In the past, I've found that models like the Strategy Choice Cascade to be really helpful in defining a high level strategy that I can iterate on and drill down into. You might be tempted (as I was, early in my career) to think that the vision is all you need, that from there, you can just get down to brass tacks. But as anyone who has been in product long enough will tell you, a product vision isn't the end all, be all.
You should, by now, have the vision of the game you want to create. It should also, by definition, define who your audience is. And it's the prevailing view (again, romanticized, just like I was) that this is all you need to rally a team and get to work. But the reality is much different. In games, and honestly in a lot of consumer application segments, it's already a crowded market. The idea of "build it and they will come" rarely works.
That's where something like the Strategy Choice Cascade can come in and help bolster the scaffold of your vision.
"That's a nice graphic," you say? Let's break it down. (You didn't think I was going to leave you high and dry there, did you?)
Winning Aspiration
Oh boy, let's start with the more (sometimes) uncomfortable topic first. "Winning Aspiration" will influence everything else that follows and as you make choices further down the cascade, you'll come back to tweak it. Remember, just like the vision, this isn't written in stone - we'll always need to be flexible to adjust, proactively and reactively, to changes in the market.
"Winning Aspiration" is really asking the question: what does success look like for your game? And it's OK to have more than one criteria for success (I would expect more than one, in most cases). Does this mean hitting a certain revenue target? Does this mean reaching a certain number of players? Maybe it's getting critical acclaim for the story or the art or the gameplay?
These things should have clear thresholds, and clear goals, attached to them. They might be intended for different internal audiences, but just like repeating the vision to everyone, as frequently as possible, these criteria become part of that message. Obviously, adjust for the culture that you're creating for your team, but your org should be clear on how the answer to "Winning Aspiration" impacts the vision and how that relates to what they are working on.
Where to play
In the living room? On your dedicated battle station that you've decked out? Or on the train?
Actually, yes - all of the above. That's what you're asking: which audience segment will be playing your game and where are they going to play your game? While your vision is telling you the type of player implicit with your game, here you're going one step further (possibly to what most of us are comfortable with): what platform, what region(s), and what are the (psycho)demographics of our audience.
I know it's tempting to say that "oh hey, no we're a game for everyone!" and leave it at that. Sure, that's laudable, but it's not going to help your marketing team when they have to start thinking about their campaigns. Similarly, it won't guide the UA team as they decide who to target with those slick ads or help them strategize to buy the right airtime at a show.
Reflect back on that vision and ask the hard question: who are we really targeting with this game? Are we trying to make a mobile, jump scare, horror game that is approachable by everyone? That might be a tall order and that audience is very different than that "everyone" category that you originally thought about.
Oh, and remember that revenue question above? Yeah, here's where you start to think about that price point.
How to Win
For me, personally, this is the vision's playground. It's also where there's the most amount of risk to blow up the scope and totally go overboard. "How to Win" is all about what makes you different from everyone else on the market.
You need to determine what your competitive advantage is here. And again, the vision provides the scaffold for what that means to your game (or product, sincerely, it applies there, too). If you're building a mobile, horror game, what is unique, innovative, gameplay? Is it the 90 second bite-size Lovecraftian lore that you leverage to build a world? Is it the quirky art that is just on the right side of nostalgia? Is it the social features that help create meaningful connections through gameplay?
I could go on rattling out potential features, but now you see why I said here be dragons. You want to pick a handful of pillars that are key to delivering the experience of your game. Add too many, and you'll have a scope that will be unwieldly, and it will be hard to focus on what makes the game great; have too few... well, we can all come up with a list of games (or products) that did just one thing but delivered an amazing experience with just that single pillar.
Capabilities
For the producers reading, this will seem like very familiar territory. If you're working along while reading this, you've got the heart of your strategy together. You've got your vision. You have defined what it means to succeed. You know where you'll play. And you've erected the pillars that are your differentiators.
With "Capabilities" you're going to answer the next question: what are the competencies and resources we need to deliver on this?
What are those key skills that the team needs to deliver? The vision and the "Where to Play" should still inform you here - keep them handy in the process. If it's a mobile game, you might need iOS and/or Android development knowledge. 2D or 3D? Based on that, which engine? Unreal? Unity? Godot? Flame (shudder)? Do you need high fidelity sound and an amazing musical score? How about narrative design and world building? Is it single player, or multiplayer? If it's going to be multiplayer, will you need some great networking knowledge to deal with mobile lag and spotty coverage? How about all the platform and infrastructure services you'll need? Chat? CI/CD pipelines? Authentication? What about marketing or UA prowess? Or, how about customer support?
Just like the prior "How to Win", it's also real easy to blow up the list of competencies that you might need here. If you find yourself in that place (we've all have been there), sequence them out - when do you think you'll need some of those competencies. The dates aren't important, I've used now, next, later, far future, as categories for the "when" at this stage. (You will come back and refine the dates later.)
Speaking of marketing and far future, don't forget to have discussions about the shape of your campaigns. Are you going for influencer marketing? Or perhaps partnership marketing with the platform?
You might find yourself surprised at spending so much time here, potentially even more than the "How to Win", but this is where the rubber starts to meet the road. Changes or add decisions here might, in turn, impact other areas that you thought were "done" (oh, this is never done - it's a living document, remember?). Be open to going back and having conversations about "Where to Play" or "How to Win" or even "Winning Aspiration" as you start to crystalize some of these conversations.
Management Systems
If there is one take away from all of this, it's this: if you don't create and, crucially, maintain a culture that supports the vision, nothing here matters. You've set the team, and the game or product, up for failure. Every time a Product Manager or a Producer defines the "Management System" as Jira, baby Jesus weeps. (Profusely.)
So, let's flip this around, to define "Management Systems", ask: what is the culture, behaviors, and processes that we need to support the strategy we've laid out? These should inform the tools, not the other way around.
Yes, part of this involves the project management tools, version control software, pipelines, and metrics that are needed to make sure everything is on track. I don't want you to think I am being hand wavy with the amount of work and effort that go into that, but, if we don't set up the behaviors and, therefore, the culture that supports our strategy, we're doing things in hard mode.
What behaviors and attitudes do you need to sow and nurture to be successful? How do they impact processes like community and playtesting feedback? How about the integration of QA into the development process? What behaviors should leadership emulate when confronted with contrarian feedback and how will they communicate hard news? How will the organization deal with deviation of these norms or, better yet, how will you help to maintain or change them to ensure the success of the team and of the game? These are just some of the things that form the bedrock of your culture. And without thinking about this first, it's real easy to pick tools and think that will suffice for "Management Systems."
Tying It All Together
Just to be clear, this isn't something that's done once. Don't be that person that goes through this process when you're first forming the studio or the project, pat everyone on the back for a job well done and then stuffed into a binder that no one ever sees because the day-to-day of developing a game consumes all waking hours. This is a continuous process, something that should be revisited frequently.
Just. Like. Any. Other. Product.
You might have already defined your game's vision, and you just stumbled across this and thought: "this makes sense, but we didn't do this when we started." It's never too late. Go back and walk through the process with the team. Every time you get together to refine the vision, pull in this model. Every time your're planning milestones, pull in this model. Every time you're planning a new feature for an existing live service game, pull in this model.
Game development is hard, or so the saying goes. Stack everything you can in your favor.
/r
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