Interview
Reflective log of professional development
I chose to go into the games industry because I grew up playing a games and decided that I want to be a part of games that people play. Going into the industry also gives the possibility to have my own voice heard when deciding what game is going to be made. Out of the many aspects of game development, I do not have a specific section in mind. I know what I do not want to do which is mainly art and programming as I have tried both of these in past occasions and found both to be outside of my skill range.
Looking ahead to the future, I have 2 more years of learning, after that I would like to go into indie games development or into a company. Both of these options have merits. If I go into indie games I have a lot more options for creativity. I also wouldn’t be limited to specific areas of development. The downsides of indie development is that I would not have any income before publishing any games. One benefit of working for a company is that I would have an income. Working for a company means I would be working on a specific project. Working on one project would mean that I can focus on that project.
For the two years of the HND course, I would like to develop a wide variety of skills as well as developing the skills I have learnt over the prior two year games course. The majority of my skills are mainly focused around in-engine production, I would like to develop skills outside of this area. I do not think that my art skills will develop much as others as art is an area that I struggle with. For developing skills, I would like to develop skills in a variety of engines, 2D and 3D.
After the course, I would like to find a job inside of the industry, the areas I would primarily interested in would be design or testing as I would say these are areas my current skills are suited for.
In a previous project I went into detail about system design. In this area I would spend my time systemically creating an interrelated range of mechanics to create a tightly woven gameplay experience. With my current set of skills I would be able to deign mechanics in such a way but I do not have the necessary skills to create these systems.
Report on Games industry professions
Games started with simple games such as Pong and asteroids. Games at this time where predominantly played on arcade systems and household computers. Companies like Atari and Nintendo where the main developers and publishers of games with both having consoles to run their games. As technology developed, so did games. The 1990’s are when games started to pick up in large countries. The PlayStation 1 released in 1994 as well as the Nintendo 64 1996. By this point large studios where cemented as producing high quality games. Nintendo produced the some of the best regarded N64 games for their own system. Other big names where also producing games at this time such as Rockstar and the first Grand Theft Auto game on consoles and Interplay and Black Isle produced the first two fallout games for PC. The 2000’s are where game consoles started to represent the modern day. PlayStation released the PS2 and 3 and Xbox released the Xbox and Xbox 360. When these consoles came out the game industry became what it is today. After the PS 3 and Xbox 360, Microsoft and Sony moved onto the next generation of consoles with both the Xbox one and PS 4 releasing in November of 2013. Aside from these two consoles, Nintendo had released the 3ds in 2011 which allowed for them to move their first party games into a more modern experience. Nintendo also released the Wii U in 2012 which was well received but more Nintendo focused players preferred the handheld and portable 3DS XL that came out earlier the same year. The Xbox one and PS 4 where capable of graphical fidelity that was not seen in consoles before. It was in the following years that gaming became a common in the average household and with more people playing games, more people needed to make games. As more people started playing high quality games, the development time for the average AAA game shot up. With the increased development came increased crunch. Crunch was used in previous years but since 2013 and the release of the eight generation of gaming consoles. In some examples studios have had developers working crunch hours for weeks or even months at a time. Working extended hours and stretching developers to the maximum has become commonplace in the industry, which is unfortunate as whilst it does push development along, the detriment that it has on developers is untold, considering that some work for weeks at a time and only leave for sleep, there is no guarantee that every developer is awake enough to do work at a normal standard.
Over the years jobs changed drastically too. For games like Pong, artists were not needed as the graphics where computer generated lines which where programmed as opposed to the modern game where art is drawn and designed in various software for games. In the early days of games the only person needed to make a game was a programmer. Compared to the modern day industry where each aspect of a game needs specialist skills for programming or art or working inside of a game engine.
The Games industry in the current day is dominated by large AAA studios. AAA studios dominate games news due to the big name series that most companies own or produce. Bethesda, for example, is one of these big title studios. Bethesda earned the title of AAA studio arguably due to the Elder Scrolls series. Each elder scrolls game has brought in considerable sales, the highest of which (excluding the free to play Blades) is Skyrim. [<a href=”http://%5B1%5D Radic, V., 2021. The Highest-Selling Games Developed By Bethesda Ranked (& How Much They Sold). [online] Game Rant. Available at: 1] As of 2016, Todd Howard has said Skyrim has sold over 30 million copies, it is not said if this includes the special edition release of the game released in the same year
Skyrim was released on 11/11/2011. [2] Produced with a budget of $100 million ($85 million towards production, $15 million towards marketing) in the first 24 hours of release the game made [3] approximately $450 million. [4] In 2021, Bethesda has over 420 employees. This information from one example of a AAA studio will highlight the difference of scale between AAA and indie studios.
For an indie studio, I went with Re-Logic and Terraria as both Terraria and Skyrim where released in 2011. [<a rel=”noreferrer noopener” href=”http://Re-logic.com. n.d. Relogic. [online] Available at: 5] Re-Logic as of 2021 has 12 employees, compared to Bethesda’s 420+ the difference of scope, scale and size is obvious. Both companies would follow a similar pattern in the structure of the compony, Re-Logic has 3 artists, scale that to the size of Bethesda, they would have 105 artists overall. Even with the massive difference of employees, the amount of money Terraria has made is an [6] estimated £350 million.
[1] Radic, V., 2021. The Highest-Selling Games Developed By Bethesda Ranked (& How Much They Sold). [online] Game Rant. Available at: <https://gamerant.com/bethesda-games-best-selling-ranked/> [Accessed 14 October 2021].
[2] Thompson, S., 2019. 25 Crazy Things Fans Didn’t Know Behind The Making Of Skyrim. [online] TheGamer. Available at: <https://www.thegamer.com/skyrim-making-of-crazy-details-did-not-know/#:~:text=The%20making%20of%20Skyrim%20cost,commercial%20success%20it%20is%20today.> [Accessed 14 October 2021].
[3] Nast, C., 2011. Bethesda Ships 7M Skyrim, Earns About $450M. [online] Wired. Available at: <https://www.wired.com/2011/11/skyrim-sales/#:~:text=Image%20courtesy%20Bethesda-,Bethesda%20has%20shipped%207%20million%20copies%20of%20The%20Elder%20Scrolls,sales%2C%20the%20publisher%20said%20Wednesday.> [Accessed 14 October 2021].
[4] Xbox, 2021. Bethesda Joins Xbox – Roundtable. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJneU_qBMPM> [Accessed 14 October 2021].
[5] Re-logic.com. n.d. Relogic. [online] Available at: <https://re-logic.com/team> [Accessed 14 October 2021].
[6] Blade, V., 2021. Terraria has sold more than 35 million copies. [online] Eurogamer.net. Available at: <https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-03-21-terraria-has-sold-more-than-35-million-copies> [Accessed 14 October 2021].
Job roles in the industry
Over the years of games development as an industry the range of jobs needed to make a game has increased, starting with primarily just coders in the early 80’s as games didn’t have a need for artists to create pixel art as the user interface was all programmed. By the 90’s the range of jobs needed increased by a large factor, going from primarily just programming to needing artists, musicians, QA testers and more roles on top of that. The industry can be split up into sectors and each of these sectors deal with a specific kind of work.
The programming section of the industry has more tasks then people would think. The workload of programmers has lessened over the years with the introduction of game engines which can handle a lot of the more tedious tasks such as getting the game to show up on the screen and handle the lighting as an example. At this point in time, Lucid games ltd is hiring a senior multiplayer programmer this might be due to the fact that programmers currently hired struggle in this area which goes to show that a programmer isn’t a swiss army knife of all the tools you would need a programmer for. Another example of the range of programming jobs is from Draw and Code in Liverpool who are currently hiring a Unity developer. Game engines are all unique in their own way, especially how they work with scripts. Unreal Engine 4 uses a built in blueprint system that allows for people who don’t know how to code to make a system that works. Unity does have a free add-on called Bolt in recent versions that allow for the use of blueprint code but primarily focuses on object orientated scripts made in visual studio. One last example for the range of jobs for programmers is a gameplay programmer. This job role is a broader skilled developer, reasonable for “gameplay, interaction, player feedback or progression”. Gameplay is every mechanic that would be in the game, from movement to a complex and woven system like the Nemesis system found in the Middle Earth Shadow games. Skill trees and npcs are both programmed by these developers, showing the range of job roles in just programming alone.
Another job would be quality assurance and testing. These people are responsible for getting the game fixed. At least that’s what they use to be for, over the years of game development as an industry the workload of QA testers has increased from making sure the game works and that the largest if not all the bugs are squashed before launch to making sure the entire product is actually fun. This sector isn’t where things are made like scripts or art but where the problems that slip through are caught and fixed. Making sure the game is fun is important, if the entertainment that is being sold isn’t entertaining then the product will not sell as well.
Entering the industry isn’t hard but it isn’t simple either. Whilst it is the biggest area of entertainment, finding a a job that is suitable for you is difficult, which is why it is important to act on current opportunities that are found the moment they are found as the current market isn’t limited in jobs, but always happens to be limited in the job you are looking for. Some companies might not even be looking for certain job roles, why would a small indie company be looking for someone whos sole skill is that they can develop games in the engine they don’t use.
Like any industry, the games industry needs supporting staff, advertisements, tech support, publishers or investors are all needed (depending on the size) to make a game, not just the people who make the game. Small start-up indie companies might go to a publisher to get funding for a project or to get a project released with a seal of approval to show that the product is worthy of such a large investment company spending their money on it, similar to old Nintendo games which had a seal of approval on the game box. A industry giant like Ubisoft wouldn’t need to go to an outside publisher as they can publish the game themselves but they still need to go to investors. A small indie studio wouldn’t have tech-support as staff in building but would more then likely have one or two computer savvy people hired on already to help out with tech related issues.
Analysis and use of tools for auditing skills and measuring their development
Skill audits are an easy way to communicate how effective you think you are in certain skills. A common structure for a skills audit is having a skill on the left side and a scale on the right side. The scale changes from example to example; using numbers as a scale is often seen as well as a scale of confidence. Another reason why skill audits are a simple way to communicate skills is that they can provide information on a range of skills from industry specific to general professional skills. Confidence with teamwork or Unity can be measured along side insecurity with Maya or communication. The variations possible with how a skills audit is laid out and how the contents can change with ease is the main reason why they are an effective way to communicate a range of skills.
In this example of a skills audit, the skills are laid out in broad sections such as organisational skills and then diluted into skills that fall into that category. Having the skills sorted in this way would make it easier to understand how each skill is used in a professional sense. The skills are then ranked from no skill, basic skill, competent and proficient. I would say that ranking the lower level of skill as “none” is a unprofessional way to rank skills as it is unlikely that someone has no skills in that skill. Having the lower end skills be ranked as basic I would say be better but in certain examples it is foreseeable that someone new would have no experience in hard skills. The example also asks for evidence to support your personal rating of the skill. The benefits of asking for how that skill was developed or how it is used is a way to show you know what that skill entails and how it is used.
Another way to audit and assess skills is using a SWOT analysis. A skills audit gives you a list os skills and asks you to rank yourself, a SWOT is blank and asks you to write what your stengths and weaknesses are as well as opportunities to develop those skills and what threats there are to those skills.
The effectiveness of these is hard to gauge as it is dependent on how open and honest the person filling it out is with themselves. another downside other then honesty is that the person might not think of all the skills that would be on the skills audit, they might think of some skills that aren’t on the skills audit which is a small bonus but I would say that a skills audit is a better tool for analysing a persons skills as well as measuring development as it is much easier to compare to check lists of skills then an analysis of what was written the first time and the second time. This comparison comes from my own experience of filling out these two different audits, recently for this assignment and in the past.
In order to understand different ways of auditing skills I have made my own simple skills audit that covers basic game engine, 3D modelling and professional skills. I have used what I have learnt from my research into auditing skills to create an example of what makes a ‘good’ skills audit. Simple, concise questions, an inoffensive rating system; one where rather than having “bad” skills you have unlearnt skills or basic knowledge of the area. Using my knowledge that I have learnt through my research I would say that the audit I have made is a good example of a good audit, even if it is basic.
Record of activities for wider professional development
While I do have a UAL qualification in games design and am working towards a HND, it is important to have wider knowledge of the industry. Having this knowledge of what is going on in the industry will make you more hireable compared to someone who has the same qualifications. Having an online presence is also a way to help reach into the industry, showing your work off in a professional standard would show initiative and eagerness to work in the industry.
There are many ways to improve upon my skills and ways to expose my skills to a wide audience.
One way to expose my skills to a wider audience is too use social media. There are many different platforms of social media and some are more professional then others. Linked in is one of these professional social media platforms and as it is important to show my skills in a professional manner I decided to create an account for this first. Creating an account was simple, enter your name, email and so on.
Rather then call people followers or followed, l Linked In calls them connections, but the principle behind them is the same. I have three connections, two being peers on a former course and the other being a current peer on my current course.
On the website I can write a small blurb about me with a brief description of what I am doing and what I have done. It also has an activity section where it shows all the posts I have made over the past 90 days. After that there is a section for my education where I have my previous UAL games course and current HND games course listed. At the bottom is a list of your skills, you can make the list longer by taking a small quiz that qualifies you to have that skill listed on your page. Having a long list of skills will make you more valuable in the workplace and it can show skills that you do have but are not currently using in your work. The importance of showing all the skills you have and not just the ones you are using is to make you a more hireable person.
After creating a Linked in account I made a Twitter account as it allows me to make a post about what I am currently working on in a less professional manner that would be expected if I where to post it on Linked in
8 Week development plan
Developing a wide range of skills is necessary no matter what sector of the industry I go into. But it is not as simple as developing skills as you go along, the way around this is to track development using an 8 week development plan that allows you to outline what your starting point is and then compare the end point is. The benefit of an 8 week tracker is that it is a simple way to outline a broad development schedule but the main reason for skills development, other then developing skills, is reflecting on the process of development, what you found easy and what you found hard, reflecting on the process as a whole to see what can be changed for the future.
In this plan, the skill focused on is Maya, a 3D modelling software, I have set out a basic goal for the first and last week. I have based the weekly development on a handful of hours per week as it seemed a feasible amount of time to develop an area of skills in time that isn’t otherwise used. The first and last task is creating a 3D model, in this case a bug or insect but the object could be anything as long as it has area for improvement, for example a cardboard box would not have much room more improvement. Creating a model and then re-creating the model after developing skills over the 6 weeks avoids one of the major downsides of an 8 week development plan, tracking the actual development made. In this case you can compare the quality of the first and last model made and hopefully see a visual improvement over the weeks of development.
Jacob's game journal 