Masters thesis of design small team game making in australia a case study of goati entertainment

Small Team Game Making in Australia: A Case Study of GOATi Entertainment A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Design Maximilian John Myers Bachelors of Design (Games) – RMIT Bachelor of Arts Honours (Games Art and Design) – Murdoch University School of Design College of Design and Social Context RMIT University August 2022 Declaration I certify that except where due acknowledgement has been made, this research is that of the author alone; the content of this research submission is the result of work which has been carried out since the official commencement date of the approved research program; any editorial work, paid or unpaid, carried out by a third party is acknowledged; and, ethics procedures and guidelines have been followed In addition, I certify that this submission contains no material previously submitted for award of any qualification at any other university or institution, unless approved for a joint-award with another institution, and acknowledge that no part of this work will, in the future, be used in a submission in my name, for any other qualification in any university or other tertiary institution without the prior approval of the University, and where applicable, any partner institution responsible for the joint-award of this degree I acknowledge that copyright of any published works contained within this thesis resides with the copyright holder(s) of those works I give permission for the digital version of my research submission to be made available on the web, via the University’s digital research repository, unless permission has been granted by the University to restrict access for a period of time I acknowledge the support I have received for my research through the provision of an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship Maximilian John Myers 31st August 2022 I Acknowledgements This research and the thesis that it became would not exist without a huge number of people – without their support, nudging and outright help I could not have done any of this Specifically, thanks to my supervisory team Emma Witkowski and Matthew Riley who guided, poked and shaped so much of my thinking and writing into something that made sense – and said something To GOATi Entertainment, Garth, Fotini and Brooke who without their kindness in letting me help, talk, and watch how they made games none of this would have existed – I cannot thank you all enough To my partner, Tarryn who kindly supported, listened to me go on and on and helped when things go rough To my family, Kate, Lach and Cam – who read many sentences with poor grammar and listened to many long-winded explanations of the research To all my closest friends, Chrys, Soph and Jess who made me take breaks and catch my breath And to Sarah Endecott whose editing work massaged my thesis into its final readable form There are so many more people to who I owe a multitude of thanks– so to all the people who I knew in the years I was writing this document, who touched it in some small way, thank you – I really could not have done it without you all II Contents Declaration I Acknowledgements II Abstract 1 Introduction Project aims Structure of this thesis Literature review Games Production Studies 10 Following studios 12 Co-creative practices 14 Monetisation 16 Precarious work 18 Esports 19 Chapter Summary 21 Methods 23 Precarity and labour 36 Precariousness 38 Grappling with precarity 42 Precarious independence 43 Creating stability 46 The hustle 50 Not just making games 56 Hustle and crunch 59 Chapter Summary 61 Blockchain and boundary objects 63 Blockchain 64 What is blockchain? 67 GOATi and Blockchain 69 Moving into Blockchain 71 Working amidst backlash 73 Boundary objects 78 Chapter Summary 85 Conclusion 87 References 90 Appendices 97 Appendix A: 22nd Racing Series 97 Appendix B: Pavillion Hub 98 III Appendix C: Ethics Approval 100 IV Figures Figure 2: Pavillion Hub Figure 1: 22nd Racing Series Figure 3: Engagement Timeline 25 Figure 4: Booth at Pax Australia 2019 25 Figure 5: Pax Aus 2019 booth setup – Garth & Fotini 27 Figure 6: MyDriveSchool in game 47 Figure 7: Gaming page on Phantasmas website 47 Figure 8: GOATi simulation 48 Figure 9: REVGEN explainer 48 Figure 10: 22nd Racing Series Website 49 Figure 12: 22nd Racing Series pre-sale NFT splash page 65 Figure 13 Tweet response from an Australian developer to the Voxel Agents announcement of Gardens Between coming to Pavillion Hub 74 Figure 14: 22nd Racing Series 97 Figure 15: Pavillion store page 2/3/2022 98 V Abstract This study follows the Melbourne-based development studio Greatest Of All Time Interactive Entertainment (GOATi) from 2019 to 2020 through a period of change within the studio, industry, and wider cultural context It details how GOATi was able to move from precarity to stability – and the specific context, scale, economic situation and labour required to create this stability During this period, I volunteered with GOATi for a total of six months and engaged in interviews after this time I followed the core team members as they developed a unique esports intellectual property (IP), attempted to crowdfund their game through a kickstarter campaign, engaged with blockchain technologies, launched a digital storefront, managed contracts, and worked for various organisations under piecemeal contracts I explored how they grappled with precarious working conditions, how they engaged with emerging technologies (such as blockchain) to keep their doors open, dynamically responded to shifts in the industry, and how this work was shaped by the specifics of the Australian games industry GOATi serves as an exemplar case of how small-scale studios navigate the economic instability of the modern games industry I explore these by detailing the different practices the team engaged in to deal with this instability The following terms and themes are explored: • ‘hustling’ – a mode of overwork and constantly looking for the next job or contract • alternative economic models and emerging technologies • building repositories of technology that enable them to work with, and across, various industries In revealing GOATi’s ‘on the ground’ work through direct engagement and interviews, I explore how games are being made between the large-scale mainstream industry and the small-scale, do-it-yourself (DIY) artistic space This thesis also creates a historical account of the on-the-ground work of a studio engaged with blockchain technologies Rising as a new form of decentralised technology, and a space GOATi was already interfacing with These technologies served to help the team, eventually find stability as a studio in this new space With the prevalence of small-scale studios both in Melbourne, Australia and worldwide, research must grapple with how these studios survive within creative industries As highlighted by the Games Action Plan (City of Porth Philip, 2020) the games industry makes up 17% of the design industry – with small studios (I believe) serving as an important part of this industry, and an important role in the culture and economics of the Australian games industry This study thus details how a small-scale studio was able to escape precarity through emerging technologies and the hustle for contract work Introduction This study follows Greatest of All Time Interactive Entertainment (GOATi), a small Melbourne-based games studio, as they managed uncertain and precarious labour and sought to create financial stability It explores how the context, size and economic situation of a small-scale studio affects their development, creative practice and labour The research details how GOATi navigated the Australian games industry between the years 2019 and 2020 by documenting the hands-on experiences of the team during this time1 Using an organisational ethnographic approach, I explore how GOATi funded and built new intellectual properties (IPs), the working conditions, labour and how their intent, purpose and objectives shifted during this time During my time with the team, they were working on their esports racing title 22nd Racing Series (Appendix A, Figure 1), as well as transitioning to focus on their blockchain-based digital storefront Pavillion (Appendix B, Figure 2) Figure 2: 22nd Racing Series Figure 1: Pavillion Hub This research went on hiatus around 2020-2021 as my own precarious work impacted on my study, alongside working through the 2020 Melbourne Lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic Through this study, I explore how the team’s precarious labour shaped their working habits and pushed the team to ‘hustle’, a mode of overwork typified by a constant search for the next contract, job or connection to guarantee income I also explore the team’s transition to a form of stability through embracing new technologies in the form of blockchain to find a community I also examine how the team used this and their other proprietary technology to act as a repository they could sell to organisations, both inside and outside the games industry During my time with GOATi, the team consisted of three core people: two industry veterans – an artist/lead (Garth) and a programmer (Brooke) – and a communications/events manager (Fotini) who is married to Garth The team are not anonymised, because doing so removes an important human aspect to their work, and they are specific people making specific choices As a public and highly recognisable company with strong ties to the local industry, and as their game was being funded in part by outside contracts and government grants the team could not be effectively anonymised As such consent has been obtained for all relevant people's names to be used through this document Project aims This project specifically looks at: • The team’s independence from a traditional publisher and investment models and the precarity this created for them • How this precarity was managed through overwork and a constant grind for new contracts while completing existing ones Conclusion This ethnography examines the practices involved in creating stability for a small Melbourne game studio Following GOATi as they worked towards financial stability and the context and situation around how they achieved this Alongside their eventual move into blockchain as a way of creating this stability for the team – detailing how this can be understood through the use of Boundary Objects Revealing one way in which small teams the work of making games and how this is more than just the creation of games This thesis offers a generative look at how technologies and tools are utilised by gamemaking teams to interface with many different organisations In documenting the work and practices undertaken by the studio, this research serves as a valuable historical account of this specific moment in the local Australian game industry As the videogames industry and the communities around these games continue to grow, and the emergence blockchain technologies into the mainstream - this work as such offers an important account of how this was leveraged, by a smaller studio Informing how future work in looking at small studios look at what unpredictable nature of the game industry offers to these studios and highlights the need to study how these studios navigate these moments To understand the precarity faced by small studios such as GOATi, this research contends that their specific context and situation, and how this influenced the studio’s goals and decision-making, is critical to understanding how games are made by modern studios GOATi serves as an example of how this work by a studio in the space between the largescale mainstream industry and smaller artistic space Without a guarantee that they could continue past each contract, there was a need to be constantly looking for different practices to establish stability, forcing the team into the ‘hustle’, searching always for other ways and 87 connections to keep money coming in Documenting this work and how it shaped GOATi showed the influence of the studio's context and desires as they attempted to build a stable base for themselves This highlights the importance of accounting for the specific approaches and circumstances of small studios such as GOATi, as without accounting for the specifics much of what informs the on-the-ground experiences of the team is lost In exploring how GOATi engaged in this form of labour, this research highlights how boundary objects serve as a useful way to understand the work done by smaller studios as branching outside of just the games industry and intersecting a much larger field To survive in this middle ground, GOATi used the various technologies and platforms that the team developed, as a repository that could be drawn on and repurposed for other projects The repository opened an extensive number of ways they could interface with different organisations and industries – including those from outside games Selling these technologies to studios inside and outside of the games industry created stability for their team – without the need for a large producer or outside investment Through this use of Boundary Objects, a way of unpacking how studios like GOATi while working within the games industry are able to engage with a wider number of organisations and government bodies – in order to diversify their income GOATi’s work in blockchain echoes the embrace by other small studios of emerging technology Exposing how this kind of instrumentalisation of new technologies is used by smaller studios demonstrates how they are not solely reliant on game sales for revenue In this research, these new technologies are understood as boundary objects, and this formed part of the way that GOATi were able to hustle and connect with industries outside games by enabling communication and connections through GOATi’s repository of technologies In 88 exploring how GOATi were able to transition from precarity to stability through their utilisation of new technologies and engagement with blockchain in this research, I have revealed one way that a studio was able to escape the ‘bootstraps to breadcrumbs’ model of game development GOATi’s transition across 2019 and 2020 exposes one way that studios are able to grow beyond just survival However, while GOATi serves as a useful examination of how studios find stability, they not represent the totality of the industry both in Australia and globally This research highlights the need for more work that examines how modern small games studios stay open, and the labour and work this entails This thesis has generated a historical record of the Melbourne videogames industry that reveals how precarity, hustle and new technologies shape studio practices, conditions and labour and the relationships with communities and creative industries around them I have revealed and actualised the work and practices undertaken by a small game studio that 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