I’ve certainly played the retail versions of some of the games I worked on. If I’m only working on some portion of it and the game’s scope is sufficiently large, there’s still interesting things to learn by playing through the parts I didn’t work on. G…
as a gamer, i don’t think crunching for game studios is bad at all. almost all games i’ve played where that’s common are some of the best games released. i think it’s something developers sign up for.
Let’s set aside for a moment how callous and entitled that statement could sound to others. That’s probably not how you feel or what you meant, but that’s very much how it comes across. We’re setting it aside. Here’s why you, as a gamer, should care ab…
What advice would you give someone who wanted to direct a AAA game someday? Is there even any sort of regular path for it?
To direct a game, you need a certain set of skills and one key requirement.You need a deep understanding of the game development process from start to finish. This covers the time from the initial pitch all the way to shipping the game and post-launch…
When switching jobs, do you go back and play all the games released by the studio you are joining?
I always play and think about the studio’s more popular games before I interview with that studio. If I know what game I’m interviewing for (e.g. a sequel to game X), then I try to focus on the franchise and the predecessor. This process usually involv…
Any ideas on how to break through crunching culture? I love what I do and I’m very lucky to work in AAA, but crunching is common and encouraged where I work. I and others have even slept in the office at times. I used to feel proud about this, but it’s becoming increasingly apparent to me that this is not the norm and I’m really affecting my health. I feel like just stopping what I’ve been doing will be looked at as not being as dedicated and could even result in some sort of corrective action or even termination.
Unfortunately, the answer is that you really can’t. Unless you’re in a position of significant power at the studio (and you’d know if you were), there really isn’t much we can do as individual contributors to affect things. Team and studio leadership …
Actually begging you to answer this because I really think more professional game developers could offer the most valuable insight here. There is big pushback to the overused Doom tweet of “You choose the buttons you press” in regards to optional gameplay mechanics (currently sprinting in Halo) that potentially muddy the difficulty or pacing. It’s an interesting topic and I would love your extended thoughts as a AAA veteran. Thanks!
This is a prickly question. Optional things are optional, and players can choose the buttons they press. However, we developers have a responsibility to design a game that is engaging and fun for the player. Part of that responsibility is providing a d…
What are the pro-cons of working on live service games as a dev versus working on a new release?
Live service games come with inherent constraints that limit the sort of things we can do. In exchange, they provide stability and sustainability because players who like the game will likely continue to like the game as we make more of it for them. As…
Is there any way we developers can break the cycle of urgency in our jobs? I gotta say, I really like what I do, but it’s kind of unhealthy to work 11 hours a day for two months straight
Work on a live service game. Quarterly/regular content updates drive strong scope management. The strict upper bound on scope means significantly reduced chance for and duration of crunch. Content can get moved from one release to another fairly safely…
When everyone is working on separate areas/mechanics/levels, how does this unify into a coherent experience in terms of difficulty curve? I’d say you are working the second or third level, how are you to judge how difficult it is allowed to be or what challenges from prior levels are you allowed to throw at the players?
System designers manage difficulty curves. It is up to them to tweak numbers and timing in order to make sure difficulty feels good along the way. They work primarily within formulas and spreadsheets in order to keep things predictable for the general …
You mentioned how devs only are working on your “areas”. Is the version of the game you are working on somehow cornered off from the rest? For example, if you are working on part of an open world game, is the executable you are working on not have the rest of the world, or if you are working on a level, do you only have one physical access to that level?
We’re basically cordoned off from other elements of the game for the sake of iteration speed. It takes a non-trivial amount of time to build assets and data for game levels, especially in AAA games. If I’m working on a particular level or dungeon, wait…