New Project Brainstorming (Kill your Babies)

Balancing my own ideas against the team's ideas has been the area that I've struggled the most with in the past four years. Mainly because, as a producer, it feels like you're the one most divorced from the game itself. You don't understand the mechanics that go into the game like a designer, or how they function like a programmer or what style would best suit the game like and artist. However, this does not mean I do not have a say about the game, nor does it mean I have ideas for it. In the past, I remedied this issue by thinking of my ideas like seeds. I plant one and let the team take it from there, nurturing it and morphing it with their abilities until it turns into something everyone is proud of. Yet, recently I've begun to reexamine this method for two reasons: one, what if no one takes the seed and two, what if it goes in a direction that I think is in poor taste.

For the former, the problem goes a little deeper than people simply ignoring me. It's a question of how hard am I pushing for this seed, and am I forcing it on people. Ideally, there should be a balance; I bring the seed to the team, tell them why it's a good thing to talk about, and they take it from there. I shouldn't have to do too much convincing to get them on board, and if they raise good dissenting points, then we should either come to a compromise, or I drop the idea. The problem arises, though, when that discussion never takes place, when the seed dies before being given a chance to be put into the ground. In that case, where is the line between, "Hey guys, I think this is worth a shot, hear me out, and "I got this great idea, want to hear it? Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey!" It is a matter of how forceful I am with bringing it back into the conversation, a skill that I am still developing, and that has been an issue day one.

An issue that rears its head stronger when I disagree with a direction the team wants to take. Here I have a hard time trying to sound like a concerned teammate and not an insane director. As again, due to my position, my criticism will be taken with a heavy grain of salt. So how do I navigate around this while also remaining firm on certain decisions and points. For this one, I have a less concrete answer as more info comes in about it, the solution changes. While I have become more assertive in recent years, I falter when it comes to creative decisions, especially my own. If I had to guess why I would say its because of my attachment to the idea that I'm not prepared to let go of. There was a piece of writing advice given to me last year by a creative writing professor that would be applicable in this situation, "Your ideas are you babies, and sometimes you have to be ok with killing your babies." Morbid, yes, helpful, also yes; while not supporting infanticide, the message was, be willing to make changes to an idea and be ok with the changes that come from it.

So while I try to hold myself to that ideal now when addressing my ideas, another problem arises when it someone else's baby. Sticking with the baby metaphor, how can you tell someone else that their baby is ugly, or stupid, or harmful to itself and other babies. You can't, at least not without stepping on a few toes. That's the hurdle I'm faced with now, as a few ideas that float around during discussion I don't quite like, and I don't know how to tell that team in a way that won't upset them. I try to stick to objectively troublesome spots, but then I start to wonder if they're actually objective or I'm just making it sound that way. It's a nasty tightrope to walk, but I walk it none the less.

I want to get better at this; I want to be able to share my ideas with the team and guide them into making something amassing, which requires me to be a credible voice on the team that has to sometimes shoot an idea down for the good of the project. Just have to figure out what is worth letting by and what's worth standing your ground on.