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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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It's all dead now (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21, @03:51AM (#1735606)
Face it people: Computer games industry is a walking dead since about 1995. The reason IMHO is that a good game is not possible on multitasking OS
[ Parent ]
Re:Welcome to the world (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21, @08:11AM (#1735607)
Just don't get bought by Microsoft
[ Parent ]
Re:Supply and Demand (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @09:04AM (#1735608)
Three words... System Shock 2
[ Parent ]
Half-Life multiplayer rules (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @09:06AM (#1735609)
The Half-Life guys improved the Quake engine by leaps and bounds, including the integration of new multiresolution mesh and skeletal animation techniques which even ID, on it's third iteration hasn't done. As a result, Half-Life models have much more realistic animation, and as anyone who played half-life knows, kick ass AI. Now go download TeamFortress or Counterstrike for Half-Life and tell me that half-life multiplay isn't better/fun than Quake. And here's the kicker: Half-Life was written by ex-Microsoft guys.
[ Parent ]
Re:Bleh (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @09:20AM (#1735610)
The article obviously has good points that are true, but it's only a part of his life, and if ypu really fight for your experience and your job, it can be fun. Small game companies that have crappy coders and designers can't expect to get any money, and shouldn't waste it. They should practice with games, and then release something everyone will like. And of course how can you compete with ID??Time and good games can show it. So far what I have seen though is gaming is like a gamble, Diablo was *&(*) with cheating, TA:K was hella laggy(even with a cable modem). So do they think???They know that most people don't have over 64SDRAM these days, when putting a game on the market developers need to think what they have, and what thy need, and what will be better.
[ Parent ]
You're getting old (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @09:20AM (#1735611)
Sounds like you're just getting old buddy. Time to move on. So you won't make another game unless it's done your way, and your way is that there is no timetable. What makes you think engineers don't deal with deadlines? What a laff. I'm pretty sure you figured it out yourself - those 19 year olds you despise have in abundance what you have lost - drive, enthusiasm, and passion. You should have gone to Quakecon instead of sitting on your ass. That would have made you realize just how fortunate you were. And would probably have made you think that you assessment of fun might have dimmed a little over the years.
[ Parent ]
Re:Unfortunate Lack Of Vision (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @04:59AM (#1735612)
If your opinion of a career is doing work that you don't like, then you have a miserable life.
[ Parent ]
pimps and such (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @05:00AM (#1735613)
Yes, you can cite all the Quakes and Unreals and Half-Life's that are a lot of fun to play, but do you realize how many REALLY bad 1st person shooters are released or die before reaching market? If only 10 percent of them become Quakes and Half-life's, it only supports his assertions. And unlike what some have said above, you can't simply "do what "sells" or " do what you like" because he really didn't scratch the surface of some of the ludicrous practices in the industry. The game developers are just the Call-Girls doing the work and raking int the money for their pimps, the publishers. The publishing houses like Microsoft, Interplay, etc, only publish the games made by a developer company (the programmers and artists he talked about) and that developer is LUCKY to get even 10% of the money. That's it. All of the work for little return. if they can still live through the next game cycle, they often little choice but to go back out on the streets and peddle their rehashed games for a quick trick.
[ Parent ]
Re:Might and Magic II (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @05:00AM (#1735614)
any idea how you get it to work in w95
I hve to run it in dos or it takes down windows
[ Parent ]
Re:I'm also in the gaming industry... (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21, @12:03PM (#1735615)
Huh? Sid Meier has worked for a total of two companies and he co-founded both. Hasn't saved him from what? Getting to make the games he wants to make? Getting rich in the process? Not letting it go to his head? Oh, that I should not be saved from such things myself! Noah Falstein
[ Parent ]
Re:If you don't like it, do it right yourself. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21, @05:00PM (#1735616)
This annoys me. When do you have freedom to do anything? I have the freedom to choose whether or not to eat and McDonalds or KFC on my lunch hour. I do not have the freedom to work on writing the code I think is "really important" or even at least "satisfying," because I don't happen to be independently wealthy or have my parents taking care of me. I have to earn my rent and pay my GF's credit card bills. I have a drug habit to maintain. A Y2K shelter to stock up.

And then after spending 10 hours a day coding crap, I cannot force myself to come home and code some more. I'm pale and wasted enough as it is. I just can't do it. I need to drink beer and sit in my underwear and watch Letterman and not even think of thinking about programming. Doesn't everybody?

I have great admiration for the people who can, and do, maintain such a punishing hobby as coding on their spare time. I'll tell you one thing, though. Aside from really unconventional titles - think tetris - no one person is ever going to be able to write a "commercial quality" game again.

[ Parent ]
Re:Bleh (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21, @06:14PM (#1735617)
How right you are my freind
[ Parent ]
Re:Independents? (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @09:35AM (#1735618)
You need a stable enviornment in order for independent's to compete with the main stream. Take file for instance, the only thing you really can't have with a low budget is well known actors, so what? There are plenty of straving actors out there that you can get relatively cheap right? The camera, studios etc are usually the cheap part of the deal. You can make due without majorly expensive stunts and special effects, and with the help of computers you can do a lot more for less. The game industry and software in general has no stable technology, as the author points out, everything is basically rewritten for every game. The use of game engines could be a real help, and quite a few have pointed out Half-life and valve as some great company that beat the odds. The point here is that they didn't rewrite the cameras they licensed the cameras in the way of id's quake engine. The problem was that the engine was changing as they were using it, and they had to make changes to it as well, so there was no clear line between their own work and work on the engine. In other words there was no stable part of the development. Assumbly an independent developer could license the engine, but as it stands now you only save a bit of the development time doing so, and actually you save nothing because up till now the game play side of the development has just suffered. What it does allow you is to put more time on the actual game and less on the graphical representation. Another difference is that in film one man can have a very good vision, and with the help of others could get that vision in film. A game designer could also, but it is much much harder. More because all the highly specialized skills that are needed (as compared to something like dollying a camera).
[ Parent ]
Re:Independents? (this time with BR's) (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @09:37AM (#1735619)
You need a stable enviornment in order for independent's to compete with the main stream. Take file for instance, the only thing you really can't have with a low budget is well known actors, so what? There are plenty of straving actors out there that you can get relatively cheap right? The camera, studios etc are usually the cheap part of the deal. You can make due without majorly expensive stunts and special effects, and with the help of computers you can do a lot more for less.

The game industry and software in general has no stable technology, as the author points out, everything is basically rewritten for every game. The use of game engines could be a real help, and quite a few have pointed out Half-life and valve as some great company that beat the odds. The point here is that they didn't rewrite the cameras they licensed the cameras in the way of id's quake engine. The problem was that the engine was changing as they were using it, and they had to make changes to it as well, so there was no clear line between their own work and work on the engine. In other words there was no stable part of the development.

Assumbly an independent developer could license the engine, but as it stands now you only save a bit of the development time doing so, and actually you save nothing because up till now the game play side of the development has just suffered. What it does allow you is to put more time on the actual game and less on the graphical representation.

Another difference is that in film one man can have a very good vision, and with the help of others could get that vision in film. A game designer could also, but it is much much harder. More because all the highly specialized skills that are needed (as compared to something like dollying a camera).

[ Parent ]
Re:Supply and Demand (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @09:40AM (#1735620)
Half-life changed the face of multiplayer? Huh? Changed it to the point where only someone on cable gets a decent ping, I suppose.. You must have meant single player. Multiplayer was changed boatloads more by the quakeworld client, capture the flag, and team fortress. They made multiplayer accessable to everyone on the net (dirty lines aside) and also added a variety of play.
[ Parent ]
grass is greener (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @04:18AM (#1735621)
i guess its more fun to play games than code them
[ Parent ]
Re:Examples should support your argument... (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @09:46AM (#1735622)
Don't forget RPGs!

Personally, they're easily my favorite genre. They're is a lot of variety among RGPs as well. They can be 2D or 3D, first person, third person, party based, multiplayer or single player, story based or open-ended, etc, etc. I love them all! It's really an interesting genre, plus they're really making a comeback.

There can also be innovation within a genre. Although Halflife looks very much like a conventional FPS, I don't think anyone who's played it would say it isn't innovative. The way it draws you into the gameworld is unprecedented.

There are also a lot of cross genre games. Action/strategy, RPG/strategy, action/RPG, action/adventure, etc. There are also truely innovative games that are made by small companies and aren't hyped a lot, but are an absolute blast if you know where to find them. Ever played Independence War? Someone finally made a space combat game that actually follows the laws of physics.

It seems to me that those who complain about all games being so similar don't really play a lot of games.
[ Parent ]
Re:Independents? (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 22, @04:31PM (#1735623)
The closest thing to independent games today are budget games. Yes, Deer Hunter would be the "Mariachi" of the games industry, super-cheap independent movie making big bucks. But no game developer wants to work on budget games => Old technology, small target system, short schedules and probably no public recognition. After all, the industry is, what, 15 years old? Independent movies became a major alternative not too long ago. I think the industry is still evolving and reshaping itself too fast (major changes less than every three years? The latest being acquisitions). Give it another ten years and it will be much closer to a stable state. I hope I can survive in it for that long. Javier Arevalo Software Engineer at Pyro Studios
[ Parent ]
Examples? (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @04:19AM (#1735624)
He makes interesting points, but it would be interesting if he provided case studies - i.e. how the things he's described related to actual events.
[ Parent ]
Re:Supply and Demand (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @09:53AM (#1735625)
Why does everyone on slashdot think that all gamers are 14 years old? I've seen comments to the same effect about so many times it really makes we wonder.

Here are some actual statistics:
The average age of a console (playstation, N64, etc.) gamer: 14 (congradulations!)
The average age of a PC gamer: 25

Wait a minute...aren't doom, quake, and all those games PC games?

Just food for thought.
[ Parent ]
Making games is fun. But publishers spoil the fun. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @09:54AM (#1735626)
Actually, if you're not under money pressure by a publisher, or management pressure (in a big comany that develops and publishes), making games is a lot more fun than playing them. But jump into a development situation where your mortgage depends on the next milestone check from a publisher, and life sucks. It sucks just as bad if you have a manager who spends the last five months of the project asking "are we done yet?" My unspoken answer to her: "No, [ex-boss], it's still five months, or four months if I work nights and weekends like I'd do for a good manager, but we're an hour closer to done than last time you asked."

After a couple of years of working for a large, sucky (for employees -- they made good products) company that published and developed, I'm doing a game as a hobby. If I make a great game, and make big bucks on it, wonderful. If I make a good game, and manage to make back my development costs, fine. If my game sucks and never makes any money (or even ends up awesome and still makes no money), I'll be OK, because making it is fun.

If you make games to make money, it's not going to be fun. But if you make games to make games, it's a whole lot of fun.

        --Steve Schonberger
(too lazy to register, not too chicken to sign)

P.S. If anyone reading this knows the sucky manager who made my life hell with all her "are we done yet?" crap, say something rude to her for me.

[ Parent ]
Re:Bleh (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @09:55AM (#1735627)
Bahh, there is no difference except that the managers on the buisness side are more knowledgable about how to exploit people and still maintain a good work atmosphere.

You aren't being exploited? Well lemme look at your contract, have none then there is no question.
[ Parent ]
How 'bout this? (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @05:08AM (#1735628)
Don't like an area of the industry? Don't work in it. It's not like there's a shortage of programming jobs.
[ Parent ]
Words of Wisdom... (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @05:11AM (#1735629)
I agree with Talin about the quality of games in general...they're boring. And getting games to run on a windows computer means first dealing with the hardware, software, and drivers that the thing needs. Then getting it to install and run properly. Finally, the reward for these labors is typically a rather boring game that is played twice: the day it is installed and the day it's deleted from the disk. I don't even look at windows games anymore. Talin's description of the roles of "artists" and "programmers" gibes perfectly with my experience. It is impossible to separate these two areas. It is like Rembrandt telling someone else where and what types of brush strokes to make. The best games in my experience were shareware or freeware that were designed and developed by one or two people who were chasing the thrill of discovery. A committee of artists and programmers is guaranteed to produce another boring windows game that will soon be filling landfills everywhere.
[ Parent ]
Re:Supply and Demand (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @05:18AM (#1735630)
I stopped playing FPS after Doom. Why? Becuase they are all just doom with a different gun or a new processor throttling graphics engine (gotta save some cycles for distributed.net). I love simulators. Horridly complex things that would make most quake player's ears bleed. I haven't seen anything new in that genre in years. Sequels suck, they have better effects, but they can never capture what made the original great, the originality. When i can stroll down the isles of a computer store looking for a new game and end up walking out of the store with a java book and my warez wish list is empty, the industry has done something wrong.
[ Parent ]
Re:First post? Doubt it (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 23, @07:32AM (#1735631)
The software industry is a racket. It is no more or less idealistic or rational than other business pursuits. In consulting and contracting, the one rule is "always be billing". It doesn't matter whether projects ultimately succeed or fail. Typically outside help is only brought in when the problem is very bad or a manager needs people to blame for the eventual failure. For most big companies, software is a necessary evil. It's a cost center necessary for supporting operations or the "real" product. And big companies (I work now in telecom) have so much money in their war chests they can afford to lose millions for years. I've never worked for a very small company but have seen one from the inside. No business plan, no schedules, true worship at the altar of hackery. The programmers were the best I've seen but didn't think about making money. So I don't see problems in the game industry as being unusual. They seem perfectly normal to me in software in general.
[ Parent ]
Re:Bleh (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 23, @10:59AM (#1735632)
I have been in the industry for three months now, and I've loved every minute of it. Of course, I haven't been exposed to the crazy crunch time hours or any of the dealing-with-the-publisher type nightmares. Call me exploited? Sure I could make more money elsewhere, but would I be a tenth as happy? Sure I think I can produce something meaningful one day, and I might as well try while I still have the energy, right? If I enjoyed writing SQL, maybe that would have been my industry of choice. I love writing code, and I love games, and this is exactly where I'm going to be in for as long as I can stomach it. The above author is old and jaded - the industry doesn't need people like him, anyway.
[ Parent ]
Re:Half-Life multiplayer rules (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @10:09AM (#1735633)
You make this out like the people at id or any 3D programmer could not do these things. I believe it has more to do with restraint than skill. Half-life mulitplayer sucks, the single player game rocked and I loved it, and I loved the weapons and the entire feel of the game, even in software mode. BUT the multiplayer fell flat, it might be fine if everyone had high-speed connections, but we don't so it fell flat this goes for hereticII as well for the same reasons.
[ Parent ]
Re:Supply and Demand (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 23, @04:57PM (#1735634)
re: system shock 2 - 4 words. Been there, done that. The game is just, hunt for the key and open the next door. I was very disapointed.
[ Parent ]
Blah, blah, blah. . . (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 25, @06:40PM (#1735635)
He's right, well at least what I read was right. ;) Games are being made by people who like making games. Don't whine just because you suck at it. Maybe you had a hit or two back in the day: things move on. New people with new ideas are where *wow* games seem to be sprouting from; I am wrong, no? Spend more time coding and dreaming and less time bitching and maybe--if you suck less than I think you do--you make a decent game. It all boils down to "stop bitching." That should probably be recursive. :p Me.
[ Parent ]
Game Suckiness (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 28, @12:27PM (#1735636)
The problem in the games industry isn't so much in the game designs as it is in the companies publishing the games. THAT is why being a games developer sucks, because you aren't given enough time to finish the game, and you have to put your name on a piece of junk that won't sell.

The key is, and always has been, to not ship it until it's done. If the game isn't finished and it is sent to the stores, you will lose more money on returns and unsold copies than you will by waiting a month or two and let the developers finish it.

What's that? An excuse? "The public couldn't wait any longer"? Don't hype up the game so far in advance, then! Look at Total Annihilation: you heard almost nothing about the game until it was in stores. It was a hit!

Rushing games out the door...
THAT is why being a game developer sucks, and THAT is why there are so many sucky games on the market. I know it's obvious, but I am sick of it. :-P
[ Parent ]
Re:Independents? (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @10:33AM (#1735637)
Good point. There is a massive amount of money to be made in games. The game industry unkown to most makes more money then the movie industry each year. Hence greed will always rear it's ugly head regardless. Given time a shake up in the industry will occur and the independant game makers will have time to shine.
[ Parent ]
Used to be Shareware (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @05:20AM (#1735638)
The "Independent" games industry used to be the shareware games. Back when I was doing tons of BBS'ing (circa 1992-95) there were quite a few independent groups/companies doing games and distributing them w/o aid of publishers (id, Epic MegaGames, Apogee to name a few).
However, games started to get so big that it became difficult to download them, and, simultaneously, most of the really good independents decided to go with Commercial Distribution as their primary sales model. Maybe there are still a few creative, fun games being made by independents, but I haven't been seeing them recently (though maybe I'm looking in the wrong places). I used to love going through the file listings on BBS's looking for what new games were available, now that most BBS's have shut down, I don't know where to look.
[ Parent ]
The "Typical programmer demographic"? (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @05:28AM (#1735639)

This is one of the most absurd statements I've read in this thread. When it comes to what programmers find entertaining, there really is a tremendous amount of variation. Maybe some common threads, but everyone is in some way different. Let's look at some classic fun games: Pac Man, Q-Bert, Galaga, Break-out. I'm pretty sure these games were programmers doing what they thought was fun (at least at first), because games hadn't become an "industry" then. However, the product they produced was enjoyable to a vast cross-section of kids, not just geeks.

I personally think the original poster had it right: if you don't think a game your working on is fun, odds are no-one else will either because you won't have made it fun.

[ Parent ]
Re:grass is greener (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @10:38AM (#1735640)
It depends. Some of my hacker friends and I prefer hacking games - writing game engines, doing proof-of-concept graphics and settings, etc. None of us really play many games. *shrug* Don't know why that is. None of us particularly dislikes playing games. It's just that hacking is so much more interesting. Perhaps the fact that we're doing it for fun rather than profit makes a difference.
[ Parent ]
id makes more from sales than licensing (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @11:13AM (#1735641)
Way more. Doom, Doom 2, Quake, and Quake 2 have all sold over 2 million copies each. Assuming a US $10 per-box royalty, that's US $80M. I can count only a dozen Quake/Quake 2 licenses, and the Doom licenses were scarcer and obviously cheaper. Let's assume 20 licenses, because that makes the math easy. Do you think that id charges $4M for a license? I think not. I think that's off by a factor of 20-40. References: www.idsoftware.com/corporate/idhist.html www.pcdata.com idhist mentions that Doom 2 sold over 2 million. PCData sales figures are not publicly available, but average selling price is. G.O.D. names a 40% royalty rate for top titles, and id definitely has a sweet deal with Activision. Other numbers are from memory.
[ Parent ]
Where the Money Goes (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @11:22AM (#1735642)
Approx 40% retailer, 15% distributor, 35 publisher, 10% developer. Hence there's an upper limit on how much a developer can ask for. That pimply-faced sub-literate teenager at the local Soup'n'Software consumes more of the retail price than any single, individual programmer. Check out the Gathering of Developer's web site for some info on royalties & such; there's also a few books on the industry, such as "Game Developer's Marketplace", that get into the numbers more.
[ Parent ]
Licensing Fees (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @11:53AM (#1735643)
I believe I read an article before that stated id charged $500k for the Quake engine (possibly Q2 at the time... it wasn't too clear).
[ Parent ]
Re:Interesting, but does not quite make the point (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @12:05PM (#1735644)
The audience is the big part of the difference.. Making something to entertain, that's not just a sit-in-front-of-box/screen/page-and-follow-along type of experience is possibly one of the hardest creative challenges on the planet.. And almost everyone in the industry simply doesn't understand that simple fact. They all think they have the greatest idea for the greatest game, not stopping to pause and realize that it's the greatest game >to themare better games than Quake or Starcraft. In most non-entertainment based software companies the goal is always to make software that is what the user wants/needs. However, in many game development companies they focus on what they like or want, and ultimately fail as a result.. I'm not saying we have to just dumb-down games either. We just need to be a lot more honest with ourselves about what we're making and who it's for. Instead of "thinking outside the box" game developers need to start "thinking outside themselves".. That would go a long way to improving the success rate of our industry. There's an excellent article on Gamasutra title "Get big, get niche, or get out" that pretty well identifies some of this.. Developers making niche products should know that up-front, and not have dreams of 2million+ sales (especially on the PC, sheesh!), and companies desiring that level of sales need to make games that appeal to the non-gaming crowd.. John Gronquist 3D Artist Cavedog
[ Parent ]
Re:Gender Ratio in the Workplace IS IMPORTANT (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @05:39AM (#1735645)
It's also the only way some of us ever get laid.
[ Parent ]
Internet Solution (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @06:16AM (#1735646)
I first started thinking about this and other problems in the industry while reading games magazines, they would suggest that a game was not up to scratch if it wasnt in 3D etc.., but then in other sections of the magazine stress how important gameplay is.

What summed up the commercialism for me was when reading a review for the PSX game Syphon Filter, it read 'a very good game, hopefully the sequel will be better'. damn shame.

It would be nice if someone set up a site like www.mp3.com for games, where alternative games could be presented.... I guess there are similar sites already, but something as large and as popular as mp3.com would be nice.

I like the idea of using the net to encourage artistic freedom.

maquis@beavis.removethis.org

(Insert witty signature file here)
[ Parent ]
It's *NOT* just the games industry. (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @06:19AM (#1735647)
It's *NOT* just the games industry. I've working at a number of non-games jobs. Some for large firms. Some for small start-ups. The vast majority of the time I was working for managers who did not understand fundamental software engineering concepts. Who consistently minimized development time, abolished testing, and lived in disaster-patching mode.

In my experience, if your manager is good, and you prove your worth to him or her, then things improve. This holds true regardless of the company size.

On the other hand, if your manager is ignorant, politically oriented, etc. Or if your coworkers fall into this category, you're screwed. (Loosely translated: Circulate your resume NOW!)

Case in point: I was explaining to one ex-boss the advantages of Object-Oriented programming (ie: C++) over Functional Decomposition (ie: C). And she asked me, "But why are you breaking it into all these little functions to begin with?" It seems that when she wrote a program, she just used one big function...

That job lasted 5 months. Mostly because I refused to quit. So she waited until her boss was out of the country and fired me. (This was the same ex-boss who had, shall we say, noticeable psychological problems. And considerable military training and experience. So I was really quite appreciative of being fired!)

But I'm sure we've all had our share of horror stories, sweatshops, and nightmares. My point is that it's not just the games industry. And, at least now, I usually grill my potential employers far more than they grill me during the interview process.
[ Parent ]
Entertainment Localisation and QA (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @06:20AM (#1735648)
I Know, Having workend in Localisation QA and Engineering for several Big games houses, that this rings true for localisation too. 1st Post!!!!
[ Parent ]
The public's also to blame (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @06:22AM (#1735649)
I'm in the games industry, and I can speak from personal experience working on pretty much non-clones. [I.e. not FPSs, not something that's been done to death.] My gripe is this: THE IDIOT PUBLIC'S BUYING CLONES AND NOT THE GOOD GAMES. [Sorry for shouting; I needed to get this off my chest.] When CloneGame(tm) sells like hotcakes, and the original titles don't, publishers see people voting with their checkbooks, and buying those damn CloneGames. Take a look at http://www.gamecenter.com/Features/Exclusives/Notbought/ -- all 10 games they listed are damn good games, but nobody bought them. [I bought at least 3 or 4 out of that list, before seeing that, and might look again for the others.] Find a way to make the damn public buy a good game instead of QuakDeerSniperForce IV, and we'll see more game developers making good games.
[ Parent ]
Re:Bleh (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @12:55PM (#1735650)
Personally this *big budget* team effort mentality is what I believe scares potential developers from enjoying making games just for the sake of doing it. When it comes down to money and money is the goal with performance expectations, how can you have the fun and add all those great features and easter eggs of yesteryear?

Collaboration of course helps but it seems fewer and fewer people area writing something on their own (or with a small group) outside of large corporations.

If something is truly good, someone will take notice. You don't need to start with a big company. Start with an idea, forget profits, do it for the enjoyment. Make it personal, put in surprises, exude creativity. Some of my own favorite games are less well known ones without the best graphics.

Just my $0.02
[ Parent ]
Re:Half-Life multiplayer rules (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @01:00PM (#1735651)
IMHO, Half-Life Team Fortress totally kicks butt. I get bored by deathmatch -- whether it's in Quake 2 or HL. But the cooperative dimension to HL-TF is what keeps me coming back for more. And, having seen the E3 demo of HL Team Fortress 2, Valve's next opus will blow the doors off the multiplayer genre.
[ Parent ]
Re:the Game industry (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @01:03PM (#1735652)
losers try their best winners go home? haha thats the line from The Rock and u got it wrong... loser.
[ Parent ]
Too many casual gamers not willing to try new stuf (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @01:07PM (#1735653)
I think that the reason for only the same fps's selling really well is that there are so many casual computer gamers. Casual gamers are only going to buy sequels to games they liked or reccomendations from friends, as they buy fewer games per year. Core gamers seem to be more willing to try something new. I loved both thief and half-life last year, but the game I reccomended to my casual gamer friends (and it's also the one they liked when they saw me play it.) I personally know 3 people who bought half-life after seeing me play it, but no one was willing to buy thief. Now, I'm about to get system shock2, which looks great from the demo, but I have trouble thinking that it will sell well. I just can't see myself telling my casual gamer friends to play it. For them, I fear quake III will be the best game to play. I'll get both, but they'll just get q3. That's one sale for ss2, 4 sales for q3. Do the math.
[ Parent ]
On Talin... (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @01:25PM (#1735654)
I have a random ramble on what Talin wrote about

Talin, I am proud to say, was one of my mentors when I started my game development career. Talin is a fantastically creative person.

I have worked with Talin and I have worked at two other companies. I heard about this article from a friend and at first I thought Talin was just burnt out and letting off some steam. Then I read the article. Taken as a whole, everything he said is on the mark.

The key point to take away from his article is that investors need to start placing value with a more mature engineering process. This implies everything he said - but also begs the question of how the investor will become more savvy and demanding of a more mature process.

I think about this a lot. I really do not have the answer yet. My current thought is that perhaps an alternative funding source needs to get a game to alpha/beta before the publisher is even appraoched. If so, then the deal between the developer and publisher can be much more in the developer's favor. However, that alternative funding source has a cost as well - presumably they are a partner.

Open source is very interesting. Does open source have to mean the game creates no renumeration to the developer? I hope not, because I would like to continue work on games full-time and eventually an open source game.

And as far as community goes - it is King. Talin and Robert McNally sincerely care about the gamer and I would like to think that spirit been imbued into the games I work on. Chris Taylor and myself worked very closely with the fans of our game and the board game that our game is based on. And, Talin, I would enjoy finishing Planet NET.

I, have to say, thankyou Talin for all of your instruction, insight and a demonstrated love for computer games. I also have to put in a shameless plug for my current game -> "Starfleet Command" (www.interplay.com/sfc). I am of that lucky crowd of 20 year-olds who has a #1 game (at least for last week at Electronic Boutique, Babbages and Frys! :-) Woo-hoo!

-Erik Bethke

Project Lead - Starfleet Command

[ Parent ]
Love my game industry job... (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20, @01:40PM (#1735655)
I'm also a software developer in the games industry, and have worked on many commercial PC and console games. I think this guy is way off. My game development job is great!

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.
This isn't true at all where I work, in fact there are very few young engineers. I'm 28 and am the youngest person on my team. The technical leads are highly experienced and knowledgeable about SW engineering principles as well as gaming technical issues. The pay is good too.

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_. 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 all complain about this kind of thing, and it is frustrating to be forced to rush, but entertainment software is a BUSINESS. If shipping by Christmas means you'll double or triple your sales, then it's far from an arbitrary deadline-- it's an absolute necessity. Some companies don't realize this, and produce wonderful games that are commercial failures.

Basically, I think this guy's problem is that he doesn't like the company where he works, and he's applying his dissatisfaction to the entire industry.

[ Parent ]
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