When Creativity Is The Enemy

Tom Sachs is the artist, and his studio assistants must work in strict adherence to Sachs’ code, to fulfill his vision. Or else.

Andy Warhol was somewhat notorious for his use of assistants. Three of his studios were even nicknamed “The Factory”. As in; an army of assistants mass-produced art, straight from the assembly line to the gallery. 

Slightly controversial: If the artist isn’t producing the actual piece, is it then their work?

Lots of the most successful artists in the World have big studios and several assistants employed to produce their works. The artists themselves have more of a directing role than an executing one. Tom Sachs (1966), a renowned American artist, is one of those artists. 

To help manage his studio, assistants and production, Sachs has compiled a detailed set of rules that his New York studio employees have to adhere to. The rule set “Ten Bullets” was released as an artist zine in 2005 and turned to film by Tom Sachs and Van Neistat, filmmaker and then Tom Sachs assistant, in 2010.

The opening page of the zine reads: 

“CREATIVITY IS THE ENEMY” – Tom Sachs

Creativity is the enemy when working in adherence to established principles.

Creativity is unwanted when following a specific set of instructions aimed at reaching a certain objective. Whoever gave the specific instructions has no interest in any displays of creativity from the person carrying out those instructions. Working to code–abiding by the set of instructions–has top priority. The person doing the work is nothing more than a mere worker ant, carrying out their task.

Tom Sachs is the artist, and his studio assistants must work in strict adherence to Sachs’ code, to fulfill his vision. Or else.

“Work to code and you might not get fired,” as it’s stated in the film.

Tom Sachs and his studio assistants is a case of two modes of working:

1. Open mode, and 

2. Closed mode

The Artist–Tom Sachs–operates in the open mode. From the open mode, the artist will produce instructions in the shape of ideas, sketches, rules and directions. Open mode is about inventing the new. The Artist will hand off instructions to the assistants, and expect them to produce the work, no questions asked, no detours made, no ideas added.

The studio assistants operate in the closed mode only. Here they submit to the instructions received, and produce accordingly. Closed mode is about producing the work imagined in the open mode. Assistants do not question instructions from The Artist, they don’t add their own instructions, they don’t get any new ideas. They don’t get creative.

The artist has oversight, and makes sure that any unwanted creativity displayed by the closed-mode assistants is defeated and a work is produced. 

A lot of Tom Sachs’ works would not exist without his staff of assistants. The assistants are crucial in order to produce the works. Without The Artist’s instructions the works would not exist. Both functions are needed to produce works of art.

When you’re working on your own, there is no Tom Sachs to hand out a set of rules. There is no Tom Sachs to foster a vision that you can submit to. There is no studio full of assistants ready to execute blindly. There is only you. You are the artist and the assistant. You are vision and execution.

Getting Started in Games

My 10 most important tips for new teams getting started in game development

If I was to start over, and make a new game company from scratch, with 0 experience and a whole lot of energy, this was what I hope someone would tell me:

1: Agree on paper

Talk things through, you and your partners. Make clear agreements on who owns and does what, and what happens if you disagree, break up or get lucky. Write down your agreements. Even an outline in an email is better than nothing.

2: Reduce Risk

As you’re just getting started, and have little to no money and little to no experience, your mindset should be anchored in reducing risk. How can we make sure that our likely failure has minimal negative impact on our finances, health and opportunity space?

3: Get Experience

You need to accelerate getting experienced as individuals and as a team. You do that by making products and completing full production cycles. You gauge how your product performs, how players react, and you actively seek to learn from it.

4: Make Something Small

By making something small you A) reduce risk, and B) accelerate your own learning. It’s more important to ship, than to ship something amazing. Make a really small game, ship it, learn from it and build from there. Dare yourself to make it smaller.

5: Launch Quickly

If you’re not super embarrassed about your game when you launch, then you’ve launched too late. Launching quickly will let you learn directly from the market and players faster. Launching quickly speeds up the experience loop and reduces risk.

6: Repeat

Launch the first thing. Then build on top of what you have. Launch another better thing. Build on top. Iterate on the thing you made. Consider your development process and ongoing chain of experiments. Test what works, emphasise and magnify what works before you add new things.

7: Focus on the First Minute

Your audience will judge your product extremely fast. Focus on getting the first few seconds right, then the first minute, then the first five minutes etc. When you have something that will keep players on board for 10-20 minutes, you’re in a good place.

8: Let People Pay You

There is no reason to wait until you have 6-12 hours of polished gameplay before you let people pay you. Start with a tip jar. Make small instant games with ads. Pre-sell your full game at a discount. Start a Patreon. At the very least give people a way to “pay” by giving you their email address.

9: Show Your Work

Share what you make on whatever channels you have available. Figure out where your players are, and show them bugs, failures, fun, great looking stuff, ugly stuff, warts and all. Show your work and humanity. You attract people who share your values by expressing your values.

10: Keep Going

You do not need permission to get started. Just go. Then make sure that you can keep going until you make something that works. Keep the band together. Work day jobs if you must. Keep going until something sticks.

Bonus: Get (Make) a Mentor

Lots of people have walked the path before you, and many of them are more than happy to help you out. It never hurts to ask. Don’t ask for a mentor, but ask for advice on a specific thing, go do it, then later tell them what happened and ask another thing. Slowly you’ll turn them into mentors.

Put it On the Wall

This post is available for free as a more attractive and printer friendly PDF.

The Indie Game Business Case Template

Building a compelling business case for an indie game is hard.

I recently found myself banging my head against the wall in frustration, as I tried to build a decent business case for a game. It felt like I was wandering randomly in the fog.

The culmination was a slightly embarrasing pitch meeting with a friendly publisher, where a couple of obvious flaws in my analysis was pointed out. I needed to make a better tool for myself.

One thing I had struggled with was finding actual relevant comparable games. I guess that's often a case of "my game is unique" syndrome. That, and the fact that I found it utterly overwhelming. So many games, so much data to dig through...

I ended up making a spreadsheet which is basically a combination of the Comparative Analysis approach from Rami Ismail's pitch template (https://ltpf.ramiismail.com/pitch-template/ - Specifically this slide Thanks for sharing, Rami!), and the Revenue Calculator from VGinsights.com (I've found their 'Indie Access' paid tier worth the subscription fee).

I've also found https://games-stats.com/steam/tags/ super useful when exploring the right tags.

With this spreadsheet, combined with data mining on VGinsights, it feels much more manageable.

I hope you'll feel the same way.

The Antidote to Insecurity

The antidote to insecurity is to allow yourself to be vulnerable and take action. To be vulnerable means allowing yourself to ask “stupid” questions, to seek answers, ask for help and to be coachable.

Being vulnerable, asking questions and having a learning mindset is something many people need to practice deliberately. I know I do.

Ask yourself:

• “Why do I feel insecure right now?”

• “What is the underlying question/uncertainty/challenge that make me feel insecure?”

• “What are some questions I can ask, to mitigate, learn about or solve this?”

• “Who can I ask?”

Phrasing questions without feeling too exposed can be hard. Here are some starting points:

• “Would it be OK if I ….?”

• “How would you approach [the challenge]?”

• “Do you have any ideas for how to ….?”

• “I’m thinking of [the challenge]. Do you have any thoughts on that?”

• “I’m feeling insecure about … “

That last one is not a question. But simply stating our insecurity to someone else most often unlocks a comment, a conversation or a moment of sparring that can help us through. And often stating the fact deflate the feeling.

I often feel insecure about sharing what I made.

But today, I’m sharing my course The Value Playbook publicly for the first time. One of the things I wanted to address with the course, is first time founders’ secret insecurities.

The Secrets That Product-centric First-time Founders Share

Product-centric first-time founders often share a set of secrets that hold them — us — back; We feel insecure and incompetent about business decisions.

Some of the most commonly shared insecurities for first-time product-centric founders are:

• How do we build a “real” company?

• How do we transition from being a few founders in a “club” to a company?

• How do we best communicate about our company?

• How do we best articulate where we are going?

• Am I doing this right?

As product-centric founders we try to keep our doubts and insecurities secret. Instead of showing vulnerability we are doing all they can to build and maintain an image of a professional company, run by great people who are in control.

When we try to pass as “great people, in control” we sometimes resort to arrogance, bolt-on jargon and hyperbole or we simply don’t go anywhere, paralysed with fear and doubts.

This means that hard and defining choices, that would really shape the future of the company, happen way too late, if ever. Important time is lost, and learning happen too little and too late.

In the best cases, the first-time founders get outside help, or they evolve fast enough, in time for a new beginning for the company.

How To Make Hard Choices Easier

Many indie game devs fail not because of an inferior product, but because their company is built on a poor foundation.

Product-centric founders with no business background - as indie game devs very often are - tend to overlook or neglect important aspects of building a sustainable company. As a result, hard, defining choices often happen too late in the company life-cycle.

As product-centric game people, starting a business, we’re often painfully aware of our own short-comings in the classically businessy aspects of starting and running a business.

Getting help to mitigate those obvious shortcomings is a no-brainer. We hire admin staff or external consultants to deal with payroll, bookkeeping and similar.

The problem is, that we often fail to see the important but non-urgent bits that make up the foundation of how our company operates and where we headed with it.

We fail to see the “soft stuff” that’s missing in our midst. It is not urgent. Nobody demands it from us. We’re only rarely asked about it. But getting it right makes a world of difference.

The solution?

How might we make a system of thought that would help us make hard choices easier?

• Discover and embrace your personal values

• Define and commit to a set of company values

• Develop a clear, inspirational and aspirational mission statement

• Use this to narrow your focus down to what makes the most impact

Then, make it a habit to check choices and actions against values and mission:

• How does this align with our values and mission?

• If we hold these values, what are the consequences in this current context?

How Can You Make It Smaller?

When making something, plan to make it smaller than you even thought possible. If the core is good enough it will be fine - better even - with being smaller. And then you can build from there.

Years ago we had a conversation with a game design celebrity about a game we wanted to make. We loved the idea we had. We had spent so much time in our heads with it, and had everything thought through.

The game would take the player to a variety of locations around the World and involve intricate sceneries. The celebrity designer listened to our pitch. He didn’t comment much on the idea or the gameplay, nor did he go into platforms, sales, marketing and strategy.

“That sounds fun. How can you make it smaller?” he said.
“Why go around the World, when you can go around the block?”

By making the product smaller we increase our chance of not failing. We increase our chance of completing, and then, our chance of succeeding.

We made the game smaller. But not at all small enough. We ended up never shipping it.

Emotional Resonance Before Practical Relevance

Faced with the choice of two products, you pick the one that resonate with you. If your product resonates with your audience, practical relevance is …irrelevant.

When does something resonate? When your body reacts to it before your intellect does. You breathing gets faster. You get warmer. Your emotional apparatus reacts.

Follow the white rabbit. Follow what resonates with you. Spend your time on something that resonate with you on an emotional level, and you’ll be much better off in the long run.

Emotional resonance leads. Even if practical relevance spurred the initial need.

Complete More Product Cycles ♻️

Completing product cycles teach you things you can’t learn except through experience.

What is a product cycle?

• Getting from initial idea 💡…

• to finished product 📦 …

• … in the hands of the intended audience

You’ll get answers to things like; When is it really done ✅? How long does this thing take? How do I react to the different stages of the process? What do I find easy, and what am I struggling to get done?

You’'ll experience a long tail of unforeseen issues. Solving those issues — following through — will bolster you with experience, and — maybe most importantly — self-esteem.

Following Through

Completing full product cycles is all about following through. That’s easier said than done. Here is a few pointers:

1. Lower your ambitions and expectations

2. Lower your standards for what a product is

3. Start with the smallest imaginable product — if in doubt, make it smaller

4. Follow through, all the way to serving a live audience

5. Repeat with a new product cycle ♻️

Apply this to both personal creative work, and product development in a business context.

Pick One (1) Thing

If you want to build a business, focus on what lies at the core of it. That’s the one thing you need to pick. “One thing” is at least 10.000 things that you have to do and get right in order to make that “one thing”. Doing two things, means twice that + complexity squared + negative attention span = disaster.

Just for fun, try taking the Venture Capitalist approach to picking the one thing:

Pick one thing, one product, one area, one niche, in which you can become #1 in the World. If you can’t become #1, you haven’t defined your one thing narrowly enough.

Less than #1 in the World is probably OK for most of us, but there is value in thinking it through to the end.

If at some point you fail doing that one thing, then try another one thing. Do many one things if you may, but do them in sequence.