Rade: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Player Too podcast. I'm your co host, Rade Stojsavljevic

Dave Leary: And I'm your co host Dave Leary. It's good to be back with you again, Rade. You got compliments on your sign placement in our comment section.

Rade: excellent. Well, I'm still playing around. I might, like I said, I might move it on the other side, up above this plant, like right in that spot. So we'll see. all right. Late news week this week, which I think is good after last week and layoffs and all that that nonsense. two, three bits of of of stuff to talk about in the news. One of them I almost missed this one. last week There was a patent that was filed by Microsoft about ads in Xbox. And you we didn't get a chance to talk about that. And you you reminded me about that one.

Dave Leary: Yeah, so this this is an interesting patent filing. they it's for a system to contextually pause the game and pop an ad up in games. supposedly it's going to analyze the games separately and dynamically and kind of pop up ads at at spots that make sense rather than in the middle of intense moments. I I think there's a lot to unpack here. I think it's It's fair to say that just because a big company files a patent on something doesn't mean that they're headed in that direction. But I I think you and I have speculated that this might be a direction that Microsoft's headed in and and certainly I think it's fair to say that that no one asked for this.

Rade: Nobody wants this. let's be more blunt. Like this is, I think there's a couple things going on with this. So first off, may never come, you know, to see the light of day. Like patents get filed all the time. Like we don't always see those things turned into products. But if you take a couple things into consideration, like Asha's statement about wanting to reach a billion gamers a day, the only way you're gonna do that was is with a free product. And the only way you monetize a free product is either microtransactions or ads or both. So there's that. And you consider console prices are getting well, they are ridiculous. They're at the point where just adoption is just not gonna happen at the levels that we saw before. And the only way you're gonna bring down that price is either go with a much cheaper set of hardware, which no one seems willing to do except maybe Nintendo and and and they're running away with it right now, or you subsidize it with with ad driven content. So I don't know. I mean I think that means we Maybe we'll see this, but I think it just shows a complete lack of connection with your audience because man, this is gonna piss off gamers more than Sony deciding to remove discs from future PlayStation.

Dave Leary: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I I think given the slow way that the wheels of the patent office turn, it would not surprise me if the plan for this significantly predates Asha's stint a CEO. But you know, not something anyone wants is a good way to put it.

Rade: No, speaking of of stuff nobody wants, Sony's back into it with the decision to remove the discs for PlayStation. Apparently now they're talking to partners and consulting with them about whether or not this is a good idea. Which, you know, if you think about it, logically would have been the smart thing to do before you make this decision and roll it out. But, you know, at least they're hearing the negative feedback and might reverse chorus. I don't know, we'll see.

Dave Leary: Yeah, very much cart before the horse, as you say. I mean, I'm not sure what they're doing with this now. Or or maybe they're trying to close the barn doors after the the horse leaves. Is that the the better metaphor? it it's a nice little public relations move. I sort of don't think that they would have rolled out that announcement to begin with, unless they were already locked into the plan. And and I'd be surprised if any feedback they get from their partners is gonna change this decision, but maybe a little at least soothe some ruffled feathers as they try to make this transition and It's at least an effort in that direction, so I don't know. I'll I'll

Rade: Yeah.

Dave Leary: I'll treat it as a positive step.

Rade: They could reverse. I mean, it's not a one-way door of a decision, you know, like they like they didn't shutter the plant or anything like that. So yeah, we'll see. another little tidbit that I almost missed, but I think is worth talking about is Valve is updating their discount and events section to become more dynamic and personalized to surface more content and games to you. So they're saying in in 2027, early 2027, this will roll out and it'll allow 10 times more games to be displayed daily, which I think is great. Like you and I on the surface, but the fact that it's discounts kind of hits that one thing that's kind of a sore spot for me, which is like stop promoting only discounted titles. I get it. Everyone wants a deal on things, but you're devaluing content and you're forcing developers now. Maybe we'll see how this this behaves. that if they wanna show up in this section, they're gonna have to discount their game again, which I think is just terrible for the business. Like

Dave Leary: I'm yeah, I mean you and I do differ on this some, but I I think this has been Valve's business model for a long time and and their customers are used to chasing after the sales. anything Valve can do to improve their surfacing situation and and try to get more titles in front of folks, I think, is is a good thing in general. So I I'm not gonna be quite as down on this as you are.

Rade: Man, you what? I like a 10, 20, even 30% off sale. But when I have to discount as a developer to 70% just to get any kind of attention and traction on the store, that is just broken. That's either going to force me to raise my original price high so I could actually make something back. Because, you know, like after their 30% take, if I'm making three dollars on my game, why even bother? Like I I could go drive for Uber and make more money than that. So

Dave Leary: Hmm. Well, I like cheap games, what can I tell ya?

Rade: Yeah. All right. Well, you like cheap games, you're gonna get cheap games. so another New Zoo also released their their top games by revenue for PC and console. And there's a couple of interesting things on this one. So number one on both PC and console is Fortnite. so that thing keeps bouncing around, doing well. But this is in terms of revenue, not players or units based. But just marching down the list on PC, Valorant is number two. Big Walk is number three. And I hadn't heard of this game. so I might have to go check that out. League popped back up to four. Counter Strike two and go at number five, which is pretty surprising. WoW is on the top ten list at seven. The Sims Perennial Moneymaker with their add-on packs, at number eight, number nine, how to fish, and number ten at Apex Legends. So I think that's that's pretty interesting. But kind of like moving down the list, a couple titles we've talked about before. Hell Let Loose Vietnam at number 15. And yeah, so I think that's that's pretty cool. Moving on to console. So Fortnite number one, two, three, and four are sports titles. They're all EA. It's Madden College Football and Football Club, soccer to Americans, Roblox at five, Minecraft, Pokemon Pokopia, Call of Duty. Grand Theft Auto five at number nine, which is wild, considering six is right around the corner. So they probably got a little bit of boost from all the marketing of six or people were just still playing five. And then Marvel Rivals at 10. not really a lot of surprises in this list. Hello Loose, Hell Let Loose Vietnam at 18. and then Halo popped up at 19, which, you know, is kind of Is good and bad. You know, it's like, hey, great that it popped up there. Bad that the studio got axed and the game's gonna basically turn into Call of Duty Halo. but it is what it is. So just some interesting stuff on those lists.

Dave Leary: Yeah, not too many surprises for me on that list. I mean I mean, you're gonna have that grab bag of stuff that's new and and appearing on the list like like Big Walk and and Hell Let Loose Vietnam. Those won't be there in a few months. I wouldn't expect them to be there. But then the list is populated by the perennial favorites that continue to make money for their creators and and none of those are particularly surprising to me.

Rade: No, not really. I mean the sports titles always do well in in Q4 and and of course, you know, pretty soon it's gonna be GTA on both at number one. actually, sorry, on console, because it's not coming to PC initially, which is is irking me a little bit 'cause that's where I want to play it. But it is what it is. all right. So I think that's it for the news this week, unless you had anything else.

Dave Leary: No, that's good. Let's move on. I'm excited to welcome a guest this week.

Rade: Why don't you introduce our guest, Dave? All right.

Dave Leary: I think you wanna introduce our guest because you have worked with him more recently than I have, though we both worked with him in the distant past.

Rade: All right. I'd like to welcome Adam Isgreen to the the podcast.

Adam Isgreen: Yeah.

Rade: Adam and I have worked together multiple times. we've first worked together at Westwood Studios on the Command and Conquer games. He's the creative director for Red Alert, Tiberian Sun. we work together on Earth and Beyond, and we formed

Adam Isgreen: Yeah.

Rade: a company and worked together again. and yeah, he's most recently been at Microsoft. So welcome, Adam.

Dave Leary: Welcome, Adam.

Adam Isgreen: Thank you guys. It's so wonderful to be here. I appreciate you having me on. now that I have copious amounts of free time, it's nice to have it's nice to have people to talk to about games.

Dave Leary: So I don't know if

Rade: So

Dave Leary: you wanna I don't know if you wanna talk about that a little bit. You probably don't much, but you've re you've recently left the Microsoft organization, right?

Adam Isgreen: I have. you know, they have plans for what they want to do in the future. And that is I mean, the one thing I have to say about about where Xbox is going is I think they've been very communicative about what they want out of games. And that's gonna leave unfortunately, that's gonna leave some things to the side is is kind of the best way to put it. I get it, like from a big business point of view. am I happy about it? No, there's a incredible amount of talent from the Halo team and from my team and I'm not even talking about myself, just everyone else that they're just like, Yeah, we don't really need you anymore. That's it's disappointing. You know, it is. But I'm I'm confident that those people will, you know, rise to the occasion. And I'm very hopeful that, you know, for myself, the team at World's Edge that was doing Age of Empires, I'm I'm hoping they find, you know, a great place to land if with Activision and they can continue. make great age stuff. So but that's yeah, that's about it. I mean, you know, I had a great I had a great time at Microsoft. I mean, more positives and negatives for sixteen years. So ready for something new, but we'll see what the future brings.

Dave Leary: So we'll we'll get the gloomy stuff out of the way 'cause I know Rade had a great discussion topic for the week that you are the perfect person to weigh in on. So Rade, why don't you

Adam Isgreen: Okay.

Dave Leary: let our guests know what

Rade: So you know, I was thinking we were talking before on the podcast about how many games are released every week and how few of them actually break through. Either they they just don't even recoup their their fee to submit to the store. They most of them don't recoup their investment for the game development phase. And it, you know, I've I've talked about the need to be a little bit more selective about what content is built, needing to build the the audience and prove that you have an audience before you build the game. But before you even get back to that, like you gotta figure out if your game is fun and it has to have a reason to exist. And so, you know, when you're far enough along in the game, you could play test it in development and get consumer feedback or go through early access. But early on when you've got that idea and you want to put resources to it to prototype it, there's a winnowing phase that happens there. And then when you're just internal, before it's even like gray boxed or before it's even ready to go out in front of any kind of focus test or consumer feedback, there's another winnowing there that happens. And as a as a designer, how do you look at an idea or a rough prototype and say, you know what? This is going to be fun. This is worth investing in further, or we should just cut this and do something else. And so I wanted to have that discussion with you since you're on the podcast.

Adam Isgreen: That's a great that's a great conversation to have. And there's so many vectors, right, to figuring out like how something is fun. And I I for me, I kind of break it down into three areas. Like and you know, some of this was from Westwood Studios days, which of course both of you were involved with, but remember Brett Sperry, who used to run Westwood, was very intentional about input and like motion of the actual player. Right. Like how much motion do you have to do with your arm in order to make this thing happen? Where did you put your UI? And that really stuck with me over the years. so one of the things I always think about is like, are the inputs fun? Like that's I think part of the equation of making something fun is like, am I doing things that I find enjoyable physically even? Right? Or, you know, like as you get older, button mashing, I don't know about you guys, but Any game that gives me the option now that says, can I just press and hold this or skip it completely? I'm yeah, I I don't need that level of stress. so there's a physicality to it. Like, am I having fun with that? then there's reforcement of the reinforcement of actions. So as I think about that, I think about okay, when I do things, what is what is the system telling me back that I find fun? Like You know, a great example would be, and this is a combination of elements, you know, visual effects, audio, and this can be tough in prototype to try to nail that stuff. But I think it's important when you look at something holistically. You know, like I don't know any of the Dark Souls games or Elden Ring, when you get a parry and you get that time dilation and you get that boo kind of sound, you get that that moment from like inception, and you're like, yes, now is my reward. I'm gonna do all this damage. That kind of dialing in on those emotional. generators, I think, is one of the ways that I look for fun in in games is to be like, what do I find really satisfying? Like, yeah, that was a great moment. I want to do that more. I was rewarded for that. I want more of that. And then the third thing, and this is where RTS shines, is possibility space, where I put the thing down and then I'm like, huh, you know what? I bet if I could do this, and I wonder if the rules let me do that in the game. And how do I think about the game after I'm done playing it? And is there space for that? Right. Where I'm coming up with new strategies or thinking, well, based on these rules, I could do this. And so for me, finding the fun, and it's nebulous, right? Is is a combination of those. Is the inputs and the things I'm doing from moment to moment, the actions and how I'm rewarded for doing those things. And then do I am I thinking there's more I can do or clever ways I can use the system that I feel like I was clever because I figured it out without being heavily tutorialized.

Rade: I I think, you know, what you were talking about initially on that, with that that input and that feedback, like that loop is critical, right? Because like even if you don't know, like people just say, well, these controls feel loose. And like that's just a very vague term, but but it means that there's a disconnect between input and feedback, that just doesn't feel satisfying. And I and I always cite this example, just moving Batman in the Arkham games. Is inherently satisfying. You're just like, ooh, yeah, that feels right. That just feels good. And then, yeah.

Adam Isgreen: A a recent example of that would be Monster Hunter Wilds. Like you you move those characters and you're just like, they feel it feels lush. Like all of the animation blending, everything they're doing, and you're in full control, but it's so detailed and it feels so good to move those characters. And yeah, I agree with you. It's it's it's that responsiveness. and there's lots of examples I can cite of things even recently that are like, but I know David is sitting here thinking and I know he's got some powerful things to say.

Dave Leary: I'm not so sure I have powerful things to say. I I think you're you're hitting on a lot of stuff that I I think about a lot. And and one of the one of the dilemmas and I think at the great news is you've pulled out some really good kind of objective things to look at to define fun. But for a lot of people I think fun gets very subjective and and I'm sure you've seen this too, Adam, but in in feedback and playtest sessions, people using that while I don't find it fun as a sledgehammer. Is really only the first layer of the discussion that you want to have at that point. You want to kind of go a layer deep and figure out what is it that they're not finding fun. Is it the responsiveness? Is it the the way that the characters move? th that's a tough part to figure out. How how do you disentangle the I'm not having fun statement that someone might make and playtest into something actionable?

Adam Isgreen: I generally if it's if it's if it's a playtest kind of thing, I think generally what happens is is that I start probing first on like what are they doing? You know, and the interesting thing is that working on RTS games, it's very different because your fun is slightly detached, right? You're you're not driving like you do with a console controller. You know, you're you're more like clicking, you're more managing. And so driving that first question, I'm not having fun. It's like, okay. What about this are you not having fun? That's that's kind of so generic you can't really ask. But the first thing I try to drill at is what the player wants to do that they're finding frustrating. So I generally turn it back on them saying, okay, what are you gonna what are you trying to do? What do you expect this game to do? And that might lead to something that the game doesn't work the way that they think it does, right? Because part of the I mean you You guys know this, but part of the the design job that we have when we're being creative is we're basically incepting people. You know, people from all over the world are coming to our our products and trying them and playing them. And they all have different mindsets of of how they grew up and how they use things and and the things they were exposed to. And all of that impacts their expectations when they come to something like a game. So my first thought is okay, what are you trying to do? And explain it to me. And what do you think the game should do? And that way at least you can start to understand: is it a feedback problem? Is it a problem that the possibility space that they think the game offers isn't actually there? Is that something we missed? Or is that beyond the scope of what we want to do? Then you know you can start to think about do we tutorialize that better? Do we design the level better so that the player doesn't think that they can do something that they can't? You know, what are they bringing in baggage-wise? Because You know, nowadays, anyone comes into a shooter and you expect the buttons to do certain things. And that alone can be a blocker to people. I've seen people that, you know, because battlefi I believe battlefield and call of duty, they reverse the two buttons for reload and swap weapon. It's like the one thing that they change in the two games. And I see people that are just like, no. It's like, you know, you could change that in the options. Like, no, it's not it's like my mindset is blown. And so That's I think part of the equation when you're looking for someone when they say it's not fun is like, okay, what what do you expect?

Dave Leary: That makes sense. you know, the easy case and and something you said made me think of this. The easy case for a game designer is when you you personally love the thing you're building and you are actually a fan of the genre. But but can you speak to how you find the fun if you're a designer working on something that that isn't really your genre, which designers are going to be put in that position on the regular, right? How how do you how do you find the fun there when you're in that early phase before you get it in front of people?

Adam Isgreen: I think the thing there is is you have to get uncomfortable with your own notions of a genre. I think that having people like you can say, well, this is not my favorite genre, but okay, I have to do something in it. you really still have to, as a designer, I think being curious is one of the best things that you can do from day to day. And having a notion where you're driving towards, hey. I'm gonna go and figure this out, even though it's not my thing. And I think one of the most powerful things you can do as a creative in gaming is to admit when something isn't for you. And that can be super hard on on ego sometimes too, is even like, I'm not because no one wants to admit, especially a lot of times when you're early in your career, you don't want to admit like, I I'm I don't know this. I'm not good at this. I have to have an answer. Because you know, creative, that's kind of your job. What's the answer? What's this? Is it A or B or C? and I feel that it's it's one of those things that when you're forced into that equation, you really do have to kind of like swallow your own expectations and try to understand the players from that perspective. And that might mean going off and learning, watching people play those games, watching streams, watching people comment. You know, these days we have a lot more access to things that are almost like focus tests. You can just watch people streaming the game, and you can kind of get a better understanding of of what those people expect and whatnot, depending of course how good the streamer is. But I think that helps a lot. Like you excuse me, you have to do your homework, I guess is the way to put it.

Dave Leary: I boy, I I love that answer and and I I could not resonate more with that. And as you were talking about it, it kind of sparked my memories of the discussion Rade and I were having about war dogs last week where where he had some nitpicks about war dogs and and particularly repacking the magazines, which I enjoyed the kind of goofy mil for similitude that that brought. Yeah.

Adam Isgreen: Like Yeah.

Dave Leary: but Rade could not stop hating on that. So you know.

Adam Isgreen: Ha ha ha.

Rade: It was unnecessary clicks and and like that that's just a pet peeve of mine. Like, why why introduce friction unless there's a purpose?

Dave Leary: It's one hotkey, Rade. Just you press one hotkey and then it just does it. Come on.

Adam Isgreen: Does it does it continue? Then I have a whole bunch of questions because I haven't played the game, but I I do understand the point. I'm I'm I've been obsessed, and it's unfortunate that some of the plans we had for stuff for what would be next. I'll come out some other way, but I'm obsessed with the idea of impactful input versus rote input when it comes to games. You know, like There's a bunch of games that have come out recently. You know, you you guys, when you're doing your news segment, you're talking about, you know, all these games are coming out. There's so many games that I call them push up games, where I feel like most of the time all I'm doing is holding a controller upwards to climb a hill, to climb a wall, to, to walk a character through a scene, to do whatever. And I'm like, is this fun? Is it fun for me to just hold up? Am I being entertained in other ways? Sometimes it's a yes. But and it's so interesting that. You know, so much of that revolves around the input. It's like how do you how do you make someone feel like they're doing something engaging? And is it worth subjecting a player to doing something that's really not engaging unless there's a break, an emotional break?

Rade: So I think tying into that, like at the early phase of the product, when you're in the idea phase of what you're

Adam Isgreen: Mm-hmm.

Rade: doing, almost everything that we're building these days is is building upon something else. So like it's really rare that you've got something that just has never been seen before. And if you ever get a chance to work on that in your career, enjoy it because you're probably if you're if you get one of those in your career, you'd be really lucky. But I think if you're looking at those games, whether it's a shooter, a strategy game, RPG, whatever. You should ask yourself, what are you adding to the discussion? Like if it's literally I'm just going to make this thing again and change this one little thing about it, like why even make it? Like is that like are you going to do anything better than that was done before?

Adam Isgreen: I agree completely. Like, one of the things that I tell designers, especially when I talk to indie devs, is I'm like, I want you to show why you're unique almost immediately. you know, give you a great example. There's I I apologize because I don't remember the name of the game, maybe you guys do, but there's a love craftian game coming out where you hunt fish and then cook them. And you're like cooking up love craftian creatures to make dishes and it's partially this exploration game and partially a cooking game. And I'm like, I love this. 'Cause it's immediate, like Yep, that's that's something unique I've never seen before. I love Lovecraft and you're spinning it in a way that I'm like, I can already tell kind of what the game's gonna be, and I'm in. And

Rade: I th are you talking about the Wake or Dreadmore?

Adam Isgreen: hang on a sec. I will while we chat, I will look it up 'cause it's on my wish list.

Rade: Yeah. Yeah. And so I you know, I think the the the challenge is like can you do better than was done before? Like the the bare

Adam Isgreen: Yeah.

Rade: minimum is you have to be on par with the thing that was there before and then do something new and novel or better to just entertain the player. And I think back to your point about being a consumer of the the the games, like you should be able to look at it, whether it's your favorite genre or not, and be like, you know what? This is something that I'm listening to players talk about that they don't like, that they wish they could do but can't do. I'm watching people and I'm seeing frustration here. You could just sand over those rough edges and improve it, and that might be enough to give your game a reason to exist.

Adam Isgreen: Yes. by the way, the game's called Elder Feast. And it

Rade: Yeah.

Dave Leary: Or feast.

Adam Isgreen: it looks awesome. I can't wait for it. But yeah, like there's nothing wrong with taking a genre that exists and putting a spin on it. I mean, look at I still one of my favorite FPS series of all time is Titanfall. They blew motion out of the water in terms of how it let you move as a player, the freedom you had to parkour over the levels, the power they gave you, the kit that they gave you, plus the the titans themselves. just made for this experience that you you've never I've never had in any other game. And there are games

Rade: Dude, that moment where you run up to the Titan and it grabs you and puts you in there, you're just like, fuck yes,

Dave Leary: Yeah.

Rade: this is awesome.

Adam Isgreen: Dude, dude, the I

Dave Leary: Fantastic moment.

Adam Isgreen: I have a Pavlovian response when I hear prepare for Titanfall and the coming out of orbit and boom to the ground. just talk about talk about feedback

Rade: Let's

Adam Isgreen: mechanisms that you're like, yes. You just

Rade: Let's let's keep this from getting rated 'cause I know where you're going with this.

Adam Isgreen: Yeah, sorry.

Dave Leary: Ha ha ha.

Adam Isgreen: But you understand my point. Like it's

Rade: yeah.

Adam Isgreen: a man, like go ahead, Dave.

Dave Leary: I mean, feel feel is an absolutely huge thing, right? And and I mean you you mentioned Titanfall, you know, Rade and I spent a lot of time on this on this podcast talking about R craters early on, and and R c Raiders

Adam Isgreen: yeah.

Dave Leary: is another game I think nails that kind of stuff fantastically well. it it can make a huge difference, those moments you're talking about. And and that's not always something that appears in the initial design document. You know, you you kind of have to find that as you go as you're building a game and figure out what moments players are gonna get drawn to.

Rade: I mean, yes and no. you do find it along the way a lot of times. But like EA used to have this this thing ages ago where they they called it the X of your game or the creative center of your game. And so whatever you want to call it, like you come up with some core thesis of like, you know what? We're gonna build the most satisfying mech game you've ever played. Like if that's the core th

Dave Leary: Mm-hmm.

Rade: thesis of Titanfall, boy, did they deliver? Right.

Adam Isgreen: yeah.

Rade: But like you should create that sort of filter and then run your design decisions behind that. So if you're like, this is the most realistic military shooter ever, you're not gonna put bunny hopping in that thing to to evade getting shot, right? Like you would you would start making those decisions.

Adam Isgreen: You know, I think one thing here too, as we're talking about, you know, finding the fun in games, one thing that a lot of games leave out, and the moments we've just been describing are are ones that fully embrace that, especially as you talk about arc raiders. Arc Raiders had one of the most incredible soundscapes in a game in recent times, in my opinion. The the way that they balanced the audio, the way they tuned it, the way you could hear things in the environment, incredible. Just, I mean, takes me back to like Bioshock and System Shock and other games that really embraced audio as part of the storytelling mechanics, part of the emotional mechanics, part of the game design. And you don't see that very often. People concentrate a lot on the input and things like that. And that's great. You need to do that. But audio is so important. And I think it's criminally underrated in a lot of games of how much good audio can push. not only your game design, but the, you know, the environmental impact and the emotional impact your games can have. And it's a great example of that's important too. And to leave that to the end, I see a lot of teams that are like, music, audio, whatever, we'll figure that out. And I I personally I think that's a kind of criminal is is leaving that on the table.

Dave Leary: Absolutely. You you when you mentioned Titanfall, that was another game I can think about that did not, in my opinion, at least leave audio till the last.

Rade: I mean, I use my first job in games was as a sound designer. and I remember a lot of on the film side of things, sound designers, the the some of the the more famous ones from like Skywalker Sound and stuff would say audio is a third of a movie. And I think that's absolutely right. And I think it's true with games, but if you look at what's happened as we've moved more outsourcing, especially on smaller teams, none of them have a sound designer or an audio person on the team. That's always farmed out. And and so it is pushed to the end. And it's not there's no dialogue between the designer and the designer's intent and the sound designer working in collaboration to kind of create that rich soundscape like there might be with an art director. And it's just a miss. so yeah, that maybe that's the thing for for smaller teams is like find an audio partner early and work with them. Like I I there was this guy I remember working with when I was at Sony named Mark. and when we were doing one of the SOCOM games, or this was technically Mag, he created this this clip of this compound thing that created the sound effect. It was the the gun, the the echo sound of the gun differently. The brass was separate so that however many rounds you shot, if you stopped, you would hear the brass land and he would do different

Adam Isgreen: Dink to ding.

Rade: sounds for different surfaces. And you're just like just shooting a like a machine gun, you're like, yeah, that feels badass.

Adam Isgreen: Mm-hmm.

Rade: That's a lot of work.

Adam Isgreen: Yeah. And it's it's work I think that goes underappreciated, but it so adds, it multiplies the experience.

Rade: Well, and it's feedback too, because like that's it's a primary feedback mechanism. Like when when you get that shot off in Arc Raiders with an anvil, like you know it. The so like while you're you're you're you're thinking through all these things and you're you're designing something, at some point you're like, Man, this isn't working. not the way I intended. When do you decide, all right, no more we're done, we're gonna pivot, or we just need to we need to keep working on this? Or how do you make that decision?

Adam Isgreen: for that decision, honestly, one of the things that I've found over the years is you really need to l if it's just you, then it's a different story. But let's assume that there's a team, a small team to a big team. you have to listen to your team. Like I I found that for someone to say they know everything about how something works, especially in games, it's it's just not. Everyone has different perspectives on things. And so I find that if the team is not having fun and if you're not looking forward to the game and the meta, you're not talking about it and your team is coming to you being like, hey, this I don't think this is working. now the interesting thing is and this is something that came about at Westwood as well, it kind of beat into my head was I have very distinct moments of complaining to Brett Sperry about things we were doing in Command of Conqueror or Earth and Beyond that I'm like, look, this is really dumb. This is not working. It's blah and Brett's just like, wait a week. Play with it for a week. Like just Play with it for a week. And after that week, we'll have a discussion on it. And at the time, you know, as you know, you're like, I want to change this now. I got to get this done. But over time, I realized that you do need to live with your the biggest thing I see sometimes is you might have had a great idea and you walked away from it a little early because you didn't let it cook enough. And you didn't let it sit with the team enough to get over the initial grumblings when they then find that there is actually merit in the idea. And so the first thing I think is before you make the decision, you have to give it the time to marinate with the team and let the team think about it. Because anytime you, you know, you're anytime you change something you're imposing, you're kind of imposing a box on that idea. And when you don't give enough time for people to then get creative in that box, you're kind of giving up on it before you should. So that's the first thing I think is is well, let it marinate. But let's say that that doesn't work well at that point. Then the decision becomes how do you want to pivot the game and the experience based on what that thing is that's not fun? And hopefully it's not the whole game. Hopefully it's a component of the game, right? Some element of it, some side thing, the way reload works, or the way this ammo mechanics, something that is more compartmentalized. I mean, generally you would hope that it's not something that's like, your whole input movement system just sucks. You know?

Rade: Yeah. So as a producer, I think what you just said is really interesting, right? Because like you kind of fall, especially if you're you're younger and you have a very experienced designer on this one, you think they're gonna have all the answers and they they don't. Nobody does to your previous point. But on the other hand, if you're constantly trying to change something before it you give it a chance, then it's a signal that like, okay, you're impulsive, you don't know what you're doing, you're flailing, you don't know, like I'm gonna have to. constrain this somehow. And neither one of those are a good place to end up. You you want that nice happy middle there.

Dave Leary: It sometimes I think a feature needs other features that are coming later in order for it to feel fun. And and I think that's why that patience that Adam talks about, letting things marinate a little bit becomes so important. It it's sometimes the the collective, cohesive whole of a design that makes it work. And if you know as as a designer on the game that you're missing a key feature that's going to make another feature really sing, sometimes that team feedback is is really hard to listen to and you have you have to do that council patience thing just to kind of get it over the hump.

Rade: Well, to Adam's point too, if if your team is grinding on something and they're not it's clearly they're not enjoying working on it, they're not having fun playing with it, th that's a sure sign you will all almost never find fun. 'Cause I I don't think you could grind your way to to to greatness on something like that. It's just I at least I I haven't seen it.

Adam Isgreen: No, because you know, generally great design is it gets simpler and it gets more intuitive. And sometimes I mean that's a lot of work. I think every creative element in games, I think in some ways is underappreciated for the whole point is inception. So when you look at the game, you're like, Well, that's so easy. I could have done that. And it's like, yeah, but you didn't, because you didn't think about it or do it in a way that made it so easy that all these people coming at it can just Click, it just clicks in their head. I get it. I get what you're trying to do. I understand the game. I understand how to play it. it's so underrated in terms of of how much work that is to deliver experiences that feel like they just click with people, especially from all over the world. And again, so much baggage, you know, that people bring to an experience. and even when you're play testing, I think the mechanics should work this way because it worked like this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and all these other games. You know, a good example is I was playing a game recently called Well Dweller, which is a I'm a huge fan of Metroidvania, so my God. So I play like every single one that comes out. and in those games, you know, they've been in the long in the tooth to a point where you figure, okay, well, I've got a double jump mechanic. I can jump twice, you know, I can hit the button jump again. Well dweller's like, nah, we're gonna give you this matchstick that you can ping into walls and then you can trampoline off of it and get higher. But you don't have a double jump. That's your double jump. And it's Different. And they built the level such that they really take advantage of it. And it's refreshing because it's like you gave me double jump, but you didn't give it me in the way I expected. And it was a nice change. And I didn't get frustrated by it. That was the other key thing, is that they built it in a way that I never felt, if I only had double jump. Like the rules of their game, they did a great job of embracing, like, not only are we going to put this mechanic in, we're to think it through. And I think that's another thing while you're play testing your game is like. To your point, David, I think is right on, is like, did you put in everything else that supports that idea well that you can then make this game great because of what you do? And I a lot of people overlook that. And it it

Rade: I

Adam Isgreen: can be a detriment.

Rade: yeah, I I think your point about as you're advancing through the design, it it it does simplify. or you're kind of I I think of it as like it's a distillate of of what you're doing. And I remember when I was working on Beat Saber and VR, someone on the team asked me, it's like, why has nobody cloned us? Like the game is so simple. I'm like, how do you simplify this? You've already like distilled it to a hundred percent. Like you can't go beyond that. like and it's like You can add more to it, but that's different than making it simpler. So like it's just a it was you get you get more pure as you're you're refining the thing.

Adam Isgreen: I believe that's the goal. Yeah.

Dave Leary: Though I I will contend, Adam, that after you go play War Dogs you should come back on the podcast to expl explain to Rade why packing clips is actually useful in that game.

Adam Isgreen: I would I I I mean, I immediately think that there's probably some kind of psychological pressure to reload and they want to make sure that you think about it in in terms of when you do it and like I don't know if there's audio from reloading so you can hear people going click click

Dave Leary: That's exactly right. And and in fact

Adam Isgreen: click.

Dave Leary: added fact there is the the you can set up a loadout. Your loadouts are all custom, so you can decide how many clips versus how many piles of loose ammo you want to bring. So there's a whole there's all

Adam Isgreen: yeah.

Rade: Listen, I'm

Dave Leary: kinds of layers to this that Rade didn't think about when he just said, strip that out, it's boring, I don't like reloading clips.

Rade: I No, you know what? I buy my clip, I buy my ammo, I don't want to put my ammo into the clip, right? Like it's just it's done, right? And frankly,

Dave Leary: Hmm. I don't think you want to do that in real life in the field either, but it adds

Rade: If you if you're sitting there pulling bullets in a in in a into a

Adam Isgreen: man.

Rade: clip, a magazine while while you're getting shot at, you are dead. Like nobody does that. It's terrible.

Dave Leary: But it can still be a good mechanic, Rade, is my point.

Rade: It's it's like, you know what? Why don't I just field strip my gun in the middle of the battlefield and and and like change out the the Jesus. my god.

Dave Leary: Well n now now you're talking about Tarkov, so if you want that you can go

Adam Isgreen: Well, can I can I opt in the speed loaders? I mean, just like real world loading magazines when I go shooting is yeah, loading thirty ground magazines is not fun. It's

Dave Leary: Yeah.

Adam Isgreen: it's really not. It never has been. So I get that. Like but I'll have to play it. You know, like I can theorycraft either way, and I understand Roddy's thing because you know, RTS came about because it's like, hey, we got this tabletop war game, fuel, morale, ammo? What the heck? Let's get rid of all of that and make it fun. Find the fun in it. So yeah, I mean at least it's not God, what was that old military game where you actually had three buttons you had to hit to aim your rifle? You remember the one I'm talking about? The online one? You remember that? It's like Yes. It's like you had to raise the rifle, then you had to sight it, and then you had to do the finger on the trigger, and you had whole three buttons.

Rade: God. Yeah, I know I know I know exact dear God, I remember that. It was like

Dave Leary: World War Two online, right? Was that the one? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was that was a little much. That was maybe a a step too far, yeah, now.

Rade: Dude, and the snipering, like you had to, you had a breath meter and you had to time it right. So it was like playing Mario golf in the middle of that. So you didn't do this. You're like, come on.

Adam Isgreen: Yeah. Yeah. god. And the inputs were you know, back then the input wasn't even that great, so the polling on the mouse wasn't good. So you're like your aim is god.

Rade: All right. we we should we we should we did a David and I did a likes and rants series of episodes about games. It sounds like we should have you in on one of those with like design

Adam Isgreen: please.

Rade: knits. I think that would be fun. All right.

Dave Leary: But we c we cannot leave this week without a game of the week from our guest, can we?

Rade: We cannot.

Adam Isgreen: boy. well, the I I am

Dave Leary: And you have to pick just one. I'm sorry, Adam. I know this is hard for you.

Adam Isgreen: I am, you know, now that I have some free time, I have been jumping into a bunch of games and I have some on the ready to go on the on the one, on the on the back. Unfortunately, some people have reached out, they've been very generous, like, hey Adam, do you want to code for this game? And I'm like, thank you so much. but the game I'm playing the most right now is Control Resonant. absolutely. I am a huge fan of the X Files. I'm a huge fan, you going back to Red Alert, I'm a I'm a huge fan of the what if. the lore of that game, that world, I absolutely adore. I I love the idea of altered items and the objects of power and how the whole universe works, the Federal Bureau of Control. so I've been playing Control Resonant, and the combat is really great. And the possibility space, like I talk about, the way that you can customize your loadout is awesome. I have to say though, and this is a we could have a whole discussion on this, is the idea of open world and what open world does. To your games and your game design and how you think about encounters, I think hurts a lot of games. And Resonant is one of those games that it's not completely open world, it's kind of compartmentalized, but still it's not as intimate as I want it to be in terms of encounters and how the encounters are built and how they're set up and how they're structured in the narrative sense, right? Of moving through spaces. So I'm kind of mixed on it. I love the world. I love the combat. it doesn't have enough of the things, the itches so far, and I'm about probably about halfway through the game. it doesn't have enough of the stuff that I like to scratch at and that I wanted out of control. to give you a good example, the parallel here is, and I'm gonna you you guys are probably gonna and I'm gonna get a lot of boos and hisses from people for this. Fallout New Vegas is my least like Fallout game. And some people are like, whoa my god, I just lost all respect for you. That's fine. See, I'm an explorer and I love finding vaults and finding these little stories and finding all this hidden stuff. I seek that out. and Fallout 3, Fallout 4 has a lot more of that than Fallout New Vegas did. New Vegas was more of a linear story, not what I was looking for in a Fallout game. And that's kind of the way I feel about Control Resonant, is God, I love the first game. And I love the focus of the environments and how each environment was different and they themed them. And this, even though there's theme, it feels just like it wanders a little too much for me from the focus narrative storytelling that I really wanted out of a control experience. So yes, no, absolutely.

Dave Leary: Still still a thumbs up overall on balance, would you say?

Adam Isgreen: Like if you if you're a fan of the universe, play it. But

Dave Leary: Absolutely. Yeah, I haven't picked it up yet, but I'm definitely looking f been looking forward to it.

Adam Isgreen: And I I like the main character. I like Dylan. as his personality develops, I've been enjoying it. I miss Jesse a lot though. I really love the first game. so yeah, it's it's it's an interesting mix for me. I'm glad they took the risk on what they did differently this time around. I just want more of the c weird stuff, I guess. Maybe that's in the back half of the game and I just haven't gotten there yet.

Rade: in a rare event, this game on Steam is not on sale. It is at a full sixty dollar price currently. So way to go. Keeping your game at full price. Love it.

Dave Leary: That's good though, 'cause I keep pulling out these I keep pulling out these

Adam Isgreen: Yes, remedy.

Dave Leary: weird five dollar games and stuff for you, Rade. So I think I'm I'm kinda glad for Admin to bring us something that's a little more full featured and brand new.

Rade: There you go. All right.

Adam Isgreen: I th I have a bunch on the back burner, so there's a whole bunch to talk about. Yes.

Rade: All right, we'll save that for a future episode.

Dave Leary: We need to have you back 'cause this was a lot of fun.

Adam Isgreen: Any time. I got time.

Rade: All right. Are you for sure? We'll do it.

Dave Leary: Ha ha ha.

Rade: Hey, so if you like the podcast, hit like and subscribe. And if you want to see Adam again, say something in the chat. And I know some of you former Westwood people are listening. So like you better comment in there. I'm looking at you, Eric. All right. Thanks

Adam Isgreen: Ha.

Rade: everyone. We'll see you next week.

Dave Leary: Wait a

Adam Isgreen: Thank you.

Dave Leary: minute.