On the subject of developers

Games
1

Good day. I had a question.

I’m relatively unfamiliar with the US computer games industry and I only really seriously got into it the last third of last year, and that mostly through older games. I’m sure many of you are aware that Japanese are said to be very brand conscious when decisions about products. It has been my experience that Japanese gamers (such as me!) manifest this tendency mostly through paying more attention to the developers’ and their names as a selling point than other issues. I don’t actually think this is too unusual around the world, to put a lot of weight on the people making the thing in question.

However, I’m not sure if I see the same amount of interest in following developers in the Western world of games. That is, every week here, you can count on Famitsu magazine having 7 or 8 different interviews in their print version and maybe more on the site, and sites like Dengeki Online and Game Watch having even more, in addition to the own companies publishing their own interview stuff from their company’s site, like Nobuo Uematsu’s online radio show, the monthly letters forum to the staff of FFTA while they developed the game or Capcom’s fan-developer format. This means you can usually count on an average of 50-70 sources for interviews and developer input a month, not counting when the press publishes their small snippet bites on what the developer has said they are working on. It gets pretty ponderous at times to sneak through, as some people have a knowledge of every small scenario designer and movie director or musician or sounds effect editor and argue over who’s going to be who one day and why its so important and whose career is finished now and all that. Also, one gets the feeling that the industry is in danger because the designers listen to the sometimes psycho (if you ask me) opinions of their fans too much and all the good guys get fired or pushed down and the team is intimidated into trying something less ambitious.

Sometimes it works out though, as through this system were able to get Gyakuten Saiban series continued (a kind of Japanese version of Perry Mason and the Mandarin Murder, I suppose) and the Seven sequel Venus & Braves (a strategy RPG about a youth that becomes immortal and finds he must travel back and time through a 1000 years to avert a catastrophe by using dozens of party member’s lives to change the timeline to where the catastrophe no longer happens.) Both games that went on to sell moderately well after their predecessors did miserably bad. Its also nice to go to the events held and talk to the people at the company while you try the game and sample whatever refreshments they have on display (like for Shin Megami Tensei III, Disgaea or Star Ocean: Till the End of Time), or see your designs in a Rockman or Hanjuku Hero game, or get a New Year’s Card from a development team you admire, or even arrange to play against the developers with the game they developed (as is seen in FFXI and Magical Vacation).

Anyway, I don’t have much of an insight to American computer magazines for a while, because they tend to cost around 1300 yen here (which is about $11 per issue). It would seem to me that computer games fans generally put more emphasis on modifying the games and further developing them with modification tools than this fan to developer cycle that goes on in Japan. So I guess my first question would be, are there places where I can find as much of that type of thing as I can in Japanese and Japan? I’ve not had much luck, though I’ve heard of Lionheart and the Psychonauts teams’ pages and updates, as well as some things that go on with Fable, and Denis Dyack at IGN talking about Eternal Darkness and I know of the conferences computer game developers have with each other, and of the site where developers write for other developers, the latter two are a bit above my level of comprehension to easily understand for the language and the former ones I think at least assume a knowledge that I don’t much have, so I feel kind of like “a guy out of his element.”

So my second question, I guess, is if there isn’t much more to be found for this type of thing…umm, I don’t mean to be rude, but why not?

Err, I know some of my examples were console games, but I guess in my mind they are still computer game developers since they started out on the computer, at least I think so…I noticed an awful lot of talking about developers and smaller parts of teams here, so I’d thought I’d ask.

-Fox

2

If I had to guess, I would say that the American computer game media focuses on the product instead of the developers because the game industry follows the Hollywood movie model. With a few big exceptions (Spielberg, Cameron, Lucas) the people that make movies are unsung. Games are the same way, with only a few major individuals getting promoted in the media (Sid Meier, Peter Molyneax).

I base this on a difference once pointed out to me between European television ads and American television ads. The American ad industry developed out of radio, so American ads are very language oriented. The European ad industry developed out of film making, so it is much more visual. If games are taking their industry patterns from the Hollywood studio model, it is no surprise that the games are the focus instead of the people making them.

Financially, companies may think it is better to focus and encourage attention on the product instead of the developers. People aren’t necessarily loyal to one company and may leave, but the company owns its intellectual property. Lara Croft and Max Payne aren’t going anywhere unless someone buys them.

3

I totally agree.

4

Why aren’t we as interested in the personalities behind PC games as you guys in Japan are? Not sure, but we tend to be more interested in reading about the games. There is next to no effort to market the people who make the games, so fan interest in them isn’t as high.

PC games tend to be buggier than console games too, and a side-effect of that is that PC game fans tend to be distrustful of the game companies and of the game press too. There’s more antagonism between game fans and game companies over here than you probably see in Japan.

Since you want to read more about PC games, here are some sites that are good stops to find links to computer game news, developer interviews, game mod news, etc.

http://www.bluesnews.com/
http://www.gamespydaily.com/

Those three do a good job at being comprehensive. If you read them daily, you won’t miss too much.

If you’re looking for places where you can have some kind of contact with the game developers, the best place for that is the official website for each game. If you post on the message boards, you might get a reply from a developer.

5

I think that last is true, but I’m not sure the Hollywood analogy works. Hollywood is very personality driven. Fans are keenly interested in the stars, and there is also lots of discussion of directors, etc., among hardcore film fans. Movie fans follow the careers of the people who make the movies, who write the music for the movies, who write the screenplays, etc. There’s very little of that going on with game fans.

6

Part of the problem is the publishers and the deals they cut with developers. They prefer to market their name over the names of those that create the games. Ask any gamer who Electronic Arts, Activision, THQ, Acclaim are, etc. and they probably know. Even smaller or newer publishers like 3DO, Ubi Soft, Interplay and Infogrames are more well known. But start asking them if they know the teams or companies behind the creation of the actual games, and they’re probably clueless. The publisher likes it this way and works to maintain that through their work with the press. Even games magazines will refer to a game as a Ubi Soft or Infogrames game unless it has a well-known developer behind it.

There are some that stand out and a few names that gamers know. John Carmack, John Romero, Lord British (Richard Garriott), Sid Meier, Peter Molyneux, Tim Sweeney…those are probably the most well-known PC games makers, even though one of them doesn’t make PC games anymore. There are a few teams that command the fans’ attention and are probably known. Those include Ensemble Studios, Blizzard, id Software, Epic, Firaxis, Bungie, Bioware and maybe Raven, Silicon Knights, Retro and a few others. But personalities are less well-known except to the fans of certain games. Raph Koster is a name most MMORPG players would know, but maybe not have a clue about all the projects he was involved in. There are also a few Japanese developers that gamers might know, the most obvious of which is Shigeru Miyamoto. Mikami, Suzuki, Naka and Kojima are others that people here may know.

As the games industry developed here in the US, the publisher was the name the gamers payed attention to. Even in the console arena, you’re more likely to find a gamer that loves Sega games, Konami, Capcom, etc. but won’t have any idea about the personalities that made certain titles and hence why one game from Sega or Capcom might be terrible but the next will be legendary. They’re just not focused enough on the people because they either don’t want to know, or aren’t able to find out. In the NES era, so many titles from Capcom, Konami or Nintendo were of such high quality that gamers just played the games and never even thought to ask who made them. You just didn’t have to know!

I know that I’m an exception to this rule as I’ve always followed the people instead of the publishers for years. Ever since Die Hard Gamefan made such a big deal about who the Japanese devs were and what they were working on, I took notice. Next Generation magazine, also dead now, was a great mag for its interviews with big names. But it was always claimed by industry folks that the only people that read Next Gen were people who worked in the industry. It never found a large enough audience. Now, I watch for games from specific people or teams in addition to my constant search for something “new”. When I see a new game, the first thing I do is try to find out who’s making it. That rates it on my “pay attention” meter immediately. If it’s a new developer, I’m always skeptical until I see the finished product. If there’s a solid track record, it doesn’t mean it will be a great game, but it definitely means I need to pay attention to it until that’s determined, because it could be revolutionary.

With the Internet, the amount of developer interviews has improved, but there’s a lot of devs that either can’t or won’t say much outside of feature lists and the like. For better or worse, especially with PC games, developers take a ton of heat over every little decision they make. It’s pretty disgusting to read some of these message boards sometimes. Folks simply take extreme stances and aren’t willing to let their favorite creators just create. The 3DRealms guys clammed up completely on Duke Nukem Forever partially because of this and who can blame them? Is it really worth the constant fan scrutiny that is often done with absolutely no frame of reference on the finished game because it isn’t close to being done yet? I don’t think so.

–Dave

7

Isn’t it true that japanese game development teams are generally stable units inside larger publishers? My impression is that us game development teams tend to be more independent and more volatile, and thus dissolve and reform with greater frequency. Clearly, this would make them much harder to follow for casual fans.

8

Wasn’t there a print magazine in the US that had interviews with dev’s that failed miserably? I’ve seen it talked about here before but I’m to lazy to look for it at the moment.

People like Romero tried to be the Rock and Roll games developer - look where it got him.

9

It was called Next Generation and I mentioned it in my post above.

Romero was a “star” for all the wrong reasons. He may have set the industry back another five or ten years with regard to how publishers treat developers due to his complete incompetence with exhorbitant amounts of money.

There’s nothing wrong with following and even lauding the developers that make great games. I would much rather see them get the accolades than some marketing suit or another faceless corporation. A good marketer is invisible to the public IMO. He puts on the show and allows the creators of the game to reap the publicity.

–Dave

10

I was actually thinking of a mag that wasn’t Next Gen, Dave - but I honestly can’t recall. For sure it wasn’t Next Gen.

I can also see cultural differences enter into this as well - there’s that whole “are games art?” discussion that has the U.S. coming down on the “no” side (mostly at least, but that’s just a perception I have the feelings most people have).

Anyway - we do have the superstars in the U.S. - Carmack, Gabe Newell, Specter, Meier, British, Sweeney, American McGee (kidding!) etc. - but mostly that’s just so fanboi’s can talk about them.

11

A more develop oriented approach was once favored by some companies, back in the ancient days. EA in paticular. They had two page articles celebrating their developers. After the video game crash, and the smaller pc game crash afterward, they turned to a more game centric advertising campaign.

For the most part though, even since the beginning, the developer has been hidden from view. Atari was horrid about this. None of the game designers recieved credit for their games, with the company going so far as to make them use pen names for some interviews. This indirectly caused the first Easter egg: Warren Robinette created a secret room in adventure which had his name “in lights” in order to put his name on his creation.

One further reason for the lack of coverage is that in part, the gaming industry “eats its own”. Turnover is high, mainly due to long hours, low pay, stressful conditions, and the probably that your team might canned after, or even before the game is published. It’s difficult to have people in the industry speak when they aren’t in the industry too long.

Another place to look is John Carmack’s plan file, although this is not updated constantly:

http://www.webdog.org/plans/1/

It’s a bit on the techy side too, although that’s not surprising given the person. :D

12

PC Accelerator? The one with the Stevie Case cover?

13

Hmmm…I’ve read 'em all and I can’t think of any other magazine that had “lots” of interviews with developers. Next Generation, in the beginning especially, had a featured interview every month. Some five pages or so in length with major forces of the game industry. This includes Kelly Flock’s amazingly brash comments about sports games and gamers, etc. It’s also where the term “dumping” first appeared as Sam Tramiel claimed Atari would take Sony to court for selling Playstation at a huge loss.

They’d often talk with lots of developers too, either in the featured review or in the Alphas. As the magazine evolved into “Next Gen”, they did a lot less of that stuff and became more like every other games magazine. Of course, few were reading it before that, and fewer still stayed with it as it became another version of EGM.

The only other mag that had a smattering of interviews was Game Fan. Theirs were usually focused on developers the staff loved. Dave Perry, Treasure… but beyond that, all game mags I’ve ever encountered were focused on previews and reviews to the exclusion of just about everything else. Well, except for PC Accelerator and scantily clad women.

–Dave

14

Gamer’s Republic used to feature plenty of interviews with the Dev teams.

Halverson’s new project, Play, probably does as well. It’s the closest thing we have in the US to a Japanese style publication, although it can be somewhat difficult to track down, and covers more then just games.

Your Power Pill

15

Jesus, I can’t believe you people are forgetting the PC Gamer “Game Gods” series. It only gets kicked around every couple of weeks here :)

16

Ah…yeah, GR was pretty decent with interviews. I forgot about that one. Play doesn’t have a ton of them though, not in my experience with it. It’s a decent magazine for sheer enthusiasm, but I wish they’d just drop the movies/anime stuff.

–Dave

17

Well I care about certain developers and publishers, such as Black Isle. I might also cite New World Computing, Origin, FTL Games, and Atari during their glory days, though in many of those cases the companies went sufficiently far downhill that eventually I gave up on them. A title with a Black Isle imprint on it is much more likely to get my dollars than some random game from a studio I’ve never heard of. I also recognize especially bad development and publishing groups; if I ever get another Taldren/14-degrees-east game it’ll be because they changed their company name on the sly…

However, I have no idea of the names of anyone who works for Black Isle, offhand, and I only know a few names in the industry (despite now being in the industry myself) – and those names are usually those of the more tireless self-promoters, such as Lord British, Sid Meier, Peter Molyneaux and others who like to see their names in print.

18

Sure you do, every 3rd NPC in BIS games is named “Feargus”. :)

19

Developers just aren’t that interesting. The games they make, if good, are much more interesting than the people behind them. The only time I really enjoy reading about developers is when they discuss the game design decisions they made, which is just another way of discussing the game. If I’m having trouble sleeping, I can just try to read a developer talking about games as art or abstract game theory. It’s more effective at putting me under than a sharp blow to the head.

Ok, I also like the gossipy side of the industry too, but most of the gossip is lame. Most of the stuff posted at Fatbabies can be described as “waugh!!!”

20

So true. I mean, the high point of last weekend for me was trying to drive into town to go to the Baltimore aquarium. I searched for parking for half an hour, paid too much at a garage, and found out that all the aquarium tickets were sold out for the rest of the day anyway. That’s Greek tragedy to me, but I just don’t see all the MechAssault fans out there caring a whole lot.

Besides, really, anything I have to say I express through my art.*

[size=2]*Not meaning art in the underpaid artist sense, but in the pretentious games-as-art sense. I’m a programmer.[/size]