A Journey into Production: Part III - Personal Leadership Traits

Catch up by reading my previous entry here:

A Journey into Production: Part II - http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/SamyDib/20150720/248922/A_Journey_into_Production_Part_II__Ascendance.php

Social Media

            This week was a big week in terms of working on our online presence for Ascendance. As producers, we have to make sure that we push out our teams work as much as possible. Our goal should be to build up a strong enough following that upon completion, Ascendance has an already established fan base who is ready to dive into Bastion:01. Joshua, the other Producer on the team, continued work on the Facebook page, Twitter account, and our website. If you haven’t already checked them out, please do so and be sure to follow us to keep up to date with our development process.

Ascendance Website: http://www.gamerslifeproductions.com/ascendance/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AcendanceTeam

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ascendanceteam

Development Updates

            This week I continued to work up updates on our development process to include in a Development Journal hosted on Gamasutra as well as our development thread on the Unreal Engine forums. At the end of a week from posting our initial post, it had received over 100 views on the forums. Recently I posted an update to the thread, and the view count is currently sitting at over 200 views. Because of this, we have come to the realization that continuing to update this thread with our development updates will lead to very good results as far as awareness. We will continue to work on this and hopefully reach many new and interested players through this means.

Teaser Trailer

            I have taken the duty of creating our initial teaser trailer for Ascendance. This week however has proven to be a very difficult weak to get much work done on it. I went away on vacation so unfortunately I didn’t have access to the current build of the game, my recording tools, or my Adobe Suite for editing. I did however, conduct research on a few templates I’d like use from Video Hive and a few voice over artists on Fiverr.com. If you have never heard of Fiverr.com before, I’d suggest checking it out. There are many very talented people on there that will complete certain jobs for only 5 dollars. Some things aren’t that grand and require for a bit more money should you wish to pay for better quality items, but it’s still a very valuable approach versus spending hundreds somewhere else. This week I will continue to get some work done on the trailer and hopefully have something to add onto our YouTube channel to start building up buzz from there.

Personal Leadership Traits

            I was able to do some more reading from Spaulding’s “Team Leadership in the Game Industry” and he was able to put a pretty solid list of favorable personal traits that good leaders have (2009). This list was compiled from group discussions and feedback by those who have worked in the game industry and have experienced leaders who they saw to have these traits. Here are a few of them that I thought were very important to have:

             Now these are only a few of the longer list that he was able to put together, but for me personally, I’d like to believe that I share these traits and see them as a few of the very strong ones that could help to make a great leader. It’s important to be honest to your team and show them that you have acquired a certain amount of wisdom. Your experience has taught you many things and being able to share that wisdom is very important. Having a sense of humor is vital to keeping up strong morale. This doesn’t mean that you can joke with the best of them but when certain situations become dire, you are able to find the lighter side of things and help to crack a few smiles. Compassion for you team and their well-being will surely help build morale since you are showing them that you care.

             Stay humble as no one likes to see a show off who takes all the credit. Give credit where credit is due and continue to tell your team how great of a job they are doing. Stay upbeat and keep the energy positive amongst the environment. If you are burnt out and depressed, it could easily reflect down onto your team as well. Be fair with every decision that you make. Don’t play favorites and make sure to be responsible for your actions. If you are the only one there to make a command decision, do it to the best of your ability and make sure that you are ready to handle whatever consequences come down the pipeline. And for the sake of your team, be a great mentor. You are a leader for a reason. People see that you have potential and skills that you should be able to pour down ono those who are junior than you. You can help mold the team and build up their abilities through proper mentorship. Be there for them and help share the wealth of wisdom.

             Well that about covers it for this week. Hopefully next week I will have some more fun things to show you, so until then, happy gaming!

References

Spaulding, S. (2009). Team leadership in the game industry. Boston, MA: Course Technology, 

PTR/CRM.