Searching for the ultimate game pitch
Hello there! My name is Eugen, and I love games - playing them, creating them, and writing about the decision-making processes that underline their production and release cycle.
My practical experience is in mobile game development and publishing. If I were to “one sentence” intro this…it is not good to create predictions of whether a game will be a hit or not, and niche appeal has eventually more reach than the desire for mass-market approval. The website will be mostly about, me sharing thoughts about the games industry. The purpose is to generate knowledge that might be useful for navigating it. Creating and marketing games is not a linear path, so be prepared.
Backstory: I was born in Moldova and was lucky enough for my parents to get me a Sega Mega Drive on my 10th birthday. Games became not only an escape from the mundane. Coupled with real-life interactions, it became a way to discover worlds and ideas outside the rigid structures present in a very collectivistic post-Soviet environment. They broaden horizons in ways other entertainment mediums don’t. Having seen the Assassins Creed Black Flag trailer while at the dorm at the university was an “Aha” type of moment - that’s where I want to be and contribute.
I love games across a wide variety of genres, however, the Witcher games impacted my philosophy and honor code like few other works of art had - a mercenary in a world that lives and breathes without revolving around “the main character”. It’s a good lens through which to ”see” today’s real-life complexities. Thank you CD Project Red. This studio’s journey in game development and publishing is one of true antifragility - they are as convex as they come (a great read on Eurogamer The story of CD Project Red).
Seeker Ink: The website is a portfolio and a perspective, where “Seeker” stands for continuous searching, discovery, and updates of my modus operandi. Some of the ideas and concepts presented here can be false. I don’t want to reason correctly from false premises, that’s why everything is written here - in “Ink” - expects to be criticized, and falsified (see Karl Popper’s scientific method, in “The Logic of Scientific Discovery”), leading to better ways of working, making a decision, and ultimately creating better games (this player’s purpose). All my models and ideas are tested in reality - one that operates indifferently to what I want it to be - so constant learning is a given.
The premise of why I’ve started this website stands on 2 pillars:
I want to crystalize my thought process regarding decision-making with the uncertainties in the gaming industry. As a games industry producer, my purpose is to generate value for the teams I’m working with
Game Production (particular) and Game Creation (general). I became part of the games industry in 2013, and I’ve noticed a topic that hasn’t been tackled enough - Decision making under uncertainty in the games industry. That’s what this website is all about. Sharing insights and thoughts to learn as everything is put “in ink”. I’ll cover heuristics at “Sprints”, dealing with budgets, roadmaps, and milestones.
Ultimately all these experiences I gather here while writing should translate into a game pitch and vision to deliver as part of a team.
“Learn to Sell, Learn to Build, if you can do both, you’ll be unstoppable” - Naval.
Team foundations aside, I think most “Building” in game development comes from code and art creation. The two encompass IT / DevOps, Programming, Animation, Art, Audio, Lighting & Visual effects, Technical art, UI, Game Designed, and much more. These fields require particular theories, practices, models, methods, and rules of thumb - they will not be covered. This writer learned basic Unity programming to have a baseline dictionary and “Lingo” when communicating with real programmers. What will be covered is a combination of “Build” and “Sell” - a game’s Pitch, a team’s specific knowledge, decision-making tools, behaviors in development, and interaction with stakeholders.
Values and Beliefs: In the hierarchies of values Truth (the rigorous path of its discovery and updating) and Freedom stand as beacons of Reason for me. I believe human beings are fallible and good, but we don’t live in a fair world…it takes brave individuals who do not fold under fads and social pressures to generate virtue. The good news is that each-one of us can be brave. In rules-based, free societies (tons of) mistakes are made, but a transparent self-correcting mechanism exists. Achieving positive asymmetries, where the positives outweigh the negatives, requires sacrifice and epistemological humility that balances the expert fallacy and arrogance. In today’s heavily linearized and “social-media-lized” landscape, I value Individual judgment over group think. In terms of beliefs - what can purify the status games played by some is transactions based on a good foundation. When open-minded humans interact with one another, most issues tend to resolve themselves over time. Oh, and authenticity is scarce these days, so try to be more than an algorithm or informational bubble.
Gaming Industry: It’s a perfect blend of Humans, Art, and Tech. We are messy, but a great game is a sum of its parts, made by courageous people, that risk ruin to create them. If art is interpreted through the eye of the beholder - filled with subjective truths of what is beautiful - Tech is what allows it to work. I don’t think you can bend the rules without knowing them first, so if your sketch doesn’t take shadows into account, that’s all it is, a sketch of dodgy “subjective” value. Mobile games are my bread and butter currently, but making amazing games on each of the platforms (PC, Console included), is the long-term dream.
On Discussions: When we have a random conversation, if I can convince you “we are that we are a bunch of idiots who know nothing and are mistake-prone, but happen to be endowed with the rare privilege of knowing it.” (paraphrasing Nassim Nicholas Taleb in Fooled by Randomness), then we’ll get along really well. Not to be confused with specific knowledge, that is domain-dependent. Notable thinkers and writers of today, that influenced me are: Daniel Kahneman, Nasim Taleb, Karl Popper, and Umberto Eco - plus all other writers acknowledged in their writings, that they build upon. It’s thanks to them that I can say, I’ve started to “scratch the surface”.
To roughly sum it up the experiences here will be about that what you DO NOT do rather than DO (i.e. meeting Everybody, discussing Every idea, following the Lates game dev trend and fashion).
Before becoming a “philosopher” in a field, I believe one needs to be a practitioner, that is why what you find here are thoughts generated from my empirical Do’s and Don’t.
Jay Z = Picasso
Nipsey Hussle = Grit
Eminem = Greatest alive
Top 3 Games:
Witcher series
Yakuza Like a Dragon
Hearthstone Battlegrounds