You obviously have no idea what actual quality game art is.
This is why an 80 person team at Valve managed to jack up the bar with Half-Life 2, and you had to choke out the competition with a licensing deal because your football game sucked ass and looked like it.
When the programmers are in charge, you get nifty Multi-Pipe Rendering with Multi-Pattern Anisotropic Filtering and Inverse Kinematics with Havok Physics, and Normal Mapping with Light Gathering and Diffusion or Bump and Specular Passes with PixelShader 3.0.
And when they're done, the game might be a coding achievement, but it LOOKS LIKE SHIT and PLAYS LIKE SHIT. Think about how Doom3 would have looked if John "PC games are like porn flicks and don't need stories, we'll just add more shader passes" Carmack had been in charge of modeling and rigging the models, or animating them, or painting textures.
All the coders care about are their fancy tech features and the newest, shiniest DirectX extension. THOSE DON'T MAKE GAMES. They might make engines, but only two people and a dev studio so far have gotten away with building just engines, and EA ain't John Carmack, Tim Sweeny, or Monolith.
What you see ON THE SCREEN is what makes games. High quality models, skins, environment construction, and art design. Nobody except 3dMark-masturbating super tweakers or other code monkeys give a flying fuck if your engine can to more IK operations per second, or better node handling and occlusion, or deal with more characters or classes in the environment. They just care if it looks and plays good.
So I challenge you again, Mr. Anonymous Coward, if you think artists are so fucking expendable, why don't YOU try to do all the modeling, rigging, animation, texturing, art design, backgrounds, GUI art, storyboards, script, box / manual art, concept art, soundscaping, and music once you're done building your latest OpenGL penis-compensator.
Or do you want me to just wait until your ass gets canned in the next round of layoffs, and offer to put you on the waiting list for a support programming spot on my next project?
"If you are someone who actually makes games, ie. the engineers"
I'm glad to see you think so highly of your art team.
Let's see you do the modeling, texturing, rigging, animation, backgrounds, design layout, storyboards, music, and sound for your next project.
I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but the last big gamev that was made exclusively by programmers was probably Pac Man. At good art schools like the Art Institutes, Cogswell, VanArts, and Sahvanna College of Art and Design, there's a name for game art done by programmers and coding techs.
Knowing EA, they'll probably rebuild it after it sinks into the marsh 3 times, even when the 4 time, it sinks and catches fire.
The fifth one, though, should be done just in time for them to throw somebody out the window.
You know full well what I meant, AC.
Nobody at studios such as those are being told that letting their employer rape them with the splintery end of the broomstick is a privledge, and none of them are leaving because they're being forced to work unhealthy hours due to incompetent management and the seven figure salaries of stockholder-kowtowing CEOs.
I have nothing against making honest money. I have everything against systematically consuming people for your own bloated profit.
werelord is correct--the game industry is similar to the printing industry. Authors (dev studios / production houses) create games; publishers (Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, Infogrames) print games onto CD, provide funding, provide marketing, and handle distribution.
EA is an anomoly in that they try to do both. They're a publisher that also has in-house development teams. Mebbe that's why they fuck up everything they do so bad and can't bring themselves to even TRY something new.
Let's look at EA's 'hit' list and see which ones they actually made themselves...
Sims: Will Wright's work. Maxis, not EA.
Medal of Honor: 2015 and other studios. Not EA.
Battlefield 1942: not sure of the developer, but I know for a fact it wasn't done by EA in-house.
Now... the shit EA makes themselves...
Goldeneye: Rogue Agent. Just put a bomb in the game's box and get it over with.
EA NFL, Hockey, NBA, MLB games, FIFA Soccer... New year, same shit game
James Bond: Nightfire. The ass that was pre-Rogue Agent. You just can't suck as bad as Rogue Agent did without some practice first.
It's one thing to try and get the best people on your team, but considering EA's proven past history, I'd say they're still actively practicing their classic HR management.
Step A: Work employee into the ground. Constantly tell them they are 'privledged' to work in such conditions. String employee along as far as possible.
Step B: When employee catches on, finish raping employee mercilessly (retract any remaining compensation, benefits, payment, soul, etc), then lie through teeth to try and convince employee their new assholes are their own fault.
Overturn of art teams at the end of a project is one thing. Overturn of art teams, programmers, testers, and designers due to horrendous overworking is in a completely different circle of Hell. People come and go from places like Blizzard, Valve, Bungie, and Rockstar all the time. The manner in which they come and go from EA and other companies like EA, however is vastly different.
That too, but see if you're really, really bothered about being bored when it's 20 degrees with windchill and you're sitting still. Staying warm at that point becomes a very active, very captivating process./been there, done that.
I walk by Jeff everyday when I get off the bus at the Cinerama, headed to class (Art Institute of Seattle). I usually say hi to him if he's awake. He naps a lot, probably to help stay warm, since it's been something like 30 degrees for the last couple of weeks.
My understanding is that he's doing this for charity, and I think that's damn decent of him. But even if he wasn't, somebody who's willing to sit in the cold and the noise and the smog and put up with ridicule for something they love has my respect.
The truly amazing part is that unlike id, who up until (and some would argue, including) Doom 3 simply made an engine and slapped some quick levels together to show it off, Valve has simultaneously developed a whole new engine, AND a damn cool GAME, AND redone previous work to run in the new engine, AND polished their dev tools for public consumption.
Depending upon just how easy / powerful Source turns out to be, they might end up beating Carmack at his own game.
I can't remember where I found it, but on one of the SS2 message boards a few months ago the forum members compiled a list of the named characters and their fates (dead, transformed by the Many, unknown, ghosts, and the two that made it out)
I thought it said quite a bit that the game would inspire the people who played it to try and figure out who in the game world survived.
You know, as sick as everybody has to be of this bullshit, I'm really surprised Taco hasn't just slipped a 'GAY NIGGERS! first post' filter into the slashcode.
Sure wouldn't hurt.
Slashdot Mirror
"Studying Sets You Free"
"Quality game art costs money"
Bzzt!
Artists == commodity item.
And this is why you make shit games.
You obviously have no idea what actual quality game art is.
This is why an 80 person team at Valve managed to jack up the bar with Half-Life 2, and you had to choke out the competition with a licensing deal because your football game sucked ass and looked like it.
When the programmers are in charge, you get nifty Multi-Pipe Rendering with Multi-Pattern Anisotropic Filtering and Inverse Kinematics with Havok Physics, and Normal Mapping with Light Gathering and Diffusion or Bump and Specular Passes with PixelShader 3.0.
And when they're done, the game might be a coding achievement, but it LOOKS LIKE SHIT and PLAYS LIKE SHIT. Think about how Doom3 would have looked if John "PC games are like porn flicks and don't need stories, we'll just add more shader passes" Carmack had been in charge of modeling and rigging the models, or animating them, or painting textures.
All the coders care about are their fancy tech features and the newest, shiniest DirectX extension. THOSE DON'T MAKE GAMES. They might make engines, but only two people and a dev studio so far have gotten away with building just engines, and EA ain't John Carmack, Tim Sweeny, or Monolith.
What you see ON THE SCREEN is what makes games. High quality models, skins, environment construction, and art design. Nobody except 3dMark-masturbating super tweakers or other code monkeys give a flying fuck if your engine can to more IK operations per second, or better node handling and occlusion, or deal with more characters or classes in the environment. They just care if it looks and plays good.
So I challenge you again, Mr. Anonymous Coward, if you think artists are so fucking expendable, why don't YOU try to do all the modeling, rigging, animation, texturing, art design, backgrounds, GUI art, storyboards, script, box / manual art, concept art, soundscaping, and music once you're done building your latest OpenGL penis-compensator.
Or do you want me to just wait until your ass gets canned in the next round of layoffs, and offer to put you on the waiting list for a support programming spot on my next project?
"If you are someone who actually makes games, ie. the engineers"
I'm glad to see you think so highly of your art team.
Let's see you do the modeling, texturing, rigging, animation, backgrounds, design layout, storyboards, music, and sound for your next project.
I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but the last big gamev that was made exclusively by programmers was probably Pac Man. At good art schools like the Art Institutes, Cogswell, VanArts, and Sahvanna College of Art and Design, there's a name for game art done by programmers and coding techs.
It's "shit".
Knowing EA, they'll probably rebuild it after it sinks into the marsh 3 times, even when the 4 time, it sinks and catches fire. The fifth one, though, should be done just in time for them to throw somebody out the window.
You know full well what I meant, AC. Nobody at studios such as those are being told that letting their employer rape them with the splintery end of the broomstick is a privledge, and none of them are leaving because they're being forced to work unhealthy hours due to incompetent management and the seven figure salaries of stockholder-kowtowing CEOs. I have nothing against making honest money. I have everything against systematically consuming people for your own bloated profit.
werelord is correct--the game industry is similar to the printing industry. Authors (dev studios / production houses) create games; publishers (Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, Infogrames) print games onto CD, provide funding, provide marketing, and handle distribution. EA is an anomoly in that they try to do both. They're a publisher that also has in-house development teams. Mebbe that's why they fuck up everything they do so bad and can't bring themselves to even TRY something new. Let's look at EA's 'hit' list and see which ones they actually made themselves... Sims: Will Wright's work. Maxis, not EA. Medal of Honor: 2015 and other studios. Not EA. Battlefield 1942: not sure of the developer, but I know for a fact it wasn't done by EA in-house. Now... the shit EA makes themselves... Goldeneye: Rogue Agent. Just put a bomb in the game's box and get it over with. EA NFL, Hockey, NBA, MLB games, FIFA Soccer... New year, same shit game James Bond: Nightfire. The ass that was pre-Rogue Agent. You just can't suck as bad as Rogue Agent did without some practice first.
It's one thing to try and get the best people on your team, but considering EA's proven past history, I'd say they're still actively practicing their classic HR management.
Step A: Work employee into the ground. Constantly tell them they are 'privledged' to work in such conditions. String employee along as far as possible.
Step B: When employee catches on, finish raping employee mercilessly (retract any remaining compensation, benefits, payment, soul, etc), then lie through teeth to try and convince employee their new assholes are their own fault.
Overturn of art teams at the end of a project is one thing. Overturn of art teams, programmers, testers, and designers due to horrendous overworking is in a completely different circle of Hell. People come and go from places like Blizzard, Valve, Bungie, and Rockstar all the time. The manner in which they come and go from EA and other companies like EA, however is vastly different.
That too, but see if you're really, really bothered about being bored when it's 20 degrees with windchill and you're sitting still. Staying warm at that point becomes a very active, very captivating process. /been there, done that.
I walk by Jeff everyday when I get off the bus at the Cinerama, headed to class (Art Institute of Seattle). I usually say hi to him if he's awake. He naps a lot, probably to help stay warm, since it's been something like 30 degrees for the last couple of weeks. My understanding is that he's doing this for charity, and I think that's damn decent of him. But even if he wasn't, somebody who's willing to sit in the cold and the noise and the smog and put up with ridicule for something they love has my respect.
The truly amazing part is that unlike id, who up until (and some would argue, including) Doom 3 simply made an engine and slapped some quick levels together to show it off, Valve has simultaneously developed a whole new engine, AND a damn cool GAME, AND redone previous work to run in the new engine, AND polished their dev tools for public consumption. Depending upon just how easy / powerful Source turns out to be, they might end up beating Carmack at his own game.
I can't remember where I found it, but on one of the SS2 message boards a few months ago the forum members compiled a list of the named characters and their fates (dead, transformed by the Many, unknown, ghosts, and the two that made it out) I thought it said quite a bit that the game would inspire the people who played it to try and figure out who in the game world survived.
You know, as sick as everybody has to be of this bullshit, I'm really surprised Taco hasn't just slipped a 'GAY NIGGERS! first post' filter into the slashcode. Sure wouldn't hurt.