Too Short to Post II

Occasionally I’ll have some blog topics that don’t quite seem substantive enough for their own articles. Sometimes they’re random thoughts or ideas. Sometimes they’re a little off topic. This is the home for those cast off topics.

A New Age of Art… AI

I’m a bit late to the party talking about AI illustration. The most recent headlines were of a Midjourney generated piece of art winning the Colorado State Fair.

I don’t have well formed opinions on the ethical side of AI, or whether it infringes on the copyright of underlying sourced images.

Those issues aside, it does allow for better prototyping, for fast iteration and to explore different tones and styles. And it further democratizes board game publishing – as illustration is one of the largest expenses in bringing a game to market.

It could also substantially change the relationship between illustrator and publisher. I do believe that a good illustrator, like a good art director, helps bring a game to life, gives it an identity and evolves it beyond the base ask.

Frog Pond for Nut Hunt by Stephen Nickel

To date, I haven’t seen AI generated images that convince me that AI is comparable in quality to be able to replace illustrators for our games. But, it is possible that it will get there, and it is possible that it will get there in the not too distant future.

And, if and when that occurs, we’ll have a lot of hard decisions to make around how we apply it. About whether prompt writers have a place in our design process, either to augment illustrators, or replace them.

To be frank it’s somewhat of a sad question that I expect to have to ask myself. I put a lot of stock in illustration, and value art highly. And to the extent that we can continue to support artists – it’s something I hope we’re able to do. But, of course, good illustration is also really expensive, and ultimately, we need to run our business in a manner that earns us a living.

It’s a question for another day.  

Quiet Quitting & The Mental Load

Quiet Quitting is a buzzword going around recently that is essentially the idea of workers doing the exact requirements of their job, without going above and beyond their contractual obligation.

Quiet quitting is an application of work-to-rule, in which employees work within defined work hours and engage solely in activities within those hours. The philosophy of quiet quitting, despite the name, is not connected to quitting a job, but rather doing exactly what the job requires.

I think it makes sense. An employer-employee relationship should have well defined boundaries and expectations. If you expect someone to go above and beyond their job description, then make those tasks a part of their job description and compensate them appropriately.

The topic reminds me a bit of this comic: The Gender Wars of Household Chores.

A couple of frames of the comic

Except, unlike a relationship of equal responsibilities – the employer is definitionally the manager, and should be taking on the mental load of managing a project.

That said – if there is nothing wring with hiring employees to shoulder some of the managerial load – as long as that is defined as part of their task and they are compensated for it.

In my professional career I’ve always had roles that require taking on the mental load of complicated tasks. That is coming up with investment ideas, convincing my bosses that they were good, executing trades, and babysitting the whole process to make sure nothing went wrong.

And running this business is similar. If I go to clean the proverbial table, and find a piece of laundry lying around, well it’s my job to then also do the laundry, and clean the kitchen, and so on.

I can of course hire people for those tasks. And we do contract out substantially for things like illustration, graphic design, video production, and coding. But even though we bring on experts who are managing their areas of a project, I am still babysitting the overall project and making sure that things get done on time and to scope.

What are some tasks you’ve outsourced on your projects, and how did you manage the process?