Idealism and creativity are not the same thing
The presentation above has kicked off quite a passionate discussion over at Mad Brew Labs and the Kenzer & Company forums. It seems that Marcelo’s comments are being seen by some as an attack on the indie and/or amateur game designer. I’ve already made an initial reply on the Mad Brew Labs comment thread. To keep the following post in perspective, I’d encourage you to visit Mad Brew Labs and the Kenzer & Company forums first and read the threads in their entirety.
Before I proceed, I want to make a couple of points crystal clear.
- While I consider Marcelo a friend and colleague, this is not a blind, knee-jerk defense of his presentation nor am I writing to quell any bad feelings that may arise about Neoncon, the convention I own and at which Marcelo made his presentation as part of GamesU. I genuinely think that Marcelo’s presentation is important and valuable for aspiring gaming professionals and some of his remarks are being misunderstood. If I thought Marcelo’s comments were inappropriate or ill-considered, I never would have posted his presentation in the first place.
- Nothing I say on the matter should be taken as a counter-attack on the folks who took issue with Marcelo’s remarks. For the most part, the discussion, while passionate, has been respectful, thoughtful and everything I’ve come to expect from my peers, both professional and amateur, in the wide world of hobby games … even when they disagree.
Now, on to the meat of my post. You might want to get a cup of coffee, it runs a bit long. :^D
Why do I think Marcelo is being misunderstood?
In the process of putting together Marcelo’s presentation for YouTube, I’ve probably seen it all the way through at least ten times. As a result, I’ve heard the more controversial portions enough times to process them in their full context. In addition, I’ve spoken with Marcelo to clarify his intent several times during the editing and review process. So, I can speak with relative authority about the intention of the presentation. For this reason, I think some folks are reacting to sound bites and not the entire talk.
Is Marcelo “the man”?
Nope. He is about as far from corporate as you can get without being a beach bum. Marcelo is out in the trenches every day, promoting games and evaluating their viability as a commercial product. That is not “corporate”, at least not in the sense being vilified by some here. That stereotype applies to giant companies who are trying to milk every dollar out of a property …. often at the cost of game play and with contempt for their audience.
Anyone who has spent any time with Marcelo knows that is not his POV.
Is Marcelo all about money?
Is Marcelo against folks who want to design games just for the fun of it or with a smaller, less profit driven business model in mind? I’ve not asked him about this specific issue. But, if I had to hazard a guess I’d say “no”.
Marcelo’s point was not “go away if you have no desire to make money and just want to dabble in game design and publishing as a hobby”. The name of the session was “Live The Dream: Building a Career in the Games Industry”. So, it was targeted at people who want a career in the industry, not people who want to dabble and have fun.
Regardless of the industry, if one does not feel the need “to even have financial success or widespread adoption as a goal” then, by definition, one does not want a career. Creating a career from any endeavor requires financial success as a goal and therefore implies “widespread adoption” of your original ideas and content to achieve said financial success. Anything else is a sideline or hobby and not a career.
To be clear, there is nothing inferior about pursuing game design or publishing as a sideline/hobby, but it is not career that puts food on the table. Marcelo’s intended audience is people who want to make a living in the games industry and his advice speaks to that audience. If approached with that in mind, then his remarks are hard to take as inflammatory.
Does Marcelo hates idealists?
I assume that most of the agitation on this thread comes from Marcelo’s statement at around 09:20 that:
“Honestly, from a completely industry perspective on this, idealists should just go home.”
Note that he said “from a completely industry perspective”. He goes on to say that the industry (again people interested in careers) needs people who are realists and understand what it takes to create a viable business around a game. If those people did not exist, there would be no hobby games industry. Gygax and Arenson were both realists, else TSR & D&D would never have been created and would not be with us today. If your goal is to be the next Gygax or Arenson, you need to be a realist, not an idealist.
As mentioned in my original response over at MadBrewLabs.com, Marcelo is a champion for the budding game designer. If one watches the entire presentation with that in mind, they will come away with a different perspective. Is it a bit of a splash of cold water? Absolutely. But, it is a well-intentioned one.
Marcelo has seen lots of promising ideas fail because the designers did not think things through and approach it with the long run in mind. Along the way, they threw their money and ideas down the drain. If he is ranting (which I do not feel he is) it is to help the next generation avoid the mistakes he has seen made time and time again because the designer did not think it through.
At the root of Marcelo’s presentation is a very simple question … “Do you want a career or do you want a hobby?” This question is followed by a bit of emphatic advice … “Being brutally honest with yourself, answer that question for yourself as soon as you can. Then, invest your time, energy and money in line with the answer.”
Regardless of the industry or endeavor, that is sound advice that everyone should heed. As a serial entrepreneur, I can tell you I wish someone had been as blunt with me twenty years ago. Better yet, some one did and I wish I had the sense to listen to them then. It would have saved me a lot of time, energy and money if I had.
Finally, some commenters position Marcelo’s remarks as “pro vs. amateur”. While I think that is a fair way of looking at the presentation, I think thes folks are reading his remarks as “anti-amateur” and that is rubbing them the wrong way. I see the presentation more as “Pro or Amateur? Make a choice. Be realistic. Then, be great!” but not anti-amateur.
Are all gamers basically losers?
@madbrewlabs wrote:
“I can just imagine how all the non-living-in-parent’s-basement-roleplayers who bathe regularly would respond to his comment about the demographics of RPGs.”
I am not sure of the exact comment to which @madbrewlabs was referring in the presentation, but I have had enough chats with Marcelo on the subject to know, with fair certainty, that he was talking about one of the major hurdles faced by ALL hobby games aficionados … amateurs and professionals alike. That hurdle is the widely held perception that hobby games, in general and RPGs in specific, are the domain of misanthropic social misfits and losers.
Furthermore, I can be fairly certain that he was talking about the perception of the buying public, not his own perception of the audience and consumer. No one likes to admit it, but Marcelo is right.
Everyone reading this thread knows that guy. Marcelo often refers to Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons and I think of SteveDave from Mallrats. That guy is the gamer that comes to a convention and does not take a shower for four days then falls asleep at the gaming table because he hasn’t slept and has barely eaten. Why? He has been gaming 24/7 since he walked through the door.
As a convention owner, I know that guy intimately. He calls himself “hard core” but in truth, he is usually just selfish and ill-mannered. This man-child gives the hobby we all love a bad name. He and his ilk are, at most, 5-10% of the gaming community.
Unfortunately, the general public thinks that guy represents more like 70-80% of the gaming community and they tar the rest of us with the same miscreant brush. That is a very real and significant hurdle for all of us who count RPGs, board games, CCGs and other “hobby games” among our past times and/or profession.
Marcelo is not the only GamesU presenter to address this hurdle. Erik Mona alludes to it in his Keynote when he talks about how he and other pros find it easier to let the non-gamer friends and family members assume what they do for a living is related to MMOs and computer RPGs. As more GamesU presentations go up, you’ll see this hurdle addressed again.
So, Marcelo (and I) have a lot of love for the “non-living-in-parent’s-basement-roleplayers who bathe regularly”. We love them because they (and you) are us. But, the rest of the public is more likely to see us as that guy than the imaginative, responsible, friendly and well-adjusted grown-ups that we are. Ignoring that fact is perilous for us all, particularly for those of interested in building a career in or around the games industry.
Most of us are realists, not idealists.
Several of Marcelo’s detractors are folks I follow regularly on Twitter, through podcasts or through the RPGBloggers RSS feed. What I find very interesting is that I would consider almost all of them, most notably @madbrewlabs, to be realists not idealists.
These folks are passionate about their hobby and, as bloggers and/or game designers, put a lot of serious time and effort into their craft. They work hard to present a professional image. They write well and have demonstrably high standards for their work in almost every case. Some do it for the fun of it. Some do it as a sideline to make a little pocket change. Some are taking a measured and well-considered run at turning their passion into a career.
In short, they are the very people Marcelo set out to champion and advise in his presentation.
It is for this reason, as much or more as any, that I think many people are misunderstanding Marcelo’s message. I think these folks are confusing idealism with creativity. The two things are very, very different. Marcelo advocates marrying one’s creativity to a well-grounded sense of realism. In doing so, one gives oneself the best opportunity to create a career in the games industry or, for that matter, any creative endeavor.
Truth be told, the relationship between creativity and realism is often difficult. But, they are, in fact, not mutually exclusive of one another. At the end of the day, that is all Marcelo is trying to say.
Regards,
Doug Daulton
Executive Director
Neoncon & GamesU
The part I am talking about concerning the demographic of RPGs occurs starting at ~31:57 and specifically at 32:18 where he defines the troll. And at 32:40 (albeit off screen) he says “That guy… is this much.” Then at 32:58 refers to the RPG demographic as “This guy right here.”
Now, I could totally be misinterpreting that “this guy here” and “that guy is this much” (where he pies off in the same area) are one and the same. But that is the connection I made… and that could very well be my awareness of public perception getting the better of me. Those parts were not in the context of public perception.
I do believe you have a point that in order to understand Marcelo’s message, you need to place it in context. Not just the context of what else he says, but the context of target audience (i.e. those people wanting to make a living from games).
I think my reaction was, even with that context (which I most assuredly was aware of), some of Marcelo’s talk came off as bashing.
Also, even with the context of the target audience, I still believe he is wrong on the point of idealism. I think innovation firmly lies in the realm of idealism and it is very important to business. I would like to refer to a business orientated article about realism vs. idealism that echoes a lot of how I feel on the subject.
I’m really inspired to think about what you said about idealism is not creativity and the relationship of creativity and realism. I might agree that idealism is not creativity, but they are definitely related.
Here is where I currently stand on the subject, and I need to research where I first heard it, but creativity is where you reconcile the unapologetic idealism with ruthless realism (which sound like an awesome blog post…).
In closing, while I have not met Marcelo, I am sure he didn’t earn the respect I’ve heard from the industry for nothing. I couldn’t expect to understand what kind of person he is from a 50 minute video and I hope my response has not been misconstrued as a judgment on him instead of as the rebuttal to a few statements within a single presentation.
An eloquent defence of the presentation that serves to highlight why so many responded negatively. This may be a time where being provocative backfired?
Creating implies idealism so telling the idealists to go home is a bad idea. How else do you know what success looks like? Really think this was a case of the wrong word used, uncharacteristic for Marcello from what I’ve seen.
As for Comic Book Guy and the ‘hardcore’ unwashed, do something about it or suck it up. Convention organisers have lots of opportunities to get people to behave in desired ways…
There’s opportunities here – a goodie bag with complimentary shower gear is a pre-made marketing opportunity and you change public perception too. What kind of message are you putting out there? Telling people what you want is more effective than haranguing them over the actions of a minority.
I really hope GamerU offers more than diatribes about 5-10% of the gaming community as that’ll only aggravate the public perception while 90-95% of your intended audience change channel due to it’s irrelevance to them.
Good luck with this year’s Neoncon, hope it goes great. IMHO if Madbrew Labs endorses it that’s a positive sign.
I think the problem is that he didn’t say what he meant to say.
From what you say here, and what I infer from his presentation, is that he should have said:
“Hey Idealists, from a completely industry point of view, make sure you have solid, serious business support before you try to make a go at the games industry, because it can really bite you in the ass if you try this without properly preparing for it. Keep being creative, but realize you can’t go it alone.”
That’s solid advice and a good thing to hear.
what he really said was, “Honestly, from a completely industry perspective on this, idealists should just go home,” and that came off very… poorly. It didn’t matter what came afterwards, because at 9 minutes 20 seconds into his pitch, he’s lost about 85% of the people listening– those hopeful idealists who came to hear what he thought they needed to do, and he told them to give up. Sure, he circled back around and told them garage-business success stories, but even then, I wasnt’ sure if he was saying “You can do it, too!” or “This was the anomaly, don’t expect you can do this.”
Perhaps the intent is there, and he meant well, but the execution left a lot to be desired.
-Ben.
@satyre – Trust me, we take action to encourage that guy to change his behavior. There are few people who have received a refund because they refused to honor our policies around hygiene and respect for other players. I never enjoy doing it, but it the least one can do to ensure a good time for the majority of attendees.
@ben – You’ve got the gist of Marcelo’s presentation down pat. Your point about losing people after the bold statement at 9:20 is a valid one. If one listens to the entire presentation with an open mind, it should be clear that he supports all game designers and just wants to help people be successful. Could he have chosen different words? Maybe. But why would people tune out so quickly without waiting to hear the entire presentation to put it in the proper context?
In my mind, the folks who tune out that early are generally people who are spoiling for a fight and only want to listen to people they know will support their world view. This does not just apply to this conversation. Sadly, it is an modern epidemic driven by a culture that gets most of it’s news from soundbites and headlines without bothering to watch an entire interview on TV or read an entire article in a magazine.
@madbrew – Thanks for clarifying the time codes. I’ll make a point to go back and listen to them later and comment as needed. (I am rushing off to a play test this afternoon). I’ll also read your linked article and respond when I have a bit more time. I just wanted to take a moment and say “no worries”. I did not take your comments as anything other than the well-reasoned discussion that they were. I was merely trying to add a bit more background/context to the discussion.
BTW, write that article about “creativity is where you reconcile the unapologetic idealism with ruthless realism” … it sounds like a valuable conversation starter!