Hello friends,

Greetings from Utrecht!

As the Netherlands faces record COVID infection numbers, I have also been felled… by what my at-home tests keep telling me is a regular flu.

As a result, I’ve been lounging on the couch for two days, alternating between playing Picross S7 and reading Obviously Awesome by April Dunford. I’m about halfway through the latter, and I already consider it a must-read for anyone who ever has been, or ever will be involved with positioning a product or a company.

I’m in the process of catching up on my backlog of booknotes, so you can expect my full notes on this book and a bunch of others in a little while.

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Today at a glance:

• New essay: Core Value Examples for Videogame Companies
• Randy Pausch’s last lecture
• The problem with NFTs
• Kurtzgesagt on Dark Forest theory

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​Core Value Examples for Videogame Companies​

Core values are the corner stone of a unique and healthy company culture. I’ve already shared how to come up with your own in a previous essay. For today’s essay, I’ve pulled together some core value examples from other videogame companies that you can use as inspiration.

Before we dive in, let’s quickly review the requirements for good core values.

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Core value requirements

Good core values need to be three things:

• Timeless: should apply to your company (basically) forever
• Apply to everyone: not just some branches or teams,
• You would hold onto it even if doing so would be a disadvantage: your core values should hold, even if the market should change and put you at a disadvantage for holding on to it.

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Value traps

In his Harvard Business Review article Make Your Values Mean Something, Patrick Lencioni warns us to also avoid three types of “value traps”:

• Aspirational values: values that you would like to hold, but don’t right now. For example, wanting to be an innovative company when you’re not (right now), does not warrant making innovation part of your core values.
• Permission-to-play values: values that you expect people to hold, whether they work for you or someone else. For example, professionalism and honesty are required everywhere, and don’t add much to your core values
• Accidental values: values that got you to where you are now, but aren’t necessary to move forward. For example, hustling may have been important getting through the startup phase, but may not be needed (or, indeed, wanted) for the next leg of your journey.

Keeping these requirements in mind, let’s look at some examples from videogame companies. I’ve simply collected what I could find, you be the judge of the quality.

Core value examples from videogames companies

​Blizzard Entertainment​

• Gameplay first
• Commit to quality
• Play nice, play fair
• Embrace your inner geek
• Every voice matters
• Learn and grow
• Think globally
• Lead responsibly

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​Bungie​

• Teams are stronger than heroes
• Player experience first
• Strong ideas, loosely held
• Closing is an everyday practice
• Widen your perspective
• Keep it fun
• Put a dent in the universe

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​Electronic Arts​

• Creativity
• Pioneering
• Passion
• Determination
• Learning
• Teamwork

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​Nintendo​

• Uniqueness
• Flexibility
• Sincerity

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PlayStation Studios

• Better together
• Fiercely daring
• Proudly different
• Always striving

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​Raw Fury​

• Treat people like people
• For happiness, over profit
• Games are art

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​Riot Games​

• Player experience first
• Dare to dream
• Thrive together
• Execute with excellence
• Stay hungry: stay humble

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​Unity​

• Users first
• Best ideas win
• In it together
• Go bold

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Cover photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash​

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The Best Bits

​Randy Pausch’s last lecture: This is the last lecture given by Randy Pausch, a computer science educator who, at the time of this lecture, had only a few months left to live. Rather than being heavy or sad, this is an upbeat and beautiful lecture about how Pausch achieved his boyhood dreams, and how we might do the same.

​Dark Forest theorem: I love Kurzgesagt, and this video was very nicely timed with my recent reading of The Three Body Problem. The video explains the Dark Forest theorem that’s at the base of the scifi trilogy. Check this out if you’ve been curious about the books!

​The problem with NFTs: This video has been doing the rounds, and I think it’s very much worth the 2 hour(!) watch if you have even a passing interest in NFTs. It does a good job of explaining NFTs core mechanics, and placing the criticisms levelled against them in a broader context.

See you in two weeks!

Martijn

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