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游戏人如何在困境中保持创意并破茧成蝶?

发布时间:2011-06-20 21:41:14 Tags:,,,

游戏邦注:本文选自游戏开发者大会(GDC 2011)一篇颇受欢迎的演讲稿,原文作者是Zynga首席创意总监Bob Bates(全文内容仅反映Bob Bates个人观点,不代表Zynga公司立场),他在开头抛出了个棘手的问题——为何游戏产业的人才血液流失严重?如何捍卫游戏人的创意生活?

每一年,成千上万的人怀着梦想,如候鸟般飞进游戏产业。然而五年后,大约半数人选择了离开。

这种人员流动的商业成本是巨大的。行业培养了人才,最后却失去栋梁。而对人力就更是造成毁灭性打击。人们怀着憧憬踏入这片游戏生长的土地,最后却带着破灭的幻想离开。

在游戏行业里觅得一份差事似乎不是难事,真正难的是如何将这份差事转化为事业。我们每个人都认为应该做“有意义的工作”,但在游戏行业这样一个残酷又苛刻的领域,做“有意义”的工作,同时还要获得自我满足感,绝非易事。

为了探究这个问题,我采访了60多人。在这60人当中,有身处第一线的基层人员,也有从金字塔最底层爬上来的公司主管,当然,还有有些是彻底离开游戏业的其他工作者。

受访对象的职业包括:写手、程序员、设计师、测试员、制作人、营销者、项目经理和一大群企图在开发工作中靠自己的创意制作游戏的人。

我显然打开了他们的思绪闸门——最终收集到几百页要整理的资料。这是他们敞开心扉,直抒胸臆的结果。他们让我想到游戏人的心中流淌着对游戏多么深厚的感情。我答应采用匿名方式引言,但在本文中出现的话,正是出自我们这个行业中名头响当当的人。

在本文的最后,你会发现,就算你很难过上创意的生活,你也并不孤单。所幸的是,你并非无能为力,有许多成功的策略可以帮助我们解决共同面临的难题。

games designers(from gamesetwatch.com)

games designers(from gamesetwatch.com)

几个大难题

不论他们身处何种领域,每个想要过上创意生活的人很快会遇到各种各样的困难:寻找工作中的意义所在;应对无情的拒绝;在认同危机中求生存;与沮丧和沉溺不间断地做斗争。

创意在任何产业环境下都面临着额外的挑战:协调艺术追求和商业要求的矛盾;重复工厂流水线式的工作;克服与产品疏离感(因为他们能接触到的只是整个项目中的一小部分工作,所以制作者与成品丧失联系是必然的)。

如果说,以上挑战是各个产业的共患,那么,创意在游戏行业显然面临着更多难题:牺牲“小我”的幻想以完成“大我”的产品;克服那种抵制新想法进入规避风险环境的邪念;漫长的开发周期;个人的作品数量因项目的作废而受限(有些作品可能是被当成事业来经营的心血之作)。

我们的人格绑死在我们的工作上,然而也正是因为这样,我们才面临着所有的这些难题。我们想要做出卓越的游戏,却发现我们自己只不过是在重复千篇一律的项目,暗无天日的生活似乎永远看不到头,就算有一天看到一丝光线,我们的贡献如此微不足道,又怎么好意思说:“我做了这个游戏”。

在本文,我们将一起解决以下四个基本问题:

事业起步期,如果你觉得自己成了“机器上的一颗螺丝钉”,实现创意无门,你要怎么办?

你如何看待改变的风险?

事业成熟期,你如何保持创意和理智?

如果你发现自己陷入困顿的边缘,你要怎么办?

在回答这些问题前,我们先做好批判的思想者,然后一一攻破上述各道坎。

可怜人的现实

据劳工部报告显示,40岁以前,上班族曾从事的行业种类平均是14种。然而在此之前,劳工部预计大多数人一生当中只会做3种完全不同的工作(如曾经是工程师,后转型成教师,又再改行当店主等),而现在的结果却是预计数的整整7倍还多。另外,劳工部还称,几乎半数人对自己的工作并不满意。

我采访过的人中,画手、写手、编曲者、陶艺师、编织工——几乎所有人都陷于贫困、缺乏安全感和卑微。

“我从不曾抱有这样的幻想:我天生就该做我想做的事。那些踏进创意行业的人什么都想到了,就是没想到这个行业的不确定性和非常可能的困顿——这种想法让我有些吃惊。”

有些人说人员流动才是行业健康发展的表现——这就是优胜劣汰,适者生存。

“我记着Harlan Ellison的话:‘就算被阻碍成为科幻小说家,也不应该放弃自己的梦想。’”

有句格言:“从心所欲,金财自来”( “Do what you love; the money will follow.”),我们的难题就是这句话的负面效应。我们就是做自己想做的事,但最后却悲哀地发现,喜欢做的事正在变成不满的工作。(Tom Sawyer说:“人必须工作。”)

然而,最终还是不满的情绪催生了创意。

“有天赋、有创意的人有时候天生就会有所不满,这其实就是为什么他们能把工作做到好得一塌糊涂的原因。”

换而言之,我们可能只是一群牢骚鬼!

人人都是螺丝钉

虽然如此,我们的困境也非凭空捏造。 有人纠结的是该前进还是停留;有人苦恼的是怎么才能在待我们如此“不薄”的行业里求得生存;有人郁闷的是自己好像成了大机器上的一枚螺丝钉。这到底是为什么呀?

这可能是由于进入这个行业前就形成的错误观念。做游戏并不像有些人想得那么风光无限。

“我不认为象牙塔中的孩子们能明白,做游戏和玩游戏是两回事。喜欢香肠的人未必真的想在香肠厂工作。”

而现实是,大部分人都是从错误的观念起步。那些公认会是行业领袖的人一开始也只是一枚螺丝钉。

“不要太看重头衔,有点耐心。‘从收发室起步’是历史悠久的传统,在游戏行业也不例外。现在还有很多要学习的(要学的东西比我那会儿还多呢)。”

不止如此,每个人都只是一枚螺丝钉。

“没有人一开始做的就正是自己想做的游戏,即使是在最强悍的工作室也一样。”

“我目前的职称是‘游戏总监’,这听起来好像我有非常多的创意决定权,不过事实上不是这么回事。”

那么,如果这就是你的起点,你怎么善处逆境?

镙丝钉式的生活

当你还是行业的一枚小镙丝钉时,献出10000个小时到工作中,这就是你的觉悟。

Malcolm Gladwell等人曾写道,任何创意行业的专家背后都藏着10000个小时的艰辛工作。从披头士到Bobby Fischer(诺贝尔化学奖获得者),都是靠这10000个小时的努力获得举世瞩目的成就。“作曲家、篮球队员、科幻小说家、滑冰运动员、钢琴师、围棋选手、罪犯头目……没有人能不花时间就跻身世界一流专家行列。”(游戏邦注:此处出自Malcolm Gladwell的《异类》一书,作者对成功学的独特理解,让人颇受启迪。)

站在哪就从哪学起。你毕竟已经进入这个行业了,这就是亲身实践的最佳地点。

“对我而言,从事游戏开发工作的最大好处之一是,能得到必要的行业信息。你接触到的是专业级的游戏引擎、专业级的工具、专业级的概念艺术,最重要的是,在不同专业中出类拔萃的同事。这才是信息来源的无价之宝!”

把握时间做你能做的最好的游戏,并想好这是不是你想一直做下去的那种游戏。这是你了解自我、自我定位的时期。

我交谈过的人可以类比为一个乐团。不同的音乐相融合成一支完整的乐曲,管弦乐只是其中之一。典型的交响乐团的小提琴部一般有30到35个琴手且各个琴手都得尽可能演奏到最好的水平。哪怕只是大机器上的一枚小镙丝钉,对机器的正常运转也是至关重要的。如果你对自己的角色满意,那就太好了!但如果你发现你所在的团队根本没有给予足够的重视,也许你应该另谋高就了。

或者如果你对自己的角色充满挫折感,那么,也许你应该考虑演奏另一种乐曲了,也许你在小团体中才能有扮演大角色的机会。现在,这种机会在我们这个行业又是存在的,从大公司落草到小公司的机会相当之多。

体现自己的价值。

在任何一个游戏公司,总有些工作是没人在做的,这就形成了一个真空地带。如果你发现了需要填充的真空地带且确实去做了,那么你很快就会发现你开始融入更高的责任层。所以找出自己的闪光点,如果有机会发光发热,那就主动一点。当你成为解决一个问题的关键时,你很快就会发现你身上身负重任了。

你也有被逼无耐的时候。

当然,无论什么行业,总有那么个要面对风吹雨打的时候,总有那么个不得不为了钱、经验、新项目的工作机会而辞职的时候。

找到兴趣点。

工作遇到坎了吧?我能提供的最好的建议是,找到项目中的兴奋点。你必须踩到这个能激发兴趣的点,否则你是做不好的,更严重一点,你可能还会非常痛苦。

“做一枚又好又有用的镙丝钉,然后找机会转动你曾经钉着的大齿轮。”

“如果你喜欢在创意工作中的任何一个小细节上都受到全面控制,那么游戏行业大概找不到适合你生存的土壤。”

“开心一点,好好工作,我相信任何时候,我们都需要从项目中找点乐子,只要能让自己兴奋起来,管他是什么。你得对工作有爱,不然你是出不了头的。做游戏时,我几乎总是能找到我喜欢做的事,就算我平时对那事并不感冒。”

镙丝钉的转型焦虑

好吧,当了这么久的镙丝钉了,该转型了,怕了吧?你应该另谋高就了?你该升格为公司的一把手了吗?还是你应该考虑一下当独立自由工作者?

变动公司有风险,保持原样也不见得安全。

公司和项目来来去去。你怎么做都必然有风险。那些失业的人,那些工作室倒闭的人,那些项目被撤销的人,我们都见识过了。一个公司能有多稳定,真的是不可窥测的。

更惨的还不是迈出步子。原地不动比大步前进更危险。假设现在你成了企业家了,你的生意就是你自己。法人安全网早就没有了,所以另谋生路、管理事业进程、识别每个有风险的选择,决定权能都在我们每个人自己的手上。

我交谈过的人,没有一个想得出如何消除风险。我们能做的最多不过是明智地应对风险。

不过,无论你是呆在原公司,还是转战新公司,升级到管理阶层仍然有风险:

亲身实践创意的机会缺失

接受升职前,人们最怕的往往是失去亲身实践创意的机会,而这是他们在当前工作中最享受的部分。

情有可原。亲力亲为的创意工作确实能给人带来真正的乐趣。当创意还处于原始阶段,能把创意转化为现实,这确实是太令人兴奋了!

能力搁浅

有一套好工具和掌握一门使用工具的好技术,伴随而来的是无法抗拒的兴趣和吸引力。无论是美工包装、程序语言、声音和音乐创作工具、还是关卡编辑,都没关系——只要我们有技术、有想象力,我们就有能力做点什么。

雕刻家可以随心所欲地雕刻,陶艺师可以好好玩弄自己的黏土,画手可以尽情挥舞手中的画笔。我们也能如此快意人生!

这就是你想放弃的东西?

另一种作用方式

在亲身实践的层次上,我们使用的是直接与受众接触的工具。我们写他们能听到的曲子、我们画他们能看到的图案、我们做他们会经历的关卡。但是,当上升到领导管理阶层,我们只是带领团队使用我们曾经用过的工具。

在这种直接作用于受众的一维环境中,你会更快乐吗?能施加更广泛的影响于更多游戏制作人员,会让你更有满足感?

无尽的任务

我喜欢开车。这让我觉得如同置身于某种任务,我要做的就是一件件有始有终的任务,每做完一件任务,我就有一种强烈的成就感。

这实在是一件简单的事:从这里开到那里,注意别撞车就好了。

掌握一门技能,然后用这门技能做游戏,这和我的开车经历类似。上级说什么,你做什么;收到反馈后,进行下一项任务。

不过,当你跻身管理阶层,这一切都离你远去。

你已经是管理人员了,你总是有一大堆做到一半半的任务,没有一个合心意,大多还是要你大吼大叫过后才能做完。你已经是管理人员了,总是有其他事你得忙活,但你极少能做完。

“我能行么?”

不少人称在接受升职前,他们最担心的是到底能不能做好那份工作。对大多数人来说,这根本就算不上问题。那些不能克服的人会发现,回去干老本行也不是太困难。

学习新技能。

令许多人大感意外的是,开始管理工作后,要学的东西那么多,但公司给的培训那么少。

“我最惊讶的是,当我开始管理员工(指导、生产、风险管理、一点财政等)时,我必须学习的东西多到超乎想像。”

宽容一点。

有些经理人担心他们能否有效地监督其他人完成他自己曾经做过的工作。他们担心自己会成为后座司机。但大多情况下,这些担心是毫无根据的。

“你必须理解并接受别人与你不同的工作方式。一开始你觉得他们做错了;但请你退一步想想,他们做了什么、为什么那么做、他们的所为是错误或者只是不同。通常结果是,那只是不同。”

另外,当你处于领导地位,如果你发现手下的人做的工作和你的想法不符,你可以选择合适的人来做。

“有个设计师做的每一点都和我的想法不符,不过他的很多技术都比较好。所以就没什么大问题了。我就当这是创意和个人贡献吧。”

这些就是移位管理阶层所面临的风险,但成为管理人也不无好处:

创意的“增倍器”。

作为项目领导,你可以通过挖掘他人的创意,从而实现你自己从未表达出来的创意。

如果我自己做游戏的美工,那我大约只能画些简笔画了。但我成了管理人了,所以我可以说,怪物来了,地板要震动啊。这时,模型师、动画师和程序师就开工了:怪物轰然倒地,震起飞沙走石无数,真是太震撼了。

领导指挥

接管领导监督工作,就好比一个音乐家放下乐器,成了一个乐团指挥——自己不玩乐器了,但带着一帮人玩乐器。

欣赏团队的成就。

作为经理人,你有时会享受到不同的乐趣。幸福感来自帮助他人。这也可以说是一种“自豪感”。曾帮过的人取得了成就,你觉得自豪;你一手创建的组织取得了成就,你也感到自豪。我采访的人中,有些人的强烈自豪感甚至超过自己亲手完成游戏时产生的成就感。

有个设计师曾说自豪感是“近乎父母”般的存在。

体验不同的创意。

有些人认为把“艺术”创意和“解决问题”创意区别开来,是有意义的。

“艺术”创意在行业的大环境下可能会受到压制,而相同的环境恰恰为管理人的“解决问题”的创意提供了无穷的表现机会。

许多人谈论在约束中工作的创意挑战和创意冲动比解决问题更得能到满足。

也有许多人觉得“解决问题”的创意比亲力亲为的工作更有价值。

“我从程序员发迹,跻身设计和管理层。对我来说,这还不错——我做设计师和管理人比做编码员更好。”

影响业界。

有些人怀抱影响整个业界的雄心壮志,却发现从基层做起真是困难重重。

想要影响整个游戏界,你首先得扮演领导或者管理人的角色。

重新定义“眼光”。

相当多人说自己进入管理阶层是为了保持创意性眼光。但大多领导者很快就意识到眼光不是能创造出来的东西,而是你得致力于的综合产品。

你还能有创意吗?答案是肯定的,但此“创意”非彼“创意”,因为得到的奖励是不同的。

“一开始,我很高兴我的工作‘很有趣’——短期循环的短期回报和紧张刺激。现在,我还是很开心,因为我的工作是深刻而深沉的长期旅行:从前,我因自己是一个不可思议的团队中的一员而倍受激励;现在我成了领导者,虽然难免要忍受苦闷和孤独,但我的内心却充满自豪感。”

但也许,你正在考虑,抛开现在的公司,打拼出自己的一片天地。不过,孤军奋战的优势和劣势其复杂程度恐怕不是我这篇零零散散的文章所能解释清楚的,所以现在我只是提一些与创意相关的要点。

如果你成了独立自由工作者,你以为你可以拥有更多的创意控制权,还是当你没想过吧。我当独立顾问都7年了,我的工作始终就是理解别人的目标,然后指导他们的团队促成愿景。他们的渴望才是重点,和我自己的期望没半点关系。作为独立自由工作者,对客户的项目确实没有什么创意控制权可言。

想当顾问,一项技能不够,你得掌握一套技能。除了开发游戏的技能,你还得补充点商业悟性。

从创造力方面来说,如果你有幸成为独立自由工作者,那你获得的一个优势是,你可以自己挑项目做了(在公司的话,你现然不太可能实现这种奢望)。

不过,说来也怪,成为独立自由工作者的一个最大的优势居然和你期望中的安全感完全相反!你在公司工作时,上头的一个电话就置你于死地;独立自由工作者就不用活在那个电话的阴影里了。

所以,如果你还考虑当单飞的话,这里有几个问题你可以问问自己:

你在游戏行业有足够的人脉吗?

你有没有自己的工作原则?

你有没有承受六个月后就不知道自己在做什么的觉悟?这种不安全感你能接受吗?

和其他为了实现自己的创意的人一起工作,你会不会觉得快乐?

离开公司你还得品尝另一种滋味——成为一匹“孤独的狼”,奔跑在游戏开发的旷野上。这就是独行者的团队。

“我不得不孤身前进,爬山涉水。为了找到自我满足感,我宁可承受孤零零的可怜样,也不愿委身于成功团队的奴隶光环。寻找自我感足,才使我的生活充满乐趣。我要有创意能力,我还要控制权:从字体大小到网站样式,都由我说了算。我才不想成为大机器上的一颗螺丝钉。”

games designers(from boston.com)

games designers(from boston.com)

做出正确的决定

以上这些就是你做出改变后将遇到的风险。现在问题就是,你要不要做?你做了会开心吗?你要怎么做出决定?

Daniel Gilbert在他的书《Stumbling on Happiness》中说道,当做出改变职业生涯的决定时,想知道自己会不会快乐,审视自己的内心是不够的,不妨问问有相同背景的人,听听他们的想法。

对话业内人士,从中受启发——这也是本文的意旨之一。所以如果你有改变的打算,不妨和这些人谈谈。

做出改变后的前景如何,你有多不胜数的资料作推断参考。

了解自己,包括了解自己想做什么游戏,想在什么样的环境下工作:大团队还是小团队?大公司还是小工作室?高端大作还是休闲小品?暴力型游戏还是温和型游戏?RPG还是射击类、运动类、益智类?……

为了下定决心,你必须考虑清楚你的取向。

在小团队,你的头衔可能更多。这对你有没有吸引力?

“专注型的人更适合去做大项目。想多方面控制创意的人可以致力于小项目,在小项目上他可能扮演更多角色;或者开发大作,这样他们的职责可以涉及多个学科(游戏设计师、制作人等等)。”

你可能喜欢某样工作,却并不擅长。大家都想一枝独秀。你怎么样才能脱颖而出?如果说你只掌握了一门技术,那你最好还是专注于大项目,别升职。但如果你是个多面手,你可能得考虑一下小项目,或者尝试一下当领导者。记着,你始终在成长。23岁时喜欢做的事未必35岁了还能保持兴趣。

“我现在明确了,是我的多才多艺让我脱颖而出。还有更好的美工师、游戏设计师和关卡制作师,但熟知各个领域、能当项目的领导者、能同时与他们通力合作的人并不多。”

做出改变前,先看同事,后看工作。

我交谈过的人,几乎每人都指出,和其他有才能的伙伴一起工作时多么心满意足,和不适合的同事共事时多么糟糕难受。

独立研究还显示,影响工作满意度的最大因素不是工作本身,也不是薪水,而是与你共事的人。

如果你想换工作的话,试着和新公司里尽可能多的人见面。这种面试过程其实是双向的——你被新公司面试的同时,你也在面试新公司的人。

问问公司的员工,那里的生活如何,你就能充分了解那家公司的公司文化了。

特别是,有些地方极其注重把个人目标与公司需要相结合,这种地方就真是求之不得了。

那儿的人和你有共同的创意价值观?

他们乐于合作吗?

你喜欢他们,尊敬他们吗?

他们够能力、讲原则、有理智吗?

那有没有良师益友?

他们有天赋、精力和热情吗?

他们认同你的工作原则和工作个性吗?

考虑完以上这些问题,你仍然要做出决定。你敢不敢冒险?

对这个问题的回答几乎是惊人地一致。

热情迎接风险

不开心地留下,不如迈开步子前进。

担忧往往是多余的。许多人称自己担心犯错误,其实无论做什么,做对做错都是不可预测的。

“我已经做了许多真正大的职业生涯决定,每次我都觉得前途未卜——恐惧感随之而来。但每次改变后,几个月、几年后我回想起来,这些决定看起来都是那么平淡无奇,肯定不是当初的那种感觉。”

只有几个人称后悔当初的选择,大多数人认为即使改变在短期内没有凑效,但就长期来说,改变是没错的。

你改变工作后,之前在每一份工作中所学的知识之后都会派上用场。随着时间推移,每一份工作都会增加你的身价。这也是长期职业生涯的形成过程。

就我自己来说,每次我在一个公司干不下去,6个月后,我做新工作比做旧工作更开心。这其中似乎有着强烈的心理上的原因……

以下选文来自Daniel Gilbert的《Stumbling on Happiness 》一书,姑且作为这种心理的一种解释:

“遭受创伤之后,伴随而来的结果通常是顺应。不幸的事确实会对我们产生影响,但往往不如我们所想像的那么深那么久……这是因为人心潜意识会对痛苦的经历进行模糊处理。”

“一旦我们的潜在经历成真,一旦我们与这段经历有利害关系——我们的大脑就会驱使我们往有利的方向靠拢。”

“人们认为愚蠢的作为比愚蠢的不作为更让人感到后悔莫及。但确究表明,百分之九十的人想错了。事实上,从长远来讲,每个年龄段,每个行业的人因为没有做某事而感受到的悔恨都比因为做了某事而感受到的悔恨要强烈。。”

保持创意和理智

面对所有的混乱和风险,你如何保持一颗创意而理智的心?

首先,你得适应,你得不断学习。

从职业生涯的角度讲,停滞不前等于坐以待毙。你必须不断升级你的技能。

“我有些朋友专情于一件事,有的坚持用6502(游戏邦注:著名的8位CPU,曾用于Apple1&2、FC(NES)等系统)集中译码、有的只使用一种图形工具和技术、有的专注于设计一种主题冒险活动,正是这些人最终离开了游戏业。并非每个人都能学会喜欢改变,但我确实认为,学会改变是在我们这个行业中快乐地生存下来的先决条件。”

你知道的创意越多,你的创意思维就越发达。创意相当于制造新联系。你涉足的领域越多,你就越能制造出好创意。

《The Medici Effect》这本书称,不同学科的交叉碰撞才能擦出创意和发明的火花。所以,学会不同学科的知识会为后来的创造打下基础。你掌握的技能越多,你就越有机会展示你的天赋和运用你的创意。

和我交谈过的人,大多坚持自己的嗜好(那些没坚持住的人通常认为是因为他们的工作太忙了,太满了)。

大多数的个人嗜好,有些与游戏有关,有些则毫无关系。但许多人都说自己对嗜好的坚持是不由自主的。一些人认为脱离商业的自由给他们带来一种绝对的控制感。其他人则享受商业上的合作性,但仍然喜欢有一片不必理会他人的空间。事实上所有人都同意,忙中偷闲对本职工作也不无好处,因为他们从这些奇奇怪怪的嗜好和活动中培养了洞察力。

“写诗、建三英里的太阳系模型、烤一盆什么东西,从中我学到的是对游戏的深刻理解。其实这些兴趣与工作之间的界限并不像我们想像的那么绝对。”

创意的自我人格

虽然没有从心理学上的创意思维这个高度出发,但有几个关于创意人格和创意积极性的要点,值得指出来。

创意人员知道这几点还是有意义的,因为如果你对自己的需要一无所知,你怎么知道向你的管理人员提出要求?

当然,如果你是管理者,也些信息也同样能使你受益。

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi因“流动”研究的经验而为游戏设计师们所熟知。但他也花了30年时间来研究创意人如何生活和工作。他是这么描述创意人的:

强力执行与冷静思考的周期交替。

玩乐与纪律相结合。

内向与外向个性的非凡共同体。

为缺少评价个人创意的客观标准而痛苦纠结。

在许多开发者已经熟知的工作中,Roger Von Oech称每一个执行人员的身上都活着四种人格:

开拓者,寻找新理念。

艺术家,实现新创意。

审判者,断成品优劣。

圣战士,对抗新想法。

Malcolm Gladwell认为有三样东西驱使着创意人:

自主,是以自己的方式来解决问题的权威感。

掌控,是精通某个层次的技能来解决问题的成就感。

目的(意图),是连接努力与收获之间的关系桥梁。

“这三个条件的满足是工作所必须的。最终使我们在朝九晚五的工作中获得快乐的不是金钱,而是使我们内心充实满足的工作本身……”

Teresa Amabile是哈佛商学院的一名教授,他研究的是工业环境下的创造力。根据他的研究:

外在奖励事实上抑制了创意。当人们觉得他们是因为创意而受到奖励时,外在控制感会削弱他们的创意。

但如果内在动机够强大,如果我们对所做的事充满热情,创意之泉也会源源不断。

管理创意生活

管理创意生活对我们来说有什么意义呢?这里有几种据说特别有效的内在奖励。

我们应该生活在自感受到欣赏的环境中。

对于许多人来说,受到尊重归根结底是出于贡献,无论是什么形式的尊重。所谓尊重,可能是金钱,也可能是获得了新项目工作更大的负责范围,也可能只是一个专门的庆祝会。

信任:管理层表现出信任是对个人的强大激励。

团体活动:能增进成员之间的互相了解。

积极反馈:能传达管理层和团体对个人的尊重和重视。

有偿出席会议:有偿出席行业会议,显示了公司对个人的尊重,及公司对成员人格及专业成长的支持。当然,这同时也显示出对公司的信任(因为他们不怕自己的员工看到其他公司优越的生存状况)。

允许在个人兴趣的领域做实验。

投其所好:设计师可能会感激公司组织了生活学习课程;程序师可能会感谢高端技术设备和软件的引进;游戏设计师通常喜欢晚上大家一起玩游戏,或者只是出去看电影也好。

合理的体制:每个人都拥有知情权与发言权。

团队归属感: 能成为一个强大的团队中的一员,大家齐心协力做出卓越的产品,每个人都倍感骄傲。

我们已经知道了,外部奖励通常不是激发创意的有效动机。特别是,几乎每个受访者都说金钱对他们而言不是主要动因。事实上,许多研究表明,一旦基本生活有保障,金钱的数量和个人的快乐就没有什么关系了。

我们不妨来看下一些无效的外部奖励:

过期奖励

我们的项目周期长,难度大。所以,工作奖励只能推迟到项目结束了——这是无效奖励。

“不少创意人员结束项目后,如同分娩过后的女人,情绪都比较激烈,紧随其后的还有对工作的“产后忧郁症”、轻度抑郁。这时,及时给予其奖励,而不是等到年度大会,这点至关重要。”

给错钱

未实现分红计划或政策变动导致分红计划变动,就像收走了当初承诺要给的小费,还不如一开始就别承诺。

导致同事互相牵拌的分红计划只会适得其反,打上“精英”烙印的分红计划更是遗害无穷。

有些分红计划参考了某些指标,可惜这些指标不是一般人能“达标”的。也就是说,分红的标准对一些人来说是可望而不可及的。

有些虚假的分红计划,大家心知肚明,这种“天上的馅饼”只是为了诱使大伙拼命干活。

有些分红计划造成的反效果是,扰乱成员的工作行为,牺牲产品利益。

不过在我给大家塑造创意人不爱钱的印象前,这里有几种确实能促进工作的金钱奖励。

给对钱。

公司尊重你、认可你的贡献而给你发的工资。

真实可计量的利益分配计划或期权计划。

短期经济紧缩而给的经济补偿。

game studio(from doolwind.com)

game studio(from doolwind.com)

创意的工作环境

管理创意生活的另一部分是找个能做事的地方。不同的创意得益于不同的工作空间。

有些创意活动需要时间和独处:有时间沉思,有时间拼接思维碎片,有时间构思大局。

时间条件满足后,你还需要一个独处的空间。那个独处的地方要有扇门,能把噪音挡在门外,以免扰乱头脑中纷繁的思绪。那个地方还要有副消音耳机。那个地方允许你偶尔出去溜哒一圈。

有一种创意叫作“灵光乍现”,即在工作中多种创意的火花争相点亮。这时候,我们应该对每一个提出的想法展开讨论,直到讨论结果比各人自己想出的创意更胜一筹。

“办公室开放计划”能营造这种创意氛围,还能使团队成员都领会合作精神和增进责任感。

最佳办公室就能同时创造两种工作环境——方便独处也允许扎堆。我大爱剑桥的那间信息通信办公室,在那里,各个设计师都有独立办公室,但全部与公共休息室相通。

最受排斥的办公环境就是小隔间。大多数人都很痛恨这种完全没有私人空间、又不能自由交流的的办公环境。

设备也属于办公环境的一部分,许多受访者都强调好工具能促进工作。

“节俭但不廉价。办空环境没必要搞得太铺张,但硬件和软件都要高端。”

创意的公司文化

有些公司文化明确提出鼓励创意。

民主氛围太稀薄的团队,往往做出的决策也是平淡无奇的。大家都该有发言权;大家都希望自己的想法被听到被考虑。不过大家也希望团队中有个作出最终的决策的群龙之首,能管理所有人。
合理的管理体制之下,每个人都能各得其所、各取所需。

在理想的工作环境下,游戏是根本、做游戏才是硬道理——这也是大家为之奋斗的共同理想,而不是一意孤行、各自为政。

“出于开发和发行目的,而做出的高质量的管理决策能产生长期效应,与之相比,所有的奖杯、额外假期甚至是从未得到的红利都变得苍白无力。”

在理想的工作环境下,管理者给予应得的信任。

理想的工作环境,鼓励玩笑,即使做游戏是件严肃的事。

“因为追求,所以创意。”

“玩在一起的才能团结在一起。”(Matt Weinstein《Managing to Have Fun》)

灵魂的漫长黑夜

在本文的最后一部分,我有必要强调一下,我只是畅谈自己的看法,不代表任何受访者的意见。

当你惹上麻烦时,你怎么办?当你陷入绝望?当清醒和直面人生这样的概念你都无法想像时?

正如前文所言,创意人注定无法摆脱黑暗情绪和沮丧的笼罩。

我们的人格就藏在工作之下,营生之中。对于游戏行业,一篮子鸡蛋政策是很危险的。

我们走上了一条不凡路,就注定接受风险——社会甚至同辈都不看好我们。我们为了工作而游离于边缘。

艺术追求和产品总是受到自己内心想法的抨击拷问,当然也时常受到严酷环境的责难考验。

所以,我希望下面的话能在你遇到困难的时候助你一臂之力。

身体才是革命的本钱,保持身体健康。

酒精绝对不是你的朋友,咖啡应该也不会对你好。

真需要朋友的时候,找能说话的人。你并不孤单。我们大家都知道这种感觉。

当你快要无法承受时,不要和大问题硬碰硬,一次解决一点点,最终能搞定。

接受自己的不完美。有些事,够好就行,知足常乐。

如果你做事不够快,那就看看有没有能马上处理的事。有时候,杂草堆积如山,也会阻隔看清一棵树木的视线,更别说看到整片森林。(意指没处理完的小事堆得太多,让你看不到更重要的事,因小失大)

试一下略过清单上的某些事,这样你就不会那么焦虑了。特别是那些你认为你“应该”去做,但“不必”去做的事。

害怕自己宝刀已老,光辉不再?这种恐惧毫无根据。现在的你总是比过去的你更强大。你仍然有好工作,未知的惊喜还在前方等着你。

寻求医生的帮助。去看医生不是软弱的表现,而是勇气的标志。医生也是优秀的顾问,不过请记住坚持自己的主张。

找点乐子,最好是和工作无关的。(工作嵌入生活而产生的一个问题是,你会很难分辨你是在娱乐还是在工作。当你阅读一本书时,突然意识到此书可能对工作有用,阅读的乐趣烟消云散。不过别担心,试着为了快乐本身而寻找快乐吧,如果有其他东西不请自来,也不必挂心。)

就算在你最背的一天,也试着挺过去。(Norman Mailer 说:“所谓专业人士,就是最差的一天还能好好工作。”)

当你快要被责任压垮时,记住,没有什么项目会因为仅仅一个人的游离而崩溃。

当你真的非常失落时,切记,沮丧也有循环周期。

今天你也许无法想像,但一切都会过去,开怀大笑的日子还会重现。

我相信大多难题的出现都有其意义。我们要做的就是相信自己很重要,相信自己的工作很重要。因为我们做的是娱乐,有时确实很难“乐”起来。但我相信为了我们自己的快乐,我们的工作必须有意义。

毕业,我们还是艺术家呢。

所以,让工作变得更有意义、更有目的性。你会因此更快乐,你的游戏会因此更精彩。

结论

让我们用更响亮的旋律遮蔽压抑的音符吧。

游戏行业就像一只大茧,我们是在里面扑腾挣扎的蝴蝶,为了完成生命中最华丽的蜕变更甘愿忍受巨大的痛苦。

冲破厚茧的束缚是一种极限的突破,过程是痛苦的,但得到的果实是甘甜的——我们破茧成蝶,如获新生。

所以……

如果你觉得你像大机器上的一颗螺丝钉,那你就磨练自己的技艺。

如果你觉得自己陷入困境,别怕,总有光明的道路等着你。更多的机会和选择就在你的面前。

孤单来袭,请记得你并不是一个人。这个行业中还有许多人盼望着你成功。我们一直在一起。

为金钱所累,先确定温饱。衣食无忧了,就享受工作的乐趣,不要为了钱而工作。

如果你害怕风险——和那些经历过的人谈谈。把改变也当成生命之旅的一部分。

如果你遇到困难,试着做点些有意义,能给你自主感、撑控感和目的性的工作吧。

在职业生涯中始终创意地生活。

学无止境。

玩得快乐。

努力工作。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

The Belly of the Whale: Living a Creative Life in the Games Industry

by Bob Bates

[In this comprehensive article, based on a popular GDC 2011 lecture, Zynga chief creative officer for external studios Bob Bates tackles the thorny issue of why the industry hemorrhages talent, and how to make sure you are creatively fulfilled.]

Every year, thousands of people come into the games industry, believing they have found their “dream job.” Five years later, about half of them are gone.

The business cost of this turnover is huge. We train people, only to lose them. The human cost is even more devastating, as these people enter a field they expect to love, then end up leaving, disillusioned.

It turns out that getting a job in our industry is actually pretty easy. What is hard is making a career of it. Each of us feels the need to do “meaningful work” in our lives, yet it’s hard to do such work and to find fulfillment within the sometimes brutal and unforgiving environment of the games industry.

To explore this problem, I interviewed over 60 people, ranging from workers “in the trenches” to company executives who have come up through the ranks, as well as people who have left the industry altogether.

I spoke with writers, programmers, artists, testers, composers, producers, marketers, project managers and a host of others who are trying to use their creativity to nurse games through development.

I obviously struck a chord, because I ended up with hundreds of pages of material to sort through. People poured out their hearts and bared their souls. They reminded me again how deep the passion runs in those who make games. I promised anonymity, but many of the people whose quotes you will see below are household names in our industry.

By the end of this article you should realize that if you are having difficulty living a creative life, you are not alone. Fortunately, you should also realize that you are not powerless, and that there are successful strategies for dealing with the issues that many of us face.

The Problems

Everyone who wants to live a creative life quickly runs into all kinds of difficulties, no matter what field they’re in: finding meaning in their work; dealing with rejection; surviving identity crises; and sometimes battling depression and addictions.

Creatives in any industrial environment face additional challenges: reconciling their artistic goals with the financial imperatives of the business; doing repetitive, factory-like “assembly line” work; and becoming alienated from the product they are making because they touch only a small part of the overall project and lose the connection between the maker and the thing that is made.

But creatives in the games industry have even more difficulties: adjusting to the loss of individual vision in service to the collaborative product; dealing with the resistance to new ideas built into our risk-averse environment; and the long development cycles and cancelled projects that limit the number of published titles an individual may work on in his or her career.

Our identities are tied up in our work, and yet here we are faced with all these problems. We want to make great games, but we find ourselves working on cookie-cutter projects that might never see the light of day and even if they do, our contribution is so small that it’s hard for us to say, “I made that game.”

In this article, we’ll deal with these four basic questions:

Early in your career, what do you do if you’re feeling like a “cog in the machine,” with little opportunity to exercise your creativity?

How do you contemplate the risks of making a change?

Later in your career, how do you stay creative and sane?

What do you do if your find yourself slipping into troubled territory?

But first, being the good critical thinkers that we are, we should attack the premise.

Boo-hoo! Poor Little Us!

The Department of Labor reports that men and women hold an average of about 14 jobs by the time they turn 40. And whereas previously they predicted that most people will have three totally different careers in their lifetimes, they are now predicting as many as seven completely different careers (for example switching from being an engineer, to a teacher, to a shop owner, etc). Moreover, they say that almost half of all workers are not happy with their jobs.

Several people I interviewed pointed out that we’ve got it better than creatives anywhere else. Painters, writers, composers, potters, weavers — almost all of them labor in poverty, insecurity, and obscurity.

“I’ve never been under any illusion that the world owes me a living doing what I want to do. I’m kind of astonished by the notion that someone who enters a creative field should expect anything other than uncertainty and likely penury.”

Others said the turnover is healthy — it weeds out the people who shouldn’t be in the industry in the first place.

“I’m reminded of Harlan Ellison’s statement: ‘Anyone who can be dissuaded from being a science fiction writer should be.’”

And it could be that our problems are the downside of the aphorism “Do what you love; the money will follow.” We’re doing what we love, but we’re finding out that what we love, is turning into WORK. (Or, as Tom Sawyer said, “Work is what a body is obliged to do.”)

And finally there’s the theory that being unhappy is simply part of what makes people creative in the first place.

“Talented, creative people are sometimes inherently dissatisfied — and that’s actually what makes them so damn good at their jobs.”

In other words, it might be that we’re just a bunch of crybabies!

A Cog in the Machine

Nevertheless, our problems are real. Some of us are wondering whether we should make a move or stay where we are. We wonder how we can survive in an industry that treats us so horribly. Some of us feel like cogs in the machine. Why is that?

It could be due to an inaccurate set of perceptions that people have formed prior to coming into the industry. Making games just isn’t as glamorous as some people think.

“I don’t think college kids get that making games has little to do with playing them. People enjoy sausage but don’t really want to work in the sausage factory.”

But the reality is that this is where most people start. Most of the people you think of as leaders in this industry started off as a cog.

“Don’t feel too entitled or impatient. ‘Starting in the mail room’ is a time-honored tradition, and it is still a true path in the games industry. There is a ton to learn now (way more than when I started.)”

Not only that, but it turns out that everyone is a cog.

“No one gets to make exactly the game they want to make — even at highly-empowered studios.”

“My current job title is ‘Game Director’, and while that might sound like I have a huge creative hammer, it’s just not true.”

So if that’s how you have to start out, how do you make the best of it?

Be the Cog

While you are a cog:

Put in your 10,000 hours.

Malcolm Gladwell and others have written that it takes ten thousand hours of work to become an expert in any creative endeavor. From the Beatles to Bobby Fischer, no one ever made it big without those 10,000 hours. “…composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals… No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time.” (Outliers)

Use your position to learn your craft. You’re on the inside — the best possible place to get a hands-on education.

“To me one of the biggest advantages of working in any game development job is access to information. You’re working with a professional-grade game engine, have professional tools available, professional concept art, and most importantly, coworkers in different disciplines ‘who know their stuff’. That’s a treasure trove of information!”

Use the time to make the best possible game you can, and decide if that is the kind of game you want to keep making. This is the time for you to learn about yourself and about what you like to do.

Several people I spoke to made the analogy to an orchestra. There are all different kinds of music, and orchestral music is one of them. The typical violin section of a symphony orchestra has 30 to 35 players. Each of them is playing the best they know how. Being a cog in that machine is vital to the creation of that grand style of music. If you are happy in that role, great! But if you find that your company does not value it properly, perhaps you should switch to one that does.

Or if you find you are frustrated with that role, then perhaps you should find a different kind of music to play, maybe with a smaller ensemble where you can play a larger role. Those opportunities exist again in our industry now, and there are many opportunities to move from a large company to a smaller one.
Make yourself useful.

In every game company, there are jobs that aren’t getting done. There is a natural vacuum that is formed, and if you see something that needs to get done and offer to do it, you soon find that you start to get sucked upwards into positions of greater responsibility. So figure out what you want to be known for, and if there is an opportunity to do that work, then volunteer for it. When you are the solution to a problem, you’ll soon find yourself with as much responsibility as you can handle.
Sometimes, you’re just stuck (for a while).

Of course, into every career some rain must fall, and there will be times when you will have to resign yourself to just working for the money, or the experience, or the opportunity to work on the next project.
Find something to love.

But my best advice is to find something to be excited about on that project. You need to find something to love, or you won’t do a good job, and on top of that, you will be miserable.

“Become a damn good and useful cog, and then find opportunities to twirl the gear you once rode on.”

“If you love to be in full control of every single detail of your creative work, then the games industry presumably is not for you (consider writing novels unintended for publishing instead).”

“To be happy and to do our best work, I believe we all need to find something to love about the project we’re working on at any given time, whatever it happens to be. You have to love it a little or you won’t excel. I’ve almost always managed to find something I can love about a game, even if it’s not something I would normally get excited about.”

The Anxiety of Change

Okay. So you’ve been a cog long enough and you’re ready to make a change, and you’re nervous about the risk. Should you move to another company? Should you move up the ladder to a lead position in your own company? Should you go independent or freelance?

There are risks in changing companies, but it can also be risky to stay where you are.

Companies and projects come and go. Any move you make is inherently risky. We all know people who have been laid off, or whose studio has been closed, or whose project has been cancelled. It really is impossible to know how stable a company is.
But it’s worse than that. To stay where you are may actually be riskier than moving on. Each of you is now an entrepreneur, and your business is YOU. The corporate safety net is long gone, so it’s up to each of us to find our next job, to manage our career progression, and to recognize that every option we have entails risk.

No one I talked to had any idea about how to eliminate this risk. The best we can do is try to manage it intelligently

Whether you stay with your current company or move to a new one, it still might be risky to move up to a lead or manager position.

You might lose Hands-on Creativity.

One of the biggest fears that people have prior to accepting a promotion is that they will miss the hands-on creativity that they enjoy in their current job.

This is understandable. There is a real joy to be found in hands-on work. It is creativity in its rawest form. The ability to get an idea and make it come into existence is really thrilling!

You might not get to use your superpower.

There is something incredibly compelling and addictive that comes with having a good set of tools and the skill to use them. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an art package, or a programming language, or audio and music composition tools, or a level editor — when we are skilled, and when we have a vision, we have POWER. We can sit down and MAKE something.

A sculptor can chisel the marble the way he wants, a potter can mold the clay, a painter can wield the brush. And we can do the same.

Is that something you want to give up?

Maybe…

You will change how you “touch” the audience.

At a hands-on level, we use the tools that directly touch the audience. We’re writing the words they’ll hear and painting the textures they’ll see and building the levels they’ll walk through. But when we move to a lead or director level, instead we direct the teams that are using those tools.

Are you happier having that direct effect on the audience in that single dimension, or might it be more satisfying to have a broader influence on more areas of the game?

You will no longer have “completable” tasks.

I love driving long distances. I think it’s because while I am engaged in that task, there is nothing else I should be doing, and there is a strong sense of completion when the task is done.

It’s a simple assignment: Get from here to there, and don’t crash the car.

Having a skill and using it to help build a game is like that. You’re asked to do something, and you do it. You get feedback, and move on to the next task.

But that is a world you leave behind when you move into management.

When you’re a manager, you’ve always got a million half-done tasks, none of which you’re doing as well as you would like, and most of which you’ll get yelled at for doing at all. When you’re a manager, there’s always something else you should be doing, and you’re rarely “done” with any of them.

“Can I do the job?”

Lots of people said the thing they worried about most before accepting a promotion was whether or not they’d actually be able to do the job. For most of them, it didn’t turn out to be a problem at all. And those who didn’t come through okay found it wasn’t too hard to revert to a former skilled position.
But you will need new skills

Many people were surprised at the number of things they had to learn when they started managing people, and how little support their companies gave to train them.

“What was the most surprising to me was the unexpected amount of things I had to learn to do my job well when I started managing people (coaching, production, risk management, a bit of finance, etc.)”

And you will need to let go.

Some managers worried about whether they’d be able to effectively supervise others who do the work they once did themselves. They were worried that they’d become “back-seat drivers.”

But in most cases, these worries proved to be unfounded.

“You need to accept and understand that other people will do things differently. You will at first only see that they do it ‘wrong.’ But take a step back, look at what they do and why, and see whether it’s really worse or just different. Very often you will see that it’s just different.”

Also, when you are in a lead position, if you find that someone is not doing the job you believe needs to be done, you have the option of hiring someone who can!

“Now it seems I have an artist on every fingertip who may not do things exactly as I would, but who is invariably better at many skills. It doesn’t matter to me. I find this as creative and individual a contribution as any other.”

Those are the risks of moving up to a lead or manager position, but there are also rewards.

You become a “multiplier” on the creativity of others.

As a project lead, you get to tap into the creativity of others to fulfill visions you could never deliver on your own.

If I did the art for my games, it would all be stick figures. I can say I want the ground to shake when the monster walks, but it takes an modeler and an animator and a particles programmer to make the player feel it when that foot smashes into the ground and rocks fly up all around.

There is creativity and joy in that collaboration.

You get to lead the orchestra.

When someone takes the step into a lead or director role, it’s like a musician who puts down his instrument to become a conductor: they don’t get to play, but they get to influence the whole crew.

You get to enjoy the accomplishments of your team.

As a manager, you have the opportunity for a different kind of joy. It’s the happiness that comes from helping others. It’s called “naches,” the pride in the accomplishment of those whom you have helped, or perhaps the pride in the accomplishments of the organizations you have built. For some of the people I interviewed, that pride was stronger than any of their achievements as hands-on game makers.

One designer said this pride was “almost parental.”

You experience a different kind of creativity

Some people found it useful to distinguish between “artistic” creativity, and “problem-solving” creativity.

While “artistic” creativity may be inhibited in our industrial environment, that very same environment offers plenty of opportunities for problem-solving creativity in managerial roles.

Many people talked about the creative challenges that come from working within constraints, and that their creative urges were more than satisfied by solving these problems.

Many found it actually more rewarding than their hands-on work.

“I started as a programmer, and moved into design and management. It’s good for me — I’m a better designer and manager than I am a coder.”

You might get to change the world.

Some people have the ambition to have an impact on the industry, and noted that it is difficult to do that from the trenches.

To make an impact on our industry, you might have to do it from a leadership or managerial role.

You acquire a new understanding of what “vision” is.

Quite a few people talked about getting into management in order to protect their creative vision.

But most leads quickly come to the conclusion that vision isn’t something you create, it’s a synthesized product that you contribute to.

Will you get to be creative? Clearly the answer is yes, but it’s a different kind of creativity, with different kinds of rewards.

“In the beginning, I was happy because my job was ‘fun’ — full of short-cycle, short-term payoffs and thrills. Currently I am happy because my job is a long, thoughtful and deep emotional journey: from feeling inspired by being part of an amazing group, To being — in the end — kind of sad and alone, but very proud.”

But perhaps you’re thinking about chucking the company life and striking out on your own! The advantages and disadvantages of going freelance are complicated enough to warrant a whole separate article, so for now I’ll just cover the points that relate to creativity.

If you want to become a freelancer is so that you can exert more creative control, forget it. I was an independent consultant for seven years and my job was always to understand someone else’s goals and to help that team achieve their vision. What mattered was their desires, not mine. A freelancer has virtually no creative control over a client’s project.

You must also have a range of skills, not just one skill, in order to make it as a consultant. In addition to whatever game development skills you have, you’ve got to add business savvy on top of that.

One advantage of freelancing with regard to creativity is that if you are lucky, you get to pick and choose the projects you work on, whereas you often don’t have that luxury within a company.

When someone would ask me to work on a project that I was clearly wrong for, I would tell them no, and re-direct them to someone else who could do the job better, which made everyone much happier all the way around. (Of course, turning down work means you don’t get paid, so this is not an unlimited freedom!)

But, oddly, one of the biggest advantages of freelancing is the exact opposite of what you might expect: security. When you work for a company, one phone call from headquarters can kill you. As a freelancer, you do not live in fear of that one phone call.

So if you’re considering going freelance, here are some questions to ask yourself:

Do you have a sufficient network of contacts in the industry?

Do you have the discipline to work on your own?

Are you comfortable with the insecurity of not knowing what you will be working on six months from now?

Will you be happy collaborating with other people to make their visions come to life?

There is one other flavor of leaving the company life behind, and that is becoming a “Lone Wolf” developer — a one-person team.

Like the freelancer, the lone wolf has to have a wide range of skills and a great deal of business savvy. The biggest attraction for lone wolf developers is the total control they can exercise over a project. They want to succeed or fail on their own.

“I have to march to my own drum, come hell or high water. I’d rather be poor but striving for personal fulfillment, than a successful corporate slave. For me, that is what makes my life so enjoyable. To have the creative juices but also to be able to control them in every aspect down to the font color on the website. I don’t want to be just one cog in a big wheel of a corporation.”

How Do You Decide?

So those are the risks you face when you’re thinking about making a change. The question remains… Should you do it? Will you be happier if you do, or if you don’t? And how do you make the decision?

In his book Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert says that the single best way to predict whether you will be happy with making a career change is not to look inside yourself, but to consult with others with similar backgrounds who have made a similar change and ask them about it.

That’s part of what this article is trying to do — to give you the benefit of having talked with dozens of industry people. So if you’re thinking about making a change, go talk to people.

That having been said, it is really important to understand yourself, because you’re not exactly like anyone else.

You have an incredible number of resources to draw on to understand the landscape, many more than we ever had before, and many more than people realize.

Part of knowing yourself is knowing what kind of games you like to work on and the environment that you like to work in. Big team vs. little team. Big company vs. small indie. AAA titles vs. casual. Violent vs. non-violent. RPG vs. Shooter vs. Sports vs. Puzzle games. Etc etc etc.

You’ve got to know what you like in order to make good decisions.

Going to a smaller team may give you the opportunity to wear more hats. Does that sound appealing to you… or not?

“Those who want a focused role are likely to be happy on large projects. Those desiring creative control in many areas should either work with small projects where they perform many roles — or in larger games where their responsibility spans many disciplines (e.g., game designer, producer, etc.)”

You might love something, but not be the best at it. People want to be exceptional. What would make you exceptional? If you have a single skill, maybe should stay focused on large projects and resist promotions. But if you have many skills, maybe you should consider smaller projects, or try moving up to a lead role. And remember that you will experience personal growth over time. What you enjoy (or are willing) to do at age 23 may not be what you are willing (or want) to do at age 35.

“And so it became clear to me that the sum of my talents makes me stick out far more than any one of my individual creative talents. While there are better artists, game designers and level builders out there, there aren’t many people who know about each of these fields, who can lead a project, and who can get along with people at the same time.”

When considering a change, look at the people more than the job.

Almost every single person I talked with brought up — on their own — how fulfilling it is to work with other talented people, and how much it sucks when the people aren’t right.

Independent research also shows that the biggest factor in job satisfaction is not the job itself, or the salary that goes with it, but whether or not you like and respect the people you are working with.

So if you’re looking to make a change, try to meet as many of the people in the new company as you can. The “meat-grinder” interview process can work both ways. You should be interviewing a prospective company just as much as they are interviewing you.

You can also get a pretty good idea of a company’s culture simply by asking the people there what life is like.

In particular, consider that some places are extremely focused on matching peoples’ goals with the company’s needs, and these are great places to work.

Do the people there share your creative values?

Are they collaborative?

Do you like and respect them?

Are they competent, ethical, and sane?

Is there a good mentor there for you?

Are they talented, energized and passionate?

Do they share your work ethic and temperament?

But after all those considerations, you still have to make a decision. Do you take the risk or not?

Surprisingly, there was almost unanimous consensus on this question…

Embrace the Risk!

It’s better to move than to stay and be unhappy.

Worries tend to be misplaced. Many people said they worried about the wrong things entirely, and any problems they did have tended to be unforeseeable.

“I’ve made a handful of really big career decisions and every time I always had this feeling of leaping into the unknown — which brings with it a certain amount of fear. But in every case, after making the leap, I look back months or years later and the decisions seem obvious. Sure didn’t feel like it at the time.”

Only a few regretted their moves, and most said that even if it might not have worked out in the short term, it was the right thing to do in the long term.

As you change jobs, the knowledge you learn in each helps you with the next. Each job makes you more valuable as time goes on, and that’s how you build a long-lasting career.

In my own case, every time a company has crumbled underneath me, six months later I was happier in my new job than in my old one. It turns out there are strong psychological reasons for this…

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

“Resilience is often the most commonly observed outcome following exposure to traumatic events. Negative events do affect us, but generally not as much or for as long as we expect them to… This is because human minds exploit ambiguity.”

“As soon as our potential experience becomes our actual experience — as soon as we have a stake in its goodness — our brains get busy looking for ways to think about the experience that will allow us to appreciate it.”

People expect to feel more regret because of foolish actions than foolish inactions. But studies show that nine out of 10 people are wrong. Indeed, in the long run, people of every age and in every walk of life seem to regret not having done things, much more than they regret things they did.”

Staying Creative and Sane

How do you stay creative and sane in the face of all the turmoil and risk that surrounds us?

First and foremost, you need to adapt, and you need to keep learning.

From a career point of view, to stand still is to be run over. You have to keep updating your skill set.

“My friends who enjoyed doing only one thing, coding in 6502 assembly or using one graphic tool and technique, or designing only text adventures, are the ones who left the industry. Not everyone can learn to love change, but I do think it’s a prerequisite for happiness in our industry.”

From a creativity point of view, the more you know, the more creative you can become. Creativity is about new associations. The more you know about other fields, the better you can create those new associations.

The book The Medici Effect claims that creativity and innovation lies at the cross-section of disciplines. Everything you learn is the foundation for whatever comes next. The more skills you have, the more opportunities you will have to demonstrate your talent and apply your creativity.

Most of the people I talked to also kept their own projects on the side. (The ones who didn’t generally said it’s because their work keeps them very busy or creatively fulfilled.)

But most people do have personal projects. Some are game-related and some have nothing to do with games. Many people say they can’t help it. Some said that freedom from commercial restraints gave them the sense of absolute control. Others said they enjoy the collaborative nature of our business, but still enjoy having areas where they don’t have to answer to anyone else. But virtually everyone agreed that having side projects also helped them in their commercial work, because insights come from the oddest of hobbies and activities.

“Things I learn while I’m writing a poem or building a three-mile model of the solar system or cooking a pot roast turn around and give me insight into games — the boundaries are never as distinct as we imagine.”

Understanding Your Creative Self

Without going too deeply into the psychology of creativity, there are a few useful things to point out about creative personalities and the things that motivate creative people to do good work.

This material is useful for creative people to know, because if you don’t know what you need, how will you know what to ask your managers for?

And of course, if you manage creative people, this information might be useful to you as well.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is known to most game designers for his work on the experience of “Flow”. But he has also spent 30 years studying how creative people live and work. He says creative people:

Alternate between extended periods of great exertion, and periods of quiet and reflection.

Combine playfulness and discipline.

Tend to be both extroverted and introverted, which is quite unusual. Most people are either one or the other.

Because there is often no objective way to judge a person’s creative work, they are exposed to suffering and pain.

In work that many developers are already familiar with, Roger Von Oech states that each creative person houses four personalities:

The Explorer, who goes off in search of new ideas.

The Artist, who creates something out of those ideas.

The Judge, who sits back and decides if the work is any good.

And the Warrior, who goes out and fights for those ideas.

Malcolm Gladwell says there are three things that motivate creative people:

Autonomy, a sense that we have the authority to approach a problem in our own way.

Complexity, or Mastery, a sense that the problems take some degree of skill to master.

Purpose, or Meaning, a connection between the effort and a reward we value, whatever that reward may be.

“These are the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It’s whether our work fulfills us…”
Teresa Amabile is a professor at the Harvard Business School who studies creativity in industrial environments. According to her studies:

Extrinsic rewards actually inhibit creativity. When people feel that they are being rewarded for an activity, that feeling of external control is enough to reduce their creativity.

But if intrinsic motivation is high, if we are passionate about what we are doing, creativity will flow.

Managing Your Creative Life

Okay, so what does that mean for us? Here are the kinds of intrinsic rewards that people said were particularly effective.

We should try to work in an atmosphere where we feel we are appreciated.

For many it came down to being shown that they are respected for their contribution, whatever form that respect may take.

It might be monetary, or the granting of increased scope on the next project, or even just a special ceremony.

Management showing trust in an individual is also a huge motivator.

Team outings and activities that were fun and helped people get to know each other.

Positive feedback both from management and team members that convey the sense that an individual is both respected and valued.

Paid conference attendance.

Paying for an individual to attend an industry conference shows the company respects that person and is willing to invest in his or her personal and professional growth.

It also shows trust in their own company (in that they’re not afraid for their people to see what life is like in other companies).

Being allowed to experiment in areas of personal interest.

Rewards that fed back into someone being able to do their job better.

Artists, for example, might appreciate the company organizing life studies classes.

Programmers might appreciate high-end technical equipment and software.

Game designers often like organized board game nights, or simply outings to the movies

We appreciate working within structures that keep everyone informed and in the loop.

All of us enjoy the feeling of being on a kick-ass team where everyone is working hard to create a great product.

We have seen that extrinsic rewards in general are not effective motivators of creativity. In particular, and quite surprisingly, almost everyone I spoke to said that money was not a primary motivating factor for them. In fact, there is a ton of research that shows that once a person’s basic life needs are met, the amount of money they make is irrelevant to their happiness.

So here is a look at some Extrinsic Rewards that don’t work:

Delayed Rewards.

Our projects are long and difficult. Delaying the reward for that work until the end of the project is ineffective.

“Most creative folks I know have a tremendous sense of fiero at the moment of finishing a project, followed pretty quickly by postpartum blues, followed by a slightly dull memory of all that work. To reward this kind of psyche it has to happen fast — not at the end of the fiscal year.”

The Wrong Kind of Money.

Bonus plans that are not delivered or where the rules change. Taking away a promised perk is worse than no promised perk at all.

Bonus plans that pit employees against each other are de-motivating. Especially plans that identify “elites” among the teams.

Plans based on metrics that the employee feels he has no chance of influencing. In other words, plans that are contingent on things beyond an individual’s control.

People were especially leery of bonus plans that feel fake and artificial — “pie in the sky” promises that seem geared simply to getting everyone to do maximum crunch.

Bonus plans that cause people to take actions that discourage best practices or that are not in the best interests of the game.

But before I create the impression that creative people aren’t interested in money at all, here are some monetary rewards that DO seem to work.

The Right Kind of Money.

A salary that shows that the company respects you and the contribution you are making.

Profit-sharing or options plans that were regarded as quantifiable and real.

Compensation of some kind for short, limited crunches.

Creative Working Environments

Another part of managing your creative life is placing yourself in a position to do good work. Different phases of creativity benefit from different kinds of working spaces.

Some kinds of creativity need time and solitude: time for reflection, time for the pieces to re-assemble themselves, time for the big picture to emerge.

At times like that, you might need a place to be alone where the noise can drop away so you can hear the voice in your head again. For times like this, you probably want an office with a door that can close and a good set of noise-cancelling headphones. You might also just want to go for a walk.

But there is also the other kind of creativity that is the idea-popping, lightning exchange of lively minds at work. This is the time we bounce thoughts off each other, building on what each of us has to contribute until the result is much cooler than what any one of us would have dreamed up on our own.

Bullpens and open office plans often provide this kind of creative atmosphere, and open office plans also got points for improving the sense of both teamwork and accountability.

The best offices offer both kinds of spaces. Places to be alone, and places to mingle. I remember with great fondness the Infocom offices in Cambridge, where the designers each had their own office, but they all opened up onto a common lounge.

The one office plan that came under the most attack was cubicles. Most people seem to hate them. They’re not private enough to give you solitude, and not open enough to encourage the free flow of ideas.

Your equipment is also part of your working environment, and many interviewees stressed that people need good tools to do good work.

“Be frugal, but never cheap. The office space doesn’t have to be luxurious, but the hardware and software should always be AAA.”

Creative Corporate Cultures

Some company cultures clearly encourage creativity.

For all the talk we hear about flat teams and group decision-making, most of the people I talked to didn’t want their companies to be too democratic. People want to have a say. They want their voices to be heard. They want their ideas to be considered. But they also want to have the sense that there is a decision-maker, that there is someone in charge.

Not surprisingly, people like to work where the management treats people as they themselves would like to be treated.

People like to work where the game is the thing. Where making a game is what matters. Where it is recognized that people are striving for the common good, rather than to further personal agendas.

“All the glass trophies, extra vacation time, or even bonuses I’ve ever received have paled in comparison to the long-term effect of high-quality management decisions made by development or publishing.”

People want to work where managers give credit where credit is due.

People want an environment that encourages playfulness, even though making games is serious business.

“People are generally only creative in pursuits they enjoy.”

“The company that plays together, stays together.” (Matt Weinstein: Managing to Have Fun.)

The Long Dark Night of the Soul

In this last part of the article, I hope I am addressing only a few of you. I should stress here that I am speaking completely on off my own bat, rather than representing anyone I interviewed.

What do you do when you’re in trouble? When you’re in despair? When the concept of getting out of bed and facing the world is simply more than you can imagine?

As I said at the beginning, creative people are unusually subject to dark moods and depression.

Our identity is wrapped up in our work, and in our business, that’s a pretty dangerous basket to put all your eggs in.

We have chosen an unconventional path. We take risks that society, and even our peers, think are foolish. We work without a net.

Our artistic goals and products are subject to attack from our own inner voices, and of course from the often harsh environment in which we work.

So here are some words I hope might help you in times of trouble.

Take care of the physical plant. Keep yourself healthy.

Alcohol is not your friend, and I’m not sure caffeine is either.

But you do need a friend. Find someone who you can talk to. You are not alone. A lot of us feel this way.

When you’re feeling overwhelmed, tackle large problems one small piece at a time.

Allow yourself to be less than perfect. There are some tasks where good enough is good enough.

If you’re a procrastinator, see if there are some things you can handle right away. Sometimes the underbrush piles up so high it’s impossible for you to see the trees, let alone the forest

Also try simply crossing some things off the list so you stop worrying about them. Especially things that you feel you “ought” to do, but don’t “have” to do.

The fear that “you will never be that good again” is unfounded. You know more now than you did then. You still have good work and pleasant surprises ahead of you.

Get medical help. Seeing a doctor is not a sign of weakness, but of courage. Doctors can be great advisors, but remember that you have to stay your own main advocate.

Find something that’s fun, preferably unconnected to work. (One of the problems with integrating work fully into your life is that it’s hard to tell when you’re not working. When you’re reading a book for pleasure and suddenly realize it might be useful in your work, some of the fun might go out of it. But don’t worry about that — try to find something you can enjoy for its own sake, and if something else comes of it, then that’s okay too.)

Even on your bad days, try to keep pushing things forward. (“To be a professional,” Norman Mailer once wrote, “is to do good work on a bad day.”)

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by responsibility, remember that no project ever failed because just one person left it.

If you’re really down, remember that depression runs in cycles.

Although it may be hard to imagine today, the day will come once again when you can laugh and have fun.

I believe that most of these problems are crises of meaning. We need to believe that we matter, that our work is important. Because our products are entertainment, that is sometimes difficult. But I believe that in order for us to be happy, our work must be meaningful to us.

We are, after all, artists.

So see if you can find a way to inject meaning and purpose into your work. I believe both you and your games will be the better for it.

In Conclusion

But let’s see if we can wrap this up on a brighter note.

I called this article “The Belly of the Whale” because that is the part of the hero’s journey when he appears overwhelmed by the evil forces of the world.

When you are in the Belly of the Whale, it almost seems as if you are being swallowed up by something much larger than you. Something huge and unyielding. Something too big to fight.

Something like the game industry.

When you are in the Belly of the Whale, you are lost. Uncertain. Confused about what to do and which way to go.

But realizing you are in the belly of the whale is the final step before metamorphosis.

It is the last step before the hero undergoes transformation and finally makes the change that will allow him to triumph.

So…

If you are feeling like a cog — learn your craft

If you are feeling trapped — there are ways out. Good ways out. There are more opportunities and choices now than ever before.

If you feel isolated, remember that you are not alone. There are many people in this industry who want to see you succeed. We are all in this together.

If you are worried about the money, just make sure you cover the basics. Beyond that, go for job satisfaction, rather than a fatter paycheck.

If you are afraid of the risk — talk to people who have been there. And embrace change as part of your life’s journey

If you are troubled, try to bring meaningful work into your life — work that gives you autonomy, complexity, and purpose.

And to live a creative life, wherever you are in your career…

Keep learning.

Play Nice.

Work Hard.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Zynga.(source:gamasutra


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