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Game Dev: Is It Really What You Want To Do? Why?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by GarBenjamin, Apr 27, 2016.

?

Do You REALLY Want To Be A Full-Time Game Dev?

  1. YES! I would gladly be stressed out working 10 hours or more every day to hit tight deadlines

    20 vote(s)
    51.3%
  2. NO. I just hate my current job and am hoping I can escape it through game development

    2 vote(s)
    5.1%
  3. NO. I just want to be free and "do my own thing" without having a boss "over" me

    17 vote(s)
    43.6%
  1. Master-Frog

    Master-Frog

    Joined:
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    2,302
    What I really want to do is have lots of money and get tons of ego-fuel from my adoring fan base. And if that's wrong, then I don't want to be right.
     
    Martin_H and GarBenjamin like this.
  2. tiggus

    tiggus

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    Sep 2, 2010
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    #1 priority for me is eventually working for myself. I don't feel like as you get older you can rely on stable employment, seen too many companies axe my friends during RIFs and watch them scramble to get new crappy jobs until they are just kind of biding time until retirement at jobs they hate.

    I'm working on #1(not gamedev though gaming related). I think gamedev as a hobby probably suits me better because quite honestly I would quit after the first crunch I hear about in that world. Been there done that, now I've got a kid and other crap to do besides work. True solo indie gamedev would interest me but I don't think I could support myself on it, so maybe the question is do you want to do gamedev for others or for yourself.
     
    Kiwasi, GarBenjamin and Master-Frog like this.
  3. aliceingameland

    aliceingameland

    Administrator

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    I've spoken to Sara about this (I've been in Copenhagen this week getting up to speed!) and we agree it's an interesting point and something we may consider for the forum overhaul in the future. I don't want to make promises but we will at the very least discuss it :)

    In the mean time, if someone would like to start a thread to contain biz talk in General Discussion, we can make it into a pinned post.
     
    hippocoder, Ony and GarBenjamin like this.
  4. Rasly233

    Rasly233

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2015
    Posts:
    264
    I write a game because I always wanted to write a game, don't expect to make much money with it, I just want it to be something unique that people would want to play.
     
  5. yoonitee

    yoonitee

    Joined:
    Jun 27, 2013
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    2,363
    But while everyone was making games. Our robots slaves would take care of all the manual labour so it would all be fine?
     
  6. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    Funnily enough, I watched a Star Trek episode where they'd become so technically advanced stories were a form of currency. Maybe it'll get to that point eventually?
     
  7. darkhog

    darkhog

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    Dec 4, 2012
    Posts:
    2,218
    The deed is done.
     
  8. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

    Moderator

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    Like anything, it depends on where you work, and at what level. It is still a creative industry, not an assembly line. Certainly on the massive games there are entry level type positions, but if you don't have experience, you have to start somewhere. If you are at professional level, there really aren't 'bosses' breathing down your neck, at least not in a traditional sense. Certainly there are producers and project managers who keep track of schedules and progress, but their role is more to facilitate the developers.

    To better illustrate, here is how I (we) work:
    We do two week sprints, meaning we plan everything basically two weeks at a time. (Anything bigger than two weeks is broken up.) At the beginning of each sprint each pod and/or discipline meet to plan and divide up the tasks. Any task that I take on, I provide a time estimate and any requirements. I take on roughly 60 hours of work, leaving another 20 for padding, meetings and fires. (it's never perfect). We do have to meet deadlines, but we are the ones who determine those deadlines. (in that way, it is similar to contracting, we provide an estimate and are expected to deliver on that estimate) If there is too much that is unknown, and can't give an accurate estimate, then we have to plan time to do exploration/prototyping to find out how it will be done. (a lot of my work involves of that) If anything goes sideways, or I get blocked, my producer is there to sort it out. At the end of the day, we all have the same goal. It's much like any other professional creative job, we're not punching a time-clock and warming seats. We are paid to be creative. Our team picks the projects we do, and have pretty much full control over them. Though since the are all IP based, art and story have to be approved by the teams that own them. But we have been working with them long enough, that it is rarely an issue.

    I've done the indie thing, small teams/studios and large. All have been good times. In the rare cases they weren't, I left. I never saw the point in doing something or staying somewhere I didn't enjoy. My current team are some the most fantasic people, some I have known and worked with on and off with for over a decade. For this kind of work, its all about your team. Sure, some days are rough, but in context, it's pretty hard to complain too seriously.

    For me, it is as @aer0ace said, it's is my passion. I can't say I 'love' every single minute of it, but who can say that about anything? I love the work, and it constantly varies. Sometimes several times a day. This job is not only is a great fit for my ADHD, it often relies on it. ;) I started my career as an artist(print/advertising), and bounced back and forth that and software development. Games are wonderful because they let me do both. And I get to teach game development, both to kids (several times a year), and to co-workers who want to learn more about the other disciplines.

    I've been doing this professionally for over two decades, and simply can't imagine doing anything else.
     
    ramand, Ony, Billy4184 and 5 others like this.
  9. aer0ace

    aer0ace

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    May 11, 2012
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    This is actually great, because this is complementary to my other post. I had forgotten to talk about my previous experience at the AAA studio, and this pretty much describes that. It's always more about the people you work with than it is the actual work. It makes going through Alpha, Beta, and Final that much more endurable. What's funny, is I always treated working at that studio as a "stepping stone", just because of the exposure of working with brilliant minds, and other creative thinkers, and that in itself pretty much kept me there for 10 years. Especially near the end of the development cycle, when the game already shipped and you start working on an expansion pack which isn't the most exciting thing in the world.

    I wanted to separate those two experiences, because my first post was all about "going indie", and @GarBenjamin grouped the two together, as if the reasons to work in the game industry would be the same. Well, in that sense, @zombiegorilla linked passion as being the common quality that game developers have towards their craft.
     
    Ony, Martin_H, GarBenjamin and 2 others like this.
  10. iamthwee

    iamthwee

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    Nov 27, 2015
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    2,149
    Yes I've heard of that before @zombiegorilla, I believe it is the 'scrum' workflow which yields the best results for game dev.
    It sounds interesting almost like mini burnouts but it has advantages over the let's carefully plan the thing from start to finish, where you can end up near the end with something that needs to completely rewritten or changed.

    Can an indie doing that by themselves stick with such a deadline, or goal without any real motivation? Especially from nobody else.

    @Ony if you would like to share your experiences, preferably something other than for the $$$ ;)

    Thanks
     
  11. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

    Moderator

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    Very cool. For me the flow was the opposite, I started indie, and as I got better, the games I wanted to build got bigger. I started collaborating with other developers, and with each project the team got bigger. Where I am now is the result of two acquisitions. I'm not sure if I ever would have directly sought a job at a larger company, I really just kinda stayed with my team and took advantage of the opportunities as they arose. One engineer I work with, I have worked with for 12 years, across 4 companies and two states.
     
    Ony, GarBenjamin, aer0ace and 2 others like this.
  12. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

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    It's a variation on scrum, but every project I have worked on implements it a little differently. The trick is to match the details to the way your team works. I have been on projects where too much focus is put on the method and teams where too little, its all about finding the sweet spot. We actually do plan everything out from beginning to end, just break it down by sprint. Our current feature planning goes late into 2017. We just finished our largest release to date (RC-17), which we spent about 6 months on, and will go live on "Force Day" (May the 4th).

    Depends on the individual. Rent and food can be a big motivator. ;)
     
    Last edited: May 2, 2016
    frosted, Ony, Billy4184 and 1 other person like this.
  13. Ony

    Ony

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    Apr 26, 2009
    Posts:
    1,977
    Perfectly honest, if it weren't for the money, I would not have finished my earliest independent projects. I came from the AAA world (before it was known as AAA) and was making a good living before leaving that world to start working independently with my wife. Aside from the fact that we just really enjoyed playing and making games, paying bills and raising our children was the largest motivator to keep going.

    When you start in on a project and you're five months late on your projected delivery date and you're just about out of money, that is a serious kick in the pants (skirt) to get moving and finish it up. Because of how I am (an experimenter), if it weren't for the money, I would keep tweaking projects until the end of time, never finishing it because it wasn't quite "perfect" yet. Then again if it weren't for the money I certainly wouldn't be sitting here day after day ruining my eye sight staring at a computer screen for the past 20+ years.

    So, when I say "$$$", yes, I am being short and silly for the laughs, but also completely and totally honest.

    For a long time when friends have asked me how to do what I do, I'd tell them to quit their job that day, start learning how to make a game, and they'd quickly find the motivation to finish up when the money ran out. If they aren't willing to do that, then they aren't ready for professional level indie game development.
     
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  14. goat

    goat

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    Aug 24, 2009
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    I liked being a busboy much better. Is was more sensible and rational and fewer egos. You never caught me pointing at how clean the salad bar guard windows are and bragging or disappearing on a bellboy call for hours at a time to avoid helping the waitresses when it got busy.
     
    GarBenjamin likes this.
  15. AngryAnt

    AngryAnt

    Keyboard Operator

    Joined:
    Oct 25, 2005
    Posts:
    3,045
    One more vote for the missing "it's the best 0900-1700 job I've had".

    There are terrible gamedev jobs out there, yes, but accepting that as somehow being a natural fact of this particular field is a special kind of depressing.

    Startups/indies leading to entrepreneurial levels of challenge and pressure? Yea no S*** - none different in other industries. Also not some natural inevitability.

    You should not settle for S***ty working conditions. F*** "the experience" and "think about your portfolio". Is that easy for me to say / type? Quite. Does that attitude magically turn your world into rainbow-candy-land? Not really. Is it hard? Most assuredly so. However that does not change the mission.

    Pick up "but it's hard!" and hang it on the wall for you to laugh at every morning. There are a lot of S*** game jobs out there and the only wrong move is acceptance / submission - screwing over not just yourself, but the next candidate for your position once you've been chewed up and spat out.
     
  16. Ony

    Ony

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  17. GarBenjamin

    GarBenjamin

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    @Ony that is an awesome flowchart! Never seen one for this kind of thing so detailed. Quite impressive really.
     
    Ony likes this.
  18. Ony

    Ony

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    Yup I found it today and thought it was super cool. :)
     
  19. Master-Frog

    Master-Frog

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    Didn't see Forum Poster on the chart...
     
    MV10 and Ony like this.
  20. Ony

    Ony

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    hah! It definitely should be on there.
     
  21. Master-Frog

    Master-Frog

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    ha.jpg
     
  22. Ony

    Ony

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    haha! So awesome.