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Facilitated Chaos: Organizational creativity in videogame development v.4.0.x How can leaders organize the creative development of videogames? René Derks PSAU – Creative Development University Utrecht ID: 3122883 Thesis supervisor: Dr. Aukje Thomassen Contact me at: [email protected]

Transcript of Facilitated Chaos

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Facilitated Chaos:

Organizational creativity in videogame development v.4.0.x

How can leaders organize the creative development of videogames?

René Derks

PSAU – Creative Development

University Utrecht ID: 3122883

Thesis supervisor: Dr. Aukje Thomassen

Contact me at: [email protected]

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Foreword This book you are now holding in your hands is an artifact of my learning process of the

past year. During my study Creative Development at the Professional School of the Arts

Utrecht in The Netherlands I have learned a lot about videogame development and the

role of leadership in these creative processes. As my background lies in International

Business Studies, specifically in knowledge- and innovation management, this is the

perspective from which I approach the topic. As you will come to understand, this piece

of information is intended to develop models and ways of understanding the topic at

hand: design and management in videogame creation.

Big up to W! Games in Amsterdam. For the past five months I have worked there and

they have fully supported me in my research, as well as opening up this information to

the public space. Although everybody in the organization has taught me a thing or two on

working in a studio, I specifically want to thank JP, Mike, and Jelle. Through their work,

attitude, and our conversations they have taught me a lot about leadership in videogame

development.

Also, I want to thank everyone who has contributed to this thesis. I would like to start

with Taylor, Wesh, Weggeman, Leadbeater, and Krogh et al. as this study mainly builds

on their theories and works. All the interview respondents: Mathieu Weggeman, Peter

Berends, Marc van Wegberg, Ursula Glunk, Hermen Hulst, Engbert Breuker, Joeri van

den Steenhoven, Rudy Kor, and Charles Leadbeater. Also, my fellow PSAU students, for

always having interesting critiques and questions. Finally, I would like to thank Aukje

Thomassen for her support and supervision on this thesis. Without exception, all of our

conversations have had a positive impact on this work.

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Abstract This thesis in knowledge- and innovation management shows the importance of the

production factor knowledge. “Managing” the creation process of a knowledge-intensive

product such as a videogame is vastly different from what we normally perceive the term

management to be. At the same time, however, all the traditional business theories still

hold, even though we might need to relax some of their assumptions. This thesis proposes

nine points of interest for leaders in videogame development. In doing so it also discusses

media culture and the network society as its tangents.

Reading instructions This thesis has been written for a variety of audiences. It attempts to develop theoretical

connections that will further knowledge- and innovation management, as well as provide

practical methods and solutions for leaders in videogame development in practice.

After posing the problem statement in chapter 1 and chapter

2’s discussion on videogames, a logical thing to do would be

to delve into videogame development. However, this thesis

will take an alternate route. Chapter 3 will delve into

contextual topics like new media, and participatory culture,

while chapter 4 provides quite a comprehensive theoretical

elaboration on topics such as knowledge and creativity.

They will provide vocabulary to discuss leadership in

videogame development in chapter 6, after a short interlude

on the research in chapter 5. Chapter 7 and 8 summarize this

thesis as a conclusion and discussion respectively. Basically,

we start out with the topic of videogames and put them into

context. From the context we will shift to a theoretical level

and then a case perspective, before taking the results back to

a theoretical and finally a contextual level again.

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Table of Contents

1 Introduction – videogames in information society ..................................................... 6

2 Videogames – an interactive medium......................................................................... 9

3 Context – participate................................................................................................. 13

3.1 From linear to interactive media ....................................................................... 13

3.2 Organizing in participatory culture................................................................... 16

3.3 Conclusion Context:.......................................................................................... 21

4 Market and Gift – a theoretical elaboration .............................................................. 22

4.1 Organization...................................................................................................... 22

4.1.1 Market organization .................................................................................. 23

4.1.2 Gift organization ....................................................................................... 25

4.1.3 Market and Gift......................................................................................... 28

4.2 Knowledge ........................................................................................................ 30

4.2.1 Data, information, and knowledge? .......................................................... 30

4.2.2 Tacit and explicit knowledge .................................................................... 32

4.2.3 Knowledge and Ba.................................................................................... 33

4.2.4 Enabling knowledge creation.................................................................... 34

4.3 Creativity........................................................................................................... 35

4.3.1 Individual Creativity ................................................................................. 35

4.3.2 Group creativity ........................................................................................ 37

4.3.3 Organizational creativity........................................................................... 39

4.4 Understanding the management challenge ....................................................... 40

5 Interlude – the case research..................................................................................... 44

6 Case – proposing a solution ...................................................................................... 46

6.1 An organizational structure............................................................................... 46

6.2 Leadership in videogame development ............................................................ 49

6.2.1 Task........................................................................................................... 51

6.2.2 Knowledge ................................................................................................ 55

6.2.3 People........................................................................................................ 58

7 Conclusion – Facilitated Chaos ................................................................................ 63

8 Epilogue – Discussion .............................................................................................. 69

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9 Appendices – Illustration and Methodology............................................................. 74

A. Illustration of Videogame development................................................................ 74

B. Methodology ......................................................................................................... 76

10 References................................................................................................................. 82

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1 Introduction – videogames in information society

At an astounding pace our society is producing information1. The speed and quality of

different information connections like mobile phones, UMTS, satellites, and internet

cables allow us to disseminate information throughout the world, and in some sense,

through time2. The media we use are shaping human behaviour, and thereby our society,

in many ways. Examine, for instance, the ease with which the young generation processes

information from many media in parallel (Veen, 2003). Similar to a blind man who can

suddenly see and has to learn to interpret concepts like perspective, shape, and color,

humans now need to learn ways of processing these data through different information

channels. My grandmother reads a website from top-left to bottom-right, while my niece

quickly scans the page and instantaneously knows which hyperlinks will be useful to her.

Amongst the changing media landscape is the continuing rise of the videogame. Since the

early Atari’s, Commodores, and Nintendo Entertainment Systems (NES), the interest and

application of games as a medium has only grown. Basically, videogames are digitally

coded consumer experiences with audile, tactile, and visual elements. They are made by

creative professionals from many different fields among which are programming, visual

art, sound design, and interaction design. These professionals explore new grounds as

they create knowledge intensive products in organizations ranging from 2 to more than a

100 people.

The organization of the creation of videogames is the main topic of interest of this study.

The parallel creative processes of designing interfaces and sound, programming and

creating visual art, need to be fused into one coherent product. (How) can these creative

processes be managed? How to give an organization a common sense of direction and

directed effort? How does one organize professionals with highly specialized knowledge?

In pursuing these topics, this paper poses the following problem statement:

1 Here, no distinction is made between data and information. The term information will be used in its

popular meaning (see section 4.2.1.). 2 Check out: The Way Back Machine. A backup of the internet in which you can visit old sites.

http://www.waybackmachine.org.

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How can leaders organize the creative development of videogames?

To tackle such a broad problem statement this paper will create a pattern, a web if you

will, of subjects. The relation between these theories, models, and stories are necessary

for understanding the dynamics of organizing videogame development. Especially in

chapter 3 and chapter 4 we need to digress into seemingly unrelated matters. The premise

of the text you are now reading is that only by understanding these different themes like

new media, knowledge, communities, videogames, and creativity can one strike the

intricate balance in seemingly paradoxical trade-offs (commerce vs. creativity, authority

vs. decentralization) that organizing videogame studios encompass.

Even though we will delve into the topic of leadership, organizing, and videogames later,

at this point there is one term which I would like to disentangle from its dominant

meaning. The term “to organize” has a, especially in business studies, active meaning. It

implies a person that actively organizes stuff, often in a controlling mode. Quite

deliberately I have not chosen the term “to manage” as its active meaning is even more

prevalent. “The term management implies control of processes that may be inherently

uncontrollable or, at the least, stifled by heavy-handed direction,” (Krogh, Ichijo, and

Nonaka, 2000, p.4). Organizing also has a passive component, as things seemingly

organize themselves. Useful metaphors are a swarm of bees, a flock of birds, or a queue

in the U.K.

As this thesis endeavours to describe and theoretically elaborate on forms of organizing

and management in videogame development, it is important that you – the reader –

become aware of the personal connotations that these terms hold. Once we understand the

mental models we use to understand a concept like, for instance, organization, we can

question and alter them; we learn. In a sense, this thesis attempts to redefine the term

management and what it includes.

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First, in chapter 2 a thorough discussion of videogames will lead to reader’s insights into

what the medium videogame actually is. I believe that the medium is still ill-understood

by many. In chapter 3, the interactive videogame will be positioned in a broader context

of the media landscape, which leads to participatory ways of organizing. Chapter 4 delves

into these new ways of organizing on a theoretical level, and explains the important

concepts of knowledge and creativity. By the end of this chapter the reader should have a

good feel for the management challenge at hand. Chapter 5 will be a short interlude

before heading to the case study. Chapter 6 will use the developed theories as vocabulary

to describe research and propose methods on how leaders can organize videogame

development. Then in chapter 7 these proposed solutions will be abstracted into

conclusions on the original problem statement, and the title of this thesis will be

elaborated on. Finally, chapter 8 will take the developed notions back to the level of

context, as a discussion leads to implications for theoretical as well as practical fields. I

will end this thesis with a number of discussion statements.

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2 Videogames – an interactive medium

Games. I love them! Videogames come in many shapes and forms. Dance Dance

Revolution has you dancing with your feet controlling four big buttons. World of

Warcraft lets you inhabit a Tolkien-esque world for days (or years) on end. Pacman has

you running around eating small white dots. America’s Army let’s you play as a real

American soldier. In Mario you are running from left to right, jumping, and avoiding or

defeating turtles and goombas. The differences between all these games could not be

bigger.

Still, on another level of abstraction they are very much alike. “Videogames are a

medium, like radio, tv, podcasts, books, and websites. They carry content from the

creator to a recipient, while their form influences the manner in which the content is

received.” (Derks, 2006, p. 46). The information communicated through a game contains

audile and visual (like movies) as well as tactile elements (rumble in controller).

Even though they are all carriers of information, there is something different about games

vis-à-vis conventional media. Where “traditional media like books and movies use

descriptions (linguistic, visual, etc) as a means of representing and communicating ideas,

videogames use models,” (Chaplin & Ruby, 2005 p.2). Even though games also have text

and visuals, they are used to depict the underlying models. Text might be used to

communicate your score, or something visual (like a finish) might show you the goal of

the model.

Throughout this paper, the following definition of videogame will be used. “A game is a

system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a

quantifiable outcome,” (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004, p. 80). A game is a system of rules

with win/loss conditions (“a quantifiable outcome”) that a player can engage in and

interact with. The term “engage” needs to be stressed, as it is the term that encompasses

the interactivity of the medium. Different from text and film, where consumers receive

the data in the exact order the creator has decided, games engage to an extent that the

player influences the data he will obtain. Players have control over a videogame in that

they control the movement through space, trigger events, influence the (virtual)

surroundings, and thereby have power over the information the game communicates.

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Being a gamer requires you to take active control over the medium instead of passively

absorbing it.

The interactive nature of videogames puts it on a peculiar middle ground between

developer control and user involvement. On the one hand, the developer of a videogame

defines the boundaries of the game. These boundaries can be in virtual space (an island, a

closed bunker, or a globe), in rules (you can only move right, or the world will reset when

you go through a door), and in the interaction possibilities the avatar has (you can move

objects, create objects, destroy objects, climb onto and/or collect objects). In this sense,

the player only has control insofar as it has been given to him by the developer, who

might be seen as a deity of the game world.

On the other hand, people are invited to control their avatar through the virtual space and

are often given tools to modify and progress the world around them. Think of my

decorated house in Animal Crossing, or the bullet holes in a wall that are the result of a

hectic firefight in a shooter game. Then it is I who create and influence the world around

me. For instance in World Of Warcraft (WoW), a large part of the game experience is

built by gamers themselves in the social interactions they together engage in. The

developer has merely provided them with tools to chat, talk, team up, and animate their

avatar in a variety of ways. It is the players who create and control the social aspect of the

game experience. In this sense, the player has control over the game experience herself.

Narrative vs. Simulation The most significant characteristic of videogames is that they step away from the matter

of narrative and into simulations. There have been many discussions between theorists in

the field of videogames that argue whether videogames should be studied from a

perspective rooted in text, narrative, and linearity, or a point of view of simulations,

systems, and interactivity. In this discussion between Narratology and Ludology, both

points hold some truth. On the one hand humans’ will-to-narrative is deeply rooted in our

being, which means we use stories to make sense of the world around us and use them to

tell what has happened in a videogame. Many videogames such as Metal Gear Solid,

Zelda, and Final Fantasy rely on story as a main experience factor. On the other hand,

games like Pong, Pacman, and Tetris show that games without a story work well too. It

would be foolish to try to define a videogame as either of these two options, as both have

explanatory power.

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To complement the definition of videogame and the description of the diffuse boundary

of player and creator control, it is interesting to break videogames apart in a number of

distinguishable layers. A videogame consists of three different layers: the ruleset, the

declarative layer, and the social layer (Van Mastrigt, 2006). First, the ruleset is the rules

and goals set before the player. Intuitive examples of rules are: touch an enemy from the

side will give your lives “minus 1”, while touching an enemy from the top (jumping on

its head) will defeat the enemy. Also, the ruleset includes physics systems (stuff falls

down if you drop it), or a day-night interval. Basically, the ruleset defines the possibilities

and goals the player faces.

Second, the declarative layer is the visual, audile, and tactile interpretation of what is

happening in the ruleset. It forms the story, visual style, and background of the game.

Many First Person Shooters (FPS: games where the player looks “through the eyes” of

the character and shoot at objects) have identical rulesets, but different declarative layers.

The ruleset is about pointing and clicking at everything that moves, and finding the exit

in a 3D virtual space. The declarative layer shows whether you are shooting at WWII

Nazi’s, aliens, monsters, or futuristic humans. Also, depending on the declarative layer

you might be shooting virtual bullets or throwing virtual snowballs.

Third is the social layer. Gameplay may emerge between players when they play

together. Think of hunting your friends in a multiplayer shooter game, or of co-

operatively defeating a boss. As was stated earlier, WoW relies on the social aspect to a

large extent, where raids might require cooperative play from up to 40 people. Needless

to say, this social layer is only present when games are played together with other people.

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These three layers are a powerful abstraction of how games work, and can be used for

different types of analysis. For instance, the potential didactical applications differ for

these three layers. Also, it can be used to analyze the aforementioned power relationship

between control of the designer versus the control of the player. For instance, in WoW

players have power in the social layer, but not so much in the declarative layer. Players in

WoW cannot alter the content of the declarative layer, while in Second Life a large part of

the declarative content is user-generated. In a game like GameMaker the player gets

control over the ruleset itself, as it is a game (or tool) that allows you to build your own

game. Van Mastrigt (2006) proposed a practical model that fits nicely alongside Salen en

Zimmerman’s definition of games.

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3 Context – participate

After seeing what videogames are, this paper could delve into the development of such a

product. Even though this study’s focus is on leadership in the development processes of

videogames, this chapter will take a divergent route. It is much more interesting to pursue

the interactive nature of videogames. The coming chapter will establish the medium

videogame in the media landscape, and from there on find that the media landscape

influences videogame development. It is necessary to go into tangents like interactive

media, contemporary dominant mental models, and linking these to innovation

management theory. It is important to stray into these topics to establish a feel for the

broader dynamics at play here. The chapter 4 uses this context as a foundation to build

theoretical models.

3.1 From linear to interactive media

The information we receive from various media shapes the way we perceive the world

around us. My grandfather only knows The Netherlands through the newspaper and the

news on television. I have learned about tactics in soccer by playing videogames. And as

Al Jazeera started translating their news to English, CNN no longer is the only channel to

get news from the Middle East. Upon googling [Al Jazeera vs CNN] one finds a lot of

essays and scientific articles on these two journalism giants. Both sources provide us with

different information on a single event. These examples illustrate how different

information reaches us through different sources, and how that influences the way we

perceive our worlds. However, media also play an important role on a much more

fundamental level.

Interestingly, the type of media we predominantly use shapes the way we construct our

beliefs of the world around us. McLuhan (1967, p.8) claims that “societies have been

shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than the content of

the communication.” Our media for communicating information now include mobile

phones, wiki’s, e-mail, virtual worlds such as Second Life, and GPS systems among

others. Essentially, using these media alters the way you and I think about the world we

each live in.

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Although describing all these media extensively is not the point here, a general shift can

be seen from linear to interactive media (for instance, from books to videogames). On the

one hand, as man evolved from ape to homo sapiens, somewhere along the way he

developed linguistic skills. Language, the spoken word, has had a tremendous impact on

the way we make sense of things. Not even to mention the impact of print technology on

our ability to communicate and store data. Language, and thereby written text, is by

definition linear (McLuhan, 1967; Wesh, 2007; Cameron, 1995). The letters and the

words follow each other s-u-c-c-e-s-s-i-v-e-l-y (McLuhan, 1967). We use stories and

linear narratives to describe what we are doing and to make sense of our reality

(Cameron, 1995). This is deeply rooted in our existence, and has in many ways shaped

the way we perceive symbols around us. Here are two simple examples:

.thgir ot tfel morf daer ylno nac eW

Heowevr, rdeanig tsehe wrdos is not taht dfiuciflt

On the other hand, our media is becoming increasingly interactive. “Interactivity refers to

the possibility of an audience actively participating in the control of an artwork or

representation,” (Cameron, 1995, p.2). The receiving end of the medium therefore has

some control. “In its most fully realized form … interactivity allows narrative situations

to be described in potential and then set into motion – a process whereby model building

supersedes storytelling, and the what-if engine replaces narrative sequence,” (Cameron,

1995, p.2). Note how this corresponds to the description of chapter 2 where we state that

information in videogames is represented through models and not descriptions.

We must not forget that interactivity has gradations. First, this text you are reading (as

printed on paper) is not interactive. You may read it, shred it, fondle it, or do anything

that you like with it, but that won’t change the content or form of this paper. Second,

playing a videogame is interactive in the sense that you can make your own choices

within the content defined by the creator. Your actions will determine the part of the

game that you will see, hear, and play. Similarly, if you are reading this paper as .pdf,

you can click these links while your choices lead you to other content. Some games

however, like Will Wright’s The Sims, Spore, or MediaMatic’s Little Big Planet allow

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you to create content for the game, which is a third level of interactivity. You can design

your own house, story or other piece of content. Another example is Wikipedia, where

you cannot only stroll through the content of others, but can create or alter it as well. A

fourth level of interactivity is where you also have the power to modify the form of the

content. If you start your own weblog you may alter not only the content on that blog, but

also the form in which it is presented. In short, many media exist with different levels of

interactivity, and videogames with its dichotomy of user versus creator control are

somewhere in the low-level region of interactivity.

Nevertheless, the short discussion above does show that many media have interactive

components. Even though Wikipedia is text based, it is the flexibility of the digital text

that makes it an interactive medium. For an excellent visualization of how the shift from

linear text to interactive media has come about I urge you to check out Wesh (2007)

“Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/ing Us”3 on Youtube. In this under-five-minute video

Wesh shows us how we are changing the way we create and organize our information

and contemplates what the repercussions for society will be. Five minutes of fascination

are guaranteed…

Connecting Wesh’s (2007) point that our new interactive media is radically different

from old linear media to McLuhan’s argument that it is not content but the nature of the

medium that shapes our consciousness, leads to an interesting question. If “rationality and

logic came to depend on the presentation of connected and sequential facts or concepts,”

(Mcluhan, 1967, p.45) and thereby originate from the strong dependence on linear text,

how is our consciousness altered by the prevalence of interactive media like videogames,

the internet, and others? While this is a question too broad to embark upon in this thesis

there is room for proposing an answer that focuses on organizations: “If the last fifty

years have been about the creation of cultures, organizations, and infrastructures for mass

media consumption – the couch potato society – the next fifty will be about mass media

participation, (Leadbeater, 2007, p.12).

3 Wesh (2007) argues that by separating form from content, anyone without technical knowledge is able to

create content and upload it to the net. Additionaly, we organize all this newly generated content ourselves

as we link, tag, review, discuss, connect, and click.

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3.2 Organizing in participatory culture

The prevalence of interactivity in media leads to participatory culture. Instead of a “couch

potato society” where people sit at home at the end of the pipeline awaiting the fabulous

shows and programs that the media creators have produced for them, consumers are

increasingly becoming participants, using the information infrastructure to send

information back to the media creators. Examples abound. Sending text messages (See

Box: … -- … ) to vote for candidates. Answering quiz-questions on your laptop while

watching the BNN IQ test on tv. Or TV channel “The Box”s once revolutionary strategy

of having the public request songs for their music channel. This is a fundamental shift,

from people being receivers at the end of the production pipeline to people being users

that can, if they choose to, participate in the creation of the user experience.

This user participation is a highly social activity. It often includes communities of people

that communicate, share information, and sometimes even collaborate to co-create. We

are therefore not only talking about individual users becoming participants, but about

groups of users that self-organize and participate as a group. In relation to Descartes: “the

spreading net of vastly cheaper communications and computing, combined with new

highly social and collaborative forms of organizations means we are moving from ‘I

think, therefore I am’ into an era in which ‘we think, therefore we are’,” (Leadbeater,

2007, p.46).

“We are the Half-Life 2 Mod-scene.” We have created games that are built upon Valve’s

Half Life engine like Team Fortress, Day of Defeat, or the popular Counter Strike (Valve,

2004). “We are Wikipedia.” We have created an encyclopedia whose size is growing

beyond imagination. “We are Linux.” We have created a free operating system that has

the potential to compete with one of today’s business giants. This is interactivity with a

vengeance! These three products started out with creative people who want to make cool

stuff together, and they are enabled to do so by information and communication

technologies, our current media.

Unquestionably these new forms of production are invading our lives. They are forms

based on gift and reciprocity; we all give to a shared cause so as to create something

neither of us could achieve alone. This dynamic is strong, and has major implications for

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organization of game development. We will coin this a culture of Gift4 (the use of the

capital Gift will separate it from the original meaning of the term gift). Gift is a culture in

which it is socially acceptable to give stuff away for free without wanting anything in

return directly. Knowing when you need something, someone will give you what you

need. This should not be confused with altruism, nor is it a political statement of anti-

globalism, anti-corporate, or anti-whatever. Rather, Gift is a potent form of organizing as

it is just very practical (Leadbeater, 2007). Wikipedia is a good start for any researcher,

Apache steadily runs most of the internet servers, and Gathering of Tweakers is a helpful

practical source for computer related information.

To understand the changes of the “new”, we need to hold them against the light of the

“old”. To better understand Gift, we also need to understand its counterpart which we

will term Market, as they will be the two main dimensions of this thesis. If we say that

Gift is the “new” way of organization that comes from new participatory media, we will

use Market to relate to more “traditional” ways of organizing. Although the distinction is

effortlessly made here, in practice Gift and Market cannot be disentangled so easily.

To appreciate the notions of Gift and Market we will assess them from an innovation

management perspective. Innovation is defined in two inseparable dimension (Derks,

2006, pp.7-8). First, it is “the creative act of bringing two (or more) previously unrelated

pieces of knowledge together forming a qualitatively new piece of knowledge.” Second,

it “is the application of the new piece of knowledge on a new or existing market, thus

creating value to the user of the innovation,” (emphasis added). Seeing the user as

consumer (Market-thinking) leads us to think we need to give the user exactly what he

wants or needs, thereby creating value. However, seeing the user as a participant (Gift-

thinking) leads us to the conclusion that we need to give the user the tools and

4 As was noted in the introduction, the term Gift is too generic to credit it to a single person. This author

was pointed towards the relation of Gift and Market in a conversation with Charles Leadbeater. We will

investigate these terms throughout this paper, as different meanings are given to the term in section 3.2,

4.1.2, and 7.

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possibilities so that she can decide how to create the value herself (or together with

others).

The development funnel, a typical innovation model from business theory, is used to

illustrate this difference. Without discussing it in depth5, the left part of the left figure (a.

closed model) corresponds with the first dimension of innovation, combining knowledge,

while the right part (of fig a) corresponds to bringing the product to market to create user

value. In short, it shows how organizations manage their research and development

(R&D) and bring new products to market.

a. Closed innovation model b. Open innovation model

As you look at the development funnel (a), the left side -often called the fuzzy front-

considers creation, combining knowledge, and invention of new ideas. Here, related to

our concept of Gift, values of sharing, reciprocity, trust, and open communication are

necessary. The right (a) side is about bringing products to market, taking ideas to full-

blown production, efficiency, convergence into a single product, and creating user value.

The organization functions as a funnel through which good ideas are filtered into

development and brought to market; a highly rational and linear perspective on

innovation. Figure (b) shows how these “closed” models of innovation are changing

through user participation and other forms of “opening up” these innovation processes

(Chesbrough, 2003). This figure shows a more open development funnel in which

5 For an argumentation of how these changes affect innovation management business theory together with a

detailed discussion of these two development funnels, I direct you to my previous work: Educated Games:

Communities as Organizational Form for Open Innovation, Chapter 2.2 (Derks, 2006).

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interaction with end users and/or other parties is implemented throughout the total R&D

process.

… – – … Remember that old Nokia-tune. Beepbeepbeep beeeeep-beeeeep beepbeepbeep? The

Finnish corporation chose to use Morse code to notify someone they had received a text

message. However Nokia, nor any other telephone provider for that matter, made the

invention of using these mobile phones for sending text. Why use text when you can

speak to each other, they must have thought.

Actually, urban myth claims that it were the young teenagers who first found out that

these mobile phones were capable of sending strings of 160 characters (in western

Europe). Implemented as an error report system and technical communication channel

between the wireless device and the provider, youngsters playing around with their

phones found out ways to send each other these messages, and better yet, it was free!

Only after more and more people started using the Short Message Service technology, did

providers come up with business models to earn money from this service. SMS, truly a

user-generated invention!

Here the new product development funnel only serves as a metaphor, as Market and Gift

have profound effects on many other key organizational dynamics. On what will follow

be sure to take these arguments with a grain of salt; the dichotomy between Gift and

Market is best illustrated by proposing the extremes of the two sides. In the next chapters,

more detailed interpretations of these terms will follow, this section illustrates the extent

to which Market and Gift are permeating our economic life. The table shows continuums

between the perspectives of Market and Gift.

Dynamic Market Gift

User is Consumer Participant

Production mode Mass production Mass participation

Economic market is Hit-driven Long tail

Primary goal(s) are Profits People, planet, profits

Motion determined by Propulsion Attraction

Innovation model is Closed Open

Responsibility through Control and authority Decentralization

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Discussing all these different topics would digress from the original problem statement,

but a few links to other works need to be made for those interested in these topics. Users

are described as participants in Leadbeater’s We Think (2007), and Leadbeater and

Miller’s Pro-Am Revolution (2004). The shift of economic market from a hit-driven

market in which the biggest common denominator reaches the largest possible audience,

to a market where the number of niches seems infinite -and thereby creating a Long Tail

of small audiences- is described by Anderson (2006). The shifting economic market is

leading to new business models. Also, organizations are recognizing that the providers of

capital are not the main stakeholders anymore, as the importance of taking care of people

and the planet is increasingly being recognized in terms of corporate sustainability (or the

Dutch equivalent: “maatschappelijk verantwoord ondernemen”). More information on

closed and open innovation models can be found in theories by Chesbrough (2003) or

Derks (2006).

Photo by Bopuc @ Flickr.com

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3.3 Conclusion Context:

In this chapter we have seen that the changes in the media landscape have given rise to

interactive and even participatory media. In organizations that are not companies nor

corporations nor publicly traded institutions, people are freely exchanging information

and know-how in a setting of Gift. In a sense, Gift seems to be perpendicular to Market

(see fig), a term that is used to describe traditional ways of organizing. These two terms

will form the basis of reasoning and will be used to create other models and conclusions.

It is admittedly impossible to conclude from such a short theoretical discussion that there

is a causal link between linear media and the Market perspective of organizing. However,

it definitely is a compelling association to claim that our “new” interactive media

encourage user involvement in value creation and thereby lead to more Gift and less

Market. In other words, the changing dynamics in organizing (and organizing society at

large) can be explained by the “new” ways we are interacting with our media. Proving

such an allegory beyond doubt is a difficult task not beset for this thesis. However, it is a

pattern that is noticed by other theorists as well. “The alphabet and print technology

fostered and encouraged a fragmenting process, a process of specialism and of

detachment. Electric technology fosters and encourages unification and involvement. It is

impossible to understand social and cultural changes without a knowledge of the

workings of media.” (McLuhan, 1967, p.8, emphasis added).

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4 Market and Gift – a theoretical elaboration

It is now time to return to the problem statement: “How can leaders organize the creative

development of videogames?” We have just seen that videogames are part of a trend in

our communication media that moves towards interactivity and participation. As these

new information channels are opening up new ways of organizing, what will the impact

be on a videogame studio? In an attempt to put up a promising stab at tackling this thesis’

problem statement, we will use the notions of Market and Gift as a vehicle to create a

theoretical model. Therefore, this section will provide a theoretical elaboration of the

problem, providing us with a perspective from which to propose solutions.

Having described a number of organizational dynamics where Gift and Market diverge, it

is now time to look a bit closer at these terms themselves. At a theoretical level we will

investigate Market organizations and Gift organizations. It will come to light that the two

are not opposites of each other, rather, they are based on different assumptions.

Investigating these assumptions will lead to a discussion of knowledge and creativity,

which are important concepts for those in a leadership position in videogame

development.

4.1 Organization

So we have scratched the surface of the concepts of Market and Gift, both of which seem

to have a vocabulary of their own. A good illustration of this fact is the title of Simons

(2007) business theory article on organizational creativity: “Control in an age of

empowerment” (see section 4.3.3). The term empowerment supposes that there is

someone in power that willfully empowers someone in a subordinate position.

Empowerment cannot exist from a Gift perspective, as there was no boss who had power

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to give away in the first place. Similarly, notions like self-managing teams, 360-degree

feedback, knowledge management programmes, and even top-management do not exist

in the vocabulary of Gift but are commonly used in Market.

These fundamental differences imply that we have to reconsider our meaning of the

notion organization and what that encompasses. For this work organization is a group of

people that does something together. Bear in mind that organization is not mean in the

active sense of the word, where there is a specific person that organizes to get things

done. Rather, organization might have a passive meaning in that the efforts of the group

come together seemingly autonomously. This meaning of the word organization is

sufficiently wide to include both Gift and Market forms of organization.

“Organization is only a temporary excuse for doing something together”

4.1.1 Market organization

Market organization is the extreme of what we normally understand when we think of

corporations, organizations, companies, or multinationals. It is the form of organization

that is rooted in industrialization. It was during the second half of the 19th century that we

first saw the manager, a person who focuses solely on process. Owners of factories hired

outsiders to take care of daily business for them, and henceforth the world was endowed

with the presence of management. These organizations formed the fertile ground upon

which rational, Tayloristic management methods were devised.

Frederick Taylor devised scientific management around the start of the 20th century, and

it formed the basis for business management theories to come. Scientific management set

out to organize factories as human machines, where each action and procedure could be

“scientifically” determined to lead to the desired end product. A classic example is the

conveyor belt model where each worker routinely performs small simple tasks in a timed

fashion. Taylorism did so by virtue of two steps. First, by taking the possession and

control of knowledge about the methods of production away from the worker and putting

it into routine processes, the need for skilled workers decreased (Jaffee, 2001). Workers

under scientific management are not craftsmen, but only need to be able to perform

simple repetitive tasks. Second, by determining the duration of tasks managers could

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calculate how many times an action can be performed per shift, and thereby set up control

systems that check whether people work hard enough indeed (Jaffee, 2001). The

underlying assumption is that workers deliberately work as slowly as they dare, while

trying to make management believe they are working hard. Workers need to be controlled

to work hard.

One could say that scientific management works best when the knowledge is not too

complex so that it can be encapsulated in the production processes, the workers are not

intrinsically motivated – they need to be coerced to work hard – and the environment is

stable to make sure that established production processes remain useful through time. It’s

perfect for mass production!

The subordination of labor in factories together with the rise of the capitalist class, while

at the same time industrial technology emerged, has lead to an impressive increase in

prosperity and welfare in our society. We now have access to excellent health services,

high-technologies, modes of transportation and communication, and most important of

all: videogames. Many advances in many industries, like for instance semiconductors,

come from using methods of mass production to make products affordable to a large

consumer market.

The most well known image that comes from this perspective is the organizational

diagram. The organizational structure is set formally, and uses a top-down approach.

Decision making power is concentrated in the top of the organization, in the top

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management team. The different boxes represent functions, not persons. If these

functions are performed according to their descriptions, these different functions will

become part of a bigger whole and the organization functions and achieves its goals. The

lines between the different boxes represent lines of communication, which can often be

understood as lines of responsibility. If things under you are not functioning properly it is

your responsibility to fix it. It might be so that to implement a proposed solution, your

plan first needs to go up the chain to be approved, and then comes back to you with a

go/no-go decision attached to it.

This is a dominant model of organizations and that most of us have experienced first

hand. They are built upon Taylor’s assumptions of scientific management, viewing the

organization as a rational machine and managers’ responsibility to engineer the optimal

solution.

4.1.2 Gift organization

Gift is, as we have established in our contextual chapter 3, vastly different from Market.

Linux is surely different from Microsoft, Youtube is different from Talpa, Wikipedia is

different from Britannica. However, putting Gift organizations in some kind of

indefinable corner of mysticism, idealism, and utopia is just plain wrong. These

organizations also have common characteristics and assumptions. Let us investigate some

theories that have attempted to describe Gift organizations.

Before we can make this step however, we need to recognize a frame of reference for

what we consider Gift organizations. In a sense volunteer work, or hobby projects

involving more than a single individual can be considered to be Gift organizations. This

is too broad for this work. Hence, Gift is network organizations that focus on free

exchange of information and data and collaborate to create a functioning product or

service. Admittedly this definition is not without its problems, but it will have to do for

now as we theorize on Gift using Communities of Practice, Leadbeater’s open

organizations, some diverging theories on knowledge creating communities, and Hackers

(Levy, 1984).

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A Community of Practice (CoP) “is a group

of people who share a concern, a set of

problems, or a passion about a topic, and

who deepen their knowledge and expertise in

this area by interacting on an ongoing basis,”

(Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002).

Essentially, a CoP is a social configuration

aimed at knowledge creation, and can be

formed formally or informally in an organizational setting. A CoP consists of three

dimensions. A shared domain, which is the area of passion or problematic topic that the

CoP wishes to address. Subsequently, a CoP involves a community, which involves the

strength, density, and number of links between the participants. Finally, a CoP has a

practice, the know-how, language, skills, tools, and knowledge that the community

possesses. Wenger et al. (2002) draw a community as the figure above: a strategic core, a

complementary ring, and the free space.

Leadbeater discusses eight principles of open organization. First a kernel is needed to get

things going. It is the core around which the community will form. Second, motivate and

attract contributors. Make sure that there are clear practical benefits. Third, provide low

barriers to entry and easy to use tools to create options for anyone to contribute if they

choose to do so. Fourth, crowds need meeting places, or commons, where they can

converse and interact. Fifth, self-distribution of labor states that people can choose

themselves what, how much, and when they contribute. “This ability to allow many

thousands of people to make mini contributions is a vital organizational innovation,”

(Leadbeater, 2007, p.19). Sixth, encourage people to build on your ideas, as value is

created through constant improvement and refinement. Seventh, “think lego” states that

these organizations work best if all contributions can be linked into one coherent product

in modular fashion. If not a modular product, incorporating all these mini contributions

would be very hard, if not impossible. Finally, one needs conversational leaders. Leaders

in open organizations “tend to be quiet, self-effacing, modest, and self-confident … Their

particular style of top-down leadership allows for a mass of highly distributed bottom-up

initiative,” (Leadbeater, 2007, p.20).

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Next, Krogh et al. (2000) consider knowledge creating groups. It starts with individuals

and their individual knowledge. As they start interacting on an on-going basis and form

relationships “they become a ‘fused group’ … [as] members recognize their common

interests, individual needs, and different areas of expertise (Krogh et al., p.14). The fused

group can become a pledged group as “it organizes rights and duties according to a

pledge or charter,” (Krogh et al., p. 15) and starts to engage in knowledge creation.

These are just three different models to understand these Gift organizations. Other

excellent research is done by Van Wendel de Joode (2005) on organizing open source

communities like Linux, and Bozeman and Rogers (2002) dissertation on how new

knowledge builds upon existing knowledge in social configurations they call a

‘knowledge value collective’.

Last but not least is the Hacker Ethic (Levy, 1984), an important notion for Gift culture.

It is important to understand that hackers are not cybercriminals or computer-terrorists,

this is only a popular use of the term in newspapers or tabloids. “Hackers believe that

essential lessons can be learned about the systems … from taking things apart, seeing

how they work, and using this knowledge to create new and even more interesting

things,” (Levy, 1984, p.40). For instance, the first videogames were created by hackers,

people toying around with the governments’ military technologies (Chaplin & Ruby,

2005). Pekka Himanen (2001), whose theories on group creativity we will see later, wrote

an interesting book on the Hacker Ethic versus the protestant work ethic. Levy (1984)

describes the Hacker Ethic in a number of points:

• All information should be free

• Mistrust authority – promote decentralization

• Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees,

age, race, or position

• You can create art and beauty on a computer

• Computers can change your life for the better

• Access to computers – and anything which might teach you something about the

way the world works – should be unlimited and total.

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“Never doubt the power of a small group of committed individuals to change the world. It

is the only thing that ever has.”

In conclusion, I propose a number of common characteristics for Gift organizations. They

involve communities, a kernel, knowledge (and information), and have no formal

hierarchy. First, community is present in all theories in that it constitutes the people that

form the organization. However, not all groups are a community, there needs to be a

sense of collective ambition6, meaningful conversations, and a common platform of

working. Notice, also, that organigrams of communities are almost invariably drawn as

circles. Second is the kernel, the term I borrow from Leadbeater. It is the starting point of

the venture, to get the “community going requires identifying an opportunity and putting

up a first, promising stab at addressing it,” (Leadbeater, 2007, p.18). Against some

popular beliefs, communities rarely create the kernel themselves. More often than not, it

is created by a small strategic core (see section 4.1.2). Third, Gift organizations are about

information and knowledge. Linux, Wikipedia, Ouders.nl, MySpace, Youtube - they are

all organizations that exchange information in the form of video, audio, text, and/or

images. Although it is not impossible to think of a Gift organization that includes

monetary or physical factors, in this thesis we will solely focus on Gift organizations that

evolve around the exchange of information. Finally, Gift organizations have no formal

hierarchy. This is not to say that there are no leaders in these organizations, sure there

are! But they are informal leaders, who have claimed that position through reputation and

leadership abilities, not through career opportunities or formal appointment.

4.1.3 Market and Gift

So far we have assumed that Market and Gift are mutually exclusive, that is to say, that it

is either one or the other. This brings up interesting questions: can a Market organization

and a Gift organization work together? Can a person be part of two organizations, one

Market and one Gift, at the same time? What happens if a Gift organization wants to

6 Collective ambition is the will of the group to achieve something. This kind of collective ambition and

ideology has been present in organizations like Greenpeace, sports teams, or in politics, but were absent in

the capitalist factories.

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make revenue, does it automatically become a Market organization? These simple

questions are leading us to believe that there might be a grey area between Market and

Gift, that the two are not mutually exclusive. Actually – but we are getting ahead of

ourselves here – this paper argues that videogame studios are a hybrid between Market

and Gift organizations.

However, before attempting to tackle the issue of bringing these theories together, we

first need to understand two factors that are crucial for not only Gift, but for videogame

development in general. As also follows from the discussion above on Gift organizations,

two topics that anyone involved with game development should at least partially

understand are the concepts of knowledge and how it is created. Therefore, the next

section will rather extensively or rather shortly (depending on your perspective) discuss

the concepts of knowledge and creativity.

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4.2 Knowledge

The first topic to be tackled is knowledge. By describing what knowledge is, and how it

relates to data and information, we can take a look at how sharing of knowledge works.

Besides discussing tacit and explicit knowledge, we delve into the importance of context

on knowledge creation. Finally the stimulation of knowledge creation – an important

aspect for leaders – will be looked at.

4.2.1 Data, information, and knowledge?

First and foremost knowledge is a human factor. It is vital to understand that it cannot

exist outside of an individual. Krogh et al. (2000, p. 6) explain that knowledge is

“justified true belief,” that what an individual person holds to be true. To support this

claim the relation between data, information, and knowledge will be explained.

Data is absolute in its existence. Data are the letters on a page, the sound of music, and

the color of a wall. “Data is a set of discrete, objective facts about events,” (Davenport &

Prusak, 1998, p.2). Even though some people might be able to read the letters of a book

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while others might not have those linguistic skills, the form and size of the data is fixed.

The letters themselves do not change. Data turns into information when we perceive it

and link it to other data we see, read, or hear (Weggeman, 1997). Information comes into

existence by putting data in context (Krogh et al., 2000). A useful definition of

information is “the meaning attached to obtained data,“ (Weggeman, 1997, p.32). For

instance, the data on your screen gives a number: 22. Understanding that this number

signifies your “age” gives you a score about your performance in Nintendo’s Brain

Training. Attaching meaning to data creates information.

This brings us to the definition of knowledge. Interestingly, Krogh et al. do not define

knowledge but claim it “is one of those concepts that is extremely meaningful, positive,

promising, and hard to pin down,” (Krogh et al. 2000, p.5). Weggeman (2000) claims that

knowledge is an ability that can be used to produce something. He states that knowledge

is created by subjecting the information to one’s own experience, skill, and attitude

(Weggeman, 1997).

“K=f(i.esa)”

Even though I wholeheartedly agree with Krogh et al. (2000) that knowledge is in the eye

of the beholder, and therefore impossible to define for all relevant disciplines and

sciences, this paper proposes a working definition for this thesis: Knowledge is the

personal ability of interpreting data and information to reach a goal.

I have written this text with my knowledge. What you see is data, colours, letters, figures,

shapes, lines, and other symbols. The relation between these data forms the information.

Information such as argumentation, the explanation of concepts like data and

information, and the relation between knowledge and the human factor. The ability to

interpret and assess this information is different for each reader, you might accept this

information to be true, or you might have a counter-argument for some points. The way

you assess this text is dependent upon your existing knowledge, and therefore per

definition subjective. This thesis is not knowledge, it is merely an artifact of my

knowledge that I offer to you so you might create new knowledge yourself.

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Image by Jesse van Dijk. Copyright Playlogic Entertainment.

Attaching meaning to data The meaning of the letters “mouse” might mean different things to different people. The

same can be said of the swastika icon, or the Triforce. These are examples where the data

quite obviously has multiple meanings in different contexts. But what if the data is a

concept drawing for a videogame? The knowledge a person gains from this data can be

basic: “It’s a beautiful drawing.” But also trained: “It needs a bit more detail, but I do like

the color and composition.” It is these peoples’ difference in ability to give meaning to

this data that they each see something different, which leads to different information and

ultimately different knowledge. The knowledge someone gains from a piece of data is

therefore subject to his perception and individual experience.

4.2.2 Tacit and explicit knowledge

Having discussed the relationship between data, information, and knowledge and thereby

proposing a working definition for the latter concept, it is important to note that two

forms of knowledge can be distinguished. Note however that while “it is possible to

distinguish between these forms of knowledge, they [together are knowledge and] cannot

be separated,” (Weggeman, 1997, p.35). A distinction is commonly made between tacit

knowledge and explicit knowledge (Krogh et al. 2000).

On the one hand, tacit knowledge is difficult to articulate and can be regarded as a form

of unconscious knowledge (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Weggeman (1997) argues that

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tacit knowledge comes in the forms of experience, skill, and attitude. A programmer who

finds a bug might instantaneously have an idea as to where to search in the code. He is

unable to explain why that is the first place to look, but his experience and skills already

give him a sense of direction. Additionally, a dancer might not be able to give accurate

details on a specific dance move to a novice. The finer muscle movements involved are

part of his tacit knowledge.

On the other hand, explicit knowledge is rather unproblematic to articulate (Nonaka and

Takeuchi, 1995). Weggeman (1997) argues that explicit knowledge is the information

component of knowledge. Although this brings some problems to the definition of

information above, it does support the notion that explicit knowledge can be relatively

easily articulated. To go back to our example of our programmer above, explicit

knowledge is how to use certain syntax or the number of variables a specific function can

use. This part of his knowledge can be easily explained and articulated in a book, a

manual, or a conversation. Through sharing tacit and explicit knowledge7 new knowledge

can be created.

Consider that videogame development is a knowledge intensive process, and that the

product that is to be created is built upon the knowledge the members of the organization

have. As such, sharing and creating knowledge and learning are key value-adding

activities of these organizations. How this knowledge leads to specific amounts of future

cash-flow is hard to predict, but that the product – the videogame – is dependent on the

tacit and explicit knowledge that a videogame studio contains is important to stress here.

4.2.3 Knowledge and Ba

The knowledge that is created in an organization is highly dependent on the context it is

created in (Krogh et al, 2000). Knowledge is shared through information, and information

is dependent on the medium the data is communicated through, as was established in the

beginning of chapter 3. This implies that information shared in a virtual space such as e-

7 Sharing tacit and explicit knowledge works in many different ways, one more simple than the other. The

SECI model by Nonaka and Takeuchi proposes four quadrants of knowledge sharing. Their book The

Knowledge Creating Company (1995) is an interesting read on this topic. See also chapter 8’s discussion.

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mail or chat is different from information that is shared through face-to-face

conversations.

These shared spaces are crucial to the knowledge- and value-creation processes. As (an

artifact of) knowledge is the main output of a videogame studio, successful value creation

is embedded in the context of the organization. “Based on the Japanese idea of Ba (or

“place”), such an organizational context can be physical, virtual, mental, or -more likely-

all three,” (Krogh et al, 2000, p.7). Even though it is tricky to unravel the influence of

different settings on knowledge creation, it points us toward physical, virtual, and mental

spaces as important leverage on the value creation process. We will come back to this

point in chapter 7.

4.2.4 Enabling knowledge creation

Krogh et al. (2000) propose a model that shows how knowledge can be managed, or

organized. Knowledge can of course never be managed in a controlling, Tayloristic

sense, as it is a personal human factor. However, we will see that enabling knowledge

creation is very much related to our notion of Gift organization.

Enabling knowledge creation, in other words enabling learning, is a very diffuse topic

because “… while it is easy to say “create a culture that values learning” or to discuss the

knowledge-based economy in general terms, the human processes involved – creativity,

conversation, judgment, teaching, and learning – are difficult to quantify,” (Krogh et al,

2000, p.4). Therefore, it cannot be managed in “knowledge management programmes” or

“expert knowledge systems”.

However, in qualitative terms a number of factors can be distinguished. Krogh et al

(2000) claim there are five enablers of knowledge creation. First, “instill a knowledge

vision” claims you need a shared vision and sense of direction. Please remember our

notion of collective ambition present in Gift organizations. Second, “manage

conversations” emphasizes the importance of open conversations. Third, “mobilize

knowledge activists” implies you need individuals in your organization who are actively

committed to knowledge creation; conversational leadership in Leadbeater’s terms (see

section 4.1.2.). Fourth, “create the right context” turns back to the point of Ba, and how

context influences knowledge creation. Finally, “globalize local knowledge” means you

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need to disseminate knowledge throughout the organization instead of having individuals

keeping knowledge for themselves. Therefore the sharing and creation of information is –

in an abstract sense – the main value-adding activity of a videogame studio, and needs to

be facilitated and supported.

4.3 Creativity

Next to the topic of knowledge we must also understand the notion of creativity to

understand the strategic challenges that leaders in videogame development face. Even

though creativity is an intuitive concept, it has many different meanings to different

people. Here, for simplicity’s sake creativity means the creation of something new8,

which is very much related to our first dimension of innovation (see section 3.2).

Woodman et al. (1993) argue that creativity can be investigated on the individual, group,

and organizational level. Using this as a starting point, this section will propose models

useful for understanding these complex phenomena.

4.3.1 Individual Creativity

Long has creativity been analyzed on an individual level. The creative act is done by a

lone artist who might or might not be secluded from the rest of the world. This is

illustrated by romantic notions of the close relationship of a writer and his novel, a

painter that does not want anyone to see the work before it is completed, or a lone

programmer who is programming a game in his attic. This has lead to models of

individual creativity.

One popular model is on phases in creativity by Wallas (1926). He distinguishes between

different phases in the creative process. His original four phases are preparation,

incubation, illumination, and verification. Through the years many different theorists

have added phases such as evaluation (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996), Sensation (Pope, 2005),

or intuition (Policastro, 1995), resulting in a possible eleven phase model by Christophe

(2006). Interestingly these phases are not sequential, but iterative. This means that the

8 For a discussion of different meanings of the term creativity from a business studies perspective and the

assumptions that are embedded in the different levels of analysis of creativity as a theoretical phenomenon

see Drazin, Glynn, and Kazanjian (1999).

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phases will overlap, return in cyclical fashion, and are used multiple times before the

creative process is over.

Another popular way of understanding creativity is not about the process of the creative

act as is described by Wallas (1926), but claims creativity exists as a function of three

personal components (Amabile, 2007). “Within every individual, creativity is a function

of … expertise, creative-thinking skills, and motivation,” (Amabile, p. 54). First,

expertise establishes a strong link between potential creativity and knowledge on a topic.

Second, creative thinking “refers to how people approach problems

and solutions – their capacity to put existing ideas together in new

combinations,” (Amabile, p.55). Third, motivation is an important

factor in how creative a person will be. But the influence of

motivation is not completely straightforward.

There are two kinds of motivation, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. The first might be

most easily de illustrated as a carrot on a stick, and often comes in the form of money.

The latter is best described as passion or interest. One comes from outside a person, while

the second comes from within. By stating that “intrinsic motivation is conducive to

creativity, but extrinsic motivation is detrimental,” Amabile (1983, p. 15) argues that an

inner passion to solve the problem at hand leads to solutions far more creative than do

external rewards. Even though it is not the aim here to discuss which solution is “more

creative” than the other, it is important to note that intrinsic motivation leads a person to

wanting to be creative, while extrinsic motivators – when used in the wrong way – will

actually stifle creativity.

A final concept of creativity on an individual level is flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1988).

“People in a state of 'flow' are those who feel they are engaged in a creative unfolding of

something larger; athletes call it ‘being in the zone’, mystics have described as ‘ecstasy’,

and artists ‘rapture’,” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). Interestingly, the term flow has also been

used to describe immersion in a videogame. It will occur when people are challenged, but

the challenge is not impossible; when people are concentrated, focused, and intrinsically

motivated; and have a personal sense of control over the situation.

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4.3.2 Group creativity

As is discussed in chapter 3, the rise of interactivity in our media has lead to participatory

culture. People exchange, share, combine and review information (Leadbeater, 2007),

and are creating products such as Wikipedia, Linux, MySpace, or game mods. In theory

on creativity the influence of the social setting is informally recognized, but not widely

researched (Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993). However, there “is considerable

informal evidence that social-psychological factors have a significant impact on the

creativity and productivity of outstanding individuals,” (Amabile, 1983, p. 5). Especially

as we link knowledge creation – a process heavily dependent on Ba, or context – to

creativity, the influence of social context on creativity becomes undeniable.

Three different models of group creativity will be described here. The first briefly

describes the group in terms of the role of leadership, culture, and diversity. The second

and third are both more related to the processes of creativity instead of the group

characteristics. To briefly summarize the group characteristics we turn to Woodman et al.

(1993, p. 301) as they quote King and Anderson (1990): “… the probability of creative

outcomes may be highest when leadership is democratic and collaborative, structure is

organic rather than mechanistic, and groups are composed of individuals drawn from

different fields or functional backgrounds.” This corresponds to Leadbeater’s ideas on

conversational leadership, network organizations instead of formal structures, and the

importance of diversity versus uniformity for creativity.

“Just think of it as a Jazz-band playing together, improvising, and feeling the flow.”

As we take group creativity to Gift organizations like

internet communities, Himanen (2006) describes

conditions for group creativity. As a base, there must

be trust among the group, this is necessary for the

other conditions to appear. Upon this trust, an

enriching community can emerge. People that have a

sense of belonging and place within the group. If

there is a sense of community, co-creation can occur.

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Charles Leadbeater (2007) describes that groups do not necessarily reach this creation

step. He claims there are four levels of connection: Contribute, Connect, Collaborate,

Create. The first step is to Contribute. People from all over the world can, as Wesh

(2007) did, upload content to the web without having knowledge or experience in the

technical side of internet protocols and programming.

The second level of cooperation is to Connect. By connecting to others a new level of

cooperation is achieved. A good example of a simple connection is eBay. This economic

transaction site lets you upload your own content (a picture of the game or goat that you

want to sell) and subsequently connects you to people who might be interested in this

product.

The third level of cooperation is to Collaborate. On Flickr – a photo site that has millions

of photos – people can contribute and connect to each other, but also give each other

feedback on work. Even though they do not actually work together while shooting the

photos, they can collaborate through comments, feedback, and giving tips.

The fourth and final level is to Create together. A good example, or actually anti-

example, is the book We-Think Charles Leadbeater is writing at the moment. He not only

Contributes his text to the internet before it is released, but also Connects people in a

shared platform, the web space of wethinkthebook.net. Furthermore, he allows people to

Collaborate as he gives options to send him a mail or post a comment. However, he

chooses not to allow Creation of the text directly as would be possible in a wiki. He

remains the gatekeeper to the final text himself.

It is important to note that these dynamics of group creativity are firmly rooted in Gift

culture. Releasing We-Think on the internet for free before it is in stores is a strange

choice from a Market perspective, which might be more inclined to assume all

proprietary rights and protect it accordingly. Also, Himanen’s importance of the factor

trust involves reciprocity, sharing, as his ideas are based in the Hacker Ethic. In a sense,

our discussion of group creativity has brought us back to our discussion of media and

organization of chapter 3. Let us now look at creativity at an organizational level.

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4.3.3 Organizational creativity

While we have intuitive meanings with the notions of individual creativity and group

creativity, the meaning of the term organizational creativity is less apparent. It is never

the organization that can be creative, only the people within the organization can. Also,

what an organization creates is not only a product, but also systems, red tape, or offices.

Here, we will use the following definition of organizational creativity: “the creation of a

valuable, useful new product, service, idea, procedure, or process by individuals working

together in a complex social system,” (Woodman, 1993, p. 293).

This definition not only suffices the concerns expressed in the first half of the paragraph,

but also points towards learning organizations or transformational organizations, as it

relates to the creation of new processes and procedures. For instance, Peter Senge (1990)

has written a ground-breaking book called The Fifth Discipline on how organizations

learn and adapt themselves. March (1991) intriguingly discusses exploration and

exploitation as types of organizational learning. And also theorists like Argyris have

contributed to our understanding of learning in business theory. Is learning then the same

as creativity, one might ask. The answer is unambiguous: no, creativity and learning are

two different things. They are related only as learning is the creation of new knowledge.

There are theorists who describe how leaders can improve organizational creativity.

Florida and Goodnight (2007) claim that “creative capital” is an organization’s most

important asset, the ability of an organization to be creative. There are three points to

managing creative capital. First, help employees do their best work by engaging them

intellectually and elimination distractions. See the relation to the concept of flow (section

4.3.1.) here. Second, make all managers responsible for sparking creativity, removing

arbitrary distinctions between “suits” and “creatives”. Third, engage customers as

creative partners so you deliver superior products, acknowledging that the organization is

part of a larger open innovation system.

Alternatively, Simons (2007) discusses control in an age of empowerment. An

organization wants employees to be creative in the “right way”. Leaders of an

organization want people to be creative within certain boundaries, to be creative in line

with the organizational goals. Simons provides four levers of control. First are the

diagnostic control systems that are the traditional monitors of critical performance factors

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such as cost, revenue, and (expected) return on investment. Second are belief systems,

encompassing the organizations values, beliefs, norms, vision, mission, and other

statements of philosophy. It is very much embedded in the organization’s culture. Third,

boundary systems do not tell people what to do, but what not to do. This sets boundaries

to the degrees of freedom an artist has, and clearly describes the space in which he has

freedom to be creative. Finally, interactive control systems in its most basic form are

meetings – conversations if you will – where the different hierarchical levels of the

organization come together to discuss strategic information.

“Empowerment is an artifact of a dominant mental model.”

Organizational creativity is a difficult concept. To thoroughly understand it we need to

understand “(a) the creative process, (b) the creative product, (c) the creative person, (d)

the creative situation, and (e) the way in which each of these components interacts with

the other,” (Woodman et al., 1993, p. 294). Throughout this thesis these 5 factors will be

discussed, and how they can lead to a setting of facilitated chaos; a state of creative

freedom and Gift-like organization that is facilitated and supported by something we

normally call management. For now, having discussed the notion of organizing Market

and organizing Gift, and the two topics of knowledge and creativity, we can take a more

educated look at the problem at hand

4.4 Understanding the management challenge

This chapter has shown the different assumptions upon which Market and Gift

organizations are built. Tayloristic management was shown to have encapsulated

technology in processes instead of workers, and insisted that extrinsic motivation was the

sole way to achieve maximum output. Relaxing these assumptions is necessary as work is

done by professionals with highly specialistic knowledge in a dynamic environment.

Additionally, the importance of knowledge and creativity in the creative development

process of videogames is apparent – since its birth videogames have been strongly linked

to creative use of utilitarian technologies – and this influences the way a videogame

studio is managed. Also, Castells (1996) describes that informationalism is present in all

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our lives, and does not supplant industrialism (See Box: The Rise of Information

Society). In this sense, Gift and Market are not mutually exclusive and are both present

in the creative development of videogames, implying some kind of organizational form in

which Gift and Market go together.

Yet again, we have made a full circle back to the problem statement: “How can leaders

organize the creative development of videogames?” The theoretical elaboration of

organizing Market and Gift, knowledge, and creativity – in all of which people appear to

be central – brings us closer to understanding this problem statement. This brings us to

more practical questions like: what does this mean for an organizations structure,

processes, leadership style, and the way of connecting to business partners? (How) can

one manage creativity? What do the developed theories on knowledge tell us about

organizing videogame development? How to structure the overlap between Market and

Gift? And what would an organization like this look like? Basically the question is: how

can leaders manage a videogame studio?

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The Rise of Information Society Network organizations have emerged with the rise of the network society (Castells,

1996). These new social structures are “associated with the emergence of a mode of

development, informationalism,” (Castells, 1996, p.14). However, “the shift from

industrialism to informationalism is not the historical equivalent of the transition from

agricultural to industrial economies,” (Castells, 1996, p.100). Rather, Manuel Castells

argues, informationalism spreads through our agricultural, industrial as well as cultural

production, and as such influences the productivity in all these sectors. Our advances in

informationalism – maximizing knowledge-based productivity through sharing and

organizing our information – will lead to increased productivity in all these industries.

“What has changed is not the kind of activities humankind is engaged in, but its

technological ability to use as a direct productive factor what distinguishes our species as

a biological oddity: its superior capacity to process symbols,” (Castells, 1996, p.100,

emphasis added).

There are a number of challenges to present here. First is the difference between a

contractrelation in formal organizations versus the conceptrelation present in Gift

organizations. Second, organizing traditionally encompasses managing processes while

the different phases of creativity do not allow for linear rationalization. A third challenge

is to create alliance between organizational goals, and individual freedom and

autonomous creativity. Fourth, with long lead times for products (two years production is

not uncommon) there is the trade-off between long term planning and short term

flexibility. Fifth, is the challenge of aligning the different disciplines in game

development, technically oriented programmers need to work with visually oriented

artist; the diversity of the specialisms is typical for videogame development. Finally, we

need to assess the challenges that the importance of the factor knowledge poses.

Especially how the importance of the professional has grown vis-à-vis Tayloristic

management systems, and the power relationship between management and workfloor is

now favouring those who actually have the knowledge to create these beautiful

interactive products: videogames.

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Photo by KevinDooley @ Flickr.com

JIT is Art?

Connecting efficient production (JustInTime) to art coerces the topic of necessity and is

deliberately ironic, even provocative. The way that artist use their time is perpendicular

to large business’ concerns to gain commercial success. Deliberate detours, embracing

mistakes and unexpected tangents – it is all a part of the creative development of a piece

of art (quote Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, JIT project, 2006).

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5 Interlude – the case research

The questions at the end of the last chapter are very practical in nature, and will be

handled as such. The next chapter discusses the developed theories in practice. In that

sense, it will provide methods in which a videogame studio could be managed. They are

models taken down from their abstract theoretical levels and into the videogame studio. It

is essential to understand that the possible methods are not limited to those mentioned in

the next chapter; quite the contrary! I urge you to internalize the developed theories and

apply them to your own situation and finding your own methods and solutions. However,

note that the proposed methods do find their foundation in peer-reviewed research.

This thesis’ proposed theories, and the descriptions of these theories in practice to follow,

are built upon almost half a year of participatory research and numerous interviews with

– practical as well as theoretical – experts from various fields. As for embedding it in the

videogame industry, his thesis was written from inside a Dutch videogame studio: W!

Games, where yours truly has a producer as well as a researcher role. Also, interviews

with other videogame studios are conducted to validate the conclusions. For a more in-

depth discussion of the methodology refer to Appendix B.

As the theoretical development occurred in conjunction with the research, the proposed

model has strong explanatory powers for practice. However, it must be immediately

noted that the case research might be seen to be rather weak. Thoroughly researching the

concepts of knowledge, creativity, as well as organizational forms is impossible in a work

this size and within this timeframe. So instead of using available instruments9 and

theories to thoroughly investigate these concepts, the concepts will be used as a

perspective from which to evaluate events in practice. This thesis aims to develop

theories instead of stating “truths” about videogame development in general. This is

fundamental to the way this study approaches the case and its experts. Because NDA’s

(read: secrecy) are widespread in the videogame industry no specific occurrences,

persons, or organizations will be mentioned.

9 See chapter 8’s discussion of recommended future research.

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Photo by /\ltus @ Flickr.com

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6 Case – proposing a solution

Videogame studios are hybrid organizations, spanning the boundaries between industrial

and open-source work forms. This chapter discusses the consequences of this hybrid

organization on a practical level. As an understanding of the management challenge at

hand is established, it is time to propose solutions.

In a way this thesis is rooted in contingency theory; that a functioning method of

organizing is always dependent upon the specific characteristics and context of each

single organization. Therefore, one might or might not agree to some of the solutions

proposed. However, let the proposed models and methods be a starting point for a

continuing discussion. First, this chapter will propose an organizational structure that

combines characteristics of Market and Gift. After that, the methods through which

management can lead and steer an organization will be elaborated upon.

6.1 An organizational structure

As a proposal for this hybrid organization we will use the organizational model by

Mintzberg (1992). Before delving into the subparts of this kind of organization, the

characteristics as a network organization10 are discussed. Generally, many value-adding

activities in videogame development, such as distribution and marketing are outsourced.

Furthermore, some videogame studios also outsource more fundamental activities such as

motion-capturing, music, or porting code from one platform to another. Also, some

videogame studios have built a business model out of doing content creation like

modeling, skinning, and animation for other game studios. In short, videogames studios

focus on their core competence new product development: the creative development of

(parts of) videogames. Often, a lot of non-core activities such as marketing or accounting

are outsourced to other organizations.

10 Gulati, Nohria, and Zaheer (2000) discuss strategic networks. “… the networks and relationships in

which firms are embedded profoundly influence their conduct and performance,” (p. 1). They discuss,

among others, the industry structure, positioning within the industry, and a firms inimitable resources and

capabilities.

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With many different partners, and long lead times for products in a rapidly changing

market place, videogame studios’ environments are dynamic and complex. There are

many stakeholders inside and outside the organization with different interests. This

implies that these organizations are in a constant state of flux as they need to realign to

the organizational goals and context.

In this figure it is important to understand that it is not either Market or Gift. IT is not

about either/or claims at all, it is about AND statements. It is hierarchy AND community.

The bottom part circle (G) is about production and creation of the game itself, and

involves most employees. These are the people that actually create the videogame,

craftsmen and professionals with highly specialized knowledge. They work on the

product itself, which is the kernel (or core) of the organization. Therefore programmers,

artists, game designers and all others need to work together with strong horizontal

communication and “mutual adjustment” (Mintzberg, 1992).

The top part (M) is strategic and top management. These people are the strategic core of

the community, and provide what Leadbeater (2007) calls the kernel. Their first

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responsibilities lie in the continuity of the organization and long term strategies. Of

course these long term plans are very much dependent on the functioning of the bottom

part of figure. Second, they are responsible for managing relationships with outside

partners and other organizations. Think of relationships with publishers, accountants,

investors, government institutions, and competitors among others.

Especially the overlapping part in the middle, what would normally constitute middle

management, is very interesting to investigate. How is the information flow between the

top and bottom structured? We will come back to this in section 6.2. For now, it is

important to understand that the vertical orientation of the figure is arbitrary, as a person

might work close to top-management half of the time, and the other half on the

workfloor. Similarly, even top-management directors might still spend time with

colleagues creating the actual product itself. There is no clear cut division between top-

management, middle management, and workfloor. This implies that vertical coordination

is more organic and in line with Leadbeater’s (2007) conversational leaders than with our

pervasive ideas of managers making top-down decisions autonomously.

The two blobs on the side are the technostructure and the support staff. The first is

involved with structural processes and designs and supports systems and workflows. The

technostructure provides the organization with functioning routines, and in a videogame

studio needs to be flexible enough to change according to the dynamics of the

environment. The support staff provides support outside of the core operating workflow,

such as providing office equipment, housekeeping, and maintaining calendars.

Finally, the line that wraps around the figure is what Mintzberg calls ideology. It is

related to notions of collective ambition, domain, and organizational culture, and in more

traditional management models it would be called the mission statement. However, the

big difference is that a mission statement is generally written by top management and

then sent down to the workfloor. Ideology cannot be managed in such a directive manner,

it is co-created – the sum of personal values, if you will – by everyone in the

organization. As we have seen in our discussion of Gift organization, this collective

ambition is very important for personal motivation.

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Note how the structure can be seen as a community as Market and Gift are linked as one

big connected circle, but still we can see that some kind of hierarchy is present. The parts

M, G, and the middle that connects them should not be seen separately, people can work

in different parts of the organization at specific times – someone might have a production

role in the bottom while also being the link to management. The two blobs are cut loose

from the rest of the organization, which feels wrong in a sense. It is the dissection of the

organization in functional parts as traditional management would do it, while these

people work together in the same room or building and are part of the same group. The

importance of the social function of a secretary or office manager is often

underestimated.

6.2 Leadership in videogame development

Now let us look again at the problem statement: How can leaders organize the creative

development of videogames? In the previous section we have discussed the structure of

organizing creative development of videogames, culminating in a model of the hybrid

organization. The only notion from the problem statement not yet discussed is “leaders”.

So leadership is the final topic of discussion before an attempt will be made to answer the

problem statement.

Every group has a leader. A pack of wolves, a military squad, a governmental institution,

a mob of hooligans, a WoW guild, and a soccer team all have this one thing in common;

they exhibit leader-follower behaviour in some shape or form. Obviously leaders in a

public institution are vastly different from leaders in a videogame clan. They have

different forms of leadership.

Leadership is directing the efforts of a group in a desirable direction. This is the working

definition of leadership in this paper. Also, it must be noted straight away that leadership

in this chapter will refer to leadership from the top of the organization on the bottom of

the organization. Leaders are present in all social groups, but this thesis focus lies on the

leadership of management on the total organization. Also, much has been written on

different types of leadership. To avoid an unnecessary detailed discussion on this topic

this paper presents one of the fundamental juxtapositions in organizational leadership.

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Leadership in an organization has two dimensions, task-oriented and people-oriented

(Blake & Mouton, 1964).

How much is your organization worth? How do you measure the value of a game studio? Do you use Discounted Cash Flows for

future revenues? Do you attempt to give a monetary value to your brand or other

Intellectual Property? Or will you just simply add up the physical value of your building,

computers, and other property? Of course, all of the above say something about the value

of your organization. However, following the discussion in the previous chapters, the

main value-added activity – creating games – is dependent on the knowledge of the group

and its ability of transforming this knowledge into a videogame. Therefore, the value of

such a company is shaped by the knowledge, and access to knowledge, and the group’s

ability to use this knowledge to create a marketable product. Knowledge becomes the

connecting factor between the people in your organization, and the tasks at hand. This is

the starting point for the War for Talent.

On the one hand, task-oriented leadership involves the coordination of tasks, and all the

resources needed to complete them. In that sense task-oriented focuses on efficiency,

meeting deadlines, managing money, and providing information among others. On the

other hand, people-oriented leadership involves organizing humans of flesh and blood

including all the social and psychological subtleties. Matters in people oriented leadership

include motivation, learning, job satisfaction, and quality of life. Blake and Mouton

(1964) describe the best leadership style being high on both task-oriented and people-

oriented leadership.

In videogame development leadership also has these two dimensions. However, a third

factor – knowledge – is important to those in a leadership position. Knowledge is a

connecting factor between the people of the organization and the tasks they aim to

accomplish. Adding this third factor can be intuitively explained by discussing the value-

adding activities of a videogame studio (See Box: How much is your organization

worth?). Therefore, leaders can organize the creative development of videogames through

task-, knowledge-, and people-oriented methods.

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Task Knowledge People

Manage output,

facilitate process

Build and maintain

strategic knowledge

Motivate collective

ambition

Facilitate decision

making

Connect knowledge Motivate

individuals

Fusion into a

marketable product

Enabling knowledge

creation

Network

organization:

people come and go

6.2.1 Task

Task-oriented leadership is commonly associated with vertical communication. Leaders

set out the long term strategies and commitments, and these are communicated as tasks.

A beta version needs to be released at time X, or a prototype needs to build with

functionality Y. Upon completing these tasks the organizational goals will be met, for

now. There are three important aspects to keep in mind in task oriented leadership.

Manage output, facilitate process

It is important to manage output, not throughput. This means that specialized

professionals get the responsibility and freedom to meet the demands of a task in the way

that they see fit. Traditional process management often uses elaborate and rigid

workflows to make sure that output suffices specific conditions. This brings two

problems. First, it creates an extensive papertrail and red tape. Second, its rigidity does

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not allow for new effective ways of tackling (un)known problems. This is especially true

for tasks that include a high portion of improvisation.

Tasks that are more routine are an interesting point for increasing efficiency. Here,

managing the process can be beneficial. For instance, programmers tend to spend quite a

lot of time testing their code. These tests are necessary to see the impact the changes they

made have on the total product. Here, “unit tests”, “monkey tests”, or Test Driven

Development can be used to facilitate the production process, helping the programmers

with repetitive and time consuming tasks.

Output needs to be managed by setting the attributes that the task needs to suffice. Think

of attributes like time (a deadline), quality, or other boundaries like amount of polygons

or meeting requirements of a coding styleguide. By defining the boundaries (See Simons

2007 in section 4.3.3.) of the task at hand and clearly stating which requirements the

output needs to fulfill, the worker gets freedom within those boundaries to complete the

job.

Timeboxing

I believe that timeboxing is a crucial technique in managing videogame development.

Instead of stating functional requirements and then planning how long it will take to

make them, we start out with timeboxes at the end of which we will show results. It is not

about showing the results when you are finished, but what is finished at a specific point

in time, is the result. Especially in creative work, where the boundaries between what is

“finished” and what is not can be diffuse, it is important to have moments of review of

the semi-finished product. The information management gains from reviewing the status

of progress is also important for communication with external stakeholders such as

investors, outsourced testing, or publishers.

Facilitate decision making

If the professional gets freedom to make his own choices within the boundaries set by a

leader, it is important that they are enabled to make these choices in line with

organizational goals. The guidelines by which to make choices should not be elaborate

and complicated, its complexity will only add to the already complex and dynamic

environment. Hence, the guidelines should be simple, clear, and coherent. We could call

this management by values.

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Besides providing guidelines which empower professionals to make choices, another

very important factor in decision making in group creative processes is horizontal

communication. Our connotations of the term Gift like participatory forms of organizing

or communities can help us to understand communication that relies on mutual

adjustment. However, and this is vital, this horizontal communication needs to be

facilitated even though it sometimes does not show immediate value. “Informal

conversation can be one of the most efficient forms of knowledge sharing,” (Quote

interviewee). It can be, but not necessarily is the most efficient form. More often

informal conversations will be just that, dialogues about matters unrelated to work. And

so the efficiency of these informal meetings becomes immeasurable.

However, there are some good examples of how to stimulate these informal

conversations. Basically, people need meeting places, or commons. Think of your lunch

room; is it inviting to sit there and chat with your colleagues, or do you feel like leaving

right after you have finished your sandwiches? Also, does the whole organization have

lunch together or in subgroups? What percentage of your office floor is suitable for

spontaneous informal conversations (a role that the coffee machine often proudly

fulfills)? On a final note, these informal meetings can also be semi-formal. Scrum11

assumes daily meetings in the morning, which makes it a meeting that is in the agenda

and professionals are expected to be there. However, these “daily scrums” take from

informal meetings in that they are short and snappy, and are aimed at keeping others

informed to stimulate mutual adjustment. Don’t sit down during these meetings, stand in

a circle, let everyone talk briefly but avoid in-depth discussion. The intention is to keep

the team posted on progress, priorities and dependencies

After having touched upon management by values and shortly discussed stimulating

informal conversations, a third way of facilitating decision making can be proposed.

Conversational leadership poses that steering and directing can be done through

conversation and argument instead of top-down direction. This serves two purposes.

First, as was already hinted on in the discussion of the Hacker Ethic (section 4.1.2.), 11 Scrum is a software production method that incorporates timeboxing, and semi-formalizes mutual

adjustment. It is part of a larger trend of Agile Development Methods. For Scrum, see Schwaber and

Beedle (2001).

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leadership is only recognized on basis of skills and reputation. Through conversation and

argument, an optimal solution to a problem can be decided upon, where the leader and

professional are peers. The second purpose is that the leader also has a role in

management, and has the opportunity to communicate the implications of long term plans

and strategies on the tasks at hand. This is in line with Florida and Goodnight’s (2007)

notion of eliminating differences between “suits” and “creatives”.

Fusion into a marketable product

There are different phases in the development of videogames. A popular model is the

four phases of “concept – preproduction – production – test”. In the figure you can see

these phases, with time on the horizontal axis and number of people working on a product

on the vertical axis. Of course, everything ends with a single DVD or other information

carrier that is the final output of all this work, one single game. One can imagine the

effort it takes to fuse all these efforts into a coherent single product.

Again, the influence of leaders seems to be important. Keeping the overview that is

necessary to combine all the different content is a leadership task. And again, this

leadership task can be facilitated. Here I would like to draw on innovation management

theory that also discusses product convergence. For instance, “daily build-up” poses that

the different parts of a product should be fit together every day. This way, potential

problems between different parts can be signaled early on, when making changes is less

costly than five steps down the road. Some videogame studios use daily build-up as well,

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making sure that every day (preferably automatically) a current working version of the

game is created. Of course, this takes some streamlining in the work processes (quality

assurance of code and objects, automated testing whether all features still work), but the

result of having a stable running version of the product each day can be worth the cost.

Two similar terms from innovation management is “parallel processing” or “concurrent

engineering “ also apply to the process of aligning the work of different disciplines into

one creative product. These business strategies acknowledge that R&D, new product

development, and thereby also videogame development are not linear processes in which

different disciplines can be segregated and processed successively. All the different

departmental interests need to be implemented into the workflows that in parallel create a

videogame.

6.2.2 Knowledge

Knowledge forms the connection between the tasks that arise out of organizational goals,

and the people that need to perform them. The description of a task largely determines the

composition of the team – assuming that teams are used as organizational structural

component – that will tackle it. In managing a hybrid organization, there are three things

to think of when organizing knowledge.

Build and maintain strategic knowledge

The first point is fundamental an organization’s core competency, creating videogames.

Management needs to consider what the core strategic knowledge assets are that the

organization has, needs to have, and wants to have. Think of choosing a type of game, a

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technical platform, or production method. This is about the long-term direction that is

chosen in which the organization chooses to develop itself.

Those of you who are critical readers, will immediately notice that an “organization that

chooses to develop itself” is not possible. Only persons within an organization can make

choices, and the choices made by management are not necessarily the same as those by

professionals. Therefore, it is important to seek congruence in the organizational and

personal learning goals. If the domain of knowledge that a professional wants to develop

himself is in line with the strategic knowledge goals an organization pursues, we find

complimentarity.

Recognizing the human importance of building and maintaining strategic knowledge also

implies that as soon as a professional will leave the organization, the knowledge is gone

as well. It is therefore important to spread core strategic knowledge over a number of

persons, possibly even facilitated by the use of specific information systems or other

routines. In the case of programming, techniques such as “extreme programming” (XP)

might be helpful. In XP two programmers work together on one computer, building the

code together. Whether this is efficient or not in terms of productivity is a topic of

discussion. However, from a viewpoint of strategic knowledge, it might be very fruitful

to have two ‘experts’ on a functionality or other chunk of code. Might problems arise,

there are two individuals available to work on a problem. Also, teams that closely work

together can also achieve this benefit of diffusing strategic knowledge.

“You need to incorporate a portion of functional redundancy.”

Connect knowledge

As was established in chapter 3 on Gift and participatory forms of organization it is

important to connect knowledge internal to an organization to itself, but also to external

sources of knowledge12. The internal connection will be elaborated upon in the next point

12 For a discussion on how knowledge sources are connected through a process of “churn”, together with its

relation to innovation management theory see Derks (2006) Section 2.3.1.

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“enabling knowledge creation”. For now, this section discusses connecting to knowledge

external to an organization.

The first problematic point is that to create new knowledge and to learn we need to share

information and learning experiences, while to earn money with knowledge we need to

create what economics calls shortage. Therefore the knowledge used in making a

videogame, as well as the videogame itself as a knowledge artifact, need to be protected

and kept secret. However, the knowledge you need to create a videogame can come from

anywhere, inside and outside of your organization. This incongruity simply states that

you need to protect your own knowledge to a certain extent while being open to

connecting to external knowledge sources.

“There are more smart people outside of your organization than inside.”

Although this balance feels quite intuitive it will be even clearer after giving some

examples. External knowledge sources come in many forms. A simple example is an

open internet forum. If an artist needs help with a tool or technique and there are people,

professionals or amateurs (Leadbeater and Miller, 2004), on the forum that have this

information, the artist should be facilitated to get on the forum and get the information he

needs. However, the artist may not disclose any information on the studio’s future

project. Middleware is a great example of internalizing external knowledge, as you can

basically buy complete visual studio’s, engines, or Artificial Intelligence packages. In

essence, this is a make-or-buy decision rooted in transaction cost theory13 (Coase, 1937).

Other examples that can be evaluated (in part) by using transaction cost theory are hiring

free-lancers – a middle form between employment and market – or outsourcing decisions.

Some, it is possible to outsource non-core assets or non-core code to another

13 Transaction cost theory weighs the cost of buying something of the market versus producing it yourself.

Even though Coase’s theories from 1937 do not explicitly discuss make-or-buy decisions for knowledge

artifacts such as middleware technologies, his articles are no less relevant. For instance, it is often claimed

that core strategic knowledge should never be obtained through market, as the learning process of creating

it is essential.

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organization, provided that they can be trusted to be aligned with your organizations

goals.

Enabling knowledge creation

It has become apparent from the foregoing that managing knowledge to a large extent is

about aligning organizational goals to personal goals. This remains true for this point,

enabling knowledge creation. Krogh et al. (2000) have devoted an entire book to this

topic, so if you are interested: they provide a much more thorough and detailed analysis

of how the creation of new knowledge can be facilitated and enabled in an organizational

setting. However, it is of such importance that it cannot be omitted here.

The three most important points I would like you to take away from this are the three

forms of Ba that influence knowledge creation: physical, virtual, and mental. Physical Ba

is space, the building, climate, and interior design, an organization operates in. Virtual Ba

are all the information infrastructures such as e-mail, chat, telephone, and all other

information and communication media professionals use. Then there is the mental Ba,

which is closely related to the social setting. It was established in section 4.3 that group

creativity is built on trust. It helps to have a setting that is open for critique, embraces

mistakes, and where people feel comfortable to be themselves. These three forms of Ba –

physical, virtual, and mental – are very important in managing a videogame studio. Still,

it feels kind of awkward to discuss the topic knowledge creation and Ba in such a short

frame. Please refer to chapter 8 for a discussion on how enabling knowledge creation can

further be investigated in the videogames industry.

6.2.3 People

The final topic is people-oriented leadership. As was acknowledged earlier, people

embody the knowledge that is needed to fulfill tasks that are necessary for achieving

organizational goals. Again, we are putting people on the front row! The importance of

people in videogame development is on par with the importance of functions in

Tayloristic management systems.

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Motivate collective ambition

In pure Gift organizations the collective ambition, that what We want to achieve, is the

factor that binds the community together, it’s a conceptrelationship. Similarly in

videogame studios, the collective ambition is what drives a group to excel; it is the glue

that unites the group towards a common goal and direction. I believe that motivating this

collective ambition is key to leaders of a videogame studio: management by values.

Before going into management by values it is important to note that this collective

ambition, like ideology (section 6.1), is not something leaders make up and determine,

and then share with the rest of the group. It is something that grows out of the dynamics

of the group itself, but can still be influenced and directed to a certain extent. That said, it

is important to attract individuals that are not only professionally proficient to work in

your organization, but that they have a connection with the core values to some extent. It

is then up to the individual to make add his own interpretation of these values.

Management by values works in three main ways. First, through leadership by example.

Second, through the products already made, as the history and reputation of the studio.

And third, through work processes and the way they are organized.

First, leadership by example is related to conversational leadership. If one wants people

in the organization to collaborate, share information, and tackle problems from a cross-

disciplinary standpoint, the leader needs to exhibit this behaviour himself. If a leader says

one thing, but does something else, it is the latter that people will general perceive as

more important. In that respect, in creating a work environment that is founded on trust,

allowing mistakes, and reciprocity starts with leaders exhibiting this behaviour

themselves.

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“Do as I do, not do as I say.”

Second, the products that a studio has made are central to their outside reputation. It is

easily the most visible external extension of the organization. If these works show that

they have been made with passion for games, are technically sophisticated, or conversely

are cheap and low-quality, this will show what the organization’s values are like. Third,

the processes, routines, and structures of an organization tell professionals what kind of

organization they are involved in. The organization itself can be seen to show its own true

nature.

In this light it is important to organize recognition, a point we will come back to on an

individual level in a moment. Once a goal, or milestone towards a goal, has been

successfully met it is important to recognize those who have worked on achieving it. Put

the professionals on stage, and let them show (either internally or externally) that which

they have achieved and are proud of. Practically, think of a demo at a conference, or a

party in the studio where the achievement is celebrated.

Motivate individuals

Following the collective ambition is the individual motivation of a professional. As was

established in theory it is especially intrinsic motivation that is important to creative

work, also confirmed by the importance of a conceptrelationship instead of a ‘mere’

contractrelationship. It is again the leaders’ task to allow people to work on tasks that are

challenging, in line with individual learning goals, but also in line with organizational

goals. The concept of Flow in individual creativity teaches us a thing or two on how to

engage professionals in creative work.

Also, in line with the last point it is important to organize recognition. Show what a

person has created to the whole group. Recognize extra efforts made during crunch-time.

Recognize that the effort that has been put in during overhours or even a weekend is truly

appreciated, but also show that you understand what effect this has on the other aspects of

personal lives. True, sincere recognition can be a powerful motivational factor.

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Network organization: people come and go.

As we realize the network structure of the organization and the industry, we come to

understand that people’s goals will sometimes be aligned with organizational goals, as

well as times that the two are not congruent. In these latter instances it is important to

help people realize their next professional step, even though there is no direct benefit for

the organization. Understanding that the organization is a swarm, or flock, of sorts

implies accepting that people will come and go to the organization.

Instead of a modus operandi of propulsion, where the leaders push towards a certain

direction and might be inclined to “force” a professional to stay in the organization, the

dominant motion is provided by attraction. Attraction to the organizations values, goals,

and collective ambition. Someone who has left the organization might tell others about

the ideology of your organization, which might attract people towards it.

These people that would like to cooperate towards the organizational goals might want to

do so through different work forms. Some might want to work from home or get a

freelance contract, while others want more long-term stability and a longer lasting

relationship. It is important that, within the boundaries of the organizational goals, these

different work forms are made possible. For instance, for creating concept art one might

not have to be present at the studio all the time, and the same might be said about creating

the musical score. However, as these relationships become more distanciated from the

core of the organization, one needs to find ways to make sure that the connection with the

collective ambition is still upheld.

“The central question becomes: Can I gather the right people around me at the right

moments in time to create the product I want?”

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These were the nine points of our enneagram. Nine fundamental points for leadership in

videogame development. Note how it is again modeled in the number of three, similar to

the Triforce.

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7 Conclusion – Facilitated Chaos

As we come to a conclusion it feels right to also close the circle on the terms Market and

Gift. Market has been described as “traditional” consumer market thinking, hierarchical

organizational models rooted in the industrial age and Tayloristic management, and as the

commercial side of videogame development. It is remarkable to see that a lot of factors

that we fit under Gift organization like, for instance, culture and social context are

generally regarded as being part of the informal organization, the part of the organization

outside the direct scope of management. Gift brings this informal part of organization

back under investigation.

Throughout this paper Gift has been aligned with gift and reciprocity, community forms

of organization (involving a kernel, community, knowledge, and no formal hierarchy),

and the strong concept relation between the different disciplines in videogame

development. As we saw at the end of chapter 3 Market and Gift are perpendicular to

each other, in the sense that they encompass vertical and horizontal communication in an

organization respectively. Vertical communication are information channels and lines of

responsibility between management and workfloor, while horizontal communication is

best summarized as alignment in different creative processes, and Leadbeater’s “We

think, therefore we are.”

“Work hard, play hard”

This paper shows that videogame development has attributes from Market as well as Gift

organizations, and as such is a hybrid form between the two. As is shown that

informationalism does not supplant industrialism, there are good reasons to believe that

the two can go hand in hand. A videogame studio is an efficient production organization

that creates a knowledge artifact (a videogame) with heavy reliance on information and

communication technologies, in which people form the central and most important asset.

The model by Mintzberg (section 6.1) shows what the elements of such an organization

are.

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This thesis’ problem statement: how can leaders organize the creative development of

videogames? is the next question that comes to mind for such a hybrid organization. It

has actually already been answered in chapter 6. Important subjects of attention are a

general shift towards importance of people, motivation, collective ambition, management

by values, organizational learning, and organizational creativity. The enneagram shows in

more detail the nine most important points in leadership in videogame development, at

least from the perspective of knowledge- and innovation management. Of course, other

aspects such as financial health, marketing and distribution of the product, and legal

affairs need to well-organized. However, these topics are not the focus of this study.

The enneagram in that sense is an important conclusion of this thesis. It shows a three

dimensional model (in a two-dimensional plane) for organizational creativity.

Organizational creativity is a function of individual creativity amended by the group’s

ability to coordinate creative production. The three main triangles show task, knowledge,

and people, which are analogous to coordinating, learning, and motivating.

However, please do not see the methods limited to these nine points. One of the dangers

of the human mind is that we tend to be dualistic when attaching meaning to symbols,

which makes that the enneagram looks like a boundary of sorts. The easiest way to show

that there are other methods not discussed here is by showing the enneagram as a three

dimensional model, as three pyramids instead of three triangles. Suddenly, as our

perspective shifts it has more than nine points.

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Remaining in the domain of knowledge- and innovation management, we see that many

business theory models are useful in videogame development. Models like daily build-up,

fuzzy front, timeboxing, parallel processing, organizational learning, and open innovation

give interesting insights into the game development process. A word of caution is in

place here as – traditionally – business theory has focused on rationalizing these

processes, while these complex phenomena can only be understood as more chaotic and

sometimes even contradicting trends. The new product development funnel is a

visualization of how a single videogame is created in a videogame studio.

Another topic of conclusion is enabling knowledge creation. On a meta-level, creation of

knowledge is the core value-added activity of a videogame studio. On a practical level,

no one is thinking about creating knowledge, just about creating great games. However,

this thesis remains that a thorough understanding of the concept of knowledge and how it

can be managed is imperative in videogame management. For instance, understanding

that not all knowledge can and should be codified, but is present as tacit knowledge is

important and has implications for management.

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To recap section 4.2.4. The five steps in enabling knowledge creation are:

• Instill a knowledge vision

• Manage conversations

• Mobilize knowledge activists

• Create the right context

• Globalize local knowledge.

Instilling a knowledge vision is related to collective ambition as the first point of people

oriented leadership in chapter 6. Manage conversations was discussed in “facilitate

decision making” above. Mobilize knowledge activists simply states that one needs

proponents who actively promote knowledge as an important topic on the management

agenda – in this case that would be, consequently, me. The influence of context on

knowledge is a topic portrayed in section 4.2. However, to speak about creating the

“right” context is fairly subjective. I do not feel confident here to discuss what such a

context would look and feel like, as it completely depends on the organizational setting,

goals, context, and people. It might not even be possible to expose the intricacies of

context in such a general way. Finally, globalizing local knowledge implies connecting

internal knowledge. Through presentations, courses, teamwork, and other semi-formal

arrangements spreading of local knowledge can be encouraged. As was shown in

“connect knowledge” and touched upon through the discussion of open innovation, the

connection to knowledge outside of your organization is also very important to

organizational learning.

As was stated before, knowledge creation is just not a theoretical abstract issue. It

happens as people work together, and use the information and knowledge at their disposal

to tackle a problem or reach a goal. It is about two people sitting at the same desk

resolving a problem with the game engine. It is about people that are learning within a

certain setting. This setting or context is meant with Ba: the physical, virtual, and mental

spaces in which learning occurs. Ba is one of the main ways for leaders to have (in)direct

influence. What communication networks (internal and external to the organization) do

you allow in the organization? How do you organize your physical space? Does a cross-

disciplinary team have their own workspace or do they work in a functional department

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with their peers? What is the mental context as we think of factors of trust, allowing

mistakes, and promoting independent decision making? No definite conclusions can be

drawn on Ba, it is different for every specific case.

In conclusion, videogame development occurs in a setting of Facilitated Chaos. The core

of the organization, where the actual creative development occurs, is chaotic in the sense

that it cannot be captured in linear and purely rational models. We need to allow for some

functional redundancy in which seemingly inefficient work is being done. The creation

process of a videogame includes different people from various disciplines, in a highly

complex and dynamic context, with a product that has long lead times in production. The

organization must remain in flux to a certain extent to allow for rapid adaptation to new

ideas, technologies, partnerships, or other dynamics.

It is a leader’s (read: management’s) main responsibility to facilitate the work of the

people at the kernel of the organization. If the personal and organizational overlap in

collective ambition, this freedom of individuals will work. This facilitation will take

various forms according to different situations, as a leader’s role may be to motivate, to

coach, to inspire, to be strict, to reward, or to teach among others. Therefore, leaders in

videogame studios need not only exhibit leadership behaviour and must be able to

communicate and cooperate cross-disciplinarily, but also employ diversity in leadership

style. They must feel right at home in the concept that is being produced, as well as in the

commercial side of maintaining continuity for the organization. Often, not all different

roles are found in one person, and a diverse management team with different functional

backgrounds and personalities stands at the top of the organization.

Rhythm, Harmony, and Melody: structural elements of music as a metaphor We have discussed timeboxing as an important activity in videogame development. It is

through this technique that allows a clear view on progress, quality, and potential

problems. In a sense, a videogame studio has to find its rhythm in which it creates and

produces. This rhythm also has a large impact on external stakeholders and other parties,

so all need to be taken into account.

Harmony could be seen as the harmony of the group. This encompasses social cohesion

as well as cooperation abilities, through routines as well as improvisation. In music, the

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harmony forms the base upon which tonality is built. In organizations, harmony forms the

base upon which the creative development occurs.

Melody can be seen to be a number of things, but here it will serve as the metaphor for

the actual videogame – or kernel – that is being created. It needs to be aligned with the

rhythm and harmony of the studio and is the output that is most visible, or actually

audible, element of the organization. It is the aspect upon which reputation is built.

Together with the harmony of the studio it can be used to attract like-minded individuals

that want to join the organization, and the rhythm sets the organizational pace.

You see? Musical structure allows for describing organizing videogame development.

Without giving my personal associations away, we could also use molecular biology and

ecology to understand network organizations and organizational survival.

Photo by Joe Shlabotnik @ Flickr.com

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8 Epilogue – Discussion

This chapter will delve into the applicability of the findings to other domains, and

propose some models that can be used for further research. Afterwards, the discussion

chapter will end with a number of statements that are central to this book as a whole. But

first, I want to take you into a surprising and peculiar allegory.

There seem to be parallels between organizing and videogames. Game design motivates

players through risk and reward structures, giving new items, coins, or abilities as the

player progresses through the game. In a sense, this is related to the motivation of

workers, in which individual motivation and rewarding performance are also key

activities. Also, the concept of flow is sometimes used to describe the sensation of

playing a game, as well as being the term for a mental state in individual creativity.

Furthermore, games like Second Life, Animal Crossing, GameMaker and Little Big

Planet combine play and creation into one activity. Furthermore, business theory

analyses strategic behaviour using game theory; playing the competitive game. Finally,

the Hacker Ethic is about playing around with technology and creating art and beauty on

a computer. We see again, that videogames and organizing videogame development

involve common notions:

To play and create,

and to create play.

Now on to wider applicability and suggested research strategies. On the one hand, the

theoretical scope of this thesis is rather broad. Even though videogames is the starting

point of this thesis, we have ventured into subjects that affect not only videogame studios,

but might have importance to organizations with different goals, shapes, and sizes.

Maybe even politics may benefit from a better understanding of Gift culture and how it

can be used to organize society. Leadbeater (2007) gives some good examples of how

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Gift notions can be used to organize city planning, health care, or education14. Applying

this thesis’ findings on all these phenomena might be stretching it too far, even though

there is some support for taking these notions beyond organizing videogame

development. “The dilemmas experienced by managers in cultural industries are also to

be found in a growing number of other industries where knowledge and creativity are key

to sustaining competitive advantage,” (p.1).

This study’s problem statement and its proposed solutions can be constructive to

organizations in the creative industries. “The creative industry is a specific form of

economic activity that creates products and services that are the result of individual or

collective creative work and entrepreneurship. Content and symbolism are the most

important elements of these products and services. They are acquired by consumers and

businesses because they summon meaning. On the basis of this meaning an experience

occurs. The cultural industry therefore plays an important role in developing and

maintaining lifestyles and cultural identities in society,” (TNO, 2004, pp. 19-20).

The creative industry is characterized by a number of factors. First, evidently it includes

creative work; products or services that are new, unique, or a new combination of

existing elements. Second, the industry and its context are dynamic and complex. Even

more than firms in established industries like for example the steel industry or food

products, “firms that compete in cultural industries must deal with a combination of

ambiguity and dynamism, both of which are intrinsic to goods that serve an aesthetic or

expressive rather than a utilitarian purpose,” (Lampel, Lant and Shamsie, 2000, p.1).

Finally, the creative industry is a part of the knowledge economy. The main production

factor for creating products or services is not land, manual labor, nor physical resources

like metal or wood; it is knowledge. These three factors creativity, dynamic

environments, and knowledge as main production factor typify the creative industry.

14 What if we can get people to contribute to educating our youth when they choose to in a modular

fashion? We need to get learning out of the ivory tower that is the school building, and start facilitating

learning instead of steering it. Leadbeater (2007) gives the example of the Barefoot College in his first

chapter, a recommended read.

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On the other hand, the scope of research of this thesis is rather narrow. The multitude of

different theoretical concepts has clouded the research as no single subject is studied in

high detail. As this study aims at analytic generalization (see Appendix B Methodology)

research on a multitude of cases needs to be done to achieve statistical generalization, i.e.

drawing conclusions on videogame studios in general.

Therefore, future research is recommended on both the analytical as well as statistical

level. On an analytical level one can build on the theories developed here, or pick a

specific subject like “group creativity” and performing a thorough and complete meta-

analysis of all available theories. On a statistical level, I recommend research on a more

focused level. For instance, Amabile & co have translated their work on creativity to a

practical level as they developed an instrument called KEYS: Assessing the climate for

creativity (Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby, and Herron, 1996). The utility of this tool is

discussed for research as well as practice. Also, the SECI model by Nonaka and Takeuchi

(1995) can be used to link knowledge creation to Ba, as it describes different ways of

learning. As I visited Twynstra Gudde this year, they were experimenting with the

interior design of spaces for the different learning modes that SECI proposes. Also,

Hofstede’s famous models on cultural differences and organizational cultures describe

culture in six dimensions like femininity vs. masculinity and individualism vs.

collectivism might be useful to describe the culture of successful creative organizations,

developing a sort of ‘best practice’. In my personal (not really structurally researched)

view this culture will be feminine, collective, has low power distance, low uncertainty

avoidance, and a long-term focus.

Even though the research is scattered over many fields I do feel that my research is

sufficient. Knowing less of more can be a good way to go to tackle broad topics. And I

have met many experts and friends on the way. I therefore come to an end of this thesis

with the following statements:

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• Knowledge is an important – enhancing – production factor. Knowledge is a

human factor and is heavily dependent on information and medium.

• The form of this thesis itself shows how different media like pdf, book, image,

text, and hypertext create different user experiences. Sadly, this thesis is not a

videogame.

• Knowledge creation and learning are not mystical processes, but are moments that

people share in a specific place and setting.

• Videogames are an interactive medium that is still ill-understood by many. We

cannot have a fruitful discussion about violence in videogames or using

videogames for “serious” applications like education if this understanding is not

enhanced.

• You cannot understand videogames by describing them, you play them.

• Videogames are a medium that combines the old and the new. They use text,

stories, and descriptions as well models, systems, and interaction. It involves a

hit-oriented industry, while the organization of creating videogames is close to

open-source work forms.

• Management in videogame development has the primary concern of taking care

of people in the organization, and to facilitate and allow them to do their work the

best they can.

• The leaders of a videogame studio have responsibility over long-term continuity,

the game concept (the kernel), and have an important role in determining the

values and culture of the organization.

• Efficiency can be increased through the creation of routines. These routines need

to be open to incremental improvement and not inhibit natural workflows.

For a final statement we return to Wesh (2007) and his analysis of digital ethnography;

the influence of informationalism on our culture. Information can be multiplied by

sharing it, form and content are being separated from one another in the sense that

necessity of know-how on technology is limited as tools become increasingly easy to use,

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and anyone can add, tag, click, comment, and contribute and participate on the internet.

Essentially: We are the web!

I personally wholeheartedly agree with these ideas and dynamics, which brings us to

Wesh’s key conclusion that appears on the screen is the most beautiful of

understatements: “We need to rethink a few things…” that has a major cultural,

economic, and social impact. We need to rethink copyright, authorship, identity, ethics,

aesthetics, rhetorics, governance, privacy, commerce, love, family, friendship, and

ourselves. For the purpose of this paper I would like to add the terms organization,

management, innovation, information, knowledge, creativity, communication, and

leadership.

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9 Appendices – Illustration and Methodology

A. Illustration of Videogame development

In an older version of this thesis, I have attempted to describe the creative process in

more detail. It was too complex a challenge. This is a piece of text which is resulted from

this endeavour. The phases of the design process for research purposes were: research,

design, production, evaluation.

A typical building task that has a strong routine component, for instance porting a large

number of similar classes from C# to C++, can be described using the steps of research,

design, creation, and evaluation. Generally for such a task, the first class to be ported will

take longest. First, the research component primarily entails analyzing the code and see

how it interrelates to other classes. Second, proggers can use simple tools such as notepad

to make a list of classes that need to be included in this process, while more visual

languages like UML15 and flowcharts might be useful for more complicated designs. The

design phase entails prioritizing the classes to be ported, often starting at the core and

working towards more peripheral code. Third, the creation of the port consists of

swapping functions that are typical to C#, to C++ commands. This is the most tedious

part of this task. During the writing of the code it is compiled frequently, to test whether

the newly created code will run. The number of times (a small portion of) code is

compiled can be as high as twenty times an hour. This means a high frequency of

alternation between creation and evaluation phases. Finally as the task is almost done the

total creation will be tested elaborately to see whether the code has the desired

functionality. If bugs arise or the quality is deemed insufficient, the research phase starts

to find the origins of the newly found problem.

The first classes to be ported are likely to give some problems. Functions might work

slightly different in C++ or need specific syntax to run properly. Also, some functions

that C# does automatically (such as garbage collection to free up memory) have to be

explicitly coded in C++. Then research is needed on the way to tackle this problem with 15 Unified Modeling Language: drawing boxes and the links between them to visualize the code at a

conceptual level.

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this specific coding language. Generally however, for these routine porting tasks the

research and design phases are quite short. Moreover, as the different classes to be ported

are quite similar the learning curve causes that following classes will be ported with

known solutions to these potential pitfalls, decreasing time spent in research and design

phases even further.

Now let’s consider a task that has a strong improvisation component, for instance

optimization of memory. As the code runs chunks of memory are allocated to data, and

set free when the data is no longer needed. If setting the memory free is not done

properly, the unnecessary data remains in the memory decreasing the amount of memory

available for the application. These are called memory leaks and are very hard to avoid

when porting from C# to C++, as C# has some automated functionalities that have to be

specifically called upon in C++. These memory leaks need to be tracked down and solved

for the application to run properly.

Finding and resolving these memory leaks is done in number of steps. First, a specific

self-built application called MemAnalyze is used to track the usage of memory, in order

to find the pieces of code that “leak” memory16. After these areas of code have been

found, the specific nature of the problem needs to be determined upon which a solution is

designed. After the possible solution has been implemented in the code it will be

compiled and tested. The MemAnalyze tool is used again to evaluate whether the changes

made are having the effect hoped for. If the changes do not resolve the problem we return

to the research phase and look for other parts of code that might be causing the leak.

Not only is this task very research intensive as a lot of time is spent looking for the exact

nature of the problem, it is also highly uncertain and difficult to plan. Problems can only

be tackled one at a time, and only upon resolving a leak will other potential problems

become visible. In that sense it is very difficult to plan.

16 For a discussion of the MemAnalyze tool see the excellent article by Van Der Beek (2007) on

Gamasutra.com called “Monitoring your PC’s memory usage for game development.”

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B. Methodology

This section develops the methodological framework of the research. As an important

factor of academic research is repeatability of the findings, this section will provide the

framework within which the research was done. First, the research strategy will be

discussed, including a discussion on the analytic model used. Second, the case study

design and the data sources used will be expressed. Third, quality of the research design

is established through the use of measures of validity: construct validity, external validity

and reliability (Yin, 2003).

Research strategy

As this study connects theories on new media, participatory organization, and knowledge

creation in the setting of a videogame studio, something that has not been elaborately

studied in this domain, this will be an exploratory study. Using a theoretical background

allows the research to focus on specific elements that are theoretically deemed important.

The importance and completeness of different theoretical models is established through

interviews with practical and theoretical experts.

According to Yin (2003), exploratory research can be studied using different methods

amongst which are surveys, histories, or a case studies. The case study method best

coincides with this study’s objectives as “the case study method allows investigators to

retain the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real-life events,” (Yin, 2003, p.2).

The choice was made to investigate a case through participatory observation and

conversation, instead of relying on documented material on a case.

Yin (2003, p.13) defines a case study as: “an empirical inquiry that investigates a

contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries

between the phenomenon and the context are not clearly evident.” He then goes on to

explain that a typical case study has more variables than data points, multiple sources of

evidence and benefits from the prior development of theory. All three are applicable to

this study.

There are three types of analytic strategies for case studies. Relying on theoretical

propositions, thinking about rival explanations, and developing a case description (Yin,

2003). This study relies on a case description as the theories are used to describe the case

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in chapter 6. Theories developed in chapter 3 and 4 are used to create a vocabulary for

explaining occurrences in practice.

It is important to understand that this study does not seek statistical generalization (Yin,

2003, p.32) in which “an inference is made about a population on the basis on empirical

data collected about a sample.” This means that the case is not seen as a sampling unit.

Rather, the case is investigated to find support for theoretical development. Termed

analytic generalization, “previously developed theory is used as a template with which to

compare the empirical results of the case study,” (Yin, 2003, p.32). In other words, the

theoretical descriptions do not make inferences about a population of cases, but are used

to test and further develop the theoretical framework.

Also, it must be noted that the theoretical method developed crosses boundaries of

specialization. Even though this primarily is a business management paper, theories are

also proposed on creativity and media. Similarly, the boundaries between practice and

theory are (alike the academic field of medicine) diffuse, as theory developed while

researching practice is used to describe the practice itself. In a sense this thesis is

intended to advance our capabilities of designing the creative development of

videogames. Similar to design research (Laurel, 2003) this study crosses the line between

practice and theory to develop our understanding of organizing videogame development.

Case study design

It is widely agreed upon that investigating multiple cases yields better results, and that

therefore a researcher should, when possible, gather evidence from multiple cases (Yin,

2003). However, this master thesis has a single case study design. Mainly, the choice for

a single case study is made in accordance with time and resources available. Yin agrees

that in the light of limited time and resources a single case studied thoroughly has more

value than multiple cases studied superficially. Also, expert interviews with other

videogame studios that used to validate the findings of this study, can be seen as a

stripped-down form of extra cases.

The unit of analysis studied in this research is a videogame studio in The Netherlands.

For five months I have worked and done research here. A number of ten external

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interviews, a large number of internal interviews, and the close participatory observation

of the case provide a sufficient basis for analysis for this case study.

Data sources

The data gathered come from four different sources. In order of importance they are

participatory observation, qualitative interviews, access to data resulting from a working

relationship with the studio, and news and data from other media such as newspapers and

websites. These four will be shortly discussed here.

First, the participatory observation existed mainly out of working in team creating a

videogame. The researcher’s role was that of junior producer, which placed me in

between management and workfloor. A logbook was kept throughout these five months,

in which occurrences are described and analyzed using developed theory. Also,

numerous internal conversations with professionals have aided my understanding of the

topic throughout these five months. These formed the basis on which chapter 6 is written.

Second, ten external qualitative interviews were held with individuals from different

organizations and backgrounds. These one-hour conversations were semi-structured

interviews (De Ruyter & Scholl, 2004) that give room for ideas and propositions not yet

known to the researcher, while still remain focused on the developed theory. Interview

techniques used are starting with an open question and converging to specific topics

during the conversation, and asking a single question three times in a row to get a more

concrete and clear answer. Furthermore, the questions were tailored to the specific

respondent for each interview, as the respondents expertise ranged from proficiency in

the theories of knowledge- and innovation management, to leaders of knowledge-

intensive organizations.

Third, the working relationship between the researcher and the studio provided an

abundance of organizational information. Access to databases, e-mail conversations,

meetings with partner organizations, and all other information systems allowed the

researcher to attain a holistic view on events. Also, I was generally not approached as

researcher but as practitioner, which made people more open to sharing of important

information. Of course, this dual role implies danger of subjectivity. Objectivity of the

findings is mainly upheld by the aforementioned reliance on developed theory.

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Finally, some data on trends and the industry is gathered through conventional media like

newspapers, websites, and other information collected from the public space. While the

trustworthiness and academic relevance of data collected from the public space can be

questioned, this author has critically and thoroughly assessed this data’s relevance and

reliability. In some cases, as in Wesh’s (2007) Youtube example in chapter 3, there are no

other sources that provide that information. Also, in light of the discussion of information

and the medium that carries it, there seems to be no reason why academic sources could

not use the Youtube platform as communication channel.

Quality of research design

To assess the quality of research design “there are four test common to all social science

methods,” (Yin, 2003, p.34). These tests are construct validity, dealing with operational

measures for the concepts under study. Internal validity establishes causal relationships

between a number of factors. External validity establishes the domain to which the

findings can be generalized. And finally the reliability test demonstrates that the study

can be repeated. As internal validity only supports explanatory and causal studies, it is

not reported here; no clear causal relationships are hypothesized. The other three tests

will be elaborated upon to show the quality of this research design is academically

sufficient.

Construct validity

An often-cited criticism about case studies is the investigators subjective interpretation

and judgment of the data (Yin, 2003). This author holds that true objectivity is impossible

(as knowledge is “justified true belief”, see section 4.2.1.), and exactly by close-

observation and participation a holistic and meaningful representation of the facts can be

attained. That being said, this study also acknowledges the need for validity and

transparency of the data.

An important analytical step to be discussed is from obtained data to conclusions.

“Linking data to propositions can be done any number of ways, but none has become …

precisely defined,” (Yin, 2003, p. 26). Promising approaches are “pattern matching” or

using “time-series patterns” (Yin, 2003). The method this study has opted for is to

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develop vocabulary together with the reader. Notions like organization and management

are first rid of their common connotations, and then described in light of theories and the

developed notions of Market and Gift. Some relations between theory and data will seem

obvious, while others might seem far-fetched. It is up to the reader to assign meaning to

the links I propose. As the discussion on knowledge shows, the best I can do is propose

relationships between, and create a web of, concepts that the reader will accepts as true or

dismiss as nonsense.

However, this does not solve the problem of establishing criteria for interpreting the

findings. Without rigorous, possibly quantitative, analysis of data on (for instance)

organizational learning and creativity, these claims cannot be said to be true or false. Be

that as it may, the same criticisms can be made on quantitative research. However, this

research method has opened up the possibility “to retain the holistic and meaningful

characteristics of real-life events,” (Yin, 2003, p.2), and has the power to include and

assess a number of trends in the organization of videogame development.

External Validity

As stated, this study’s findings are aimed at analytic generalization instead of statistical

generalization. This implies that these findings do not inform on a population of

videogame studios, but rather support development of theory on hybrid organizations and

Facilitated Chaos as “the investigator is striving to generalize a particular set of results to

some broader theory,” (Yin, 2003, p.37). However, similar to statistical generalization,

analytic generalization has boundaries to which it can be generalized. These boundaries

are defined by the theory developed. In this study, there are a number of delineations to

the generalization. The theory can be generalized to:

• Organizations that can be seen as hybrid organizations in the sense of chapter 6.

• Organizations that focus on new product development in creative industries.

As this is only a single-case study, there is no strong support for these criteria. Only by

using “replication logic” (Yin, 2003) these criteria are more firmly developed. More

research on similar cases will show to what extent this study’s findings can be

generalized. Turn to chapter 8 for a further discussion on this topic.

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Reliability

This final test shows that the research of this study can be repeated with the same results.

“Note that this emphasizes doing the same case over again, not replicating the results of

this study by doing another case study,” (Yin, 2003, p.37). In doing so, the reliability and

repeatability of the data sources will be discussed

A logbook was kept during the five months of research recording occurrences, routines,

workflows, team and personal motivation issues, and discussions of meetings. These

notes will not be made public, as it contains a lot of sensitive information about the

organization under investigation. Also, the internal conversations were not recorded, but

notes were made and organized, and used during the writing of chapter 6.

All the external interviews were recorded and listened to several times. After that, a

summary, and in some cases a full transcript, was made of the interviews before the most

important insight were established. As it contains confidential information these

summaries will only be provided to a small number of academics for peer review.

The access to organizational information sources falls, like the logbook above, under

confidentiality. The videogames industry is well known for its secrecy and use of Non-

Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), which make sure that organizational information cannot

be leaked to outside sources. One could argue for subjective research, as this text bases

conclusions on information not open for peer-review. Contrarily, if fear of subjectivity

would lead us to disallow this source, an evidently rich pool of information would be

dismissed.

Finally, to give insights into information found in other sources like websites and

newspapers a Diigo account is used. From this account, which is public, different sites,

articles, figures, and personal notes can be found. For instance, Mintzberg’s

organizational model used in chapter 6 was found online in different sources.

Repeating this study and getting the same results is difficult, if not impossible. Not

because the wrong information sources or methodologies are used, but because this study

is rooted in contingency theory (see section 6) and it describes an organization in a

certain point in time. However, the strong theoretical basis that supports this study plus

the openness in the way this research is done provides methods of future research on

these topics.

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