Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL

 Intro Education BFA – Illustration 1988 Cyberlore Studios Artist4 months Art Director7 years VP/Project Lead2 years President6 months Firaxis Games Present Art Director – 1 year

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Production challenges  Increasing content complexity and amount of content  Increasing quality of the competition  Continual software and tool evolution/revolution  Budgetary pressures

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Management challenges  Fostering an energized and creative environment  Managing increasingly larger teams  Attracting, training and retaining talented people  Training leads appropriately  Getting the most out of your whole department

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  The evolution of visual art teams  1985 Ultima IV 3 Artists  1990 Monkey Island 12 Artists  1995 WarCraft II 14 Artists  2000 Baldur’s Gate II 30+ Artists  2005 Civilization IV 20 Artists, Outsourcers

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL Ultima IVMonkey Island WarCraft II Baldur’s GateCivilization IV

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Madden Football 1992 – SNES/Genesis

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Madden Football 1996 – SNES/Genesis/97 PC

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Madden Football 2000 – PS1/N64

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Madden Football 2006 – Xbox360, others

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Content creation tool 1994 and prior:

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  And today:

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  And today:

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  And today:

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  And today:

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  And today:

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  And today:

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  So what does this mean?

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  So what does this mean?  Larger and more complex teams  Specialists as opposed to generalists  More delegation, less production by the Art Lead  Assignment of Specialist Leads  More outsourcing

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  So what does this mean?  More sub-management within the department  Management delegation  Training focus  Budget and staffing complexities grow  Outsourcing has its own management overhead  Greater focus on preproduction  Get production pipeline nailed down and well- documented  Have skilled personnel and toolsets ready to go  Establish and obtain early stakeholder approval of a visual style guide

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Fostering an energized and creative culture

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Fostering an energized and creative culture  Start at the top: determine and communicate the Mission of your company and your department  Once a Mission Statement is developed, consider the values and practices needed to realize the vision  Make sure each project also has a clearly established Project Vision which has been communicated to the team

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Fostering an energized and creative culture

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL

 Fostering an energized and creative culture  Solve workspace issues to best suit your studio  Private offices vs. shared workspace  Organization by project vs. department  Ensure that leads provide consistent, complete and clear feedback  Consistent in source and consistent with project vision  Each review considers all visual aspects  Expectations are clearly stated Critique Pre-emption 101

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Fostering an energized and creative culture  Allow a wide spectrum of artist involvement in creative decision-making and office culture  Create a secure and supportive environment for artists to inspire and motivate other artists  Be a firewall for extraneous distractions  Provide for the material needs of the art team  Provide in-house mentoring and training  Never shrink from giving honest assessments Soooo….you’re saying you don’t like it??

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Management and organization  What does an Art Director do everyday?

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL

 Advantages of combined AD/Lead Artist  Small overhead, dynamic management  Issues and limitations  Art Director/Lead Artist can become a bottleneck because of the scope of his/her responsibilities, including:  Art and style direction  Substantial first-look asset review and feedback  Art scheduling  Art/Design/Programming/Production coordination  Project and management reporting  Art department management – reviews, training, personnel issues  Requisite individual professional development and training  Project content production  Marketing coordination

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL

 Advantages of the split AD/Lead Artist model  Division of labor takes many project management tasks off of the Art Director  Second artistic review possible for style consistency  Studio is organized properly for growth  Issues and limitations  Greater overhead – a significant problem for small studios  Potential for Lead/Art Director Conflict  Roles and responsibilities must be clearly defined

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL

 Attracting and retaining talented people  Attracting  Make great games  Work with HR and executives to become a preferred employer  Find your company’s competitive advantage(s) in the job market  Focus on quality of life  Wages and benefits  Profit sharing plan  Successful track record  Opportunities in a unique genre

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Attracting, training and retaining talented people: Typical Search Results

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Attracting and retaining talented people

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Attracting and retaining talented people  Retaining:  Establish regular reviews with follow-ups that set achievable goals and address issues objectively  Advocate for competitive compensation and benefits  Allow for individual input in areas such as art reviews, office layout, hiring decisions, etc.  Advocate for and establish skill-growth opportunities  Foster a supportive work environment  Present interesting challenges  Develop great games!

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Attracting and retaining talented people  Retaining  While managers believe that more than 70% of employees leave for more money, 88% of employees say they leave for reasons other than money 1  Roughly 1/3 cite their manager as the main reason for leaving 1. The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave (Amacom, January 2005).

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  So now you’re a lead  Welcome to Middle Management!

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  So now you’re a lead  What they say:  We were so pleased with your work that we’re making you the Lead Artist on our next project!  What they mean:  You know that thing you did really, really well on the last project? Well, forget that. We want you to do a lot less of that while managing a bunch of other artists who look up to you as an example. We hope. Good luck!

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Choosing the right person for the right role  Choose leads based on the correct criteria  Observed potential for good leadership  “Capable generalist” art skillset  Offer Dual and Equivalent Career Advancement Paths  Senior Production Artist vs. Lead Artist

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Recognize management commitments  Senior Artist – Self-management/mentoring  Specialist Lead – Front-line asset technical and aesthetic review  Art Lead – Project art review and project visual style leadership; front-line personnel management  Art Director in a multi-project studio – Milestone asset review; project visual style review; departmental management  Production/Management split – For every 3-4 direct reports, reduce 30-40% production time. Using this calculation, a specialist lead with 3 direct reports should have approximately 75% of his/her time devoted to production tasks; a Lead with 8 direct reports should be involved in production about 30% of the time and should never be responsible for critical path tasks.

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Management training: the missing link  Shift the mindset  Make management seminars available  Compile a Lead Training document based on in-house experience  Enforce production schedule limitations on leads and intervene actively when you see them shouldering too much of the load  Adjust performance expectations to reflect management goals

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Managing under-performing artists and difficult personalities

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  What constitutes a difficult personality in the work setting?  Egomaniac  Blamer  Lazy/unfocused  Oversensitive  Unhygienic  Disrespectful Advanced Critique Pre-emption

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  Getting the most out of average or under- performing artists  Recognize the artist’s role and clearly communicate expectations  See where the problem lies:  inadequate technical skills  poor workflow methods  over-thinking, overworking tasks  in the wrong role for his/her skills  Provide one-on-one mentoring where needed  Follow-up -- be sure to evaluate progress

Art Department: CONFIDENTIAL  And, in conclusion ….  Questions?