Video game industry thread: this one's done.

Santa Claustrophobia · July 2010

Cameron_Talley wrote: »

Santa Claustrophobia wrote: »

Cameron_Talley wrote: »

According to that non-sensical rant, the Atari 7800 has better Tech than the NES.

I don't think that's true, but if it is it proves once again that better hardware != better game experience.

But it does prove that confirmation bias = better game experience.

I mean, seeing as how some people like the HD consoles over the Wii. All that means is there is no one universal truth to a subjective measure.

Well, I don't think the situation is comparable. I don't think anyone could look at the 7800's library and say it was equal to or better than the NES'.

Apparently somebody did.

According to Wiki, there were/are 73 games for the 7800 and were/are 799 games for the NES.

By sheer dint of numbers, of course the NES library would be better. But that doesn't automatically mean 'better game experience'. It only means higher change for better game experience. I don't recall if I ever had a hands on experience with the 7800, but I can say I had a highly enjoyable time with much of the NES stuff I played.

I can also state that I've had an even better time than that with N64 games, PS1 games, PS2 games, GameCube games, Xbox games, and 360 games. Blades of Steel might have been awesome fun, but it's been surpassed. And part of that is because better hardware has allowed for a more full experience. The quality of NES games (or 7800 games) might be quantifiable, but a direct comparison is going to kill them.

You can point out that marginally better hardware does not always mean a better experience. But it doesn't automatically prove that marginally better hardware always makes for a worse experience.

Santa Claustrophobia · July 2010

PaperLuigi44 wrote: »

Oh wow, that OP article. Some things never change.

Oh, and RE: That Rothbury story, just wait until you see how the journalist behind it responded when he was first called out on it

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102270-Journalist-Who-Wrote-Fake-GTA-Story-Ridicules-Gamers

Andy Chalk | 23 Jul 2010 2:14 am

The "journalist" who made-up the story about Grand Theft Auto Rothbury in yesterday's Daily Star says he's "baffled" by the uproar and has responded to complaints by ridiculing adult gamers.

A quick update in case you missed it yesterday: Jerry Lawton, a "journalist" with the U.K. news site Daily Star, wrote a story about a new version of Grand Theft Auto based on real-life killer Raoul Moat. He even extracted an obviously anguished quote about GTA Rothbury from the grandmother of Moat's ex-girlfriend, one of his victims. The problem? There is no such game. Lawton found a fake cover of the non-existent game online and proceeded to build an anti-gaming story around it.

The uproar eventually led to the story being pulled, albeit without any kind of apology, explanation or even an acknowledgment that it existed at all, but the man behind it is entirely unrepentant. In fact, he claims to be surprised that people are upset by his story and seems oblivious to the fact that Grand Theft Auto Rothbury doesn't actually exist at all. He even took the opportunity to ridicule adult gamers on his Facebook page, which has since been set to private.

"Baffled by the fury of adult gamers," he wrote. "These are grown (?!?) men who sit around all day playing computer games with one another who've today chosen to enter the real world just long enough to complain about my story slamming a Raoul Moat version of Grand Theft Auto! You would think I'd denied the Holocaust!!! Think I'll challenge them to a virtual reality duel....stab....I win!!!" Let me remind you that this is a "real journalist" speaking and although the Star is a notoriously trashy rag, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a certain minimal level of integrity in its reporting, even if only to the point of not passing off outright lies as real news and then making fun of people who call them on it. Is that really so baffling, Jerry?

Source: Destructoid

'I've been caught making shit up. This ad hominem attack should do the trick!'

Kastanj · July 2010

Fascinatingly mediocre men in bowties who never read a word on simulations or simulacra pretend that video games are neither a cultural nor social phenomenon.

Now I don't give a toss about how gaming is treated by the media. If some generic girl says I am a shut-in or creepy guy because I occasionally play games other than Farmville or Singstar, then I'll just look down on her and her coquettish attempts to define and understand... Well, anything at all. The kind of people who get all their info from places like the Daily Star are basically self-mutilators on an intellectual level. Pity them, don't ask for their approval.

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/desperation_is_a_stinky_cologne/

Leitner · July 2010

jclast wrote: »

HamHamJ wrote: »

Motion controls are not going to go away. They are going to become the new industry standard.

You should stop saying things like this because they make me sad.

Spoiler:

You're probably right.

Until of course move and Kinect are doooooomed (tm), and the other two realise that nintendos marketing was probably more important then anything else, of which motion controls is a small part (hello DS).

Santa Claustrophobia · July 2010

Leitner wrote: »

jclast wrote: »

HamHamJ wrote: »

Motion controls are not going to go away. They are going to become the new industry standard.

You should stop saying things like this because they make me sad.

Spoiler:

You're probably right.

Until of course move and Kinect are doooooomed (tm), and the other two realise that nintendos marketing was probably more important then anything else, of which motion controls is a small part (hello DS).

So... Marketing to become the new industry standard?

Couscous · July 2010

Leitner wrote: »

jclast wrote: »

HamHamJ wrote: »

Motion controls are not going to go away. They are going to become the new industry standard.

You should stop saying things like this because they make me sad.

Spoiler:

You're probably right.

Until of course move and Kinect are doooooomed (tm), and the other two realise that nintendos marketing was probably more important then anything else, of which motion controls is a small part (hello DS).

But they are attempting to copy Nintendo's marketing too...

Santa Claustrophobia · July 2010

Couscous wrote: »

Leitner wrote: »

jclast wrote: »

HamHamJ wrote: »

Motion controls are not going to go away. They are going to become the new industry standard.

You should stop saying things like this because they make me sad.

Spoiler:

You're probably right.

Until of course move and Kinect are doooooomed (tm), and the other two realise that nintendos marketing was probably more important then anything else, of which motion controls is a small part (hello DS).

But they are attempting to copy Nintendo's marketing too...

Did we ever determine if Nintendo seriously used idiotic comparison charts?

slash000 · July 2010

mynameisguido wrote: »

AZChristopher wrote: »

Kastanj wrote: »

Oh, and Street Fighter X Tekken was just unveiled. Tag ultras, kids. Tag ultras.

Also Tekken X Street Fighter. One is in the style of Street Fighter and the other will be in the style of Tekken. So two games; same fighters; different play.

Interesting way to do a crossover.

Isn't this how we got Capcom vs SNK and SNK vs. Capcom: Chaos? Two different teams working on the games simultaneously?

Yes, it is, sort of.

Capcom and SNK formed an agreement that each company could produce a certain number of crossover games with each others' properties.

Capcom was smart. They started early, and started producing really awesome fighting games that everyone wanted.

SNK was not smart. They took forever, and produced some card battling games for the Neo Geo Pocket Color and later the DS, while cool and quite fun in their own right, were not exactly the huge opportunity in front of them. It took SNK for fucking ever to finally wake up and make SVC Chaos. But by that time we'd already seen a couple of iterations and thus refinement and expansion of Capcom Vs SNK, which today remains one of the best and coolest 2D fighters ever. SVC Chaos though was produced on the aging Neo Geo hardware, and so it looked archaic even at its released, and unfortunately was subject to serious balance problems. Although it was still incredibly fun for SNK fans like myself, the game was so seriously imbalanced that many people were turned off by that and its archaic look. And the fact that the gameplay wasn't very outstanding in terms of what they did with the fighting mechanics. As compared to CVS2 which had an unbelievable number of options and depth.

I loved SVC chaos and still do but man did SNK drop the ball on that one.

Couscous · July 2010

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/29292/Analysis_Is_The_Game_Industry_A_Happy_Place.php

"So you just get to play video games all day?"

You’ve probably heard that one before, whether you’re a developer or a member of the games media. And you got pretty annoyed, or at least you did after the fifth or sixth time someone said so.

Not only is it a bit frustrating that your career seems so inexplicable to so many people, but we take our work pretty seriously, and resent having it distilled down to a pointless pursuit by some common cohort that still correlates the game industry with bleeping asteroid-blasting (and there still exists a frustrating volume of those buggers, doesn’t there?) .

Drill down past the surface irritation at being misunderstood, though, and find a little latent resentment. Just about anyone who’s longed for a career in their favorite medium has gone through it – the crucial phase wherein the luster’s buffed off and you realize that this biz is a lot of goddamned work. No, the awesome mascot-based space platformer you cheerily sketched on graph paper when you were supposed to be focused on math homework is not going straight to production.

No, in fact, there are not a million page views at the ready for your exhaustive essay on the themes of Silent Hill 2. You will probably enter the biz doing, as the grim adage goes, bug testing for a Dora the Explorer tie in; you will probably enter games journalism blogging on UberGam3rzHell dot com for free, glad when you get one comment that says "tl;dr" because at least it means someone clicked on your headline.

Okay, so maybe it’s not always quite that extreme, but the fact is that the game industry is actually quite a deceptively-stressful place, and fresh-faced younguns with dreams of "playing video games all day" are in for it. And there are some difficulties that are not exaggerations: unfortunately, there are major-title studios where an 80-hour week isn’t a melodramatic legend, but a light schedule. And when that game ships? A sea of arbitrary, tepid reviews from an apparently-jaded reviews corps, and endless forum threads stuffed with one-liners from an audience comfortable contributing only "failget" to the discussion.

Some game journalists work their asses off for little pay, begging for scraps of interview access from a looming wall of corporate marketing, only to receive snide lectures from bloggers on how they’re not "real" journalists, to be privy to swaths of peanut-gallery essays about how they’re not "real" writers. Writers, reviewers and critics of all stripes cope with being made largely-lambasted "personalities" by a consumer base that often seems more interested in the writers than they do about the work being done in the field the writers cover.

The Audience

Of course, the common stressor that developers and journalists together face is the video game consumer, primarily the core gamer. But the audience has a bone to pick, too – they’ve been promised revolution and given merely low-risk iteration. They watch helplessly while the industry seeks new ways to monetize them, casualizes their beloved properties so that a disinterested "everyone" can play (whether a game whose audience is as specific and passionate as StarCraft II’s needs to worry about "accessibility" is a fair question for the traditional audience to ask, for example).

User policies are implemented without too much apparent regard for enormous swaths of feedback, and gamers are consistently told by a more mainstream culture that their hobby is irrelevant, cannibalized in big gulps by Facebook and iPhone.

In this vicious cycle, where each of three parties continually fails to satisfy the others on which it most crucially depends, it’s easy to see the seeds of bitterness sown – angry developers lash out at one another in the public forum, fatigued of rivalries or disillusioned by the likelihood that they will be jettisoned from their home base like so much depleted material when their project doesn’t make targets.

Games media resents and condescends to its audience, and in many cases even develops aggressive vendettas against aspects of the industry it feels make appropriate targets. And the consumer seems terminally unhappy with them both.

"Playing all day" is what brought us all together; the liberal joy of interactive entertainment is why we’re all here. Which is why it’s so strange to be asking this question: Is the games industry really a happy place?

Problems In Developer Culture

"A lot of game developers have an ‘are you man enough to run with us’ attitude," one anonymous veteran developer tells Gamasutra. "It’s like a wolf pack or a gang or something. Instead of taking the time to get everyone working in a team together, it's ‘see if he can survive our harsh environment’." So few people in the industry had a smooth or comfortable transition into their work, they become invested in making sure the "proving ground" is tough for others, too.

It's easy to blame others for failures in "dog-eat-dog" type working conditions, the developer continues: "Game developers are trained to think competitively -- partially because of the assumptions of games themselves, and partially because of the crowded job market -- there's tens of dozens of talented graduates who are willing to take the lower salary and all the crap just to be able to do what the established professionals are doing," he adds. This sort of hiring environment has to make the career culture in game development hostile more often than not.

"I’m lucky enough to be at a company that really values developer happiness, but there are some shops that view non-senior developers as disposable assets," agrees Fred Zeleny, narrative designer at Big Huge Games. "They’ll work new employees until they burn out and then replace them with another fresh face who’s eager to prove themselves in the industry - working harder for less money."

"This is one of the reasons for the industry’s high burnout and turnover rates, and it means the developers that work their way up at these studios are either the most determined or the most stubborn – but not necessarily the most creative or the most fulfilled," he adds.

More and more developer sources I talked to suggested that fatigue, hostility, being at odds with one’s employer and questioning one’s career course is frighteningly common in the game industry. That being the case, it seems natural that elements like emotional detachment, anxiety and a lack of fulfillment make their way, even subtly, into the products the industry creates and into the ecosystem around the industry and its audience.

"Because of the secrecy and competition, a lot of development teams end up having a siege mentality - batten down the hatches and refuse to come up for air until the game's done," says the anonymous developer. "Game development has a way of taking over your life, because there's always more that can be done to improve perceived quality. I've seen a lot of divorces in my time in the game industry. I feel like it's much greater than average, but I have no statistical evidence."

The average end user might not have any idea how games are made, but they may, on some level, be reacting to a thread of unhappiness on the creator’s side when they respond with constant negativity or dissatisfaction. Or not. Games media and developers alike know that gamers couldn’t give a damn.

Gamers and the Media

They want big explosions and they wanted them yesterday. Give it to them simply and immediately and they complain it’s too shallow or slapshod; take your time and they whine it’s too slow and too overwrought. They are a distractible breed, easily confused, and thus the success of a title has less to do with how hard developers worked on it and more to do with how good marketing teams are at manipulating them.

Core gamers are demanding, entitled, obnoxious, sexist forum trolls. Of course, that’s not entirely true, and it’s probably not even a small part of the picture. But it sure seems like a sufficient summary sometimes from the view of a games journalist, who’s tasked with navigating the gap between an unhappy developer culture and a consumer culture that seems equally toxic.

"I thought I was talking to people who were like me," one of my colleagues said to me recently about the decision to do the work we do. "Like I could do my childhood friends a service somehow by going in this world we loved and bringing information back out. But sometimes it feels like I’m being attacked every day by commenters and I realize these people aren’t like me at all."

Like it or not, though, consumer hostility points to important facts: the audience isn’t being served well by the products it buys or by the media tasked with addressing it. Just as many developers are thrown young and underqualified into a pressure cooker, so are many writers.

The malleable nature of content on the internet means that no distinction’s ever been broadly and decisively drawn between a news site and a community site, between game reviews and game criticism, and there are incendiary, ignorant brats writing spew on blogs alongside the writers that are trying to do their best, and no one can tell the difference. "There are actually people out there who will make fun of you if you say you’re trying to do real journalism," says my colleague. "Yet these people get into E3 for free [on press badges] just like you and I do."

The Evil Overlords

It’d be great if you could point to the rusty link in this cyclical chain, the causal element that, if replaced or repaired, would create a happier, healthier ecosystem for the video game industry. Of course, all three parties – developers, gamers and consumers – can glance in the general direction of "up the ladder" to the industry’s investor-driven corporate side.

It’s the Men In Suits, after all, who make the decision to treat their studio staff as expendable. They’re the ones who determine that it’s time to clamp their lips shut when the media wants information, who manipulate an often young and inexperienced press corps with shameless ease. They’re the ones who make the decisions to charge for incremental content, to gently nudge up the prices of console titles over the years based on what they think gamers will tolerate.

A different anonymous developer – this isn’t an industry where people find it wise to put their names out there – describes having run into some fellow developers from Civ house Firaxis drinking at the bar one day during lunch. Noticing they "looked pretty tipsy", one of this developer’s coworkers went over to greet their colleagues and find out what they were celebrating.

The response was "sorry, we can’t tell you" – assuming the team was at work on Civ 5, or maybe the X-Com reboot, the developer and his coworkers gave congratulations to the Firaxis developers, looking forward to seeing what they're working on.

"As you can probably guess, when we got back from lunch, we learned that they were the folks that Firaxis had 'streamlined' out the door," the developer said. "So not only did that suck for our friends… we felt like heels for our misplaced congratulations. I just wish they had felt like they could tell us in person - I can only assume someone higher in the chain wanted the news to stay quiet for as long as possible."

The culture of secrecy and opportunism was born at the top among the publishing execs – but even then, "blame our dark corporate overlords" is too simple and largely misplaced. Executives have a job to do, too. In fact, a CEO has only one: add value for shareholders. And as irrelevant as that objective seems at a glance to everyone else in the industry ecosystem, it’s actually crucial – unhappy gamers are jerks, unhappy games media are lazy and unprofessional, and unhappy developers make crappy games. But unhappy investors mean a company can’t survive.

That’s probably why the indies seem so happy whenever you see them all together at GDC, and why one of the only things that seems to make them mad is if you tell them they’ll be working for Zynga someday. Nonetheless, "Independence and art is good and big corporate is bad" is a familiar (and arguably tired) adage in any context – and more importantly, if there is indeed a broad deep-running fault line of ill health in the game industry, it won’t help.

Who knows what will? One thing’s for sure – nobody’s just playing games all day. But to start, those developers who are happy should be free to speak up and speak out about what's making their jobs work, so that others can learn. Happy writers should apply their energy to developing positively-toned dialogue with the community, so that the community, in turn, doesn't just speak up when it's pissed off.

TelMarine · July 2010

From the previous thread:

alset85 wrote: »

PolloDiablo wrote: »

Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know the intricacies of the game because I don't play it. But it seems to me, at least comparing it to stuff like Total War, that it's much more about speed and micro. Say two players are doing everything equally as well up until the point they first meet. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like 100% of the outcome of that battle comes down to who can micro better.

There is speed but memory helps you a lot more. It's more about discipline. And close fights like what you are saying are very rare but ofcourse who has better control wins. But there's a long way to go for any new player to get to that situation, and better army composition or positioning still triumphs.

Only the highest of tiers do the flashy stuff like insane micro, and those have the most visibility because are the most watchable. No commentator says: "Oooooohhh look at that kickass unit building right when he had the resources for it"

I think the most important thing about starcraft isnt micro or speed, but knowing unit match-ups. Certainly, having a good build order and getting things out in a timely manner is required, knowing what unit beats what is above that imo.

SirUltimos · July 2010

The comments on that Gamasutra article are also very interesting and well worth a read.

Kyougu · July 2010

So if you're a PSN+ subscriber you won't have to pay a monthly bill for DC Universe. That's pretty damn smart of Sony.

Unco-ordinated · July 2010

A comment on the 'Is the Game Industry a Happy Place' article Couscous posted on the last page (with a bit more formatting cause it's an enormous block of words otherwise):

Joel Payne wrote:

Two decades making games. I've seen a computer fly through a window, I've seen an ex employee trying to sledgehammer through from one companies adjoining wall to ours so he can get to his office and get his "stuff" back, I've seen one of my friends, a long time game vet kill himself on his birthday because nobody would listen to his brilliance . I've seen a barefoot art director tromp down the hallway like a baby to complain to his bosses when his concept art failed to look like the real-time model he expected when the limits of technology at the time wouldn't permit the level of detail he expected. I've had someone say he wanted to kill me and eat me, I've had anonymous threats when I attempted to suggest that we work together and share better ways to make the game better but.. because I was an "artist" my opinion was considered destructive to the game design hierarchy.

I've had CEO's and coworkers claim my ideas without mentioning the source. I've had artist apply for a job with my artwork featured in their portfolios when I was the interviewer. I've been told that I had to work a 48 hour day, sleep on a company couch at work or "families will suffer when the company can't pay it's bills when the deliverable isn't met, Joel we're counting on you" I've been a part of countless layoffs, herded into a room with 300 brilliant talents and told that "**blank*** has F*'d us so we have to lay you all off effective immediately.... now" I've shown up to work and handed a glad trash bag and told that our 200K payroll had been stolen and that I’d have 15 minutes to collect my stuff before the company closes forever. I've seen an employee rob another when he was at lunch, deny it, and the discover he was being video taped.

I saw a a man lose his career, his wife and his company when he opened the door of his company to a guy who knew nothing about the game industry offering to help the company go public, but turned out to be a criminal connect to the mafia who ultimately fired every executive, robed the companies payroll and stole the workstations taking them to Florida where they were later found on bails of hay in a barn on his ranch. I've see racism, sexism and some of the most egotistical people in the world in the game industry and yet..... through it all I always remembered something Chuck Jones told me.. "Joel, the entertainment industry is 90% pain and suffering and 10% pleasure, Just make sure the pleasure shows in your work and you'll be fine." He was right.

From MobyGames:

Spanning a 17 year career as a CG artist/Composer Payne's talents have enabled him to work with such companies as Intel, Microsoft, GameWorks, Disney, Sony, Corel, F9E, Foundation-imaging, and Disney Imagineering.

Payne has worked as an Environment Artist on Max Steal, Starship Troopers the 3d cartoon series, a set painter on Titanic, Jurassic Park, Batman Returns, Flintstones the Movie, a Senior environment artist on Silent Hill 5, Baulders Gate: Dark Alliance, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, Disney's Virtual Jungle Cruise and Atlantis. He has scored music for Simple Gifts a feature film, Stan Winston's "Trakk" and "Realm of the Claw" as well as Steven Spielberg's "Sky Pirates", Aqautica, Sinbad and the Sacred Fire video games.

His fine-art can be seen featured on Amazon.com and he is a published writer for Computer Graphics World Magazine.

Games Credited
Silent Hill: Homecoming (2008), Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc.
Left Behind: Eternal Forces (2006), Left Behind Games Inc.
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (2005), Midway Games, Inc.
Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This at Home (2003), Eidos Interactive Ltd.
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (2001), Interplay Entertainment Corp.
Empire II: The Art of War (1996), New World Computing, Inc.
Heroes of Might and Magic (1995), Softgold Computerspiele GmbH
Multimedia Celebrity Poker (1995), New World Computing, Inc.
Hammer of the Gods (1994), Softgold Computerspiele GmbH
Iron Cross (1994), New World Computing, Inc.

http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,8591/

On a less depressing note, it's funny how not so long ago Capcom were saying that they didn't want to crowd the market with fighting games after Marvel vs Capcom 3. Now they (and Namco) have Marvel vs Capcom 3, Tekken X Street Fighter, Street Fighter X Tekken and now Street Fighter III Third Strike Online (for PSN/XBLA) on the way.

slash000 · July 2010

Joel Payne wrote:

Two decades making games. I've seen.....

Chuck Jones told me.. "Joel, the entertainment industry is 90% pain and suffering and 10% pleasure, Just make sure the pleasure shows in your work and you'll be fine." He was right.

So... suffer 90% of the time. And if you can manage to make sure the 10% of good shows through your work, you'll end up being.... fine.

I'm not sure enduring that much shit is worth ending up just being "fine."

Of course I feel like 99% of places that you work, you end up with a similar 90% terrible 10% good ratio.

It's a shame that most people end up in jobs they hate. Arg. I pray I don't end up somewhere that I can't stand.

Couscous · July 2010

slash000 wrote: »

Joel Payne wrote:

Two decades making games. I've seen.....

Chuck Jones told me.. "Joel, the entertainment industry is 90% pain and suffering and 10% pleasure, Just make sure the pleasure shows in your work and you'll be fine." He was right.

So... suffer 90% of the time. And if you can manage to make sure the 10% shows through your work, you'll end up being.... fine.

I'm not sure enduring that much shit is worth ending up just being "fine."

Of course I feel like 99% of places that you work, you end up with a similar 90% terrible 10% good ratio.

That is just more depressing, especially when you consider a lot of it is shit that could have been avoided with better time management or at least less of an insane focus on perpetual crunch time and screwing over others simply because you had to go through that shit.

a puddle · July 2010

It really shouldn't be all that surprising that the game industry is full of ridiculous levels of dysfunction. We've known this for a while, anyway.

But seriously. You put 200 people into a cube farm, and all of those 200 people have one of three degrees: CSE, Art or Business. And you don't expect a white collar Lord of the Flies?

Couscous · July 2010

a puddle wrote: »

It really shouldn't be all that surprising that the game industry is full of ridiculous levels of dysfunction. We've known this for a while, anyway.

But seriously. You put 200 people into a cube farm, and all of those 200 people have one of three degrees: CSE, Art or Business. And you don't expect a white collar Lord of the Flies?

White Collar Lord of the Flies would be a good reality TV series.

"We put 50 developers in a building with only the bare necessities needed to create a video game and survive for two months. We have given them the task of developing a spinoff of Dora the Explorer for the Sega Saturn. If they succeed, they get jobs as game designers. If they fail, they have wasted two months. Let's see how quickly someone goes on a homicidal rampage."

slash000 · July 2010

In my experience, companies in general are run poorly. And there are always miles of red tape barriers in the way of efficient, smart, economical ideas that could save time, trouble, and money. People are complacent, and extremely protective of their positions. If it means letting things go to shit so that it makes them look better or maintains the status quo, so be it. It sucks.

That is my experience with jobs in general. Of course I don't have a tremendous amount of experience (from prior jobs and internships) so maybe I'm wrong, but damn it sucks to just be starting out and it already feels like that. Makes me see the value of starting your own business.

Cantido · July 2010

Couscous wrote: »

a puddle wrote: »

It really shouldn't be all that surprising that the game industry is full of ridiculous levels of dysfunction. We've known this for a while, anyway.

But seriously. You put 200 people into a cube farm, and all of those 200 people have one of three degrees: CSE, Art or Business. And you don't expect a white collar Lord of the Flies?

White Collar Lord of the Flies would be a good reality TV series.

"We put 50 developers in a building with only the bare necessities needed to create a video game and survive for two months. We have given them the task of developing a spinoff of Dora the Explorer for the Sega Saturn. If they succeed, they get jobs as game designers. If they fail, they have wasted two months. Let's see how quickly someone goes on a homicidal rampage."

The scenario you described probably exists.

Unco-ordinated · July 2010

slash000 wrote: »

In my experience, companies in general are run poorly. And there are always miles of red tape barriers in the way of efficient, smart, economical ideas that could save time, trouble, and money. People are complacent, and extremely protective of their positions. If it means letting things go to shit so that it makes them look better or maintains the status quo, so be it.

That is my experience with jobs in general. Of course I don't have a tremendous amount of experience so maybe I'm wrong, but damn it sucks to just be starting out and it already feels like that. Makes me see the value of starting your own business.

Yeah, I was gonna say, all the problems game developers face can probably be traced back to bad leadership either within their studio or from their publisher

Kazaka · July 2010

Probably not the best thread to be reading as I look for employment

finnith · July 2010

Weren't we making fun of Leigh Alexander just a month ago? She might be terrible drunk, but she seems to be an excellent journalist.

Couscous · July 2010

Kazaka wrote: »

Probably not the best thread to be reading as I look for employment

Replace his name with your name and modify the assignment to something more appropriate to make it reflect what will happen once you are employed.

Fatty McBeardo · July 2010

I found the article to be naive. You could cut and paste the anecdotes into articles describing practically any industry. That's corporate culture. We all have our crunch times, release dates, etc. We all get steamrolled by downsizing and have witnessed others take credit for our hard work. Welcome to the real world.

PolloDiablo · July 2010

Unco-ordinated wrote: »

slash000 wrote: »

In my experience, companies in general are run poorly. And there are always miles of red tape barriers in the way of efficient, smart, economical ideas that could save time, trouble, and money. People are complacent, and extremely protective of their positions. If it means letting things go to shit so that it makes them look better or maintains the status quo, so be it.

That is my experience with jobs in general. Of course I don't have a tremendous amount of experience so maybe I'm wrong, but damn it sucks to just be starting out and it already feels like that. Makes me see the value of starting your own business.

Yeah, I was gonna say, all the problems game developers face can probably be traced back to bad leadership either within their studio or from their publisher

I think the problem is that most of them did start their own businesses. And they have no idea how to run a business, so most video game companies end up being run like shit.

RidleySaria · July 2010

Unco-ordinated wrote: »

On a less depressing note, it's funny how not so long ago Capcom were saying that they didn't want to crowd the market with fighting games after Marvel vs Capcom 3. Now they (and Namco) have Marvel vs Capcom 3, Tekken X Street Fighter, Street Fighter X Tekken and now Street Fighter III Third Strike Online (for PSN/XBLA) on the way.

Tekken X Street Fighter and Street Fighter X Tekken? Is there a difference?

Edit: Huh, two games? Jeez, Capcom.

Peewi · July 2010

RidleySaria wrote: »

Unco-ordinated wrote: »

On a less depressing note, it's funny how not so long ago Capcom were saying that they didn't want to crowd the market with fighting games after Marvel vs Capcom 3. Now they (and Namco) have Marvel vs Capcom 3, Tekken X Street Fighter, Street Fighter X Tekken and now Street Fighter III Third Strike Online (for PSN/XBLA) on the way.

Tekken X Street Fighter and Street Fighter X Tekken? Is there a difference?

Edit: Huh, two games? Jeez, Capcom.

Capcom is only doing one of them. Tekken x Street Fighter is being done by Namco.

cloudeagle · July 2010

Fatty McBeardo wrote: »

I found the article to be naive. You could cut and paste the anecdotes into articles describing practically any industry. That's corporate culture. We all have our crunch times, release dates, etc. We all get steamrolled by downsizing and have witnessed others take credit for our hard work. Welcome to the real world.

But are video game companies any better or worse than other industries? It seems like most of them exist in a state of perpetual crunch time, where you're expected to put in 90 hour weeks or such garbage.

Santa Claustrophobia · July 2010

cloudeagle wrote: »

Fatty McBeardo wrote: »

I found the article to be naive. You could cut and paste the anecdotes into articles describing practically any industry. That's corporate culture. We all have our crunch times, release dates, etc. We all get steamrolled by downsizing and have witnessed others take credit for our hard work. Welcome to the real world.

But are video game companies any better or worse than other industries? It seems like most of them exist in a state of perpetual crunch time, where you're expected to put in 90 hour weeks or such garbage.

Depends on the company. Sometimes, you end up with a rigid 40 hour week even if you really need that extra overtime.

Wingo · July 2010

cloudeagle wrote: »

Fatty McBeardo wrote: »

I found the article to be naive. You could cut and paste the anecdotes into articles describing practically any industry. That's corporate culture. We all have our crunch times, release dates, etc. We all get steamrolled by downsizing and have witnessed others take credit for our hard work. Welcome to the real world.

But are video game companies any better or worse than other industries? It seems like most of them exist in a state of perpetual crunch time, where you're expected to put in 90 hour weeks or such garbage.

Theory:

The videogame industry contains a much higher-than-average amount of dipshits because the two forces that in all of mankind's history could never be combined collide here at maximum speed: money, and artists.

I mean, damn, just look at what qualifies as videogame journalists.

Even worse, it's an industry dealing with people. Possibly YOUNG people. The highest concentration of dipshits anywhere, since it contains all future dipshits of all diversities!

And you know what's the worst thing? Second-rate artists becoming big names. Game designers, okay. They design games. That's what all this is about. But... character designers? Composers? Compared to actual work of that genre, their work sucks. Why the hell is anyone praising them...?

Oh, well. This feels like a rant going nowhere. :?

Santa Claustrophobia · July 2010

No, no. Keep going. 'All game people are pathetic loser dipshits' has got to be good for something, right? Especially here, of all places.

Wingo · July 2010

Santa Claustrophobia wrote: »

No, no. Keep going. 'All game people are pathetic loser dipshits' has got to be good for something, right? Especially here, of all places.

You missed the part where I providently declared all future people as dipshits! I demand proper quotation, good sir.

By the way, I specifically called game journalists, overrated character designers and music composers dipshits. Feel free to expand that list however you wish. I didn't.

Sheep · July 2010

I think the point your missing is that the dipshits are usually the only ones with some type of screen time. The industry runs off the backs of largely faceless workers who have absolutely no say so in the development or marketing process.

Wingo · July 2010

Sheep wrote: »

I think the point your missing is that the dipshits are usually the only ones with some type of screen time. The industry runs off the backs of largely faceless workers who have absolutely no say so in the development or marketing process.

And? We, as consumers, only see those guys. They're in charge, while, just as you said, all others have absolutely no say in the process. The big names are the ones relevant to us, because we get their names bitchslapped on our face every time we open someone's videogame blog. Do YOU know all the people working behind a milkshake? Do they matter? No, because they don't clog the industry with their silly rubbish. I am specifically talking about people in the spotlight, why should I talk about people who, as far as I know, do a perfectly fine job?

Videogaming is a hobby heavily depending upon consumer reaction, I doubt anyone's going to deny that. That's why the dipshits are so much more noticable, and so much more malign, and so much more destructive, and so much more infuriating than anywhere else.

Oh, but I'm exaggerating.

The same conditions are met for movies...

Kastanj · July 2010

The problem is hype and the news addiction.

You know how millions were completely obsessed with devouring every iota of information in advance of The Phantom Menace or Jurassic Park? You remember how some magazine had a 40+ pages devoted to Matrix Reloaded?

Our industry is stuck in that mode constantly. Add to that our obsession with "artgames" and their "messages", not to mention how journalists, gamers and others are completely enveloped in the marketing circus constantly.

What is the relationship between news coverage and criticism in the videogame industry? It is a straightforward one: news coverage kills criticism -- the latter simply having no hope until the two have been somehow disentangled. This is because common sense prescribes that one should refrain from shitting where one is eating, and since criticism consists almost entirely of shitting (see Schopenhauer), the critic must somehow ensure that his food supply comes from a source other than the people on whose work his job is to be shitting. If, therefore, a publication relies to any significant extent on news coverage in order to generate traffic (as is the case with all professional gaming sites and magazines, with no exceptions), and if that news coverage is handed to them by the very people on whose work their job is to be shitting (as, again, is always the case in the games industry, again with no exceptions) -- then yeah, I think it'd be reasonable to say that there's a teeny-weeny conflict of interest issue going on there.

What you must understand is that what separates popular publications from less popular ones these days is not the quality of the coverage they provide, as was once the case, but the quantity and the timeliness. Specialist gaming publications no longer live or die by the breadth of their coverage (everyone covers the same games made by the same five publishers), or by the sharpness of their aesthetic design (all websites look just as dreadfully ugly), or by the quality of their editorial (lol) -- they live or die by their ability to play this game of manipulation. Why is Fanitsu the no.1 gaming magazine and website in Japan? Surely not because of the insight of its reviews and articles (all Japanese publications suck equally) but because it manages to secure the most "exclusives" -- in other words, because it has learned to play the manipulation game better than its competitors. Why is LameSpot the no.1 gaming website in the English-speaking world? For the same reason.

This meanwhile, is the best essay on games piracy to be read. I dare you to find anything better.

Turkey · July 2010

I prefer Jeff Vogel's (Spiderweb Software) comments on piracy.

Rakai · July 2010

That guy is extremely absorbed in himself and quite idiotic in his logic. "We aren't going to buy the game anyways so we might as well pirate it"...It's like reading comments on a torrent site.

slash000 · July 2010

Agreed with some stuff and not with other points.

I started to skim, and then skip, once I realized how long it was though. So I won't comment on the stuff I only skimmed.

I will say that I agree that PC games would probably do better if there were more demos available. It's much easier to buy a game if you are assured that it will run on your system properly. It also helps if the demo is a good sales pitch.

Wingo · July 2010

Rakai wrote: »

That guy is extremely absorbed in himself and quite idiotic in his logic. "We aren't going to buy the game anyways so we might as well pirate it"...It's like reading comments on a torrent site.

What...? Okay, you got me. You made me read through that long article, AGAIN, and I didn't find anything like that. Care to quote?

Honestly, this sounds like something you actually pulled from torrent site comments.

Rakai · July 2010

Wingo wrote: »

Rakai wrote: »

That guy is extremely absorbed in himself and quite idiotic in his logic. "We aren't going to buy the game anyways so we might as well pirate it"...It's like reading comments on a torrent site.

What...? Okay, you got me. You made me read through that long article, AGAIN, and I didn't find anything like that. Care to quote?

Honestly, this sounds like something you actually pulled from torrent site comments.

From the end of the article:

What would they rather have us do? “Talk with our wallets” and not play the games at all, and certainly don’t buy them. Which would also kill the industry, but that’s somehow the more moral solution.

In other words, if the industry isn’t going to get the message no matter what we do and is going to die either way, why should we deny ourselves the few good games that get released?

I paraphrased, but that is the argument he's making.

Penny Arcade

Video game industry thread: this one's done.

Posts