In his lecture at the inaugural Casual Connect Tel Aviv, Justin Stofle explained how standardizing your tech stack won’t necessarily lead to less creative games, noting that, “People always say, ‘If I standardize my tech stack, all my games are going to be clones of each other.’ That’s not true at all”. In practice, standardization can help devs focus on the creative aspects of their work and get games out faster. See Justin’s full session below.
DOWNLOAD SLIDES
Justin Stofle loves programming. Since he was a child, he wanted to do anything that would allow him to write software that people would enjoy. Even today, in his free time, he programs (a lot!), and of course, this compulsion is what led to his present career. He created the game Dice with Buddies, which was acquired by Scopely in 2011, and Justin took on a Director of Engineering role at the company. At Scopely, a fast-growing touchscreen entertainment network, he oversees all development at their first-party game studio. Scopely currently has two games in the Top 100 Grossing App list: Yahtzee with Buddies and The Walking Dead: Road to Survival.
He credits his father with inspiring him to pursue a career in software development. His father was a programmer who piqued Justin’s interest in programming while he was still very young. When his family acquired their first computer, he spent his free time building websites. He also began learning BASIC and creating simple games similar to Pong. He loved video games and thought he would have a career working in console games, but as mobile gaming increased in popularity, he discovered it was possible to build feature-rich gaming experiences for mobile devices. He became attracted to building for iOS, believing this was the direction the industry would take.
What Justin enjoys most about his job is building games that touch the lives of millions of people around the world. He has seen Scopely’s games unite people across the planet to build friendships, keep in touch with families and even to connect strangers who eventually marry.
Be Thoughtful About Software without Compromising Speed
Justin has learned a great deal from shipping software to clients and then supporting it. He has learned from other companies rushing feature sets or doing insufficient research or information-gathering before building a solution. At Scopely, it is essential to be thoughtful about the software they build without compromising too much speed of development.
Encouraging Creativity
Creativity isn’t something that can happen on a schedule, as Justin points out. When he has a difficult problem to solve, he gives it a lot of thought, often coming up with potential solutions during “idle times,” such as when showering or driving to work. After a few days, he is usually able to find a jumping off point and he can either solve the problem or iterate to success.
When he has a creative block, he takes a break and then iterates on the first prototype that comes to mind. He describes his thought process: “This goes back to idle thinking about the problem and letting your mind kind of daydream up a solution. If I’m not sure how something should work, I will look to other games and apps that have implemented something similar for their approach. Analyzing someone else’s perspective or workaround can often cause you to think of edge cases or ideas you previously hadn’t considered.”
He does get a lot of inspiration from other games. He mentions in particular the Bitner Brothers, who were responsible for Words with Friends and inspired him to create Dice with Buddies. In the future, he would like to develop a simulator/builder/strategy game; he always enjoys playing games that allow him to be creative and build.
Keeping a Balance
Balancing his time between delegating assignments to his team and being a hands-on developer is a challenging feat for Justin, as he always prefers to be hands-on. For the company as a whole, the greatest challenge came from the speed of their growth. Their solution was to find the right leadership to take them through that period. Justin emphasizes that in this situation it is essential to look for a balance between hiring the right people and having a good foundation for them to build on.
One of the highest points in Justin’s career was when Hasbro asked them to build Yahtzee with Buddies. Dice with Buddies was inspired by Yahtzee, so being asked to develop an official Yahtzee game gave validation to the product he had created. Dice with Buddies’ success eventually caught Hasbro’s attention, and the rest is history.
The Maturation of Mobile Games
Justin feels the next trend coming to the game industry is the maturation of mobile games, on par with console games. Developers are now building larger-scale games to stay competitive. Processing power has been the limiting factor for mobile; now, faster and more powerful phones are being released every year, while advancements in consoles only occur every five or six years, so it is likely that phones will overtake consoles in the near future.
The other limiting factor for mobile games is input. At present, there is no good alternative to the controller. Once development has overcome that hurdle, Justin believes consoles will be a thing of the past.
The competition in the games industry is fierce, as Justin points out, so if you are interested in a career in game development, you must have the drive, patience, and passion it requires. Establishing your startup is even more of a challenge; you are trying to create a company at the same time as you work to produce amazing products. He has learned over the years that building a company from the ground up is very difficult and requires great perseverance and determination to get through the ups and downs.
Comments
