Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

OneofOne said:

I"m not knocking 38 Studios here - believe me when I say I want them to succeed (I want a good game to play dammit) - but until we have something to sink our teeth in to, I"ve heard it all before (Sigil). I"m not alone in giving no developer any of my trust, and I guess I don"t understand why you are.

Otherwise, your points for the most part seem valid and it"s possible 38 Studios is going in the right direction with QA. If not, well, 2 Vanguards will hopefully have twice the impact on the industry as one did.

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Actually, I think 38 Studios teeter on the brink, with regards to QA. Its in so many other areas they excite me. Where I meant they are different to the competition is they only need to recruit a couple of folk to make things work - other companies would need to change their entire ethos.

I did a little research on some of their senior staff, a while back. People like Brett Close, Bill Thomas and Scott Cuthbertson are exceptional talents. Combine that with their attitude to their employees. The more you look after your folk, the more they can do their best work.

Everything about them just "feels" right. I"d bet my house on them.

There is a reason that we"re looking for a QA Manager this early in the project. Some companies wait to hire QA of any kind until they think they"re ready for "beta" (in quotes because most games go into beta well before they are in a beta state). This leads to mass chaos like missed milestones, game delays, and Godzilla destroying cities.

We are looking for a senior quality assurance type with game industry experience because we need to build our QA department correctly. Could you do it with someone who has no game industry experience? Probably, but it"s much better to get people with experience in the game industry to form the company properly.

Will we eventually need entry-level QA? I"m going to assume so, though I don"t make those decisions. That"s how I got into the industry myself (combined with running fansites and taking unpaid internships beforehand).

If you"re looking for an entry-level position at a game company, don"t approach it like a hobby. Don"t go to the interview and tell them how cool it would be to play video games for a living and how k-rad you are at Counter-Strike. Show them how organized you are, how good you are at paying attention to detail, and how thorough you are in everything you do.

The bright-eyed and bushy-tailed gamers with no desire outside of playing video games for a living do not get hired at good companies (even though it can get you hired at a company that has a crappy QA department). The bright-eyed and bushy-tailed gamers with ambition, drive, and who strive for excellence do get hired at good companies.

Anyway, everyone around here knows that quality assurance is incredibly important. When your company has a focus on making quality products, it has to realize that it is impossible to reach that goal without a rock-solid QA department to work with (not "against" or "for") all the other departments.

Edit: Yes, I did sayk-rad. I"m trying to bring it back with little success.

Did you just say k-rad?

Blackguard said:

Could you do it with someone who has no game industry experience? Probably, but it"s much better to get people with experience in the game industry to form the company properly.

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Thats where I fundamentally disagree.

I"ve said I don"t believe the skill set exists within the industry, although it does exist in the IT world. You will have to compromise on this, if you want to be the best you can.

The obvious - your QA should be there from soon after the project inception. They should be responsible for process development, documentation standards and communication. They need to ensure that all project plans are followed and kept on schedule, from your executive team on down.

They need to, at a minimum, understand these things as well as all of your executive team and be as well qualified.

You either compromise on this ability and experience, which is the whole essence of your QA and will define your level of success, or you compromise on experience in the gaming industry.



Its a hard thing to accept that there are people out there better than you at aspects of your job. This insecurity is what broke the western manufacturing industries. However, if you take on the guys who can do this well, you can learn enormous amounts in a short space of time. One guy could pass on his skill set to a number of your staff. Every aspect of your company will increase in ability and potential, exponentially.

Why compromise when there are people out there who have both game industry experience and IT world QA experience?

It"s a little unfair to assume that people with game industry experience can"t have that skill set. For the same reason that I can"t assume an artist can"t have a great design idea, I can"t assume that someone with game industry QA experience can"t have the desired IT world skill set.

There are plenty of gaming QA folks out there. I just think the population of experienced MMO QA folks is rather limited, only because the genre is still very young and limited in population (of games).

Blackguard said:

It"s a little unfair to assume that people with game industry experience can"t have that skill set.

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I"d called it realistic, rather than unfair. Guess we just disagree on this point



As a rough outline, the person we are talking about would be qualified to a minimum of degree level in Management/QA/ Project Management, have the experience and respect commanded by Brett Close and, if they chose, could earn a minimum of $250k a year contracting.

They should be accomplished and comfortable taking part, or running meetings, of your Executive Team. They need exceptional communication and scheduling skills. They need to be able to not only control their own documentation and scheduling, but also capable of putting their foot down, when necessary, to control the scheduling and documentation of your Executive Team.

On top of that, at least as important, they need to fit in with your workforce and offer them the same level of commitment and respect that they will get in return.


My experience of the gaming industry is confined to the Masters Degree in Game Design I enrolled on at Liverpool University, but from the little I know, that kind of skill set is not to be found in abundance.

But, they can be found.

Blackguard said:

Why compromise when there are people out there who have both game industry experience and IT world QA experience?

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I think you are missing what he is saying.

Its not about gaming, its not about IT....its about Project Management and a implementing it at level above what you see in most companies out there. A lot of companies believe they have project management and QA/QC under control but if you investigate a little, look under the hood so to speak, you find that what they have implemented is merely another level of paper pushing that is driven by the project.

When the project is driving, when it controls the dates and your responses, that isn"t project management. Project management rides the project like a horseman of exquisite skill and experience rather than allowing the project to leg hump them into submission like a 150lb rottweiler.

Flight, I think the comment about the manufacturing companies is dead on and you can see that sort of attitude reflected in many of the people associated with MMO gaming.

I see what you mean. We"re pseudo talking about different things. The job you"re describing isn"t just "QA" in the game industry. Mike Kosenski is our VP of Product Development and is the man in charge of making sure we can meet our milestones at a high quality level while still enjoying ourselves. And he"s damn good at it.

Sorry to have sidetracked the conversation here so much. Bad Ryan.

Flight said:

. . .
The most important parts of QA include enforcing proper procedures, process management, keeping on top of schedules, project plans, communication and documentation. . . .

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Well you kind of lost me now with this. What you are describing is good management which any company would want I suppose. But I had a different vision concerning QA. Yeah keeping the project "moving" is good, but making sure that project is "polished" and entertaining is what I envisioned the responsibility of the QA guys.

that is ok, its great to see insight into the process.

just get it all RIGHT and people will play the game.

that is the most important part. the more Right you get it, the more people will play it, the more money you make, the better you can become.

games that got "some right" have "some" people play the game (100k or less)

games that got "a lot right" have "a lot" of people play(peers at WoW) the game.

quality and fun = more subscribers and that is the key differential between 2 similar products in the mmo genre.

Can I punch Lenardo in the face please?

Permission granted

Draegan said:

Can I punch Lenardo in the face please?

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Please do

Yes Drae, you can.

Go ahead and wear a set of these when you do.

Blackguard said:

I see what you mean. We"re pseudo talking about different things. The job you"re describing isn"t just "QA" in the game industry. Mike Kosenski is our VP of Product Development and is the man in charge of making sure we can meet our milestones at a high quality level while still enjoying ourselves. And he"s damn good at it.

Sorry to have sidetracked the conversation here so much. Bad Ryan.

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No need to apologize; its an interesting debate and one that most MMO game players would find boring as heck, so its one that tends not to happen


I understand the points you are making. I understand the points I am making; I"m failing spectacularly to communicate my points.

Mike isn"t the guy I"m talking about. The guy I"m describing can"t be heading up Product Development. Self policing is a no-no. The guy I"m talking about is the QA manager you are looking to recruit. Maybe I confused things a little with my assertion about the position having a form of authority over your senior personnel. Thats pushing it. The required knowledge and experience is not.

Mike is a guy with a fantastic reputation - for sure a worthy addition to your team. I"m not criticizing him personally, in any way. Can it work with Mike as the QA guys boss ? Maybe, but I wouldn"t advise it. (The easy answer is - yes, of course it can work. Pretty much anything can be made to work. The question is how far can you take the function without compromising it).



One of the main reasons QA , in my opinion, doesn"t happen properly in the gaming industry is that its more than an attitude. Its more than a commitment to excellence. Its very practical.

In my analogy of Manufacturing Industry, certain pre requisites were in place that were enablers. The whole evolution of QA was based on statistical analysis being used in process development.

Maybe we need to see that happen before we can see the revolution I"m alluding to. MMO game development is still very much in its infancy.


One thing is for sure. Emerging markets mean a 1000% - 2000% growth in the potential customer base, over the next 5-10 years. The rewards for the innovators will be massive.

Good luck to you guys at 38S.

Hey Curt I was reading a blog going over MS attempt to merge with Yahoo and it used an interesting baseball/football metaphor. I was curious if you felt the analogy was on the mark.

The Metaphor

Michael Lewis compares and contrasts the private sanctums of baseball and football players, conveying what I believe to be a pretty instructive framework for analyzing the cultural issues facing both established and start-up technology companies:

In their private sanctums, baseball players behave as if someone might walk in at any moment and ask them to leave; they're a bit like starving dogs who have just stumbled upon a slab of raw meat. Not all of them, of course - the effect is atmospheric, produced by the sum of the personalities. Give 25 professional baseball players a place to call their own and they give it a forbidding name: clubhouse. If you aren't a member, you don't belong.

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Professional football players aren't like that, as a rule. They don't have clubhouses; they have locker rooms. If you happen to wander into one, no one tries to make you feel bad for being there. The football player doesn't resent you for being in his private place any more than the elephant resents the fly for setting up camp on his tail.

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There's a reason for this: In a football locker room, there is no question who really belongs. In a baseball clubhouse, the reporters, at least the younger ones, can be the physical match of the players; in a football locker room, there is no debate to be had about which bodies belong and which do not. There's no doubt who could beat up whom, if it came to that. This clarity has the effect of putting everyone at ease.

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In short, baseball players are clique-ish and insular, while football players are more open and inviting. And in Mr. Lewis"s conception, it is pretty much due to the self-confidence and security of football players vs. baseball players. Football players are self-confident, knowing that they are a distinctly different species than the rest of human-kind, and comport themselves with a degree of security and esteem not found in the baseball locker room. Baseball players have the skills, but their gifts aren"t as readily apparent upon first glance than the distinctive physical superiority of football players. And this makes them edgy, defensive and more apt to keep to themselves.