One time early in my career, I pitched an idea for a game. My boss rejected the idea, saying it wasn’t good enough. Oh well, it happens. I moved on to a different idea.

A week goes by, my boss seems confused and asks “Why did you give up on that idea?”. I was very confused and was like “Uh…because you rejected it and said it wasn’t good enough?”.

She said “No Mort, you can’t just give up on an idea after one rejection. There were very good parts of that idea. You need to re-evaluate what was good, and what didn’t work, and change your approach. Maybe it was how you presented it, maybe what’s in your head wasn’t clear.”

At the time, the logical part of my brain didn’t get it. But over time I came to realize how correct the advice I was given was. There can be nuggets of an idea or solution that are correct, but you just don’t quite have certain details correct. Maybe the execution, maybe the delivery, but a change in approach can go a long ways.

I’m now far enough in my career I have seen countless times and idea get shot down, only for it to be used 3-5 years later with different circumstances and framing. Hell, the game Mini Mario & Friends Amiibo Challenge used all the minis I had pitched almost 8 years before when I first joined Nintendo.

And this advice is not game dev specific. It’s true in all aspects of life. If you properly re-evaluate why something was shot down, you’ll be surprised what you can learn and how you can improve.

Ok, time to go read all the responses to the patch so far and have some breakfast. Until next time, take it easy 🙂