I’m always on the lookout for general business news and research that seems relevant to the video game industry, and there was some good stuff in the latest issue of MIT Sloan Management Review. In particular, let me draw your attention to Is Creativity a Foreign Concept?

To summarize: a team of researchers from INSEAD and Kellogg conducted a series of tests on graduate students who had and had not lived abroad for a significant period of time (at least six months). They found that having spent time abroad increased the chances of finding innovative solutions to tricky problems. An even bigger boost was demonstrated by students who had lived abroad for at least two or three years. From the article:

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My friend Ben Mattes, a very talented producer for Ubisoft, made a great comment on my previous blog article which I’d like to unceremoniously lift out of context:

When I worked at Gameloft I invested significant energy into creative motivational ‘events’. When I left, the guy who replaced me continued this tradition and came up with (what I thought was) a great idea to help beat the heat in the summer. Instead of a traditional 5-7 with beer and chips, he brought in an ice-cream ‘team’ from the local ‘Ben And Jerry’s’ to serve cones and sundaes to the team after an important meeting. I liked the idea and tried it with my team shortly after starting at Ubisoft.

At the time no one said anything negative. They all had slightly bemused smiles on their faces and got in line to dutifully collect their ice-cream. Some even went back for seconds.

Months later, though, I learned that I had made an awful impression with this act. The team immediately questioned whether I “belonged” if I would favor ice-cream over beer (the stable for such events).

To this day whenever I bring the team together for beers the ice-cream fiasco comes up (all in good fun, I hope).

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I’m subscribed to a producers’ mail list that recently hosted a discussion about the pros and cons of milestone-related monetary bonuses for employees. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there were a broad variety of opinions. I thought it might be interesting to share some quotes (plus my own thoughts, of course!)

There appeared to be consensus on the long-term ineffectivness of this type of bonus. A number of well-known research studies [example] have had similar conclusions. All the more interesting, then, that this form of compensation remains widely in-use (not just in the video game industry, but many others as well.) Comments from the list:

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One thing that seems to be neglected at a fair number of game companies is the tuning of organizational processes (OP for short). OP relates to a wide variety of issues, including but not limited to: organizational structure, decision-making, corporate politics and culture, incentives and goal-setting, hierarchy, hiring, etc. Tuning OP isn’t simply a question of implementing, monitoring, or enforcing policies. and it is relevant to all managers, not merely HR professionals.

Unfortunately, I could write a few more paragraphs and you still might wonder what I was yammering about. So instead, I’ve decided to list some of my favorite readings from my old OP bschool course and summarize them for you. Hopefully, it will be immediately apparent why this stuff is useful! (Unfortunately, none of the readings are available for free — some are books, and some have to be purchased from Harvard for a few bucks.)

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When it comes to turnover, game companies tend to look extremely good or extremely bad — there’s not much middle ground. This speaks to both the passionate nature of game developers, and the merciless development schedules (and/or questionable employment practices) of some companies. So, for those struggling with high turnover, I thought I’d write a little story. What’s it cost you when an unhappy employee (who could have been happy with better compensation, hours, and/or working environment) leaves your company?

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Phil Gee, University Relations Manager for EA, was good enough to answer a few of my questions about the EA internship program — by far the largest (and probably oldest) program in the industry, excepting perhaps the console manufacturers. On to the interview:

How long has EA’s college internship program been active?

If my memory serves, almost 10 years to this day.

When the program first started, how many interns did you accept (and in roughly what proportion: engineers, artists, production, business, etc?) How many interns do you accept now?

I’ve only been here for 3.5 years, but from conversations with early alumni of the internship program, I can tell you it was rather small. We had roughly 20-30 interns during the summer, working predominantly at EA Redwood Shores. A little over half (let’s say 60%) worked in game development (art, engineering, production) and the other half were on the corporate side (marketing, finance, IT). Today, our program is a global one; we host approximately 274 interns (fiscal year 2006) with close to 70% of them being in game development.

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The last time I wrote about the subject of relatively low entry-level wages for producers, some very knowledgeable readers made the following arguments in support of the status quo:

1. Production is a role that demands experience. Entry-level producers are not capable of making a “significant enough” contribution to a game’s development to justify higher wages.
2. There are tons of people willing to do anything to become producers; why pay when you don’t have to?
3. Academic degrees (even game and/or engineering-centric degrees) are nice, but ultimately irrelevant without multi-year project experience. “You can’t teach production skills.”

There’s something to be said for every one of these arguments. Nevertheless, I’m going to do my best to express a logical alternative point of view. Does this mean I think wages for entry-level producers should skyrocket? Not necessarily, no. But it does mean I think there’s room for nuance — that the industry’s current blanket approach to entry-level production isn’t appropriate for every case and candidate.

Read the full editorial here!…

I’ve been chatting with a few undergraduate MIT students who already have full-time offers from video game companies. Most had summer internships with one of the large publishers, and all appear to have worked on video game-related projects, in and/or out of class. I thought some of you might be curious to know what those offers look like.

Students who applied for engineering jobs seem to be getting offers in the 70s — in some cases, the high 70s. The same students got offers approximately 10K higher from companies in other industries; i.e. Oracle, Microsoft, etc. So the gap between game company offers and non-game company offers appears to be narrowing for engineers. In general, I was amazed at how high the offers were!

On the other hand, students who applied for production jobs (even students with a double major in computer science) seem to be getting offers in the 30s. I find this to be completely bizarre. I mean, yes, I understand the laws of supply and demand (there are more wanna-be producers and designers than well-trained engineers). And yes, production skills are harder to learn outside of the work environment. But are talented entry-level producers really worth only half the equivalent engineer? Even when they have the same academic training? (After all, a solid grasp of programming is useful to both producers and designers, not just engineers!)

I think this exposes one of the industry’s most fundamental flaws. Producers are expected to keep game development on schedule and under budget. They are expected to act as the bridge between the various development groups, the mouthpiece to the outside world, and the interface to marketing and sales. They facilitate (and in many cases participate in) the creative design process. In other words, producers are the oil that keeps the machine running smoothly — indeed, keeps it running period. If entry-level salaries are any indication of how much (or how little) the industry values its producers, it’s no wonder so many games run over schedule and over budget!

Update: many people have asked where the job offers came from, since location obviously affects salary. I haven’t had a chance to reconnect with every student I initially spoke with, but it appears the majority of the offers were from studios in California and Seattle.

2nd Update: As promised in the comment thread, I’ve posted a followup editorial (which has been reprinted with permission by Next Generation.

Gamesblog has posted an editorial questioning the value of a video game design degree. Part of me really wants to take this seriously (since at least some of the many design programs springing up worldwide must undoubtedly be half-baked). Unfortunately, this editorial doesn’t do the question justice at all.

Let’s start with the first argument (paraphrased): innovative designers come from different disciplines, and therefore have a fresh perspective. That’s certainly true in many cases. But wait: last I checked, a college degree was useful for expanding one’s horizons. Does a game design degree prevent students from concurrently taking courses in philosophy, art, psychology, or computer science? More to the point, couldn’t a good design course encourage interdisciplinary study? Ours certainly does. Many MIT CMS undergrads double major in computer science, and/or sprinkle film and TV studies, creative writing, and marketing courses into their schedules. Our design courses often require students to explore a range of design considerations, including business, engineering, social, and cultural issues. The idea that a game design degree precludes a broad perspective is simply laughable.

The author also notes that none of his long-term game designer pals have game-related degrees. Really? Maybe that’s because game design degrees didn’t exist until just a few years ago. Maybe we should eliminate all biochemistry degrees, since early biochemists enjoyed more “fundamental” educations.

Lastly, the author claims that “in most creative industries, people from the outside have the brightest ideas…” I don’t know what to make of this. Are creative writing majors automatically less likely to write a good book than other people? Are film studies majors less likely to produce an innovative movie? The author commends the value of these programs with one hand, but effectively denigrates them (and all programs like them) with the other. You’d be hard pressed to find many people who think that film studies programs have somehow sucked the creativity out of Hollywood, so I’m not sure why game design programs should be any different.

A better editorial might have questioned design programs that fail to incorporate computer science, film studies, creative writing, etc. It might have explored the importance of practical design experience (I feel that any program worth its salt strongly encourages students to take summer internships with game companies, and builds practical, long-term game development projects into the design curriculum.) It might have raised questions about game design theory, which is still a rather nascent thing, and therefore somewhat difficult to teach. These would have been interesting things to discuss.

This past week a great group of folks from Activision flew in to connect with and interview students at MIT. We hosted Kate Paneno (Activision HQ), Tim Stellmach (Vicarious Visions), Robert Morgan (Shaba), and Michael Vance (Treyarch). You can learn a lot about a company (and its industry) from the way it pitches itself to potential hires, so I thought I’d share a few details with you.

Activision kicked off its main presentation with the following points: 1) Work for us, and you’ll never need to worry about receiving a paycheck on time. 2) For all practical purposes, you work for a given studio — not for Activision. HQ simply does its best to help you find the studio that’s right for you. [Interpretation: “want stability plus a small, entrepreneurial environment? Have your cake and eat it, too.”]

The next part of the presentation: What is life like in the game industry? 1) All your colleagues are passionate about what they do. 2) Your friends and family will be mystified and/or jealous. 3) There is “crunch-time”, but it’s by no means perpetual. Quote: “you’ll put in good hours, but you’ll feel good about it, and it won’t last forever.” [Nothing unexpected here, though I’m always curious to hear a company’s particular take on crunch-time.]

The remainder of the presentation focused on the tasks associated with production, engineering, and design. In each case, it was made clear that occupational challenges were non-trivial. Producers “herd cats” and serve as a project’s “lymphatic system”. Engineers solve complex problems in real-time, under serious resource constraints, within new and unfamiliar environments. Designers wrestle with conflicting project goals and constantly revisit and revise their designs. [Interpretation: fanboys beware. Game development is not always fun, and definitely not easy.]

All in all, no surprises here. The team from Activision was candid and refreshingly eager to court students for all positions, not just engineering. (The way some companies behave, you’d think an education is barely useful to entry-level designers and producers. This attitude has become more rare in recent years, but it hasn’t vanished.) The challenges facing independent developers remain exploitable by large publishers. Crunch-time is still a hot topic, and Activision certainly isn’t disavowing it entirely. I’ll have to ask some students how they feel about that, especially since some developers, like Blue Fang, are promoting 40-50 hour work-week policies.

Lastly, my thanks to the Activision folks for their visit.  :)