Sony Changes the Game

But as the talk turns to marketing, Fox, a small, dark-haired man with a probing wit, voices concern. As the guy who must pitch "Steel Reign" to a jaded trade press, he worries that the game's audience is not sufficiently defined. What's the message? How's the game being billed? As a serious battle "sim" (simulation) for armchair strategists? As an action game? As both? Neither? Gradually, under steady questioning by Fox and others, the "Steel Reign" team refines its marketing strategy. The game is scheduled for a September release.

High-stakes decisions like this are a regular part of life at PlayStation. Sure, the programmers in San Diego and Foster City make games. But they're really in the business of manufacturing creativity. Their work is a daily struggle to balance chaos and control, brilliance and budgets, experimentation and efficiency. In this sense, they face the same challenges as people in any business -- Hollywood, Madison Avenue, Wall Street -- that fuses open-minded innovation with tough-minded execution.

As video games become bigger, faster, and more lifelike, the stakes keep rising. Three years ago, Jonathan Beard, a 28-year-old producer and graphic artist, could sit down with a few programmer friends and create a game in six weeks. Beard's current project, a complex fighting game called Blasto, took 18 months of work and a small army of professionals: four programmers, four modelers, three animators.

That's typical. Between 1988 and 1993, the average cost of making a video game jumped from $80,000 to $500,000. Since then, it has leaped to $1.5 million -- with a few projects burning as much as $8 million to $10 million. Yet by all indications, Blasto will not only make its deadline but also make a major splash in the Christmas market. Some insiders are predicting it will be one of PlayStation's biggest games ever.

That's typical too. PlayStation works hard to master the personal and organizational tensions inherent in designing cutting-edge software for a fast-moving industry. "Things change so quickly that we do want people to reinvent the wheel," argues Phil Harrison. "Our biggest competitor is complacency, and the only way to combat complacency is to challenge yourself with extraordinary goals."

How does PlayStation rise to the challenge? First, it makes work playful -- even as it keeps it serious. Most designers got into the video game business because they loved games, not business. That simple reality has big management implications. Game designers are supremely motivated to complete their individual projects. But they lack traditional career ambitions or a corporate navigational sense. "These people tend not to be real aggressive self-promoters," explains Kelly Flock. "They want to be noticed without being a squeaky wheel, which means that part of being their manager is being their advocate." Translation: designers are gamers first and businesspeople second.

That said, everyone understands that PlayStation is serious business. Most titles sell for somewhere around $50; a hit can ship as many as 2 million units worldwide. That means a single project team can generate as much as $100 million in retail revenue. Team members receive sizable bonuses (a fixed percentage of their salaries) when they meet their alpha, beta, and final-ship milestones. They also receive quarterly royalties for the games they design. PlayStation calculates each game's revenues, subtracts development costs and an allocation for marketing and overhead, and then divides a royalty pool among the team. These royalties can add up to real money -- the best evidence of which is the number of expensive sports cars parked outside Sony's studios.

PlayStation also encourages autonomy -- but demands accountability. Game designers like to be left alone. A sense of independence -- defiance, really -- oozes from every corner of the studios. In Foster City, gamers openly deride the executive offices as "Mary Kay Headquarters." Half the cubicles are off-limits to outsiders. One sign announces: "We don't mean to sound rude, but for development security reasons, visitors are not allowed past this point." For added emphasis, storm troopers from "Star Wars" stand guard. The message is unmistakable: Nobody tells us what to do.

The flip side of all this autonomy is accountability. And the essence of accountability is shared goals. Once a project has been "green-lighted" -- that is, once a producer, a programmer, and an artist have developed an outline, and a development team has been assembled -- members of the team strike a formal agreement about how work will proceed. The agreement includes lots of traditional metrics: project objectives, deadlines, milestones. It also includes metrics that reflect life on software teams: worst-case scenarios, required work hours, "all the things people need to be prepared for," Flock says.