Ah, hot takes on video games; everyone has one (or two, or three, or four…). So when esports broadcaster Parker Mackay asked people on Twitter what their most controversial video game opinion was, there was no shortage of the usual responses about how X is overrated and how X is actually a series for children and how Fortnite Isn’t Actually That Bad.
However, there were some genuinely interesting ‘controversial opinions’ from those who work in video game development. We reached out to these developers to expand on their tweets, and these were the responses we got.
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The Industry is Too Secretive
The video games industry is far too secretive. I’m not even talking about the games that are in production, or what each company’s secret sauce is, or anything like that; even more fundamentally, the process of how a game is made is too obscure to outsiders.
What work goes into preproduction? What does a producer do? What is an alpha (not an “alpha test,” which tends to be a marketing activation)? What does porting to a console actually entail? What is certification? How much does it actually cost to make a game as a small studio?
These are questions I have to frequently answer, with no real good reason as to why they aren’t widely known to begin with. Many gaming controversies ultimately stem from a lack of transparent information, which frequently, unfortunately, stems from companies being very worried that the audience won’t understand or accept the truth. It’s very frustrating to not be able to answer basic questions about why decisions get made in a way that satisfies players!
Syrenne McNulty is a freelance producer and console production consultant.
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Buying Character Skins in Games Where You Play in First-Person is Pretty Stupid
I love it when players are given freedom of choice. To allow a player to showcase their own creative selves through the provided tools in a game is something every developer should strive for. This could be through character upgrades, allowing players to express themselves with attack combos, or aesthetic options. That last one, though, always baffled me in first-person games where you can’t see your character (sure, you might get a glimpse of a visible hand or an arm or knee popping into the frame.)
Spending upwards of an hour to design your character’s face in a game is always fun, but if that same game encourages you to cover it up with a helmet moments later, what’s the point? Some players are fine with simply the knowledge of what their unseen character looks like. The thing that really irks me though, is when companies try to sell these character skins as DLC. Who is the skin really for at this point? For the player purchasing the skin? Or is it for the satisfaction of showing off that you have a bit more spending cash?
Bannon Rudis is a pixel artist and director over at Wayforward. Mainly his day-to-day work is to design the company’s games and to evaluate their upcoming project designs. He stirs up the sh*t at work but they ask him to so as to put out a better product in the end.
Making Games is Fun, Selling Them is Not
What pushed me towards game development as a kid, was the idea of creating the games I always wanted to play. In that sense, I did love making games, and I still do. But when you are working a commercial title, fulfilling your passion is rarely the main drive: revenue is.
Now that game development is not just a hobby, but a job for many of my colleagues, I can see a big difference; not just in what they create, but in how they have to create it.
So I do hate selling games, in the sense that it has fundamentally changed the dynamic of something that, for me, was purely driven by passion.
I really miss the time when I was creating games just for the sake of it. And perhaps, this is why I find platforms like itch.io- which hosts mostly small free games-so refreshing and innovative, compared to what you can find on Steam.
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Alan Zucconi is a Lecturer in Artificial Intelligence and Science Communicator, now leading the MA and MSc in Computer Games at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is also one of the developers of Pikuniku (published by Devolved).
AAA Games Innovate as Much as Indie Games
Generally speaking, most AAA games are remarkably larger than indie games. And so, it’s not even indie games where we tend to notice innovation – it’s smaller games. Many AAA games DO innovate frequently (looking at you Gears’ reload mechanic, Mirror’s Edge, every Mario iteration, etc). These innovations are just harder to notice because they serve to support the larger themes and pillars of a game.
So, what we are actually noticing is the focus smaller games create; and that is skewing our perception of innovation. In a similar way that empty space is often used to guide the viewer’s eye; an empty possibility space creates a focus that is achieved by the lack of other elements competing for our attention. What we call an innovative game, is more often than not, just a smaller game.
Joshua Boggs is the creator of Hideo Kojima’s 2014 GOTY Framed. Since then he has founded Studio Mayday, where he is directing an exciting unnannounced title. You can follow him for more game design insights on twitter @jboggsie .
Playing Games is Not The Same as Understanding How to Make Them
An encyclopedic knowledge of how other games work can be useful, but it is not the same as understanding how a new design interacts with a system, how much it might cost to verify, then implement an idea, or how well an idea might suit the team making your game.
Of course, everybody should be allowed to comment on any creative endeavor, but I don’t think many people appreciate how little “a good idea” has to do with the day-to-day of making a game.
An encyclopedic knowledge of how other games work can be useful when you’re making one, but it’s only one of so many things you need to take into consideration. It’s simplistic to take a feature you love from Game A and automatically assume it will be easy to paste it into Game B. It’s also important to understand how a number of designs interact within a system, how much it might cost to first verify, then put in place an idea, or simply how well a feature can be implemented by the team making the game.
Obviously everybody should be allowed to comment on any creative endeavor, but I don’t think many people appreciate how little “a good idea” (or even “that thing I saw in Call Of Duty”) has to do with the day-to-day of making a game. Good ideas are the easy bit, a good brainstorm will turn up dozens of them. Putting them on a pedestal is a great disservice to the sheer bloody effort it takes turning one of those post-its into pixels on a screen.
It’s better to assume that the devs have seen the game you played and considered the feature you love, and in a careful, conscious decision they discounted it. Perhaps begrudgingly, and perhaps in hindsight mistakenly, but because they believed it was for the good of the game.
Jim Unwin is a user experience designer who has worked on games like the LittleBigPlanet franchise and was part of the team shipping the Playstation 4 UI. He is currently the Ux person at Glowmade.
Every Game Franchise Should Have a Beat-em-Up Spin Off
My favorite genre in video games is beat-em-ups. I have so many fond memories of couch co-op with my friends and this is why we need more of them! The genre has died down over the last few decades but with the recent release of Streets of Rage 4 my passion has been rekindled. This game is proof that if done right, the genre is still viable. Therefore all game franchises should consider having their own beat-em-up spin-off. It worked for Mortal Kombat with Shaolin Monks, which I had the luck and honor to work on. Sadly my opinion will most likely fall on deaf ears.
Bruno Velazquez is Animation Director at Sony Santa Monica.
Game Literacy is Incredibly Important to Game Preservation
I’m super happy there are a number of amazing game preservation organizations, archiving things from the earliest games to pushing for legislation that ensures we can preserve today’s works in the future. On the other hand, there is the ephemeral and cultural side of games, the game literacy, that often gets lost. All media is a product of its place in time. The way you read words on a page or watch a movie doesn’t change often (though the method of delivery may).
With games, the platforms change multiple times a decade, controllers and input methods are unable to be replicated on future platforms, and standard game mechanics are seemingly invented and reinvented continuously. These are the big issues that games face when it comes to preservation since they all contribute to changing game literacy. I think, as game developers, we can do things like updating controls and add new play and accessibility options when re-releasing older titles to help new players.
As video game enthusiasts and players, we can help by documenting how we related to these games, the culture and the urban legends surrounding them, and why they are special and should be played. We can all take part and work with game archivist organizations by helping create a record of these artifacts so future generations can continue to enjoy games from all eras.
Jarryd Huntley is a game programmer and the co-author of Game Programming For Artists. He is also the founder of Polytundra: a game engineering and porting studio based in Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
What’s your hottest video game take? Let us know in the comments.
Additional reporting by Matt Kim.
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