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Feature: Why Being a Computer Game Developer Sucks
GamesPosted by Hemos on Friday August 20, @09:05AM
from the but-it-sounds-so-fun dept.
Talin has written one of the more interesting pieces that I've seen in a while, piercing the bubble of idyllic life that many people, and giving insight into what is, for all intents and purposes an industry. His synopsis: "I've been in the computer games industry since about 1983...I've come to the conclusion that the industry has gradually, imperceptibly, transformed from a cozy industry full of creative freedom and fun into a rather unpleasant place to work." Click below for more.

My name is Talin, and I've been in the computer games industry since about 1983. I've had a lot of fun, as well as a few "hits". I'm best known for the 1986 Amiga game "The Faery Tale Adventure", for which I still get occasional fan mail. I've worked on about a dozen projects all told, the most recent being a massively multiplayer game for SegaSoft's HEAT network.

I'm always amused be people's reactions when I tell them that I work in the computer games industry. "Computer games!" they say, "Gee, that must be fun!" At such times I usually pause, thinking "How do I break it to them?"

I've been in the industry a long time (since around 1983), and I've watched carefully the changing nature of the business. I remember the busts and booms, the changing platforms, the rise and fall of many companies. And I've come to the conclusion that the industry has gradually, imperceptibly, transformed from a cozy industry full of creative freedom and fun into a rather unpleasant place to work.

Computer game developers work in an industry where 90% of the profit is made from 10% of the products. Or to put it another way, 90% of the products simply die in the marketplace. Sometimes this is because the products themselves are dreck; There certainly is a lot of poorly designed, poorly debugged, formulaic, or simply content free products out there. In other cases, good products wither on the vine because they are inadequately marketed, or because they can't get through all of the noise and fluff that's clogging up the distribution chain.

When the games industry started, distributors were begging for product, but now you have to bribe Fry's or CompUSA a couple of hundred thousand to get your product placed somewhere where customers will actually see it.

And this doesn't even include the large number of products that never make it to market. In some cases, a publisher or development company runs out of money before it can finish a game, or is eaten by a larger company which immediately develops a case of indigestion and dies. (This has happened to my own projects twice.)

Having been involved in a number of large, multi-million dollar projects that never got released, or were pathetically marketed, I sometimes wonder whether the computer games industry isn't perhaps a net loss to the Gross National Product. I'm not even talking about the amount of lost productivity from people playing games (which I don't consider "lost"). Rather, what I mean is that it sometimes seems like more investment money is actually wasted developing and marketing failed games than is made in profits from successful ones.

Most of my industry colleagues that I've talked to about this have expressed similar feelings. One person said that the games industry is "a transfer of funds from the rich to the lucky". In my opinion, one would be foolish to invest in a game company.

Perhaps it's different in the big game publishers, where they crank out the same formulaic sports action game or first-person shooter over and over again. But in the smaller companies where I've spent my career, the vast majority of projects either never make it to market, or completely tank once they get there.

The economic realities of developing games induces what I call "The Lottery Mentality". Lotteries are based on the idea that we tend not to be able to think very rationally about small differences in probability. The California State Lottery has been called, for example, "a tax on people who can't do math". In the games industry, this takes the form of lying to ourselves about the potential chances of creating a "hit" game. We all know that our game has only a small chance of becoming a "hit" and thereby making a profit, yet we fool ourselves into thinking: "Yes, but MY game is going to be the ONE". As one producer put it: "You don't think anyone _intentionally_ tries to make a mediocre game?" (Well, there are some in fact who do, but that's beside the point.) But the fact is that your game is almost certainly going to be mediocre, in sales if not in quality, whether you like it or not.

The lottery mentality is what keeps investors pumping large amounts of money into the sinkhole of games development. After all, it's a very exciting, fast-paced, high-tech and "cool" sinkhole. It's "the wave of the future". I've watched how games get funded, and it's usually less a matter of the technical feasibility and artistic merits of the game, than it is the personal charm of the CEO of the development company. To paraphrase Alexis de Tocqueville: "What a fragile thing is human reason."

I should point out that my argument only applies to games written for computers, not game consoles. The economics of the console market are very different, primarily because the console manufacturers maintain a strict editorial control over what games can be published. As a result, the distribution chain for console-based software is far more consistent in quality. On the other hand, there's far less opportunity for innovation in the console market, and this is only partly explained by the strong 'parental' influence of the console manufacturers. Because consoles don't have keyboards, console games are extremely limited in the kinds of social interaction that they can support, which means that console-based games tend to be focused around kicking, jumping, hitting, running, and other brute force physical activities. This in turn limits the console market to a fairly narrow demographic, one that isn't interested in complex social interaction. Similarly, because consoles don't have hard drives, they are limited to games which are mostly "stateless", meaning that the player can only affect a small number of selected variables in the game environment.

Failed products and harsh economics aren't the only reason why the games industry has become a miserable place.

Part of the reason why I fled from Hollywood in the early 80's was because I realized that Hollywood, with it's creativity-stifling unions, bureaucratized studios, and disreputable agents, was not the way to a happy life. Not everyone gets to be a Spielberg or a Lucas, and in fact the vast majority of workers toil away at one narrowly-defined job with no creative freedom whatsoever. The few truly inspired creators, the ones with the really unique ideas, are targets for exploitation and fraud. When I realized, a few years ago, that the whole "Siliwood" thing was a bust, and that Hollywood was not going to take over, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Now I find the games industry is becoming more and more like Hollywood itself, where each person has his or her little job compartment or specialty, and must never stray outside of it for fear of stepping on someone's territory. "I don't understand," says the manager, "I thought you said you wanted a position as a programmer. Now you're telling me you want a position as an artist?" Even when they know and accept you as a multi-talented, multi-skilled person, they still have trouble figuring out ways to apply your skills in anything but a single narrowly-defined capacity.

I should also mention that the games industry has little respect for experience. What the games industry runs on is youthful energy. 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, and don't know squat about software engineering principles. There are very few 40-year-old game programmers; I'm one of few who hasn't been "burnt out" by the murderous pace. But more and more I feel like I don't "fit in". I find myself less and less interested in doing the same games over and over again, targeted at an audience of 14-year old males who have been programmed by evolution to enjoy the thrill of combat and the hunt. Quake and Unreal are _great_ games from a design and technical standpoint, but frankly they bore me. (In case you are wondering, my two favorite games are Might and Magic II, and Civilization II).

Despite the fact that the games industry has aged tremendously in both it's bureaucratic structure and the sophistication of the technology, the software engineering practices it uses are still juvenile. It amazes me to find managers who have copies of classic works like Rapid Development_, _Writing Solid Code_, and _Peopleware_ on their bookshelves, yet somehow fail to actually apply the principles in those books. The culture of the industry is simply too strong, and trying to take the time to do things right (so that it saves time later) is like slogging through mud. The whole process by which games are budgeted and scheduled, for example, is something that I find amazing that anyone could take seriously.

Anybody who's studied software engineering knows that a schedule which underestimates the time needed to develop a project actually makes the project take _longer_. Countless case studies have shown this to be true. Yet we insist on shipping projects "by Christmas season" so that programmers are forced to waste their time, trying to "hurry up" to meet an arbitrary deadline. We continue to throw budgets and schedules together quickly, so that we can have them ready for a meeting with the publisher, without ever consulting the people who will actually work on the project (most of whom haven't been hired yet.)

The result is completely predictable: programmers that are under extreme stress who in turn create code full of bugs and defects. Project that end up a year later than they were scheduled. Isn't it interesting that some of the most successful game companies have adopted a "it will be done when it's done" policy?

Part of the problem is that our industry labors under the illusion that it is "like Hollywood". Film producers are usually able to turn out a film on time and within budgetary limits. But there's a difference -- film producers don't have to re-invent the camera each time they do a production. There are no "stable" technologies in the computer games industry, and the average useful life of a game "engine" is about two years.

The games industry is primarily an engineering industry, which means that what we do is solve problems. But solving problems, especially highly complex ones, knows no timetable. No one can predict how long it will take to invent a particular thing, because every invention is an accident, albeit a fortuitous one. The best you can do is increase the probability of such an accident occuring, a process which I have dubbed "accident husbandry."

Despite the fact that constant invention is critical to the industry, game companies still refuse, as far as I can tell, to fund any kind of research. Instead, each new game is itself a "research prototype", full of risks and unknowns. You might as well write "and here a miracle occurs" right on the PERT chart and be done with it.

Job stability is another thing that is lacking in the computer games field. It seems to be a common practice in small development companies to lay off the entire development team upon completion of a project. Usually this is because a small development company can only afford to pay salaries while a project is actually being funded by an outside source. It takes a long time to negotiate such a contract, and often the previous product finishes before the negotiations are complete. As a result, the development company has no choice but to unburden itself of workers who aren't producing any revenue. As a result of this high turnover rate, development companies are unable to maintain a solid body of institutional knowledge. Worse, it inclucates a sense of futility in the engineering staff. As one worker put it: "If you ship, you'll be fired." Don't get me wrong. I still like games. But the games industry isn't games.

I'm not advocating that the sources of funding should simply dry up. But I wish that investors and project planners would be more careful. Firstly, because I'm ethically offended by the idea of wasting other people's money. And secondly, because I'm sick of spending a year of my life working on a beautiful project, only to watch it go down in flames (And yes, I admit that there were times when the fault was my own...but not most of the time.)

I think that we'd all be happier if fewer games were actually produced. In my opinion, the primary result of this would be a higher percentage of good games on the market. Of course, there wouldn't be quite as many jobs, but I can tell you that there are a lot of fun, exciting jobs out there that have nothing to do with the games industry. For example, I recently I took a job at an e-commerce company. Now, I have absolutely no interest in e-commerce per se. But I found to my surprise that there are a lot of things about this job that are really fun:

  • I get to do real research, to tinker around with new concepts
  • I'm living on "internet time": Product cycles are in weeks, not years
  • My experience and knowledge are highly respected.
  • People look to me for help and answers, not to grind away code in silence
  • Schedules are reasonable and flexible
  • I'm learning a lot of new technologies
  • I'm getting a chance to do something different for a change.
  • The gender balance is a lot closer to 50%
  • They appreciate and exploit my multiple skills and game-designer sensibilities.
  • I get to think about social issues as well as technical ones
  • The people are excited and enthusiastic rather than feeling burnt out.
  • The pay is better
Of course, I still have a lot of game ideas I want to do...I'm not going to follow the example of Chris Crawford, and say "Farewell forever, games industry!" This isn't the first time I've taken a break away from games to do other work (for example, in 1987 I wrote a professional music sequencer, Music-X.)

But these days I'm far less interested in broadcasting my own ideas and stories (the "Death From Above" content distribution model), than I am in empowering the end-users to be able to realize their own ideas and fantasies. If I chose to do another game, it would have to be on very specific terms: An R&D project up front to eliminate the major risks, solid commitment to sound engineering principles, a rational schedule (or better yet, no schedule at all), and a project premise that involved a high level of social consciousness. "Community is King" is my motto now.

Alternatively, I think I'd enjoy just develop games as a hobby, completely open-sourced, and make money some other way. I've found that being an amateur game creator is more emotionally rewarding than being a After all, I'm in this for the fun, and for the chance to express myself creatively. If I wasn't, I'd be selling insurance or something.

Talin (Talin@ACM.org)
www.sylvantech.com/~talin
www.hackertourist.com/talin

 

 
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    Feature: Why Being a Computer Game Developer Sucks | Login/Create an Account | Top | 238 comments | Search Discussion
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    The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
    (1) | 2 | 3 | 4 (Slashdot Overload: CommentLimit 50)
    Supply and Demand (Score:1)
    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @04:17AM (#1735682)
    "Perhaps it's different in the big game publishers, where they crank out the same formulaic sports action game or first-person shooter over and over again. " That is your problem right there. The same formulaic sports action game and first-person shooter over and over again is what people want. Go look at all the Halflife, Quake I+II+arena, Unreal, etc... servers out there and tell me that the people don't enjoy a better looking first-person shooter. Maybe you need to play the games some. Unreal was a good jump in graphics over the competition at the time, Halflife changed the face of Multi-Player, and Quake Arena has amassed quite a following with the BETA test! While you think up 'creative' new games that you 'think' are interesting, other companies will produce what I want to play. Sorry, it's called supply and demand, it is business.
    [ Parent ]
    First post? Doubt it (Score:1)
    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @04:24AM (#1735683)
    Its axiomatic that most software projects fail, whether they be games or other more generic business ventures. I work for a company that repeatedly sets projection completion dates before
    1) they have ironed out the requirements 2) they have investigated what that entails. So what happens is you get behind the proverbial 8-ball before the project even starts. I work in a group where the full time permament employees frequently work 80-100 hour weeks. Thankfully, I'm a contractor. Early on, I worked for a game company. In my (very limited) experience, game software projects fail for the same reason other software projects fail: poor management, poor handling of personalities involved. Game development is more sensitive, because you get more of the geek coder type where pride (as in "I'm right and you're not") comes before project. Its not the real world. But then, neither is business. Sometimes I wonder how software companies make money at all.
    [ Parent ]
    He's speaks the truth, can't attack him for that! (Score:1)
    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @10:54PM (#1735684)
    He may not like half-life + quake like the rest of you 'masses', but his experience is real. I've been a mere follower of the industry for several years but those on the inside consistently tell how tough it is. It's simply not fair to be expected to work 60+ hour weeks at low wages and have no security that when the project is over you'll still have a job (reality is, the question of making more money afterwords is very slight-- i hear).

    Here is another guy from the inside who is very eloquent on the subject.... here's his page:
    http://pages.infinit.net/idjy/

    Here's a bit of one article...

    The Game Industry and the Economics of
    Failure

    For the past two years, the game industry has been mired in what the financial press calls a
    "consolidation phase". Despite growing sales for the industry as a whole, not a month
    goes by without some once-proud publisher announcing drastic cutbacks to its release
    schedule or being bought out by a more successful one. Countless start-up development
    studios set up shop, barely manage to survive until the release of their first title (when they
    manage to do it at all), and disappear without a whimper. Meanwhile, the cost of
    developing a top-tier title keeps growing, and the marketing budget required to support its
    release skyrockets even faster.

    No matter which way we look at it, one glaring fact remains: not very many people make
    money in the game industry. Especially not the people who create the product.

    It is my contention that the current economics of the industry, as supported (actively or
    tacitly) by publishers, retailers, the gaming press and most developers, is completely and
    utterly inadequate. This article presents some of my observations, and attempts to identify
    a few potential solutions which might help improve our lot as a community.



    The Distribution Bug

    In the early days of interactive gaming (say, until 1988 or so), the "lone wolf"
    basement-dweller who developed an entire game (code, art and music) by himself in a few
    months was, if not the rule, at least a common phenomenon. Virtually all software was
    sold to and by hobbyists, whether in the city's single mom-and-pop computer shop or by
    answering adds in specialized magazines. The computer-enthusiast shop owner enjoyed
    nothing more than to see the local game publisher (often the developer himself) drop by
    once a month with his Ziplock bags full of floppies, which he had copied himself all night
    long. They'd talk for thirty minutes or an hour, playing the new releases while the
    customers, all of whom knew each other by their first names and proudly showed their
    own clever bits of BASIC code to "the professional". In such conditions, a developer could
    write 2-3 titles a year, make a comfortable living off of 1,000 copies of each, and then,
    after a few years, go out and get his driver's license. A game could sell for years. Taking
    a risk with an innovative title didn't require nerves of steel, as not much money went into it
    anyway. This was the Golden Age.

    However, as computers gained popularity, the hobbyist retailers were gradually replaced
    by large, nation-wide chains, which have themselves lost a tasty chunk of the software
    market to generalists like Price Costco and Wal-Mart. Now, it is estimated that the top 8-10
    retail chains (i.e., Circuit City, CompUSA and Toys R Us) control approximately 85% of all
    game sales in North America.

    This changes everything.

    First Law of the Game Industry: Channel to Market is Everything.

    On the one hand, the professional buyer who is in charge of acquiring PC games may very
    well never play them at all. He is a businessman, with responsibility for a huge budget, of
    which games may not even be the most important item. His job is to acquire product that
    will move off his shelves as soon as it hits them. Shelf space it precious, and there are so

    Read the rest of this comment...

    [ Parent ]
    He did move on. (Score:1)
    by Lee Cremeans on Friday August 20, @09:14AM (#1735685)
    (User #873 Info | http://lcremeans.homeip.net)
    Toward the end of the article, he mentions that he works for an E-commerce company now. Did you see that part?

    -lee
    [ Parent ]
    Great comments, everyone...! (Score:1)
    by Talin (Talin@ACM.org) on Friday August 20, @12:24PM (#1735686)
    (User #1118 Info | http://www.sylvantech.com/~talin)
    I really thought that I was going to get a lot more flames than this, but I find that almost all of the comments are quite thoughtful and reasonable.

    I'm sorry if the article sounds whiny. I consider myself to have been quite fortunate in my career and in the success of my products. Part of what I was trying to get across is that the industry has changed quite a bit from the 1980s. If you really want to be a game programmer, go for it...but I want you to know what it is you are getting into. If you can find the right company, it can make all the difference in the world. But the glamour that surrounds the games industry is a bubble which I feel is badly in need of popping.

    I apologize for not supplying as many real-world examples as people would like. I did forward this article to about a dozen people in the games industry (including two former chairmen of game development conventions) and they "mostly" agreed with my conclusions. (The part about the profitability of the industry was the most contraversial.) Other data can be found in back issues of the CGDA report. I don't want to name specific individuals or companies for obvious reasons.

    As far as starting my own company: "Been there, done that." It was a fun five years, but we never actually made a profit. During the last year of the company, I got maybe half of my paychecks. I managed to avoid personal bankruptcy...barely. Words of advice: Don't reallocate power during a company crisis, no matter how attractive a solution it seems. Don't let an adversarial manager drive away good talent. And learn the business side yourself, don't hire an outsider to do it for you.

    With respect to Quake: As I mentioned, I think that Quake (and DOOM, Half-life, etc.) are great games. DOOM was revolutionary, not just in it's graphical presentation, but in everything about it. Even the way that DOOM used sound was subtly different than anything that had been done before. But what was revolutionary five years ago is now "the standard".

    I played multiplayer Quake with my co-workers very heavily for about two months while working at Dreamers Guild. After two months I said "OK, that was good, now I'm done with that." I enjoyed it for a short time, but I can't see myself playing it over and over again, even in multiplayer. To be honest, I find the customizability of Quake far more intriguing. Being able to create different games (like Team Fortress, Jailbreak, etc.) is what I really think games are about. When I was little, we "made up our own" games, and I think that's exactly how computer games should work too.

    With respect to the issue of game demographics, and supply and demand: One thing that has to be borne in mind is that every game has to be sold 4 times - once to the publisher, once to the distributor, once to the retailer, and once to the customer. (Obviously, direct internet sales are a different model.) Each of these organizations has a marketing staff that studies what it's current market is. So even if you came up with a game for 60-year-old golfers, or 12-year-old girls, you have to get it past all these people that say "we know what our market it, and this isn't it." Even if you could get it through all that, what 60-year-old golfer is ever going to visit the games section of CompUSA or Fry's? You'd have to invent a whole new distribution channel. This is what Purple Moon tried to do, and they failed. Chris Crawford predicted ten years ago that the computer games industry, by pursuing a single demographic, would create a "ghetto" for itself, so that adults would consider them to be "childish" and "for kids". Most adult Americans percieve comic books, animated movies and computer games as "kid stuff", despite that fact that we know that adult comics and anime exist.

    The comment about 14-year-old boys was perpetuating a stereotype, it's true. But I have noticed that almost all popular games are based on the exploitation of some well-defined primate behavior: Dominance hierarchies, grooming behavior, maternal instinct, fight or flight, etc. Even games like M

    Read the rest of this comment...

    [ Parent ]
    Interesting (Score:1)
    by SEGV (mlepage@antimeta.com) on Friday August 20, @05:18AM (#1735687)
    (User #1677 Info | http://www.antimeta.com/)
    I used to play The Faery Tale on my friend's Amiga a decade ago!

    The problems with schedule, lack of software engineering (even when having read those classic books, it's true!), etc. are endemic. I just left such a company...

    ...for a new company doing data mining (www.molecularmining.com). Good development process, respect for ideas, decent hardware, opportunities... the list of advantages goes on.

    I just tinker with open source games on my own time (www.cgocable.net/~mlepage). I've never been in "the industry" and I suppose have no real need to.
    [ Parent ]
    Well said, Talin (Score:1)
    by sky on Friday August 20, @04:59AM (#1735688)
    (User #1918 Info | http://www.finger-rock.com)
    I spent a year in the games industry. There was nothing in your article that I hadn't seen in that year.

    I call it my lost year. All I saw was the office until I dared to take a weekend off (to go to a convention and promote the company - at my own expense)

    We were working on two Super Nintendo games, which are just as "Christmas-driven" as the rest of the toy industry. The schedule was toast before I was involved, and it only got worse. One of the games I worked on finally shipped the following Christmas - I never saw the other one.

    During that year, the company churned through almost twenty people. Management was a joke, as was technical training. All for peanuts. I actually made better money the following year working for state government.

    About the only good that came out of that job was that it looked good on a resume. I'm currently an Oracle specialist, building database-backed Web sites on the side (for fun!!). A DBA looked at my resume at one point and told a hiring manager to hire me because if I could program 68k assembly AND Oracle, I could do anything. Must be true - I later got his job.

    [ Parent ]
    Jeezus (Score:1)
    by Neuromancer (bacchus@spam.tampabay.rr.com) on Friday August 20, @11:04PM (#1735689)
    (User #2392 Info | http://home.tampabay.rr.com/wntrmute/)
    Give the guy a goddamned break will ya? Most of you nay-sayers are probably still in college anyway. The man was expressing his OPINIONS of the conditions in the game industry and a bit about the software industry as a whole.

    Being a software engineer myself for these past 3 years, I can sympathize. I've got a general idea of where he's coming from.

    You ultimately get forced into a position where you have to constantly battle between caring about doing the Right Thing[tm] in your code, and just going with what your PHB (or his) wants you to do.

    On the one hand you feel better when you do the Right Thing[tm], but it's an uphill battle and sometimes a mine-field of powerful egos to avoid stepping on (lest ye be fired).

    On the other hand you feel crummy for doing it the wrong way, and yet still take the flak when it does go wrong regardless of the fact that you were herded into it by your superiors. But initially there's no resistance, and no chance of bruised egos (unless you count your own).

    It's a crazy, mixed up world. Just because you're not in this kind of situation now, doesn't mean you won't be some day. So give the guy a break and stop nitpicking him to death.

    And enough with the "So get another job." lines ok? Sometimes it just isn't that easy. Coding is my thing, in anything else I'd be much more miserable. But I have a right to complain about the conditions inside the machine just like everyone else, regardless of what I'm doing.
    [ Parent ]
    I too switched from Games to E-commerce & Security (Score:1)
    by smithdog on Friday August 20, @06:18AM (#1735690)
    (User #3152 Info)
    Talin is well known in the Games industry as one of the few people who have the multible talents to create an entire game single-handedly. Complex Role Playing Games built by one person take several years to complete. So we added artists, sound designers, and a Producer to manage it all. The people who became game producers are largely the ones who attempted to impose the Hollywood culture on to an engineering process. In Hollywood productions, _everyone_ gets laid off at the end of the production. However, engineering companies make every attempt to retain their talented engineers and re-use the technology they create. In my view, it is the Hollywood wannabees that have ruined the game industry. Most of Talin's complaints about the industry can be traced directly to the mentality of the Hollywood wannabees that become game producers. BTW, the last game company that I worked for (The Dreamer's Guild, co-founded by Talin) still owes me two months salary that I will never see because they filed for bankruptcy after bouncing paychecks. Hey Talin, Now that you are being paid better, could you _please_ send me that back-pay? Cheers, smithdog "Roll out the spaniel." "We'll have a spaniel of fun!"
    [ Parent ]
    Please; only if you want to sell to programmers (Score:1)
    by Carl C-M (carl@civilution.com) on Friday August 20, @05:01AM (#1735691)
    (User #3168 Info | http://www.civilution.com)
    Please! Sure the typical programmer demographic is a large one but there are other populations of users out there who might want to play computer games also. I think its important for programmers to take pride in their work but its more important for the intended audience to enjoy a game than for the programmer to enjoy the game.

    -ccm
    [ Parent ]
    Trying to see around corners... (Score:1)
    by Coventry on Sunday August 22, @10:56AM (#1735692)
    (User #3779 Info)
    Phone answerering people, legal, and accountaing are all already budgeted for and being handled - outsourced. legal firm and accountant on retainer to do the normal things such as handle payroll and look over contracts. We will need management once the project gets bigger, but the project will never get bigger unless it is sucsessfull...
    I will, however, take your advice and ask Talon for some advice and opinions... We've tried to think of everything, but thats just not possible... I more then appreciate the concern, thank you for the sugestions - hopefully with some advice we'll be able to work things out.
    [ Parent ]
    Try a diffrent approach... (Score:1)
    by Coventry on Friday August 20, @05:58AM (#1735693)
    (User #3779 Info)
    When the road gets rocky, when you see things being done wrong - in your workplace, in buisness, etc, there are 4 things you can do about it:
    1) accept it
    2) complain about it
    3) reject it (leave, have nothing to do with it),
    possibly find someplace else where things are done right.
    4) fix it

    The author doesnt do number 1, as many game developers have. He instead does 2 and 3.

    I'm doing number 4... several other developers and I, with great creative talent, etc, are founding our own game company. No CEO. No managers, ecept ourselves. We have artists, modlers, programmers, and more. Getting funding will not be easy because we dont have any non-technical staff, and our buisness model has been called 'crazy', and 'revolutionary' because of our staff structure, but at least we're trying #4...

    T, maybe if things pick up for us we'll give you a call...

    Also, with some open source projects going on now, engine design is being removed from game design...
    For example, our first product is utilizing the CrystalSpace 3d rendering engine, an open source quake/halflife type engine. We're adding things to it, yes, but with foundations like it in place, it will be easier to reuse tools just like producers and other industries do...

    Also, while I'm here, anyone in the audience know where some Free, or cheap, marketing analysis type stuff for the game industry exists? The buis plan we have needs more concrete numbers, and we dont want to pay 4k for a basic industry report...

    [ Parent ]
    World Forge. (Score:1)
    by Ih8sG8s on Friday August 20, @04:36AM (#1735694)
    (User #4112 Info)
    Hey, why not check out the World Forge project. They could use some help from someone with good experience.

    http://www.worldforge.org
    [ Parent ]
    Well Done! (Score:1)
    by **SkipKent** on Friday August 20, @05:38AM (#1735695)
    (User #4128 Info)
    Finally, an article that addresses the ever-growing slush pile of pc video games visible at any computer or department store, with insight from the inside.

    The few games I buy, let alone play, are from companies (Id is the supreme example) who are soley devoted to the cause of pushing the gaming envelope, as opposed to countless others who look to see "what's hot" and then throw in some knockoff based on yesterday's technology. I like to feel that a given game (or ANY piece of software) was created by folks who intellectually and emotionally invested in its success.

    Like HolloWood, features created by corporate investment committe to address a percieved 'trend' ring false in the eyes and ears of the kind of dedicated gamers that must be appeased for a game to become a real 'hit'.


    [ Parent ]
    Zork (Score:1)
    by **SkipKent** on Friday August 20, @06:14AM (#1735696)
    (User #4128 Info)
    Which brings me to the question:

    Why did Infocom give up on text-based adventure games? Their switching to graphics was the kiss of death. They cornered the market on text adventure but lost faith. I'd LOVE to see someone bring back and then push the envelope of text-based gaming the same way Doom/Quake did with graphics based gaming. To do so would take at least the same level of engineering creativity as Id puts into 3d games.

    Hmmm...

    [ Parent ]
    Not the point (Score:1)
    by **SkipKent** on Friday August 20, @06:23AM (#1735697)
    (User #4128 Info)
    He didn't write the article to complain as much as he did to WARN those who dream of such work to be on their toes. The Dream of being a Game Designer is a holy grail of sorts for a lot of kids these days, and this article is a good and insightful wake-up call.

    Your point about moving on instead of complaining is right on tho'. Brush the gravel off those buttocks and git busy!
    [ Parent ]
    Tell me about it... (Score:1)
    by Petteri Kangaslampi (pekangas@nospam.sci.fi) on Friday August 20, @05:43AM (#1735698)
    (User #4831 Info | http://www.s2.org/~pekangas/)
    Having worked in a game-development company (although telecommuting) and watching the industry quite a while, I have to mostly agree. Although my experience was good as a whole, and I have absolutely no hard feelings towards the company or the industry in general, I could see a lot of the problems the author lists.

    I think to succeed in the gaming industry you REALLY have to love the stuff. I mean A LOT. Live and breathe games. Anything else and you'll get tired and burned out soon. I personally don't care much about games, and realizing that was one of the main reasons I left. I find the technology behind them pretty interesting, but the games themselves tend to bore me quickly. This is NOT good. Even if you only do engine/technology development, a lot of the stuff is still tedious tracking of Microsoft's API-revision-of-the-day.

    Interesting technology is not limited to games, although a lot of people seem to think that software is either cool games or boring financial database stuff, maybe add internet-java-perl-hype nowadays. Myself, I'm nowadays working on some very cool embedded stuff, and getting paid more for it too. It would take a lot to get me back to the game-development world.

    Petteri
    [ Parent ]
    Re:first post (Score:1)
    by unitron (unitron@tacc.net) on Sunday August 22, @04:52AM (#1735699)
    (User #5733 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    "You weren't first, moron."

    Sounded like the first moron to me.

    [ Parent ]
    Re:Get a login, bozo (Score:1)
    by Phil Wilkins on Monday August 23, @02:16AM (#1735700)
    (User #5921 Info)
    My my, you are an ego driven defensive little scrote aren't you.

    [ Parent ]
    Re:Please; only if you want to sell to programmers (Score:1)
    by JerkBoB on Friday August 20, @06:27AM (#1735701)
    (User #7130 Info)
    I think that you missed the previous poster's point.

    Programmers who like playing the sort of games that they're coding make better games. If the programmers really like FPS games, then the FPS game that they're working on will probably be better than if they all liked strategy games (all things being equal).

    I think that it would be pretty hard (and wrong) to categorize all programmers as liking a certain type of game.

    --
    A host is a host from coast to coast...

    [ Parent ]
    Re:Supply and Demand (Score:1)
    by glyph (glyph@NOSPAM_divunal.com) on Friday August 20, @05:57AM (#1735702)
    (User #7208 Info | http://www.divunal.com/)
    The repetitive shoot-em-up games are not "what people want". They are what stereotypical 14-year-old boys want.

    Now, don't get me wrong. There are a quite a few stereotypical shooter-droids out there, and I've enjoyed shooters myself a few times, but there are other markets in there that the games industry isn't targeting. Who is it that says that housewives wouldn't play video games if an intensive marketing campaign were targeted at them?

    Video games are a unique new art form, but they're not regarded as such by the world, because the industry is afraid to step outside the bounds have been imposed upon it. The people with actual vision (artists, programmers, writers) are squelched by management who doesn't know what they're doing, but knows that another Quake clone will keep people pumping quarters into their disk-drives, or whatever it is that they do that keeps money flowing into the game company.

    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? If you could make games that adults with actual jobs would think are worthwhile, I think a few of them might buy it. It's unfortunate that the entire gaming industry has been running a counter-marketing campaign against that for years.
    [ Parent ]
    Hey, my job sucks, too. (Score:1)
    by MTDilbert on Friday August 20, @04:57AM (#1735703)
    (User #7660 Info | http://www.as400.ibm.com/)

    It really gravels my buttocks that items like this even get posted.

    There could be a thousand of these: "Why being in product support sucks." "Why being a electrical engineer sucks."

    Blah, blah, blah.

    If your job sucks, move on to a different one.

    I did that very thing, took a pay cut to do it, and have found myself way happier ever since.

    [ Parent ]
    Re:Get some perspective... (Score:1)
    by juuri on Friday August 20, @06:29AM (#1735704)
    (User #7678 Info | http://www.nsa.org/)
    hippie

    This is America. This is American life. You are the one who is whining and complaining. As a country we worked damn hard to get to this super comfortable life level, so we deserve it. You need to stop passing your guilt on to the rest of the world.

    ---
    Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OSF/...
    [ Parent ]
    That premise doesn't apply here (Score:1)
    by forkboy (jtmogavero@nOsPAm.attbi.com) on Friday August 20, @06:26AM (#1735705)
    (User #8644 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    Playing a game you've written yourself is a lot like reading a book you've written yourself.

    Sure, you can appreciate the quality and talent (or lack thereof) that went into it, but you already know what will and will not happen, taking the adventure and excitement out of the game.

    Not to mention, some of the best commercial games took waaay more than one person to create, what with all the artwork, coding, quality assurance, filming (if the game has video capture), etc that goes into it.

    So, we must rely upon the gaming industry to supply us with quality entertainment. Money talks though....geeks are getting tired of putting money into half-assed attempts at unoriginal game ideas. Why do you think software pirating is so prevelant? Sure, a lot of it is because it's underage kids with no money and a lot of time, but mostly, and I know this is the reason *I* cruise the warez sites and friends' ftp sites before buying a game: I HATE WASTING 50 BUCKS ON A POORLY CODED PIECE OF CRAP. If I like a game, I buy it. I won't buy a game and pray that I like it. I work too goddam hard to throw my money away on them. I do a good enough job of that at the bar.


    [ Parent ]
    Re:Supply and Demand (Score:1)
    by forkboy (jtmogavero@nOsPAm.attbi.com) on Friday August 20, @06:07AM (#1735706)
    (User #8644 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    14 year old boys may not have a lot of money, but their parents, who are willing to fork out $40-$60 to shut their kids the f*ck up and keep them out of trouble, do.

    But I do agree with you, there need to be more intelligently designed games for us old fogeys who are getting tired of Quake-clones, Warcraft clones, and other such unimaginative drivel.
    Sure, there have been a few winners that were based off unoriginal ideas, but most of them are just god-awful. Play Sin or Blood lately? Have you even BOUGHT a RTS game besides Star-craft in the last 2 years and not felt ripped off? Not me, man.

    [ Parent ]
    Re:Bleh (Score:1)
    by coreman (reith@racores.com) on Friday August 20, @04:28AM (#1735707)
    (User #8656 Info | http://www.racores.com/JimReith/index.html)
    But you do have a mass exodus from the industry. I work with several ex-game programmers, most pretty burnt out. The good news is that you've got far greater numbers of easily exploitable teenagers throwing themselves at the misshapened vision of what the industry is supposed to be.
    [ Parent ]
    Re:Zork (Score:1)
    by dadams on Friday August 20, @06:44AM (#1735708)
    (User #9665 Info)
    Do a search for interactive fiction. You'll turn up tons of links. Here's a good one http://www.ifarchive.org/. There's also a yearly interactive fiction contest
    [ Parent ]
    Young and exploited, and loving it (Score:1)
    by Cooty on Friday August 20, @05:32AM (#1735709)
    (User #9783 Info)
    Agreed, working on games is quite similar to working on movies. I have only had the luxury of working on computer games (about 3 years now), but sometimes it feels like a weird little pocket of Hollywood.

    I know I have been somewhat exploited these past few years. I'm not 19, I'm 27, but the concept is the same. I could make a lot more out in the so-called real world, and in some ways it would be more rewarding. There is probably a much greater temptation for game programmers to jump ship than their Hollywood counterparts, simply because our talents are in such demand in other places. Yet I find I am happy where I am, and that these issues in my own life have become better, not worse.

    Yes, game development is sloppier than business development, simply because the competition is fierce and profits are so low. The best games these days come from well-funded companies that have the luxury of elbow room. However, like movies, just having a large budget guarantees nothing. And on the lower budget end, it is like movies too, for every Blair Witch winner you have a thousand losers, some deserved and some undeserved.

    Open source game development is a neat idea, but is somewhat hampered by the fact that it is much easier to get engineers for such projects than artists. We may still see some winners in this area.

    Alternative publishing sources are a neat idea too. You can check up on how the g.o.d. (gathering of developers) is doing, that may prove fruitful as well.

    I do not fault you for the decision to leave, and sympathize with the reasons. If finding a good game development job is a matter of luck, then I am among the lucky, although it took a few years to get to that position. And a few years of software development with published titles and associated experience is an investment in myself, and one that I do not regret, even when there are lucrative alternatives. But I recommend that you do not discourage those who want "in" completely, because even though it is difficult to manage, getting a rewarding game job is much easier than winning a lottery.

    Best of luck

    Sam Kalat (happy at Red Storm, which does not necessarily agree with anything I post, but probably would today)

    [ Parent ]
    developers should code games *they* want to play (Score:1)
    by tuffy on Friday August 20, @04:34AM (#1735710)
    (User #10202 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    Look at Id. Those guys obviously love to play the games they code, and it shows in the amount of fun they provide. But all too often I see the same rehashes of old concepts and I can't help but think if *I* had been working on a game like that, I'd be bored to tears.

    Basically, when people code games just to get a paycheck, the result is invariable boring and stale. But when they code games because they want to play them, there's a much better chance of something new and great coming along.

    I have a sneaking suspicion that open-sourced games/engines (ala Freeciv) will be appearing soon for that very same reason.

    [ Parent ]
    Re:Zork (blame Activision, basically) (Score:1)
    by tuffy on Friday August 20, @06:36AM (#1735711)
    (User #10202 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    For the full skinny on Infocom, head over to this excellent web site. Basically, after Cornerstone (Infocom's ill-fated business software) tanked, then Infocomics (a poor idea from the beginning) came along mainly as an idea from the suits at Activision, and that pretty much ended it.

    As for interactive fiction, the Zork games (and almost all of Infocom's interactive fiction) were platform independant. With the data files (included in the "Masterpieces of Infocom" CD) you can play them almost anywhere. I've gone through the entire Zork trilogy on my PalmPilot, for example :)

    Oh, and interactive fiction is still being written. Just finding it takes a little work, but it's still going. I doubt it ever truly left :)

    Good luck!

    [ Parent ]
    Exactly (Score:1)
    by Trith (jwc_iv@yahoo.com) on Friday August 20, @06:23AM (#1735712)
    (User #10719 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    I had more fun playing 4 to 8 person doom2 in 94 in the computer labs on my university than any other game in my life. Why?

    Multiplayer was unheard of then. Granted, iceclimber, the orginal mario bros, etc let two people play at once but that is not the kind of multiplayer interface I'm talking about. The whole idea that each person had his own screen was great. The other thing was that 3d-shooter games were new. You put those 2 really big concepts in one game and wow!

    I also had more fun playing C&C than starcraft. Why? Because it was one of the first stragity games of that type to allow people to play over the internet. So again, there are 2 news things. One, I didn't have to go to the lab anymore to have the 4 people playing at once since I could use ppp from home. Second, it was a new type of game with a great soundtrack that didn't hurt it any.

    Now, everthing gives me the "Been there; done that" feeling that leaves me wishing that subspace would be ported to Linux. Xpilot just doesn't have the graphics and sound. Maybe I should shut up and join that project :)

    Good day,

    Civ CTP is awesome! Thanks Loki!
    Romans 10:9-10
    [ Parent ]
    I almost cried (Score:1)
    by speedbump (dont@demand.my.attention.com) on Friday August 20, @05:14AM (#1735713)
    (User #11624 Info)
    Waa. Get a job flipping burgers or herding sheep, then.
    [ Parent ]
    Open Source Computer Game Development (Score:1)
    by Cycon (SteveC@nOSpam.innocent.com) on Monday August 23, @07:44AM (#1735714)
    (User #11899 Info | http://cogengine.sourceforge.net)
    This may be coming in a little late, but anyone interested in developing their own open-sourced video games with the minimum of fuss might be interested in checking out the COG Engine:

    http://cogengine.linuxbox.com
    [ Parent ]
    Game Industry == Publishers (Score:1)
    by Stiletto (stiletto_NO@SPAM_.mediaone.net) on Friday August 20, @04:28AM (#1735715)
    (User #12066 Info | http://www.pompano.net/~stiletto)
    Does anyone know where most of the money from a successful game goes? That's right, it goes not to the people who made the game... It goes to the publishers first, then the distributors, then what is left over trickles into the hands of the developers.

    In this way, the once exciting art of making a game has gone the way of TV, movies, and to a certain extent, books.

    Until publishers stop insisting on being able to make the creative decisions AND swallowing up all the profits, the game industry will continue to go the way it has been: Hundreds of crappy games, all clones of each other, competing for space on a ten foot long shelf.
    [ Parent ]
    Zork, MUD's, and Visual Rapid App Design for Games (Score:1)
    by MikeFM (moc.liamhsuh@soimgom) on Friday August 20, @10:16AM (#1735716)
    (User #12491 Info | http://mlug.missouri.edu/~mogmios/projects/)
    I think text-adventures and text-worlds in general are still fairly popular. There are many MUD's, many types of MUD's, and many people who use them. Most of these people don't even remember Infocom and Zork, I'm looking for a PC or Linux copy of Wishbringer myself, but they still find they love these games. These games take the old stand alone text-adventures and add multi-player abilities and some even allow the player to program new parts to the games as they go along. I think this is as much, if not more, the future of games than Unreal, Quake, and Half-life.

    In recent months I have done a 180 so that I now think games are perfectly suited to open source design. The majority of games use some other games engine with maybe a few tweaks to it and even new games are usually just small improvements here and there on older engines. With the engines of games as open source research is sepperate from game design and content creation which shortens the time required to create the games and empowers game players to quickly create and distribute their own games based on others. My favorite two games, Quake & Civ II, do this to some point by allowing aspects of them to be programmable and redistributed. Obviously this has helped increase the life cycle of the games as well as creating cult followings.

    I am less interested in creating open source engines than open source game libraries that have virtually everything needed to quickly create a bug free game engine of my design. Prehaps even a module game engine that allows you to hook in a module to process your data files (images, sounds, scripts, etc) and then whatever modules you want for your games. A sort of Visual Game Creator. Since IMO the logic of the game should be in a script file, not inside the game executables, creating a VGC shouldn't be that hard. Pick the kind of menus you want to use, pick the type of game it is, add a few chosen extras from the library and compile. Possibly include a simple code editor for creating the default scripts and tools for importing and packaging your sounds, images, and other data. You could start by supporting the basic well established game types: text-based, scroller, card, bricks, 3D, and empire-building games and just add new types as they were invented or someone bothered to add them to the library. I think this would make Linux quickly become the OS to have the most new games coming out for it. They may not use cutting edge new engines, let Id fill that niche and release their code when they move on, but they'd be fun and stable which IMO is what matters most.
    [ Parent ]
    Re:Might and Magic II (Score:1)
    by azz (Spam sucks. azz at gnu.org) on Wednesday September 01, @02:19AM (#1735717)
    (User #12928 Info | http://cider.bnet-ibb.de/~azz/)
    Can you disable the accelerator? Most boards allow you to. And hey, I've got games that don't work on my 68030. :)

    Yep, I've got both an Amiga and a K6 Linux box on my desk. The best of both worlds.

    "I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
    "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS

    [ Parent ]
    Might and Magic II (Score:1)
    by ghira on Friday August 20, @04:15AM (#1735718)
    (User #13007 Info | http://www.mistral.co.uk/ghira/recmathslibri.html)
    Hey, wow. I have fond memories of Might and Magic II myself. The interface was pretty grim, but
    I thought that as a game it was better than MM3:
    you had to choose your skills and items more
    carefully since you could only have very
    limited quantities of them.

    Still not as wondrous as Dungeon Master, though.
    [ Parent ]
    Re:Might and Magic II (Score:1)
    by ghira on Friday August 20, @11:47AM (#1735719)
    (User #13007 Info | http://www.mistral.co.uk/ghira/recmathslibri.html)
    No idea, sorry.

    I have the Amiga version. It still works,
    unlike MM3, which crashes during loading
    on my KS 3.1 68060 machine :-(.

    Sadly, Dungeon Master and Captive don't
    work either. Aaaarrrgghhh.
    [ Parent ]
    The secret to success (Score:1)
    by wilkinsm on Friday August 20, @08:48AM (#1735720)
    (User #13507 Info)
    I think the real key to any software project is teamwork, not money. If you have 5 or 6 smart people that can work together very closely then you are more likely to succeed than if you are working like a lone ranger. Look at id - You don't just have not just one or two wonderful programmers, you have a whole team that work very well together. Look at slashdot. Look at Linux. Ultimately you need a charimatic leader, but it's unity of the group that makes things happen.

    I think more hackers need to learn not to be such loners and learn how to work together better. Open source is a great training ground for this.
    [ Parent ]
    So, why is this different from anything else? (Score:1)
    by BillWhite on Friday August 20, @06:15AM (#1735721)
    (User #14288 Info | http://www.griggsinst.com/)
    I would believe this is the situation in game companies. I interviewed with a couple the last time I was looking for a job, and I was too expensive for all of them. I was not looking for a raise, and I am not statistically overpaid, if you look at the industry salary surveys, but game companies want people on the cheap.

    However, the description of the working conditions - no specs, no documentation, no process, chaotic development - seems to describe all of the companies at which I have worked in the last 15 years.

    I personally believe that it has to do with the mistaken belief that "First to market wins." This was true with Microsoft, but they had a monopoly, and they were not averse to acting in restraint of trade to maintain it. I don't think first to market with something that doesn't work always wins, though that is the way companies believe.

    The only lesson I think we can learn from this is the lesson we can learn from looking at any commercial venture. Commerce is Fraud.
    [ Parent ]
    Re:Age differences: nice point (Score:1)
    by maphew (patawiatpolarcomdotcom) on Friday August 20, @10:00AM (#1735722)
    (User #14702 Info)
    I'd like to see the age differences between the people who automatically say "So get another job asshole" and the people with more supportive responses to this guy.

    That's a very insightful question. I'd like to see that too. It would also be interesting to compare the amount of development experience (and not just software, but writing or graphic arts too).
    [ Parent ]
    games industry sequence of events? (Score:1)
    by blargney (blargney@usa.net) on Friday August 20, @05:35AM (#1735723)
    (User #15534 Info)

    It compiles! -> Ship it! -> You're fired!

    [ Parent ]
    Favourite Games (Score:1)
    by maroberts (maroberts@dial.pipex.com) on Friday August 20, @10:42AM (#1735724)
    (User #15852 Info | http://www.maroberts.dial.pipex.com/)
    I'm really surprised he doesn't like Quake! What could be more satisfying than going online and blowing away one of these 14 year olds he talks about.

    More seriously, I find I have to be in the right mood to play specific games

    Quake) Desperate Need to Let Out Pent-Up aggression
    Civ) Feeling creative - what could be more satisfying than building a civilisation all by yourself.
    Other Strategy Games) I'm bored, got hours to kill, I want to control the pace of what I play

    The author of this message is 36 going on 14.

    On another point, I am a professional software engineer, and I realise that games are often designed from scratch, but I'm not scornful of the design approaches that games companies have used to get the game to work. Just because they don't use Shlaer-Mellor, Yourden, Teamwork, UML or anything else doesn't make the achievement less stunning. I'm consistently amazed that games deliver what they do out of CPUs; something a formal design approach is unlikely to realize.
    [ Parent ]
    I agree with GnrcMan (Score:1)
    by ABEND (coemgen@hotmail.com) on Friday August 20, @06:21AM (#1735725)
    (User #15913 Info)
    It seems much software is being developed using investors' money. Perhaps this situation parallels the "savings and loan crisis" of the 1980's: A suave CEO schmoozes some financial backing for (fill in the blank) project, pays himself and his buddies fat salaries for a while, and then, suddenly, the development corporation is bankrupt. Ergo, negative profits.
    [ Parent ]
    Re:Game Developing - An art? (small correction) (Score:1)
    by Droog on Friday August 20, @08:45AM (#1735726)
    (User #17543 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    >Sure, more people saw films in the 30s than they >do now (cause of the depression) but in the 60s >and 70s and especially the 80s (cause of two >people - Lucas and Spielburg).

    This is not true. In the 30's movies were much more popular because there was no television.
    [ Parent ]
    Re:Interesting, but does not quite make the point (Score:1)
    by Droog on Friday August 20, @05:56AM (#1735727)
    (User #17543 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    This is just a guess, but perhaps the reason why the games industry is less profitable than other software companies is that, like Hollywood, makes a huge portion of its revenue in the first month of a game release.

    Software companies like Microsoft, have a steadier revenue stream since people upgrade their software at different times.

    Also, game developers cannot continually make money off of upgrades to games. As Talin said, a game engine had a maximum lifespan of about two years.
    [ Parent ]
    Independent Game developers (Score:1)
    by Droog on Friday August 20, @06:05AM (#1735728)
    (User #17543 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    There are still some independent shareware companies that make high quality games. Spiderweb Software (Exile I, II, III, Realmz) and Ambrosia Software (Maelstrom, Apeiron, Escape Velocity) are two examples that I can think of off the top of my head.

    Ambrosia, unless they have changed thier practices recently, is also a company that encourages independent developers to work for them. Several of their projects began with independent developers proposing projects and showing code to Ambrosia.
    [ Parent ]
    Miracles as part of the job... (Score:1)
    by Seth Scali on Friday August 20, @05:22AM (#1735729)
    (User #18018 Info)
    When I worked for a company that was contracted for government work, I was informed that my job was to "make the TAMO Chip work".
    When I asked what a "TAMO Chip" was, I was surprised by the answer. The engineers had chosen a very cheap, incapable, and badly designed microcontroller to handle a horrendously complex task, and I was to write the firmware. "TAMO" stood for "Then A Miracle Occurs".
    Fascinating stuff, government contracting...
    [ Parent ]
    Ditto (Score:1)
    by ebradway (Eric at Bradway Dot Net) on Friday August 20, @10:23PM (#1735730)
    (User #18409 Info | http://www.bradway.net)
    My friend (who is reading over my shoulder) and I have been through two different game companies (actually three if you consider the first company before the buyout). While I've never enjoyed a job more, I don't think I'd want to get back into the market. The game market has really closed up a great deal compared to 5-10 years ago.

    It's almost impossible for a new shop to take off. You pretty much have to develop a game completely before the distributors take you seriously and the game has to compare to what established shops were producing.

    For instance, the first company I worked for made statistically accurate baseball and football games exclusively for the PC. Our boss wanted to go head-to-head with EA and try to add arcade style play and graphics. Well, the investment to make that leap is huge. We tried to do it with a team of 15 people - about 5 programmers and the rest artists and sports experts. We tried to turn out three titles a year - baseball, pro football and college football. We didn't even come close. I later interviewed with EA's division that does the Madden NFL games and found out that they have over 20 people working just on the pro football game alone.

    Not to mention the disheartening sight of a streatch Hummer at E3 custom made for EA sports. That damned truck cost more than the production budget of our last title.

    I too have moved on to ecommerce development and have experienced all of the benefits that are listed above. Better pay, reasonable hours, female coworkers, and on, and on.

    I have also been asked dozens of times what it would take for someone to become a game developer. I always tell them - don't. It just isn't the career it used to be.
    [ Parent ]
    Hit the nail on the head. (Score:1)
    by Mr. Competence on Friday August 20, @04:35AM (#1735731)
    (User #18431 Info)
    I have worked for a company that has a game division for years and I also have friends that work for game companies and I can tell you that this is exactly right.
    Game developers get lower pay and loger hours and more grief than any group of developers I have seen. Ridiculous deadlines are the norm for the industry and often the people making the decisions about the games to make have never played any.
    Some of the problem with the status quo is the buyers (least common denominator) who all buy the FPS ripoffs, but much of it lies in the industry sweatshop mentality.

    Those who open their minds too far often let their brains fall out.
    [ Parent ]
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