I'm a Team Lead for a development team. It's not a game company but the work has a lot of similarities. I tell you the most difficult thing is the personal skills. When I was younger I actually did a lot of construction work and the teams are so much easier to lead. Way to many developers just don't have social skills to interact with each other. Developers have massive egos but there so fragile. You have to really be careful what you say and how you say it. Everyone has to be motivated in their own special way. Don't give up on this industry because you find programming hard, if you have social skills you can really up your stock.
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Man, now I truly understand why games are delayed!
- Thread starter Ark-AMN
- Start date
Yeah, these are the kind of stories I've heard from people in the industry. Which is why I'm always curious as to how each developer does asset management and organization. And it definately doesn't help when the publisher interferes and wants unspecified changes that can make things messy.Warm Machine said:
Heh, the massive ego things definately sounds right, and it most certainly holds true for the people (students) that I'm dealing with now. As my favorite - "What the fuck!?" - teacher says, "people that get too damned attached to their ideas are useless in a team environment. But of course thats not to say don't give your opinion, but don't be a dick about it."darscot said:
From what I've heard, exceptional planning and management skills are incredibly rare in the industry and this is what leads to bad burnout with employees who are forced to be in "overdrive" mode so many times in order to make up for the poor coordination of asset creation and implentations.snaildog said:
I tailored my education around being a project lead.
Almost done a degree in Computer Science with a distinction in Software Engineering and a minor in Management. Currently working in the Oil Industry to get capital for my own company "geeXoft".
So I understand a lot of what is entailed in developing a game (and software in general) but of course I'll need some real world experience to fully comprehend what goes on in titles that are massive in scope.
While I do definately think you'll need people skills to manage a team, I have a feeling that games aren't being properly planned on paper to begin with. Again, it's a feeling and I'm not saying it's reality. I've only been observing what's been happening in the game MOD scene for various big name games. I've seen some "making of" documentaries for some big name games and it almost seems the same way to some extent.
Right now I'm make a game on the Source Engine. I'm still working on the game concept and plan before even looking at any modellers, animators, texture artists, etc. The game right now exists in the form of a large excel file. I will have everything planned out by the end, and I'm 50% done. It covers everything, down to the most minute detail (ie. each static mesh that would go into the levels). With that done, it will be extremely easy to guage the progress of the game's content creation and implementation. I also plan to use a mix of black/white box testing techniques to iron out bugs...something most mods attempt to do in an informal fashion but I think it's easier for multiple people to deal with them if done in a formal matter.
By formalizing everything I hope to take away the detrimental "social" aspects of working with a team. When things are less formalized, less outlined and less straightforward, people go outside the boundaries of their function in a workplace environment and it leads to stepping on toes.
Anyways, the excel file is not meant as a rough draft. It is the final say in the game's beta release. It includes mention of possible alpha version features, but does not factor them in at this point. As a software designer you're going to have to realize that many of the features that you'd really like to be in the final version may simply not make it due to time restrictions. I take that into account when making this beta, simplifying it to something that will be playable, enjoyable, but not comparable to a console game in terms of polish.
At that point I'll be open to discussing any gameplay or any other changes. At no point before then will I allow any change to the game's vision, unless there is something really broken. This is a problem with so many MODs out there, and thta's why many of them don't even see the light of day. The best word for me to describe it is sharia (arabic for "constant changing and adaption"). There's the outline for the beta and until testing for QA, it's stays that way.
Speaking of QA...AFAIK there is nothing like that to my knowledge in the World of videogames. There is rigerous testing, and I think PC games do benefit from a gameplay perspective through this testing, but the purpose was never meant to make it more accessable (well, Halo 2 had grandma testing
) and more enjoyable. I used to review games for a local paper...and while my friends thought that it's probably all fun and games, it was annoying to play a lot of crap software that was broken on so many fronts.
I'm probably ranting and not making any sense, I've also typed up other replies while typing this one so I'll end it here.
Almost done a degree in Computer Science with a distinction in Software Engineering and a minor in Management. Currently working in the Oil Industry to get capital for my own company "geeXoft".
So I understand a lot of what is entailed in developing a game (and software in general) but of course I'll need some real world experience to fully comprehend what goes on in titles that are massive in scope.
While I do definately think you'll need people skills to manage a team, I have a feeling that games aren't being properly planned on paper to begin with. Again, it's a feeling and I'm not saying it's reality. I've only been observing what's been happening in the game MOD scene for various big name games. I've seen some "making of" documentaries for some big name games and it almost seems the same way to some extent.
Right now I'm make a game on the Source Engine. I'm still working on the game concept and plan before even looking at any modellers, animators, texture artists, etc. The game right now exists in the form of a large excel file. I will have everything planned out by the end, and I'm 50% done. It covers everything, down to the most minute detail (ie. each static mesh that would go into the levels). With that done, it will be extremely easy to guage the progress of the game's content creation and implementation. I also plan to use a mix of black/white box testing techniques to iron out bugs...something most mods attempt to do in an informal fashion but I think it's easier for multiple people to deal with them if done in a formal matter.
By formalizing everything I hope to take away the detrimental "social" aspects of working with a team. When things are less formalized, less outlined and less straightforward, people go outside the boundaries of their function in a workplace environment and it leads to stepping on toes.
Anyways, the excel file is not meant as a rough draft. It is the final say in the game's beta release. It includes mention of possible alpha version features, but does not factor them in at this point. As a software designer you're going to have to realize that many of the features that you'd really like to be in the final version may simply not make it due to time restrictions. I take that into account when making this beta, simplifying it to something that will be playable, enjoyable, but not comparable to a console game in terms of polish.
At that point I'll be open to discussing any gameplay or any other changes. At no point before then will I allow any change to the game's vision, unless there is something really broken. This is a problem with so many MODs out there, and thta's why many of them don't even see the light of day. The best word for me to describe it is sharia (arabic for "constant changing and adaption"). There's the outline for the beta and until testing for QA, it's stays that way.
Speaking of QA...AFAIK there is nothing like that to my knowledge in the World of videogames. There is rigerous testing, and I think PC games do benefit from a gameplay perspective through this testing, but the purpose was never meant to make it more accessable (well, Halo 2 had grandma testing
) and more enjoyable. I used to review games for a local paper...and while my friends thought that it's probably all fun and games, it was annoying to play a lot of crap software that was broken on so many fronts. I'm probably ranting and not making any sense, I've also typed up other replies while typing this one so I'll end it here.
I've had the unpleasant experience of being a programmer on a death-march for game that ended up being wayyyy overdue. It's very possible for a team to work its collective ass off for years on end and not have anything to show for it if the project direction is bad. It's like a chicken with its head cut off running around. Also being understaffed never helps either.
Such a hopeless feeling encompasses you when you know the game is going to be bad, and you know it's going to be late, and you know that working your heart out isn't going to change anything. But you do it anyways, because you're a professional and that's what they're paying you (badly) to do.
I'm not sure how it is nowadays, but project management used to be very half-assed on the average in the game industry. It was interesting to step back into the non-game world and see how regular companies got many more things right in the way they designed their processes.
Such a hopeless feeling encompasses you when you know the game is going to be bad, and you know it's going to be late, and you know that working your heart out isn't going to change anything. But you do it anyways, because you're a professional and that's what they're paying you (badly) to do.
I'm not sure how it is nowadays, but project management used to be very half-assed on the average in the game industry. It was interesting to step back into the non-game world and see how regular companies got many more things right in the way they designed their processes.
Open Source
Banned
And my mom said I would NEVER get anywhere with these games.