Dennis Detwiller on escaping video games and considering entrepreneurship

NikhilR

I wanted to share some articles from Dennis Detwiller who had an interesting career from working on Magic the Gathering to being in AAA and establishing his own ip's in pen and paper role playing games.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/escaping-video-games-dennis-detwiller/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/your-best-life-dennis-detwiller/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/process-work-dennis-detwiller/

Gives a good perspective on what is possible for creatives.
Not saying we all have to escape from the video game industry but I do sometimes see an issue with many creatives that work in AAA and get attached to products they don't actually own, being removed from the company later on and then despairing about the unfortunate reality.

I made a post on this myself,

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nikhilrath_riot-and-microsoft-layoffs-the-same-but-activity-7157425639375970305-hrcx/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
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🔥 "You don't own the the game you worked on at your employment" 🔥

On linkedin I see posts from artists taking about "their game" and "their character" without any genuine ownership of the product it is.
Its great to connect as an artist, but I do feel its important to remember that that videogames is a business first and foremost.

Microsoft didn't even bother giving two weeks notice and we're the ones concerned about burning bridges. Its ridiculous.

Like sure maybe one day each of us will become top tier rockstar employees (which doesn't seem to make any real difference towards stability in the longterm)
but unless we have any agency to create something that actually belongs to us and also pick up additional skills and alternative ways to express ourselves, we're completely at the mercy of corporates.

I've always tried to see employment as something that eventually enables a long term partnership striving for a greater purpose.
It is an opportunity to provide a service that can then be matured into a sustainable long term business arrangement that benefits everyone.

Recommend reading this article on the recent layoffs at Microsoft and Riot

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/riot-and-microsoft-layoffs-the-same-but-different-this-week-in-business

"Developers too often are willing to accept worse pay or working conditions for the good of the project or the company, while management is incentivized to trim any extravagance to run with the utmost efficiency. That has a tendency to produce some pretty unhappy outcomes for developers."

Alex_J

It takes a lot of money to start a business, which either comes with a time cost or debt/risk.
It also takes a rare combination of personality traits. I don't think it's a viable thing to really even dream about for the average person unless they have rare circumstances. 

i view it like this:

there is a village of people. The chief is hoarding all the meat. He has more meat than he can eat. Others are hungry. It doesn't matter what the chief did in the past or what he might do in the future. It doesn't matter what he knows or who he knows. He's got more than his fair share.

One person might get an idea to just leave and go live in the woods. Maybe it works out for them, but that is a death sentence for nearly anybody. 
The only realistic thing to do is for the people to toss out the greedy chief so that everybody gets fair share. 

The blocking issue is that if there are many people it is difficult to get them to communicate and act in unison. The chief(s) can coordinate easily because there is only a few of them. 

I think this same guy mentioned that unions in game industry are pointless because the owning corporation can just shut a studio down. And his alternative solution is that employees should just - individually - demand a bit more respect when taking on jobs. I don't follow the logic because employee has no leverage. And studios might routinely shut down but this is done strategically at the shareholders leisure, not due to situation forced by the employees. Therefore it should only be a matter of consistency. 
In other words, if I punch mike tyson in the rib it might not seem to do anything. He is strong and I'm a baby-man. But if I punch him 100 times he is going down.

zetheros

mike tyson is getting old, you just need to punch harder

Alex_J

if i had to fight mike i'd definitely go for the ear chomp if we want to get technical about it

Benjammin

Yeah, I dunno. The older I get, the more skeptical I become of people (especially those who've "made it") telling others this kind of thing.
"Just follow your dreams..."
"There's nothing more powerful than you..."
"Doing business on your terms..."

Its survivor bias - The people who crash and burn don't tend to write tales about it. I'm sure Mr Detwiller means well, but IMO his story of reaching the very top of the industry and leaving to chase his passions isn't exactly helpful to a midlevel artist who may have recently lost their job.

poopipe

Well said 

I think it pays to acknowledge that most of us are roughly average at most things (mathematically speaking it's a given) and comparatively few of us have what it takes to step out on our own and thrive. 

I'm doing pretty well for myself these days but I'm fully aware that all the progress I've made and all the fancy things I've built were paid for by somebody who is better at running a business than I'll ever be 
Some people are wired for it, others aren't..

NikhilR

I feel that the best way is the middle path. Meaning while its good to aim for a job with a good balance between compensation and stability, its important to also develop our own brand.

Generally the thinking about developing our brand as production artists is likely aspiring for the brand value of keos masons, vitaly bulgarov.etc where as a sought after artist/studio it becomes possible to maintain agency over the kind of work that is accepted.

Like a boutique service, since if the intention is to become an outsourcer, it becomes a race to the bottom again because of having to underbid for work on projects.

But what Dennis means is prioritising ownership, so identifying a market and appealing to it directly. 
His strength is design and mechanics but its also true that the timing of entering the market does make a difference.

Companies that are more encouraging of creativitydo allow this as part of long term employment, like how google maintains a 20% time policy allowing employees to spend 20% of their workweek on projects of their choosing, outside of their regular job responsibilities.
 The primary purpose of this policy was to encourage creativity, innovation, and the development of new ideas within the company.
I have seen this apply at ubisoft and EA which allow employees to pitch ideas that the company can invest in. 

Dennis's experince with that seems to have been more negative since when you innovate for a company, they retain the ip which means that all you have is your salary, bonuses and possible stock options, many times this isn't equal to the value of your contribution.

I'm reminded of two events in the game industry that dealt with this issue,
Ubisofts obsession with Patrice Desilets
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/patrice-desilets-and-his-lifelong-obsession-with-time
where he had Ubisoft screwing him over on IP ownership, going so far as to aquire THQ which he had joined only to fire him to retain control over his ip.

And Activision's mad quest to discredit Jason West and Vince Zampella
https://mojason.medium.com/the-ballad-of-west-and-zampella-8435696de0e3
Which led to the creation of Respawn

But if you're not on the inside its open season on building projects that can be brought to a vertical slice and pitched to publishers, or even consider kickstarter as a means to get initial funding.

For myself, I enjoy creating realistic character art with the objective being to get work in the industry at suitable compensation and longevity in employment, but at the same time I find time to explore my creativity beyond what I am restricted to by the position I'm applying for.

For example becoming familiar with art pipelines that seamless integrate character rigging and animation and even open avenues to 3d printing.
Something which caters more directly to an audience and might be easier to build a business around.