Fair warning, gentle reader; today’s post is one that is
highly personal to me and my writing is going to have a fair bit of my own
emotions poured into it.
For professionals in the gaming industry, it can be easy to take
the job for granted. I’ve found that this concept is just as true for the
struggling-to-survive freelancer as it is for the highly-paid video game
designer. The game industry simply promotes the idea that it is somehow okay to
not care about your work. Medical professionals are the one job I can think of
where not giving enough care and attention to your job can result in people’s
death – so while it is true that the game industry doesn’t have quite as much
at stake, there’s still plenty of good reasons why we should focus, why we
should concern ourselves more with what we do—and even more importantly, how we
do it.
I’ve talked about being professional before on the Warden.
Integrity, courtesy, respect; these are the critical tools for earning respect
as a professional in the industry. However, I promise this post isn’t going to
just re-hash what I’ve said in a previous post—I wanted to revisit this subject
because I feel like I have more to say.
Some simple tasks that promote more care and
professionalism:
Improve Communication
This business runs on communication, and one of the primary
methods of this is e-mail. Taking weeks to respond to an e-mail is generally
unacceptable.
Note: Not to say that I haven’t fallen prey to this exact
problem myself. I do always attempt to apologize when it does happen. Mea culpa
– we all have ways in which we can improve!
This is especially true when you’re answering a question via
e-mail. Many times, answering questions is core to doing business. Freelancers
need to know when their assignments are due or asking for clarification on a
developer’s feedback. The publisher may be asking for when they can expect to
see a signed contract or when they can set up a business meeting at Gen Con.
Some people may think that ignoring e-mail is one way to get
across that you’re really busy and/or important—instead, it’s a surefire way to
look unprofessional.
Honesty
In my book, respect begins with integrity. A big part of
integrity is honesty, commitment, and keeping your word. This applies to a
professional’s dealing with customers, colleagues, and clients alike.
So, my words to all professionals: Be Honest. If you’re not
passionate about a project, don’t try and fake it. If you feel like another
assignment is going to be too much for you to handle before the deadline, say
so. This goes both ways – publishers need to be honest too! Not ready to do
business on a particular project? Don’t give a bullshit excuse – just say so.
This industry has grown-up adults in it, we just need to remember that and act
like it.
Take Responsibility
It’s easy to lay blame when something falls through with the
gaming industry. Rather than pointing fingers, however, the right thing to do
is to take responsibility for your work. This applies equally to both success
and failure – it can be possible, for example, to be responsible for an
excellent game that was still a failure in the marketplace. Or to produce a
mediocre game that succeeds wildly. In any case, a professional takes ownership
and makes no excuses. Your work stands on its own, as some of my friends like
to say.
For myself, I take ownership of two products that are good
examples of this concept:
For Rogue Trader, I am responsible for that product’s
success in both design and market performance; the 40K RPGs as a whole make up
(and have made up for several years) the third-best-selling RPG in the market.
Whenever I need motivation, I often look at Rogue Trader and Deathwatch as
examples of success despite the odds, and it carries me through to go that
extra mile.
For Complete Divine, I take ownership of that book’s
terrible editing. It was one of my first forays into the industry as an editor
and it is a good example of why I decided my talents lay elsewhere!
Fortunately, I’ve learned a lot and used that failure as an impetus to improve
my skills since then.
Meet Your Commitments
In an effort not to unnecessarily repeat myself, I’m just
going to mention that professionals turn in their work on time and sticks to
agreements that he makes (i.e., honoring contracts and NDAs).
However, commitments are more than just contracts and
deadlines – anytime you make a professional arrangement, you need to keep your
word. This goes for meetings – be on time and in the right place, or inform the
other party if you’re going to be unavoidably late. Be prepared when you’re in
the meeting – take notes. Have something to say at the meeting – you don’t have
to have all the answers, but if you can at least give the other person
something they can depend on (i.e., “I’ll research that and get back to you by
4 PM tomorrow.”), they won’t feel like you’re wasting their time.
Storytime!
I’m going to present here a perfect example that combines
much of the above points. This is a true story in that it comes directly from
my experience. To keep things on a professional level, I’m using the story as
an example but I’m keeping any specific names out of it. The core of this story
is “How NOT to act as a professional game company.”
I approached a game company that had a really exciting new
product they were working on and a solid history of producing good games. The
new product was an all-new IP and I approached them about helping them create
and manage the narrative and setting for this property.
The very first warning sign was that, while the company was
certainly interested in talking to me about doing some work with them, they absolutely
could NOT settle on a time and place for a meeting. We were both attending a
large gaming convention, and there was absolutely no reason why this company
couldn’t have found a way to set aside 10 minutes to have a conversation about
something as important as the core narrative and setting for their new
property. (Commitments fail!)
“We’ll talk about it at the show, just stop by our booth.”
That was the extent of the communication from the company to me. I took them at
their word and arranged to get into the dealer’s room an hour early on the
first day of the convention. However, once again, the company failed to make
any effort to set an actual time or place for a real meeting. I was told to
chase down another member of the company who was in another part of the
convention space. To make matters worse, this person wasn’t even in the space I
was told to find him at! Instead, he was in a similar but completely different
spot – all in all, it took me over 48 hours to arrange a 10-minute meeting with
one member of this company about doing some work with them.
Needless to say, I already felt as if the company wasn’t
taking me seriously by this point. At the actual meeting, the person I was sent
to speak to was in the middle of a demo. Did he ask me to stop by after the
demo? Did he maybe set aside some time to speak to me like a professional?
Nope. He chose to talk to me during the demo, interrupting what should’ve been
a short, easy-to-conclude discussion every five minutes with answering
questions from the folks in his demo. He failed to discuss things with me on a
professional level and failed to present his product demonstration to potential
customers in a professional manner. Red alert! Alarm bells were ringing
hardcore for me at this point, and my instincts were telling me that this
company was having serious problems dealing with professionals.
At the end of the meeting, the person I spoke to had no real
answers for me – despite his self-described role in the company as “the decider.”
In order to get any momentum out of the meeting at all, I was forced to suggest
to him that he take my proposal to his partners and think about it overnight –
I’d return to find out a decision on the next day.
Coming around to the booth the next day, I got a chance to
speak to another representative of the company (I had no desire to talk to the
previous representative!). He regretfully told me that there was no way they
could afford my previous proposal. I pointed out that the kickstarter for the
property had taken in hundreds of thousands of dollars and showed him that I
could add hundreds of thousands more with my contributions. He continued to
insist that the company simply could not afford my initial proposal no matter
what. The kickstarter for this project took in over $900,000. (Honesty fail!)
Having dealt with two major disappointments with this
company, I was severely disinclined to consider any more business. However, the
company did approach me with a third proposal, and we agreed on a payment for
my services that was in the low five figures – a significant sum! Before taking
things any further, however, I insisted in seeing a contract from the company
so that I could gauge just how serious this company was about dealing with me
in a professional manner.
Considering the runaround and wasted time trying to
discuss things with them in person, I was feeling understandably very cautious
about trying to enter into a formal business arrangement.
Well, asking for a contract was responded to with – silence.
Four weeks later, I received one more e-mail from the company. In this e-mail,
the company wanted to move ahead right away and asked me when I could start.
(Communication fail!)
Not only did they completely ignore my request for a
contract, not only did they waste my time with weeks of non-communication, not
only was I lied to and given a runaround for personal, professional meetings –
now they just wanted me to jump on board and get moving without any kind of
formal agreement.
Needless to say, this was the last straw. I had no intention
of trying to work with this company any further, and despite the promised
riches of the payment, I had no guarantee in the form of a contract and no
confidence given their unprofessional behavior that I would actually ever get
paid if I had taken the job.
My friend Jason Marker has a fantastic description of this
company’s behavior and subsequent professional reputation: “Grab-asstic
Amateurs.” I couldn’t agree more.
You tease. Now I'll have to make sure to get you aside next time we meet so you can give me specifics. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI am impressed that you stuck with them that far, good sir. Leading by example, are we?
ReplyDelete