The general rule is that everything has to be paid for somehow. Whether that’s continued engagement from the community or actual dollars earned via revenue, there are still people able to set a dollar value to it. If DLC was planned for one thing and t…
Hi! I just got a job on a AAA project at a junior position. It’s my first job in a studio this big since ive started out— i’m overjoyed! But also quite scared of how it’s gonna turn out once i’m there. Should the situation arise, how would you advise dealing with crunch or management problems when in my position? I kind of feel as a junior and newbie it’s normal for me to observe/adapt and show I’m motivated rather that argue everything, to a point. I’m not sure how to navigate should that reasonable limit be crossed.
First, congratulations on getting the job. Getting hired, especially as a junior, especially in today’s economic situation, is really getting that rare spawn. I’m happy for you. As to your questions about crunch and working with a team, let’s unpack th…
Have you ever been in a project like Andromeda where the main pillar of the game (as you noted the seamless experience and the procedurally generated worlds) fell through and you had to crunch contents from the ashes? What was that like?
It basically went the same way. I tried my best because that’s what I do. Early in my career I didn’t know any better, so I thought that «if I work harder, if everyone works harder, maybe we can save this thing.» As I got more experienced, I realized t…
Hey, thank you for answering my question about Kingdom Hearts 2! Appreciate the insight! Still, I was more so wondering on the technical aspect. As in, how do you make game logic (physics, etc) behave consistently across all frame rates? I understand that devs might not need to make such considerations in the past. But nowadays, with games being run at different kinds of framerates, and how players can even customize them, how do developers tackle that variability?
We can build a frame-agnostic world update because we can get the current time in milliseconds at the beginning of each frame update. That means we can calculate how much real time has passed since the last frame update and recalculate the new world st…
I remember seeing a case of a port of the game Kingdom Hearts 2 on PS4 having different physics and other aspects than the original PS2 release and the PS3 port, presumably due to the original game tying things to the frame rate, and when the frame rate jumped from 30 to 60, issues arise that weren’t accounted for. But then I wonder. How do you NOT tie aspects of a game to a frame rate? Aren’t game logic executed per frame anyways?
It always helps to consider things from the developer perspective at the time. What kind of constraints were they thinking about while building the game?At the time, Kingdom Hearts 2 was a PS2 exclusive title by a third party developer (Square-Enix) in…
This is an old subject, but: I always wondered why Bioware had (allegedly) so much issue with Frostbite during Andromeda, when the older Inquisition was clearly well made and decently polished.
I don’t know for certain. I never worked on Mass Effect Andromeda but I suspect what happened was that two big technical endeavors they wanted for the game were likely very difficult to build within the limitations of Frostbite. The first goal was to h…
I was recently reading an article about the 2025 Game Awards nominations and it made me wonder, in the world of video game development and publishing, do game awards actually matter or make a difference? in Hollywood it seems like a big thing for an actor to have “academy award winner” attached to their resume and its often used when promoting a new movie they are starring in. do game award nominations and winnings have a tangible benefit to publishers or dev studios? and if so what are they?
Winning awards can help bring notoriety to a title and help it stand out more, but this also significantly varies with the title, franchise, and awareness of the title to begin with. The biggest problem any product has is the problem of discovery — pot…
What are game genres you have worked on but don’t personally enjoy playing? What do you not like about them?
There’s two separate questions at work here, because I play games for two major reasons. The first reason is as research, to analyze and understand what games did, why they made those choices, and what kind of interesting effects those choices can have…
How to deal with a rude producer? A person who only seeks problems on everything you do, and call you out in front of everybody just because of a small mistake? Seriously, the way he talks is to make you feel embarrassed, even though through my hard work the client liked and decided to keep the funding for another 3 months, but because of some small visual bugs he said it was a shame and we’re lucky. Is seeking a new job the only option in this situation?
At some point in our careers, we all have to work with a coworker that we dislike and/or who dislike us. There’s usually a number of reasons for this, but the first (and best) approach is to remember Hanlon’s Razor — Never attribute to malice what can …
How long did it took for you to have a game that you’ve worked on to be released? I’m going to 3 years in the industry next year, and so far, none of the projects that I’ve worked so far has seen the daylight.
I started my career on an annualized sports title so it took me about a year to get my first game out. Due to layoffs and industry instability, it took me significantly longer to get my second game released — multiple years and two separate additional …