Simon South

In my previous post I wrote about the transcripts Jordan Mechner has posted from a journal he kept while working on Prince of Persia.

Mechner is a true genius. Few people have the ability to imagine, design and create the way he can, and I don’t want to suggest what he’s accomplished would be easy for me or anyone else to repeat. But reading about Mechner’s experience creating Prince of Persia reminded me of some of the lessons I’ve learned in my career so far.

• It matters that you focus your creative energy on something. It doesn’t seem to matter nearly as much what that something is. Mechner always believed Prince of Persia could be a revolutionary game, but creating it wasn’t originally how he wanted to be spending his time. Instead, he feared it was a distraction from what he “should” be doing: trying to enter the movie industry. I’ve come to believe it’s important not to second-guess yourself too much when you’re trying to decide what to focus on next. It’s just too hard to predict what will lead to success. What matters is that you keep creating.

• Great work doesn’t always fit the 9-to-5 mold. This is especially true of creative work, but I think it applies more generally too. People have lives; they have moods; they fluctuate between periods of high and low productivity. There’s simply no way a person can be expected to be producing their best work at a given hour every day. I think it’s very significant that at the time he wrote the game, Mechner was working independently under contract to Brøderbund. Could an office worker have created Prince of Persia?

• Be careful about compromising with others. Much is said about teamwork and cooperation in the workplace but the simple truth is that revolutionary products are often the work of a single determined person acting on their own. Craigslist was created by Craig Newmark so he could get to know people in San Francisco; it eventually displaced just about every other classified-ads site. Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg in his university dorm room; it is now the most popular social-media website and the fourth largest website in the world. Apple is a particularly enduring example: The company’s earliest products, which practically defined the home computer market, were almost entirely the creation of one of its founders, Steve Wozniak. Its success with the Macintosh through to the iPod, iPhone and onwards is widely attributed to the uncompromising vision of its other founder, Steve Jobs.

  Of course, many people contributed to these products before they became the success they’re recognized as today. Likewise for Prince of Persia. But I doubt very much any of these would have been so successful had the creator agreed to swallow his high standards in order to keep a group of co-workers happy.

• Have faith in yourself. Creative people are notoriously bad at evaluating their own work. What’s worse is often the people around them are just as lousy at it: Brøderbund’s marketing department felt Prince of Persia‘s initial sales figures had revealed its true worth and decided not to promote it early on. It was, in part, Mechner’s faith in his work that led the company to eventually take the game seriously, reissuing it with new marketing and vaulting it to success.

  Sticking to your beliefs and your vision means you risk having to admit later on you were wrong. When that happens, it’s unpleasant. Having to live with failure because you knew everyone else was wrong yet you thought it best not to say anything—that hurts.

Just last night I learned Jordan Mechner had posted on his website transcripts from a journal he kept during the years he was working on the original Prince of Persia computer game.

Prince of Persia was a work of art: a haunting, beautiful game that broke new ground in terms of character animation and interactive storytelling. All my friends in the early 90′s were hooked on it. The game’s enduring popularity led to a franchise that continues to this day. There is even a movie coming out this year.

In short, Prince of Persia was a big deal.

Reading through the journal, a handful of things stood out for me:

• Mechner didn’t really want to be writing computer games. He wanted to sell a screenplay and enter the movie business. That didn’t happen (not the way he’d originally hoped, at least), but his side-project for Brøderbund went on to make him famous.

• Mechner was a procrastinator. For much of the game’s development he worked on it only sporadically, even taking an eight-month hiatus at one point while he tried to sell his screenplay. Mechner ended up putting in plenty of long days on Prince of Persia, especially towards its release, but it was hardly a continuous effort.

• The game was essentially a one-man project, with Mechner controlling the quality of the work. In addition to the programming, Mechner created all of the animations and level designs as well as most of the graphics. He helped compose the music and even contributed to the design of the game’s packaging. Mechner was determined to make the game live up to his vision: In places he writes about handing off work to others, being disappointed with the results, and redoing the work himself so it would meet his standards. At one point it seems the PC version might not happen at all simply because Mechner can’t find a programmer he trusts to do a good enough job.

• Even Mechner sometimes doubted himself. Seeing the project through to completion was hard enough: Occasionally when describing his plans for the game Mechner ends his posts with, “All I have to do is finish it,” as if to wonder aloud whether he’ll really be able to stick with it to the end. When the game fails to take off shortly after its release, Mechner dourfully notes,

  Prince sold 500 units last month on the IBM, 38 on the Apple. That’s about as dead as can be.

Mechner’s “dead” game went on to be a tremendous commercial success and one of the most significant games of its generation.

The journal is a fascinating read for anyone who, like me, has fond memories of Mechner’s work. I’ll have more to say about it in my next post.