team culture

In the mid-80's, Spain was the second world reference in the game development after The United Kingdom. In the change of the machines from 8 to 16 bits Spain lost its supremacy in favour of Japan and the U.S..

Since I became aware of this fact, entering ESNE last year, I have heard several reasons to explain this, such as during the Spanish rule, the industry was not established or that there was no money, not adapted to the 16-bit... In my opinion all of them are true, but they are the consequence instead of the cause of the problem.

The move to 16 bits allowed to do much more elaborate games with better graphics, better sound, better AI and better game logic. Unlike the 8-bit, which allowed games development with just one person, the 16 bits required many more hours of work and the use of development teams to develop this games, and this is the real cause of the problem that still remains.

Nowadays in Spain there isn´t industry yet and most of the games that have been developed are mobile games, made by small groups of development. However, in Spain there are good circumstances to develop videogames like good professionals and a great videogame culture.

The real problem is that there isn´t a team culture, and I put emphasis on culture as the true cause of the problem. In Spain there is the idea that teamwork consists on several people working together to get a common objective, but this is not exactly  on this way. In fact, outside of Spain is thought that we do not know how to work together in a work team, and I think they are right. If we had team culture, we would do better.

In 1950 the mathematician and Nobel in economics John F. Nush, applied the mathematical logic of "Game Theory" to the economy, creating a new system that changed the world economy. To explain his theory,  he puts an example to let everybody understand it and also describing the workgroup concept.

At first he raises the problem. In a bar, four guys met with five girls, one of those five girls is blonde and extremely beautiful. These guys mark themselves a main objective which is to flirt with the blonde girl and a secondary one that is to flirt with her friends. To achieve these objectives, Dr. Nush raises two strategies.

The first one is that the four boys will try to flirt for first with the blonde girl, and those who fail, will try to flirt with her friends. As a possible result of this strategy, says Dr. Nush, the blonde girl haunted by the four boys, and probably tired of guys trying to flirt with her, will reject all of them. When they try to achieve the second objective, her friends will not want to be anyone's second choice and they will be rejected again. The team will have failed by the end of the night.

The second strategy consists in that all the guys will try to flirt with the four blonde´s friends, ignoring the blonde girl. As a result, according to Dr.Nush, the guys will get the second objective, because this blonde´s friends will feel so good with this guys that are very interested in them instead of their beautiful friend, by the contrary side the blonde girl will feel slighted and being aware of her beauty will not accept the rejection and will try to flirt with one of the boys. This gives them many options to get the first objective too, and not only the second one.

The strategy followed in each case is, obviously, the difference and we could think that the second strategy is conceived by someone smarter which gives it better chance of success. But we will see that difference is not in the intelligence of who developed the strategy but in the attitude of team members to get to it. In the first case, team members seek personal gain to benefit the team, but the result is that they have any chance of getting the main objective and almost none of getting the secondary one. In the second case, team members need to sacrifice themselves to benefit the team, and they will have to accept, in an equal way, the sacrifice (in the best of the cases three of them will not have any options to flirt with the blonde girl),  prevailing the benefit of the team versus the individual one. Therefore, they are able to devise the second strategy which gives them many possibilities of getting the second objective and some of getting the main one. The benefit of the team benefits the individual. Following the example of Dr.Nush, let´s apply his theory to a real and close case.

Last year ESNE proposed us the development of a video game, working into teams. Groups were formed freely with seven to ten students. At the end of the year practically there weren´t finished projects. In all of the groups there was a student who didn´t do anything and the rest of the team, angry because of this, decided not to make anyone's work (the benefit of the individual above the benefit of the team).

 For the second year, the students planned the work in a different way and formed groups of three or four members to develop small projects. This appears to work because of the trust between the team members, but it is based on the first strategy presented by Dr. Nush. They are looking for not to make anyone´s work and a better environment  surrounding themselves with friends (personal gain), even if they finish the project, this will have a lower quality (to the detriment of the team).

But let´s go further and let´s apply the second strategy of Dr.Nush in the game development for the third year. We are 30 students in classroom and we will form a team with all of them to develop a project of 3000 hours, 100 hours for each team member. Taking into account that approximately 10 students won´t do anything for the project, there will be 20 students to develop it, and they will have to assume the working hours that won´t have been made by the other 10 (benefit of the team).

 I am convinced that as the project progresses, being aware about the work that is being done and also its quality, at least 5 of those 10, for not to be out of the project will join again, increasing the team to 25 members .

In the other classrooms, like this year, teams with 3 students will be created, who will develop 300 hours projects. They will have to work 25 minutes a day, and the team of 30 students (assuming that 5 of them won´t do anything) 30 minutes a day, that is, every student will have to work 5 extra minutes a day to get a project of 3000 hours . At the end of the year, this team will have reached secondary objectives such as learning to work together (even adding some students that weren´t interested at first) and the main objective, a project of 3000 hours against which no other team in school with 300 hours projects may compete, placing it as the school reference.

Moreover, this success inevitably will impact on the benefit of any team members. Even those who have not worked, that won´t appear on the credits, will have learned a great lesson.

In conclusion, I am absolutely convinced that this strategy will never be chosen by the team. They will decide not having with the 10 whom won´t do anything. They will form the team with 20 students and will try to develop a project of 2000 hours. Thus, each group member will work 100 hours and overtime won´t be assumed (individual benefit) even if this means sacrificing the project (prejudice of the team)…

And why?  Because of Team Culture.