What's Wrong With the Games Industry

Gamasutra has up a piece by game developer Stephen Ford, entitled What's Wrong with the Games Industry (and How to Make it Right). The article covers the idiosyncrasies of game development, such as the problems of pitching a title, making a demo, working to publisher expectations. It then looks at ways to make the same-old same-old 'right'. From the article: "One amazing fact that has yet to permeate the strata of the industry is that most of their employees have the equipment that they need to do their jobs at home. One example is freelance audio engineers, who do most of their work off site and mail the files in. However, for code, design and art there are still large levels of resistance to the idea that you can effectively export work off site and maintain control. On-site control is an illusion, and while the camaraderie of a large office space is nice, it is also the least financially efficient way of getting production work done in an age of broadband."

Comments

Proof?

[Aladrin]

"it is also the least financially efficient way of getting production work done in an age of broadband."

Have you got -any- proof of that? Some people do NOT work well away from the office. I'm guessing that game programmers, designers, and other game-jobs have huge amounts of people in that category.

In fact, anyone with ANY interest in games has a compulsion to play games. Try having a doctor do paperwork at the golf course and you'll see exactly the same thing. The temptation is just too close at hand.

Re:Proof?

[Doctor Crumb]

Some people don't work well *in* the office, playing games or surfing the internet. This is what managers and performance reviews and the like are for. An inability to get things done means that whatever management is in place is insufficient, whether telecommuting or in a traditional office.

The irony is that I am posting this to slashdot while at work, and odds are you did the same.

Re:Proof?

[angelzero]

"In fact, anyone with ANY interest in games has a compulsion to play games. " Have you got any proof of -that-? You can't just laud it as fact without evidence to back it up.

Re:Proof?

[iocat]

People can screw off anywhere, and they can concentrate anywhere, but for some (not all), the impulse to screw off is overridden by presence of co-workers and managers. For others, the ability to concentrate is destroyed by same. A good manager knows who can work well where and when. In my experience, people in the former category will tell you working offsite is impossible, and people in the latter category will make up a bunch of reasons for doing so. So it's not like people are trying to maximize their screw-off potential when they argue this point, it's actually that they argue that what works best for them works best for everyone, which is not necessarily true. Still, all things being equal, having people near each other so they can kibbutz and talk (not just IM each other w/ questions whne an issue comes up) seems to result in greater overall efficiency over the long term, especially in necessarily collaborative projects, such as game development. IM is great, but actually looking at someone else's monitor, overhearing info over a cube wall (in a good way), getting together in small groups occaisionally to discuss while one guys codes -- those are all valuable things that it is hard to replicate via IM or other PC-to-PC sharing tools.

Re:Proof?

[Froggy]

My husband's been a game developer for twelve years, and believe me, playing games is the *last* thing he wants to do when he comes home of an evening. He just can't stop thinking about work. Even when he's watching the kids play on the PS/2, he can't stop picking out TRC violations in the interface.

A better reason to work in the office rather than at home is that the typical software developer in *any* industry needs to communicate with their colleagues. You can go the whole formal weekly meetings route, but life is more relaxing if the contact is unstructured. Meetings feel like work. Chatting in the tea room does not.

Snuh?

[voice_of_all_reason]

But the King Cause is simply this: Most game development management is pretty incompetent. most game development management --> most management

Fixed.

Re:Snuh?

[ZephyrXero]

There are two main problems in the game industry right now (and yes both have to do with managment in one way or another)...

1. Game developers and publishers focus too much on flash. When you're only worried about how good your game will look in screenshots, videos and ads, gameplay suffers. A game should be just as fun to play with primatives and stickmen as it is once you add your pretty coatings on top, if your game isn't as fun or "cool" without out all the flash, you have a crappy game on your hands. The same goes for story and cinematics. Yes, story can be very important, but your gameplay should always come first (unless in perhaps the case of an RPG).

2. The industry is stagnating. 99% of games released these days are rehashes of old games that don't even bother to try and add a new twist or anything. Why would any gamer want to buy the same game they already own but with a different title? Hopefully advancements in physics processing and controllers like the "Wii-mote" will help get the creative juices flowing again in the industry, but I fear most of the problem comes from investors and publishers not wanting to risk any money on anything even remotely original. It's the same exact problem we're seeing in the movie, TV, and music industries as well...

i kind of disagree.

[aleksiel]

it really depends on the situation.

team-based on-site coding does improve productivity. its much easier to shout over at someone to find out information or get something done, instead of exchanging emails or ims. emails and ims are easy, but not the fastest or most efficient way of doing things.

Re:Wow

[Cadallin]

No, they starting being written in force in about 1994-5, when the industry started becoming much more corporate. (EA was well into their acquisition scheme by then, and that was a huge part of it). And just because these articles are commonly written doesn't mean that they aren't on to something. Do you really think that there aren't problems in the way the business of making games is done?

Buzzwords

[2008]

An article that complains about buzzword compliance yet finishes with the phrase:

"Welcome to the games industry, version 2.0."

I was almost fooled for a minute...

Negative Weight

[AKAImBatman]

Developers don't know what to do with staff once a project winds down because the nature of the industry is such that nobody can guarantee constant work. When working in a low-cost market such as 16-bit development, this problem existed as it does today, but the negative weight of it was relatively insignificant. Yet as costs and contract issues and the seriousness of the industry has grown, the problems of having fifty or a hundred people doing nothing for an extended period of time have multiplied that negative weight, to the point that it kills companies.

Sounds like many game companies need to learn a newfangled idea (not really) known as "pipelining". You have various projects happening concurrently, with each project bubbling to the top as the necessary parts of the previous one are completed.

This would require good management, more normal working hours, and game development on a more normal schedule in order to happen. These things have been an antithesis to game companies, who have always struggled under tight timetables to get the game out while it's still technologically impressive. One is forced to wonder, though, is the technological death march really worth it? If your company's very existance is dependent on producing blockbuster after blockbuster, then you may be in a pretty bad position. No one can maintain a permanent streak, which is why you're probably only employed as far as the next game.

As much as I dislike EA, they do understand. (To a certain degree.) They have tons of projects in parallel, assuring that resources can be used and transferred as necessary. There's no "negative weight" holding the company down, save for post-launch vacations. If they would smooth out the development process, they could let everyone have lives so that they wouldn't need the post-launch vacations. Then their negative weight would reach pretty close to zero.

Games just aren't getting that much more impressive as time goes on. We're reaching areas of dimishing returns to where we can probably slow the pace in exchange for focusing on making good games that are fun, and have been properly QAed. There's no need for these last-minute additions or patches. Especially as the market revolts, and moves more and more toward console gaming. (Where proper QA is a requirement.)

Gamers want good games. Technology is only a canvas on which games are painted. It should not be the be-all-to-end-all of the game. If companies can reorganize around making high-quality games on more reasonable schedules, then I don't doubt that costs would lower and the products would improve.

My 2 pennies, anyway. :)

One Reson:

[gambler_mtu]

The gaming industry has lost it's imagination. Innovation is gone, instead companies are trying things like making crappy games for simultaneous releases with movies, or perhaps banking on previous successes...Doom 4 anybody??? No takers?? really??

It's not just this

[Gnostic Ronin]

I think the biggest problem has nothing to do with the structure of the company, it has to do with the content of the games themselves.

First off, you have a lot of copycatting going on. Everybody wants in on the big trend, so they're trying to recreate the big game of the year. There aren't many that aren't essentially clones of some other game. Ico, DDR, Katamari, Okami and Gitar Hero are new games. Most of the rest are pretty generic, to the point where if you've played one game in the genre, the rest are rentals -- because other than the graphic art, they play identically. And that's not even counting the sequels of the generic games.

Secondly, especially for TV/movie games, most franchise games are made with very little understanding of what made the series good to begin with. http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/strategy/startrekl egacy/screenindex.html?part=rss&subj=6152227 This is just one example. I don't know how you could watch a show where 90% of the time, they negotiate their way out of danger and decide that the best thing to make with the franchise is a shooting game. I won't even bother bringing up Anime franchises.

Ever see Fritz Lang's Metropolis?

[Scrameustache]

Do you remember the scene where the workers trudge into the factory doors, who fade into the mouth of a giant monster devouring them?

This is what's wrong with the game industry: It eats people up, chews them out, and then hires the next batch of fresh, ready-for-overtime young talent.

Re:Ever see Fritz Lang's Metropolis?

[Scrameustache]

Well, it is a criticism of the Industrial Revolution era working practices, coincidentally those are very close to the game industry's working practices.

That would be my point, yes :)

40 hour weeks simply are the most efficient way of working your employees.

Hmmm, I guess that's a matter of perspective. From a manager's point of view, I guess that's true. But from an employee's point of view, I don't think that's quite right.
40 hours a week is the most you can systematically sqeeze out of them without burning them up, but there's plenty of ink and electrons dedicated to documenting that this isn't healthy, what with stress, depressions, burnouts, etc.

I've had jobs where sometimes we just didn't have enough work to keep us productive for 40 hours a week, but we had to keep up these hours. I personally wouldn't have minded getting less money these weeks and spending less time doing meaningless busywork, knowing that later we'd have overtime to do in a rush week. balance it out, but that wouldn't jive with the accountants, who like good ol' predictable work hours (and people on a budget who need it too).

The world ain't perfect :(

Work at home vs. at a facility.

[CherniyVolk]

I work for a large defense contractor (think Raytheon, Boeing etc.). Most of what I do, I can practically do from anywhere be it the office, home or a coffee shop. Well, the coffee shop would be problematic, I do handle classified and controlled information so passerbys might not feel comfortable thinking any moment Secret Service will jump in and erase their memories.

OK. So, aside from having to handle sensitive information or hardware. My more mundane activities can very well be handled at home or where ever I may connect to the internet.

For some reason, this is the way most corporate work places operate. Joe walks in, plays like he's a well brainwashed representative of society and socializes with co-workers while smoking, drinking coffee etc. Then he walks over and turns on his computer, and checks his email where for another hour to three hours he's pretty much doing the same thing for distant co-workers or on-site co-workers also playing with their emails. Then, he does some actual work, maybe an hour, may four at most. We are at 6 hours now. Then he spends another two hours away from "production" interests, to handle things that will sadly have more an impact for upcoming review. He asserts his politics and opinions on the new name tags to be issued. He sends out a memo essentially complaining about the coffee maker being a mess everyday. He sends his opinions down to maintenance becuase he thinks the power outlets need to be verified or checked.

This is a "busy" work day.

An average day... he might do one hour of "production" work, and BS for the rest of the day. For managers that joke about this "horror" to themselves... Managers are even worse than the workers. Managers typically do nothing of their inherent model suggests, this isn't being said jokingly either. Mangers really do nothing, even when they think they are doing something.

It's the feel that something is getting done. It's why we have meetings and all the sort. The last time a Meeting ever amounted to something, was when this one nobody held a meeting in the back of a German beer pub, later to wreck havoc across Europe. Ironically, even that meeting resulted in disastor and mayhem.

Just like Meetings make us feel like something is getting done... the same feeling is derived with actually seeing other people gather. Really, reporting to work, for most people who use a Computer, is a huge big-picture meeting! We get up, endure the assanine daily routines of office politics and becuase of this, that's work.

Personally, my best work comes within the first hour of waking up, and the wee hours of the night when I'm fully relaxed and able to focus becuase there is no distractions. I can listen to music, without fear of someone taking offense. I can chose to go sit outside and ponder something without fear of someone thinking I'm not doing anything. I can take as many breaks as I want, I can lounge in the comfort and safety of my own home. I enjoy the food at my own home. I enjoy the 50 dollar couch I have over the 150 dollar chair at work. I can wear something comfortable at home (Any man who says slacks, a tie, and a collared cotten shirt is "comfortable" is either very ignorant or out right lieing to your face. Even if it might be physically tolerable, it's still mentally uncomfortable to have to dress that way and worry about spilling coffee on it.). Sweats pants and a t-shirt, now you can't get more comfortable than that. I want to be at home anyways!

And if there's any better real life example of how much more people are willing to work when at home, we only need to ponder the speed, effectiveness, quality of OSS software development over proprietary counterparts 'minus exceptions of proprietary protocols etc.'). At home, I'm much more willing to work much more, becuase a great deal of it won't even be considered "work".

But, try to tell your boss that! That's the tricky part. He'd rather pay you for less product, just to see you once a day abide by ru

Ugh another "what's wrong with x"

[kinglink]

Excuse me Stephen Ford, can I get some credentials? Do you work at EA? do you work at my company? Have you worked at a real company? How many? How many dev cycles? Finding your name on a Flash development site makes me wonder a bit. Or are you Steven Ford who talks about online gambling as an Analyst for Collins Stewart

I'm sorry I'm sick of listening to Gamesutra guys because most of them either don't know anything, or just have skewed ideas with only their personal experiences to go on, and usually those experiences suck or are non applicable to normal companies.

My company keeps a game project going at a time as well as one in flux. Most people find the office easier to work at than home, and it helps communication greatly, it keeps people focused, and while it costs 5K, that money is made up in wasted time. 5K per person isn't bad when you have a multi million dollar team.

Why not maintain a code-base, guess what? You don't sell them to make a profit. A good engine can work for every game you make not just the first one. Company at which I works uses the same engine and tweaks it every game, that works wonders especially when you consider we work on similar systems every time. It's true our first 360 game needed a lot of time (4 years dev cycle not fun) but we're running two products based on that engine now, we consolidate the similar stuff, and branch the non similar stuff. Money saved? 3 engines for the price of 1, you figure it out. And if something is bad in project 2 and great in project 3 we can bring the great system over to project 2. If it's something similar.

My company works, if yours doesn't that's fine but why tell us what's wrong with the "game industry" when there's not much wrong with the industry. The particular companies are the ones who have problems. His complaints sounds like a whiny guy who wants to program what he's working on, not constantly get bothered, and not get different scope changes. His only good advise is to blame management, but maybe his company sucks. Mine doesn't. If you don't like the company, change companies. If you don't like the industry, change industries. Just because this doesn't jib with you, doesn't mean it's a problem with everyone or everywhere.