Excellent talk. I remember my design professor said employers and clients will look for three major qualities: 1. Do you have the skills/talents? 2. Are you dependable/do you have integrity? 3. Are you nice/do people like working with you? The first quality is important of course, but many employers are willing to go with someone with a little less talent but who is nice and dependable, than have to deal with a very talented, untrustworthy and primadonna jerk.
@@TheCivildecay Ha ha! It definitely happens! But as he said in the video, it's just part of the industry. You gain the experience, and take that experience with you to the next endeavor.
As someone in the industry for 20 years, this statement is true. Primadonnas, jerks, and untrustworthy people are cancer to an organization - talented or not. They are so bad because they destroy the productivity of others around them - so unless they can do the work of 5 other people, they don't even break even given the damage they do. The only solution is to isolate them to where they can't do damage and deliver, or get rid of them. There are MORE people than jobs in game development these days - so companies can be as selective as they like. It's possible to hire someone just as talented as you, and they're nicer. And to TheCivilDecay's point, you're ALL going to get let go every 4 years because the industry works that way. But your reputation from those 4 years will follow you. Toxic people's reputation follows them - and they soon find themselves unhireable.
@@mattropolis99 Have you encountered a skilled or talented person who -- not for personality reasons -- can't be around people, yet is highly productive? Curious about others with autism, and if "work in solitude" is common but not spoken of. In this case, I'm considering autism to mean neurological / cognitive handicaps rather than the Steve Jobs-esque asperger's stereotype.
One of the best talks I've spent time on. No one would tell you these things. It takes character in a person to find answers. Take if from a game dev, he is spot on.
There's something in this talk, I don't know if it's the sincerity Richard inspires, his texan cowboy voice, or both, but it all feels like a piece of advice given by a father
Wow. Great talk. A real eye opener. This gentleman clearly walks the walk and would be a great person to learn from. This one is going on the save list. Thanks!
Good talk. One of the reasons I didn't pursue the game/film industry as my full-time job. I completely agree and had experienced these things too. My Peers had worked in big companies, worked for a couple of years but still got disposed of because their contract ended. It's sad because I love games/films but most of the jobs don't keep you forever.
I'm not sure why one would even want that. If you want to make games, you can always start out like the speaker himself did: join a group of indies or set up your own small studio (that's the journey I've recently embarked on, with a tiny group of friends). You can even do that on the side, at first. You'll need to have a broader set of skills though, if you decide to go that route and it almost certainly won't feel like a "job" per se. Focus less on the "jobs" and more on the craft. That's how you'll reach mastery 😉
@@maloxi1472It's a question of stability vs profit. If you don't mind not making big money and just want to avoid the stress of making games I can understand how someone wouldn't want to risk their salary by being independent.
One thing I think ought to be clarified is that having an ego versus a clear vision are two different things. Having a clear vision of the final product and hopefully with that seeing the steps along the path to getting there (but being flexible) is totally different than letting your pride blind you from changing course or have your ego telling you to brute force your way through everything.
And there are rarely those magical cases where the programmers and designers join together to create something exceptional, like the physics system in Half life 2, destruction and in the battlefield series (also the 64 player evolution back in 2002) etc.
that's all tech that is later utilized by design. there's no designer in his world who can plan or account for a technology, that's not how design works.
I’d like to know how the industry affects those who have families at home, spouses, children, and if the industry has impacted that part of their lives both positively and negatively.
I'd love to hear a talk about how lives can be affected with relocating and relocation assistance as well as how extended crunches affect people at home with other responsibilities. It might be too personal for GDC but I would be Interested to hear stories on that topic
There are a few articles on Gamasutra talking about this. From a couple that I've read, I remember one where the wife of one of the employees wrote to the company about how negatively it was affecting her husband and their home life, and another was a group of wives banded together about the terrible working conditions of their husbands. They're both not really fun reads when you see realize that this is how those major companies operate across the board.
@@TheCivildecay the standard practice is to lay them all off after a long crunch and a successful product launch, with the excuse that the sales have not been sufficient and that the company needs to save resources. the reality is much more complicated however. many of the companies are in fact, making profit by abusing labor laws and the entertainment part is, you know, secondary. on the other hand, many of the workers in this industry, are in fact, below average, unwilling to learn, egocentric, dishonest, lacking passion, and even lacking basic working culture, such as being incapable of proper communication or behaving irresponsibly. many a company has a bit of everything on all sides, so it's really hard to tell who to blame. maybe it's the fat f#$^ who's running it all, eats lobsters and never plays any games? man, the gaming industry is such a shit, I wish many of these people would return to farming and retail, executives included. middle managers are especially pretending to be worthy of their titles and salaries, this speaker talks of programmers like they're usually above everyone, and glorifies designers as if they are somehow better. you know every coin has two sides, there is no game at all without a programmer, you can throw dice and beans all day if you want, so both are equally important. but yes, programmers are typically weird people, I've seen and been in some tech-oriented setups, and the condescending/annoying attitude you get in such places is literal cancer, to put it shortly, however that's relative rare, much more frequently the managers are the kings, and that's actually the most horrible thing ever. at least those programmers have some background, must DO something and learn something. managers, they just switch companies after years of horrendous leadership and emulating to know how to lead and organize a project. in the end it's the production who is always blamed or laid off, always unjustly. for a developer, half of the stress comes from the actual problems/demands in their line of work, and the other half comes from the management, aka poor scheduling and horrendous feedback loops. for the manager, the entirety of the stress comes from the few honest developers, who must be politically removed or suppressed, or else he/she can't properly develop the network of lies and miscommunication. nobody actually cares about the product, you see, except maybe the little people who will get fired sooner than later. we have reached tens of thousands released games per year, while only a dozen are worth mentioning, remembering, purchasing. A DOZEN. that's how many games are released in a single DAY on the average (Steam fact for February 2022). something's very wrong for quite some time, I think this "industry" is used and abused to create a weird illusion of prosperity and widespread quasi-intellectual white-collar professionalism, while in reality it's a means of sorting out a global labor crisis and a means of creating further inequality while massively laundering money and evading taxes. it's a complete wild west.
Listening to this a few weeks from Blizzcon and just after that Hearthstone tournament where that Hong Konger player (Bliztchung) spoke in an interview is even better.
I was laughing at it too because the guy sounded like a bad Text To Speech voice, but then I felt bad because on second thoughts he sounds like he may have a disability. In any case, good question.
@@AnaCristina-dv6qu Here are some books for soft skills that I recommend. How to win friends and influence people - Dale Carnegie . and 7 habits of highly effective people stephen r. covey . How to talk to anyone - Leil Lowndes.
I'm a little disappointed that he seems to just want to put designers on top of everyone else. You can slice it to put whoever you want on top. Designers make the game fun so that puts them on top. Okay fine, the game doesn't exist without programmers so that puts them on top. Great, artists make people actually WANT to play the game so that puts them on top. Just shuffling the hierarchy doesn't really add much of anything.
Totally true. All branches of game devs are a valuable part of the final product (even good producers, community management, and marketing team). They should all be valued by companies and each other as equally respected parts of the whole. The unspoken but prevalent placement of game devs in tiers based on their professions fuels a lot of the rivalries, egos, and resentments between them that often makes game company culture so toxic.
He's talking about their value from how easy it is to hire or fire them based on their position. You can't fire developers that are good because it's supposedly complete rng if you'll ever find another good one without paying a lot more (for a "bigger named" employee) than you did for the last one. I have to agree but that doesn't mean treating your employees with that intentionality wouldn't be harmful to your product, environment and people.
From business standpoint, art work and animation can be easily outsourced to part-time freelance artists, which only leaves designers and programmers as majority of studio employees, and as he told in the conference because its easier to quantify programmers work, programmers get more recognition.
Companies culture = make an unfair deal with you because if you don't accept you have to make an even more unfair deal elsewhere. This is a cynical summary, but I don't think there's such a thing as "culture" in companies, especially in video games where it's reputed that ultra-aggressive marketing and human resources feed on employees' passions to satisfy their "grown spoiled child" lusts. After some years as a developer in other industries, I feel it's just a way to set rules in between nice dreamy texts that will enlighten the shackles tied to your hands so that you find them beautiful in a way and have a reason to let them be. It's not awful because it lets you live and have comfort but it's insidious and destructive over the years. That said, nice video explaining skills that are useful for anyone, and for any situation actually. Richard Vogel seems very philosophical, analytic and peaceful, kudos to him and anyone that uses his/her brain this way.
You don't gain soft skills just by reading books. Maybe you notice a problem, something didn't go your way in a negotiation so you read about negotiation tactics. Then you have to practice negotiation tactics on a real human. Reading all the soft skills books will get you nowhere without human practice.
When it comes done to some sort of resource allocation (e.g. money, time, attention, etc.) a hierarchy will need to be established to adequately distribute that resource for success.@@thepurplepanda4
His point is quite simple, if the introduction of unions arise then a lot of jobs will become contracted based. Right now a lot of gaming jobs are permanent permissions until either you leave, are fired, or laid off. But you are classed as an "employee" so you get perks. Start pushing Unions and suddenly these companies question if they really need to hire you full time and deal with all that... Maybe they can just get a contractor, who doesn't automatically join a union and is solo/independant. A lot of unions don't work with contractors, at least not in my country. For situations where unions could help it could be done by other means (eg Riot Games), and in some places where unions exist, they don't really help (eg public transport). So his point comes down to, do we introduce unions and make studios re-think their hiring process? Maybe publishers don't have studios but just hire specific groups of people, like the way Hollywood works now.
@@vekien Why do you think a union won't make life better also for contractors? Also, the situation is already like this, unionizing would make the workers have more voice
@@vekien his point is also wrong. I work in the entertainment industry and im part of a union. Why didnt i lost my job to a contractor? Because no contractor is allowed to do my job thx to the union.
@@vekien Film is a good analogue, but your and the OP conclusions are incorrect. Hollywood is very unionized, but how that works is different for above-the-line (directors, writers, big-name actors) vs below-the-line (electricians, designers, stunt performers, etc). The kinds of people whose names you see on posters are all contracted individually, and their union membership is mostly a formality, but was important when they were starting out. The rest are contracted per-project, yes, but that could still mean 2 years' worth of work (longer, in TV) with union-mandated rules about wages, hours, working conditions, and potential royalties. Games are more like the old Hollywood studio system from before the big unions formed. Everyone, including the star actors/creatives, basically got whatever basic salary the studio mandated, with no say on how they were treated, what films they worked on, or what, if anything, they received in terms of royalties after release. Transforming that system into something more egalitarian brought us some of the best decades in American film - although arguably nowadays it's heading back into a setup where the studio holds all the cards, since movies in general are in a tight financial situation.
@@etwontphonehome2800 Yeah, I liked almost everything in his talk except for that dig at unions. He's from Texas (and California, post-Reagan), and they are pretty staunchly anti-union there. Here in New York the entertainment industry & unions are married tightly, from film/TV to theater & books.
Take your skills elsewhere. There is plenty of demand for software development, even game-specific development, outside of the realm of entertainment. Education, military, aerospace, marketing, even architecture & urban planning - there is good work out there if you are adaptable and open-minded about how to apply your skills.
Agreed. It might be more acceptable for many people when you start your career but once you want to settle down and you find what you're good at, I would change to a more stable industry. Everyone needs to find their own sweet-spot between work and play. Life is to be enjoyed and not stressed over non-stop. Sooner or later the industry/employees will see that the high turnover ends up harming the business and things will shift. Whether that's a new design process, unionization, laws, technology, whatever. I think that's also what he was inferring when he mentioned that in 10 years things will be different.
True, I find it kinda shocking to see the comment section filled with (aspiring) gamedevs that don't see any problem with they way he portrays the industry.
The game industry sounds like a godawful place to work... I don't understand why people accept to work in this outdated work-culture (well probably out of fear of not getting hired)
It is harder to be a programmer. More so a good programmer. And without programmers there is no game. And if the programmer cannot handle de tech needed for a design in the target platform, it cannot be done. That is why they are on top.
if we are talking about indie games they barely need any programming, besides that there are tutorials available for majority of gameplay systems on the youtube/google, if we are talking about AAA then you are probably right, but then again when was the last time you actually played a "good" 10/10 or even 9/10 AAA game ? so I am really confused here, surely ubisoft or EA has access to top programmers, so why are their games consistently crap ?
@@tezwoacz Trust me. Saying indie games barely need any programming is not the truth. I am a senior game programmer and indie dev as well. About your question. Well, they probably abuse top programmers with a lot of work and time constraints that don't allow for enough QA tests and/or fixing all bugs.
@@godmode3611 Maby I just dont get it, but I really dont see any technically complex indie games out there (maby I just dont look hard enough?), I cant believe that working on and indie game vs AAA game has no difference in the programming challenges.
@@tezwoacz There are differences, sure, but Indie developers tackle a lot of issues on their own. While AAA games use specialists for every part of the game. Are you a game programmer?
Unions are a terrible thing for everyone in the industry, this is why when the workforce needs something done they should use unionising as a threat, not something you actually want to do. "Give us better work hours or else we'll form a union" instead of "We will form a union to demand better work hours".
This guy consider getting laid off as a rite of passage, complain about dealing with abusive bosses yet he have no clues how a union could help him. Interesting how his personal anti-union bias is clouding his reflections
I think he basically said there were trade offs. It's not all positives. I worked in a job where there was a union, and promotions were mostly seniority based- not based on merit, so the people in positions of authority were sometimes the most inept people for the job. For this guy's answer, sounds like he was mostly drawing on comparisons to the film industry- which was within his own realm of experience.
@@koalabrownie your argument is somewhat anecdotal so ill answer with one: ive worked in private corporations thats didnt had a union and promotion was given to family members or friends of ppl in charges. The lack of union wont make the workplace a defacto meritocracy and not all union are seniority based
@@etwontphonehome2800 I'll follow up with more anecdotes then, unions are bullying scum in the workplace. I'm in the games industry and glad they aren't recognised. If people dont like the company then leave. This methodology is working. Check out GlassDoors.com
@@aloluk Easier said than done for most people. There is often a few options depending on what you do and where you live, but if most are all the same then what is your option? Uproot and move to who knows where to get a decent job? That is exactly what a lot of younger developer do, but some of the most valuable people in the industry are those with experience and it's not just that easy to pack up and move you + spouse + kids to a new part of the country potentially away from all friends or a support structure. After a point it really comes down to if it's worth it to even work in the games industry when you could work a good job that is better not involved with games and do games as a side project without the hassle of having to move far away or destroy your life.
@@definitelynotnick2454 If the life advice includes anti-union propaganda, I'm not interested. Yes. Have you seen what's been going on at AAA studios lately? No, fuck that shit. Unionize the lot of them!
@@SamTheEnglishTeacher You clearly enjoy the boot. Do you sprinkle some salt on it before you jam it down your throat or not? "Sir, I have a complain..." Vs. "Sir, we will go on strike if things don't change" I know the answer to the first one is "If you're not happy here, we can always find someone else. A lot of people are waiting in line for your job", the second one have a much greater chance of success. That is, if you don't like the boot.
I totally disagree programmer is above and beyond the importance of a designer. Nobody plays a shitty looking game no matter how fancy the mechanics are. there are tons of beautiful walking sim hits, it's all about the story and visuals, not about how clean your code looks and how complicated your gameplay has.
Excellent talk. I remember my design professor said employers and clients will look for three major qualities:
1. Do you have the skills/talents?
2. Are you dependable/do you have integrity?
3. Are you nice/do people like working with you?
The first quality is important of course, but many employers are willing to go with someone with a little less talent but who is nice and dependable, than have to deal with a very talented, untrustworthy and primadonna jerk.
Only to let them go 4 years later and hire someone fresh out of school...
@@TheCivildecay Ha ha! It definitely happens! But as he said in the video, it's just part of the industry. You gain the experience, and take that experience with you to the next endeavor.
As someone in the industry for 20 years, this statement is true. Primadonnas, jerks, and untrustworthy people are cancer to an organization - talented or not. They are so bad because they destroy the productivity of others around them - so unless they can do the work of 5 other people, they don't even break even given the damage they do. The only solution is to isolate them to where they can't do damage and deliver, or get rid of them.
There are MORE people than jobs in game development these days - so companies can be as selective as they like. It's possible to hire someone just as talented as you, and they're nicer.
And to TheCivilDecay's point, you're ALL going to get let go every 4 years because the industry works that way. But your reputation from those 4 years will follow you. Toxic people's reputation follows them - and they soon find themselves unhireable.
@@mattropolis99 Have you encountered a skilled or talented person who -- not for personality reasons -- can't be around people, yet is highly productive?
Curious about others with autism, and if "work in solitude" is common but not spoken of. In this case, I'm considering autism to mean neurological / cognitive handicaps rather than the Steve Jobs-esque asperger's stereotype.
Man this is awesome! This is a life survival guide not strictly a game developer guide! Awesome speech!
exactly my thought as well.
@Mikey Totally right. Good call
One of the best talks I've spent time on.
No one would tell you these things. It takes character in a person to find answers.
Take if from a game dev, he is spot on.
20:51 "Asking questions vs statements" is a very good advice in conversation with people who have a very strong opinion.... 👍
Anecdotally, as a programmer, I've never been able to win an argument with a game designer unless we were talking feasibility.
I know it's been a while, but what kind of arguments were those?
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There's something in this talk, I don't know if it's the sincerity Richard inspires, his texan cowboy voice, or both, but it all feels like a piece of advice given by a father
Wow. Great talk. A real eye opener. This gentleman clearly walks the walk and would be a great person to learn from. This one is going on the save list. Thanks!
Good talk. One of the reasons I didn't pursue the game/film industry as my full-time job. I completely agree and had experienced these things too. My Peers had worked in big companies, worked for a couple of years but still got disposed of because their contract ended. It's sad because I love games/films but most of the jobs don't keep you forever.
I'm not sure why one would even want that. If you want to make games, you can always start out like the speaker himself did: join a group of indies or set up your own small studio (that's the journey I've recently embarked on, with a tiny group of friends). You can even do that on the side, at first. You'll need to have a broader set of skills though, if you decide to go that route and it almost certainly won't feel like a "job" per se.
Focus less on the "jobs" and more on the craft. That's how you'll reach mastery 😉
@@maloxi1472It's a question of stability vs profit. If you don't mind not making big money and just want to avoid the stress of making games I can understand how someone wouldn't want to risk their salary by being independent.
It's amaizing how a talk about common sense can be so valuable these days.
my First GDC and it was good ! thank you for bringing these talks to us!
Probably the best talk I've ever seen, thank you very much, from an aspiring Game Designer
This is an amazing talk: I wholeheartedly agree with his message on ego - it helps nobody.
One thing I think ought to be clarified is that having an ego versus a clear vision are two different things.
Having a clear vision of the final product and hopefully with that seeing the steps along the path to getting there (but being flexible) is totally different than letting your pride blind you from changing course or have your ego telling you to brute force your way through everything.
Just forget yourself
One of the best talks I've seen in a while.
And there are rarely those magical cases where the programmers and designers join together to create something exceptional, like the physics system in Half life 2, destruction and in the battlefield series (also the 64 player evolution back in 2002) etc.
that's all tech that is later utilized by design. there's no designer in his world who can plan or account for a technology, that's not how design works.
This isn't "game industry" advice, this is LIFE advice. The average employable age person in every walk of life is missing these skills right now.
This guy killed it.
Really wanna know the books he's going to recommend!!!
I’d like to know how the industry affects those who have families at home, spouses, children, and if the industry has impacted that part of their lives both positively and negatively.
I'd love to hear a talk about how lives can be affected with relocating and relocation assistance as well as how extended crunches affect people at home with other responsibilities.
It might be too personal for GDC but I would be Interested to hear stories on that topic
There are a few articles on Gamasutra talking about this. From a couple that I've read, I remember one where the wife of one of the employees wrote to the company about how negatively it was affecting her husband and their home life, and another was a group of wives banded together about the terrible working conditions of their husbands. They're both not really fun reads when you see realize that this is how those major companies operate across the board.
The industry is notorious for attracting young aspiring devs and burning them up and spitting them out when they want a normal life/work balance
@@TheCivildecay the standard practice is to lay them all off after a long crunch and a successful product launch, with the excuse that the sales have not been sufficient and that the company needs to save resources.
the reality is much more complicated however. many of the companies are in fact, making profit by abusing labor laws and the entertainment part is, you know, secondary.
on the other hand, many of the workers in this industry, are in fact, below average, unwilling to learn, egocentric, dishonest, lacking passion, and even lacking basic working culture, such as being incapable of proper communication or behaving irresponsibly. many a company has a bit of everything on all sides, so it's really hard to tell who to blame. maybe it's the fat f#$^ who's running it all, eats lobsters and never plays any games?
man, the gaming industry is such a shit, I wish many of these people would return to farming and retail, executives included. middle managers are especially pretending to be worthy of their titles and salaries, this speaker talks of programmers like they're usually above everyone, and glorifies designers as if they are somehow better.
you know every coin has two sides, there is no game at all without a programmer, you can throw dice and beans all day if you want, so both are equally important. but yes, programmers are typically weird people, I've seen and been in some tech-oriented setups, and the condescending/annoying attitude you get in such places is literal cancer, to put it shortly, however that's relative rare, much more frequently the managers are the kings, and that's actually the most horrible thing ever. at least those programmers have some background, must DO something and learn something.
managers, they just switch companies after years of horrendous leadership and emulating to know how to lead and organize a project. in the end it's the production who is always blamed or laid off, always unjustly. for a developer, half of the stress comes from the actual problems/demands in their line of work, and the other half comes from the management, aka poor scheduling and horrendous feedback loops. for the manager, the entirety of the stress comes from the few honest developers, who must be politically removed or suppressed, or else he/she can't properly develop the network of lies and miscommunication.
nobody actually cares about the product, you see, except maybe the little people who will get fired sooner than later. we have reached tens of thousands released games per year, while only a dozen are worth mentioning, remembering, purchasing. A DOZEN. that's how many games are released in a single DAY on the average (Steam fact for February 2022). something's very wrong for quite some time, I think this "industry" is used and abused to create a weird illusion of prosperity and widespread quasi-intellectual white-collar professionalism, while in reality it's a means of sorting out a global labor crisis and a means of creating further inequality while massively laundering money and evading taxes. it's a complete wild west.
GDC might be crazy commercialized, but have pretty good talks.
DEFCON talks are better.
wow thanks for your words. just started deving but this lecture really helpful to all life aspects
I know I need a pause sometimes, but my family won't let me go, needing me every minute. Sometimes it's really impossible to get ideal.
"A culture where Design is really appreciated and respected **Blizzard**, that's where you get good games!"
hehehe
It was for decades, soon enough blizzard will just become an appendage of activision to churn out more crap.
Listening to this a few weeks from Blizzcon and just after that Hearthstone tournament where that Hong Konger player (Bliztchung) spoke in an interview is even better.
"Old-Blizzard-Wan... now that's a name I've not heard in a long time... a long long time."
That last question killed me.
I was laughing at it too because the guy sounded like a bad Text To Speech voice, but then I felt bad because on second thoughts he sounds like he may have a disability. In any case, good question.
Dicipline > Motivation
Damn this was a great talk.
Loved this! This advice applies to all career paths.
First 2 mins of talk, yep i was laid off after 3 years. Company went bust.
Great talk
Did he just reccomend books on soft skills?
We never shall know the books' names
What a shame, I really want to know :c
@@AnaCristina-dv6qu Here are some books for soft skills that I recommend. How to win friends and influence people - Dale Carnegie . and 7 habits of highly effective people stephen r. covey . How to talk to anyone - Leil Lowndes.
Beyond Game Design thank you so much!
What's QA
I'm a little disappointed that he seems to just want to put designers on top of everyone else.
You can slice it to put whoever you want on top.
Designers make the game fun so that puts them on top.
Okay fine, the game doesn't exist without programmers so that puts them on top.
Great, artists make people actually WANT to play the game so that puts them on top.
Just shuffling the hierarchy doesn't really add much of anything.
Totally true. All branches of game devs are a valuable part of the final product (even good producers, community management, and marketing team). They should all be valued by companies and each other as equally respected parts of the whole. The unspoken but prevalent placement of game devs in tiers based on their professions fuels a lot of the rivalries, egos, and resentments between them that often makes game company culture so toxic.
Lets not kid ourselves. We all know finance is the most important. No one works for free.
He's talking about their value from how easy it is to hire or fire them based on their position. You can't fire developers that are good because it's supposedly complete rng if you'll ever find another good one without paying a lot more (for a "bigger named" employee) than you did for the last one. I have to agree but that doesn't mean treating your employees with that intentionality wouldn't be harmful to your product, environment and people.
From business standpoint, art work and animation can be easily outsourced to part-time freelance artists, which only leaves designers and programmers as majority of studio employees, and as he told in the conference because its easier to quantify programmers work, programmers get more recognition.
Excelente!
Pls do for solo developers.
Companies culture = make an unfair deal with you because if you don't accept you have to make an even more unfair deal elsewhere.
This is a cynical summary, but I don't think there's such a thing as "culture" in companies, especially in video games where it's reputed that ultra-aggressive marketing and human resources feed on employees' passions to satisfy their "grown spoiled child" lusts.
After some years as a developer in other industries, I feel it's just a way to set rules in between nice dreamy texts that will enlighten the shackles tied to your hands so that you find them beautiful in a way and have a reason to let them be. It's not awful because it lets you live and have comfort but it's insidious and destructive over the years.
That said, nice video explaining skills that are useful for anyone, and for any situation actually.
Richard Vogel seems very philosophical, analytic and peaceful, kudos to him and anyone that uses his/her brain this way.
You don't gain soft skills just by reading books. Maybe you notice a problem, something didn't go your way in a negotiation so you read about negotiation tactics. Then you have to practice negotiation tactics on a real human. Reading all the soft skills books will get you nowhere without human practice.
Corollary: many of us went into programming because we're better with computers than with people. The best engineers are good with both!
"Have no ego" "Be confident".
Does not compute.
How so? Those are not the same thing...
It was more like : Tamper your ego without being stepped on
i think designers, programmers, QA etc should all be equally important. flat hierarchy is key
Then you misinterpret the fundamental use of each group. Hierarchies have good reason to exist.
When it comes done to some sort of resource allocation (e.g. money, time, attention, etc.) a hierarchy will need to be established to adequately distribute that resource for success.@@thepurplepanda4
7:11
The software development industry in a nutshell.
what is this union thing? i dont understand
or what to search in google? pls help
Search "das kapital " its free
Try Freelancer's Union.
Tip 3, so true
I don't understand his point about unions. :/
Also, 28:48, he doesn't like non-smokers. :P
His point is quite simple, if the introduction of unions arise then a lot of jobs will become contracted based. Right now a lot of gaming jobs are permanent permissions until either you leave, are fired, or laid off. But you are classed as an "employee" so you get perks.
Start pushing Unions and suddenly these companies question if they really need to hire you full time and deal with all that... Maybe they can just get a contractor, who doesn't automatically join a union and is solo/independant. A lot of unions don't work with contractors, at least not in my country. For situations where unions could help it could be done by other means (eg Riot Games), and in some places where unions exist, they don't really help (eg public transport).
So his point comes down to, do we introduce unions and make studios re-think their hiring process? Maybe publishers don't have studios but just hire specific groups of people, like the way Hollywood works now.
@@vekien Why do you think a union won't make life better also for contractors?
Also, the situation is already like this, unionizing would make the workers have more voice
@@vekien his point is also wrong. I work in the entertainment industry and im part of a union. Why didnt i lost my job to a contractor? Because no contractor is allowed to do my job thx to the union.
@@vekien Film is a good analogue, but your and the OP conclusions are incorrect. Hollywood is very unionized, but how that works is different for above-the-line (directors, writers, big-name actors) vs below-the-line (electricians, designers, stunt performers, etc). The kinds of people whose names you see on posters are all contracted individually, and their union membership is mostly a formality, but was important when they were starting out. The rest are contracted per-project, yes, but that could still mean 2 years' worth of work (longer, in TV) with union-mandated rules about wages, hours, working conditions, and potential royalties.
Games are more like the old Hollywood studio system from before the big unions formed. Everyone, including the star actors/creatives, basically got whatever basic salary the studio mandated, with no say on how they were treated, what films they worked on, or what, if anything, they received in terms of royalties after release. Transforming that system into something more egalitarian brought us some of the best decades in American film - although arguably nowadays it's heading back into a setup where the studio holds all the cards, since movies in general are in a tight financial situation.
@@etwontphonehome2800 Yeah, I liked almost everything in his talk except for that dig at unions. He's from Texas (and California, post-Reagan), and they are pretty staunchly anti-union there. Here in New York the entertainment industry & unions are married tightly, from film/TV to theater & books.
unionize!
Its a shame audio isn't on the ladder :(
Artist or Designer
Audio = design
Take your skills elsewhere. There is plenty of demand for software development, even game-specific development, outside of the realm of entertainment. Education, military, aerospace, marketing, even architecture & urban planning - there is good work out there if you are adaptable and open-minded about how to apply your skills.
Agreed. It might be more acceptable for many people when you start your career but once you want to settle down and you find what you're good at, I would change to a more stable industry.
Everyone needs to find their own sweet-spot between work and play.
Life is to be enjoyed and not stressed over non-stop.
Sooner or later the industry/employees will see that the high turnover ends up harming the business and things will shift. Whether that's a new design process, unionization, laws, technology, whatever. I think that's also what he was inferring when he mentioned that in 10 years things will be different.
Embrace your dreams, that's the only thing that matters
unionize.
True, I find it kinda shocking to see the comment section filled with (aspiring) gamedevs that don't see any problem with they way he portrays the industry.
The game industry sounds like a godawful place to work... I don't understand why people accept to work in this outdated work-culture (well probably out of fear of not getting hired)
I think the work culture comment is sadly off, or we see more of the work culture in games outside of it nowadays.
It is harder to be a programmer. More so a good programmer. And without programmers there is no game. And if the programmer cannot handle de tech needed for a design in the target platform, it cannot be done. That is why they are on top.
if we are talking about indie games they barely need any programming, besides that there are tutorials available for majority of gameplay systems on the youtube/google, if we are talking about AAA then you are probably right, but then again when was the last time you actually played a "good" 10/10 or even 9/10 AAA game ? so I am really confused here, surely ubisoft or EA has access to top programmers, so why are their games consistently crap ?
@@tezwoacz Trust me. Saying indie games barely need any programming is not the truth. I am a senior game programmer and indie dev as well. About your question. Well, they probably abuse top programmers with a lot of work and time constraints that don't allow for enough QA tests and/or fixing all bugs.
@@godmode3611 Maby I just dont get it, but I really dont see any technically complex indie games out there (maby I just dont look hard enough?), I cant believe that working on and indie game vs AAA game has no difference in the programming challenges.
@@tezwoacz There are differences, sure, but Indie developers tackle a lot of issues on their own. While AAA games use specialists for every part of the game. Are you a game programmer?
@@godmode3611 no, Iam aspiring game developer, the most I done with programming is making forex trading bots, ofcourse none of them were profitable.
I’m afraid blizzard was an unhappy example nowadays... Hope things get better though.
So about that... XD
rip
Unions are a terrible thing for everyone in the industry, this is why when the workforce needs something done they should use unionising as a threat, not something you actually want to do.
"Give us better work hours or else we'll form a union" instead of "We will form a union to demand better work hours".
BioWarE MaGiC
Design: its easier to find game designers than capable programmers. But a very good game designer can make an average game great.
This guy consider getting laid off as a rite of passage, complain about dealing with abusive bosses yet he have no clues how a union could help him. Interesting how his personal anti-union bias is clouding his reflections
I think he basically said there were trade offs. It's not all positives. I worked in a job where there was a union, and promotions were mostly seniority based- not based on merit, so the people in positions of authority were sometimes the most inept people for the job. For this guy's answer, sounds like he was mostly drawing on comparisons to the film industry- which was within his own realm of experience.
@@koalabrownie your argument is somewhat anecdotal so ill answer with one: ive worked in private corporations thats didnt had a union and promotion was given to family members or friends of ppl in charges. The lack of union wont make the workplace a defacto meritocracy and not all union are seniority based
@@etwontphonehome2800 I'll follow up with more anecdotes then, unions are bullying scum in the workplace. I'm in the games industry and glad they aren't recognised. If people dont like the company then leave. This methodology is working. Check out GlassDoors.com
@@aloluk Easier said than done for most people. There is often a few options depending on what you do and where you live, but if most are all the same then what is your option? Uproot and move to who knows where to get a decent job? That is exactly what a lot of younger developer do, but some of the most valuable people in the industry are those with experience and it's not just that easy to pack up and move you + spouse + kids to a new part of the country potentially away from all friends or a support structure. After a point it really comes down to if it's worth it to even work in the games industry when you could work a good job that is better not involved with games and do games as a side project without the hassle of having to move far away or destroy your life.
@@aloluk youre not providing anecdotes, youre spitting insults without providing anything to back your claim.
I'm an artist who is also a designer. Nobody hires nonexperienced designers. Lol
Blizzard lol
He lost me when he said he doesn't like unions. Sorry, bye!
*Gives life advice, but doesn't like the tradeoffs of unions*
sOrrY WoNt LiSTen, bYe
@@definitelynotnick2454 If the life advice includes anti-union propaganda, I'm not interested. Yes. Have you seen what's been going on at AAA studios lately? No, fuck that shit. Unionize the lot of them!
@@SamTheEnglishTeacher You clearly enjoy the boot. Do you sprinkle some salt on it before you jam it down your throat or not?
"Sir, I have a complain..." Vs. "Sir, we will go on strike if things don't change"
I know the answer to the first one is "If you're not happy here, we can always find someone else. A lot of people are waiting in line for your job", the second one have a much greater chance of success.
That is, if you don't like the boot.
Pretty generic and typical American "personal growth" and business advice I heard about 20 years ago.
Some of the skills he talks about are personal traits, not skills.
Which ones in your opinion?
@@coderaven1107 gotta watch this again, two years ago :D
Unions are a benefit for low skilled labour. I don't think it's a good solution for the games industry.
Ew the SJW teen at the end
I totally disagree programmer is above and beyond the importance of a designer. Nobody plays a shitty looking game no matter how fancy the mechanics are. there are tons of beautiful walking sim hits, it's all about the story and visuals, not about how clean your code looks and how complicated your gameplay has.
the dozens of succesfull while ugly indie games would like to argue. Ultrakill ? Dusk ? BattleBit Remastered ? Vampire Survivor ? Want more ?
First?