From Business Contacts to Friends – GDC and PAX

Hi everyone!

As you may or may not know, I just came back from a week in San Francisco followed by 4 days in Boston, for GDC (Game Developer’s Conference) and PAX (Penny Arcade eXpo) respectively. These are a couple of the biggest events in the gaming industry and have been extremely important for myself and for our company.

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My first GDC was three years ago, and was useful for us to put ourselves on the map in the game developer world as well as making important contacts that would lead to our eventual success (success in this case is defined as continued existence). We hustled, somewhat aggressively, our way into meetings with Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Google, and others. I spend most of the conference in meetings and walking around the business development section of the show meeting people and pitching our game and our studio. It was hugely successful, as we ended up getting fast-tracked through the portals which allowed us to ship our game on XboxOne, PS4 and now (eventually) on Switch. It was all business development, all the time, and it worked.

At this year’s GDC (and PAX), I noticed something different. Instead of hustling into meetings with people to do “business development”, we did a lot more of catching up with people we knew. This makes sense, since we already knew them… but the thing I noticed is the tone of conversation and what was talked about. From conversations with people like Microsoft to conversations with other game developers, we talked significantly more about life outside of game development. We talked of travel, of family, and of the struggles of running a game dev company on a more personal level, and it allows me to feel not only like this community is here for support for the company’s needs but that it’s also there for my needs. We didn’t have a new product to pitch so we weren’t looking for new contacts who might be able to help us get our game out, and this may have contributed to my realization, but I think it’s still quite valid; had we had a new project, that would have been additional to the relationship building that I’m talking about.

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I never thought that this kind of progression could exist when you only see people once or twice per year. In Montreal, I have some game dev friends that I see often enough that we’ve managed to build a relationship beyond what’s traditionally work, but now that I see it happening with developers from Seattle, Austin, and even on other continents, it just reinforces how amazing this industry truly is. People are genuinely out to help each other, and have seemingly no concern that their help might be detrimental to their own sales… I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t imagine this kind of thing exists in other industries.

Anyway just wanted to share this realization with you, and encourage people to see their “business contacts” also as friends, because it makes for much more enriching relationships and probably leads to better business down the line as well.

It’s Easy to Hear What You Want to Hear (i.e. Confirmation bias is everywhere)

Confirmation bias is defined as “the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconception”¹. In wake of the recent goings-on in the U.S. with the fake news and skewed perceptions of reality due to our tiny little Facebook bubbles, we’re seeing this kind of thing come up again and again.

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I won’t get too much into that stuff because it’s literally everywhere now, and someone has probably written it better than I will. So, I wanted to broaden the discussion of this and warn against this in general, not only when it comes to news or American politics.

As you probably know, I work in game development. One of my colleagues has been trying to convince our team to get into VR (Virtual Reality) stuff for a little while, and showed me a demo of his setup at home a couple of weekends ago. I thought it was awesome, but still had my questions: will the tech become cheap enough, is it too immersive, will the technology advance fast enough, etc. I started looking a bit further into it and watched some talks about the future of VR and the technology related to games and other things, and am slowly starting to be convinced.

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But what happened to those questions? They’re still as valid as they were previously, and nothing that I saw even attempted to answer those doubts. But after about three videos of 40 minutes each, I felt convinced. Thankfully, I was able to stop myself and realize my bias: I had completely forgotten about one side of the story because I was inspired by the other side.

That brings me to another point, and one that 2017-02-10 Blinders relates back to the politics thing. When something is emotional or inspiration or heated or you feel like it directly affects you, not only are you more likely to find sources that confirm your ideas but you’re even more likely to believe them. I could easily hop on the VR train now and keep watching stuff, keep getting inspired, and completely forget (or worse, ignore) some of the very relevant counter-arguments.

By the way, I’m not claiming that my colleague is missing the other side of the story, I think he just thinks the risk is lower than the reward might be for going into that kind of thing… and some of us aren’t convinced yet. But the fact remains that it’s easy to dive in and confirm all the things you thought or wanted to think or were inspired to think and black out the rest of the world without noticing it… so keep your eyes open and your field of vision wide!

One day I’m going to do a post about what I find are some of the most important cognitive biases but… I’ll do it later.

It’s Important to Keep Doing Childish Things!

As most things on this site are, this is totally my opinion and isn’t based on fact. Well, there are at least some psychologists who agree with me, so maybe there is something to be said for the argument.

I sometimes find myself walking down the street, getting up off a chair, or just generally going about my regular daily activities and noticing that I’m doing some basic movements differently than I did when I was 10. I’ll walk on the grass instead of trying to balance on the small curb on the side of the road, for example. I’ve learned to catch myself when doing this, and have started to question why.

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Is it really that dangerous to walk on the curb? Is it bad for my knees to slide toward the refrigerator while wearing socks in my kitchen? And why don’t I push the shopping cart and stand on the back anymore while it rolls forward?

Well actually… I do. Fun fact: the most convenient way to get from the Costco exit to your car is by pushing the cart and jumping on the back and riding it. I’ve beaten many boring adults to their cars this way, believe you me. I also hopped through a piece of scaffolding near my apartment the other day to get from the street on to the sidewalk.

I won’t get into why play is important for adults and children alike, but I do think it’s important to keep doing childish things in order to stay active, stay young, and stay interesting. I think that every once in a while, we should see how children go about their lives, living with less worry and care and neuroticism, and we should learn from them. Doing childish things will not only make you feel young, but will probably help you look it too.

Plus, who doesn’t want a grandpa who rides shopping carts?

Could Routine be a Replacement for Motivation?

People often say that they don’t want to work a 9-5 job or that they hate routine. As much as we hear this over and over, we still see the majority of people doing exactly that. Humans are creatures of habit, we tend to eat the same thing for breakfast at the same time, in the same place, get our coffee from the same Starbucks, do the same activities each week, etc.

I’m going to propose something that occurred to me a couple of weeks ago, and it might be a bit counter-intuitive. Usually, we imagine motivation and drive (in business, in relationships, in life) as actively thinking about how to do better or how to do more. But maybe, just maybe, routine can act as a replacement for long-term motivation.

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What I mean by this is that if you can ingrain certain things into your daily routine and make them habit, you won’t need active thought to try to get such things done. For example, going to the gym every morning before work (which I don’t do but I should) is something that can become so second-nature that people will feel worse if they miss it. Even if you hate the gym, doing it enough times at the same time will make it become part of the routine and you won’t think about it more than you’d think of eating breakfast or brushing your teeth.

When you see people who are “super motivated” because they’re going to the gym every morning, you might be overestimating their motivation; they might have only needed motivation for the first two months. I won’t argue that you can slip into a good routine or healthy practices without any motivation at all, but that down the line, establishing good routines can help lead toward the same results as “being motivated all the time”, as some people seem.

Routine is something that should be avoided if the routine leads to bad habits: eating right before bed (though I believe the science on this is questionable), smoking when you drink, forgetting to put the toilet seat down when traveling with a female, etc. BUT, in some cases, you can probably develop some great habits that can come to the rescue when you say “I should go to the gym, but I’m feeling kinda lazy and I’m hungry and tired”.

Fun fact, that was my excuse and now I’m here writing this. But don’t follow my example!

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Another decent example is eating healthy. I already mentioned the idea of not eating before bed as a good habit to get into, but it can even extend to buying food. If you’re lacking the motivation to eat healthy, getting into the habit of buying healthier food will break that. Of course the first time avoiding the soda and chips aisle might be painful, but eventually it becomes second nature.

This might seem obvious, but the key point I’d like to make here is that finding motivation to do healthy things and make good choices can be hard, but baking it into routine (with a bit of initial motivation) will save you from constantly needing to find (and feel bad about not finding) it later.

The Art of To-Do Lists

I was going to name this article “The Joy of Checking off Little Check Boxes”, but I figured this was more appropriate. Checking off little check boxes is only joyful if the list on which you’re checking them is well-made, and if the boxes actually mean something.

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Making a to-do list isn’t difficult. Simply write all the things you need to get done on a paper or on your notes app on your phone. Right? Welllll… sorta. Have you ever had the feeling where one day you’ve worked a ton but you got nothing done? You know you did a lot, but you have nothing to show for it and your to-do list certainly doesn’t look like it’s getting any shorter. That’s probably because your list wasn’t well made.

A good to-do list needs to have two things.

First, the tasks on it need to take more than a minute. If the tasks take less than a minute (or a few minutes), you can probably lump them into one bigger task. For example, “confirm lunch with the marketing person” and “thank Maria for sending over the shipment” can both fall into one task called “Answer immediately relevant emails” or something similar.

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Second, the tasks have to be short enough that you don’t feel like you’re working on them for more than half a day. The reason it feels like you’ve “been working all day but didn’t get anything done” is because the tasks you’re working on are just too big. For example, “research different artificial sweeteners” can be broken into

“determine which artificial sweeteners to research”
“find some sources on sucralose”
“find some sources on aspartame”
“find some sources on Acesulfame K”

and so on.

If the tasks on your list are not too long and not too short, and are actually meaningful toward reaching your goal, you’ll feel more productive when you accomplish those tasks.

I think that while it’s really important to know what your goals and tasks are, it’s equally important to feel like you’re actually reaching something when you work. It’s taken me a little while to get to the point where I feel that most days, my lists are well made and my work is productive, but now I feel confident about it and I’m going to go check off “write an article about to-do lists” from my to-do list. ?

What People Mean When They Say “I Dress Well for Myself”

I hear a lot of people say “I dress well for myself, because I like to look good”. This has come up especially when people talk about certain things they find look nice, but one of their friends will say “hey you know girls don’t really find green shoes to be attractive” or something to that effect. The fall-back answer is “well I don’t care, I dress well for myself”. I think that’s kinda bull.

Most people do most things for themselves, most of the time. So it would be hard to argue that people don’t dress well because they want to. The distinction I want to make though, is that people don’t actually understand what they’re saying when they say this. In reality, people want confirmation and want to feel good, and they get that through other people. Someone will dress in a certain way (or see people on TV or in the media dress that way), get confirmation from friends, family and strangers (via compliments, looks, attention, etc.) and they will be happy. They’ll then continue to dress in a way that repeats this feeling, until the point where someone says that something isn’t attractive to others and they have to defend themselves. They defend themselves by saying that it’s not for other people, it’s for them. They think that the choice of clothing or behaviour is for them when in reality, it’s the positive feedback and acceptance that they need, so dressing a certain way is just the middle step between the positive feeling and their choices.

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I’m not even entirely sure why I’m writing this, I guess it just bothers me when people are stubborn about things that they don’t understand, and have come to believe (as in this case) that it’s a conscious choice that they make that has no connection to what other people think. Another defense might be “but I don’t follow the trends”. Well, that’s another way of differentiating yourself and making yourself more attractive to potential mates by choosing a certain style. It’s for you in the sense that you will get something out of it, but not directly.

Then you might say “Oh but I’ve always thought this dark lipstick looks good even though everyone says it’s bad.” Well, that’s also not you. You weren’t born with the opinion that dark lipstick is nice, attractive, or even suits you. You saw commercials for makeup and hair, beautiful TV show hosts, paintings of noble women, and your gorgeous aunt wearing it. You then formed the opinion, over many many many years, and have come to accept it. Those people aren’t doing it for them. They’re doing it because it’s considered attractive, and that in turn promises a dream of good relationships, attention, and more.

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I’m not asking or suggesting that anyone change the way they dress, I’m simply suggesting that behind the choices you make there are bigger, more substantial drivers that people often ignore. I like to think that being aware of what drives your decisions, in general, will lead to better decision-making abilities in any walk of life.

Why Europe is Better than North America, and Why It Isn’t.

I just came back from Germany a couple of days ago, and while I was there I noticed a few things. Well I noticed a lot of things… I should hope. But there were certain things that they do that I realized seemed just backward or silly, and thought of how much better we have certain things in North America. On the other hand, there were a bunch of things that we don’t do nearly as well, and I wanted to share these random thoughts with you.

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What does Europe (or Germany, at least) do right?

Not censoring too much
Letting people drink in the street / park
Eating dinner at the right time
Style – everyone just seems well dressed and like they put a little bit of thought into what they wear.
Putting prices on things in store windows – though I imagine it would be better to trick people into walking into your store before revealing your inordinate prices.
Tipping – mandatory tipping is just effing stupid.
Being laid back about language (but maybe that’s just Quebec being stupid and me noticing it)
Letting dogs be everywhere – they’re allowed in stores, restaurants, the metro (subway), busses, everywhere! So much better.
Maintaining / not maintaining parks – they have parks with actual green areas with ponds, bushes, weeds, whatever and it makes it 1) better for the environment and the animals that can actually live there and 2) feel more wild and more “not the city”.

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What does Europe do not so well?

FREE WATER AT RESTAURANTS, DAMNIT PEOPLE COME ON. I get it if it’s a place where you can’t drink the tap water but… Germany? Grr.
Free bathrooms – they really really don’t like these. Like, really? Basic human need here!
Being open on Sundays
Smoking everywhere (or almost everywhere)
Being nice when people actually bump into one another – though this is likely just the cities I was in / German thing.

Pictures from this article were taken during the trip, and you can find them all here. Anyway this doesn’t speak for all of Europe or all of North America, but I’ve been to quite a lot of places on both continents and it seems like my opinion wouldn’t change much about these things. That’s ma rant. Hope you enjoyed.

Sometimes, You Can Just Move a Little Faster

I’m assuming you’re expecting some long elaboration on the title of this article… maybe I’m talking about work, production processes, maybe fitness? Nope.

This is something I realized, not sure how, not sure why, and I’m not really sure when I actually implement it. But sometimes, just sometimes, I realize that I’m just not moving as quickly as I could be. Emptying the dishwasher, for example. Going down the stairs to put the garbage out, or even just getting ready in the morning. Sometimes if you just take a second to realize the speed at which you’re doing stuff, you’ll realize that you could be going a hell of a lot quicker, and there’s simply no loss. It’s not even more difficult most of the time!

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I get the feeling that a lot of people will read this and think “uhhh, yeah no sh** dude” but I find that it occurs to me at random times, and when I do speed up, things go impressively quickly. Then I imagine what life would be like if I just did all of my monotonous tasks quicker than usual, and I think about how much time I would save. Anyone who knows me knows I’m huge on efficiency and doing things the right / logical way, and this is just an example of my realization that we simply don’t move as quickly as we could.

Counter-argument, you say? I’m tired! I’m lazy! Yes, those are valid arguments. But the biggest thing that I’ve noticed, is that it actually doesn’t feel like it takes more energy to speed up just a little bit. Just enough to give you those extra five minutes in the morning, enough to let you take an extra minute at the coffee machine (do people have watercoolers anymore?), enough to get you to bed just before that time where you look at your clock and you say “Damn! Past ___ o’clock again! I really need to go to sleep earlier.”

So, my friends, my message is simple. Think about it a couple of times when you’re doing simple, generally monotonous things, and just speed up. Juuust a lil bit. Try it sometime… either I’m a bit OCD and a productivity-freak or maybe it actually makes sense.

Life is Better When You Work at 10am

I’m not a morning person. I was never a morning person, and I’ll never be a morning person. I had a hard time waking up to go to school by the time I was 13, waking up for high school. When I started high school, I had a long bus ride to sleep / to wake me up if people were loud, and I arrived mostly awake. As time went on, I found that the early classes started to give me less and less, and by university it was almost worth skipping them and reading the material later because I couldn’t keep my head up at an 8:30am lecture about thermodynamics. AND, this is with over 7 hours of sleep per night.

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Some people just aren’t cut out for being productive at 8am. I found that I was learning well and retaining information when I would study around 11pm until 1-2am, and generally a happier person. When I worked as an engineer, I’d get to work around 8:45 or 9, and found that it was alright but my productivity certainly picked up after 10.

Now that I’ve started my company (with my two other co-founders), we get to work at 10am and leave around 6pm. Same sort of nine-to-five hours, just a little pushed back. You wouldn’t believe the increase in productivity; the second I come in I’m ready to go, working and focused. I feel refreshed when I wake up, I feel fine when I get to work, and life is just generally better. I think that people who work flexible hours or have a more lenient schedule would agree, but I’d love to know your thoughts on the matter. I’m pretty sure the average person isn’t super productive at 8am, especially not the average person in their twenties. I know that as a team, my colleagues and I work better with this more relaxed schedule, and I’m quite confident that they enjoy the extra sleep.

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I should add, however, that I really love my current job. I was motivated at my previous one as well, but now that I’m working for myself I feel a much greater sense of responsibility and pride in my work, which I think probably contributes to my productivity as well. What do you think? Are you more productive later in the day? Do you think the norm is shifting to a later workday? Is that a good or a bad thing?

Why I Chose Video Games

I’ve gotten this question a ton, mostly from people not in the games industry:

“What made you get into video games?”

Figured I’d write my answer here, and I’m curious to hear what other people’s answers are to this question. The inquisitors, of course, are asking about making games as a career choice, not simply playing them for countless hours. Actually I don’t even really play that much… fine, except Rocket League…

So why video games? I had the idea of getting into the field a few years ago, and while I’m not sure what exact instant in time or what event sparked it, I realized that it kind of brings together all of the things I’ve wanted to do for my whole life. I’ve always been a creative person with an imagination the size of a megalodon, and I started my post-high-school schooling in music before switching into sciences and eventually engineering. I wanted to get into architecture but went with mechanical engineering because I didn’t have an amazing portfolio ready and I knew (thought) engineering was a more stable career path. Engineers can design of products that people interact with every day, and architects design spaces that alter people’s interactions with the world around them. This last bit is super powerful; a well-designed space can greatly affect the way a person views the world and their overall happiness at work or at home.

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Personally I think the carpet is too dark… but hey.

But why stop there? Why be constrained by the physical world? Why not take people into the crazy, insane imagination that fuels my brain and fills it with images, words and stories? I’ve never really been good enough at art to convey what’s in my mind, and I’ve never been a talented (or patient) enough writer to create text that makes you want to jump into the page and never leave.

That brings me to my next point: you can’t actually jump into the pages of a book. Well, maybe a very big book… but generally, you can’t. You can’t look at a painting of a house and go see what’s behind it. Traditional media, or non-interactive media such as books, television, movies, paintings, etc. are great. BUT the thing they lack is true immersion. A book might pull you into the story and you might feel like you’re right there next to the characters seeing their experiences first-hand, but you’ll never alter the story or the interaction between the characters. This is something you can do in games and it gives games, in my opinion, a completely different value as a story-telling medium.

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So, because of the idea that games can be a medium through which I can channel my imagination, and because they are one of the only forms of media that allow for true immersion, I’ve chosen video games. There’s a third reason, which I can’t say I knew before I got into the industry, but I sure as hell know it now. The people. Are. Fantastic. They really, truly are. I think I’ll probably write another post about that sometime as I don’t want to drag on, but it’s incredible the kind of mutual support we give each other in this industry.

That’s all for today folks, I’d love to know your thoughts and, if you do work in games, your reason for doing so.