00:00Hey you have to lead with vision but listen to your players right it's not like let the players
00:06guide where the experience is going because I think you're going to end up with a bad outcome
00:09that way like I sometimes will you know use the old Henry Ford quote you know if you give people
00:14what they say they want you'll give them a faster horse. After a successful GDC keynote discussing
00:19the surge of industry layoffs we sat down with former Blizzard chief creator Rob Pardo to discuss
00:25further lessons learned from a game development career the current struggles in the game industry
00:30his new studio bonfire and much much more. What challenges is the game industry facing?
00:37The theme I was trying to bring across I think in my talk was just you know like how difficult
00:43it is
00:44to create like original games that last a long time and I think the overall theme is just you know
00:51how
00:51much of it needs to come from the team and through the team kind of collaborating and building the game
00:56and personally I think the game team is more valuable than the game itself so treasure that team
01:02nurture that team give them the autonomy to keep taking care of the players because the thing that
01:09made the game special in the first place was the people who built it. Yeah which I think is sometimes
01:15not the way it gets talked about enough you know I think people say that especially developers will
01:19say it but same time they'll still want the for sure development plan of how you get there
01:27not in a lot of these other companies so a lot of ways I'm a bystander like everyone else is
01:32but I think you know what's kind of happened over the years as you know we've really had such a
01:38rise in
01:39independent studios especially the smaller indies and you're you know seeing so much success now you
01:44know even when you go to the game awards now it's usually these smaller independent studios that are winning all
01:49game awards right and I think on the upper end of the industry you know kind of I don't even
01:54know
01:54what letters we use anymore but I'll just say AAA you know at that end you know things have gotten
01:59more expensive the teams have gotten bigger and typically I think the products have become more
02:05derivative too and I think a lot of that just because because common sense if you're going to invest a
02:10lot of money on a really unknown project you're better off mitigating some of the risk through doing
02:16something in an existing franchise or a sequel or things like that but it does over time become
02:23you know kind of unsustainable and I think that's what AAA has really been grappling with a lot you
02:29know and you know and unfortunately those are the teams that have very big head counts so when they
02:35make a mistake it turns into you know pretty uh pretty big layoffs sometimes which I think is really
02:42really unfortunate what makes getting a foothold in gaming so challenging you know I don't know if
02:48it's any one thing you know I think nowadays the industry has grown so much there are so many studios
02:55but I would say the observation I had was you know for a number of years there was just a
03:01lot more
03:01capital flowing in the games industry and I think it really enabled a lot of people to start studios
03:09um but they weren't necessarily funded to get all the way through development and because there were
03:14so many studios I think it also meant that everyone's kind of fighting for the same talent
03:19so so I think there is just a bit of a bubble you know kind of a time period you
03:23know I think for us
03:24you know we funded kind of before all that investment capital came in and I think we're we knew it
03:30was
03:31going to take a long time so we tried to make sure we had investors that were in it for
03:34the long haul
03:35but I just think there's a lot of developers that weren't able to raise enough or get enough
03:41talent to be able to get all the way to the finish line. Can you tell us about your new
03:45game?
03:47It's been pretty exciting since we finally revealed the game officially which we did back in September
03:52so and then we haven't really been public again since just next best so it's kind of like our next
03:59kind
03:59of moment to bring the game back out there and see see you know what happens when we have it
04:04running
04:04for an open demo you know and I think I think we just learned a ton especially as a team
04:10you know
04:11like we have it was a team that hasn't shipped the game together before you know we have a lot
04:15of
04:15veterans from different studios and you know we definitely have some veterans from like the live
04:21service team like Overwatch but we also have a lot of people that um you know I just don't think
04:25have ever had to run live service yet even though they're really experienced game makers so kind of
04:30having to have that service up getting the players you know kind of uh giving us telling us all the
04:36things that they like or dislike you know starting to get customer service tickets I think that was just
04:41such a great learning in general you know and I think at a very high level you know I think
04:46we
04:47you know we found out there's you know a variety of performance and uh stability challenges that we have to
04:55take on which you know again I don't know if that's abnormal at this point in development but it was
05:00I think really good for us to get all the feedback because it's it's hard when you just have your
05:03own
05:03team with your own systems like you don't really know until you have that variety of pc systems so I
05:09think we learned that we also uh kind of relearned something we know our game is um you know pretty
05:14challenging to learn there's a learning curve to it and then we also learned on the other side we had
05:18some
05:19players that um you know played for you know literally over a hundred hours you know and that's
05:25in a nine day period fall back we have to find a way out where do you draw the line
05:37with player feedback
05:38oh yeah so I could probably do a gdc talk just on this topic um I mean I you know
05:44I came up as a game
05:45designer at blizzard during the old days of the battle net forums so I'm very very familiar with
05:51getting unfiltered feedback um and you know you sometimes have to grow a little bit of a thick skin
05:56and I would say some developers you know I'd have to advise them you know maybe you don't want to
06:00be
06:00on the forums right um but I love it and you just have to kind of learn how to filter
06:05it you know and
06:06to answer your question a little bit like uh kind of a phrasing principle I've been using inside the
06:11studio is hey you have to lead with vision but listen to your players right it's not like let
06:18the players guide where the experience is going because I think you're going to end up with a bad
06:22outcome that way like I sometimes will you know use the old Henry Ford quote you know if you give
06:27people what they say they want you'll give them that faster horse so players don't necessarily know what
06:31they want but they'll tell you if they're having a good time you know and they'll tell you if they're
06:36not you know and oftentimes I think players and developers do this too uh they'll give you the
06:41solution to a problem they haven't named yet right so like oftentimes you have to you know dig a little
06:47deeper and really try to understand where they're coming from or observe the behavior not just listen
06:52to the feedback but observe the behavior because oftentimes I think the behavior is the truest form of
06:57feedback is going to get right um but you have to listen to the player you can't ignore them you
07:02know and I think if you do that then you know maybe you're going to make more you know an
07:07art style
07:07video game or something that's fine but if you really want to make it you know an experience that's
07:12going to resonate with players then you have to be on the front lines what does success look like
07:16and what's unique about Acura honestly it really depends on what outcome you know at the end of the
07:22day you know it's like we were funded by investors as well so we need to be able to create
07:27a sustainable
07:28business I think you know we've tried it really hard over the years to keep the studio at a reasonable
07:33size so that you know if we go out and you know we end up with you know kind of
07:39a minimum or moderate
07:40sort of success then we should be able to keep on investing in the game and growing it and I
07:44think
07:44especially with these uh competitive games sometimes it takes a while to build your community you know but
07:50at the same time you know if we totally face plan and fail then you know we'll probably have the
07:57same challenge a lot of us to use yeah I mean I think it was unique just because um we're
08:03starting
08:03a new studio so so much of the process when used wasn't like some process I used in the past
08:08I think
08:09it was um just the process that felt like it was making sense as we were figuring out who we
08:13were going
08:14to be as a company and what kind of product values like we're going to stand behind so you know
08:19kind of
08:20did this thing where everyone got to uh pitch ideas in the company and you know we really encouraged
08:26everyone to do it and some of the ideas were silly some of the ideas were kind of cool they
08:31were all
08:31over the map you know with kind of a variety of them um and then we just kind of went
08:35through a
08:35process where we kind of whittled that down into a smaller group and then spent more time in those
08:40ideas as a team and then eventually kind of settled on the one that really was most suited to this
08:46particular team you know which gets back to another one of my core beliefs with game development
08:51you know it's like when I've seen the best success it's the team is making something that not only are
08:57they truly passionate about building but they're also just well suited developing either through
09:02their skills or through things that they their experience in the past what challenges come with
09:09changing genres you know I wouldn't say it will never work we actually had some of those experiences
09:14blizzard I just think you have to be very intentional if you're going to make a pivot like
09:19that you know because I do think um if you just want to move people because you're kind of viewing
09:26you know all developers equal than their craft then yeah you might end up with a lot of misfits or
09:31people that are not even wanting to build that game you know but with that said though you know it
09:36doesn't mean like people can't grow new skills or new experiences if they're really excited about that
09:42journey and you know self-aware about where they have to grow but I don't think it usually works
09:47out though you're just moving people around on a spreadsheet for more in-depth dev interviews
09:52check out our Embark Studios production director Kyle Braga video discussing resetting balancing and
09:58future plans of our creators and for all things pc gaming subscribe to pc game on
