Category Archives: Industry

Breaking In Industry

Inside Out: A Little Ranty

Let me start by immediately apologizing to Brian Nathanson. He's about to get the brunt of my anger for something I've been dealing with for some time now, and I apologize that he just happened to publish an article that I so strongly disagree with right as I was thinking I needed to write another post on game education and its role in breaking in to the game industry.

I am, in some respects, an industry "insider." I've worked at one game studio and one game middleware startup. I've gone through crunch on a triple A title, I've helped ship patches and expansions on said title, and I was around for the pre-production of another triple A title due out soon. But, I only graduated from James Madison a scant 4 years ago (almost to the day, wow), so I feel I still have that connection to what it is like to be trying to break in. In another few years, I'll probably be too far removed to give this same advice, but for now I feel like I still know enough about what it's like that I can make some educated comments. Unfortunately, these comments are going to be directed at Brian, since he's publicly come out to talk about his experiences at a game school. Again, I'm sorry Brian.

First I want to enumerate what Brian did wrong, though some of this is going to be speculation from talking to other people that have had the same problems. First, Brian went to a school with a game program, probably without visiting the school, without knowing its teaching methodologies, it's success rate, and probably only because it offered a game development program. This is a mistake. Do your research on a school. If you haven't read my GCG article on the subject, please do. What you will learn is that there are a lot of things that make a school good or bad for any given student looking to go into game development, and the existence or non-existence of a game development program is not one of them. If Brian had visited his school before hand, he probably would have noticed that there are very few game companies in Arizona (comparatively) which means very few opportunities outside of the classroom, and that the school's staff was (probably) made up of mostly educators that were re-tasked into the game development program when they heard that game development programs were the next big thing. That would have set off warning bells saying this was probably not a place he wanted to go to school. But hey, game development degree means you'll work in the game industry right?

Which brings me to Brian's second mistake. He assumed that having a game development degree would entitle him to a position at a game development company. Because of this, he didn't work on networking and he didn't put the extra effort he needed into his portfolio (which he admits is not very competitive). I've actually heard this same "rant" from other people as well, at many different schools. They feel that a game degree somehow entitles them to a position at a game company, to which I say you are deluding yourself. Regardless of where you go and what you study, you're going to have to put work into networking and you're going to have to put work into being as good as you can be in your particular field. It's a supply and demand issue. There's a huge supply of people that want to be in the industry, and a fixed demand, partially determined by the amount of money that is flowing into it at any given time.

Which actually brings me to the crux of what I hate about this article. It's encased in these two quotes from Brian. First:

I believe the industry needs to allow for outside and inexperienced people to reinvigorate the game development process. I believe that those who have a shipped title on their resumes, while talented and dedicated, perhaps are closer to burning out than an individual out to make his or her mark…. Individuals with base skill sets and true passion are ready and waiting to be given a chance to shine. These talented and passionate people bring fresh new energy and commitment into an industry that seems to always be juggling profitability with volatility. New ideas, new game mechanics, and new appeal could be created by those who just want to make a game they would like to play. Smaller, more tightly focused, and perhaps less expensive games could be the result if the industry allowed more inexperienced developers to work while growing their skill sets.

I hear this all the time. This is bullshit masquerading as wisdom. Yes, you're right, the industry needs more new people, more fresh ideas, and more companies should take risks on recent graduates. I myself was a risk, and I'm very glad that someone somewhere decided that I was a risk worth taking, hiring me into the game industry after only a year of non-game work. But there are companies out there that hire interns all the time (EA, Bethesda, Harmonix, Ubisoft and LucasArts just to name a few) so there are people out there taking the risk of getting new energy. But this idea that all you need is a base skill set and passion? No. If you had enough passion you'd find a way other than getting a game development degree and you wouldn't be writing this article. In addition, there's nothing stopping you from doing a small, tightly focused game with a few friends on the cheap, but that's not what you want. If it was, you'd be doing it regardless of anything else. What you want is a job at a big game company doing big games, and you're upset they won't hire you straight out of college when you don't have any experience save what your teacher assigned you.  Sorry, but there are people out there in the giant supply of recent graduates that did more, regardless of whether they have a game development degree or not.

It comes down to this: If you really wanted to make games, you'd be making them. Stop giving me the excuse that the guys with the money aren't giving you the time of day. You make something interesting enough, the guys with the money eventually come knocking.

But the last idea here is what I think really misses the mark:

Having more game education schools at more recognizable public universities would attract more people into the field and would go a long way toward getting more women involved in the industry.

Because having a computer science school at basically every major public university got more women interested in computer science? Sorry, this is completely off the mark. There are people that work very hard getting more women (and other minorities too) involved in the hard sciences and in computer game development. The only thing this solution does is make game development degrees more common, which is not something we need to see. Sorry.

In the end, I think Brian's just frustrated with the closed nature of the industry, and I can understand that. But, again, it comes down to supply and demand. Lots of people want to be in the game industry because games are cool.  But not many actually want to really make games, and the distinction is very very key (though we can get into that another time).  For now, though, the only way we can tell the difference between these candidates is by the amount of work they put in to actually being a part of the industry. Regardless of what school you're at do these things (though the good schools will make you do this anyway): Go to GDC. Go to IGDA meetings. Network. Have your own personal projects.  Prototype games small games.  Finish small games.  Do stuff outside of class and show us that you really want to MAKE games.  Show us that you're worth the risk and we'll take it. If you're not going to bother, why should we?

(Final disclaimer: I'm not trying to put down all game schools here.  There are some great ones, and there are some programs I wish were available when I was looking for schools, but honestly, do your research before going anywhere that advertises a game development program.  Most of them really suck.  In addition, I don't know Brian and I've never met him, so I'm potentially putting a lot of words in his mouth.  This is not intentional.  I'm ore using him as a name for lots of other people who have had similar complaints in the past.)

Industry Programming

Alex’s Soapbox: Retaining Employees

So, I read The Daily WTF. It’s a funny blog, and occasionally can give you insight into bad and good programming practices. Also, occasionally, the person who runs the site, Alex Papadimoulis, writes a rant about something in the computer industry. Now, Alex is a bright guy, but I frequently disagree with some of his Soapboxes. Today (well, yesterday) is no exception.

First, let me say I think he’s right on many levels. You should always plan for people to leave, and you shouldn’t make believe that everyone will spend their entire career at a given company. You should be upfront with new employees about them leaving, as well as the potentials for improvement and empowerment. Promote based on skill, not tenure, and for the love of god, do not promote people to lead positions that cannot (or choose not to) lead.

In addition, foster alumni relationships for former employees and keep it alive; don’t treat former employees as exiles who don’t deserve the time of day. Always welcome them into the office with open arms. They helped you, and if they left on good terms (which they usually should unless you fire them) you should be happy to see them.

Here’s the one place where I don’t agree with Alex: keeping people around is almost always better than letting them leave, regardless of price, and benefits are not the only way to keep them. People leave because they get bored or they are no longer learning anything. But there are ways to fix that easily, I think, that will actually make your company money, as opposed to random benefits, which only cost you money.

  1. Encourage pet projects. Google’s 20% time here is awesome. Trust me, you can afford it. Even if you can’t always use the end result, it will keep your employees interested in their work, give you new products and / or tools, and in some cases will keep employees looking at new and educating themselves in interesting new technologies.
  2. Encourage mobility. Allow people to switch projects at almost any time (of course, restricting movement near the end of project cycles). This will encourage people to look at the other projects people are working on, and will keep them interested. In some cases, this will also keep them educated because they’ll get to work with people of different expertise levels throughout the company (though this only works if you’re working with many different technologies).
  3. Be agile with your process and listen to employee problems. If new (or old) employees don’t like their code review process, figure out why and try to fix it quickly. In many cases, employees may like what they’re working on, but don’t like the way things are being done, or how slowly change takes to complete. Be able to make process changes quickly or at least show that you are making progress on changing things.
  4. Lastly, be able to recognize when people are being resistant to change just for the sake of being resistant to change. They like doing it “their way” for whatever reason, but don’t ignore modern research into what makes good software just because certain people believe their way is better. In many cases, research proves them wrong.

Yes, you’ll never be able to keep people from leaving, but if people are willing and able to fulfill 90% of their personal and academic curiosity in an agile environment, you should be able to keep them until they decide they what to move to, say, a different state or work on something that’s completely outside of the bounds of what you’re company does. By just saying “people will leave,” you create a culture where the problems aren’t actually solved, and you’ll always have mediocre talent. By creating an atmosphere where people aren’t afraid to leave, but have no reason to, you get the best of both worlds.

Activism Industry Metrics Programming

Game Development Tools

(Note: The whole point of this post is to get you to join the IGDA Tools SIG, but I don’t get to that until below the fold, so I’ve decided to just push it up front here for those of you that don’t feel like reading my long tools rant. So, instead, please just go join here)

I’m a firm believer in tools.

I actually believe that good tools, provided both internal (from actual tools departments) and externally, are key to the success of any software development company, but especially game companies. I would go so far to say that 80% of any programmer’s job in a game development company is, or at least should be, making tools that make artists, designers, and other programmers happy. These are your engine programmers. They do good work, and they’re very important.

However, there should also be a good number of your programmers who’s *only* job is to keep your artists, designers, and programmers happy. These are your dedicated tools programmers, who do nothing but code and fix tools and process all day. If you don’t have these people, you’re missing out. Why? Think of all the places tools touch, or should touch, in game development and process that don’t actually involve working with your engine.

First, everyone benefits from a good build pipeline. Whether you’re doing continuous integration or not, having fast turnaround on art and code changes is always a good thing. Additionally, if everyone can grab changed assets quickly from central servers, that means work can get underway faster in the morning. The tools to do these types of things are usually available, but if you think an engine programmer (or worse, a producer) is going to go find them you are sorely mistaken. Of course, having that good build pipeline means also having good source control, and usually means having good integration between your source control and your tools for creating and exporting assets. And here, there aren’t usually tools available to you. You have to make them yourself, but the jump in productivity from this type of integration is enormous.

Additionally, programmers need tools themselves, but only the select few will think to make them, and usually only for themselves, on an ad-hoc basis. Deployment scripts, revision / code review change scripts, Visual Studio / WinMerge integration; these are all tools I’ve seen created by fellow programmers at game studios that never get passed around. But even then, there are tools that are incredibly useful that an engine programmer might never get around to. Memory inspectors, automatic bug reporters (and potentially bug collators), output filtering systems, external debug consoles, formal logging / metrics. All of these things are useful for programmers (and, in the case of formal logging, designers), but very few have (or will take) the time to really look into them as possibilities. Not My Job Syndrome.

Lastly, dedicated tools programmers have the time and ability, to keep up to date with the latest tool releases and technologies that people are using for tools in the game industry. This is key, because new concepts (like monkey testing, automatic crash reporting, formal logging / metrics, uses of XML / XSLT) pop up every day, and sometime lead to enormous gains in productivity. Without the time to look into them, engine programmers tend to lean on old technologies, with the “It’s not broke, don’t fix it” mentality. This is dangerous to your productivity, since sometimes it is broke, and your programmers just don’t realize it.

Now, if you feel like I do, or you want to learn more, I highly recommend joining the new(ish) IGDA Tools SIG. The SIG is dedicated to staying on top of best practices for tools development, posting about new tools that are becoming available, and hopefully (eventually) being a great educational and discussion resource for tools developers. If you are interested, I urge you to join. You will not regret it.

Activism Breaking In Industry

QoL Newbie Questions

So a little while back I asked for your questions on the game industry. Bryan was kind enough to ask two very good questions, both of which are almost too advanced for a breaking in FAQ, and I felt were too important to be pushed to a comment, but they deserve answering, and I apologize for waiting this long to answer them.

The first question:

Some developers cite 60 hour, 6 day a week schedules like they are trying to drive people away from the industry. They speak as if this is acceptable and that only those with true passion for the work can hack it. Am I ignorant in thinking that someone - passionate or otherwise - could not possibly sustain quality output under these conditions? Is this an accurate snapshot of the industry?

This is a hard question to answer. At times, Bryan is absolutely right: it seems like developers cite their long hours in order to drive people away from the industry, and sometimes seem to wear their long hours and tough crunches as "badges of honor" (as one developer I know put it). This is a shame, as it drives perfectly talented individuals away from the industry.

But the question is, is this reality in the game industry, and I'm afraid that the answer is yes, especially if you are new to the industry. Though you don't work those hours constantly, crunches can be pretty brutal, and can last for quite a long time (depending on the company and the game). There's definitely a reason that the game industry has something like a forty percent burn out rate within five years. Think about it. That means if you're sitting in a hall of developers new to the industry, look to your left, then look to your right, one of those people will not be in the industry in 5 years.

However, I will say that many companies and individuals are trying to correct this. Any company that has a CEO or lead developer on or active in the IGDA Quality of Life SIG is one where these types of hours will not be the norm. Some studios that run scrums do so because they want to avoid long periods of crunch. But, understandably, sometimes these studios are hard to get jobs at, because they attract some very talented individuals that understand, like you do, that these types of crunch to more to hurt productivity than help it. However, if you can join a company that knows how to avoid crunch, balancing the rest of your life becomes fairly easy.

As a final point, I will say that you absolutely need some sort of passion to be in the game industry, though not necessarily for games (you can be passionate just about writing really clean SPU code like some people I know), and not necessarily because of the long hours you’re going to have to work. Really, you need passion because 90% of the work in the game industry is just as tedious and monotonous as work in other high tech disciplines, except that your pay will be lower, your benefits will be lower and customers tend to be pretty ruthless. If you can ignore all of that, working in the game industry is pretty damn awesome.

The second question:

How does it start for most developers? Specifically people today. Obviously we have not been making games for our Commodore since we were 8. Do most come from other disciplines with experience in related fields? Are most newbies (to the industry) today fresh out of college, eager to show their talents?

So, interesting story. I’ve been talking with my co-workers and other Boston game industry people for a while and they like telling stories about some of the geeky things they did when they were younger (from programming to electrical engineering, to whatever). Now, I’ve always been interested in games, but I didn’t really get into programming until late high school, and I didn’t really make a game until college. So, I’m evidence that you don’t necessarily have to program the Commodore since you were 8 to become a productive member of the game industry. That said, I wish I had some of those stories (a failed RPG maker game is about as cool as my stories get).

However, now more than ever, you have to start looking early for game industry jobs, because entry level jobs become more and more rare as time goes on. When you hit college, you should start networking, get to know people, and start feeling your way around the industry. Additionally, start making games, and (if you can) find other people to make games with, especially if you’re not at a college or university that has a games program (this is common advice that I give to everyone). If you wait to start networking and wait to start actually making games, it will be harder to find a game industry job as a “newbie.” If you take a job elsewhere, you’ll find it hard to make the time to make games after college, and, even if you do, you may find it harder to adjust to the inevitable pay drop (note this pay drop is programmer centric, artists I’m told get paid very well in the game industry compared to other industries). Basically, the idea is to take the time when you have it (in college) and take the risks when you’re young. Show that you are interested in the game industry early. By waiting, you just make it harder for yourself.

Hopefully that helps with your question. If you have any more, please feel free to post them!

Breaking In Industry

GDC Swag

So, I spent this weekend moving. Literally down the street from my old place, but still, regardless of how far you go, you always have to put things in boxes and you always end up throwing a lot of stuff out. In m y case, I actually ended up throwing out a lot of t-shirts that I’d gotten from GDC and other computer related events (I actually still had my two shirts from when I was on programming team in college. That’s right, I was on programming team). It led me to this piece of advice for students and others going to GDC.

Don’t waste your time swag hunting.

Darius probably has this mentioned somewhere on his blog, but your time is better spent elsewhere. This is my 6th year at GDC, and I will tell you right now that, after this move, I will have kept the following items from all 6 years at GDC.

  • 3 large blue PlayStation cups, snagged during booth crawl
  • 1 nVidia cup, also snagged during booth crawl.
  • 1 deck of cards from ILM / Lucas Arts
  • 4 IGDA shirts (from the past 4 years, I got rid of the other 2)
  • 3 GDC shirts, the ones that actually come in your bag. I discarded the rest, including my shirts the year I was a CA
  • 2 branded shirts, one for LoTRO, and one for Maya (which is completely black and on the back says “> south You have entered a dark place. You are likely to be eaten by a grue. >”, and on the front says “Maya: Can you imagine”)
  • 1 (broken) Microsoft DirectX backpack and the accompanying organizer that went with it.

That’s it, and it should be mentioned that only the top three items were “swag” in the traditional sense (meaning I got them on the expo floor). And I didn’t have to hunt for it. The cups are filled with beer during the booth crawl. Stop by 2 or three booths, grab the cups you want. If you’re like me, you just go to the front of the line and grab a cup, since the beer is usually pretty cheap anyway. All the other stuff you can get from attending specific events or being a member of an organization, and hunting for it will do you no good.

So what did I throw away? Tons, and some of it before I even left San Jose / San Francisco. Until you actually do the rounds at the GDC expo, you have no idea how much crap swag hunting will generate for you. As soon as you step foot on the expo floor, you will be bombarded with mints, shirts, pens, puzzle boxes, demo CDs, rulers, key chains, silly putty, stress balls, bouncy balls, chap stick, boomerangs, rockets, calendars, pads, little gel creatures, silly putty, decks of cards, Slinkys (that don’t work), magazines, bags, and maybe (if you’re lucky) something that might actually be useful for you some day.

Now, I know that you’ll do the swag hunt. You have this big bag, and you want to fill it with stuff. Especially “cool” stuff like rockets you can fling at people and crazy t-shirts. But while you’re doing that, just remember there are people there, handing out swag, that probably have interesting things to say. More interesting than what they’re trying to give you anyway.

Breaking In Industry

Newbie Questions

This may be a little late, but with GDC coming up I've been thinking about updating some of the stickies over at the IGDA Breaking In forum, as well as finding new and interesting fodder for blog posts, so I'm putting an open call out to my readers (or anyone else really) for questions related to being a newbie or breaking in to the game industry.

So, what are your most burning questions?

Cooking Games / Design Media Theory User Interface

Usability for Cooking

Those of you that know me know that I really enjoy cooking. Well, really, I enjoy eating good food, but I’ve found that the easiest (and most inexpensive) way to get good food it to make it yourself. So, tangentially, I enjoy cooking.

As a result, I spend a lot of time online looking at various interesting recipes on the internet (and through cook books, but this post is mostly about the internet). One thing I’ve found is that most sites that offer a good deal of recipes, are lacking in their actual usability; not because they’re not designed like other sites, but because they’re designed exactly like other sites. Most of them are designed as simple lists of categorized articles or blogs, with ratings and comments. This may be fine for most blogs or new sites, but cooking is this inter-related web of techniques, derivations, substitutions, and adaptations that (in my mind) can’t be served properly by this common model, but does lend itself well to the web in general. The problem is that people get locked into this core method of usability, and don’t realize that it doesn’t work in all situations.

This, in my mind, actually violates a core tenant of usability in information systems: get the information that the person needs to them as quickly as possible, and allow them to access related information quickly and easily. For cooking, this is not just related reciepies. This may mean linking them to information about the techniques required for a particular recipie (creating a roux, blending a soup, searing a piece of meat, grilling, broiling, etc), the potential ingredient substitutions (can I substitute different types of mushrooms, stocks, water, etc) or additions (can I add garlic, Tabasco sauce, or rice to this dish, and where). Additionally, potential side dishes, wines, derivations (versions of the same recipe that use similar but different ingredients) and nutritional information are all common things I want to see with a recipe, but rarely see in any web recipe outlet.

And don’t get me started on comments. 90% of comments of recipe sites are worthless: “This tasted great! I will do it again!” is pretty common. But that last 10% is sometimes useful. “Lightly salt the zucchini to drain the moisture first,” “Added garlic to this dish and it really brought out some of the flavors,” are good comments, and are related specifically to an ingredient, addition, or substitution, so why are they at the bottom of the page instead of where it might be useful to me?

What does this have to do with games? Well, nothing really, but it does point out an alarming trend in general usability: this idea that once you’ve found one system that works, you tend to apply it to other systems where it’s not as useful, or (worse) where it doesn’t make sense. So, when you’re designing your user interface for your next game, just think to yourself for a second: “Am I designing this interface this way because this is the easiest and best way to access this information, or because it’s the way it’s always been done.” You’ll be surprised how often you answer yes for the later, and find another, better way to do it.

Agency Theory Games / Design Industry Media Theory

Agency Theory in 20/20

The format of the last Boston Post Mortem meeting was a series of presentations, each consisting of 20 slides for 20 seconds each slide. The last (and probably best) talk of the night has already started making the rounds around the internet.

But I was also able to finagle my way into giving a presentation that night about agency theory. I’d been waiting for the video to become available to post the slides, but I decided that since almost everything I said was available in the slide notes, I could post the slides now and then update when the video became available. So here are the slides.

The response to this talk was very positive, and I got a lot of complements on it, so that’s always nice. Thanks to Post Mortem for giving me the opportunity, and to everyone who came out for laughing where they were supposed to laugh. Again, once I get the video, I’ll point you to it and you can see the talk in all of its 6:40 glory.

Industry

Weird ways in which Sierra was revolutionary…

I've always held that the Sierra of old did a lot of things that were revolutionary, sometimes for good, sometimes not (they were one of the first studios to do the whole Live Action thing, that didn't turn out so well). But, I'd forgotten that they were one of the first companies to try in game advertising, YEARS before it became a common concept.

How did I remember? I decided to start playing Space Quest V again on Game Tap (one of my favorites in the series) and durring your test at the beginning of the game, one of questions is something along the lines of "How do you successfully perform a transporter conversion?" One of the answers is "Switch us to Sprint." Now, it would have been more of an advertisement if that was the *correct* answer, but in conjunction with that, I remember that the original game came with an actual Sprint advertisement in the box!

How weird is that? And honestly, when the game came out, I didn't even think about it as being weird. I just accepted it as the way games might be headed in the future. Interestingly, though, this was I think the only game where that ever occurred. Maybe Sprint decided it wasn't the best way to reach new customers? Or maybe Sierra caught a bunch of flak for it from players. Honestly, I have no idea.

Games / Design Industry

Top Games: 2007

Darius decided to do this, so I think I will as well. Unfortunately, 2007 was a pretty hectic year for me, so I never really got around to playing everything I wanted to play. At least most of what I played I enjoyed, so that’s good.

  1. Rock Band – I like the way Rock Band feels. It just feels more fun to play to me, regardless of whether I’m playing with others or not. The drum addition is awesome, though hard, even for a seasoned percussionist.
  2. Super Mario Galaxy - I’ve really enjoyed this game so far, which is saying something because I didn’t enjoy Mario 64 (which is, I believe, punishable by death in some states) or Mario Sunshine. Galaxy feels different somehow, and I’m just enjoying playing it.
  3. Portal - Was just awesome. I can’t stress enough how awesome this game was.

There are other games that I got to play that I feel really were “worth playing” though I wouldn’t rank them in my top.

  1. Skate – Not as big a fan of this as Darius, but I enjoyed it. It felt really good to play, the control scheme was interesting, and the sound design is fabulous.
  2. Bioshock – It was great, but I wanted more out of it somehow. To me, it felt like “just” a shooter, which I’m not really interested in anymore, especially on Xbox (I know there was a PC version available, but money is tight….). The art direction was good, the story was interesting, but it just generally felt flat.
  3. Assassin’s Creed – The movement in this game just makes it fun. Regardless of how you feel about the story, the actual assassinations, and the combat, the just moving around the city feels good, and that makes it worth playing in my opinion.
  4. Overlord – At least to see the minion system in that game. It’s fun, but I never even got half way through it, since the bugs pretty much turned me off after a while. That and, as a completionist, I felt like I was spending way too much time looking for all the cool additional powers. That’s my own fault though.

Then there are the games I *wish* I had a chance to play this year:

  1. Mass Effect – Just haven’t picked it up. Don’t have the time for it anyway. I’ve yet to actually like a KotOR style RPG, but I really want to like Mass Effect, so I really want to give it a shot. Maybe early next year.
  2. Everyday Shooter – Only on PSN, and I don’t have a PS3. I have played this game, and it is amazing, but I need to play more. Always more.
  3. Metroid Prime: Corruption – I loved Metroid Prime. I was happy with Prime: Echoes, and I hear Corruption is excellent. I just have to pick up a copy.

Other games people really enjoyed this year?