The presentations are done and the wrap-kit is out to the Treadport clients. You know what that means... it's post-mortem time!
Regarding the presentation, I wanted to keep it breezy and flowing. Since we are mainly allotted about 6 minutes to give out pitch to the client, I felt this was the best way to go. Additionally, the client didn't have any idea what constituted a game, and I tailored the presentation to that as well. However, since I was the last group to present for the day, I got to see all of my classmates' work first. As each producer stood up and orated on their Treadport game, it was rather awkward. The clients seemed to just ask the same question to each presenter and then the presenter would try and mold their game on the fly to meet the expectations of their questions.
I was uncomfortable with this happening. I mean, they had worked hard to create amazing games which were taking full advantage of the platform and pursuing the motivational aspect for patients during therapy, yet the client wanted full disclosure on scale-ability and data mining for the therapists - none of which have to do with the player, the game, or their presentations really. We aren't therapists after all, we're game makers. We can work with them during actual production on how to create that stuff, but first we need to have a game to take data from.
When it was my turn, I did not want this to happen to me. I presented Evenbloom with pride and excitement, and as their routine data questions were asked, I simply responded by saying, "that's entirely possible and we can work together on those tools but for now let's focus on the prototype at hand." Perhaps this was not the best way to go. I understand that their concerns are warranted, but I refused to design my game on the fly and create useless solutions to their questions that would suffice as nothing more than fabrications. Evenbloom was right there, up on the screen with some amazing graphical work for 4 weeks and great enemy A.I and I was asked to talk about back-end IT structures. Maybe my response to them could be taken as dismissal but I wanted them focused on my game.
After the presentation, interest was non-existent for my game with none of the clients coming to my demo station. It sucked, a lot. I felt like I let me team down. We waited for an hour and a half for someone to come over and check it out. I even went over and extended the invitation a few times, which I was met with acknowledgements but that was about it. As we waited for them to come, we all watched as the clients did not move from the front of the room criticizing our games, and designing a whole new game on their own from our work. It was pretty rough, and some of felt was massively disrespectful. We all put a great deal of work into these projects, the least you could do is thank us for our work before you rip it up in front of us.
Alas, rejection is something that everyone needs to be hit with once and a while. Not all clients are going to be appreciative of your work or open to new ideas. That's why this is a learning process for all of us. We need to be able to navigate waters like these to improve our skillsets and move on.
After they left, we handled the post-mortem process, but to be honest it did not go so well. We were all in somewhat of a haze while taking a look at our development cycle. We basically found that our game design was narrowed down very late on week 2/3. It needed to be done earlier. This was my responsibility as a game designer. I took me a bit to produce a design doc that tiered all of our features and how they flowed together. Other than that, we found that we all worked well together and produced more solid programming in this one prototype than a lot of other projects. Then we all went out and I bought everyone ice cream :-).
This prototype was hard and I've for some producer/client battle scars but I love the hell out of this game and am insanely appreciative to Jon, Cody, and Sagar for making a fantastic looking game. EDIT: Showed the game to someone at EA and they were really impressed with the idea and the game's graphics for 4 weeks of work. WOOHOO!
Onto the next one!
-Andrew
I was uncomfortable with this happening. I mean, they had worked hard to create amazing games which were taking full advantage of the platform and pursuing the motivational aspect for patients during therapy, yet the client wanted full disclosure on scale-ability and data mining for the therapists - none of which have to do with the player, the game, or their presentations really. We aren't therapists after all, we're game makers. We can work with them during actual production on how to create that stuff, but first we need to have a game to take data from.
When it was my turn, I did not want this to happen to me. I presented Evenbloom with pride and excitement, and as their routine data questions were asked, I simply responded by saying, "that's entirely possible and we can work together on those tools but for now let's focus on the prototype at hand." Perhaps this was not the best way to go. I understand that their concerns are warranted, but I refused to design my game on the fly and create useless solutions to their questions that would suffice as nothing more than fabrications. Evenbloom was right there, up on the screen with some amazing graphical work for 4 weeks and great enemy A.I and I was asked to talk about back-end IT structures. Maybe my response to them could be taken as dismissal but I wanted them focused on my game.
After the presentation, interest was non-existent for my game with none of the clients coming to my demo station. It sucked, a lot. I felt like I let me team down. We waited for an hour and a half for someone to come over and check it out. I even went over and extended the invitation a few times, which I was met with acknowledgements but that was about it. As we waited for them to come, we all watched as the clients did not move from the front of the room criticizing our games, and designing a whole new game on their own from our work. It was pretty rough, and some of felt was massively disrespectful. We all put a great deal of work into these projects, the least you could do is thank us for our work before you rip it up in front of us.
Alas, rejection is something that everyone needs to be hit with once and a while. Not all clients are going to be appreciative of your work or open to new ideas. That's why this is a learning process for all of us. We need to be able to navigate waters like these to improve our skillsets and move on.
After they left, we handled the post-mortem process, but to be honest it did not go so well. We were all in somewhat of a haze while taking a look at our development cycle. We basically found that our game design was narrowed down very late on week 2/3. It needed to be done earlier. This was my responsibility as a game designer. I took me a bit to produce a design doc that tiered all of our features and how they flowed together. Other than that, we found that we all worked well together and produced more solid programming in this one prototype than a lot of other projects. Then we all went out and I bought everyone ice cream :-).
This prototype was hard and I've for some producer/client battle scars but I love the hell out of this game and am insanely appreciative to Jon, Cody, and Sagar for making a fantastic looking game. EDIT: Showed the game to someone at EA and they were really impressed with the idea and the game's graphics for 4 weeks of work. WOOHOO!
Onto the next one!
-Andrew
