The daunting aftermath of releasing your dream game(pcgamer.com)
pcgamer.com
The daunting aftermath of releasing your dream game
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-daunting-aftermath-of-releasing-your-dream-game-as-told-by-the-devs-of-stardew-valley-owlboy-and-more/
67 comments
> Every time is a horrible ordeal. I often feel physically sick during the process.
Honest to god question. Have you considered changing domain for a while? I work in a chill software company and I wouldn't trade my free time and lack of anxiety for pretty much anything
Honest to god question. Have you considered changing domain for a while? I work in a chill software company and I wouldn't trade my free time and lack of anxiety for pretty much anything
This definitely lines up with my experience as we ramp up to the announcement and release of our current game in a similar space. There is so much anxiety about the creative reception, if and how well the service will scale, if we can run it profitably, and any number of unknown unknowns that could make (or more likely break) the success of the game. It’s stressful to put it mildly.
Why do you think games development is like this?
Genuine question. What keeps you going?
It might not be much from a random comment on Hacker News, but after confirming on your profile (2012... 17 content drops... Sounded familiar.) Path of Exile is an absolute treasure.
GGG is one of the companies on my short-list of inspirational studios out there now. Growing off cosmetics in a F2P game is probably one of the more ethical success stories out there for those examining current industry success.
Provide quality improving patches throughout the life-cycle of a major patch. Engage with fans and provide top-tier customer support.
I look to what you're doing right and hope I maintain the cognizance during product development to do what you folks do to keep people happy.
I'm looking forward to Delve, and I hope you know you have starry-eyed fans out there!
GGG is one of the companies on my short-list of inspirational studios out there now. Growing off cosmetics in a F2P game is probably one of the more ethical success stories out there for those examining current industry success.
Provide quality improving patches throughout the life-cycle of a major patch. Engage with fans and provide top-tier customer support.
I look to what you're doing right and hope I maintain the cognizance during product development to do what you folks do to keep people happy.
I'm looking forward to Delve, and I hope you know you have starry-eyed fans out there!
I've said before in similar threads about PoE, and I'll echo again here: It's a remarkable success and a high point of dev output, to me. Some expansions haven't turned out well. I haven't liked some changes. There have been some bugs. But it _blows out of the water_ pretty much ever other "always on" game I've every played in terms of dev professionalism, consistency, stability, and mechanic growth.
I don't know if "you've bought yourself a good amount of emotional-leeway with this fan" helps lift any stress from the GP, but as one service-running-engineer to another, I look at PoE when I need to hold up an example of how I should be producing as a True Professional(TM).
I don't know if "you've bought yourself a good amount of emotional-leeway with this fan" helps lift any stress from the GP, but as one service-running-engineer to another, I look at PoE when I need to hold up an example of how I should be producing as a True Professional(TM).
Can you not relieve some of these stressors with more automated testing?
If you have ever done a UI testing, gameplay testing is about one or two magnitudes harder. In addition to the inherent complexity of UI testing (e.g. there are exponentially many paths possible), there are simply too many things to test with a lot of subjective criteria for tests. It is common that something feels "wrong" but there are no appropriate metrics to catch that phenomenon.
Large game studios hire tons of quality testers and post-release consumer services to deal with this complexity. It is really amazing to see that human testers can catch many bugs (subjective or not) seemingly impossible to detect. For smaller teams, good luck to you all.
Large game studios hire tons of quality testers and post-release consumer services to deal with this complexity. It is really amazing to see that human testers can catch many bugs (subjective or not) seemingly impossible to detect. For smaller teams, good luck to you all.
Why did you have so many expansion releases? I never doubt the work it takes to be a game dev, since you're essentially doing the job of an audio engineer, graphics designer, programmer, and marketer in one project, but wouldn't you rather get your game to a stable position, release maybe one expansion, and go on with the next big project?
Also if you really are the dev of PoE, keep up the great work. I've never even remotely come into contact with your game yet Ive heard so much about it. That says something.
Also if you really are the dev of PoE, keep up the great work. I've never even remotely come into contact with your game yet Ive heard so much about it. That says something.
It has to do with their business model and style of game. As a F2P product they benefit most from people simply playing the game as much as possible and occasionally seeing little things like ads or other players' outfits pointing towards the store. The game is very replayable so it works well with a regular content schedule to remix the game a bit and keep people coming back each season.
And I gather that you believe this is The one dev - there is a sizeable team making this game.
And I gather that you believe this is The one dev - there is a sizeable team making this game.
That type of business model is becoming more and more a fantasy these days. Game-as-a-service is the most common model now. Keep making games until you get a hit and then squeeze that for reliable revenue with content updates, analytics-based changes, etc.
I was one of the 2 major responsible people for a AAA video game that had 10million active players the first week. This person speaks the absolute truth.
Every patch has your heart in your chest. The game itself on initial release is unknown if it will be hit or miss. super stressful. One misstep on day 1 and it’s front page of kotaku and players are beating down your door calling you incompetent and retarded- that’s just the ones who don’t ask for refunds.
Luckily things went really smooth with my launch, and the game I launched /mostly/ met expectations- but my publisher is not well liked and people are always looking for a reason to be mad anyway. It’s exhausting, all you want is the best for the player and you do your best but there are so many variables that cannot be controlled. And any attempt at being conservative so you can control the variables is met with a "they didn't try"- it's lose-lose.
Every patch has your heart in your chest. The game itself on initial release is unknown if it will be hit or miss. super stressful. One misstep on day 1 and it’s front page of kotaku and players are beating down your door calling you incompetent and retarded- that’s just the ones who don’t ask for refunds.
Luckily things went really smooth with my launch, and the game I launched /mostly/ met expectations- but my publisher is not well liked and people are always looking for a reason to be mad anyway. It’s exhausting, all you want is the best for the player and you do your best but there are so many variables that cannot be controlled. And any attempt at being conservative so you can control the variables is met with a "they didn't try"- it's lose-lose.
It's pretty sad how emotionally taxing releasing games is. I've become extremely detached from the projects I work on which means less love put into them. It just feels necessary because I remember my early days in the games industry and reading bad comments about my games throwing my whole week into the dumpster.
Thank you so much for Path of Exile. You are doing a great job. And to be honest, after you delivered great expansion one after another, a few bugs and downtime here and there, I can definitely forgive.
Yeah, this all tracks. I made a "simple" Slack RPG because I was tickled about the concept and the potential pun of the name (Slack & Slash, though Slack very predictably asked for me to change it to something a little less affiliated-sounding). I figured I'd drop six months on it and release it and see if anyone liked it.
Cut forward two years later, a couple of rewrites (from idle game to turn-based combat, then from a monthly competition to a long-term progression with multiple classes), and finally I launch. It got approved by Slack, it goes up on the app directory, I make a couple key reddit posts, and... Like 5 new users.
I'm sure folks here can tell the problem already - spending 2 years on development and maybe a couple days on marketing is always a recipe for a shitty launch.
Over and over again, I read stories like this and think "thank God this is just a hobby for me and not my main source of income, not something I took out a loan to achieve." I like to think that if it were a more serious thing, I'd have been more serious about the marketing, but even still, that's no guarantee.
Oh, also - I'm up to about 20 daily users these days. Even with that few, I still get nervous pushing out any new code. Getting very polite "Hey, the game isn't working" emails while I'm stuck at the day job and can't go fix it is devastating. I've ended up with a weird release schedule because of it - I generally only roll out code on Friday evenings, so that I have as much time as possible to fix potential bugs.
Cut forward two years later, a couple of rewrites (from idle game to turn-based combat, then from a monthly competition to a long-term progression with multiple classes), and finally I launch. It got approved by Slack, it goes up on the app directory, I make a couple key reddit posts, and... Like 5 new users.
I'm sure folks here can tell the problem already - spending 2 years on development and maybe a couple days on marketing is always a recipe for a shitty launch.
Over and over again, I read stories like this and think "thank God this is just a hobby for me and not my main source of income, not something I took out a loan to achieve." I like to think that if it were a more serious thing, I'd have been more serious about the marketing, but even still, that's no guarantee.
Oh, also - I'm up to about 20 daily users these days. Even with that few, I still get nervous pushing out any new code. Getting very polite "Hey, the game isn't working" emails while I'm stuck at the day job and can't go fix it is devastating. I've ended up with a weird release schedule because of it - I generally only roll out code on Friday evenings, so that I have as much time as possible to fix potential bugs.
I really wish more people would appreciate the human cost of building things by themselves instead of just chalking it all up to 'the creative journey' or some shit. It could potentially open up some really interesting service business models.
If I start just about any other kind of business other than a creative one, I can buy products or services that will help me get to market 10x easier than if I try to go it without. But if I try to venture outside of established biz modes and start to wander into the creative, I don't have to go far before I'm in an awkward no man's land of ugly, no one cares kind of having to burn the candle at both ends in order to push through to some kind of stability, and this article shows that that stability is a mirage.
The historical answer has always been to collect your efforts into an industry. And yeah, that option is there. You can go work for EA.
But it would be so much better if the games industry didn't have to eat its young. Or at least, not all of its young.
Hollywood's answer to the problem has been to double down on the community. If you want to be a screenwriter, first you need to realize that it's a hard hard thing to break into, there are always going to be more people looking to break in than there will be jobs, but you can still at least find a little bit of glory in the industry through YouTube or temping or whatever while you figure out what your plan B is. And everyone around you is going to help you figure these hard things out.
But you want to break into gaming? Haha fuck you buddy. Nobody gives a shit, go work for EA and get shit out when you finally stop making them quite as much $$$ as you did when you were young and stupid. Sure, go make your own games, I don't give a shit, don't expect any kudos from me, better hope you didn't dare spend any company resources on it because yes, we will sue the shit out of you for daring to get bigger than your britches.
I guess this is just my fervent hope that every industry can figure out how to be like craft beer.
If I start just about any other kind of business other than a creative one, I can buy products or services that will help me get to market 10x easier than if I try to go it without. But if I try to venture outside of established biz modes and start to wander into the creative, I don't have to go far before I'm in an awkward no man's land of ugly, no one cares kind of having to burn the candle at both ends in order to push through to some kind of stability, and this article shows that that stability is a mirage.
The historical answer has always been to collect your efforts into an industry. And yeah, that option is there. You can go work for EA.
But it would be so much better if the games industry didn't have to eat its young. Or at least, not all of its young.
Hollywood's answer to the problem has been to double down on the community. If you want to be a screenwriter, first you need to realize that it's a hard hard thing to break into, there are always going to be more people looking to break in than there will be jobs, but you can still at least find a little bit of glory in the industry through YouTube or temping or whatever while you figure out what your plan B is. And everyone around you is going to help you figure these hard things out.
But you want to break into gaming? Haha fuck you buddy. Nobody gives a shit, go work for EA and get shit out when you finally stop making them quite as much $$$ as you did when you were young and stupid. Sure, go make your own games, I don't give a shit, don't expect any kudos from me, better hope you didn't dare spend any company resources on it because yes, we will sue the shit out of you for daring to get bigger than your britches.
I guess this is just my fervent hope that every industry can figure out how to be like craft beer.
so what is your point exactly?
That it really doesn't have to be this way? That we can help each other?
Well games are a trendy area and more fun and challenging to work on than most other software...as long as there is more demand for game development jobs than there are open positions, it will be this way.
Unlike screenwriters, whose alternative is making lattes, game developers who get tired of the chase can go work for a traditional tech company.
Unlike screenwriters, whose alternative is making lattes, game developers who get tired of the chase can go work for a traditional tech company.
Majority of people who work on games are not programmers. They are various artists.
How many former game devs are working in your shop?
I know it's standard nomenclature but I find the label "creative" for only a subset of creative endeavors very grating.
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I think it helps to remember that gamedev is supposed to be fun.
I've been working on ShittyEmu https://imgur.com/xgEMj5z (Basically an emulator that randomizes textures, sounds, and art assets of n64 games, and flips some of the bytecode ops deterministically.)
Tonight it was pretty cool to see the result. But there's not some pie in the sky goal, except a vague idea that I'd like to make something entertaining. It's just iteration and incremental improvements.
But that mindset ends up being far less stressful than trying to develop an epic game from first principles over the course of years.
Just have fun coding. Try out crazy ideas. And yes, the industry as a whole is pretty dysfunctional. So why join it? It's never been easier to go from a blank vi screen to a shipped product on Steam. We're in the golden age of gamedev.
I've been working on ShittyEmu https://imgur.com/xgEMj5z (Basically an emulator that randomizes textures, sounds, and art assets of n64 games, and flips some of the bytecode ops deterministically.)
Tonight it was pretty cool to see the result. But there's not some pie in the sky goal, except a vague idea that I'd like to make something entertaining. It's just iteration and incremental improvements.
But that mindset ends up being far less stressful than trying to develop an epic game from first principles over the course of years.
Just have fun coding. Try out crazy ideas. And yes, the industry as a whole is pretty dysfunctional. So why join it? It's never been easier to go from a blank vi screen to a shipped product on Steam. We're in the golden age of gamedev.
The "gaming industry" has been around for 30 years max. Hollywood has been around for over 100. Maybe it's just a matter of time.
>Hollywood's answer to the problem has been to double down on the community.
Hollywood's answer to the problem is unions. Screenwriters have unions. Actors have unions. Directors have unions. Even the people who provide food on the sets of movies have a union. Hollywood doesn't care about "community" any more than the video game industry. They just realized that there are more people who want to work in the entertainment industry than there are available jobs and a union was the best way to protect themselves from being taken advantage of because of that fact.
Hollywood's answer to the problem is unions. Screenwriters have unions. Actors have unions. Directors have unions. Even the people who provide food on the sets of movies have a union. Hollywood doesn't care about "community" any more than the video game industry. They just realized that there are more people who want to work in the entertainment industry than there are available jobs and a union was the best way to protect themselves from being taken advantage of because of that fact.
Hollywood's answer to a part of the problem, that of how to take care of the people that are already in the system, is unions. How to take care of the people that aren't in the system yet but really really want to be, that's the problem I'm talking about.
I live in Atlanta, huge movie and TV presence here, I rub shoulders with actors and all kinds of workers. The people who are in the system are extremely quick to lend a helpful ear or advice or stopgap job here and there. The whole system is set up to gently shake the talent pool so that people eventually find the part of the industry that they can find a foothold in that won't kill them. The people who do wind up as grips or whatever can still nurture their creative side and there's still quite a bit of glory in working on that side of it.
Hollywood, somehow, has figured out how to stop eating its young and start nurturing them.
I live in Atlanta, huge movie and TV presence here, I rub shoulders with actors and all kinds of workers. The people who are in the system are extremely quick to lend a helpful ear or advice or stopgap job here and there. The whole system is set up to gently shake the talent pool so that people eventually find the part of the industry that they can find a foothold in that won't kill them. The people who do wind up as grips or whatever can still nurture their creative side and there's still quite a bit of glory in working on that side of it.
Hollywood, somehow, has figured out how to stop eating its young and start nurturing them.
I would argue that unions are a direct cause of some of that behavior. Union members generally don't have to fear new competition the way non-union workers do. They don't have to fear someone doing their job at 90% of the quality for 50% of the salary. Non-union workers have a disincentive to mentor people who immediately become their competition for jobs. Unions help remove that disincentive and allows members to function as a single cooperative group instead of as individual people competing against each other for the same opportunities.
I think it's worthwhile pointing out that it isn't like game developers don't have unions. Maybe if you're talking about the US exclusively sure, but there are parts of the world where employees in the game development industry do have active union representation (which as one such employee is very much appreciated).
The problem in Sweden is of a different nature. We do have union representation in the game industry, but it's more or less a yellow union (that is, it's so passive that it's to the benefit of the employers) imo. This means that many of the core issues related to employee health are never adressed or fought over, for example:
* Overtime pay (very rare of in the game industry).
* The allowed amount of hours overtime (a.k.a. crunch, there's alooot of hours overtime allowed in the collective bargaining agreement).
* The detrimental effect of open offices.
So understand me right, I'm a union man without a doubt, but just having the union box checked does nothing. The union has to be a fighting union, otherwise it will wither away.
* Overtime pay (very rare of in the game industry).
* The allowed amount of hours overtime (a.k.a. crunch, there's alooot of hours overtime allowed in the collective bargaining agreement).
* The detrimental effect of open offices.
So understand me right, I'm a union man without a doubt, but just having the union box checked does nothing. The union has to be a fighting union, otherwise it will wither away.
Curious to know where you are based. I've not heard of game developer unions in Europe either.
I'm in Sweden, where most people are in a union. It doesn't have to be a union specific to game development (although I think one may exist, I'm not sure). I'm in a general union called Unionen. Even though it's not a union specific to the game development industry, they have a lot of power and work with the government, companies, and employees to monitor and improve work conditions and employee protections. For example, last year a series of meetings was held at our workplace between interested employees and union representatives, resulting in a new collective bargain agreement which formalised a flex hours policy and gave us an extra paid week off per year (partly to address the overtime we tend to do). I've heard of cases where employees called in their union representative to help them work through issues with the employer, negotiate better termination agreements, etc. Basically it's a normal union that does union-y things :)
In Finland at least game devs fall under some general IT collective bargaining agreement, so they have union presentation but it's more general software/IT. Works decently. From my experience the games industry is a bit too... wild(?) to really think about things like unions by itself.
> But you want to break into gaming? Haha fuck you buddy
I'm not sure I agree with this - there is a huge game development community. A game can be an artistic success without being a commercial one just like an indie movie. And you bet there are plenty of other game developers out there who participate in the community, help mentor newcomers, etc.
The industry options out there aren't bad at all anymore, AAA companies have largely gotten their crap together and at this point mostly know what they're doing (they'd have to to stay afloat with the budgets they're throwing around). The indie companies tend to be more head-on-fire-this-may-all-crash-and-burn-at-any-moment-we're-on-a-shoestring-budget. The AAA-ish companies (smaller shops with small publisher deals) are somewhere in the middle. I'm not saying there are zero problems, but there are quite a few options for employment in video games at whatever level of risk and startup-culture-ness you're comfortable with nowadays, and a supportive community to help. That's not to mention the huge hobbyist community who are happy just making games for fun without stressing about financial viability.
I'm not sure I agree with this - there is a huge game development community. A game can be an artistic success without being a commercial one just like an indie movie. And you bet there are plenty of other game developers out there who participate in the community, help mentor newcomers, etc.
The industry options out there aren't bad at all anymore, AAA companies have largely gotten their crap together and at this point mostly know what they're doing (they'd have to to stay afloat with the budgets they're throwing around). The indie companies tend to be more head-on-fire-this-may-all-crash-and-burn-at-any-moment-we're-on-a-shoestring-budget. The AAA-ish companies (smaller shops with small publisher deals) are somewhere in the middle. I'm not saying there are zero problems, but there are quite a few options for employment in video games at whatever level of risk and startup-culture-ness you're comfortable with nowadays, and a supportive community to help. That's not to mention the huge hobbyist community who are happy just making games for fun without stressing about financial viability.
My brother and I spent about 6 months in 2012 to make a game with unity3d to hit into the app store craze and we bombed pretty badly. The game had good looks, editors, customization, but lacked good game play. We basically sat down one day and said wouldn't it be cool if we made a game similar to an old arcade but with newer graphics and started to work on it. I think the most ironic thing about our efforts was that we weren't really gamers ourselves. I'm glad we did it though because we did use unity3d and C# knowledge for other things besides games (I guess we were pretty lucky). We didn't even make a single penny from our game. It was pretty depressing. Going for years on a project that you might not make a single penny on sounds terrifying.
This all sounds so familiar.
I don’t make games, I make comics. Four and a half years quietly working. Another year to do a messy Kickstarter. A year of feeling lost and empty afterwards. And then, finally, starting up the familiar grind on the next project, which I’d been kicking around on and off during those two years.
I know a few professional authors. They seem to be able to go from one project to another fairly easily; they also typically have much shorter schedules. I kinda envy that sometimes. A lot.
I don’t make games, I make comics. Four and a half years quietly working. Another year to do a messy Kickstarter. A year of feeling lost and empty afterwards. And then, finally, starting up the familiar grind on the next project, which I’d been kicking around on and off during those two years.
I know a few professional authors. They seem to be able to go from one project to another fairly easily; they also typically have much shorter schedules. I kinda envy that sometimes. A lot.
You still released a new work of art into the world. It's not a small thing. 99.999% of people give up.
I tell myself things like that when I’m in the post-release slump. It still happens. This thing has dominated your life for several years, it’s done, it doesn’t need any more work, it’s out of your life. Now there’s this big gaping emptiness where the project used to be.
The solution usually ends up being “a new project”. After a while.
The solution usually ends up being “a new project”. After a while.
>Sandberg’s anxiety had continued after launch. He worried about his financial security and felt like he’d wasted the last 10 years of his life.
As someone in a similar boat, the burn of "hey, I just wasted my 20s working on some project that didn't really go anywhere" is an incredibly painful pill to swallow, and perhaps something you never fully come to terms with. Life is so very short, don't waste it.
As someone in a similar boat, the burn of "hey, I just wasted my 20s working on some project that didn't really go anywhere" is an incredibly painful pill to swallow, and perhaps something you never fully come to terms with. Life is so very short, don't waste it.
> Life is so very short, don't waste it.
I'm really not sure how this helps or what is the point here. Should people take no risks?
I'm really not sure how this helps or what is the point here. Should people take no risks?
On the contrary. Take risks, just not at the expense of leading a fulfilling life. Youth is a terrible thing to waste on projects that have a statistically miniscule chance of success.
Long-term solo projects are like taking a lengthy road trip. If your emotional gas tank is too low, you're going to end up miserable as you push the rest of the way, and neither accomplishes much of anything. Creative endeavors are best pursued in a happy state, which is to say not stressed out about finances nor teetering on the brink of crippling depression.
The point is that people can have their cake and eat it too. As counterintuitive as that may seem, it's usually the case that most endeavors are not as urgent as they may seem, and that the risk involved is best taken from the most advantageous position possible. The time cost incurred by one's ancillary needs will likely end up a net benefit to the project in the end.
The tricky part is, most people who end up working on solo projects absolutely don't envision themselves working on them for so long, so they're ill-prepared to begin with. It sort of happens by accident.
Long-term solo projects are like taking a lengthy road trip. If your emotional gas tank is too low, you're going to end up miserable as you push the rest of the way, and neither accomplishes much of anything. Creative endeavors are best pursued in a happy state, which is to say not stressed out about finances nor teetering on the brink of crippling depression.
The point is that people can have their cake and eat it too. As counterintuitive as that may seem, it's usually the case that most endeavors are not as urgent as they may seem, and that the risk involved is best taken from the most advantageous position possible. The time cost incurred by one's ancillary needs will likely end up a net benefit to the project in the end.
The tricky part is, most people who end up working on solo projects absolutely don't envision themselves working on them for so long, so they're ill-prepared to begin with. It sort of happens by accident.
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You can rephrase that to "hey, I just spent my 20s learning". It might sound cynical, but it's really not - each failure is a lesson.
Easy enough to say in a professional context (~$1M or whatever in lost income be damned), harder to say in a personal or social context.
Technically time not spent on relationships is time spent not learning in that specific regard, and the end result is being way behind the curve while peers end up married and whatnot.
In keeping with the vein of your comment though, it sure as hell teaches you to value the time you've got left.
Technically time not spent on relationships is time spent not learning in that specific regard, and the end result is being way behind the curve while peers end up married and whatnot.
In keeping with the vein of your comment though, it sure as hell teaches you to value the time you've got left.
Better than wasting away in a corporate cube hell.
Usually corporate cube hell is a means to an end outside of said hell, but HN is littered with stories of people being utterly consumed (in a bad, soul-crushing way) by their workplace all the time, so good point.
Cube hell isn’t the only possible situation for cube level workers either.
Working with people you like on projects with varying levels of appeal, while gradually improving your personal situation, can be a very satisfying way to spend your career. Grandiose goals are a risky way to look for meaning/value in life.
Working with people you like on projects with varying levels of appeal, while gradually improving your personal situation, can be a very satisfying way to spend your career. Grandiose goals are a risky way to look for meaning/value in life.
Beyond selection bias already mentioned, I suppose some of that comes from people who try to find some meaning in their corporate job. Because what's soul crushing is the realization you spend 3/4 of your waking hours doing pointless work that's not meaningful to you, your friends, or often even society at large.
(Sometimes it's because it's a socially negative job that serves only to enrich some people at the cost of everyone else (cough ad cough tech), but often - perhaps more often - it's because of the complexity of our world. Your job may be a crucial component to some very socially good thing, but if it's one of thousands of such components, it can be hard to see the connection between your work and the end result.)
(Sometimes it's because it's a socially negative job that serves only to enrich some people at the cost of everyone else (cough ad cough tech), but often - perhaps more often - it's because of the complexity of our world. Your job may be a crucial component to some very socially good thing, but if it's one of thousands of such components, it can be hard to see the connection between your work and the end result.)
Stories of people just contently working in their cubicle and not caring aren’t interesting. There is a certain selection bias.
Crunch hell or cube hell are about the same. The difference is that in cube hell you walk away with a lot more money.
>the burn of "hey, I just wasted my 20s working on some project that didn't really go anywhere" is an incredibly painful pill to swallow, and perhaps something you never fully come to terms with.
But it's a thousand times less painful to swallow than the one that goes "I never tried to live my dreams".
It's a thousand times better to try and fail than to never try at all. THAT is what life is all about.
But it's a thousand times less painful to swallow than the one that goes "I never tried to live my dreams".
It's a thousand times better to try and fail than to never try at all. THAT is what life is all about.
Is it?
Minecraft and co did the one in a million. Everyone else did not. You hear very very rarely from them.
While they did something without results, people around them have a house, family, holiday and money for retirement.
For sure believe in your dreams but try to evaluate what you are doing. There is a tremendous amount of crap out there no one needs or wants and behind that crap there is all story.
Minecraft and co did the one in a million. Everyone else did not. You hear very very rarely from them.
While they did something without results, people around them have a house, family, holiday and money for retirement.
For sure believe in your dreams but try to evaluate what you are doing. There is a tremendous amount of crap out there no one needs or wants and behind that crap there is all story.
I spent more than 7 years on a failed company. And this was in my 30s, let alone 20s. My friends around me are all wealthy with paid off houses. I am not. But I traveled the earth, had crazy adventures, and was able the parlay my experience into one of the most coveted jobs on earth and am now nearly financially caught up with my friends after another 5 years. It was a struggle, but it was worth it, and I have no regrets.
Some people value different things. It's also not that hard to find a job which allows you to buy a house etc, when you can show how much hard work you can put in to a product. At least in the games industry these people are revered.
What does it mean "not to waste your life"? That's a null statement. It doesn't really say anything.
Don't suffer needlessly is a more apt advice, because everyone knows what the suffering in their context is.
Don't suffer needlessly is a more apt advice, because everyone knows what the suffering in their context is.
It's only wasteful if you don't take anything away from it. Everything I've done made me better. I am nothing but the sum of my experiences.
I can relate to the feeling of 'emptiness' after release and don't think this is any different in other software fields.
After working on a project for close to 2 years with 2 other people (at work) we released it and just waited for the feedback anxiously. With a lot of crunching and last minute changes as well.
It was "just 2 years" and I already had such a bad feeling of not knowing what to do next that I can't even imagine what it must be like after 5 or let alone 9 years :o
After working on a project for close to 2 years with 2 other people (at work) we released it and just waited for the feedback anxiously. With a lot of crunching and last minute changes as well.
It was "just 2 years" and I already had such a bad feeling of not knowing what to do next that I can't even imagine what it must be like after 5 or let alone 9 years :o
You have to understand that you don't lose anything, no matter the outcome. Even if your game/software sucks you can remain sane knowing you gained a valuable skill (programming, design, w/e) and a working product that you might change a bit in the future and reintroduce to the market again.
My first programming experience was in game development (Flash games) but I never spent more than a few months on any game... Soon, I stopped working on games altogether and started working on open source developer tools instead. Games are awesome and exciting but they almost always have a limited lifespan. I didn't like the idea of spending so much time building something that had a limited lifespan. My goal is to build a project that will outlive me. That said I have huge respect for game developers because it's such a difficult area, game developers are true artists.
I kind of expected this to be about Derek Smart and Battlecruiser 3000 AD:
https://timhowgego.wordpress.com/bc3k/introduction/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlecruiser_3000AD
https://timhowgego.wordpress.com/bc3k/introduction/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlecruiser_3000AD
Not only games cause such effects on their creators. Any piece of craft-ware does pretty much the same. I'm an enterprise software creator/publisher and sometimes I have to go through the very same lows and highs described in the article.
Doing a product is hard. Much harder that you might initially think.
Doing a product is hard. Much harder that you might initially think.
Games (and books, films, music) exist in an interesting middle ground between commercial enterprise and pure art. Although I suppose most art these days has to sustain a business in some form. It wasn't always like this: art used to be sustained by rich benefactors sponsoring artists. In a way it's good that art has been somewhat democratised through capitalism, and on the other hand the stress of having to turn your art into a product must destroy quite a chunk of the creative freedom and drive. Would be interested to hear what some artists (not hobbyists who have other jobs to sustain them) would like to see happen with art in the future and its relationship to society and capitalism.
shoutout to darkfall
http://www.sickenger.com/articles/the_making_of_darkfall/
- was the creators' dream game
- 10+ years in the making
- team lost funding, went without pay, and moved from sweden to greece
- not a commercial success
- best game ever made.
http://www.sickenger.com/articles/the_making_of_darkfall/
- was the creators' dream game
- 10+ years in the making
- team lost funding, went without pay, and moved from sweden to greece
- not a commercial success
- best game ever made.
I can't even read about it.
You might think that by now it would be easy, or at least routine. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
Every time is a horrible ordeal. I often feel physically sick during the process.
To start, I will have just completed a bunch of crunch. We try as much as possible to reduce this for the team, but for the founders and at least a few key people it’s always right up to the last minute. So we are already in a super stressful state.
The second stressor is questioning if anyone will even come to play the game. It’s almost impossible to know.
Next up, will players even like what you made? This is a dread that is hard to shake, and in our case we have a bunch of players all hyped up for a release and if they don’t like your new content there will be a lot of anger and disappointed people. People are brutal towards game developers in comments on the internet.
And then there are technical issues. We are an online game and it feels like every release there is some major issue.
When there are 150k people banging on the door and the game has a critical issue stopping them from playing, it’s very hard to describe the feeling when you are the responsible person and you have no idea what is wrong.
Debugging in that scenario is like having an anxiety attack.
These 4 issues together make game release seriously awful.
You have the worst aspects of being an Artist, a Business Owner and Live Ops all in one nice package and right when you are low on sleep and after weeks of stress before hand.
It’s a perfect storm of hell.