How Gaming Teaches you to Plan

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems

How Gaming teaches you to Plan Guest was Peter "Franzzii" Dager

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems Peter "Franzzii" Dager is a member of the Complexity Gaming速, one of the world's premier competitive gaming organizations. Owned and operated by some of the finest minds in the industry, Complexity has a long heritage of championship caliber teams, superstar players, news reporting and gaming entertainment ventures. Complexity Gaming is sponsored by Sound Blaster, Gamma Gamers, QPAD, PNY, Creative, Origin PC and G8 Brand. Their website is http://www.ComplexityGaming.com.

HoN has quickly become a solid title in eSports and the Complexity Hon Team is currently ranked #1 in the GosuGamers rank database and with the recent success will undoubtedly be #1 in the next HoNCast top 10 rankings. coL.HoN recently secured the DreamHon Summer Championships and $20,000 in only 2 games in a potential double best of three Grand Finals. coL.HoN managed to make their way through the Winners Bracket, dropping only a single game in the process.

Stream: Twitch.tv/Franzzii

Twitter: @coLFranzzii

At the time of podcast, Peter was with the SGty Team.

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems Transcription of Podcast Joe Dager: Welcome everyone to the Business901 podcast. With me today is Peter, journalism major at Indiana University, but in his virtual life, a member of the sGty Team, one of the leading teams in the world playing the games of Heroes of Newerth or HoN as it is typically called.

Peter, I'd like to thank you. Would you give me a little background on how you first got involved in gaming?

Peter: I would contribute my starting of gaming thanks to my friend, Ben. I would just go over to his house, and we would play his older brother's video games. Eventually, I became rather addicted to them. When new games came out we always wanted to try those, and we followed his brother through the gaming scene.

Joe Dager: Why do you think children or people get so immersed when they're playing?

Peter: When you're playing a video game it really consumes all of your mental processes.

There's not much room for any other thought. It's really easy to focus in, submerge yourself into a game because not only are there social aspects but there are also intellectual aspects that you need to be running at full gear in order to succeed and be successful.

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems Joe Dager: Gaming is very social, and I don't think a lot of people understand that. Can you make friends with the people you've never seen?

Peter: Yes, it's very possible to make friends with people you've never seen. However, some people on the Internet can be, and it's easy to be shady. People can really stab you in the back because in the end, they're just some random person across the world, and they don't care about you. Some people are only concerned about themselves and bettering themselves whether it's finding a team or making money off the game or just winning in general.

Joe Dager: Do you have a sense of when that is happening?

Peter: You can always sense when there's tension between players. Most time's people like to keep things drama- free, but unfortunately, it's the real world and especially on the Internet people tends to exaggerate their emotions because they don't have to deal with that person the next day if they don't want to.

Joe Dager: Is there a difference between computer games and Xbox and Wii? Peter: Most PC games are a lot more multi-player in general. Most of the games that are out on Xbox are multi-player are also accessible for the PC minus Halo; I believe. There's not really that much of a difference, there just allows for a lot more interaction on the PC because people are already on the Internet.

A lot of Xboxes and PCs are trying to incorporate that. There were Internet browsers on the home pages of the gaming console. Most systems are online now, but it's still not to Games may be your only chance to attract the best and brightest talent Copyright Business901

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems the point where, "I'll just go to this website real quick and check this out." It's a lot easier for people that are playing a computer game to go either the game's website or the console's website to get information and updates.

Joe Dager: Is there a difference in the players who attract themselves to a Xbox or computer games? Is there a certain reason why that is?

Peter: I think there is definitely a certain reason. I see with the console games; it's really big for first-person shooters. That's the only difference; I see that there's not that much on the PC side from Counter-Strike and Battlefield. I don't know, maybe it's how they have a controller. I'm not really sure exactly what makes the difference between a PC gamer and a console gamer.

Joe Dager: I have to ask you, is your virtual persona that you create, much different than your offline personality?

Peter: Actually, I'd say that it is because in my outside persona, I'm calm and kept back and avoid conflict, for the most part. I like to do that in -,- a game as well, but I think it's a lot easier for me to get involved in drama that I wouldn't get involved in outside of the game.

Joe Dager: Does it take a certain personality to be a gamer? Can anybody learn it or does there a tendency that a certain personality is attracted to a game?

Peter: There are definitely certain personalities. If you notice, almost every team has their own roles and personalities. There are usually people that can get mad and upset, but Games may be your only chance to attract the best and brightest talent Copyright Business901

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems you have to have people that are relaxed and peaceful in order to offset that, and hopefully calm them down.

It's ideal not to have players who are "ragers," but most of the time it's almost inevitable that someone is going to get mad at one point. You can't have too much ego on a team, because their egos will clash, and it's not good for a team environment.

Joe: One of the things that always puzzles me, is how a gaming team gets organized?

How is a team created? How do you blend and become a team?

Peter: Usually, I was picked up, rather than forming a team. I was picked up into a group that already had four players. Most of the time, when you form a team, it's really about whether these players like to play with each other, or whether they can't stand each other.

People are notorious for their roles in this game, whether it's playing a support, or playing a carry. Really, it's about finding the roles that fit the team, and finding the players that can play those roles.

Joe: You may play with different members all the time, but you have maybe one or two solid teams that you play with?

Peter: I have one solid team that I play with. That's SGty. On that team, we each have our own specific role. But, outside of our team games, we'll play any role with any players.

When we get together as a team, we go back to our niches, and we play what we're best at.

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems Joe: You played a lot of games, and your latest one is Heroes of Newerth. How did you get started with HoN? Peter: Really, when I started playing, I wasn't too into it. I played Dota back in Warcraft III, and that's where this game was progressed from, but I was never really a big fan.

My friend Ben, as I've said before, was a really big fan of it at the time. Possibly, he has tired of the game, I suppose. Once I started playing it more and more, I just really enjoyed it. I played more and more, and I got better and better.

Eventually, I found myself playing against the top players in the game. Now, I'm playing with them.

Joe: Now, HoN has a small following, let's say, compared to World of Warcraft, or WoW, right?

Peter: Yes. The following of Heroes of Newerth is rather small, but has increased dramatically as of late.

Joe: Why is that?

Peter: S2 didn't incorporate free--to--play in the beginning. Instead of charging $30, they should have made the game free--to--play. That's what League of Legends did.

Take, for example, we had the finals of our tournament the other day, with people watching live. We had; I think, 6,000 people watching HoN, where the finals of League of Legends had 100,000 people watching live.

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems Joe: So, this is a stadium environment, people sitting watching it, but it's all being done virtually.

Peter: Yes. There is so much gaming on-line, and live streams are everywhere. If you want to see any type of game or any type of tournament, odds are you can find it on-line.

Joe: When you're talking about HoN being small, how many people are playing HoN? I mean, just roughly.

Peter: The game is much more popular in Europe. During, I'd say around 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM PST, which is about nighttime for the Europeans, that's when most of them are on. I'd say HoN peaks around 55,000 users online. It fluctuates between 20,000 and 60,000 throughout the day.

Joe: I think I've heard you mention, HoN is a difficult game to learn, though?

Peter: Yes. There's a skill cap that needs to be met before you can be considered a decent player. Before that, people struggle. That's why I think it's not as popular as some other games.

Joe: What is the largest game out there?

Peter: I believe World of Warcraft is still the largest game.

Joe: How many people will be on that, at one time streaming? I mean, can you gauge just to get a balance of what that would be?

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems Peter: I don't know how much people stream World of Warcraft anymore. I think they have 14 million subscribers for WoW or something, so I don't know how many are online constantly. It could be multiple accounts from the same person, et cetera. I don't know.

Joe: Yeah, but I mean, we're talking 14 million compared to... How many do you think are subscribed to HoN, just to get an idea?

Peter: There's probably about, I'm just totally guessing, but 200 to -300,000 HoN accounts. That might be a little low. It could be up to 500,000.

Joe: Besides World of Warcraft, name me a couple of the other more popular games.

Peter: Well, obviously, Call of Duty is very popular. League of Legends is the counterpart to HoN; it was the game that went free to play and succeeded much more, even though, in my opinion, a lesser game.

Joe: What attracted you to HoN over the others?

Peter: Well, I started playing HoN first and because of my experience in Dodo type games, I was able to succeed at a decent rate, and I found the game very appealing, graphically, and also fun. Whereas the other game, I tried playing it because my friends played it, and I couldn't stand it because the graphics were much worse, and the game play was very underdeveloped. I could have just been playing with bad players, but it seemed like a less skilled game and it wasn't really my play style.

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems Joe: We talked a bit about the team organization and the roles that people assume on the team. Within your team, is there like a command and control type structure? Is there a leader or are the teams fairly self-organized? Leadership and team roles trade off a lot?

Peter: Team roles occasionally trade off on our team just because we're always trying new things and we're always trying to figure out new strategies that could always beat the old strategies. We don't really have a leader of our team; everyone is on equal footing; I think, for the most part. We have a captain who drafts; he's in charge of the picks, the picking of heroes for our team. Some people associate him with being the leader because of that. In the end, we're all on equal footing, and we have no leader as a team.

Joe: Well, you mention, there is a strategy. Do you develop a strategy before a game?

Peter: We can have an idea of what we're going to do before a game, but the way the game works is the other team can ban heroes that they don't want to see in the game, so sometimes that can throw off any strategy you set up before the game. Luckily, there are multiple heroes that can fill multiple roles so even if your strategy is similar; you can just alter it with different heroes.

Joe: So your strategy can be an overview, but once you go into the game, it changes rather quickly just based on who you can use and which people you can use, which heroes you can use in it?

Peter: Yes, you can't go into a game with an absolute idea of what you're going to do because you're facing up against five other players who are going to do something to try to Games may be your only chance to attract the best and brightest talent Copyright Business901

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems stop you or something different that you maybe won't expect. Every game's different and it's really about understanding and adapting to what's going on.

Joe: A lot of it is like a football game. You can go into a game plan, but if someone throws you, a different defense up, or has a different configuration, you have to change and adapt to what the other team is doing as the game progresses.

Peter: For the most part, yes, unless what they're doing is bad, and it's actually helping you more than it's hurting you. Then, you just stick with what you're doing.

Joe: Well, I would equate that to have if the fullback can run eight yards up the middle and you just keep doing it. You'll take eight yards until they stop it, right?

Peter: Right.

Joe: You have played sports before. What's different between offline and online teamwork? Is the collaboration stronger, weaker? Can you point to any big differences there?

Joe: So when you're playing within a role, do you feel that there's more teamwork, more collaboration needed in a virtual environment, because that's the only way that you're interacting because you can only see what's being played out?

Peter: Absolutely. When you're playing a game, you're focusing on what you're doing individually, and the only way you can understand or the only way you can comprehend Games may be your only chance to attract the best and brightest talent Copyright Business901

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems what's going on with your teammates is by communication. If your teammates are not communicating, you could be susceptible to the other team ganging up on you or things you’re just not ready for unless you're communicating actively throughout a game.

Joe: There's constant chatter taking place such as in a dog fight or a fighter pilot with your other teammates or your other squadron members whom you're constantly saying 'watch for this' or 'watch for that'. Is that taking place?

Peter: When we're playing at full force, there's hardly a silent moment on Ventrilo, which is what we use to communicate within each other.

Joe: That chatter, I mean with five... Do you find yourself talking over the other one or is it by the roles that are being played, there's kind of a leader who should be talking?

Peter: People speak over each other when it's necessary. For the most part, our team is very good about not talking over each other unless, obviously, something's going on and something needs to happen. People will shout or yell over another in order to get that done.

Joe: Is there a planning aspect or do you just jump into the fray and inspect and adapt, as I would call it?

Peter: If you're going to jump into the fray and try to inspect and adapt against a good team, you're almost always going to lose. There is a lot of preparation that goes into games before they happen that's usually done behind the scenes, in order to get the one up on your opponents. You want to be prepared.

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems It's almost like practice. You want to scout them, you want to know what they're going to do, just like a football team, and they might watch replays of the other team before. You do the same thing in video games. You want to understand how they play, what they're trying to do as a team, and you want to be able to counter that.

Joe: You're out there watching the other team’s stream. Let's say that you're in a tournament, and you know the formidable competition within a tournament is going to be these two or three teams, then you might as a team go watch video and talk about the other team?

Peter: Yes. Joe: So you're just talking to each other about what you could do and how this person play or another?

Peter: We talk about what they do as a team. We talk about how they play, what heroes they like to play, what awards they like to place, which gives sight of the map by identifying what they do with certain timings, we can counter that with our own timing, timing pushes.

Joe: When you go through this process, I think of a football team, for example, they practice all week for two hours in a game. How much practice in relation to playing do you do?

Peter: We practice; I would say, probably, five to ten times as much as we play. One, that's because we just like to play the game, and we enjoy playing with each other more Games may be your only chance to attract the best and brightest talent Copyright Business901

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems than playing with the general public or other people. As a team, we enjoy playing as five, so we try to do that whenever we can. Honestly, tournaments aren't scarce, but they aren't every day. People like to play the game every day, whether it's after they get home from work, or after they get home from school. We try to get some games in and just hone our skills and stay fresh for when that tournament comes up.

Joe: Is there a particular way that you can get better at this? Have you discovered how you get better?

Peter: I think the best way to get better is to focus and eliminate distractions. If you're focused on a game, and you're paying attention to what's going on throughout the game, it'll increase your game play and can be the difference between winning the game and losing the game or being a bad player and being a good player. Any player can have a bad game when they're not focused, and any bad player can have a good game because of other people playing bad.

Joe: When you were playing World of Warcraft, I believe that there was a certain avatar that you acquire in that game, a certain image or a graphic image that was you?

Peter: Yes, and no. The WoW scene is so much bigger; they have multiple servers.

Definitely, you generate a reputation online and even in WoW, on a smaller basis, which is a server. Actually, you develop a role as a player, depending on what you're doing. Just like any other game, it needs roles and people have to be willing to play those roles.

People eventually find their best niche, and they stick to it, for the most part.

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems Peter: I think people that are aggressive online can be very aggressive offline, but at the same time I think that people that aren't aggressive offline can be very aggressive online because they can get away with it.

Joe: It really is two separate personalities?

Peter: It is entirely two separate personalities, in my opinion. There's a bit of overlap because some people can act like they are online, but it's very rare that you'll find someone like that, who'll really act like that in real life. You'll find tons of ignorant people, and tons of people that are extremely rude and mean on the Internet, sometimes including myself! Whereas if you met that person in real life, they would probably not be like that in any way, shape or form. They'd probably be the nicest guy, and you'd make friends with them instantly.

Joe: In the gaming world, there's a lot of talk in the industry, in the market place now, about gamification and changing work worlds to seem more like games where there are rewards and badges that people acquire. Is that too simplistic of a way to look at it, will it be very difficult to transfer that into a real work world?

Peter: You can definitely express your strengths in a game, whether it is leadership or teamwork, communication, and that can definitely transfer into a work-type situation where you're willing to step up and lead a group of employees, or whether you're willing to step up and lead a group of players on the Internet.

Joe: Is there anything that you could comment, or give tips on playing virtually that would help virtual teams out in the workforce that may be programming together or Games may be your only chance to attract the best and brightest talent Copyright Business901

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems software development or even engineering teams that look on each other at work and work on a whiteboard together at the same time, writers, things that work virtually could transfer to the workforce you have found has worked for you?

Peter: Absolutely. The big things are being able to get along with each other and not thinking that you're better than another person. People always think they have to one-up on the other person, depending on what they're doing in their life. They don't say it, but they think it. If you're willing to listen to other people and respect them for their ideas in an online situation, you can also do that in a work situation, whether it's programming or writing or whatever it is. You always need to let the other person speak no matter how bad their idea might be, and you need to respect their opinion.

Joe: Now you emphasize respecting, and respect for people, in a virtual world, and that is sometimes because you can't see the other person's emotion, just their voice and their tone. You can't see their other actions. Can you tell just by their tone?

Peter: You can tell when a person's mad or not. It's not exactly the hardest thing to do.

It's to the point where you don't want to push people over their limits because nothing good ever happens when you push someone over their limits.

Joe: If I was working with a virtual team in a work setting, do I need frequent interactions? Can you go a week without talking to each other than just pick up where you left off or do you feel it's important from a team perspective to have constant communications?

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems Peter: I think if a group or a team can be friends; I think that strengthens their teamwork, and it keeps the team together.

Joe: What do you think are some of the experiences that you'll take from these games that may be transferred to other parts of your life?

Peter: I'd say most of it has to do with how I interact with people, whether it's online or in person. You can gain a lot of confidence from playing a video game if you're good at it.

Joe: You've experienced in sports winning and losing, and you've been on successful teams. Is that feeling any different virtually, in virtual teams and virtual tournaments?

Peter: It's almost that same exact feeling. You develop a sense of confidence, not only in yourself but in your teammates in general and that strengthens your team unity. By having these minor successes you really build confidence and are able to compete at a higher level.

Joe: Do you think gaming increases your imagination? Do you think it spurs you to imaginative thought?

Peter: I really think that gaming develops almost a fictional world. Obviously, it's real but it definitely lets you use your imagination to think of the possibilities of where can you go with this game, or what can be done and there's always room to be creative and develop new strategies or maybe suggest new heroes to a company that they should produce. The limits are endless, and you're free to use your imagination and do whatever you want, and Games may be your only chance to attract the best and brightest talent Copyright Business901

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems people sometimes will actually listen. And even if they don't, you still get to express your opinion.

Joe: Are gaming companies into the latest innovations, thoughts like co-creation and open innovation? Are they regularly seeking your input as a player?

Peter: As a competitive player in the top one percent of the gaming community in HoN, we speak consistently on whether we think heroes are fair, whether we think, they're balanced, what changes need to be done and we as players give them feedback, and they respond. Sometimes they disagree with us, sometimes they agree with us. But they're always there to listen and give us the changes that we think are necessary.

Joe: Can someone who doesn't really understand a game watch a game? For example, your first time watching a game, will you understand it at all?

Peter: I've been playing these types of games for almost seven years. I don't think people would understand exactly what is going on unless they had a general idea or something about how the game is played.

Joe: If someone really wanted to get involved in gaming, or the types of games like HoN and World of Warcraft, where would you tell them to start? What would you introduce to them?

Peter: I think they should try all the certain types of games that are out there. It helps if they have some sort of gaming background. I think it's going to be pretty hard to start Games may be your only chance to attract the best and brightest talent Copyright Business901

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems fresh unless you played as a kid. That's why I think a lot of adults don't understand. I think in the next generation; there's going to be a lot more adults playing video games.

Joe: That's because all of you will become adults!

Peter: Yes. We're over watching TV. I don't watch TV any more. I watch Livestream or YouTube videos. That's my TV now.

Joe: How could somebody watch the sGty team if they want to watch them?

Peter: We all Livestream, or four out of the five of us do, almost on a consistent basis. If they wanted to watch they could check out our streams, which are on Justin.tv.

Joe: How would they find it on Justin.tv?

Peter: You would go to the gaming section of Justin.tv and it would appear on the front page of the gaming section. Our streams would pop up there if we are streaming live at the moment.

Joe: That's a very popular thing for viewers...

Peter: Even if you don't get that many viewers Livestreaming it's really fun to interact with people, almost on a fan type of basis. These people are watching you stream because they want to watch you play, and they want to see what's going on in your gaming life.

They want the drama; they want to see the failure, and they want to see the successes.

It's almost like a TV show.

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems Joe: They don't want to watch a massacre. They want to watch competitive games.

Peter: Yes, that's why they go to the stream in the first place. They want to see this player play and having a respectable and big name in the community is what gets you those viewers. But even if you're losing, sometimes you can still be entertaining, and people want to watch that.

Joe: It's great to hear from an active player. I'd like to thank you very much.

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Podcast Transcription Implementing Lean Marketing Systems Joseph T. Dager Business901 Phone: 260-918-0438 Skype: Biz901 Fax: 260-818-2022 Email: jtdager@business901.com Website: http://www.business901.com Twitter: @business901 Joe Dager is president of Business901, a firm specializing in bringing the continuous improvement process to the sales and marketing arena. He takes his process thinking of over thirty years in marketing within a wide variety of industries and applies it through Lean Marketing and Lean Service Design.

Visit the Lean Marketing Lab: Being part of this community will allow you to interact with like-minded individuals and organizations, purchase related tools, use some free ones and receive feedback from your peers.

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