Development Cycle Watermark
polycounter lvl 19
I've shipped 10 titles now and I've noticed my sense of pride and achievement follows the
same routine each development cycle.
One would assume we work toward achieving a new watermark level of quality in order
to feel a grand sense of achievement when our work is released and we gain the chance
for perspective.
I've consistently discovered that releasing a title feels more and more like an anticlimax,
or rather, I care less about the public's reaction than I care about how I felt during the
production cycle.
The start of the dev cycle is full of excitement and trepidation as it lies in the uneasy
dichotomy of what we hope we can do and what we fear we will end up doing.
Thanks to this, I think that the beginning of a project is too messy and disjointed a
process to gain the necessary perspective I require to comprehend the shape of the work
as a whole.
When I hit the midway stage of a project that is when I am on a high. The midway stage
is like my watermark, its the point where I can see enough behind me to gauge how
much more is ahead of me. This is the time when I am cranking it out like a well oiled
machine and Im on a high of self and group assurance that we are going to set the
heavens on fire.
Its an incredible feeling that sustains me through the lesser stages of the dev cycle.
Im doubtful that anyone truly enjoys the tail end of the dev cycle as typically there is
very little new work to be done and instead there is a huge amount of optimization work
required instead.
However, I think that its because of the tail end being so dry that most artists look
toward the high of release and the possibility of acclaim coming from both their peers
and the buying public to offset the difficulty they have so recently gone through.
I dont get much of a sense of that want for recognition and I have little need for the
opinions of the mass-market to confirm for me the worth of how I spent the last couple of
years.
I find my sense of overblown / deflated ego cycle is mirrored also in miniature within my
free time projects such as speedpaints, Cythraul and family paintings.
I first considered why I feel this way when I watched Marc Fosters Finding Forrester.
At one point in the film, Sean Connery points out that the best moment for a writer is
when they read their own work, when the rest of the world reads it, and gets confused
about what the author might have been saying, or try to galvanize the work into some
suitable cannon for launching their own opinions, it is best to ignore them and withdraw
from any kind of involvement with the press.
Ive found I feel the same way. I am growing more and more uninterested in the publics
opinions upon my professional work. I have produced enough games now that I am able
to clearly and objectively judge the merits of my own work and I enjoy my own
realizations for more than others insights.
I am completely uninterested in fame. My goals in my art are purely internal summits
reached through my own want to climb and other peoples perspective upon my place in
relation to the summit generally serves only to dilute my own perspective and clarity of
purpose.
I do not look down upon those that are in search of recognition and fame, whether it is
from their peers or from the public. We each have our own goals with what we do, well
aside from financial gain
Im merely wondering what other professionals work toward and what part of the dev
cycle motivates them to excel and feel a sense of reward and self worth. While I
appreciate Im restricting a lot of amateur artists on the board from expressing an
opinion, I dont feel bad about that. Ive discussed or heard the motivations of the
amateur expressed so often that Im very familiar with the issues involved. I am however
curious as to what other professionals consider the watermark within their own work and
the development cycle as I suspect I may be surprised often.
r.
same routine each development cycle.
One would assume we work toward achieving a new watermark level of quality in order
to feel a grand sense of achievement when our work is released and we gain the chance
for perspective.
I've consistently discovered that releasing a title feels more and more like an anticlimax,
or rather, I care less about the public's reaction than I care about how I felt during the
production cycle.
The start of the dev cycle is full of excitement and trepidation as it lies in the uneasy
dichotomy of what we hope we can do and what we fear we will end up doing.
Thanks to this, I think that the beginning of a project is too messy and disjointed a
process to gain the necessary perspective I require to comprehend the shape of the work
as a whole.
When I hit the midway stage of a project that is when I am on a high. The midway stage
is like my watermark, its the point where I can see enough behind me to gauge how
much more is ahead of me. This is the time when I am cranking it out like a well oiled
machine and Im on a high of self and group assurance that we are going to set the
heavens on fire.
Its an incredible feeling that sustains me through the lesser stages of the dev cycle.
Im doubtful that anyone truly enjoys the tail end of the dev cycle as typically there is
very little new work to be done and instead there is a huge amount of optimization work
required instead.
However, I think that its because of the tail end being so dry that most artists look
toward the high of release and the possibility of acclaim coming from both their peers
and the buying public to offset the difficulty they have so recently gone through.
I dont get much of a sense of that want for recognition and I have little need for the
opinions of the mass-market to confirm for me the worth of how I spent the last couple of
years.
I find my sense of overblown / deflated ego cycle is mirrored also in miniature within my
free time projects such as speedpaints, Cythraul and family paintings.
I first considered why I feel this way when I watched Marc Fosters Finding Forrester.
At one point in the film, Sean Connery points out that the best moment for a writer is
when they read their own work, when the rest of the world reads it, and gets confused
about what the author might have been saying, or try to galvanize the work into some
suitable cannon for launching their own opinions, it is best to ignore them and withdraw
from any kind of involvement with the press.
Ive found I feel the same way. I am growing more and more uninterested in the publics
opinions upon my professional work. I have produced enough games now that I am able
to clearly and objectively judge the merits of my own work and I enjoy my own
realizations for more than others insights.
I am completely uninterested in fame. My goals in my art are purely internal summits
reached through my own want to climb and other peoples perspective upon my place in
relation to the summit generally serves only to dilute my own perspective and clarity of
purpose.
I do not look down upon those that are in search of recognition and fame, whether it is
from their peers or from the public. We each have our own goals with what we do, well
aside from financial gain
Im merely wondering what other professionals work toward and what part of the dev
cycle motivates them to excel and feel a sense of reward and self worth. While I
appreciate Im restricting a lot of amateur artists on the board from expressing an
opinion, I dont feel bad about that. Ive discussed or heard the motivations of the
amateur expressed so often that Im very familiar with the issues involved. I am however
curious as to what other professionals consider the watermark within their own work and
the development cycle as I suspect I may be surprised often.
r.
Replies
I've worked on only a few projects and never as an in-studio artist, just a remote contract worker, so my perspective is limited in scope and duration.
But on my first professional project I was in charge of designing the majority of the vehicles in a vehicle-based shooter/sim. I was of course extremely excited and poured a lot of time and energy into the project as it was my first.
In the end, many of the designs and orthographics that I had spent so long laboring over ended up being butchered by an apathetic production artist. Not to mention the whole issue of whether or not the game will end up making it to market at all (still an open question).
It was distressing at first, but shortly after the project had concluded, I was fairly nonplussed: I knew that I had done the best that I could on the project and did everything within my (limited) power to make the game as good as it could be. Many of the actual vehicles in the game, if the game ships at all, will not bear the attention to detail I put into the original designs. But that's out of my hands.
As a concept artist my 'high watermark' is not necessarily limited to my involvement, since it can be quite edifying to see my work beautifully realized in-game (like Churchill in SSX3
I only hope that some day when I do decide to take a studio job, that everyone else will be as motivated towards new personal standards of quality, and somewhere among a group of individuals, a whole, excellent game can emerge
Then again, when I see one of my titles on the shelf, or someone tells me they enjoyed playing it, my chest swells. I love to hear the public admire my work, and if they don't like it, it hurts a little.
I'd say out of the two, I get more enjoyment during the production of the game, than I do from the reaction afterwards. If I had more involvement in making the game what it is, then I would probably think differently, but as it is, I could make good art, and then a design team can butcher the rest of the game, and when the public doesn't like the game, I don't dwell on it too much.
Oh yeah, great thread Ror, just the type we've been needing around here.
One thing Ive always heard about on the projects Ive been on (mostly from the management team), is this magical time that is supposed to happen when all we have to worry about is polish and adding in all the little cool things we werent able to do during the normal production time. (Its usually the fall back remark from the higher ups when you have an out of the box idea for a cool moment and it will obviously take more time than is budgeted.) Ive yet to experience this time frame but I could imagine that being the coolest feeling ever. I actually think this might happen here at Iron Lore! Im keeping my fingers crossed
- BoBo
Being a life long gamer, I can't prevent myself from looking at how the public has received any game I've worked on. None of the games I've been a part of have been major critical or, most importantly, commercial succeses, and that's something that gets under my skin. I guess this is where I find my motivation to continue working in the games industry: I just want to make a commercially and critically successful game. This attitude usually gets me in trouble at work, since I start venturing into designer's territory. Large team sizes and lack of input frustrate me, so I tend to find release in just doing the work I've been assigned. This is the balance that I'm currently trying to find: how to stay happy and productive at work while channeling my creative energy into my own projects.
With all that said, there's still no question that "doing the work" is easily the most fun part of it all. My most enjoyable period on any game I've worked on was crunch time for Project: Snowblind. We had to work like crazy to get the cutscenes for the game animated and I had great experience working with our cinematics director and the other animators. That's the other part of game development that keeps me in the biz: building working relationships with people that share the same passions as yourself.
Personally, and from my extremely non existing experience, I think that my drive is/would be how much I can effect the art in the game. With my small donation, or even large, preferably, did I make a difference? Was it a significant contribution, or passive blending into the rest of the art?
It is obvious, however, that under strict art direction and at the end of the optimization process you described things are polished to blend anyways, so I guess "the public" never knows anyways. The artist himself, however, knows.
things are different now, i'm on my first proper AAA title. I'm not sure what the highpoint is, whether i've already hit it, or whether it's still to come ... it's something i'll be able to pinpoint in retrospect i suppose. I'm hoping it might be the same as before, that i'll be able to outdo myself with each sucessive project.
But i also suspect that for myself and the company, there might be an entirely new highpoint, the one that Poop mentions, something that i've never really experienced before : getting some proper recognition from the public at long bloody last
Conversely, towards the end of the project you do end up making up for that lost time. But I do still enjoy that period, because I can see the changes that are being made on lightning basis. Often redoing older work is boring, yet sometimes its a thrill - firstly to see the improvements you have made in you skills in the last year, and secondly you can push yourself. As an aside, approaching a final build of San Andreas I rebuilt, remapped, textured and skinned a character in under 30 mins. This would not have been possible 6 month before that.
Course, that means that now people know I can skin a mesh in quick time...
Danr - good luck, you know you're right. And it's like nothing else.
I volunteered at the DAoC roundtable this weekend, since it was local. We had about 400 or so players come together to hear about the new expansion, answer questions, and just interact with the developers. I had a blast, even though I only worked on one expansion pack for a few months, getting to see these people who made Daoc such a huge part of their life, just made me feel awesome. Knowing that something I helped create, brings such enjoyment to them.
The watermark for me is maintaining a constant even flow of goodness. Zen is an incredibly happy state to get into, when I can get there, which is thankfully pretty often.
If I find I'm not enjoying the work I'm doing, then I consciously work to shift my own perception of it, into a positive one. Even when it's grunt work. Put in the simplest terms, life is better than death. And if I'm happy, then life is very good.
So for me it's all internal. Or at least, that's what I strive for. I'm still human. I have emotional impulsive reactions. But with time and experience I guess, I've been able to swing my internal weight every time it starts swinging into the negative.
Others' opinions of my work are just window dressing. They can help me improve my work, and I'm grateful for this. But I don't look to it for my own happiness, for me that only leads to inflation of my ego, which then tends to swing just as quickly the other way. For me, feels shallow compared to the Zen state.
[ QUOTE ]
(BoBo)...this magical time that is supposed to happen when all we have to worry about is polish and adding in all the little cool things we werent able to do during the normal production time.
[/ QUOTE ] I've seen this, not the "all" part but sometimes the "cool" part. A team member or two will get to squeeze in a pet feature, or create a couple new fascinating effects with a new tool that only recently became available. But for most of the team it's usually all about fixing existing problems in favor of creating new cool assets.
IMHO the art of management is in figuring out what carrots each person needs dangled in front of them, but that are actually attainable, not just false fruit. Telling the team "Hey, feature X is a polish item" is pretty dishonest, since things always slip. Always. And a comment like thnis tends to comes back and bite mgmt later, with team distrust.
Just be honest... "Nope, feature X won't make it in. Unless you find a way to work it into your schedule. Let's be realistic." For me, that leaves it open but keeps it grounded.
Frank the Avenger
As an example:
I volunteered at the DAoC roundtable this weekend, since it was local. We had about 400 or so players come together to hear about the new expansion, answer questions, and just interact with the developers. I had a blast, even though I only worked on one expansion pack for a few months, getting to see these people who made Daoc such a huge part of their life, just made me feel awesome. Knowing that something I helped create, brings such enjoyment to them.
[/ QUOTE ]
Now see that is why I think working on a MMPG would be more rewarding to work on then any other type of game . People devote so much more time to those games and live in those world and make new friends and hell even some get married in real life . I think that would be pretty rewarding and motivating for making some really neat kick ass stuff in a MMPG
I've worked at a few companies, In-house, Or contract, Small or big. and, The feeling is different when you get a game release for each of the above factors.
But, in the end, I find that, when you get to work on some cool stuff, with great people,thats the greateast moment.
My watermark came/comes when I get the final stamp-of-approval on something I worked on for a gig. Since I have to work from home I have no idea what is being said about my work on the other end when the work is up for review. Getting something back with a big APPROVED is pretty gratifying.
Also, seeing my stuff in-game for the first time brought a tear to my eye.
Poop: Yeah, Unreal2 was the game where I knew I and the team I worked with had made great art but it was clear the public would mostly hate it because the gameplay was poor.
It is still, for me ( and possibly Malekyth ), possibly my greatest moment of pride in myself, purely for the art's sake and for the way in which the character team I was apart of mixed and were allowed to just make shit up by feeding on each others ideas without anyone imposing an iron fist upon us.
Team dynamic is so important.
Bobo: Heh, I think I've only played a couple of the games I've made! I have very different opinions than yourself about working on vapourware though.
The magical polish time... we got to do some of that on UC2, not me personally though I think its harder to market a game that 'may have less content, but has lots of little cool things in the background that are so skillfully and artfully polished that you won't even notice they are there though we can guarentee they are adding to your sense of immersion'
It's rare to see a cover image of foliage areas with ambient lifeforms that do interesting things. It's much easier to market the fact that 'Now with 10 vehicles instead of 6!' I think.
Pity eh?
Funk: I sympathize. I've spent more of my career more interesting in my private projects than my professional projects. My outlook and philosophy is constantly shifting between conceeding it is a job and feeling happy and settled with that accomodation, or trying harder to gain some more ownership until its fun enough to take professional work home with me at night in such circumstances to reinforce the worth of ensuring employees work on themes that are interested in.
Shot: A case in point for me was the difference between how I felt when working on Driver and Unreal2. Driver met acclaim and I was disallusioned as I thought it was a shitty game, Unreal2, I knew was a shitty game so when PCZone gave it 97% I was shocked and wondered how much they were bribed!
Danr: Triple AAA sometimes strikes me as comparable to Pink Floyd singing about the Money Train on Wish you were here. I think with the big projects its more important to limit your focus to your area more and try to not get distracted by the lumbering behemoth nature of the beast.
I've been involved in a few triple AAA's and theres definetly been more of a sense that a lot more of the equation is waaay out of my hands.
Rick: Yeah thats a good point m8. I was just getting good at Xbox specs as UC2 finished off, its always that way. But those days of being able to quickly knock out big changes in a few days are over now that I'm doing hi poly normal maps.
Eric: Yeah, balance can be everything , though I think thats more to do with the way an artist ends up later on than how they start out.
It's like balancing between homelife and officelife, now and then one of them dominates for a while but the attempt noble and worthwhile.
I've noted you are one of the most balanced of the professionals here in general with your opinions though.
Frank: get straight to point will you ?
Adam: Working external is such a paranoid business sometimes, when I did so in the past I likewise had only the final seal of approval as a yardstick for approval.
Great post by the way.
I feel the same way as a couple of you have touched on I think in that it's the process that really counts for me now. It sounds a little lame but the team camaraderie. The banter. I like the people side of it. That and 'making cool stuff' as Bobo put it. I'm getting older, and less interested in vidoegames to be honest. The game matters little to me now. Well, that isn't altogether true. I mean it matters up to a point, in that I dont wanna make a bloody golf game. But beyond that, meh. I've shipped so many games, and the 'it's out' moment is ALWAYS anti-climatic. That's not to say that I don't take great pride in my work. I do. But as Poop said, there are so many other interesting ways in which the project that you're working on can turn to shit beyond your personal control, that you just cant afford to get emotionally attached to it. It'll give you an ulcer. I dont work for a 'kudos factor' studio. ( you only need to take a look at my goodbye SouL thread for all the negative comments to see that ). I work for a studio that tries hard to make good games, but never spends more than eighteen months doing so, and never takes any risks with intellectual property. Or heck, never takes any risks period. So I realise that the projects I work on are going to be within that realm. Im not going to work on HL2 where I am, but you know what? That's totally fine. I have no interest in being on the same project for five years of my life. No way. I'm digressing perhaps.
So, I don't really have a stage in the cycle that I enjoy more than any other. The end *should* be good, since it's coming to a close but you're usually in too much of a hellish crunch mode to enjoy it.
I'm facing a bit of a dilemma actually. As time goes on and I push further into my thirties, time is more precious to me now, and as I touched on I don't want to work on projects that go on forever. I am now much more interested in the idea of many more short term projects. I actually wouldn't even really mind If I never made another video game ever again in my life. I'm happy to just 'make cool shit'. So, in that vein, I've been thinking a lot about starting something up on my own in the not too distant future. Quit EA perhaps, and contract back to them and make big wads of cash. But essentially that'd mean freelancing probably from home. Meaning nobody there to write slanderous things about me in obscure foreign languages on my whiteboard, nobody to go to lunch with and discuss the new recruit in HR with the really fit arse, nobody to say 'nah, that's rubbish mate. Start again ;-p' to about their work other than myself.
I just know I'll miss it
i think that's why it'll be important for me to pinpoint my personal watermark and build on it: it's quite something to have on your CV, and it'll be even better to carry on the role into a second project ...