Musings from a writer and a developer.

[Error404]

Linch, I was known as OneTrueShot on the Bioware forums, a name I'm sure you may have come across if you worked on any of the DLCs.

What you're talking about essentially happened, whilst not coding itself, many players DID reverse engineer as to find the direct causes of bugs and did heavy mathematics to study and assist in fixing bugs within the game code.

One example would be that of the Warp/Fire DoT bug that was tested extensively and then handed over to the development team to address as they saw fit.

Then there were players like myself that kept the community pumped with DLC details seeing as the marketing team for EA/Bioware were doing nothing for PR.

I know I alone did more for the popularity of that game than any of the developer team did in that of advertisement, with my posts gaining popularity on IGN, Kotaku, GamingBomb and other major gaming jouirnalistic sites.

So, to answer your question, I think the answer is a solid, resounding yes. The problem then occurs though in how does one screen those with enough talent to work on content? What sort of content do you promote and allow if they are working for free?

I plan on approaching EA for the release of ME4 to ask them if they'd like me to do some viral advertising for them, hopefully in exchange for a free copy of the collectors edition of the game and a volus cameo of my own.

Because god knows I did a lot for that game and kept the punters buying...All for free at that. Confessedly though, keeping the spark alive in gamers was ultimately reward enough for me, but getting something back for it? That'd just be icing on an unusually flavoured cake.

[Nyako]

Error404, this is the case with any game single player or not. People who are skilled enough can read the values and decipher the transmitted portions on MMOs and more just by using their skills and knowledge of programming. No one, can protect there games from this fully. It is all a matter of how much time and how devoted to hacking the game someone is as to their potential to gain an advantage.

[Grymms]

Problem with this is some of us, lets face work a dead end job barely making ends meet. Im not talking broke all the time but definitely not enough to either quit our jobs and go to school full time. Or work and go to school.

Lets face it some people best chance at getting to school is taking part time coarse load at a community college at best.

While I have looked into going to school and becoming a game designer, I can not afford the 40-70k tuition.

Now that being said. While it would be great to make my mark on the gaming community and make the game I truely want to make. The problem is I would be unable to even if I went to school, hard my own gaming company and made the game I truely wish to make. My game would be banned. Quickly to many hippies, to many people screaming games are ruining our children and to many senators that have the gaming community in their sights.

If I made the game that I wished. Lets put it this way. To much censorship in the world today. Can't offend no one, can't hurt anyone's feelings and you can't show anything remotely violent unless you have a cartoonish look about it or the ratings board will be after your head. MS and sony won't let ya release it on their systems.

What's the point. Let me go spend 40-70k on an education so I can work for a company that either spews the same recycled crap each year •cough call of duty cough• or work for a company that makes a shot product your afraid to put them on your resume. Only way its remotely worth it is finding 10-20 like minded people and releasing PC only game that you can self release. Then you have another daunting challenge of getting enough of a fan base support so you can make a better product next time. ...

You worked on Mass Effect and if your partly responsible for the ending...you deserve to rot in hell.

So im guessing if you did you still have connection why dont you phone someone and get the damn ball rolling on Mass Effect MMORPG.

[Nyako]

While I have looked into going to school and becoming a game designer, I can not afford the 40-70k tuition.

...

What's the point. Let me go spend 40-70k on an education so I can work for a company that either spews the same recycled crap each year •cough call of duty cough• or work for a company that makes a shot product your afraid to put them on your resume. Only way its remotely worth it is finding 10-20 like minded people and releasing PC only game that you can self release. Then you have another daunting challenge of getting enough of a fan base support so you can make a better product next time. ...

...

You can still go to college for game design or game development. There scholarships, loans, grants and more to get a bachelor's degree in those majors. However, landing the job after then can be pretty hard.

[Sanguinesun]

Some things I want to speak to:

Going to school for game design- dont do it in the US unless it is a small cheap program that focuses on you not just learning skills to design and program, but 1000x importantly lets you build a portfolio of activity that you can present to a game developer. MANY programs these days at schools are pure shyster level money grabs that focus on everything else except applied skills in the field and you graduate no better off than a liberal arts major. If you cant get such in the US, consider going outside the US to countries with programs catered specifically to your needs.

But keep in mind, it isnt an industry built on career security.

Its a volatile atmosphere that requires constant upgrading of your skills and abilities and one can be dumped at a moments notice(or 60 days in the case of devs for Defiance).

Consider instead alternative options that are more flexible instead of direct game design only too(like mobile app coding etc but again volatile stuff).

Developers and the companies they work for- Most of the malarky put out publically on such is just that: malarky. Folks get into developing a game for many reasons, yes, including the doe-eyed thinking that they are creating a legacy and ensuring their immortality and love for a game/IP.

The reality is that often those folks are told what to do and when to do it and spend the rest of their time seeking for ways to relieve stress. Additionally they work in a bit of an epistemic bubble where there is a disparity between what they think works and makes gamers happy and that of what makes their boss/company happy. As well in some developers' minds, there is a prevalent attitude of looking down on gamers for many reasons: anger on the forums, means to a paycheck, player gimme/entitlement, gamers harshly pointing out your mistakes and tons more.

There are countless stories, blogs, articles etc on all this from current and ex game developers who remain anon and dont.

Recently Cloud Imperium Games, who are making Star Citizen had a 24 hour live stream where you saw all manner of things that were semi behind the scenes(you can go see some of it on their twitch channel). Their boss(Chris Roberts) was in their LA offices trying to essentially run a fund raising and design reveal show while his workers in Austin across 5-6 channels were drinking/getting drunk, letting fans who showed up run their stream at times, hookah smoking, crotch grabbing right in the camera, putting one of the community manager's faces on a blow up pron doll, etc. It was basically a frat party going on there.

And did it make a bit of impactual difference that they were all over the place and blowing off their boss? Not really, fans watching the stream almost literally threw money at said screen and "pledged"(read that as shopped) over half a million bucks. At one point they put limited edition space ships(remember this game still isnt made yet) up to buy for $1250 bucks a pop... 100+ of them and sold them out in around 15 minutes(2 sales... one was botched and done too early at 9 min and then the other at 6 at the correct time).

No one doubts they'll hit their 20+ million dollar goal (they're at almost 13million now and the largest crowd funded game from kickstarter). Basically there's a Steve Jobs cult of personality movement going on both in house there and with their fans over Chris Roberts.

When you got people spending money like this(to the point they've a concierge service for 1k or higher backers), why give a rats arse otherwise to things? They're claiming they make their own rules for the game but watching the stream closely its all Chris' decisions... ie no different than any other game company's top down tone.

Defiance's issues arent in code bugs or really even necessarily needing folks to code for them(though they are on a much smaller crew now). During alpha -many- issues then still exist now. Its about decisions about design implementation and triage priority to the problems.

Im pretty sure the devs here, were they given the ability to transparently speak their mind, would say that they had wished to have many more months to deliver the game as they intended. But they didnt/dont have that choice. That's why we're dealing with trickling down in change now(and should trickle less now that the 60 day layoff noticed folks have left the building I believe). Its not always about the issues that we see its also about what they think are or are not the issues/working as intended.

So all this business of calling for the community of gamers to fix the problems is naive. That sort of thing only meaningfully works when you've a Troika's Bloodlines game situation.

[Grymms]

You can still go to college for game design or game development. There scholarships, loans, grants and more to get a bachelor's degree in those majors. However, landing the job after then can be pretty hard.

scholarships are like winning the lotto you have to get lucky with those.
No such grants for game design.
Loans well if you dont have great credit your shot on those.

So basicly if your not a 18yr old kid who's parents will support you through school dont bother. If your like the rest of us keep working doing what ya can, take some classes while you work and hopefully you'll be able to transfer to real college and get a degree. Then again once you put on your resume that your schooling came from a community college you might as well be self taught with a portfolio of self made small scale games to show of your ability. You would have a better chance of actually landing a job in the gaming industry.

With studios shutting down and people being laid off left and right and a huge pool of employees to draw from your chances of landing a job in the industry are slim to none.

Better off making friends with those in the gaming community and trying to make the next counter strike, war z etc (game mods that become really popular, make enough money from that and recognition to get your foot in the door someplace.

Gaming companies dont care about your school so much as they care about your ability. Come with a resume of game actually made instead of I have a degree. Degree is nice but gaming companies want what have you made.

[Dooks]

well there's 4 minutes of my life I will never get back

[Nyako]

One, the person that said the part about the portfolio, that is true in all forms of software development and web design/development as well. It is doubly important in graphic design and simulation design. You can create nice web portfolios too. Even your own websites where you make them be a host for your portfolio.

I'll add this, which is something I regret now that I agreed to, but I can still port the code and design to another game at any point as I still have those. I created game content items as a volunteer for a company that has since even changed their own systems to not need those solutions. However, at the time of doing the ones that I allowed them to use, I had to share the code in its entirety. Nothing new there. The thing is that I didn't put my own license on the code or even get in writing that I can return to them at a later date to cash in on favors and stuff that I basically did for them. Stupid me, but hay it was volunteering and it gave me some experience.

Check out this book: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/crea...=9781593572549 which can help with the digital portfolio.

[Sanguinesun]

One, the person that said the part about the portfolio, that is true in all forms of software development and web design/development as well. It is doubly important in graphic design and simulation design. You can create nice web portfolios too. Even your own websites where you make them be a host for your portfolio.

I'll add this, which is something I regret now that I agreed to, but I can still port the code and design to another game at any point as I still have those. I created game content items as a volunteer for a company that has since even changed their own systems to not need those solutions. However, at the time of doing the ones that I allowed them to use, I had to share the code in its entirety. Nothing new there. The thing is that I didn't put my own license on the code or even get in writing that I can return to them at a later date to cash in on favors and stuff that I basically did for them. Stupid me, but hay it was volunteering and it gave me some experience.

Check out this book: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/crea...=9781593572549 which can help with the digital portfolio.

There is not a small number of instances of similar exploitation that goes on like that, playing on the eagerness and naive nature of folks new or young into the business. Had you turned it down, they would have just found someone else to do the same though; but as you said it is a learning/life experience.

[Nyako]

scholarships are like winning the lotto you have to get lucky with those.
No such grants for game design.
Loans well if you dont have great credit your shot on those.

So basicly if your not a 18yr old kid who's parents will support you through school dont bother. If your like the rest of us keep working doing what ya can, take some classes while you work and hopefully you'll be able to transfer to real college and get a degree. Then again once you put on your resume that your schooling came from a community college you might as well be self taught with a portfolio of self made small scale games to show of your ability. You would have a better chance of actually landing a job in the gaming industry.

With studios shutting down and people being laid off left and right and a huge pool of employees to draw from your chances of landing a job in the industry are slim to none.

Better off making friends with those in the gaming community and trying to make the next counter strike, war z etc (game mods that become really popular, make enough money from that and recognition to get your foot in the door someplace.

Gaming companies dont care about your school so much as they care about your ability. Come with a resume of game actually made instead of I have a degree. Degree is nice but gaming companies want what have you made.

Grants do come for Game Design. Some places have it so that Game Development is classified under Computer Science. Those places, you can get a computer science grant if they are among the schools that allow it. Also, you can look into scholarships from companies too that will likely help as well. I have heard of some companies willing to hire on new people and put them through school/college with the expressed aspect that after they finish that one degree program they will work for them for however long they attended the college + some time added. I haven't found these types of companies yet, so they may be hard to find. But nothing is impossible.