It has to do with how software engineering works. Whenever we build a system, that system doesn’t typically exist in a vacuum — temporary or not, it exists to handle some particular task or solve some problem. A temporary solution might not handle that…
How simple is it for a developer/publisher company to sell a game IP to another company?
It can be as simple or as complicated as they want it to be. Most of the time the IP is leased to somebody else within a limited capacity of some kind (e.g. for a certain duration, with certain restrictions, etc.) and then rights are returned to the ow…
How true is the saying “there is more permanent then a temporary solution” in the context of game developement?
Once, one of my coworkers printed out «temporary» hacks in our codebase and taped them to his body to be his Halloween costume. I have a t-shirt printed with the «temporary» hacks in the code base. The name «Grey Wardens» from Dragon Age was a temporar…
I’m currently developing a 2D Metroidvania game, and I’d like to hear your thoughts: What are the key elements that make a Metroidvania fun to play and challenging in a satisfying way? I’m especially interested in how to balance exploration, progression, and difficulty without frustrating the player.
This is a good question. The core element here that drives everything in a metroidvania is the intersection between the abilities the player gets and the level design. Everything a player does in a platformer follows three sequential steps:The player s…
Do people ever resubmit old design tests? Like if someone makes it past that stage the first time but doesn’t get the job, and then the job opens up again later down the line.
There’s nothing stopping a candidate from doing this, but I’ve never done this before myself. Just because I happened to be «good enough» last time doesn’t mean that the criteria or the competition for the position have remained the same. I know I cert…
Do you think we’re headed for another American Industry crash out like 1983, or has the digital age changed what was a product of physical media? Is the industry turbulence largely on the back end, or is it also rippling to consumers?
There won’t be another industry crash like 1983, mostly because most people don’t really understand what actually happened in 1983. 1983 wasn’t an industry crash, it was an Atari crash because there were too many low-quality games for Atari and the mar…
When do you think the industry will go back to “normal” and what are some signs that that is going to happen?. I mean, studios stabilizing financially, AAA games franchises not getting canceled anymore, reducing the amount of layouts happening. I just saw the news of EA firing 300+ people and possibly cancelling Titanfall 3. Is there any hope that this is going to get better, or this is already the new normal?
Things will contract until they reach equilibrium. There have been bad times before (most recently the 2007-2012 Great Financial Crisis era) where everything contracted for a while, and eventually things turned around again. The main issue is that the …
What is your current opinion on Unreal Engine 5? Between Digital Foundry, content creators, and people on social media, everyone appears to be constantly attacking UE5 for performance issues (stuttering, frame rate, etc.). Is this criticism warranted, or is it more a case of developers still getting used to UE5 and its complexities (meaning it will likely improve in time)?
Everything improves with time as the engineers learn the details and optimize their work. This is true of every tech platform ever and won’t be any more different with Unreal Engine 5 than it has been with UE4, 3, or anything else. That said… after h…
Is more complicated, or more work to write code for The Game EA Sports FC if you were starting from scratch than it would be to write code for any other large scale game, like an MMORPG also done from scratch? Or GTA6 i.e.? (Licensing issues aside)
Code systems are code systems. Good code architecture tends to follow pretty universal principles, regardless of whether the system is governing loot tables or lighting systems. Constructing software systems is about seeing the general rules at work an…
How are RPGs like Bg3, Red Dead Redemption 2, Elder Scrolls, etc that have so many story branches presented to the developers? Is one person in charge of one whole story branch or is it divided into chunks in a way? Does the writers room look an awful lot like Charlie from always sunny?
Narrative in such games are usually a lot more modular and systemic than you think. When you’re putting together a narrative for a quest, for example, it’s usually [set up in the form of a flowchart] — what happens in what order, where things branch, w…