You've heard a lot about it, and quite possibly, you've even wondered about doing it yourself: making games for a living sounds like an extremely appealing prospect. There are plenty of advertisements and hype surrounding the idea that you, too, can play video games all day and make money. How much of it is fact, how much of it is fiction? What does it really take to get into the industry? What is it like once you are there? Tough questions, to be sure, but I shall take a vain stab at them.
I recently had the amazing opportunity to be a programming intern at Electronic Arts, also known as the largest video game company in the world. I also happen to be a student of video game design at the University of Southern California (USC). As my internship draws to a close, I hope I can shed some light on these common questions which I either get asked, or see asked frequently. I'm not going to claim to be an expert, by any means, but hopefully I can help you decide if a career in video games is right for you, and more importantly, how you can end up in just such a position. Even if you're not interested in actually pursuing a career, perhaps this article could give some insight as to why games end up the way they do, and the process that goes into making them. If you're like most people, the gaming industry might seem shrouded in a certain degree of intrigue and mystique.
I've decided to break this up into three articles; the first one, here, talks about what it's actually like to work in the industry. I'm not going to mention which specific studio I worked at, or any names or insider information, for obvious copyright information (one thing the games industry takes very seriously is leaking information from the inside). The next two parts will take a step back and look at what can be done to prepare yourself for a career in the industry (what skills are needed, how you can acquire them, and so on). Finally, the third article will wrap it up with talk about actually landing the job of your dreams. With that, let's get started!
Part 1: The Job
I thought I'd start off with a little anecdote: About a week into my internship, myself and my fellow employees were leaving the building when we happened to enter into a conversation with a woman on the elevator. When it was revealed that our job was to "make video games," her response was that it "must be nice," in that all-too-familiar and perhaps just slightly dismissive manner which I have come to expect. I can't blame her: she, like many other people, tend to believe that working in the gaming industry is all fun and... uh, games.
The Bad
As much as I hate to begin on a sour note, a bit of reality here seems pertinent: it is not all fun. It is a job, and having worked as a programmer in other industries, I might actually say that it is more stressful and higher stakes. These days, the creation of a big-name industry title carries with it a price-tag of many millions of dollars, some in the hundreds of millions. Shelling out the money for intellectual property, hardware, software, man-hours, distribution, and the list goes on - these are not cheap endeavors. At a company as big as EA, the selection process is efficient and brutal, and sometimes the trimming of dying projects must take place regardless of circumstance. In fact, big players in the industry have been known to be able to calculate the potential SKUs (aka sales) based upon the Metacritic rating, and make decisions accordingly. Furthermore, the hardcore gamer crowd (and let's be honest: that's mostly who the industry still caters to) are a brutal, demanding bunch. There is not a moment of the day working in the game industry when you can let yourself forget these facts.
From my perspective, as a programmer, working on video games takes more creativity and passion than anything else I have ever done. I am not, by any means, saying any other programming job is easy, but simply that a video game is a large, adaptive world with many, many, many architects. Few other industries which programmers work in put value on application speed, aesthetics, and effectiveness of code, while simultaneously requiring the programmer to work with potentially hundreds of other programmers and even *gasp* artists and non-technical people. There is no "shut up and work" here - you are constantly interacting with other people, and you need to speak their language, to be able to anticipate how they think the game should work so that everyone is on the same page. And if you think the other disciplines within the industry are any different, you're in for a surprise. QA is notorious for being the group that "just plays games all day." Well, these folks probably work harder than just about anybody, and without them, who knows how many more problems would be seen in games? It's not just "playing" they do, either, but rigorously and painstakingly stress-testing different scenarios in each of a million different permutations to make sure that us cocky-programmer types didn't miss anything ;)
Okay, so I've made my point: this isn't a walk in the park. I'll stop whining now and get to the good stuff.
The Good
Working in this industry, you're around games all the time. How great is that? As I have heard so many people say before, the truth of it all comes to this: you have to love games. And I mean, really really love them. You have to be the type of person that looks at a game and doesn't just see something entertaining, but instead says "hey look at that, they did the battle system this way... that's a bit like this game, but they introduced this mechanic, that's pretty unique, and these elements are..." get my point? Amusingly enough, I might have spent less time actually playing video games than most of my friends. Instead, I found myself jumping between games, classes, weapons, and everything else, just to try it.
If you have a character of each possible class in each game you own, maybe you know what I'm talking about.
If that sounds like you, then the games industry is an amazing place. Never before have I found myself so surrounded by people who shared my interests, who wanted to discuss those tiny little elements that I always found compelling and others found annoying (to hear me babble about). The great thing about going to work each day is that I know I will always arrive to the sound of people laughing, joking, and generally enjoying themselves. I'd say I've spent more time on my feet, moving around and looking over other people's shoulders to check out something new, than any other job I've had.
Inside the Office
Hopefully nothing has surprised you too much, so far. Perhaps you did not need me to tell you that making video games is fun, but hard work. In any case, the interesting part is what it is actually like inside the office, so to speak. The politics and internal dynamics of the industry can be confusing, so hopefully I can make them just a little bit clearer.
Our office does not look like anything special from the outside, and perhaps not even from the inside, for that matter. I sit at a regular old desk with a monitor, and except for the (amazing) artwork and posters covering some of the walls (none of which I'm even allowed to mention the title of, or else lawyers will consume my soul), nothing seems to really mark the place as special. There are no gaming consoles in the hallways, no entertainment systems in the break room.
If that sounds disappointing, it shouldn't. The real beauty of this place comes from the people and the content, not from feng shui. But the million dollar question still remains: what do we actually DO? What do the titles mean, and how do they operate?
I've heard some very astute people compare the video game industry to the movie industry in the 1940s. We're just starting to see the dawn of the era wherein game designers, such as Will Wright, are recognizable - much like we now recognize our favorite movie directors. Companies like EA are split into "studios," which handle the primary production of specific genres, with smaller tasks sometimes outsourced. There's a variety of flavors to game development, from in house design to external development, but the basic premise remains the same. Ignoring these little eccentricities for the time being, perhaps it would be useful to consider the different roles within the industry. Now, this is not a definitive assessment, as there is a notorious tendency for different companies to switch job titles and so on. Furthermore, as I have already stated, I am a programmer: my commentary upon the other professions, though experience-driven, is anecdotal at best.
QA
I decided to begin with QA because I suspect that they are the most misunderstood group within the entire industry. It's true: their job description entails playing the game upon which they work, but their goal is to find bugs. It must be said that there is a deceptively large difference between playing a game for sheer enjoyment and playing a game to find bugs. By their very definition, bugs are skittish creatures, seemingly disappearing as soon as you try to shed some light on them. Programmers will always want you to be able to recreate the bug exactly for them, and this can be a difficult, if not downright tedious task.
Classically, QA has been the "mail-room" job of the game industry, in that they interact with a lot of people and thus it provides a great starting point in the industry. Today, the size of teams on games can frequently make this more difficult, because sheer numbers require that QA be relegated to its own department, and sometimes you'll be forced to communicate with the other teams only through the Lead QA members. Still, it is a job which exposes you to the game industry, and no matter what I say, don't forget: you're playing games for a living!
Designers
Designers are the intellectual creators, the minds which piece together a game. They have the amazing ability to comprehend how all the little pieces fit together, a jigsaw puzzle of ideas, where changing even one piece might change any of the others. It's their job to foresee even the smallest consequence, where perhaps changing the manner in which even a simple spell/gun/item works suddenly changes the entire balance of the game.
They use words like mechanics, gameplay, formal and dramatic elements, and so on. A lot rests on their shoulders, in terms of creating a structured game which is entertaining, of the right scope to be actually developed with the resources available, and challenging to the player (but not too challenging!) I can hardly entertain someone for a few minutes, and even the best of authors might take up a eight hours or so with a decent story. Well, designers not only have story to worry about, but the actual interaction with the player (and in multiplayer games, interaction between players), and they manage to keep the player entertained for 40+ hours. It's a feat, to say the least.
Another short story might help illustrate designers: One day, I walked into the office of one of the designers, and he was playing an online game. Curious, I asked him what he was up to, and he briefly explained to me that he was researching something about the game. At first, I assumed he was just enjoying himself and randomly looking for inspiration. It took a few minutes of watching him out of the corner of my eye before I noticed that he was dying - over and over and over again, in many different ways. He was experimenting with the ways in which the game handled player death, taking note of many subtleties such as the penalties based upon different scenarios, and so on and so forth.
It might seem a bit odd at first, but our designer friend was conducting research as faithfully as any scientist or artist. He was wrapping his mind around why the different systems worked in the way they did, deciding what worked well and what did not work well, how the systems fit together, and how they applied to his project. Of course, this is not what he spends every day doing - it was a "down day" - but hopefully it gives an impression of the types of things designers are thinking about.
Producers
I find a producer's role the hardest to define, and I believe I am not alone. One professor of mine appropriately described the position as the "glue that holds the pieces together" or the "go-between guy." Producers somehow seem to manage to keep marketing happy, while interfacing with programmers and artists, giving designers direction, and so on. In some ways, you might think of them as the the boss-types, in as much as they keep things running smoothly and efficiently.
Lower level producers can be responsible for relatively low level tasks, like the different lines of text in the game. Executive Producers, on the other hand, enter into the realm of owning entire branches of Intellectual Property, potentially being responsible for an entire franchise. My day-to-day interface with producers generally seemed to involve prioritizing and assessing tasks, and furthermore examining the best way for them to be accomplished. They are, to put it plainly, the folk who see the big picture. To be completely honest, I'm not quite sure how to describe their job better than that! I hope I haven't left you with an incomplete picture, but it is really one of those things you need to experience to completely understand.
Programmers and Artists
I've lumped these two together because we are, in essence, the hands which build the game. It's easy enough to figure out what we both do: artists create shiny things, programmers cross their fingers and hope the game doesn't crash. Perhaps more important is what we do not do: as a programmer or artist, you will have minimal input upon the game design itself. Any good company should respect your expertise and take your advice when it comes to, say, an artist deciding what font and color scheme to use. However, don't expect to be making any decisions about what that very same font actually says.
This can get frustrating for some: as mentioned above, if you're in this industry, you love it and you want to make it better. Naturally, you have ideas! You want people to know them, to see how great they are! Don't let me discourage you - I'm not trying to say that you are relegated to a workhorse role, destined to never see beyond the tasks you get assigned. If you play your cards carefully and are careful not to tread on toes, like in any industry, you can have a great deal of satisfaction. What I am getting at is the fact that there is a world of difference between spouting off whatever ideas you have (regardless of how good you and all your co-workers believe them to be) and making intelligent suggestions. What needs to be remembered is that there are people whose job it is to design the game (more on that above), and that you need to pay the same respect for their expertise as you expect them to do of yours. I am no master at this by any stretch of the imagination, but sometimes the difference between appreciated suggestion and pompous interjection is nothing but vocabulary and attitude.
Case in point: I am fortunate enough to say that a couple of my suggestions have made it into the game I worked on. The way this happened was by me saying "well, I'm already working on this, would you mind if I...?" Again, like in any industry, your boss will be quick to see the advantage in small and pointed tasks which are extensions of what you are already doing. You start to step on toes, however, when you decide that you want to design new content. Remember what your job is, and remember that others are just looking to do theirs.
I hope that this has not been too simplistic, but I feel it is important to realize that as a programmer or artist, you are neither workhorse nor creative genius. You're sure to have plenty of great ideas along the way, and if you approach them correctly, both you and the game will benefit.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, I've skimmed over a lot of different interesting topics for the sheer sake of not rambling on for pages and pages. Topics like teams (or strike teams, or Pods, or whatever name you prefer), design documents, and so on and so forth are all essential elements of the industry. Given the time and interest, I'd love to have the opportunity to discuss them at greater length. For now, however, it's time take a break before the next installment, when we'll be taking a look at what can be done to actually prepare for a career in the industry. Resumes are a dime a dozen, but now that you have a basic idea of how the industry works, hopefully you have some advantage. To really prepare, though, there are many different things you can do that will really make you stand out to employers in the long run. I'll take a look at not only my own history, but what information I've been able to glean from my fellow interns and employees, using their backgrounds as examples to illustrate what video game companies look for.
Until then, don't stop gaming :)
Labels: entertainment, gaming, video games
nough, in hindsight, to conjure poor analogies to the Matrix. And there it is: the final obstacle between video games and their destiny, as it were. I see a convergence of technologies occurring as we speak. I see direct neural-interfaces for computers which can naturally integrate robotic limbs and I look at our rapidly-increasing ability to fix and/or create new organs. I see the research into the deepest workings of our minds, and wonder how much longer it will be before we can shape the contents ourselves. Somewhere in the cross-section of all these fields, I believe there exists a technological utopia. The Flow concept is essentially our glimpse into that utopia, for Flow is the very same sensation experienced in prayer, meditation, happiness, and perhaps even enlightenment (if we choose to call it as such). A simple google search for "meditation study" reveal that such a meditative (Flow) state can reduce blood pressure, improve attention, boost brain activity, and "give the brain a charge" (whatever that means).
