Wonder what he's doing in Manhattan.
Why Good Games Go Bad (and how to save them before it’s too late)
Sunday October 13, 2019 10:00 am to 10:45 am
Why do promising games sometimes turn into development disasters? After 18 years as a professional game designer, I’ve seen my share of troubled projects, and I’ve observed some recurring patterns. I’ll describe my own experiences with games that failed or disappointed in some way, explain why things went wrong, and provide strategies for audience members to avoid similar situations on their own projects. This talk will be broadly focused on design, but it will address some production and project management topics as well.
There hasn't been a proper postmortem on Tides of Numenera yet, has it?
"We need new offices, Phil!"
We’re starting a brand new RPG in an exciting new universe! Come and join us!
engine, duhDafuq lead engineer means? Engineer of what?
inXile Entertainment
Total Duration 6 yrs 5 mos
Title Lead Designer
Dates Employed Apr 2014 – Jul 2019
Employment Duration 5 yrs 4 mos
Location Newport Beach, CA
Projects:
Wasteland 3 (Lead Designer)
Torment: Tides of Numenera (Lead Area Designer)
Nathan Long
I have worked closely with George Ziets for several years at inXile Entertainment over multiple projects and have always found him to be professional, generous, and a pleasure to work with. In the swirling chaos of game dev, George is an island of calm, always ready to soothe a panicked writer, and to consult knowledgeably on points of plot or lore or hash out any story problem that arises.
George's strong plotting and world building create solid foundations that easily support the branching and evolving narratives of game stories, and provide fertile ground from which to grow characters, conflicts, conversations, and complications.
As a narrative lead he is meticulous and detail-oriented, able to keep vast amounts of lore in his head, and maintain continuity and consistency over the sprawling and intertwining stories of big RPG games - and across the years it takes to make them.
In addition to his abilities as a writer and designer, George is a gentleman in every sense of the word - easy to work with, kind, polite, helpful, scrupulous in his duties, and ready for any challenge. I'm going to miss working with him.
Also, he has really good hair.
Alex Kerr
George is a joy to work with. His feedback and guidance are a force multiplier for our team, and his personal output is consistently excellent. George is the rare kind of leader who inspires with subtlety. If you have have an opportunity to work with him, take it.
Thomas Beekers
I had the great pleasure of working with George on Torment: Tides of Numenera and to a greater extent on Wasteland 3. Throughout I've been impressed with his unique mix of creativity, problem-solving and fastidious attention to detail. His work is polished and of a high quality, and in it he mixes an imaginative voice with careful mindfulness of the player experience.
On top of that, George is an excellent co-worker and lead, someone who has no trouble getting the team's buy-in into the game's vision and guarding that vision meticulously both in the wider narrative and in attention to little details. If you're looking for someone to lead a design team on an RPG or indeed any narrative-driven project, I could think of no better hire than George Ziets.
Jeremy Kopman
George was my direct lead on Torment: Tides of Numenera and Wasteland 3, and I couldn't have hoped for a more effective creative manager. George is by far the smartest and most organized narrative designer I've ever had the pleasure to work with. He creates compelling and unpredictable quest lines and characters that piece together to build rich, believable worlds. He also knows how to communicate the key themes and plot elements to his team in a way that empowers them to flesh out their individual corners with confidence that our work will fit his overall vision.
George also knows when to seek out feedback or discussion, synthesize that with his own ideas, and then return with a clear direction for the team to follow. This combination of decisiveness and flexibility is ideal for running the creative team on any large scale game project.
I just hope I get to work with George again in the future!
Paul Marzagalli said:Hi all, today is my last day at inXile, as I'm moving on to my next TBA gig! It's been a wild ride and a good one. Thanks to everyone here in the community, and I want to pay particular thanks to those of you who stepped up and worked with us to help make The Bard's Tale Trilogy something above and beyond what anyone expected.
My special thanks especially to all our moderators for the work you did before and during my time here, with hopes that you'll continue to play a role in the community going forward.
For anyone looking to keep in touch, I'm easy enough to find on Twitter. For all of you, stick around and follow the scene here. It's going to be an exciting next year and beyond for inXile!
"Wild ride", "special thanks", blah blah. For a community manager that is supposed to come up with original shit to hype stuff, this guy is a boring wet blanket.Spotted by Zombra - inXile's community manager stepped down the other day: https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=17773&p=208183#p208183
Paul Marzagalli said:Hi all, today is my last day at inXile, as I'm moving on to my next TBA gig! It's been a wild ride and a good one. Thanks to everyone here in the community, and I want to pay particular thanks to those of you who stepped up and worked with us to help make The Bard's Tale Trilogy something above and beyond what anyone expected.
My special thanks especially to all our moderators for the work you did before and during my time here, with hopes that you'll continue to play a role in the community going forward.
For anyone looking to keep in touch, I'm easy enough to find on Twitter. For all of you, stick around and follow the scene here. It's going to be an exciting next year and beyond for inXile!