Hi all!

My boyfriend owns a gaming website and he suggested I should write an article for his site (Gamer Nation) from the side of someone who has some knowledge about the gaming industry and how things work when a game is being made.

This got me thinking over the last couple of days, and I remember back to the times before I decided I wanted to work in the industry, and I was astounded by my ignorance over how things work. Thinking about it, the industry is quite a well oiled machine that many lay persons don't have a clue about/don't care about. Putting a disc in your PS3 doesn't really conjugate a thought as to the 100's of talented people, including many on this site, who come together to put that game in your hands.

And this made me want to ask the people of polycount: does it make a difference how much a general gamer knows about how a game is made?

Do you wish more people who had nothing to do with the industry admired how much work it takes?

well this isn't only a game industry thing, it;s a media industry in general thing, iv worked in music production, post-production for film, and game art. and the attitudes about the industry from the outside are the same in all cases.

And this made me want to ask the people of polycount: does it make a difference how much a general gamer knows about how a game is made?

Do you wish more people who had nothing to do with the industry admired how much work it takes?

Why should it make a difference?

When was the last time you thought about how a mechanical pencil gets made and all the people that worked to design it to be sturdy, lightweight, and efficient to manufacture cheaply and easily. All the machinery that goes into producing it on a mass scale, the paper needed to produce the cardboard packaging, where and how all the ink came from to create the labels that go on the box.

How much do you know about farming? Think your food would taste different if you understood everything that goes into getting food to the grocery store where you buy it?

We all consume products we know nothing about, and we don't know specifically because there is no need to know. This isn't a media industry thing, it happens in all industries and is really inevitable in a modern economy where everyone focuses on specialization.

The average gamer likes to go online and pretend they know how the industry works, occasionally i hear that kind of talk on polycount as well, I make sure to call people out on that.

I guess we all want to feel that the work we do is appreciated in some way. Recognition should not be the reason you do your work though.

I think that game artists are really not appreciated enough most of the people/gamers don't know what they are and what do they do and I really hate to hear this phrase "programmers really did a good job on games graphics".

same like movie industry, everyone who did vfx is animator. >.<

but in the other hand, programmer and tech people not having enough exposure as much as artist have. yet they rarely complain ...

Well, we all know the general impression:

You work in video games? You're a programmer. Art/marketing/gameplay just magically assemble themselves.

But otherwise, no one knows/cares; this of course does not help the ridiculous yearly layoffs.

Nah, people always assume you're a Game Designer if you work in games, rarely a programmer.

Ignorance of what people actually do in games and how they're put together is pretty rife, but then it's a fairly new industry. Film would have been much the same a century ago.

I have no idea how most stuff is made. I've always just presumed it was magic.

Your average gamer is a tad ignorant to the amount of time, work and money is put into video game development.

All great points I think when I started to learn about the process, I started to value the games more. Instead of just running through environments I'd have to stand and take it all in. Knowing that someone has made every bit of the game and wishing I could put a face to the art, it definitely made me more appreciative of the game, and therefore made my experiences better.

I don't know about the average gamer, but the enthusiast market definitely exhibits more knowledge. The amount of gamers I see these days who follow certain developers and games from certain developers, to the point that the manner in which they buy it becomes affected by the attitude that they want to 'support' them, as well as their response to the quality of the game. I don't see this rhetoric to the same degree in say, movies or music. I don't know if it is genuine seeking of knowledge or if it's simply a side effect of being so interested.

The rhetoric is the same. People follow directors and actors, and people definitely follow bands and musicians.

Maybe if gamers (especially MMO-Gamers) knew more about how games were made, they would give the poor devs less of a hard time with their entitlement bullshit. I can't stand ignorant or ill-informed gamers demanding this and that without knowing how shit works.

The worst offenders being those who go so low as to blast mods for taking time to make, that grinds my gears in the most murderous way.

There was a "how it's made" for games. I think they profiled a prince of persia game in dev. That's on the science channel I think, so it had a reasonably decent market.

mind you, even in the "how it's made", where they had direct access to the studio, they still made some generalizations; I think it was so people could "understand".

What you're talking about is not really a specific game industry "issue"; it happens across all business sectors.

I was talking to a guy who worked on satellite cell phones; and it blew his mind that I knew the antenna are made from iridium; point is, nobody really expects the layperson to know the details of their work.

And if we're honest wit ourselves, most people aren't vested enough to care; even after they ask you for the details and blindly nod as you explain.

The "Gamebryo sucks" idea seems to have been spread by gamers. I've heard far more devs complain about Hero Engine but the general public views it as a superior product.

The only legit gripe I heard from a dev is the tools suck: afaik it only ships with example tools, it's an engine not a development suite, you have to make your own tools.

Originally Posted by ladyknowles

Thinking about it, the industry is quite a well oiled machine....?

I think this is where the ignorance starts... ;)
but yeah, it's slowly getting more mature and organized.

Personally I don't care if players are ignorant. Even people inside the industry don't know how everything works. Really, does a regular artist know what's going on inside the Riccitiello's or Kotick's corporate meetings with the suits, where they discuss which place to shut down, which genre to focus on, which platform to abandon? Do they know what goes into distribution, marketing, support? Sometimes people don't even know what the guys in the next department really do.

Most people here know how the craft of the industry works (at least within their horizon), but I doubt many of us knows how the industry itself really works.

Just go read kotaku comments. Half of the commenters are entitled. know it alls. Gets a rise out of me every time I scroll down to the bottom of an article. The kotaku post about Tor Frick's environment was a pretty decent/recent example: http://kotaku.com/5896987/you-wont-b...-demo-was-made.

Even though these "hardcore" gamers raise all kinds of hell on the interwebs...it seems to have a relatively small impact on game sales and whatnot (otherwise call of duty games would never sell.)


Also, I have friends who love to buy modded consoles and pirate games. That pisses me off like nothing else. Nothing better than visiting home after working a 70 hour work week crunching on a game and having a neighbor ask you how to get more games for his modded ps3. I wish people that did this understood how much work goes into making those games, and somehow felt like the developers deserved their hard earned moneyz for those games.

Well lots of gamers think they know it all, but it's not really so. They usually come off as really arrogant and they try to be "the coolest" on the Internet. It's very common.

I do feel like we should be appreciated more though and the amount of effort that goes into creating a game. But I don't really bother with gamers in general because it doesn't really matter.

What really bugs me though, what really grinds my gears is gaming journalists/critics or famous bloggers who don't know shit. You'd think they'd know more about it since they get a much more intimate experience with the actual process of creating a game. They get to visit the studios, play the games at early stages, even interviews with developers.

Just look at the latest ME3 fiasco. It's embarrassing for a game-making giant to bow down like that. The amount of disrespect for the endings of ME3 is ridiculous. Yeah sure the ending might not suit everyone, but complain about it and petition to change the ending? I'm a 100% sure the game-devs and the writers put a lot of effort and thought into the endings.

Originally Posted by ladyknowles

Hi all!
Thinking about it, the industry is quite a well oiled machine

Organized chaos, it's surprising how unorganized AAA-titles can be. It's shocking at times :P

The rhetoric is the same. People follow directors and actors, and people definitely follow bands and musicians.

Yeah but my point is that I don't see a display of that understanding in the populace as much for those fields (although music...)

Just look at the latest ME3 fiasco. It's embarrassing for a game-making giant to bow down like that. The amount of disrespect for the endings of ME3 is ridiculous. Yeah sure the ending might not suit everyone, but complain about it and petition to change the ending? I'm a 100% sure the game-devs and the writers put a lot of effort and thought into the endings.

basically what I was getting at. Yes they're a minority but I simply don't see these attitudes displayed by the respective book/movies/music etc. fanbase

Also, I have friends who love to buy modded consoles and pirate games. That pisses me off like nothing else. Nothing better than visiting home after working a 70 hour work week crunching on a game and having a neighbor ask you how to get more games for his modded ps3. I wish people that did this understood how much work goes into making those games, and somehow felt like the developers deserved their hard earned moneyz for those games.

I know people like free things they can get away with, but y'know it just seems so much deeper than that; there just doesn't seem to be much research into the psychology. Personally I don't get my Jimmies rustled by these people, but it's one of those social constructs that is just aching for a better understanding. Alas, we cannot talk about it here.

Originally Posted by Justin_Meisse

The "Gamebryo sucks" idea seems to have been spread by gamers. I've heard far more devs complain about Hero Engine but the general public views it as a superior product.

The only legit gripe I heard from a dev is the tools suck: afaik it only ships with example tools, it's an engine not a development suite, you have to make your own tools.

I've worked with GameBryo, and I'd say it was the worst piece of middleware I've had to work with. It's basically a scenegraph and nothing else. It lacka a complete renderer, physics implementation, and very certainly lacks tools. It's also not very well organised or written and had little to no documentation. This was however about five-six years ago, so things may well have changed since then, but we had a really, really hard time getting started with it and realised rolling our own solution would have been both cheaper and quicker.

Originally Posted by Snacuum

Yes they're a minority but I simply don't see these attitudes displayed by the respective book/movies/music etc. fanbase

think the difference is that games are interactive and players feel a sense of ownership. for something like me3 where the player is encouraged to be emotionally invested in the characters and setting over three games, the response isn't that surprising

Originally Posted by chrisradsby

Just look at the latest ME3 fiasco. It's embarrassing for a game-making giant to bow down like that. The amount of disrespect for the endings of ME3 is ridiculous. Yeah sure the ending might not suit everyone, but complain about it and petition to change the ending? I'm a 100% sure the game-devs and the writers put a lot of effort and thought into the endings.

This is the dilemma that arises when games try to give players more authorial control of the narrative through their actions and decisions. Doubly more dangerous in a game which attempts to maintain a coherent linear narrative.