Extracted from the overview:

The last slide (with content) is a comment which 'gets it,' and yeah, I agree with this. Maybe I'm just enjoying my little isolated island a bit too much, I don't need to be exposed to all this internet vitriol and discourse. Ugh. Here's something I can agree with. McWilliams does too. (Or rather, this comment agrees with her!)

"You can either make games with yourself as the target audience (and then hope that others like them too) or you can try to make games that you enjoy *making* even if they aren't ones you would necessarily enjoy playing. Even if you aren't in the target audience for your own creative work, you can still get satisfaction from it, and still get motivated to do it." (slide at 42:xx)

I would say that the negative is not so important for me anymore. 'Even if they aren't ones you would necessarily enjoy playing.' I mean, yeah, okay, but the important part is everything else, not the negation, the rejection... this is non-timeless stuff. The timeless stuff. Let me extract it.

39:35- "I'm creatively fulfilled by whatever I'm working on, because I'm making games. The problem we have is that we have an industry that grew up with personal creative fulfilment being very closely linked to people's jobs . . . but that doesn't work if your personal creative fulfilment is only about making a game that you would play. And it's why the Zyngas of the world are killing, in terms of the number of people playing. They're killing it. And they're killing it because they're getting past themselves, and they're making games for the rest of the world. And it's cool if you don't want to do that, that's fine, you know, you're, make the games for people you want to make the games for. But let's stop crapping on the people who are making the games for the rest of the world."

I think it was in particular this last sentence that riled me up, that made me want to consider this quote more carefully. "Let's stop crapping on the people who are making the games for the rest of the world." This is... how do I describe it? I want to say it's reactionary, defensive. "I'm creatively fulfilled doing what I'm advocating for!" "Let's stop crapping on people for doing what I'm advocating for." It's... narrow... and though I wouldn't go so far as to say these people are strawmen, wwhhoo cares? Who cares? "Let's," McWilliams says.

I once used language like this. This is a talk from 2012, over a decade ago, keep in mind. Part of my cringe is mere cringing at my past self, my past aspirations and hopes for the scene, the industry, the world. Hmm.

Ah, wow. The next section is literally McWilliams reading negative internet comments and responding to them. It's so, uh, internet cringe.

Quote from: 36:xxThe more surround yourself by people who are super excited just to get to make games at all, the more you'll remind yourself it's kinda cool that I get to make games at all, instead of being an accountant, or a software developer, you know, at an insurance company.

One step forward, two steps back. McWilliams advocates for... inoculating yourself to the things you're unhappy about, here? I don't know. The first thing she starts this longer section with is that "You're making games because you love games! Pay attention to other games more," and I don't know, it just sounds like... submitting to the cult, lol. I like "get a hobby" more than "get a hobby that involves playing more games, making more games, and teaching other people who want to make games how to make games so that you can feel better about not enjoying making this game"...

There's something in there, but I really don't like the specific culture she's coming from or speaking to.

"Get a hobby" hahaha yeah. Let go. Let go. Making a big commercial game is not the place for getting super attached to owning your piece of the work. And yet you can still be proud of it! This is pretty good advice.

"We're actually enjoying the process of making the game. It has nothing to do with the game we're making, it has to do with the fact that we love being game developers, and we love making games." - 31:56

"If you do it right, everybody likes the same stuff in games." -28:00

I agree with this... but... not what she follows up with... Maybe I should pick it apart.

"They want an immersive experience that makes them feel like they did something special and they're unique and special and they develop skill while doing it."

-an immersive experience
-do something special
-feel that you're unique and special
-you develop skill while doing it

HMMM. I need to think about this. McWilliams really casually is like "yep this is what everyone likes about games!"
I thought about it. ~ SYNAPSE I don't make art to make people happy, I make it to provoke epiphanies.

For usability testing: Take a video, watch it, you'll learn the things people do

Ask them to test OTHER games, your competitor's games :O
Ask them to compare your game (half-finished though it may be) to other games. Expect to be worse.

Ask them more questions, and listen to them - not just about game design but also what do you think of our art style? (the story? the presentation? the controls? etc)

Focus tests! - Use them to understand how users people think.

Slide 18:XX

Talk As A Group
- What makes the game work?
- Why do players like it?
- What can we do as well as they do?
- What's feasible on our budget and in our timeframe?

I would say: If there are negative voices, e.g. "this other game sucks", keep the conversation focused on answers to these constructive and respectful questions. It sucks -- okay, but what works? What can we do as well as they can? (This is a clever one: not better, just as well as they can.) Why do people like it and play it? (Keeping it constructive, positive - don't accept answers that focus on unhelpful/disrespectful things.)

The negative language in this slide at 17:00 is so bad that I'm not even going to quote it! Let's keep it to "Meet the competition, and show some respect."
Or, as Donella Meadows says in Thinking in Systems,
"Before you disturb the system in any way, watch how it behaves. . . . study its beat. . . . watch it work. Learn its history. Ask people who've been around a long time to tell you what has happened."
". . . admit ignorance and be willing to be taught, by each other and by the system."

Okay at 15:XX, we have a slide called "Eat Your Own Dogfood" which is... ugh... can we please think of a more appealing way to talk about the work we're doing? oh my god. Just have the same concepts, and don't present them in an intentionally corporate-yucky way!!

But the idea is cool. Get everyone on the team to spend a considerable amount of time with our competition. (3-5 hours.) This makes a lot of sense, though again I would prefer this to be more vibey. Spend time embodying our characters, soaking in the mood, etc. There are more fulfilling things to do than just align ourselves with media.

Still: "Meet The Competition (and show some respect)"