20

State of the Game #245: The Wide World of Game Development

This week I have been reminded time and time again just how many skill sets are required to truly make a game.

I made this realization as I bounced from writing, straight to image editing, then off to my 3d program for some rigging and animation. Then, into Unity for a bit of programming, then to excel to run some numbers to check some stats and figure out some design choices. This was all in less than 3 hours!

But, more so, nobody actually cares. I don’t mean this in a negative way, it’s just that the expected quality bar is not lowered at all just because one person is doing all the tasks.

I learned this lesson first hand yesterday morning, when I sent out the first of a new series to our newsletter subscribers and the first response I got was correcting my grammar and some other minor mistakes (Sorry I wish I could fix the mistakes after the email was sent!). But, I just know that I will do better next time!

I suppose you could say I am just a bit fascinated by it all. I remember the days of game development where a team of 10 was massive and nearly unheard of. Today, most games are made by teams of hundreds, with each asset being touched by no less than 15 different people. It’s possible to work on one section of a game and not have ANY knowledge of other aspects of a game. I am really humbled by how big the industry has gotten and just all the opportunity that is out there today.

I am very excited for what feels like the second coming of the PC gaming era, as consoles become low power PC’s and we start to come back together on what is possible with games.

I suppose I am just reflecting a bit and allowing myself to be inspired by the industry that I love and has treated me well. Or, maybe I am just trying to procrastinate doing rigging and animation because it’s been so long that I am feeling rusty and frustrated. I guess the world will never know 🙂

What is the coolest thing about the gaming industry you are looking forward to or blows your mind?

Comments 20

  1. Coolest thing is how little I have to listen to people talk about AAA games anymore. Once in a while a fuckin’ gem comes along like The Witcher 3, but otherwise it’s all ass and nobody I’m exposed to is excited about it. I doubt the market would see another video game industry crash and spark innovation again, but the AAA titles are making way for projects of love and craftsmanship like MAV.

    Blows my mind? The fact that if you give someone a locked box you can sell them the key. THERE COULD BE ANYTHING IN THE BOX, EVEN A USELESS ITEM, IT COULD BE REALLY COOL BUT YOU’LL NEVER KNOW UNLESS YOU PAY ME TWO DOLLARS RIGHT NOW TO FIND OUT.

    1. Post
      Author

  2. I wish I had received an E-Mail…for some reason even though I had signed up I did not get that E-mail… Miss types and bad grammar in an age of auto correct is a nice sign of humanity. Down with Skynet.

    1. ok…checking on my e-mail I did indeed get that e-mail….crisis averted…time to move on…please drive through 🙂

      1. Post
        Author

  3. im looking forward to all the great fps’s coming out that are sadly all owned by bethesda now. i dont know man, im with tewdrig, i stopped giving a shit about most new games. most of my time i spent playing old games i havent touched yet, and reinstalling ones i have that have gotten mods to update them to work on new systems. recently have reinstalled battle for middle earth 2, and have been playing alot of starsiege. games used to be filled with heart, now theyre all just trying to be either shiny, quirky, or a homage to something better, infact thats why i play your game, while it did start off as a homage to something else, you quickly shaped it into your own thing, and its filled with alot of heart and bad balancing.

    just like the good old days

      2. Post
        Author
    2. Post
      Author

      Thanks! Is the Golden Age of gaming already passed? Who knows really. Maybe they just changed what ‘it’ was and we were to busy getting old to notice.

    1. Post
      Author

  5. I love how accessible and inexpensive games are nowadays – back in the 90’s if you bought a game and it was bad – you had to sit there with it for a while – games where still 59.99 back then – now I can buy amazing games for under $20 on my couch. The fact that the retail price of game has gone down drastically (in the case of indies) and stayed constant (in the case of triple A titles) is remarkable – even though inflation and the development cost of games has increased exponentially – for both indies and AAA.

    Really – the thing that blows me away – is I still don’t have time to bitch about all the bad. There’s so much good in the games world that I really have no time for complaints – there’s just too much to enjoy.

    Also – MAV needs to be on the Switch! How cool would that be?!

    1. Post
      Author

      I like your attitude! It really is amazing what games have become.

      I am not sure about the switch. How is it? Pretty impressive?

  6. It is very impressive – I feel like MAV would do well on it. And from what I understand, Nintendo is making it much easier to get games on this platform than anything they’ve done in the past. Worth looking into!

    1. Post
      Author

  7. Keep up the good work!
    The gaming industry is moving towards what it used to be, and that’s my favorite part about it. As a student in game art and design I can say that it’s definitely not a simple task to do all of this on your own anymore, with today’s quality standards.
    Titles like Doom (2016) are bringing back that “We’re gonna do it because it’ll be fun.” Attitude within the gaming industry, and that’s what we’ve been missing during the dark ages… of 2010 to 2016.

    Btw if you ever need an environment or 3D artist, hit me up 😀

    1. Post
      Author

Leave a Reply