Chapter 6: Recruitment

              Building a computer game is an endeavor of scale.  Back when the internet was young, lone programmers like Richard Garriott (creator of the Ultima series) would sit down at their computers and code out a game all by themselves, but in the Digital Age multiple people are needed for any work of scope.  So the first step to building my game was to recruit the team whom combined would have the skillsets needed to create my game.  I have a lot of technology experience – and even some programming experience – but nowhere near enough to accomplish such a feat on my own.

              To start, let’s talk about my background.  When it comes to technology, I’m a jack of all trades.  I started my career out in 1999 as a programmer, but since then have done Information Technology tech support (sometimes in French and German), IT procurement, IT sourcing and contract negotiations, and even IT legal review.  Right now I’m in a year-long course to pass the PMP test, which is the highest level of certification possible in the project management field.  The reason for this diverse technology-related background is that it’s always been my dream to run my own technology company, and if this game is successful then I will have achieved that.

              Unfortunately, the fact that two decades have passed since my programming days means that my coding skills are a bit rusty.  While I can read and understand your average JSON file, I’m nowhere near skilled enough to do the sophisticated object-oriented programming necessary to code an online game in Unity.  I would need help.

              The good news is that I live in Boston, which is a mecca for technological and robotics development (and has the potential to develop into the next Silicon Valley).  Boston is full of “maker spaces” – essentially small clubs where, for a nominal yearly fee, you can access and use the club’s shared tools such as industrial-grade 3D printers, laser cutters, and soldering tools (for circuit boards and such).  There are also corporate-sponsored “hackspaces” such as the famous Cambridge Innovation Center, where programmers get together to discuss and collaborate on shared projects.  Hackspaces tend to be much cheaper to run than maker spaces since all software development is done virtually which means that instead of 3D printers and laser cutters the biggest technology expense is the cappuccino machine.

              I hopped on Meetup.com and joined the “Boston Code and Coffee” meetup, a biweekly meeting of programmers meeting in the Cambridge Innovation Center.  A lot of these programmers are always looking to enhance their skills (and their resumes) by assisting with interesting projects that other people are working on, and an online game with the unique features of Mechwar – such as asynchronous competitive play and resistance to AI learning algorithms - was something that would certainly pique their interests.  At the Meetup, I made my presentation, and within a few minutes, I was surrounded by programmers who were all eager to help.  They gave me their phone numbers and we all made plans to meet at a local brewery named Faces to playtest the game together (using the board game prototype that I had built and 3D printed), partially so that they could learn the rules and partially so that they could observe how the game was played and see if it was something that they would be interested in helping to build with me.

              What I didn’t tell these programmers was that this meeting was not just for their benefit, but for mine as well.  I had secretly arranged for a very talented programmer friend of mine from Google to be one of the playtesters there, and asked him to evaluate their technical knowledge to determine the skill level of these prospective candidates.  Some might say “Why not simply accept all volunteers?  Surely anybody who wants to work on your project for free adds value!”  This is a popular misconception among many project managers.  The truth is that not every addition to your project adds positive value.  There are plenty of people out there who add negative value – for example, a programmer who is so green that they will have to be trained extensively by their peers to get up to speed, or who accidentally creates bugs that his fellow programmers will have to spend extensive time and effort to fix.  That’s why it’s very important to filter your candidate pool on a project, even if it’s entirely volunteer-based.

              After a few rounds of playtesting – with my programmer friend participating and evaluating the skill level of these candidates – I acquired my first coder, a young man named A-----.  A----- was currently in college to get his computer science degree but had an impressive level of knowledge about both network architecture and security.  Network architecture is one of the most complicated specializations in the technology field, and I considered myself very lucky to have A----- be the first member to join my team.

              However, while A----- was very talented at programming the back-ends of a system, we also needed a front-end programmer to deal with things like making the user interface and making the game look good.  Back-end work can only take you so far: without a polished front-end and a comfortable user interface your players won’t enjoy the finished product.  I visited the Code and Coffee meetup a few more times and was pleasantly surprised to encounter one of my friendly acquaintances there, a games programmer named Anthony.  Anthony and I had originally met at an art meetup that he organized, and I learned there that he was working on several computer games of his own, the most famous of which is a highly addictive game which can best be described as “3-dimensional Tetris.”  The reason I was so surprised to find Anthony at the Code and Coffee meetup was because I had assumed that he would be so busy working on his own projects that he wouldn’t have any free time to spare on anything else.  The fact that Anthony was looking for another game project to collaborate on was great news, and I eagerly added him to my project (after validating his skill level at a playtesting of my game, naturally).

              This recruitment process took a long time, and it’s something I would never have managed to do if I hadn’t already gotten divorced from Kathryn by this point.  Although it was a very lengthy process, this recruiting method worked wonderfully, and I am very proud of myself for implementing it.  In my opinion, building your team and hiring the right people is the most important role of management.  In a dysfunctional or incompetent team, managers will often be called upon to adjudicate differences of opinion or make significant and risky decisions when unplanned circumstances arise.  In those situations, leadership becomes a difficult and emotionally draining task.  But in a competent team, 90% of management is simply taking the advice of the experts you’ve surrounded yourself with.  A----- and Anthony turned out to be supremely competent employees, and from the moment I hired them, the work on this computer game progressed more smoothly than I could ever have dreamed.