Feature: Why Being a Computer Game Developer Sucks
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Fallout 2. A case in point. (Score:1)
by Tinkertot (kbjk_txsb@hotmail.com) on Friday August 20, @06:04AM (#1735755)
(User #30804 Info)
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Don't get we wrong, Fallout 2 is an amazing game, but the errors, bugs and slow-downs I got from playing the game without the patch(I got the game when it first came out) really ruined the experience for me. I just wish that marketing stayed away from the programmers during the creation of the game, and Black Isle released it when it was ready, instead of rushing it straight to market. I think that the time has come to give really good game ideas the time they need to flourish, instead of rushing them to market all of the time.
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An Open Source Solution? (Score:1)
by Wah (SPAMthewah@uswest.netDAM) on Friday August 20, @04:59AM (#1735756)
(User #30840 Info | http://wahcentral.net)
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(disclaimer: not a serious coder, more of a benevolent observer and person with money to spend on games) I mentioned this in another gaming article (more focused on the OSS side) so if this is redundant to you I apologize. The major problem, as I see it, with creating consistent high-quality games is building the underlying technology. As the author said, game engines have a half-life (yes, pun) of about two years. Now wouldn't the open source model for building software be applicable to creating such engines. The bugs could be worked out en masse and all the nifty features could be added a la carte. This would also provide the community type support that I have found SO extremely helpful in learning Linux and Apache. Not having to build a quick, proprietary (and therefore buggy) engine for each game would allow designers to work on the stuff that make a great game, level design, art, interaction, sound, etc. By lowering the programming barriers to entry we might even see a return to the lone-wolf style games that bootstrapped the industry. And just might lower game prices into a range where they can be massively consumed, like movies. Personally I think $20 is a good target. With the rise of digital (legal) distribution, and the HUGE proliferation of gaming sites (comes close the pr0n IMHO) would provide all the hype, marketing, and access you need to sustain a comsumption driven product. Also building a common installer and graphic libs would GREATLY reduce the complexity of getting games running on the wide variety of installations out there, not to mention a conversion of the next generation of gamers. Just some thoughts on a Frydi...
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Re:First post? Doubt it (Score:1)
by Wah (SPAMthewah@uswest.netDAM) on Friday August 20, @05:05AM (#1735757)
(User #30840 Info | http://wahcentral.net)
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Sometimes I wonder how software companies make money at all see: business practices, Microsoft. (sorry folks, but that's the harsh reality.)
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Re:Zork --Gesundheidt! (Couldn't resist) (Score:1)
by Torodung on Friday August 20, @09:34AM (#1735758)
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Don't complain to us, create what you want. (Score:1)
by john187 on Friday August 20, @05:32AM (#1735759)
(User #32291 Info | http://www.2ad.com/john)
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If you had told me this over coffee, I would urge you to leave your job and find something you could be more enthusiastic about. Saying that systemic problems are keeping you down is tantamount to giving up. If YOU wan't to change the computer games industry, change it by being successful in a new mode of game development and distribution. Of course, you must be aware of the success of ID, through Internet distribution and freebies. You allude to the "big game companies" with their "first person shooters" but look back five years and you won't see all those first person shooters, you'll see a few guys about to revolutionize an industry with a new type of game and a new form of distribution. The bad news is that the situation you describe is true of the computer industry as a whole. The good news is that you get to decide: work for Microsoft, or work on free software, start a new company, or work at a bank. It's your choice. John
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Re:Supply and Demand (Score:1)
by sugarman on Friday August 20, @06:20AM (#1735760)
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It also seems silly to me that those violence-obsessed 14-year-old boys get so much attention from the industry. How much purchasing power could they possibly have, when compared with literate, college educated adults? It isn't so much about purchasing power, as it is about what you are willing to spend the money on. For 14 year olds, dropping cash on Games (or comics, CCG's, D&D, and whatever else the flavour of the month is) is a lot easier to justify. As a literate, college-educated adult, I find I have less time to play the games, regardless of type, and other responsibilites, for both my money and my time. Thus, while I wouldn't mind playing the latest and greatest, I have little to no tolerance for a game that leaves me feeling like I've wasted that time. Thus, the games that reside on my HD are traditionally either quick and easy card games that can be done while waiting for a download, or a mindless shooter that can be dropped into and out of without a significant investiture of time (ie, Q3A). And somehow, I get a sneaking suspicsion that I'm not alone in this either.
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Re:Get some perspective... (Score:1)
by CynicX32 on Friday August 20, @10:35AM (#1735761)
(User #34604 Info | http://www.trickster.net/junkmail/)
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Worked hard? Who worked hard? What I remember from my history is, some old white dudes moved in to a resource-rich land, killed damn near everyone there, enslaved the population of another continent to work that land and since then has been moving on momentum. Sure, some people worked hard. But to *expect* this great life is the problem with this article. This author expects that everything should be handed to him, that he shouldn't have to work hard to get it. Do you think the people that "worked hard" to bring us our American Dream loved their jobs? No. But now people want everything. If you think we should all just sit on our asses and live off of the spoils of our ancestry, you've got to give me some of whatever you've been smoking. ryan
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Get some perspective... (Score:1)
by CynicX32 on Friday August 20, @05:54AM (#1735762)
(User #34604 Info | http://www.trickster.net/junkmail/)
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I'm sick and tired of people whose lives center around computers, and themselves. Points: 1) Your dog lives a better and healthier life tha 90% of the people on this planet. Cry me a river for the woes of not having "fun" at work, when in most of the world people are shitting their intestines out because they can't get any food. 2) Stop using hyperbolic exaggeration. If I read one more fucking paranoid computer user talk about "big brother" reading their email, I'll flip. Big Brother is the one that shoots you if talk bad about the government in China, not the one that simply suggests that maybe you don't talk about felching in the Barney newsgroups. 3) I don't care which platform you like. Can we move on to something important? In short, this article is whiny. I'd lay dollars to donuts that this author is a rich white male. Guess what? No matter what insignificant, lame job you take you're still going to be successful. You can afford a computer! You eat 500% more food than you need to survive! You're killing hundreds of people every day through your incessant consumption! Get over yourselves! ryan
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Crappy business practices ... (Score:1)
by Stavr0 on Friday August 20, @04:48AM (#1735763)
(User #35032 Info | http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Monday January 21, @12:34PM)
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... don't just happen in the Gaming industry. I hear of lots of high-tech companies that "love to exploit 19 year old programmers", "fail to actually apply the principles [of project management]" and slot multi-talented people in a (mismatched) very narrow job description. Seems to me that it's a quasi-universal problem! - - -
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Can't get product out? Not as bad as other fields (Score:1)
by edremy on Friday August 20, @05:23AM (#1735764)
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If you think game software is bad for getting something useful published, try some other field, especially research related ones. I used to work for the drug company Merck- my father worked there for 30+ years as an organic chemist. Number of drugs on the market that he made: 0. This is actually the typical output for a medicinal chemist- the fraction of compounds that become successful drugs is so small as to approach zero. My Dad was luckier than most- he actually got a compound to final human trials before it was canned. Oh, and you don't exactly get a lot of latitude when it comes to deciding what avenues to pursue. The saving grace is that at least drug companies are realistic about deadlines- they know it takes years even with an all-out rush, so you don't have the pressure to ship by Christmas.
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Well... (Score:1)
by My_Favorite_Anonymou on Friday August 20, @04:45AM (#1735765)
(User #36494 Info | http://yechen.org)
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You should read more Hollywoon tradepaper, because a mature Game market should very much resemble the entertainment business. When you read that The Fnglish Patient beat out Fargo, or Babe: Pig in the City bomb in BO, maybe you will feel better. If you want more fair/stable environment, your hardware upgrade cycle has to be longer than a couple of years. You still don't give console enough credit. Really want something that can exploit PC's potential, how's this for an idea: A stradegy game that's skinable, user will make their own figure, map and storyline. (kids will make pokemon saga and Slashdoter will make Redmond Monster.) A skin editor that is opensource and modular. You make money off of the host gamename.org. CY
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It's not just the gaming industry (Score:1)
by BigCigar (coreyg_nospam@usa.com) on Friday August 20, @04:49AM (#1735766)
(User #38560 Info | http://members.xoom.com/bigcigar)
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Pick any industry that produces commercial software and you'll find lack of design, testing, documentation and shorten deadlines. My advice is to do your 8 hours and do what the pointy-hair managers want and CYA out the wahzoo. Or become an hourly employee and profit from the overtime that will be coming your way when the project managers screw up (and they will screw up). Back in '94 I started my own company and tried to release a commerical product. What I have found is you have about a 6 month window to design, code test, and release before you miss the window of opportunity. I was my own worse boss and worked 14 hour days, 7 days a week, for 7 months. I've consulted and done the salary thing since and have seen a lot of companies flush millions of dollars into projects with nothing to show for it. All the same reasons you sited in your article.
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Re:Supply and Demand (Score:1)
by Inspector (mgentili@SPAMSPAMSPAMsomanetworks.com) on Friday August 20, @04:48AM (#1735767)
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Which people? Granted console gamers will buy the same old tripe over and over again, but there's a whole other sector of the market out there to be exploited. I and most of my friends stopped buying games when the Quest (sierra type games) dissappeared. You can definitly make money selling slick FPSs to fourteen year olds, but small business probably has a better chance of profiting from a more mature slice of the market.
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on the other side (Score:1)
by RoLlEr_CoAsTeR (httpdaemon@iname.com) on Friday August 20, @05:36AM (#1735768)
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I can imagine so. Although, if I could code a really cool game (i.e., really cool to me)/get it to work/etc... I'd be happy enough with just that. But I can see where, when one is trying to make a living out of coding games and doesn't get very far..well, it'd be discouraging (as the article related). but then, I think i'd do just what he said he might do.. switch to a different source of income, and code for fun. that way, your work is appreciated more, by you, the OSS community, etc..
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Yes, that was right! (Score:1)
by icarus_flies (ryan.nospam@nospam.thiessen.com) on Friday August 20, @04:39AM (#1735769)
(User #41179 Info | http://www.ryan.thiessen.com)
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Sorry, but how many people downloaded Q3Arena? It's not quite available in my local bookstore yet, but there are 200+ servers full of people playing constantly. FPS may not be my favorite type of game, but there will always be a spot on my hard drive for the best-looking, repsonsive, multiplayer FPS.
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indeed. (Score:1)
by Juln on Friday August 20, @07:57PM (#1735770)
(User #41313 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
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yes, Halflife is so much better than quake 2. It really shows that ID is good at producing technology but lousy at making imaginative games. Quake 2 is REALLY BORING and Quake 3 is...more of the same. Quake 2 single player was so utterly devoid of excitement i can see why they are leaving it out of q3.
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Re:Might and Magic II (Score:1)
by KenR on Friday August 20, @01:34PM (#1735771)
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Yeah, Dungeon master changed the way I thought about games. Superbly crafted, and _way_ ahead of its time. And Chaos Strikes back was just as good. I wonder what happened to the team that created Dungeon Master.
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try Director Web (Score:1)
by gonzocanuck on Friday August 20, @06:30AM (#1735772)
(User #44989 Info | http://www.gonzo.org)
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Yeah, that is true, but fostering a game for hate is such a bad idea! Try Director Web http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/director/digest/index.html and search July for Pakistan
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true (+example) (Score:1)
by gonzocanuck on Friday August 20, @04:40AM (#1735773)
(User #44989 Info | http://www.gonzo.org)
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No kidding :-) I've tried things in Shockwave that are mildly amusing but would never appeal to a mass audience. OTOH, I'm on a director list and about two months ago this guy posted his game URL to the list and asked for advice on how to make it better. The list was just *stunned* because in the game, India always wins over Pakistan. The programmer (who should have known better) tried to lamely say that if we all lived in India we would understand. I find it sad that someone would use Lingo in this way. I still have my response to the person: Hi listies, I don't think this is too OT since you can make games with Director and devising and programming one are certainly considerations. Since I hang around Shockrave a lot, hee hee, I have played a few stinkers. The post about Vishnal's game got me thinking. I have to say I don't like the game, but I'm sure that someone out there has thought of an American equivalent of it somewhere - who knows - perhaps Hatewatch would know. I read somewhere once that game programming had to be one of the hardest jobs there is. When I play old 2600 games on my PC, I wonder how I liked any of them in the first place, and I don't mean Custer's Revenge either! But then, it took an incredible amount of imagination to interpret the games - maybe my brother and I are the only ones who thought the thief in Raiders of the Lost Ark was a total pervert with the way he came in his trenchcoat and "robbed" you. I think Americans are pretty edgy about game violence right now. But you know, I live in a pre-dominantly East Indian neighbourhood. During a provincial election, the PC candidate was Indian, the Liberal candidate was Pakistani. You wouldn't believe how many Liberal signs were defaced! And I find that somewhat sad, that people can't leave their ill feelings behind when they come to a new country. The same thing happened on Heritage Day a few yrs ago when Serbs and Croats started a fight at the festival. Now they place their tents on opposite sides of the grounds. I myself always thought technology was supposed to be enlightening. But sadly, the technology of war is very frightning. Wars in the middle ages were really great shoving matches, where most of the soldiers were drunk (not to mention accompanied by hordes of people). People talk of the dehumanizing factors of games, but ever since WW2, govts have been trying to find ways of dehumanizing people in order to kill. This, in fact, extends to slaughterhouses, where people become an extension of a vast and impersonal killing process. I like the idea of people finding other things to use instead of bullets. Like in Water Balloon drop, you throw eggs and tomatoes! And it remains a fun game even though no one is ever killed. Salon recently had a good article on why even violent games can fail (which should be handy for anyone): http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/06/21/game_ violence/index.html Vishnal, I harbour no ill will, but one should always consider the audience of the list. I have noticed that there are mostly German, North American, French and New Zealand/Australian people here. While you made a game with Lingo and Director, people cannot be expected to react differently than what they did. It would be similar if I made a shoot 'em up where beavers picked off eagles out of the sky. This wouldn't exactly make me popular with too many people. Racial intolerance and hatred is not tolerated in most Western countries, and I think that such a game would even be illegal in the US or Canada. When you deal with a global audience, all sensitivities must be taken into account. I believe there are different arcade versions of the Battle of Midway (or is it 1945?) for American and Japanese markets. And it pleases me that games are also marked with levels of violence, such as Pitfall, where one is required to kill animals. You wanted to know if the game could be imp Read the rest of this comment...
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Re:What a load of nonsense! (Score:1)
by wct on Friday August 20, @06:29AM (#1735774)
(User #45593 Info | http://www.ecel.uwa.edu.au/~dvenkita)
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I can't vouch for the accuracy of the the article, but it seemed pretty down-to-earth and straightforward. What I can vouch for, is the quality of the two pieces of software he mentions (Music-X and FTA) - they were both outstanding programs that I would still use today, if I still had my Amiga. Hmmm, I wonder what happened to microillusions?
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Failed game projects... (Score:1)
by NullGrey on Friday August 20, @06:04AM (#1735775)
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...Should be Oper-Sourced. They're not going to do anything with that code, why waste it?
+-- stack. the off .sig this pop I as Watch
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It's the company and not the industry (Score:1)
by Bughammer on Friday August 20, @04:41AM (#1735776)
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I spent three years with a game studio, and I haven't seen most of the complaints he gripes about. I think he's right about the industry, that very few development studios make it big, and that it's a constant struggle to survive until you've published one big title. But i don't share his views on the development environment. Although we did work very hard (a small week was 60 hours), and that pay was crap compared to the corp I work for now, it was a blast working there. The coding team was in it for the code, not for the cash, so we were always pushing ourselves hard to impress everyone else. We'd discuss ideas, and argue them out, and of course play pretty hard on friday nights. The best thing about the game community is that different departements weren't in competition with each other. You didn't have this air of supremacy that engineers seem to have over other departments, like QA or documentation. I thought it was awesome. Some of the guys I worked with are now with EA or Activision, and they seem to have as much fun their as they did with our old outfit. BH
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Re:Interesting, but does not quite make the point (Score:1)
by daemon23 (ten.tta.tendlrow@noocjr) on Friday August 20, @06:31AM (#1735777)
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Perhaps this is just me, but it seems fairly obvious why the games industry could be less lucrative than any other--hundreds of games are fighting for the consumers' money simultaneously. For example, I consider myself a fairly "hardcore" gamer. I own about 60 games for my PC, a hundred plus for my old C64, etc, etc. All paid for. And still, I probably own less than 1% of games out there. When you've got that much competition for the consumer's money, some--hell, probably most--games are going to fail to turn a profit. Now, compare that to, say, the home apps industry. Really, you've got only a handful of companies offering similar products, and many times only one (MickeySquish) gets marketed to any degree, and other apps companies without the marketing clout to make themselves heard don't invest in similar apps. Of course, there are the other companies (i.e., StarDivision), but the investment in time and effort in these products is likely to be much less--I mean, which seems more difficult, coding up a matrix transformation algorithm to adjust the game player's view, or writing up a "Search and Replace" function for a system with so much computing power that the user isn't likely to note the time difference between different search algorithms? Plus, they usually cost the consumers more money. This all seems rather obvious to me. I may be mistaken in the depth of programming issues in the apps industry, and I'm certain the time and effort to develop "Slingo" were relatively low. (By the way, I highly suggest finding a review of this game to marvel at the idiocy. It's single player Bingo with pretty graphics.) However, all the impressions of the gaming industry I've EVER read or heard of has portrayed it in a favorable light; creative, fun and rewarding, even if it is somewhat low-paying. So, as far as I can see, the author raised a perfectly valid, well-stated point. I don't see how he needs to find the reason why.
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Re:The "Typical programmer demographic"? (Score:1)
by GnrcMan on Friday August 20, @05:45AM (#1735778)
(User #53534 Info | http://www.kckd.org/)
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That's right. I'm a "typical programmer" and if I had my way we'd all be playing Zork!
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Re:What a load of nonsense! (Score:1)
by GnrcMan on Friday August 20, @05:53AM (#1735779)
(User #53534 Info | http://www.kckd.org/)
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Ah, the naivity of the young. Sorry, but he's right. In fact, I would have to say that your reply was much more loaded with "illogical banter and emotional nonsense". You seem to be pretty defensive about this.
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Re:Zork (Score:1)
by GnrcMan on Friday August 20, @06:48AM (#1735780)
(User #53534 Info | http://www.kckd.org/)
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Activision kinda blew it when they bought Infocom. And BTW, there is still quite a cult following for those games. The Z-Machine (Zorks VM) has been reverse engineered. There is a language called Inform. For a plethora of information, go here
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Wow (Score:1)
by SnowLion on Friday August 20, @06:52PM (#1735781)
(User #54578 Info | http://home.sprynet.com/~snowlion/)
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Wow, this sounds like a very beautiful setup you have going. Thank you for sharing. I'd like to know how it is that you all found each other and decided to work together.
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Yes, I think that this is true. (Score:1)
by SnowLion on Friday August 20, @07:14PM (#1735782)
(User #54578 Info | http://home.sprynet.com/~snowlion/)
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I agree with the author. This is my experience working on a computer game for 2 years and having it nuked, no-where near done. We must have gone through 3 iterations of redesign, and a million mis-steps. After the game development was over, I was moved to working with Web-DB projects. I found these to be every bit as interesting, and quite exciting at times as well. (Special thanks go out to Philip Greenspun, www.photo.net, for making my Bible: Philip & Alex's Guide to Web Publishing.) It also feels a lot better to know that I am working on something that is actually usefull to people, and is not just going to be another shovel-ware game on the shelf. I cannot say that the time spent on the game was not without merit, however. I *DID* get to see first hand how various projects fail. Why thinking long term is important. I got through a number of ... I don't know what to call them... It takes time to learn how to be a full-time software developer that writes good code. I have been working at it for 2 years. I still see millions of ways in which my code could be better, I am still puzzling out about design strategies. But, I know a lot more than what I knew two years ago. So, I think that there is still a degree of social merit in failed projects, because it allows us to learn more. One of my favorite things about this authors post is that he said that he decided to work on games in his off time. I have found myself doing the same, and it *IS* a lot more fun. It is far more rewarding. Take Care, Lion
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amazing (Score:1)
by colmore on Friday August 20, @05:34AM (#1735783)
(User #56499 Info | http://www.colmore.com/)
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that's simply amazing... but really the only game projects I am interested in right now are Black + White, Civ 3, and Quake 3. All of these seem to be developed by teams of people that are also in allmost full control of their companies. They are all on the "it's done when it's done" schedule. And they are all using a type of stealth marketing, using their own good reputations and word of mouth to hype their products.
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Totally wrong (Score:1)
by Lucius Lucanius (luciuslucanius@yahoo.com) on Friday August 20, @05:44AM (#1735784)
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Actually, the gaming industry is bigger than Hollywood in terms of revenues. This includes consoles+PC games - but overall, the gaming industry is bigger. The gaming business in 1997 was worth $5.1 billion (of which $3.3 billion was console based). L.
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Re:If you don't like it, do it right yourself. (Score:1)
by awhit (awhit@acm.removemefirst.jhu.edu) on Friday August 20, @05:39AM (#1735785)
(User #62472 Info | http://www.jarjarmustdie.com)
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Yeah, but some people don't want to risk everything they have in starting a business - especially in a field where small companies are eaten alive at an alarming rate. For every lil' guy who makes it there are a huge number who don't . If you're a young developer, maybe you can go off on your own and take the plunge. But if you've got a family or debts, taking a huge risk might not be such a hot idea. The only other choice is to work for someone else - and then you've lost most of your "freedom to innovate". --- A
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Examples should support your argument... (Score:1)
by awhit (awhit@acm.removemefirst.jhu.edu) on Friday August 20, @05:50AM (#1735786)
(User #62472 Info | http://www.jarjarmustdie.com)
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In case you haven't noticed, Alpha Centauri is yet another cookie-cutter game (although a fun one!). Games where you "build your civilization" and "discover new technologies" are a dime a dozen - MOO/MOO2, Outpost, Civilization(1,2), Age of Empires, Lightspeed ; the list goes on. There are only a few genres - FPS, build-a-civilization, overhead-action (ala Diablo), fighting games, and sports games. And almost universally, all the games within each genre resemble each other to a disturbing degree. New games just mean more blinky lights and neat-o sound effects. --- A
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Re:Thoughts from another game developer (Score:1)
by Todd Stewart on Friday August 20, @08:57AM (#1735787)
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>Having worked with >>>Talon a few years ago, I thought I would give my thoughts on his piece. Doh! Shows what I get for bothering to spellcheck!
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Thoughts from another game developer (Score:1)
by Todd Stewart on Friday August 20, @08:11AM (#1735788)
(User #63317 Info)
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Having worked with Talon a few years ago, I thought I would give my thoughts on his piece. I've been making computer games professionally as software engineer for about six years now. Talin was at the small first company I worked for. I really miss the atmosphere of that little group of people. Although, I've come to appreciate the bigger impersonal and wealthier companies. I should say first that I'm commenting more from the console perspective than the home computer market, that is where my most recent work has focused. >Failed products and harsh economics aren't the only reason why > the games industry has become a miserable place. I would have to disagree with this assertion. I would agree that there are many game industry people I know how express frustration with the whole industry and their jobs/situation. However, they usually add that compared to digging a ditch maybe things aren't really that bad. I don't really see people getting lower pay than other industries - but I'm not that familiar with other sectors of the computer industry. Almost all game programmers I know who have been in the industry more than a year make a comfortable to very comfortable living. >It loves to exploit 19 year old programmers who work 10-12 > hours a day, get paid less than the standard wage for >programmers in other industries, I believe that this is less a problem with the game industry itself than the 19 year olds. From reading some of the posts here and from personal experience, the games industry is considered, rightly or wrongly, cool to work for. So economical speaking, that 19 year old is trading some salary for the perceived coolness of the job. There are lots and lots of people out there sending their resumes to companies saying that they have no experience but they really want to work on games. I don't think many other computer industries have anything similar. The closest I can think of would be Hollywood and new actors who will do anything just to get their first part. I believe that once most junior games programmers get their first title under their belt and/or have their first lunch with an experienced game programmer and "you're making how much!?!" they wise up. >I should also mention that the games industry has little respect for experience I would disagree one this point. The game industry values experience just as much as any other industry. However, the value of experience is weighed heavily towards ones most recent work or platform. One rarely hears mention of the number of years a person has been in the industry - almost always a person is described as a 'playstation person' or we need to get someone with N64 experience/title. The number of years will get one more pay or possibly more managerial responsibilities. I don't necessarily agree with this valuation of experience - but I would say it is the norm in my experience. >The whole > process by which games are budgeted and scheduled, for example, > is something that I find amazing that anyone could take >seriously. I believe this comes from two reasons. First, I believe that at some point in the past few years the average game's natural(not scheduled) development time has gone over year. This is of course because of their increasing complexity. With a so many games trying to hit Christmas, this creates an endless cycle of projects missing Christmas and at the same time putting the next project behind before it has even started. You hear a LOT of conversations of this sort: "We need to make Christmas" "There is no way we can make Christmas" "You don't understand, we really need to make Christmas" "You don't understand, there is NO way we can make Christmas" "You don't understand, we REALLY need to make Christmas" "You don't understand, there is NO FUCKING way we can make Christmas" ... Second, because the projects are getting bigger, the amount of money involved in a project is getting intRead the rest of this comment...
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Why FPS games are so popular (Score:1)
by sspiff on Saturday August 21, @10:37AM (#1735789)
(User #63371 Info | http://web.pitas.com/astroman)
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Put simply, because they drive the games market! FPS games are all about hardware the latest, most flashy graphics, etc. It is the triumph, as usual, of style over substance. Everyone likes to show off (and its not just 14 year olds). You are supposed to be entranced with the flashy graphics, not with the game play. Personally, FPS games bore the hell out of me. Why? Because I have fast reflexes and get bored very easily. Unfortunately, there are few games out there these days that engage the mind as well as challenge the reflexes. I hope that this will change eventually (though I'm not holding my breath) and we can get past the latest, greatest FPS knockoff. . .
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UH, no! (Score:1)
by sspiff on Saturday August 21, @10:43AM (#1735790)
(User #63371 Info | http://web.pitas.com/astroman)
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Do you really think that the games market is bigger than the movie/television market? I don't think so!! A hell of a lot more people watch TV and go to movies that have computers. Not to mention the fact that not all computer users are gamers. The gaming industry is a small fart by comparison to Hollywood.
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Re:You are all retards (Score:1)
by sspiff on Saturday August 21, @10:54AM (#1735791)
(User #63371 Info | http://web.pitas.com/astroman)
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If you think Slashdot posters are the "mentally elite" of anything you are pretty damn stupid!! Personally, I don't think you added anything of merit to the discussion. Get off your damn high horse. Smoke a doobie or get laid or something!!
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Show me the money! (Score:1)
by Spiflicator on Friday August 20, @08:26AM (#1735792)
(User #64611 Info)
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Could always pull a Jerry McGuire... got the letter done already
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Sorry but thats just not right (Score:1)
by cliffski on Friday August 20, @04:22AM (#1735793)
(User #65094 Info | http://www.positech.co.uk)
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You are assuming that if you quizzed everyone what the ideal game was, they would say 'First person shooters please!". Face facts: not all games are snapped up by eager young pups saying "whoah! this is the game ive always wanted...", a lot of games are shifted just because they are everywhere, over-marketed and instantly avaialble. You can buy Half life in my local book store, but you cant get Alpha centauri there, so your casual gamer (or more likely - someone buying a present for a gamer) will go with the latest bland FPS. Remember that video games started off with pong and space invaders, the first person shooter was itself an innovation, a risky prospect if everyone was a slave to market forces as you recommend.. Long live the PC, innovation, and small development companies. I certainly dont want to stick with the same half dozen game genres we have for the next 50 years... Cliffski
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Been There, Too (Score:1)
by rossz on Friday August 20, @10:33AM (#1735794)
(User #67331 Info | http://www.vamos-wentworth.org/seadog)
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I'm also an "older" programmer (40) who spent far too many years in the game industry. My experience mirrors closely this essay. The hours were too long, the pay too little, and job stability was nonexistent. I would work 12 hour days, six days a week. They wanted me to work longer and seven days a week, but I refused. I needed a little time to sleep and wash my clothes! There is something wrong in an industry when it is not considered unusual that you keep a sleeping bag and several changes of clothes under your desk! These conditions were the result of the competitive nature of the business. Most games were "outsourced" to small shops by the big names. The only way you could get a contract was by under bidding the other guys in both cost and time. This meant the small shop could not afford to hire enough programmers and artists to do the job properly, resulting in the long hours and a hastily shipped (incomplete) product. Now I work on software for finance managers (stock brokers, etc.). I work normal hours, have great benefits, and don't worry about losing my job because the project was killed.
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Re:Bleh (Score:1)
by UnknownSoldier (pohoreski@SPAMIGN ... ?Subject=Slashdot) on Friday August 20, @05:01AM (#1735795)
(User #67820 Info)
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I think we need to make the distinction of gaming companies between game developer and publisher. Can the game developer survive if their current work title and the next one flops? Not immediate financial trouble, but definately in the future. I think game developers and publishers are both partly to blame. Good marketing can't save a bad game (allthough maybe we need to take lessons from Micro$oft on selling Win95 ;-) Publishers also need to market good games. i.e. Heretic II was a great game, yet marketing seems to lacking. Games ARE a huge risk, no doubt about that. Spend 2 years and take a shot hopeing that your game is in the top 10. If those odds sound bad, it is because they are. Not to discourage any of the younger talent from entering the industry, but watch your health, and don't get burnt out ! If the game developer where you work doesnt provide a fun environment, and money each quarter is the driving force *cough EA cough (no offense intended to EA employees)*, maybe its time to find another game developer to work for? I think we do allready have a mass exodus to other game developers. How many programmes stay with the game developer after the game ships? How many artists stay with the same company once a project is over? How many game developers over 30 are still in the industry?
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Extremely interesting (Score:1)
by nutritious treat (NutritiousTreat@hotmail.com) on Saturday August 21, @06:55PM (#1735796)
(User #68116 Info | http://members.tripod.com/~NutritiousTreat)
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I find this article very topical for me, personally... I have now been in the game industry for about a year and a half. Got one B title under my belt and am now working on a AAA title. The ups and downs are amazing... Somedays the job is great, other days I want to go weep in the corner. Lately, though, it's been dawning on me that my friends, my peers, are off making more money, getting more "vertical" responsibility (ie leadership roles), working in healthier environments, learning more, etc... So, I personally have been debating quitting, and returning to "normal" software development (I worked in that industry for about a year after school, before my games job.) The money is a real sticking point with me, simply because I took a HUGE paycut to start working at the game company (about 20%, nevermind massive loss of perks from my previous job), and I have recently seen HIGHLY suspicious things, like level designers (people w/o college degrees) getting hired for what I'm currently getting paid, after TWO raises!! On my current project, I would classify my responsibility as "enormous", so, needless to say, I'm feeling a bit... exploited. My problem is, I'm afraid that nothing out there is going to be as fun as games. The job before this, which was vaguely e-commerce related, but really more of an intranet application, just bored me to death. I know there has to be happy median somewhere. I know this is... naughty... but I would be interested to hear what the other game engineers who have sounded off on this thread are making, because I honestly have no idea what a fair wage for an engineer in this industry is... which is pretty bad, considering I'm employed in it. Oh yeah, if you know of any cool job openings in the greater Seattle metropolitan area, send me an email :^)
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From an industry insider (Score:1)
by t0rg0 on Friday August 20, @05:08AM (#1735797)
(User #68346 Info)
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I'll second what was already said in the article. The game industry isn't for the weak or timid. I just recently exited from the game arena myself for some of the same reasons. I didn't leave the company because of "The Man" was putting us down (The Man was actually good to us, having sold over 2 million copies of our game.) but rather over the lifestyle that I found myself having. The game industry thrives and breathes on young, single workers right out of school or art institutes and uses them as indentured servants more or less. Although I was young, I was married and had a brand new baby. I couldn't put in the 14 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week that the job requires. And I wasn't the only married guy at the company with his wife calling up in tears because she hadn't seen her husband in two weeks. I'm almost convinced that if you want to truly enjoy the industry, you have to accept the fact that you won't have much of a social life outside of games. Was it fun? Gosh, yes. It's almost like a drug working in the game industry. You get to hang out with people with exactly the same interests, work with some of the hottest technology and play games when you're not under a deadline... but for me it wasn't worth missing out on family and having a *LIFE*. Working in the game industry isn't for everyone. If you want to work in the field, be prepared for what awaits you. It's very much like a manic depresive. There are some real highs and terrible lows. You don't get paid very well and job stability is iffy at times. But there is that moment when you go to the software store and see someone pick up your game and head to the cash register. For those guys over thirty who can stick it out being married and putting up with all the stress working on games... my hat's off to you.
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Re:Unfortunate Lack Of Vision (Score:1)
by jacobm on Friday August 20, @05:04AM (#1735798)
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You can't make a creative product if you don't pay people to have fun. You end up with just plain product, IMHO.
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Re:Supply and Demand (Score:1)
by jacobm on Friday August 20, @04:39AM (#1735799)
(User #68967 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
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Sigh... his point is that "business" really sucks for an industry that is supposed to be creative. That is- just because you will buy PopularProgram version 26 doesn't mean it will be entertaining to program PopularProgram version 26 (or CopyProgram version 1, for that matter, either). While it seems to be sound from a profitibility standpoint to hack away at the same old thing, because the same old thing sells, it isn't after a while because your programmers don't enjoy what they're doing. I would rather have a fresh, exciting program that the programmers really believed in than one in which they didn't. That said, I don't really think that any of the games you mentioned suffer from that syndrome- reading interviews with the Unreal, Half-Life, and Quake people makes it abundantly clear that the people on those teams really believed that they were programming the coolest game ever, and all of their managements seemed to just get out of their way and let them do what they were going to do (would you second-guess John Carmack?).
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Re:Bleh (Score:1)
by jmccay (ok....) on Friday August 20, @10:36AM (#1735800)
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>...so, it shifted to the brainless managers. I wish we could get rid of brainless managers and replace them with managers who new something. I worked for a Computer Based Training (CBT) company and we did animations and stuff. I would have gotten burnt out very quickly if it wasn't for the fact that my manager had a brain! jmccay _____________________________________ Assume ignorance until otherwise...
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Fairy Tale Adventure (Score:1)
by Ribo99 on Friday August 20, @08:36AM (#1735801)
(User #71160 Info | http://www.lloydslounge.org/ | Last Journal: Friday December 14, @05:41PM)
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I loved that game! IMHO it was one of the very best games for the Amiga. I spend many an hour walking around the world, staggering from hunger, dodging Wraiths. You should be proud of yourself! :) There is a good chance that I will be getting in the gaming industry very soon, and comments like yours worry me. I see the truth in it and I hope I have a better experience. Its not just game companies, a friend of mine had VERY simular things happen to him when he was doing some Java development. I also figure, what the hey, it will be an interesting ride in any case. I can always get a job somewhere else if I can't stand it... :) Ribo
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Re:Might and Magic II (Score:1)
by mroeder on Friday August 20, @05:48AM (#1735802)
(User #71228 Info | http://www.mroeder.com)
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it always just worked under 95. I still have the disks handy. I'll reinstall tonight and give it a go. (Ooops yes I have a 95 box... a 98 box.... a NT box and my Linux 2.2.7 S.u.S.E 6.1 box.... )
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Independents? (Score:1)
by shomon2 on Friday August 20, @04:33AM (#1735803)
(User #71232 Info | http://frag.sift.co.uk/~ale)
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Whenever I see a games programmer, I want to bow deeply and shout "I am not worthy!" with a look of awe. But I understand, if games types are the film stars of our industry, then it's quite logical that their work scenario should be comparable to hollywood. And from that it follows that there should be an underground/alternative/independent game industry, with it's own distribution channels and rules and problems. So the question is: does it exist? then where is it? Does it not? Then it's time to make it! Games are so immersive these days. Developers deserve to have the choice to be completely creative, arty farty, cliquey or in general to share the traits of underground film makers!
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This is a good question (Score:1)
by LRJ on Friday August 20, @02:01PM (#1735804)
(User #71361 Info | http://www.pcguys.com)
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The youngest guy in my Action Quake clan is 30 and most of us work in the high tech industry; I would say our gross income is close to a million a year (for 10 of us). Though I do agree that many of the people that we play are teenagers many of the better and more highly respected players, in the AQ2 community, are in the their late 20's early 30's (and we have all kinds of fun slapping around these punks that think they are l33t)
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