How many game designers / artists / programmers / producers / testers do you know outside your company? . And if you know them, how did you find out about them?
1. Ex-colleagues / friends: Obvious?
2. LinkedIn: Duh!
3. Gaming / Animation Summits: Great!
4. Media / Online magazines: Great!
5. Others: By now you should be able to identify the category.
I do know a lot of talents thanks to LinkedIn; however I'm definitely not aware of the content they worked for. So what's the solution? Add your projects to your profile? Well, definitely a good thing to do, but I'm here to talk about recognition by others.
Appreciation is a huge form of encouragement and I have repeated and will go on to repeat this statement because it is an universal truth.
How does our industry cope up with this recognition. We pretty much know all the founders of different gaming companies and why not, they are the reason we are here, trying to live our dream. But how many of us know the people behind the games? The ones who stay up late nights, stay back in office, work almost all weekends to meet the deadline, to ensure that the game is great!
The answer: Very few
Nowadays a lot of startup gaming companies are sprouting. Some of the founders have much lesser experience than some of the industry talents I know. And yet the founders are recognized and talked about in summits and media.
Please do not get me wrong. It would be a shame if they are not recognized for their efforts. It's not a child's play to put up a company together, come up with a successful game with minimal resources. It is a well deserved acknowledgement. Adding to that, I really hope more such companies come up and succeed as this is the only way this industry will grow. It will widen giving rise to new talents.
However, not everyone can or is interested in starting up their own firm. They like what they are doing and would want to continue. But their efforts go unnoticed. They are hardly acknowledged by the industry.
Even the ones who play a very critical role, the ones who have been a company's backbone for a longtime, the ones who delivered chain of successful games for the company. What about them? Why are they not recognized by the people they work for, the industry, by the media?
The failure of recognition might motivate them to move on to some other company and you will lose your talent. And if this some other company also fails to motivate the talent, he/she will move out of the industry. Remember the talented ones are not in need of the industry. The industry needs them!
You might be a great entrepreneur with the best qualities possible. However you need a pool of talent to attain success. No one wants to keep their firm small. Bigger profits obviously calls for an empire expansion. If you have the right employees, you are one step closer. Keep them happy, recognize their efforts, encourage them and they will bring success to you.Start from within and then explore!
R E C O G N I Z E
