Aspirational Outsourcing or “Do External Developers Dream of Electric Success?”

you hi guys how are you doing Cyrus I'm good deceive aspirational outsourcing do external developers dream of electric success this subheading is meaningless I just thought it was interesting this to all the best dots have a table of contents and homework this table will also have both play is universal these are the slightly paraphrase words of a 2013 study called play and cultural context it affirmed that play is a universal trait of human psychology across cultures but this shouldn't really surprise anyone it's pretty

obvious if you look around the aesthetics of play and the form that the play takes may vary across culture but the fundamentals of play are and always have been kind of buried deeper within us somewhere right these are all of these pursuits these instincts humans beings have pursued them across the world for hundreds thousands of years and video games video games have made it come even closer together same ideas same instincts same pursuits of play games have made video games have made the experience of play more Universal than it's ever been before 2.5 billion it's a mind-boggling number but it's also an important number because it means that playing video games is about

as close to a universal human experience as you can get does everyone recognize these movies I no matter where I am in the world most people would write these are the things that the world grew up watching these are shared cross cultural touchstones and if you look at the next slide I don't know if everyone's as old as me and cases is quite pixelated but stomping on Koopas learning juggle combos killing cyberdemons those are some of the things I grew up doing those are some things I think everyone grew up doing right like these are I would argue even more than movies games are a shared cross-cultural experience that cut across language barriers and in some cases we spend hundreds of hours actively engaging in them to take something a little more recent the last generation of gamers created a literal galaxy I know I use literal wrong but a galaxy of worlds in

Minecraft right and I can't tell what country server either of the any of these slides comes from so not only are the fundamentals of play Universal the specifics of what we play have been getting closer together than at any other time in human history thanks to this industry let's play games though how about making games well our topic is outsourcing so this is one of my favorite figures 86% of major game development companies polled use outsourcing in some form so it starts off strong and then there's a twist that reads in 2008 outsourcers or external developers if you really prefer like I don't really have a preference have become an intrinsic part of the story of the games industry we're proud to be part of its recent past and we're excited to be part of its future video

games aren't the only thing that all culture or play rather it's not the only thing all cultures share aspiration also is Universal when it comes to defining it it's a lot easier to find quotes that you think of the bat's aspiration all right like some of my favorites Dan Edelman Jane McGonigal that's a beautiful one actually I love that but the most aspirational quote of all time my man Thomas the Tank Engine when it comes to defining aspiration though it gets a little muddled because sometimes it gets muddied up with hope aspiration is not hope and it's certainly not wishing aspiration in a nutshell is an ability to envision and work towards long-term goals and it's not easy but it's very straightforward it's very simple and the reason the long-term is important is because we

just look at this slide for a minute I think people have been a bit insecure about this because young industry but if you look at that this industry isn't going anywhere so I think the question to ask yourself is how long are you planning on being here I think this is one of the most important questions you can ask yourself and it's one of the most important questions you can ask of anyone that you're planning to work with because that strategy not that hope that strategy of we're going to be here for five years for ten years for 15 years 20 years depending on what that strategy is what they do day to day now what you do day to day now will be different that's supposed to be a weight by the way with investment kind of messed up there this is the difference between aspiration and wishful thinking is investment investment of time investment of resources investment of risk opportunity costs all of those things what are you

willing to pay now to boy up the aspirations you have because that's as far as your aspirations can go is how heavy your investment is because investment is a very personal thing I can only really talk about our own right sorry because aspirations are a very personal thing I can only really talk about our own investments are less personal they're kind of the same for everyone that's what we have right that's Frank's plan for the next two years that's it very specific very achievable based on what we're putting into it you'll notice these are not dreams and these are not hopes we have dreams beyond that we have hopes beyond that but very specifically these are our aspirations over the next two years and our investments they're pretty much all like if you look at them I think the chair is obscuring a couple but they all come down to the same thing it's spending time money risk opportunity right now to be able to to better our chances of

getting to that next level in the future to bring it back this is a tie tonight's lab from Dark Souls 1 it is required for all of the greatest upgrades it has is 0.21% base drop chance you have a better chance of being struck by lightning sometime in your life then getting this the first ride don't look that up all I mean is when it comes to grinding for future Awards gamers know what's up I think it's important to separate these two concepts as well because I've also heard them get muddled aspiration versus inspiration do you ever have those days where everything just clicks and there's like a beam of light coming down on you from above and the issues you were stuck on are suddenly resolved you come up with that perfect art style or you come up with that perfect new game system those are days of inspiration and we should be thankful not everyone gets to

have them the fact that we're in this industry we can have those days that's amazing but the universal but unpopular truth of all creative industries is that nobody is inspired all the time but you can be aspirational all the time that is a symbol for tau or tau I'm not actually sure how it's pronounced but it means the way and it's about the idea is a pursuit of mastery right just being better tomorrow than you were today this is one of my favorite quotes by Tom Bissell because every day even in this industry every day can't be fun but every day can be fulfilling if you do it right because even on the most mundane of days you're building something your skill set your team capacity your network you're moving in a direction that is fulfilling the hard way and the easy way this is a question or

philosophy or whatever that you can come across anywhere in life and you many many times but it's also certainly always implied to the video games industry here are some games that did it the hard way you'll notice they're all stone-cold classics they all captured went out there they captured people's imaginations that provided amazing experiences and they're still remembered to this day as are these games which maybe try to do it the easy way two of them got known for prepare a well known for exploitative microtransactions and the third literally crashed the entire industry in all these cases they exploited beloved IPs and lost for whatever reason lost the public trust for short-term gain same way they've always been two ways to find or provide external development a lot of companies will look for exactly the traits on the left-hand side you know who is the

cheapest who's the most available who will never say no to anything right and because the market is the wonder that it is many studios try to be exactly that and on the other hand you have the hard way which takes time it takes communication it takes mutual respect it I think more than anything it takes a commitment to building a relationship along with the product and if it's not already obvious like we prefer the hard way and we've tried both luckily we've got some great examples out there you know I don't know any of these studios personally but I know they all did it the hard way and it shows it shows in their results I'd like to end this section with a quote from a fictional character by my favorite author seriously it's great this is the best thing you're gonna get from the stock because I didn't write it the hard way is pretty hard but not so hard as the easy way now let's talk about finding

partners the awesome partner checklist I would like to give this disclaimer right now that this is based on my experience so if you use it and still get burned I can't be held responsible but in my experience it has held true for every relationship personal or professional that I've encountered first comes growth especially working on yourself right like if most people want a better partner in whatever part of their life they don't necessarily want to work on themselves to be that better partner so that comes first and once you've done that you can start to value yourself once you've done that you can start to not sell yourself short saying no to something that's maybe not right for you or another good fit for you is one of the most liberating empowering experiences an individual or a company can have after growth comes courage now sometimes fear is valid right sometimes

fear is based on past trauma it's based on horror stories but if you go into every situation kind of cringing right thinking like how am I gonna get hurt this time or this is gonna be terrible you are letting fear control you talk to some people be open to people talking to you see if something clicks then comes discovery now you have to start paying attention to the people you're talking to number one thing yes you watch out for red flags right you see you see any deceit or signs of the feet or disrespect you've got a bill and don't worry about it there'll be other people there will be other partners if you don't see that then you can start thinking about how your conversations is there a spark like you get along well can you connect on a human level most importantly is there mutual respect and people forget about the mutual part but if you don't respect them it's not gonna work either and underpinning all of this is truth I don't know that's being blocked or not but dude I know himself

be true find someone looking for the same things you are if you are honest with yourself about what you want and what kind of partner you want things will go a lot better remember I said there'd be homework so could I pass this out good Oh that'd be brilliant I told you there'd be homework you can do you don't have to give this back you never have to no one else ever has to see it we should write this down on the back of the card I promise you it'll help you with clarity it helped me this slide was not indeed always black okay here we were gonna put up some a couple of our favorite partners to honor them but after a lot of internal discussions it was decided or at least it was told to me that maybe that'd be a bit unfair and everyone else now I'm still gonna talk about that mean if I don't name them we mostly like mostly like everyone

we work with but our favorite partners I wouldn't trade for accounts three times their size because they have always trusted us they've kind of stood by us we've grown together I think like as cliched as that might sound and in return we have always gone that extra mile for them and we always will and that be true for writing any studio out there in conclusion game development is a beautiful insane Lenti sometimes painful sometimes magical process and it is a big industry out there is it dangerous to go alone I don't know link but I do know that aspirational partners both internal and external make the journey more fulfilling or at least they always have for me thank you you

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