[edraket]

When you read about computer game developers you often come across those heroic tales of people working 80 hours a week for six months in a row to get their game done in time.

What do you guys think of all this?

I personally think it is rather pathetic. Bad management, publishers opression..call it what you will.
There is nothing wrong with working extra for a while or missing a night of sleep if need be.
But geez..sometimes they make it sound like it is perfectly normal to have to work day and night most of the time.

[[Shizo]]

I never heard these stories. But if they say so, it probably is true :)

[Lunatique]

I thought the same until I got into the industry and started pulling those hours. At first, it seems unreal(pardon the pun), but after a few times, you get used to it.

When you realize the ENTIRE industry is like that, you just accept it. Some people make a point to never stay late because they have a wife and children, but even those people have to pull weekends now and then to help out. When you DON'T stay wtih everyone and work hard during crunch, people will think you are lazy, won't work hard, and they'll REMEMBER that you didn't help out. When it's time for layoffs, guess who will get the shaft?(Unless you are extremely talented and VERY fast.)

[edraket]

Well my point was that when a company needs its employees to work extreme times (Not occasional things to fix an emergency) I think there is something wrong with the company. They obviously cannot or are not willing to put the funds into the production capacity that are needed. Which means they are not a healthy company. They keep it running at the cost of their employees.

Of course when you start a company with a few friends and are still in an early phase this can be expected. But I see a lot of people that just seem to accept it without question even if their company has been up and running for years. Somehow it's cool to not have a life because you work in games.

[balistic]

You're absolutely right . . . most game companies are managed poorly. On a well-run project, there shouldn't be a "crunch time", but those are few and far between.

The problem is that your producer usually ends up being one of two types of people:

- A gamer who knows nothing about management

- A manager who knows nothing about games

Both of those situations lead to crunch mode.

[Awetopsy]

is that maybe why there are so many crappy games coming out all the time?

Bad management = bad company = bad product.

probably the only industry that seems to survive wioth this equation...

[balistic]

Read http://www.fatbabies.com . . . they're vicious, but they're usually right.

The game industry is in a sad spot . . . you've got publishers like Infogrames buying developers, sacking the entire staff, and then hiring new people only to release shitty movie tie-ins . . . and you've got companies like THQ that absolutely will not touch anything that doesn't have a license attached to it . . . its pathetic.

The company I work for built a playable demo of an original game . . . we did it all on our own for about three months, with no programmers, nobody funding us to do it . . . sent it around to every publisher we could find, and the general consensus was:

"Wow, this is fun stuff! Unfortunately you haven't targeted the game at a specific age group and income bracket, so our marketing guys don't know what to do with it. Sorry. No money for you."

I'd rather not work on another game professionally again (I've worked on 3), and a lot of my friends are leaving the industry too. Its not about fun anymore.

[faustgfx]

i must have told the story of my 6 day long deadline work ..experience at mediaclick a year ago.

=\

it's funny how your sight and hearing and physical functioning develops after 3-4 days of no sleep.

[suny]

Bad management = bad company = bad product?
hehe, that's the story of my life.
i'm working on a ps2 game.
we are VERY late. (not me, pff)
the game's gonna be a piece of crap.
i don't stay at work after 6 o'clock.
not my fault. if the company's going to bankrupcy, so be it.
I did what i could.

ohhh, reminds me of my old good Scavenger's days... with no management at all... and a bankrupcy...

S.

[Frost]

We're all slaves to marketing, both ways; as consumers when we get home, and as developers when we have to produce for those deadlines.

Marketing is a big evil machine... windows of opportunity in time vs technology, or sales periods not o miss, etc. It's probably why I am generally never impressed with the graphic quality of games that come out... no time to polish them, and it's only going to get worse as newer technologies require even more artistic work.

[Flinthawk]

Balistic pretty much summed up our company's recent experience with publishers. We developed a couple demos and produced a couple original game design documents with presentations that ran on the actual system (I'll have to blow my own horn here and say that the main original game design we pitched and prepared was written and illustrated myself ). In addition to these titles we have the three or four games that we've recently shipped along with pitches to do more games using the engines we already have.

Well, basically everybody had the same thing to say about the demos and designs..."we don't do anything unless we can attach a license to it" The closest any of our original game concepts came was mine when Activision took a look at it and said, "Well, this looks like a really fun, well thought out game and the art looks great but we don't do original concepts. We do have the Marvel license that could fit this game really well, though." Swell, that's all we need...another freakin' X-Men game, how many do we need?

I don't know, if things don't start to change, if this industry falls, I'm sorry, stays in this trend of working on uninspired licensed crap then I'm going to have to rethink my future. I didn't get into games to make crap...I got in to make great games.

Rant mode off....for now

[ January 09, 2002: Message edited by: Flinthawk ]

[balistic]

We were offered Power Rangers.

[Flinthawk]

BWAAAAhahahahahah oh man, that sucks...I feel for you, I'm in much the same boat. And I'm only laughing in that crazy way you have to laugh at stupidity because it's just proof of the kinds of things publishers want us to do. The only original games publishers will publish seem to be the ones they try and develop in house, driven by marketing...lots of good it's done 3DO, heh.

[edraket]

I just wonder if all the marketing bullshit actually makes them sell more though. I mean..the whole world complains about shitty games coming out all the time. When something original does come out it seems sell quite well. Maybe I am just missing something. It's just so sad.
I don't regret leaving the games industry behind at all. I just miss being able to shoot my boss through the head every lunchbreak : )

[Svanur]

Maybe it's a good thing if the industry falls head over heels now. After it has fallen it might finally try to build itself up and perhaps(if we are lucky) it might learn from it's mistakes.

[Awetopsy]

anybody who has worked ona sellable product knows that marketing people are the biggest idiots ever when it comes to the product they are selling... this is especially true when working on web pages and/or games.... :P

[ January 10, 2002: Message edited by: Awetopsy ]

[balistic]

What's changed about the game industry is the gamer.

Before most households had a computer or a videogame console, the market for a game consisted of people who were into games.

But now, the person that publishers want to sell to is the mom looking to buy something for her kids, or the guy who just bought a new Dell and wants whatever the latest and greatest and flashiest is so he can show it off to his friends . . . that's why titles like Who Wants to Be a Millionare and Barbie's Dream Yacht sell ten times more units than even the best "real" games.

People who take games seriously are now the fringe . . . the ideal gamer is now someone who picks up Smurfs Powerboat Racing, plays it once, and puts it on his shelf next to Urban Squirrel Hunter 6.

That, unfortunately, is where the money is.

[Flinthawk]

Well, the industry already fell once, Svanur. Nintendo brought it back. I would think that it didn't need to fall again before realizing its mistakes. Nintendo continues to do things right even though I've 'grown out of' their selection of titles...there are more and more kids today to take my place so they'll continue to prosper.

Problem is, the industry has changed a LOT since those days. No longer are titles one or two man jobs...they require anywhere from three or four to as many as 40 to 50 people now.

Departments that never existed are now common such as testing. Middle management bloat has taken over and corporate structures have everybody participating in one big circle jerk (ok, mostly at the largest companies...smaller companies I've been a part of lack this nearly completely). Marketing is now a factor in a title's success.

Yes, I said that...marketing is important to the success of a title. A number of the best selling games out there sold because they were good games that received good marketing (in most cases). The problem is when marketing sticks their nose in the design. See, they figure if they have a hand in the design that they can create something that will be easier for them to sell. I also believe that they are being lazy by taking the license approach. Their job is to sell the game, period...but there are better ways to sell products than slapping a license on it and expecting it to do all the work for them.

It's going to a be a while before things are set right. I doubt the game industry will crash anytime soon...it's just too big at the moment and the people who create the games would probably find a way to continue to do so regardless of whether or not the major publishers went belly up.

The only way I see things changing for the better is if consumers begin making smart decisions and make educated buys when it comes to games. As games become more and more mainstream there will be a number of clueless people that will continue to support bad games. Until comsumers do a little more research into games and buy according to their findings and not what the name/face on the box tells them there will continue to be crappy games released.

[Svanur]

After seeing the 300th Disney game I know what you mean about how marketing has their dirty hands in everything. I work in a Anti-virus company and I suffer everyday from bad management, even though the company is doing really well nationally as internationally.

But what would happen if Designer would make their heroes marketable, in a way that they could be turned into a franchise if the game would sell successfully?

I think that the average gamer has become jaded. For example, there are a lot of new RTS game coming out. Not bad games but uninteresting nonetheless. After you have played StarCraft and Command and Conquer for ages, nothing else can peek ones interest.

[Flinthawk]

There are games that are created and designed with characters/stories/gameplay that are new and refreshing, created by those that conceived the game and not a bunch of marketing people that don't know much about game production. Recent examples include Metal Gear Solid 2, Jak and Daxter, Devil May Cry, so on and so forth...

There are probably plenty of great ideas floating around out there at this very moment. Problem is many publishers view it as their job to dictate what is cool and what is not, it's their money so they feel that going on their own hunches as to what makes a great game is what will bring in the dough. So they try to press these ideas onto the developers, many times making us cringe and say, "What was he smoking with his double latte` today?"

I can see where publishers are afraid putting money into any ol' concept...it is their money getting laid on the line. But some publishers need to start trusting and letting others (actual gamers) help them decide how best to go about creating a good game. Too often they feel the need to be 'hands on' or they think they have the greatest ideas ever. I've seen this kind of thing happen within companies...higher ups not trusting those in the know, people they hired whose judgement they now don't trust :\ Sometimes people just need to put their egos aside and trust in the judgement of those that have the actual experience in these things.