualified for better jobs.

As it happened, I ultimately made a very smooth transition into working for NG instead of having to go back into the real world work force, but there were a few big-at-the-time companies I almost ended up at.

As for NG Chat... yeah, that's one of those projects that's always been mostly dependent on working with other people.

Both Brendon and myself have wanted to make it happen. Together we have the skills to do it, but the networking side is just a bit outside of my skillset, and some of the front end stuff is on the fringes of his.

Since we're both responsible for other important, but separate, aspects of NG, it's been almost impossible to make chat enough of a priority that both of us would suspend our workloads at the same time to make it happen.

That said, I know he's played with the technology a fair bit in the little lumps of free time he gets, so you never know...

matt-likes-swords 2016-01-06 14:28:57

I did the test and got ISTJ! Which is what I expected really.

PsychoGoldfish 2016-01-06 14:45:15

Interesting... took the test at http://www.16personalities.com and THAT one came up as ENTP

http://www.16personalities.com/entp-personality

I feel like both of those profiles describe parts of me quite well. I think my co-workers will agree that I DO love playing devil's advocate to the point of being a frustrating prick. haha

That's one thing I have actually prided myself on is trying to see things from multiple perspectives. Its always been a tool for me when trying to understand what motivates people.

Tyler 2016-01-06 15:04:58

are you hitting on me? JK lol same

FGIJonC 2016-01-06 15:20:12

I think you've essentially figured out what you want to do, you just need to make it somehow happen! You have other artists, programmers, etc, who seem to be interested. We don't know each other and I wish I could help out with programming, art, etc, but I'm just an actor and filmmaker(at this point) so I'm no use to you(haha).

Seriously though, I hope it all works out, I love your work (and all of the creators you mentioned in your post as well).

As far as the fear, I definitely understand. I'm really self-conscious about the stuff I create, what little that may be and I have sometimes I have let it inhibit me from my pull potential. The perfectionist in me is a constant nag, along with thinking "will people like this?" when I just want to make people laugh. That's why I've put off some things because I'm a big dumb dumb.

Keep on keeping on !