One of the most exciting prospects in terms of starting a new MMO-focused company was being able to hire the best and the brightest.  Jeff and I were able to bring aboard who we wanted to be the founders of Sigil.  Then the founders were able to recommend people with whom they’d worked.  A shining example would be the art team David Gilbertson and Keith Parkinson put together – all sorts of top-notch people with a variety of skills and previous experience. 

The majority of people hired were those with whom we’d worked with directly.  Others were those that came with impressive resumes.  Some were our friends, and while they may have lacked experience, they were a known quantity – often, one of us had known them for many years.  Sigil has been accused of nepotism in the past, but I don’t think it’s nepotism when you bring a friend on board because he or she is someone you know and trust.  Rather, I think it’s really smart.  Real nepotism, in my opinion, is when you hire a previously unemployable relative with room temperature IQ to do something he or she is hardly qualified to do.  I do think we avoided this, though, and when and if I’m able to build a new company, I’ll do it all much the same way.  Well, much the same way except for the following:

All-Star people sometimes have all-star egos.  And while these egos may or may not be justified in some abstract way, they don’t work at all when building a team.  And that’s the key thing to keep in mind:  you are building a team.  And just like a soccer team full of egos who will only dribble the ball and never pass it, the inability to play well with others will almost always result in a dysfunctional environment.  MMOG game development is ambitious no matter how you approach it or with whom.  It demands a high degree of collaboration.  Ideally you want that all-star team to consist of people with a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and preferences.  And the magic occurs when this group gets together and creatively comes up with something that is greater than the sum of its parts.

And while most Sigil team members did indeed play well with others, we did have a few that didn’t.  And even though it was only a few, it eventually led to some big issues, including negatively affecting morale and productivity.  It wasn’t only that the problem person had issues themselves, it also led to good team players not wanting to give it their all.  But I was blind to this, especially early on.  I was so excited about bringing all-stars on board and the potential greatness that could come of it, I downplayed the ego problem.  Sure, I saw it as an issue, but also as something we in management could deal with in the future.  We’d work with these people and, over time, most if not all of them would hopefully come around.  There would be some pain involved, but it would be worth it.  In fact, during the earlier stages of team building I’d even do press releases, announcing the all-stars we were bringing aboard (especially if they had been members of the ‘original’ EQ team).  Heck, I thought, I might as well get the public as excited as I was.

But despite very serious (and often prolonged) attempts by management, including me, to address these issues, they rarely got better.  And sometimes, even after a problem person eventually left the company, scars were left behind.  Some bad feelings and habits persisted. 

So what would I do differently?  Well, I’d make an effort to resolve the situation, but if that effort failed, I’d let the person go.  I wouldn’t let what they could potentially bring to the team and project blind me.  The benefits one gets from a smoothly running team or department without the egos is simply too great.  And after all, despite how much fun it is to create games, it’s still ultimately a business.  You are creating a product and a service, not a community with great mental health counseling. 

Ultimately I realized that I’d rather hire somebody less qualified, but who thrived in a team environment, than somebody with unparalleled experience and talent, but also an untamable ego.  Thankfully we in management only made a few of these blunders, otherwise who knows what could have negatively occurred.  But then, like I said, it only takes a few to have a real impact.  And that impact was felt.