The Four Swords: A Parable of Leadership, Video Games and Dead Dragons by Paul Tozour
“Game design is not rocket science.”
At least not to one fictional video game developer in Paul Tozour’s The Four Swords: A Parable of Leadership, Video Games and Dead Dragons. Yet anyone reading this most unusual study into the world of game building and the lessons garnered from the process might beg to differ.
The market for video games is slated to hit about $217 billion in 2023. That’s a lot of muscle-bound barbarians, magical lands, sound effects and, of course, dead dragons. It’s also a mass of conversations and strategies, different design approaches, creativity, technology, intricate coding, values and objectives and delicate decision-making.
In this interview, Tozour gives us an inside look into the gaming industry and unveils some secrets that even devoted gamers may not know.
Q: How did you first get into video games and the game industry?
A: I got a double major in Computer Science and English. When Brøderbund Software published MYST in 1993, they could suddenly afford a full-time documentation specialist to document their cross-platform Mac/PC frameworks, and I was hired for the job.
Q: What inspired you to write about the combination of leadership and game design?
A: In almost 30 years of game development, I’ve seen countless management failures firsthand. I also led a study in 2014 (“The Game Outcomes Project”) that analyzed the correlation between studio culture and project outcomes, and we found that culture was a major factor in project success or failure.
Q: Your book provides a great look at what goes on behind the scenes of the game industry. Is there a particular insight you think readers will be shocked to learn about?
A: The major surprise is that even though the artists, engineers and designers on game development teams are usually astoundingly talented, the managers and producers who lead them often have no training, little or no understanding of leadership, and in many cases are the wrong people for the job as they were promoted for skills other than leadership. That skills gap between the talent and their leaders is the major factor holding back the game industry from the success it could achieve.
Q: What do you think is the most important lesson in your book?
A: The most important lesson is that values define culture, and culture defines your outcome. It’s not about cool game ideas or amazing graphics or cool tech. It all goes back to the classic Peter Drucker quote: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
Q: Is there a particular project you’re working on next?
A: I’m starting work on a TV miniseries adaptation of The Four Swords.
Q: Bonus question: what are your favorite games?
A: Fortnite, Civilization VI, Project Ascension, Skyrim and my own game, Aven Colony. My wife and I also love Mario Kart on Switch (it’s the only game I can convince her to play).
Paul Tozour is the owner and General Manager of Mothership Entertainment, creators of Aven Colony for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. He has worked in a wide range of design, production, programming, and technical design roles across the industry since 1994, including Retro Studios / Nintendo, where he worked on two of the games in the Metroid Prime series, as well as Microsoft, Intel, Gas Powered Games, Intelligence Engine Design Systems, and Brøderbund Software.Paul holds a Master’s of Science in Engineering from the Executive Master’s in Technology Management (EMTM) program at the University of Pennsylvania, a degree program co-sponsored by the Wharton School of Business.Paul is passionate about applying modern management science to video game development culture, and upgrading the state of the art in game industry leadership.Paul also initiated and led the Game Outcomes Project study in 2014-15, a highly-acclaimed industry / academic partnership that evaluated the link between game development studio culture and project outcomes.
