Welcome to Wrestling Gamers United Newsletter #311
1) The Excellence of Execution 2) Showtime 3) Link of the Week 4) Question of the Week
1) The Excellence of Execution ********************************
Limbo.
That's where we are and I don't like being here. Not one bit. Uprising should be out, getting feedback, and earning revenue right now. I did not expect such delays at this stage when we're so close to the finish line. Its not just one thing but a culmination of inter-dependent opportunities that are stalling things. On one hand Uprising has been accepted by a distributor. But on the other hand another company has vowed to get financially involved to a point where we could give Uprising away for free and instead offer the original distributor a much bigger project to sell soon down the road. And all of this is dependent on our funding situations with Telefilm, Bell Fund, as well as our relationship with someone in the wrestling business who has opened up new doors for us.
But one thing is certain. No matter which direction we ultimately end up taking next we need to slow down, prepare, design, and plan before executing any new production project. We learned a lot from producing what ultimately became PWX: Uprising and the entire crew is in agreement that there are improvements that can be made across the board. Designing is relatively easy, but executing a design takes a well thought out plan based on experience. We didn't have that low level experience the first time around but now we do. Now we have real answers and a real sense of the risks involved at every stage. What tasks can be accurately scheduled and which tasks involve a great deal of uncertainty? What are our constraints in terms of time, money, talent, and technology? It all needs to be thought out and addressed because if you depend on luck and determination get you through you'll be in for a whole lot of pain. Pain we're all a little too experienced with and have no desire to go through again.
The crew is a lot stronger than it was even a year ago. Sure, we're all growing impatient and frustrated with the state of Uprising and it's distribution but we're also all looking forward to taking the next big step and are much better prepared for it. I've been spending a great deal of time lately studying project management because frankly it's where we've failed to a great degree in the past. Yes its hard to be patient and design something on paper for weeks or even months when you are dying to see action come together on the screen. But its time and money well spent because a surprise stoppage during the execution phase is a great deal more expensive than the same number of days spent on design. I'm now a firm believer in not only properly prepared design documentation and scheduling but of highly detailed low level technical design as well. You should be able to hand over your design and execution schedule to a completely separate game studio and based on nothing more than the strength of your documentation they should be able to produce your game for you exactly as you envision it.
If you can't clearly explain it, then you're not ready to build it.
So as I sit here playing phone tag with a dozen or so different companies and funding agencies at least I'm blessed with some time to reflect and let my learning experience shape my plans going forward. A mentor of mine once told me when I was growing up (aren't I still?), "Every year of your life you will look back and not believe how little you knew the year before."
We are blessed to have made it this far on what little knowledge we started with but we can't depend on luck to get us any further. They're only mistakes if you make them twice.
2) Showtime ************
A few weeks ago I was invited to take part in a documentary series that will air later this year on a Canadian network. They filmed a lot of Uprising gameplay footage and spent some time asking me questions to which I'm sure I gave largely rambling incoherent answers to. It was fun and since then they've made plans to do more filming about PWX at our studio. Who knows, could lead to something interesting. I'll definitely keep you posted when I learn of the air dates later this summer.
One of the hottest topics in wrestling games is story mode. How open should it be? What compels anyone to play through it? At this week's Game Developers Conference an excellent presentation was made by Ken Levine, Creative Director for one of my favorite games recently, Bioshock. He makes some very strong points concerning the development of story in video games as well as some controversial ones including my favorite:
"If you want people to follow your plot it has to be really fucking stupid."
Our little page at Gamespot is embarrassingly out of date and we need to replace a lot of the screenshots to accurately reflect the Uprising release. Wanna help choose which pics we should send them? Take a minute to browse the archive of screenshots at ProWrestlingX.com and let us know which pic or pics are your favorite at the PWX forum here: