Being Proactive
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.พ. 2024
- I talk about being proactive at work and why this is so important.
Videos I mention:
Good Team Characteristics: • Good Team Characteristics
How to Get a Job in the Game Industry: • How to Get a Job in th... - เกม
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Hey Tim, love the channel. Subbed. Could you make a video about being proactive?
Hello I think there is a video called "Being Proactive", but I didnt check
Thank you for asking. I wasn't even proactive enough to ask this question myself.
I really should watch that video. I hope it gets auto-played (I have 5 Luck)
😂
Tim was proactive enough to make a reply video before the commenter was finished typing... Nice
Being proactive is one of the ways in which you can avoid feeling as a cog. I'm not sure it is a result of passion, maybe more a result of a strong sense of responsibility or obsession.
However, even when you work in a genre you don't like it's best to pick an area in it that you really care about and focus on it.
Sometimes the leads of a project have serious blind spots and only proactive people below them can fill those gaps.
Being an introvert is not a problem for me at my work. If it's about the mission, the goal, the work, this justifies me bothering all kinds of people as much as possible.
It's funny, nothing ever made me feel more like a cog in a machine than being proactive and being punished for it.
Hi Tim, I started to follow you because you were a big part of Arcanum but I stayed because of your game dev talk. I am a CAD designer/technician (think big electricity/thermal plants) but you have no idea how much your talks can be transposed into other fields. Even things like code structure can be paralled into CAD software thinking. Managerial talks/organisation things are also useful.
Keep whatever you do, either be Arcanum or job related. I like it 👍
Arcanum is such a great setting and game.
This is the kind of tough love people need to hear sometimes. I loved this.
The Wrath of Cain!
if this love is tough, gen z is a lost cause.
@@evoltaocao5078 I've had employees cry from just write ups. Trust me, this would be considered tough language for many people nowadays.
@@asraarradon4115 Sorry for not being automatons?
Proactive behavior has been punished in many places. Or not rewarded well as well. Many times I see people not being proactive because the system they are in doesn’t promote it. The system needs to make being proactive and bringing up issues the correct path.
That of proactive behaviour gets exploited and so people lose their drive to be proactive.
I've seen that in one or two people I've met during my career.
YUP, modern workplace culture, at least in America, will only punish you for such things with more workload without benefit. Our reward system is screwed from the top down, after a good 60 years of systematically rewarding people for already having money and undervaluing the SHIT out of labor and the actual value creators.
constructive criticism = disrespect, etc.
Proactive people usually earns 10x time by being self employed
In my country "proactivity is punishable" is a famous proverb everyone knows. Often proactivity can lead to wasted resources if it doesn't align with what management actually needs at the moment.
That doesn't work. If you want to be pro-active, be pro-active until you are in an environment that actually values it. You can't expect "the system" to change for you, that's actually a very reactive attitude by itself.
A lot of this is due to gamification systems instead of people who actually know about stuff on top, so employees are more rewarded for gaming the system than actually doing the proactive work which is often considered troublesome than rewarding, also there is a disconnect between product and employees when their rewards and performance is evaluated by gamified systems with upper management out of touch with real stuff.
This is what I like about Godot's open source issue/problem reporting. One of questions is "Do you know how to make it/can you provide pseudo code?" and then "If this issue wouldn't be merged, is there are a way to achieve similar result using other solution?". Because of this when you share information about something broken or missing, you are already inclined to contribute. They also ask you to check if similar request was already registered.
You're 100% correct. With the caveat that this applies to the world where hiring and firing is extremely expensive because it's not minimum wage work; being proactive and good at your job benefits you tremendously.
1. No one you want to work for will want to micromanage you.
2. It becomes really easy to advocate for yourself in reviews (where people give you raises or bonuses) when you have a lot of documented instances of actually being a proactive member/requesting help/solving problems unprompted
3. We remember the coworkers/employees that are actually good at their job and want to work with you. This usually means interesting projects/good pay/great references should you leave/possible jobs should they leave and try to take you with them.
4. You gain authority and experience in other domains and become incredibly knowledgeable.
5. You put pressure on your orgs end to make sure you're well compensated. Refusing to promote and compensate excellent people is incredibly destructive to employee retention (especially as younger generations discuss salary more openly) across entire organizations. Unless your management is in a race to the bottom of cost cutting, if other employees see the ass you are busting and couldn't get anywhere they just check out.
I've heard with joy that there's this RPG coming out this year (seemingly),
with clear inspiration from the world, or the more general setting, of Arcanum.
Question for the original idea's parent/co-parent:
- Are you Ok with it?
- Were you in anyway asked about it, maybe just as an informal blessing?
- Want to share anything about it or the use-of/inspiration-from the setting in general?
Anyway, I just hope it's going to ba a cool game to play
(title of the game at the bottom, so you have to expand for reading: not promoting anything myself)
Thanks for your videos!
(Game title: "New Arc Line",
didn't find any clearly referred to video when searching for "new arc line" and just "arc")
I just saw that game on Mortismal Gaming, and I sent a link to Leonard. It’s the first we’ve heard of it. We’re both fine with it and excited to play it.
@@CainOnGames
Happy to hear that.
Thanks for the answer!
@@CainOnGames Is the ip for arcanum now owned by Microsoft after actiblizzard purchase, can't you cajole big daddy to give obsidian a chance to do it again once more with you guys.
@@rkrams1989 He could, but do you really think the corporate execs at Microsoft will see value in it?
@@DanielFerreira-ez8qd I hope so, it's more about somehow unlocking arcanum ip out of their dusty cupboards than making them see value, which they sure would once they see the release, cause it's one interesting ip and unique game world that managed to feel alive in 2d, no offense to fallout but it was nowhere as interesting unique as arcanum.and we all know how much fallout is loved by people esp nv, now seeing arcanum realised like that it would be a treat.
As someone in the IT field (non programming field) and is now in early 40s and heading into leadership roles, I can understand and fully appreciate what you've spoken about and all your other leadership and management videos as well. It's really strange though, I still very clearly remember how I was an unmotivated and annoyed worker in my younger years and sometimes I felt so much hatred that it led me to quit/change my jobs frequently and it was heavily scrutinized in all my interviews. Probably age and maturity is a big factor, with a family now, good boss, good coworkers, good working environment with good pay and benefits. Note that even when I got a pay bump when I changed jobs frequently when I was younger, I still wasn't happy back then. Even when I had great coworkers and bosses I felt like I didn't fit in.
I finally realized it was me. When I changed my mindset, things got better and it kept getting better. It couldn't just be luck or coincidence that things improved when my mindset improved, I did more for my coworkers, my bosses, my family and friends. Yes, even things outside of work improved when I made an effort to go a little extra for my love ones.
Thank you for sharing your experience and wisdom.
Actually the worst thing that can happen when you report a problem is you get stuck fixing someone else's work continuously, you don't get credit for it, and the extra work affects the things you can get credit for. Not everyone can just quit a job like that and take their pick of more rewarding positions.
Even though I'm in a different industry (Cadastral surveying) I can absolutely agree on bringing up the issue with one's nearest supervisor to at least point out the issue and have the dialog. But show initiative, and if not passion, then at least investment. No, it's not about blind loyalty or going the extra mile, but about actually caring about making the right product. You are only a Cog if you are passive, and only move when moved
Then again, I'm in a company with a very flat structure, so everyone can talk to everyone.
Going to school for computer science really tried hard to beat “proactive” out of me. There are several examples that could give. One that stands out is the professor gave us a CSV parser to do our homework. I notice a bug and that it didn't get the timing correct. I rewrote the parser from scratch thinking he was busy and this would help other students, and implemented the homework as asked. Want to guess what I got for the assignment? A big fat zero, and he would not change it even though I did what assignment asked to implement. If you don't do what they ask you or what they want you to do exactly, even it's not written, you will get punished. So I understand how people you talked about get made.
Shitty professionals exist in every industry, at every level. While I can think of a few professors in my CS course that would act just like you described, I can think of several others that would laud you for your extra effort. All we can do is reflect on and rationalize "failures" like that so as to not learn the wrong lessons from it, and of course try our best to not be biased towards ourselves in every instance, because we will inevitably get some things wrong. Talking to other people about such situations is a good way to shore up any biases, as well as trying your hardest to divorce yourself from the situation.
edit: easier said than done, of course
Thanks for your reply.@@fabiodafontourabeltrao7351
When I was new in an office in a warehouse I had this old coworker who would use Excel all day to then hand write the numbers into preprinted tables again to give them to the other office.
When I tried to show her how to just print her table at the end of the day , the person and our boss were mad at me for wanting to change things because neither understood its literally one button.
That was the last time I tried to change something there and only did as I was told because if using the print function in Excel was causing that much trouble imagine how actually changing things would have went haha
@@malik740 sounds like they are just trying to stretch their work out for extra time, afraid they might get made redundant if the higher ups realise that multiple of their jobs could be done by 1 competent person
the problem with academia (at least at the undergraduate level) is that they have pre-defined model answers that they look for with each question/assignment, and that they need to grade answers against for fairness, and to make it easier for them to grade potentially 100s of results without it taking forever
I've spent literal decades working hard and being proactive and then taken advantage of with the dangling carrot of promotion which never materialises because I'm already doing this extra work for my current pay.
Now I'm proactive in a different way. I'm proactively protecting myself from being exploited. I'll go above and beyond for any of my coworkers, but never for my employer. Dedication and loyalty works both ways, companies ask you for the world but rarely recognise or reward effort fairly.
I'm not against being proactive, I had a job once where you'd get a monthly bonus basically based around your proactive attitude and that was fantastic, I really felt recognised and rewarded for my efforts, but this sort of thing is so rare.
Tim, you are forgetting a rather important part that the time you are working on fixes or walking around and trying to find who is in charge of that, you are not working on your own tasks. And sure, if you do have a lot of free time and your own tasks lines are not backed up, be proactive. But when did that happened last time? I think better way is to create a company or division wide lists where you can easily drop a found bug or problem (with possible solution), to enter them when it is found. And maybe to ask testers (or leads) to keep an eye on that list.
Yeah, sometimes I'll go "okay, maybe I CAN find the answer to this specific issue by going through the documentation or googling it, but on the other hand, i'm not sure I can finish this sprint in time so I'll just ask my manager directly" It's a way to either finish your tasks on time, or to at least alleviate some of the pressure.
Sounds like some folks got called into Principal Cain’s office this morning!
Something I tell students in the software engineering course I assist with, "A 5 minute question can save you 5 hours. So ASK."
I would love to see discussion between Tim and Sandy Petersen someday, both are my favorite developers from back in the time
Tim: I love pro active people, if you see a problem - FIX IT!
Corporate reality: Why did you do this without a ticket ?!
:D
Hey Tim! Really appreciate your vids about Game Development, I love hearing about your perspective.
As a game developer myself, currently working as a programmer, I have to disagree about your statement around the 8 minute mark. Being told "no" is not the worst thing that could happen. I love speaking up when I see a problem, or when a design doesn't make sense, but that usually results in extra work getting tacked on top of what I already have, which may result in me having to do overtime. Not to mention the million (often unnecessary) meetings the PMs will want to have about it.
I don't have a problem with doing (paid) overtime if I'm working in a feature I like or a problem I spoke up about, but I do have a problem with doing overtime when I get things stacked on top of the problem itself and I know things could have been simpler. It gets to the point when before speaking up I ask myself: "Do I want to speak up about this, or do I want to have a free weekend?". This ties in a lot with some of the things you said in your video about "Game Development Caution". These are some of the reasons why programmers will give an estimate we all know is above the actual work required, because we KNOW we will get stuff thrown on top of the problem itself.
Just wanted to share the perspective of someone at the bottom of the totem pole. Cheers!
I've worked at a place where I was encouraged to not be proactive & to just "do your job" because if we were fixing things then we had too much free time
hahaha I love when companies blame the peons for the problems of the people who scheduled them
Tim, thank you so much for making this channel. I cannot express how much joy I have gotten listening to you talk about your career and remembering how much of an impact your games had on me and even my career. You and your contemporaries that made incredible computer games during my youth created in me a passion for computers that has sustained my career all these decades later. I will forever owe a debt to everyone involved in Fallout, Wasteland, Ultima III and Wizardry.
Hey Tim, I've been enjoying your videos a lot! Here are some questions/potential video topics that came to mind:
- What is your take on leaving things to the imagination of the player? A good example of this is voice acting. I was surprisingly turned off by my character being voice acted in Fallout 4. Not because it wasn't well done, but because it made my character feel more generic/less like the character I wanted to play.
- Main stories in RPG's (and pacing). Whenever I play an RPG I tend to do side quests and factions over the main story, it just feels more like exploring the world and developing a character. If the main quest typecasts your character a lot in interactions with NPCs or the main quest feels very urgent, it hampers my personal RPG experience.
- Defining the scope of a game. Do you have any good advice on defining the scope of a game? Which things to start with, how to scope and when to put a stop on adding new stuff?
Hi Tim. Hearing your story at 1:17 feels very validating. To use your fire analogy, I currently have a boss that won’t let me grab the fire extinguisher without his approval first. I’m a guy that likes to fix things then and there before I forget(Electrical Engineer, not a game dev). But having to get approval for every little thing is so suffocating and almost completely takes the wind out of my sails in terms of being proactive. I was even questioning if this was gonna be the case for the rest of my career, but it sounds like I need to find a different job where proactivity is rewarded.
Have you had any experiences like this? Do you know anyone who has? How did they survive?
Wow, appreciate the leadership talk here tim, not everyone will realize what a goldmine you're laying down here but thank you! This really gives an idea of your way of handling people as well
Another reason to tell others about stuff you notice is to make sure it was a mistake and not a knowledge gap.
Like a coder mixing up something and just needing a reminder to do it that way , or a designer who forgot something got scrapped and still is designing around it.
When you fix it silently there is the risk the person goes on doing the same mistake again.
Hi Tim, just wanted to drop a note to say that I really appreciate these videos about workplace dynamics and that sort of thing. I’ve found them really helpful as someone that started a full time job about a year ago after about 3 years of broadcast freelancing and I really like a lot of your insights when it comes to working with others on longer projects, which is something I didn’t really do until I started this particular job. Thanks!
Love what your sharing in this video. As a younger person who's been self employed most of my life, its been a rough transition into a more structured work environment. These videos on the qualities you look for in team members, and other professional anecdotes have been really helpful getting into a more productive proactive mindset. Appreciate you Tim 🙏
Being proactive can be an issue if you don't communicate what you're doing. Especially if your supervisor happens to be someone who gets an attitude if they aren't contacted first (I've had plenty like this).
Generally, if you care about the job being proactive should be a natural response. If you couldn't care less, that's when it should be expected.
Very interesting video!
This isn't quite the same thing, but whenever I see a really unappealing presentation of a game I always wonder if nobody on the team raised their hands and said "Guys, this doesn't look very good/interesting?"
I'm finishing up a Coding Bootcamp and then going to be breaking into the industry. I know I have a lot to learn to be more proficient as a programmer and gamedev but I'm very happy with my progress so far. I watch most of your videos and I appreciate that you've taken the time to make them. Thanks Tim!
Tim, if starting a TH-cam channel about helping a community has taught me anything, it’s that people are monstrously lazy. They would rather spend the time asking a question on a TH-cam video than Googling and reading to get an answer. It’s insane.
Amazing advice. Thanks Tim! Appreciate you sharing your knowledge
I've been told by countless customers - related to training & compliancy: "If it's not a 5 minute video, it's too much"; that mentality is and short concentration-span being deemed acceptable is the whole problem, nothing 'worth doing' can be taught to an professionally acceptable level in 5 minutes or a few times 5 minutes. Same with being pro-active; many people give up on it after being burned a few times. I consider even that a good thing, because it taught you you are/were in a bad environment and need(ed) to get out !
At a point in time I knew about that video about getting a job in the industry. Humbly, thank you for reminding about it.
I think the problem comes from the fact that in a lot of companies and industries the politics of the organisation act against being proactive. Managers that feel threatened by people taking initiative. Working against protocol will get you pulled up instead of thanked. Rigid structures that make people feel that if they put their head up and aren't in the good graces with the right people then your actions will be seen as being a problem rather than a solution. I've worked in really fantastic companies that are nimble and encouraged problem solving. I've also worked in others where you could be fired for doing something that breaks the structure.
I know Tim says the worst that can happen is someone will say that says no. The worst that can happen is you get fired. I know that game development is maybe not the same as some other monolithic industries and thats greay.
Proactivity goes hand in hand with alignment. Once the team is all pulling in the same direction and understands the *reasons* for the work that they're doing, they will notice problems in their area of expertise that are compromising everyone's efforts and will feel confident in saying, "I see a problem for everyone that I can own, and I intend to do [x] about it."
Tim, this was a great video and I'm glad you said what you've said.
Regarding what you said about pointing people to your videos, being direct isn't being rude, it's getting the necessary info across as quickly as possible.
I hope people took that message away from here, but if not, I wouldn't worry about them anymore
There's a time when I would have agreed with this sentiment but no longer. I have no experience in the gaming industry but i can speak volumes about the culinary field. It has been my experience that hard work and initiative is not rewarded but rather taken advantage of. It's become a system of, "I don't need to pay them more because they're already pushing themselves harder." It's a rotten way to treat people and i really hope things are better for game developers because I wouldn't want this trend to seep into other industries.
*Full respect to you Tim, but also full respect to the person that refuses to do a single goddamn thing outside of their immediate job description*
Yeah, some places want drones and not proactive people
@@wesss9353 I think it's more that most places are only going to be exploiting you for that kind of work. Tim's perspective is pretty limited on this since he's basically been a boss for his entire adult life. It can even be the exact kind of initiative he's talking about that is what keeps you from getting promoted since you're considered vital in your current position, I've seen it happen far too many times. Most bosses simply are not like him, the entire job description for a lot of people in his position is just slavedriver
I love it! The next video youtube is recommending is and entirely different "how to get in the games industry" video. Yes! Before you publicly ask a question online, take the same amount of time to just type that same text into a search engine.
I've been advised by older workers in construction trades to not overdo it when you first start out at a place. They explained it that, don't drag my feet, but more like put in 80% of your available hustle and focus so that the extra 20% is in you back pocket. being too proactive and putting all your energy into the work lays unreasonable expectations on you from management and you either burn out or draw negative attention to yourself when you need to pull back. On the other hand, if you don't take on more responsibilities and show improvement over time, no one will ever consider you for promotion
I do 100% believe that being proactive shows to the people above you that you're trustworthy and can lead to promotions and ultimately better work, but that only works if the bosses aren't malicious, and many of them really are. I feel like this is also a system problem, not just a culture one.
Especially in this industry where many employees are seemingly overworked and underpaid (though I know this has gotten better than in the 2000's). it really doesn't feel like what's missing from the industry is passion and proactivity.
I'm very proactive in certain situations but normally I need enough lee-way to actually be able to make those decisions on my own. These days, especially, I'm almost completely proactive due to the fact I always retain as much control as I can, normally via taking the initiative regarding starting a project.
In software development, especially game development, it's also a lot easier to spend time being proactive without wasting resources compared to other professions, and thus a lot safer to experiment (a necessity in proactivity), so it's worth taking the risk if you can find the time.
E.G. I worked in construction for a short period when I was much younger, and the bosses would expect people to be pro-active - but if you were to make a single cut and waste a plank, you'd be right to expect them to expect you to cover the costs. It was much safer to just stand around confused than taking any risks).
Hey, love the channel. I don’t work in the games industry, but I find your insights to be applicable to really any sort of project work. It’s great how you’re enthusiastic but also not resorting to corporate buzz words. Keep it up!
Technically, proactive is a corporate buzzword. But that's not important right now. I prefer the term, responsive, myself. Too much activity and reactivity going in the world today if anyone were to ask me. Very little in the way of responsiveness, which entails the practice of superpowers most of us seem to have forgotten we possess.
I'm not sure why some people will ask a question before searching for the answer- I think it has something to do with their nature compared to others.
I see a ton of people asking easily googled questions across the internet and can't comprehend it. You have to wait for an answer and the answer may never come, it's much easier to check using the thing already in your hand
I cannot understand this, and it seems to be getting increasingly common
Regarding your wish of people being more proactive: you also need to consider the company culture, team size, decision hierarchy, how much bureaucracy is enforced in any action, and that the developer is just an employee and not co-owner of the product. A lot of the reasons of people being passive might simply be that this is the dominating strategy for them in system they are working in. The same people might be much more proactive in a small Indy production.
Very good video! You should do one about how to get a job in the game industry next :D
I really like this guy, his videos are part of my morning routine
@Timothy Cain
I love how you keep your videos to 10-15 mins. It means I can watch one each day, knowing what to expect of the length, or I can binge a whole lot if I’m in the mood.
This made me think of GAME PACING and STRUCTURE overall… QUESTION:
Q: Do you have specific thoughts around mapping out the PACING and PROGRESSION of a game?
Some people seem to use things like Game Loops (moment-to-moment loop, medium-term goals, long-term goals, staggering those goals across one another, etc)?
Some designers seem to factor in an expected Session length, pacing the game to suit the type of duration a player would sit with the game, each time they play.
I’ve also seen Pacing Charts or Progression Charts, where the whole game is mapped out in a broad-sense, showing different sorts of mission, areas, characters, new skills, etc - laid out over the whole game in a big overview chart or graph, to get a broader view of the game’s structure and pacing.
It can be hard to keep track of a whole game, and how all the pieces fit together, I'd love to hear if you have any design techniques, processes or "tools" you've found useful in this regard.
Thanks Tim ♡
I work with Clients and the communication often times sucks and I am the proactive one and at some point you need to say to yourself I need to find someone better to work with who respects my skills and me as a person. Being proactive is the base principle of my daily routine, I mean I try my best buy you always need to protect yourself from people that want to take advantage of your 'helper complex'
This advice is great for anyone working anywhere, whatever the field.
A large part of this is simply (a) selection (of negative evidence) and (b) the one to many phenomenon. (a) We don't see the many comments that were never made by people who have the minimum of pro-activeness and found their answer by themselves. (b) And you will get all the people who aren't pro-active when they do comment, because you are the guy to ask.
I had no idea Mr. Fallout himself was making content, what a great day ❤
The old saw “Be a self-starter, then your boss doesn’t have to be a crank” came to mind.
Yea I had an issue where I didn't really try to get into programming because I thought I'd be bad at it. Looking back, it was silly, I had been making my own websites since middle school. But I got it in my head that I was bad at math, and my attempts to learn JavaScript and Python were... ill-fated. Once I set aside my excuses and actually sat down and tried a REAL language, it all just clicked.
What I'm saying is, 'be proactive' applies to your own life and dreams as well; dont be afraid to dive into things, even if they seem like they're not your thing.
Would love it if you could do a video about being Proactive.
Hi Tim. Just found your channel a few days ago, I've since been binging your videos as they're such a treasure trove of practical knowledge and fascinating ideas. I wonder if you would touch upon how time changes your tastes and ideas, how the first game you play of a series will ultimately be your favourite. How to counteract nostalgia even.
Thank you for the inspirations!
Tim uploaded, it's 5 am!
I'll never understand how people like this manage to get up so early all the time
@@arcan762the powerful need to eat...
@@arcan762the powerful need to eat...
There's a danger to fixing something you think is going to be a problem and think that you have a solution to it (It's even worse to think your solution is still going to be valid down the line). The biggest work around is to make sure you have a brief daily meeting to highlight concerns (or things that you might perceive to be a problem) and encourage the work culture to let people bring up concerns without berating them for it. If management is the snarky sarcastic type that shoots down concerns (whether they are valid or not) then that kills input from you're more quiet and observant workers.
Hey Tim, love it! Subbed! Now seriously, the average comment on social media is driven by impulse and has about 3 seconds of pure thought put into it, and I'm pretty sure everyone expects to find info on how to get a job in the industry online - they'd just like to hear it from you cause they like you.
Being proactive is another word for "being willing to serve". Some people are raised (or have the temperament) to believe "serving" others is a lowly thing to do and that they should always make things about them being the recipients of everyone else's effort. And more, there are working environments where that mindset will get you to management.
That desire to smugly think I am not that guy vs remembering the times I am that guy.
It's really ironic you brought up the comments, because just yesterday on a Steam guide for Arcanum, which I did not write, for a mod I did not make, someone responded directly to my comment where I said "check with the mod team about compatibility with Multiverse" to ask if the mod was compatible with Multiverse.
I responded by saying "read this for more information:" and posted a screenshot of the comment with it circled in red. I'm hoping they were able to figure it out.
It boggles the mind sometimes how this stuff is even possible.
please be proactive in any job! after several managerial positions, I can confirm that staff waiting for a task is not condusive to progress
Tim, there should be a catch-all 10-second text slide at the beginning of your every video where you explicitly state that you already made a video on how to get a job in the game industry, along with a link to that video. May not solve the problem quickly, but hopefully it would over time.
Hey Tim, I love your videos and I've been binge watching them lately...
Could you possibly talk about how to get a job in the game industry?
While I agree I think the important part about this behaviour is, that is was probably taught to them and not everyone was able to break out of it yet.
I´ve been kinda like this (hopefully in the past now), I felt I needed instructions what to do from people with more experience, to avoid doing things "wrong".
One question I have for you Tim: do you personally pick your thumbnails on TH-cam or is it a default setting on TH-cam which is grabbing a random or default time code to use the still from?
- end of question-
Feel free to sit on this question until you do a longer Q&A… I realise this will be a very quick answer 🙂.
One thing I’d like to praise is that your thumbnail is very eye catching because the top you’re wearing is looking super contrasted in the lighting you have. I am aware you’re colourblind so idk how helpful me saying this is ( if it’s unhelpful then somebody lemme know.) but a video on a fundamental piece of advice like this is deserving of being so noticeable.
I'd also stress being productive than proactive. Be a "doer" first, then a "talker". Do your talking via what you produce (code, design, whatever). Also the importance of being a nice being person to work with for starters, and not stressing people out too much by micro-managing and pushing your nose in everything, controlling what and how they do things.
In groups of people who's working together, I often feel there's a lot of talking about work, and very little focus on the actual work. I sometimes feel many people (both developers and the management) don't even use the product they themselves are developing much. They notice the issues way too late, and sometimes they never notice it until the customer/user gives feedback, or someone points out what would be obvious just spending time 5-10 minutes with it. I say, just fucking shut up and use the application, and fix things as you notice, change them, don't spend your time telling people what to do or what should be done. Be a jack of all trades, don't be a lazy ass "manager, producer, whatever" who thinks who knows everything, but whose only job is to "talk". Be a coder, designer, decision maker all on your own. If you step on someone else's shoes, or your output doesn't align with the expectations of others, take a deep breath, sort it out and continue deleting and crunching out solid code that gets shit done. Be productive.
The builders are the heart of the product, everyone else are parasites on the wagon with you.
Hey Tim, love the vid. Could you make a video about how to land a job in the industry?
If you use the last of the toilet paper, paper towel, or soap, get a new one, or tell someone who will. It doesn't respawn after you leave. (' m ' )
Tim, have you ever made a text adventure, like those of infocom, if so when, what was it about, what language, etc? Would love to hear the story. Text adventures are what got me into programming in the first place! Thanks for all your videos!
First off role responsibilities should be clear so we don't confuse being proactive with simply doing the job that is required of you. If there is a fire and you're the fireman, then it's your job to put it out.
I think whether to be proactive or not depends on what kind of environment you work in:
1. Say you work in a large company with hundreds of employees on the same project. It's not part of your job, but you are bringing up issues in a completely different domain than yours.
If everyone was being proactive and giving unsolicited suggestions to a different domain than their own then there is a risk of ending up with too many cooks in the house/design by committee.
Or you can be branded as being too negative if you're always raising problems.
2. Then there is the workload amount. I think it is dangerous to have a single person responsible for an area, both to the project and the person's wellbeing. If that person already has his plate full you shouldn't expect him to constantly be giving himself additional work that he knows he can't possibly finish without working overtime. It is a planning failure. Let him focus on completing the stuff that he's already doing and put that work in the backlog then consider the next steps or give it to another person.
3. It's important to consider the bigger picture too, beyond your own local team microcosm. If the CEO is raking in millions yearly thanks to a product designed to be exploitative and the pay gap between him and the average worker is huge, then you being proactive doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
4. If the leadership is not itself proactive than that attitude will ripple down the hierarchy. Employees will ask themselves "If my boss doesn't care, why should I care more than him?".
5. This attitude of being proactive and wanting others to be too is crucial when the group is tight knit and must count on each other to basically not go bankrupt.
I stopped being pro-active in places i don't feel comfortable with, if i work too well people just give me more work and never raise my salary, why bother?
I was on a journey to finnaly beong proactive about my mental health and was taking intitave to find things to help socialize myself and not be so much of a neet then covid happened and since then been trying to find the motivation to start again
It's not just at work. People do the same in public - Someone on the ground needing help? 9/10 people will walk by averting their gaze, or worse, sit and watch. It's the 1 in 10 who goes to check on them and help them. Being proactive means potentially being wrong, and good heavens, we can't risk that now can we?
I wouldn't be surprised if undiagnosed ADHD was in the mix for some of these people. I know it can sound like a cop-out when people say that direct confrontation is hard, but that, along with the thing about not starting on a project unless directly asked, makes my ADHD spidey-sense tingle. I'm not saying that people like this need to be accommodated when they fail to be productive at work, but I do think it's entirely possible that it honestly didn't cross their mind until you brought it up, and that you shouldn't attribute malice to what could be explained as neurodiversity in our modern lens. I wouldn't be so quick to assume that they're trying to avoid problems so that someone else can take the responsibility.
Tim, loved the talk, it’s one of the things that drives me into white hot anger when someone is not proactive. One question, how should consumers react to gameplay trailers or the like? All i’ve ever seen is either extreme like or extreme hate.
You can set a channel trailer or something which appears on your channel page really big and can be played there. Not sure how it works but you could just set that "How to get a job" video there so they can see it easily.
Being proactive will get you further than being smart or talented, leaders love proactive people.
My team lead actually tries to discourage this type of bug finding or fixes. He sarcastically calls them "While you're in there" fixes
Hey Tim, have you played the Outer Wilds? Amazing, one of a kind game. I haven't tried Outer Worlds yet. But I did play Tyranny, and I loved it so much even if it wasn't as popular as your other works. MandaloreGaming's video on Tyranny is what made me play my first CRPG game. After Tyranny, I tried playing Pillars of Eternity, but I got too busy to play it thoroughly. Right now, I'm playing through BG3. I'm hoping to return to Pillars, and after that to Arcanum. Arcanum's plot sounds super interesting.
This is about 1/3rd of my job as a Producer/Designer.🤣
All Programmers should be doing this too.
I feel like office politics can affect being proactive. Like if you want more money if you be proactive you get a ton more work but not enough pay at the end of the day
Reactivity vs proactivity is a massive pet peve of mine as well
Tim, yesterday you talked about factions, mostly in regards to setting design and supporting types of players. How do you feel about reputation systems, designing reactivity between factions based on those systems, even to the point of exclusion based on player choice?
How do you feel about fast travel in RPGs? I've seen many conflicting opinions on the "right" way to do it, or whether it's necessary at all.
My favourite implementation is in Morrowind, where you can't fast travel from the map, but you have to seek out means of transport and pay for them.
Not sure if any of the games you worked on had that, but I'd be curious to get your thoughts on dynamic difficulty balancing: Instead of letting players pick between 'easy' 'medium' 'hard' when they start, more and more modern (live) games are changing difficulty variables under the hood to regulate the frustration and increase engagement based on data collected when the player plays.
I don't mean this as a slight to you Tim, but the more I hear you talk about your experiences in the gaming industry, the more game dev jobs just feel like normal software jobs. Between these videos and my limited direct exposure to the industry, I honestly have a hard time getting excited about the prospect of making games.
I think @bluemooninthedaylight8073 said what Tim, perhaps, forgot to say or innocently omitted: "I think it depends on the work environment and who is in charge."
"Proactivity" flourishes in healthy environments in which active participation is encouraged and appreciated even if not necessarily rewarded in some way. Best case: you feel you're among loving family and friends and/or are a member of a healthy community and can say/do whatever may be necessary to effect the vision at hand. That's really all there is to it, imo, and why so much of Tim's advice applies in all manner of professions and human endeavors as I see it. I'm sure he's worked in some environments himself in which what essentially amounts to spirit dampening is the norm. I know I have, but just kept reminding myself that it's no one elses' job to tend my spirit. Nope. That's my backyard to garden.
Healthy environments and atmospheres may be increasingly hard to find, but do still exist and/or are in formation all the time. I've worked in exactly one myself, but am sure there are others. If you're looking to switch from a software development position to a...software development position, best of luck finding the right environment for you. :)
A question for everyone else in these comments -- how do *you* *guys* navigate the specific moment of figuring out to yourself whether or not a problem you've just found is better silently dealt with yourself rather than brought up verbally? After all, someone who's constantly bringing up all their concerns (regardless of each worry's shade or severity) *will* *necessarily* become an annoying team member.
Might be a general problem with corperations as a whole. It is difficult to motivate yourself for something fully, if at the end of the day, you are just a hired hand, you could get fired for some restructuring. Hard to develop loyalty for an organisation that has none for you.
I would've that game employees, who would have a gamer mentality, might naturally look for things to solve or do on their own
Tim, check out "The Peter Principle." It's a great book.
It reads as brainwashing.
Hey Tim, any advice on how to get a job on game industry?
Some places will fire you if you put out the fire, and not tell the manager first
Gurantee you the ppl asking "Hey Tim how do I get a job in the industry" aren't genuinely interested in the answer and just want a personal reply off you cos of who you are. It's probably a narcissism thing.
Hi Tim! It's me, everyone.
Hi tim,
I've been working on a 2d platforming roguelite for a while now. The world and story are extremely important to us, and I was wondering if you had any thoughts about how to deliver a story inside of a roguelite/roguelike's game loop? The story will persist through death, and we have a believable-enough reason as to why the player is able to restart over and over while the story continues forward.
We would like the world to be permanently affected by various player decisions, and, in general, just want the story to have enough meat for someone to sink their teeth into if they are interested. And if not, they can just skip the dialog and keep playing.
We are a team of two, I have a lot of development experience but both of us have very, very little writing experience - However it's something we are both very passionate about. We want to make a world and characters that can connect with player's who choose to engage with them. However, since we're new, I want to try to lean more on some charming simple characters rather than writing a very serious story.
Anyways, thank you for the amazing videos. I have been binging them for a few days now.
Thanks for reading,
Gage