Why are we so greedy ?

#1 I would like to refer you to this post:
http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=forums&page=result.thread&qt=9806

I feel ya... but not many others are w/ us.

#2 Everyone doesn't need to be aboard. The major reason game companies fail is laziness. Maybe they can't sit there and work on the game every day for a year.

But could they work on a game for a month and complete their task? Most companies will have enough focus to do that. All they have to do is complete their assigned task.

We only need 0.001% of companies to be interested, since there is probably 50,000 or more garage game companies. The key to success is baby steps and dedication.

Complete a demo with many other companies
Complete a game with many other companies
Complete a demo with your company
Complete a game with your company

Then you're set for large games, new engines and more people. It's a simple strategy that should make sense to most people.

You don't abandon your projects you just do your task, the more companies involved the less work the task is.

#3

Quote:The major reason game companies fail is laziness.

Got any evidence behind that statement?

#4

Quote:The major reason game companies fail is laziness.

What REAL honest to god incorporated, 100% of the time dedicated to game company have you worked for that failed?

In the past I have worked for 3 commercial products that were funded and 100% dedicated to making a game in the past as a sub-contractor.

The MAJOR reason game compaines fail is NOT because of laziness, it is because of piss poor managment that had NO technical background and has no idea what they are doing. So my vote is for IGNORANCE.

You get people that think they have this great earth shattering unique idea, concept or character that have more personality than skill and raise about 25% of the money they need to do the planning much less an entire game, then try and hire low-ball or intern workers to build the thing and constantly change their mind when they start missing deadlines becuase they were unreasonable deadlines to begin with.

This is why anyone that has actually WORKED in the game industry, and I don't mean played around telling people you were a game developer and living in your moms basement, but really worked on commercial products are so harsh and critical of all the wide eyed "producers" who are completely UNSKILLED at ANY of the displines required to develop a software product much less a GAME! Want to build a team and not pay anyone for their work, because those same type of people are the ones that run FUNDED game companies into the ground.

All you have to do is read Game Developer Magazine's post mortems to understand this, and they are telling what went WRONG with games that did ship and in many cases sold hundreds of thousands of copies, almost every "what went wrong" starts with problems with lack of planning or too much planning and ends up with lack of skills to execute the plan, plain and simple.

Just because you PLAY lots of games means one thing and one thing only you PLAY lots of games.

It does not QUALIFY you in the least bit in any of the many disiplines required to develop a commerical software title! And this is what a game is SOFTWARE. Same as any other software title, except 4x more techically challenging.

Software developemnt is about planning, not just what to do but more importantly what NOT to do. It is about understanding the LIMITATIONS of the technology at hand and working around them and knowing when to use a neato fancy feature and when enough is enough.

I think most of the people that start projects fall under the "creative" rather than "technical" or "managemnet" category and think that and a burning desire and dedication to just will something into being is all they need. Sorry wrong answer.

Ideas are cheap, techincal ( this is 2D, 3D and code production ) and management skills are key to actually finishing a product regardless of whether it is a game, a word processor or a house. Not that the creative side of the coin is trivalized in anyway, but it is only 1/3 of the equation, and from my past 15 years of software development and game development creative people are NOT the people to running the show just like the coders should not be running the show either.

The last part is skill. Skills + Time == money !

Which means I am either spending my time making money, or more importantly spending my time having fun, that is why I make money :)

Which means lots of people spending a small amount of time on something they are not making any money on are not going to get anything done EVER! And converse lots of people with a small amount of skill spending alot of time on something they are not making any money on are not going to get anything done either.

It takes a appropriately sized group, probably 5 plus or minus 2, of highly skilled people to get something accomplished. Any more and it becomes un-manageable, any less and you just don't have the resources.

This utopia of eveyrone spends an hour a week and all of you will get to share 1/1000 of the profits of this killer game is just pure fantasy, move to TN and live with Joseph if you think that plan will work!

fixed some spelling errors

#5 I have to agree with Jarrod on a MAJOR point...

Quote:
The MAJOR reason game compaines fail is NOT because of laziness, it is because of piss poor managment that had NO technical background and has no idea what they are doing. So my vote is for IGNORANCE.

I've been professionally developing enterprise software for 5 years now, focusing on data mining web applications. I've always planned on getting into game development and have understood from day one that it was not going to be easy. With the experience I've gained from designing a product to meeting unrealistic deadlines (and there are many!) I believe I've gained invaluable knowledge. Product management is unbelievably paramount to getting something out the door. So, whoever is managing or producing a product better know what the hell they are doing. Enforce deadlines, know how to distribute resources, handle oversites (because they can appear out of nowhere!), yadda yadda yadda...

From a technical viewpoint, you also have to have (or be!) damn good (and dedicated) coders. Being a coder requires constant learning and self-improvement. Sacrifices should be expected. If workers (or managers) believe getting home in time to watch their favorite TV show is more important to them then their livelihood... the company is sure to crumble.

Sorry, didn't mean to lecture anyone with this post but just thought I'd put my 2 cents in... Also, for the record, game development (more precisely, coding) is much more technically demanding than developing web applications or general windows/linux apps. Study and work hard. Make your people aware of what you expect from them, and if you're all on the same page, you'll succeed!

#6

Quote:

From a technical viewpoint, you also have to have (or be!) damn good (and dedicated) coders. Being a coder requires constant learning and self-improvement. Sacrifices should be expected. If workers (or managers) believe getting home in time to watch their favorite TV show is more important to them then their livelihood... the company is sure to crumble.

Long hours are _NOT_ the sign of dedicated employees.

They _ARE_ the sign of one or more of the following: Poorly organized employees, poor management, or unreasonable deadlines/insufficient workforce.

In a well run company, no one should be working more than 8-9 hours a day.

I know this isn't the point of your argument, but it's one of my pet peeves and I have a hard time letting that one slip past. :)

#7

Quote:
They _ARE_ the sign of one or more of the following: Poorly organized employees, poor management, or unreasonable deadlines/insufficient workforce.

Agree 100%

However, from my experience the final month of getting a product out the door has almost always involved overtime. Mainly due to promised release dates... Alas, the game industry is notorious for delaying a release. But, like you said, if you're organized and well-planned 8-9 hours a day should always be enough.

#8 It's not just the game industry, the whole software industry is like that. Just a fact of life of programming: bugs are difficult to schedule.

I s'pose it's the publisher pressure that causes the problem specific to the game industry, though. Crunch times seem to come about so much because slipping release dates cost a lot in terms of retail packaging, advertising, etc. Hopefully movement towards internet distribution will fix a lot of this!

#9 The way I look at things is that we have enough information about games everyone should know what they need. Game creating is a tough subject, but it can be taught. Modeling, management, programming, businesses aspects all these things can be taught and learned by an average human.

I maybe giving people too much credit but I don't think they are ignorant to this fact. If a team had allot of dedication there is nothing they can't learn and apply to their project.

#10

Quote:I maybe giving people too much credit but I don't think they are ignorant to this fact. If a team had allot of dedication there is nothing they can't learn and apply to their project.

Yes, you are giving people too much credit people are by and large pretty thick headed, even the smart ones. Thinking is hard work, if it wasn't more people would do it.

You are missing the point, DEDICATION has nothing to do with it, EXPERIENCE has everything to do with it. You can NOT produce a mainstream commercial software product ( game or other ) and learn all the diciplines on the fly, the fact that you think you can proves my point. You don't know what you don't know.

That is why you see so many "failed" projects, they never really were started in the first place, people hacked around and realized this is really hard and really complicated and not trival to learn in 21 days like lots of the books would like you to think.

I mean you have to start somewhere, but thinking you are going to make the next "Big Hit" without lots and lots and lots of "Big Failures" is not realistic. I have had my share of failed projects I have had to live thru, it is just part of the business.

#11 I agree experiance is valuable.

And you will have failures. But there is enough people trying that you can learn from their mistakes.

I still believe there is no reason why a person can't learn everything they need for a game company.

With time and effort you can do anything. Now getting it published is a different story.

PS I don't own a garage game I'm just part of a 14 man team. I help recruit and program. We have a business manager that would know more. This is just my opinion

#12

Quote:I still believe there is no reason why a person can't learn everything they need for a game company.

That is because you don't know what you don't know, get it now? You believing it does not make it so if it did you would not be part of a 14 person team now would you?

There is no way one person can MASTER all the disciplines to create their own commercial quality game in any kind of reasonable time. It is just too much for one person. Just learning a 3D program much less all the intricasies associated with low polygon modeling much less animation for gaming vs just straight 3D rendering is 3 - 5 years of learning/experience.

Now tack on all the other disciplines and you have 10 - 15 years of learning before you can create anything meaningful.

#13 I, and I'm sure most everyone here as well, knows, or can understand, that it take a LOT of work to get a commercially developed game out there and known. I know it takes many people and manhours of different skills to put everything together. Many of you are against the idea of combining many of the small project teams into one large team, and I can see why that is thought. ...But no one ever said you had to start up and go right into corporate status. Even if making games such as Orbz or Marble Blast is all you do at first, it's still a great start, and you _can_ get money from it. Also, people complain about the failability (new word :P) of a plan such as the combined efforts deal... but one must realize that nobody's forcing anybody into anything. If we get the talented people that like doing these projects, people that have years of experience to lead the project (does 1-2 years count? :P), and the dedication which comes from these people, I think something might work out. Granted, it may take time, but thats exactly why you start small. Heck, you have to in a business such as this. It takes too much to go from nothing to something as known as the Quake series.

Thats an additional 1 cent of mine.. 1, because I cant think of enough more to say at the moment to make 2, and because I dont think many people want to hear my 2nd cent, even if I had it made up.

All I can say about myself is, I like making games, I know a good deal about what kinds of work are required to get something functional, I know how much time that can take, and I know that I would certainly give up watching tv to work on a project. :)

#14 Wasnt Bio-Ware's first game created by 2 people?

I guess we will have to disagree =)

I think we have the tools and knowledge available to make a game, which is what I want to do.

Getting it published or making a million dollars is a different story.

Maybe I don't know how things work. All I know is I emailed and talked to the person in charge of publishing games for microsoft and he said make a demo a 1 or 2 page document explaining the story and send resumes of all people on the team.
So thats what our team is doing =)

The progress on our project is coming along nicely that's why I was looking to see if other companies wanted to form an alligence for a small projec.

Don't know till you try =p

#15 Bioware's first game was made by 3 people + Interplay.

They were already running a successful (non-game) software company at the time, though. See 'experience' above.

#16 Just aliitle addition: Dungeon Siege started with only 4 people.

#17 Pisal, number of people involved in the beggining of the project doesnt really mean anything. First, those "4 people" were professionals, they had eaten kilos and kilos of salt and knew what they could and what they could not make possible.

as stated above - "experience".

I was worried about high "abandoned ratio" in GG as well recently, but then i thought about it for a while and decided that its not really a problem. Garagegames are like playground- a polygon for wannabies. From each hundred of wannabies some ten or so will arise who will understand that this is pure fun, that actually quite an amount of work is involved. Those willing to take their first kilo of salt might as well make it to the developers. Others will simply tell chicks that they were involved in game development but "it wasnt so fuņ, so i moved on".

#18 About this "experience" thing, yes there is a naive optimism when you set yourself to execute a project without a clear vision of what's involved. Then, after some experience, you pass to the second level, where you think you're very wise and become a skeptic smiling at "unrealistic" hopes of begginers. That's when you think you know what is "real".

I've been reading warnings about not raise our newbie hopes up too high, and I'm sure they're good advices. But after some years involved in TI commercial projects, I've found out there is a "third level" in professional experience. That skeptic "wisdom" should be completed with the understanding that a newbie can (and often do) build a great project from the ground, that's just when something really innovative comes out.

Since we're novices and the odds are all against us, we should have no expectations, just do our baby steps, try to stretch our skills the best we can. The technical issues are very important and can burn down your project, but I still think the main resource is creativity and some practical and intuitive wisdom about driving a project in general.

Am I being childish?

#19 Abid,

No one's saying a newbie can't put together a new and innovative project.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the next tetris or pacman-style revolutionary game came out of a 'newbie' developer.

But that's several orders of magnitude different than most of the 'newbie' projects that I read posts and get emails about. They're trying to make the next half-life, Doom3, or everquest. These are games that trained, experienced professionals regularly fail to recreate, and even when they do succeed they require years of effort and incredible investment of resources.

ID software's first game wasn't Doom. It wasn't even Wolfenstein. It was Commander Keen - a simple platformer.

#20 I just had to pop in and add something to this debate...

I understand the value of experience, very well as a matter of fact, but I also understand the value of ambition and perseverance.

Call me an optimist, naïve, or just call me an Anthony Robbins disciple if you like, they may all be true to some degree, some lesser, some greater.

I am a firm believer that we all learned the most valuable lesson in life before we even finished kindergarten. What was that lesson you ask? Glad you did: "You can do anything you set your mind to, and you can be anything you want in life."

What is interesting about these truths, is that somewhere along the way we begin to stop seeing opportunities and start seeing obstacles! What was once a wonderful world full of promise and possibility becomes an oppressive environment of predisposition and disadvantage.

This is unfortunate to say the least. I often wonder how many brilliant minds are stifled, how many beautiful voices are silenced, and how many life changing ideas are shelved all in the name of apathy.

I mean no disrespect to anyone on this forum or in this community as we are all entitled to our opinions, but no one ever succeeded who did not first try.

I started down the path to game creation over 4 years ago. I have yet to publicly release a single piece of work however. It has taken this long for me to reach any level of what I considered "competent" ability in any on the specific fields related to, or involved in game design.

At this point I can say with utmost confidence that I am a good programmer, a good modeler, skinner and animator, and that I am a good game designer. I am not the "best" in any one of these fields, and am better in some areas than in others. The truth is that even if I were the best in any one of these, there would truthfully be someone somewhere who was better. It is a vain pursuit to say the least.

It fascinates me that in America, once the land of opportunity, visionaries, entrepreneurs, and risk takers are now viewed with a healthy amount of skepticism where they were once treated with a certain amount of deference and, to a lesser degree, reverence. I could wax philosophical here and say that America was built on the ideas of dreamers, but that is another debate. ;-)

It can be argued that the failures throughout the passage of time have brought this into being, and I would not argue the point.

I would, however, counter this by pointing out that we, as individuals and potential entrepreneurs, have more power and opportunity at our fingertips than at any previous point in the history of this country, or any other for that matter.

As technology progresses, we are provided with stronger, faster, better and more comprehensive tools that allow us (as a workforce... this is not "game development" specific) to work more efficiently and with less manpower. That said... there has been no better time in history for those who are willing to take the chance, to strike out on your own for better or for worse.

It is a given that you cannot create Doom 3 all by yourself, in as timely a manner as id software is doing it. Could it be done by ONE man? Absolutely, as long as he (or she) was willing to put forth the effort and time it would require to do so.

This brings me to the argument of economics.

Common sense would seem to dictate that a single developer could not compete with the corporate budgets of industry giants. That's right... no one is going to take down Microsoft any time soon.

There is however, another truth hidden within this same premise that is all too often overlooked: the law of overhead.

Corporate developers invest a large amount of capital, manpower, and time into developing titles to populate the shelves of retailers all across the land. The expenses incurred comprise the overhead necessary for them to operate at the level they currently enjoy, and while this is a strength, it is also a weakness.

Corporate developers know that each title will only sell at a given price, in a given volume, for an extremely short amount of time. With that in mind, features and resources are pushed at frantic paces in order to minimize the development costs and maximize their profits.

This is where the independent developer must play not by the rules of the corporation, but by those of the independent developer.

What do I mean by this? Use what advantages you posses to the best of your ability.

I am an independent developer. I currently do not rent any office space to which I would have to pay utilities, rent, and Internet connectivity. I am not on a rigid schedule, which must be kept in order to make my business venture profitable. I have no employees that I must pay, no bosses to which I must answer, and no overhead for which I must account.

This, of course, is a trade off. I have limited time throughout a given work week to devote to my project, and limited funding through which to realize my vision, but it is, in my view, a fair trade.

I work on a $1500 PC (poor mans graphic work station) and have less than $1500 wrapped up in development software... Torque included. I am not just developing my title on a budget, I am developing my title on a shoestring budget!

I model in MilkShape and skin in PaintShop Pro. While these applications do not posses many of the features of their more expensive brethren... with time, effort, and patience, I can achieve the same results through them that I could with more expensive software.

Sure, I can't crank out Quake 3 in a short amount of time, but I CAN do it. Furthermore, when I do, I do not require an exorbitant amount of capital to be profitable. Ass I see it, this is my advantage, and it is what I will try to use to the absolute best of my ability.

My title may not make me millions, though there is that possibility regardless of how slim that may be, but that is not the point. I want to make money, and do something I love doing it. If my project fails to make any further inroads into a competitive market, then I, at the very least, have an entire game project to put on my resume' that will land me a job working on a team.

Minimal investment, maximum return. It's a win-win situation! I am Indy- hear me ROAR!

Sorry to have written a book... just had a lot to say. ;-)