Care and Craft in Teams - Keeping People Motivated

[Music] thanks guys so much energy after lunch second day you guys okay no right no one's answering you guys okay yeah okay I'm gonna reduce some sorry you know sir organization here so I could walk around but yes thanks for coming hopefully we'll keep you entertained for 20 minutes 15 to 20 minutes but yeah I'm gonna talk about motivation also the the chat before that the talk was amazing I was very inspiring as well so cool to see that right why am I here and why should I listen about me talking about

team who's motivated I did put the same shirt but I put the picture in black and white so you wouldn't notice but then I decided I should just stop come clean so you just dope yeah it is sorry I didn't cut the hair though right I'm a senior producer a king you know King you heard about it the Pocky game room maybe yeah cool but I am originally from Brazil I've lived in some countries around the world games for over 10 years which tell us about my age more than I would like but yeah so I work with all sorts of games have been mobile console crunch many times not anymore web Facebook I had my own studio at a point which was quite interesting super hard but very rewarding and now I work at King I work for Square Enix blah blah blah did many things worked with Final Fantasy yes if that's what you're wondering I did not the brain behind it but I did work with that and I working farm hero saga do you know that game yeah have you

played it before cool I mean yes Candy's great we'll have you played farm if you not there's free Wi-Fi you can download it go for it so why am I gonna talk about this and I put this is one of Kings values actually but I don't want to make an advertisement for that I do like those two words very much I don't want to start with care so we're gamers right we play games before we started working most of us started playing correct is that a fair assumption and then we decided to go to the industry at least me and maybe I'm projecting to this lovely people there because we loved playing games it gave us some moments of fun or somewhere to hide if you had to escape a world which you never thought you could have remember I'm from Brazil right so for me playing games that had like snow was a WoW cuz I don't know what I was snow that's so cool it's so simple right but you could go somewhere that you actually never been before and then we talked about this scare and

this passion that we had when we were younger in bringing it to our craft right so today I've released more than 20 titles throughout my career I worked with games to make millions there are millions of people that play our games every day but that doesn't mean that we don't care about our craft I feel like we're all very proud I've been working in the industry and we really care about what we do correct correct and then in my role I'm a senior producer so that means I manage fair number of people and the word manage just makes it like okay the word manage just makes it like boss people around but that doesn't mean I don't care it doesn't mean we want to keep people motivated and we doesn't mean when it care about our craft we wouldn't make them together so I'm gonna share with you some of my insights as you know form Heroes is a game that's six years old did you know that it's kind of like old for a mobile game and some of the things I've been listening when people talk

about working a live games right so has anyone here worked in a prototype before right sorry you worked the other four so per borough types are really exciting right it's that phase that you just get dirty and you just make things and you break things and you do things really quickly one two people can make a prototype and you're very excited can be on paper it's very fast you have pre-production you have everything but you know when the game is live you go to that marathon you do all those hours you release the game and then it's over right Rock you still have the live game for a long time right so it didn't take six years to make farm right right it did and you don't know you didn't work on it did you know but it didn't take six years to make it but it's alive for six years so that means how do we actually keep it not only to the players but to the people still interesting and not only far I'm talking about that because I work on it but any other life game that you want to live for a very long time how do they actually keep the teams engaged like I

keep listening it can be repetitive it's a well-oiled machine oil it's not really sustainable anywhere on earth so let's think about that as well but the question is how do we keep people motivated isn't it much more interesting to talk about let's innovate let's make a prototype let's release something new news is always better not necessarily so I decided to Google how do you keep teams motivated and is it working hello hello so there's a bunch of stuff Google hard to keep teams whatever there's a lot I didn't read all of those things dad clicker I didn't read all those because they were ready to long what I'm gonna do with you guys I'm gonna share what I've done so it doesn't mean it's gonna work for you it doesn't mean it's correct what it means I've done work with many teams six countries ten years

some of these things work more than once they're just gonna share with you guys in the amount of time that I have first step oh sorry double microphone let me see if it's working it is our lining goals and motivations and it sounds like a company jargon right let's align the company goals so let's say that my company my goals have you heard this go before my project goals I wanna make more money and I want more players should definitely be golden right we should be painted in gold not funny okay good let's continue ah let's continue so let's say that I'm a producer so I come to we work together okay now you're my team you're my team as well and I come to you guys and I say okay thanks I have to point it it's fine I just thank you anyways let's say that we work together and I come with you with this goal and because I'm the producer I know better feature a is gonna do that it's a great manager right

you guys want me to work with you you do feature and that's gonna increase however they're you know talking and they're not really motivated by a feature a they actually want to do you art style cuz you know maybe we could improve some stuff they'd figure something out they learn a different thing or maybe they want to increase loading times no decrease loading times because it's taking too long thank you is it work me too and I say that that's what they want to do but that's task B and C right that's definitely not feature a so how do we do this does anyone know what I guess you'd be nice manager and let them do what they want no because then you don't make the money right how do we do that well there are many ways and you saw all of them there are many ways first we can do them together maybe we can do super

feature eh maybe I can actually have a conversation with them and say hey I would like to do this feature how do you think I should build it can we actually make sure that your Refresh art style can be put and maybe started with here and then we can make it like maybe milestone and go throughout the game can this actually be a way to improve loading times can we put some peace attack there can we make a release together I don't know but they can they know they could tell me maybe we do a new robot let me just put all these items together and we sit together and we see how long does it take what's the profit what's the revenue here how do we make sure that we acquire users and maybe we do a new road map maybe feature a it's not even the first thing that we do or maybe we do all of them in order or maybe we do a little bit we release a little bit of that a little bit of this a little bit of that a little bit of this yeah but we just talk I need to get the team to tell me what they want to do I need to align their motivations if I

just come to them and say hey I need 10% increase in revenue good luck that doesn't tell him anything not that he doesn't know what that means of course he does because you know he knows the business but that doesn't actually give me like oh my god I woke up today and I'm so excited to make 10 extra percent for the company I work for unless it's mine then yes guys I would you be shoot super excited but that doesn't really relate right right okay um so it's actually in my view is actually important to understand what do they want to do because they know better the product they built it right and I'm saying this from a producer perspective I don't know other producers in the room they have all the producers in the room yeah so this is not to you this is personal to me but I have no talent right I can't code I can't draw I can't design I just like make powerpoints that don't work clickers but basically you have to listen right I

owned the roadmap yes and I do the prioritization yes but I don't do it alone I will only do my job well if I make informed decisions and who helps me inform better than the team that actually built the product so that makes sense which gives me to the second point empowering decisions I know again beautiful English language since I moved to the UK my English gotten better so I decided to put better words in slides I hope you're there with me but remembered my goal right I'm very ambitious and I still like feature a very much but let's just say because I'm a very good producer I just make the roadmap because I own the roadmap and I prioritize it that is part of my job so we go from milestone one to milestone two we have all these features we're gonna deliver that's the 10% increase that we agreed before yeah cool how does the team feel when I come to their and say hey guys here's your roadmap how do you think the

team feels I'm maxing and ask you guys how do you think the team feels if I just come to them like good luck not cool right that's awful I've done it before actually it's awful don't do that I'm not gonna lie I did do this before but how can we make it better so I just give them the roadmap and be like do whatever you want also not cool right but we can have a leeway in the middle you ever done a hack day in your team yeah do you know what it is no great I knew you would come I don't know you'd say no this is I made this all for you basically it's a day in which I do to the office and I have so much emails to answer I come to the often and say okay guys today you can do whatever you want for a day go to the product anything you want to learn anything you want to do do it find out what is it the thing that is annoying you that little

pixel on the side or something learn something new that you haven't them before maybe you work with this tech a you want to work with tech B today is your day because we need to people to improve right and then that's it then they never use it again because they need to release the other feature so I just give them an agate and then like that's cool wrong don't do that okay that's not cool you give them a day you give them a little bit of the candy we're gonna give the whole package that makes no sense but one thing that we're trying to implement more and more is team Sprint's so the thing they found out or maybe they went to the forum right and the players have been complaining about something maybe something they know that they implemented wrong because the producer told me they had no time that little improvement that they own a hack they decided how they could do it they never actually got the time to do it so you give them team Sprint's on a team sprint they own the planning so I don't go them and give a sprint goal they own the planning that thing they investigate it or they learn I didn't see their let's think they investigated and they

learned they actually make it and implement if you do this you give them empowerment you give them ownership it's super important and this is what we're talking about we talk about team motivations right now remember sometimes you're working in a franchise or you're working in a game and you're gonna be with that for a very long time and maybe your user base doesn't not want you to put pvp okay maybe they don't want real-time pvp foreign players maybe don't want real-time PvP I don't know I didn't ask them yesterday but maybe that's not part of it maybe you're a hyper casual game doesn't fit maybe you're a shooter you shouldn't put crop seeds I don't know but it's that thing that you wanted to do but you have to let them do you have to online you have to listen to the team they know also what will make a difference it's about the autonomy it's about the ownership right so of course don't get me wrong like I do like the ownership myself that's why I chose this job I do own the Roma and the profit and

everything that we do is my responsibility the team you get engaged is my responsibility the priorities they're all my responsibility right and deliver it on every day however it doesn't mean I have to do it alone and also doesn't mean I want to do it alone it's done it before it didn't work let's talk about the last part how we were it's time a little bit more this is new for me actually connecting there's a mouse there's a cursor in the middle oh sorry guys connecting team and players this is very important I have a question I know you guys are talking to me who are the game experts like when you're doing a game were the experts is it me say yes no I'm kidding who is it the players that's true they are the experts if I sit down with one of our super engage players and farm and play a level next to them well I cannot even play like I have to ask my lead level designer sits right here to pass the levels for me because I just simply

cannot but they are the experts they're really hardcore players and my team knows the game better than me so I have two groups of people there are game experts my team and my players and this shouldn't be news right but we should connect them first there's the recognition have you ever have you ever in your whole career entered the tube hi London and saw someone play your game or somewhere yeah some people log because that feeling right I don't know if but for me it was something like I got I want to take a picture of the person because I want to frame the person like I don't care about me yeah I want to frame that but I want to frame this moment because where I came from I used to work sitting on the floor and now I'm here in London er there's someone in the public transportation playing the game that I made that's insane that's incredible there's nothing that pays that price right so why not we make that actually a habit yes take the public transportation it's better for

the environment but that's not what I meant like why don't we actually meet our players more often when we talk to them more often it give the team that recognition that purpose the proud feeling of I work in this product this is mine and look at this people that play my game and actually enjoy also valuable feedback right so we do have some events again which players come and get to meet us and it's like it's really cool cuz we few famous because they're like oh my god want to take a picture with you et cetera I hate that level I hate this thing on your game okay let's talk about it they remember they are game experts and maybe they actually have great ideas that we should listen to but the valuable feedback back and forth that conversation is super important and having the team have the autonomy to just talk to them I don't need to make the bridge is even greater because you create a much stronger community it's not us and then right we make this for them remember why we played you don't get the people that

play the game that made the games that we used to play say we're making them for it for them they made this for us and now we're making this for others so super important that you connect them and I'm rapping now yeah I get it I get it these are the three things I talk about today I know it was a bit fast but it's rays of keeping your team motivated even if they're working on life game for a very long time all you have to do is listen basically that's it thank you you [Applause] you [Music]