Most of us, even those who play games regularly, don’t realize how complicated conceptualizing, creating and releasing a new game actually is. When you think of Angry Birds for example, you probably don’t think about over 8 months of development and maybe even longer. This is one of the reasons the game industry needs Machinations.
The startup was officially launched in 2018, is backed by some of the top VCs in Europe and is an alumni of the Fit4Start program. It is already taking the 160 billion dollar game industry by storm. I caught up with CEO and Co-founder Mihai Gheza to learn more about what Machinations does and why this is one startup we all might want to watch out for, even those of us that feel games are for children.
The Machinations story started 9 years ago when Joris Dormans, the co-founder of Machinations published his PHD paper at the University of Amsterdam, built the first version of Machinations in Flash and then released it along with a book co-authored with Ernest Adams. This PHD paper, the original tool and the book spread organically and became very popular in both academic and professional circles. Mihai Gheza recognised Machinations’ immense potential, reached out to Joris in 2017 and started Machinations.io. The company was incorporated when they entered Fit4Start.
Mihai explained that the tools typically used by game designers throughout a game’s lifecycle usually include sketches, PowerPoint documents and spreadsheets which are just not right for the task. Games are complex systems, with built-in randomness, played by unpredictable agents, all of which creates emergence (apparent chaos).
“..by the time you get yourself coffee, you’ll be able to predict the future.”
Mihai Gheza
“Using unfit tools leads to unfit workflows like playtesting broken prototypes or launching games with bugs in logic and bugs in math. We typically just look at bugs in technology but there are all sorts of flaws you can put in systems and math. All sorts of errors can happen because the systems haven’t been analysed, tweaked or balanced.”, he explained further.
By not being able to analyse game systems correctly, game development teams often release games that are too easy, too difficult, too fast or too slow for example, and all of these are aspects that ultimately make a game less successful with users/gamers.
This is where Machinations is making a difference. It is the only tool of its kind for game designers that allows them to quickly design, simulate and balance games. The tool is also easy to use and it takes a game designer an average time of just 4 hours to learn how to use it.
Machinations runs in your browser like Google docs and uses a standardised modelling language so it can be used and understood by anyone. A game designer can drag and drop elements to create the basic structure for the game, add in variables and then, the magic as Mihai called it, starts in the background.
The Machinations system simulates potentially limitless game scenarios to show the game designer exactly what those scenarios would look like if an actual player was playing. This helps identify potential problems, study outliers and visualize precisely how changes in one part of the game might impact the whole. It also allows game development studios to drastically reduce what would otherwise be a very long process of testing the game. As Mihai put it during our chat, “..by the time you get yourself coffee, you’ll be able to predict the future.”
In addition to teams and individual game developers leveraging the tool, Machinations is also being used in over 400 academic institutions by students, teachers and researchers. Over 60 of the top universities use Machinations when they teach game design. This happened organically Mihai tells me.
Another very interesting development, and maybe one that was not originally in focus when the Machinations framework was created, is that approximately 10% of the Machinations user base is from other industries like mobility, AI, Crypto, logistics. The tool can be used to simulate almost anything by using the same process of creating a structure and adding in variables. “When the whole framework of Machinations steps in, there is virtually no limit to the complexity you can express.” added Mihai.
When I asked him what’s important for Machinations now, he talked about ‘Community’ and how it is probably the most important strategic goal at the moment. Machinations wants to get designers, creators, specialists all to come together on the platform. The idea is to give these creators a platform to showcase their work and to collaborate and create together.
“The community section on Machinations’ website already has almost 7000 designers and over 13,000 designs” and you can view, like, follow these designers and their work. It’s like the Instagram for game design and even for an ex-game-geek like myself, it’s quite addictive!
It is clear that Machinations has already irreversibly changed the game design industry and is here to stay. What we are excited about and waiting to see is what else will Machinations change.
You can also click here to watch a video explaining why game designers and developers really need Machinations.
