Hey guys,
You know
that Ashton Kutcher video that’s circulating around? It’s the one where he says that he’s never
been too good for any of the jobs he’s had, that opportunity always looks like hard
work, and that none of the people around you are smarter than you so you should
be able to do anything they can do with hard work. So I teach a music class over the summer
called Stairway to Stardom. This is the
18th year I've taught it. At the end of
the summer (Sunday, a week ago), it ends in a battle of the bands where all the
students performing in their bands play at the Crest Theater to about a
thousand people.
This year,
the surprise guest was Frank Hannon, lead guitarist of Tesla. Ok, he’s usually the “surprise” guest every
year. He’s on tour, but he flew to
Sacramento just to talk for 5 minutes on stage to inspire the young
participants of the program. His message
was fairly simple and one I've heard him say before, but it would make a great
addition to the Ashton Kutcher video.
There’s
always someone better than you. It’s
easy to give up and think that no matter what you do, you’ll always be out
classed. And as Frank explained as a
young musician once himself, he was always surrounded by guitar players that
could out play him. Instead of being
intimidated by them, he would listen and learn from them. When I was a young musician and struggling to
get my band playing in the better clubs, performing in local music festivals,
and seeing other bands that had the connections I never seemed to be able to
make, I’d offer to work for those bands.
I’d build or improve their websites for them, I’d roadie for them, I’d
pass out flyers for them, and I would learn and make some of the same
connections they made. I saw first hand
how they promoted themselves. I saw the
types of connections they made and why.
Eventually, I was able to get my band Stigma playing in big venues.
Something
else that’s important and related to this.
Every artisan has a skill level and a potential level. The more disappointed you are in your current
skill level, the higher your potential level is. The day you are satisfied with your skill
level is the day you stop improving. If
you’re really doing well, each time you hit a milestone(thus increasing your
skill level), you’ll realize there’s more things you don’t know and will have
to get better at, thus your potential goes up.
This is an
interesting dynamic because the closer your skill level is to your potential,
the more confident you are. That being
the case, confidence is then completely unrelated to skill. This is probably what Ashton was hinting at--just
because you think people around you know more than you (because they’re confident)
that isn’t always the case. It can be an
incorrect assumption to assume just because someone is confident, that they
know what they’re doing. I think this is
a big part of why talentless people of low potential end up becoming bosses--they
just seem so confident.
This reminds
me of Socrates. The Oracle of Delphi
proclaimed he was the wisest man on Earth.
Socrates thought this was impossible, because he didn't know
anything. He didn't know anything
because he realized the more he knew, the more he realized he didn't know. He decided to go to others that were thought
of to be wise. When he spoke to
politicians, he soon realized that they believed they had all the answers, even
to things they couldn't possibly know. He
soon realized that because their minds were shut, that they couldn't possibly
be wise, and thus he challenged the very idea of what wisdom meant. By questioning society and proclaiming that
politicians were fools, he got himself executed. And yet, it’s his name that we all know, not
the names of those that executed him.
How does
this relate to the game industry? Well,
it’s not the big companies that challenge conventional wisdom. It’s the small indie studios that do. Maybe
90% of the time these new ideas fail, but they’re small enough that they can
regroup and try again. When that other
10% hits and that thing everyone else would tell them would never work, is
successful, then the big companies copy them.
The big companies aren't uncreative.
It’s just that when you have a huge payroll to meet each month, taking
gambles on new ideas means people get laid off.
But as a
side note, the artisans with high potential that fail, are more likely to
assume they failed because they’re just not good at what they’re doing. The higher their potential, the more insecure
they will feel and the more insecure, and thus, ready to quit at the first sign
of failure. It’s those with low
potential that have confidence and are less deterred by failure. This is a sad dynamic because it means in the
long term, that the mediocre will be successful and the brilliant and
talentless both will give up early. This
is why it’s often important to find others that believe in you, even when you
don’t, to encourage you to keep going.
Putting all
this together, if you’re an indie studio because you grew up playing games from
big game companies and you want to create that same experience but with 0.1% of
the budget and without all the expertise, maybe you might want to rethink
things. As Frank Hannon might say, move
to where the big companies are so you can learn from them. As Ashton might say, no job, not even a
minimum wage game tester job is beneath you.
So start on the bottom and work up.
If on the
other hand, you’re disappointed in what games are out there and want to do
something unconventional, you might have the right mindset to go indie. So if you’re unconventional and consistently unhappy
with your work, but still driven to get better, you’re probably on the right
path. Don’t give up.
