Capcom Heineman vs Sawyer in... Game dev is like movie-making in the 20s

[Excidium II]

Sawyer is right. Comparing videogame development to filming a movie is beyond retardo.

 

[Edward The Mediocre]

From my poor understand on how flims and games are made, movies of the same series or IP can be composed of wildly different staffs per each film project, thus the tone and quality overall can greatly differ. Where with video game developers the talent stays with each project barring mergers, layoffs or outright bankruptcies. So on paper it can be done like movies, but in reality it won't because the situations and environments are different.

Also I remember some weird shitty video game production technique I heard call SCRUMM or something called that. Basically you make a working protoype of a level or area and you have everyone staff to test it out instead of just winging shit. Then I heard that people who made that shitty Bioware starwars MMO and Tim Schafer Mr. Shitface both use the production technique and their games are a productional clusterfuck.

 

[Excidium II]

Also I remember some weird shitty video game production technique I heard call SCRUMM or something called that. Basically you make a working protoype of a level or area and you have everyone staff to test it out instead of just winging shit. Then I heard that people who made that shitty Bioware starwars MMO and Tim Schafer Mr. Shitface both use the production technique and their games are a productional clusterfuck.

Sounds like they just applied the methodology wrong, that's not how it works.

 

[J1M]

From my poor understand on how flims and games are made, movies of the same series or IP can be composed of wildly different staffs per each film project, thus the tone and quality overall can greatly differ. Where with video game developers the talent stays with each project barring mergers, layoffs or outright bankruptcies. So on paper it can be done like movies, but in reality it won't because the situations and environments are different.

Also I remember some weird shitty video game production technique I heard call SCRUMM or something called that. Basically you make a working protoype of a level or area and you have everyone staff to test it out instead of just winging shit. Then I heard that people who made that shitty Bioware starwars MMO and Tim Schafer Mr. Shitface both use the production technique and their games are a productional clusterfuck.

You are correct, "SCRUM", "Agile", etc. are re-branded business methodologies that failed in other industries. Their primary function is to employ consultants. Consultants are successful at selling their snake-oil because the methodology makes non-technical management feel like they have some grasp of what the technical people are doing. The reason the approach is so pervasive is that software development generates so much wealth that the waste is tolerated. (manufacturing a new copy is essentially free)

 

[Excidium II]

lol bullshit. That's so wrong it hurts. I'm not sure how effective it is for game development but it works wonders for custom software, where it makes the most sense to be used. I know people who apply it to great success.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Yes, that is why there is so much successful cross over between the video game industry and the movie industry. The two are practically identical.

Oh wait, it's not - not even remotely. Actually almost without fail, any TV or Movie person that I have encountered trying to "cross over" has figured out pretty quickly that very little is the same. Really, only in the broadest and most general of strokes - in which case you could say producing a theater production, which people have been doing for centuries, is just like doing video games!


If she only meant it as an example, in the most general and vague of interpretations, ie:

Scheduling should happen.
Good scheduling is better than bad or no scheduling.
Things will happen that you cannot predict nor control - so good planners will try to leave breathing room in your schedule.

Then she is correct.... I guess, but that's not really anything groundbreaking there.

Success or failure often can have very little to do with scheduling. Projects that were poorly planned, or not planned at all, have run the gamut from raging success, to dismal failure. A project could be planned out to the last minute and dollar, never miss a milestone, never fail to deliver, and still get cancelled because of forces completely outside of anyone's control. I've seen it.


The correct answer is:

Spoiler

low-grade drama - not worth your time.

edit:
So I'm guess I'm dumb - just taking the quoted part from the OP as the relevant part - but a lot of the rest of the article is actually spot on and is worth a read. She covers the nature of sequels, publishers, and several other interesting topics.

 

[Mustawd]

So I'm guess I'm dumb - just taking the quoted part from the OP as the relevant part - but a lot of the rest of the article is actually spot on and is worth a read. She covers the nature of sequels, publishers, and several other interesting topics.

 

[Beastro]

Sawyer is a fucking autist.

Sawyer is right. Comparing videogame development to filming a movie is beyond retardo.

These two are not mutually exclusive.

 

[Anthony Davis]

So I'm guess I'm dumb - just taking the quoted part from the OP as the relevant part - but a lot of the rest of the article is actually spot on and is worth a read. She covers the nature of sequels, publishers, and several other interesting topics.

Well, I finished it, at the end she falls apart and goes back into her echo chamber where she blames gamergate and hails indies as the greatest thing and the hope for the future. Oh well.


The stuff before that is still good reading.

 

[Edward The Mediocre]

You mean this part?

Well, unfortunately, the trends that should be covered but in a positive light is the shunning of the people who are basically being jerks. We're not talking like in the Gamergate sense. We're talking in a general sense. There is a small group of people who are ruining multiplayer gaming for everybody because they would go online, they would use foul language, they would cheat, they would -- like, many times, I stopped playing Team Fortress 2 because I would go on there and the moment they find out I'm a girl, well, here come the rape jokes.

And they think it's funny.

And I don't think it's funny.

Of course, if I use a male persona, then they start just talking smack to me and I'm like, "Look, I'm just here to play the game. I'm not here to make racist jokes or to just taunt each other with very tasteless banter."

I've come across a few jackasses like that, you're supposed to banter back, after awhile some funny shit happens and you bond a bit and the match he sends you a friend request, accepting or reject is irrelevant since you're probably not going to see his ass again. It makes an average game into a memorable one.

 

[Mustawd]

Yes, there's some SJWness to that, but I'd argue that cuts across the board where multiplayer games are inhabited by basement dwelling retards known as teenagers and their slightly older man-child cousins called 20-somethings-who-act-14.

It's one of the main reasons I stopped playing a lot of multiplayer games altogether. When you play games with other people you have to interact...well with other people. And gaming is such now that 75% of people you encounter online are wastes of life and end up making the experience worse rather than better. Dunno, maybe it's just my experience.

But really, if lame rape jokes bother you then just avoid the internet all together. You're online to interact with these retards. Don't blame them if you get your feelings hurt. It's not like you join a book club or something. You're fucking gaming. It's one step above hanging out with crackheads and at least they just wanna get high and or offer you some cheeseburgers.

 

[Mustawd]

Oh wait, it's not - not even remotely. Actually almost without fail, any TV or Movie person that I have encountered trying to "cross over" has figured out pretty quickly that very little is the same. Really, only in the broadest and most general of strokes - in which case you could say producing a theater production, which people have been doing for centuries, is just like doing video games!


If she only meant it as an example, in the most general and vague of interpretations, ie:

Scheduling should happen.
Good scheduling is better than bad or no scheduling.
Things will happen that you cannot predict nor control - so good planners will try to leave breathing room in your schedule.

Then she is correct.... I guess, but that's not really anything groundbreaking there.

Yeah, it might be a bad analogy. And like you said, shit happens outside your control sometimes. I mean film production is extremely high risk. For every success there are tons of failures. And a lot of them seem to mirror gaming.

So maybe it's actually a good analogy but for the wrong reasons. Meaning there are best practices when it comes to both film AND games. But shit happens that will kill your budget, delay shipping, or altogether fuck your project that are outside your control (e.g. Making a comedy about neighborhood watch and set to release right in the middle of the Trayvon Martin incident). How's that old adage about technology go? A product is never perfect, but just good enough to get out the door to the public. Or something like that.

Again, based on some of the crazy stupid projects she's been on, it seems reasonable to say "hey we should plan better guys". I do agree that the film comparison doesn't quite work. Maybe to her film just seems more organized because it's got more moving parts to be coordinated. Or maybe she was just talking out of her ass, and we decided to make a thread about it? *shrug*.

 

[Severian Silk]

movies of the same series or IP can be composed of wildly different staffs per each film project, thus the tone and quality overall can greatly differ. Where with video game developers the talent stays with each project

Yeah, like Fallout 2 and Fallout 3?

Also, Homeworld (1999) was the only game i know of that tried to be cinematic and was able to pull it off successfully.

 

[Excidium II]

Again, based on some of the crazy stupid projects she's been on, it seems reasonable to say "hey we should plan better guys".

That just sounds like the magickal hindsight. Planning has diminishing returns, I think moaaaar planning is missing the actual problem.

 

[Edward The Mediocre]

movies of the same series or IP can be composed of wildly different staffs per each film project, thus the tone and quality overall can greatly differ. Where with video game developers the talent stays with each project

Yeah, like Fallout 2 and Fallout 3?

Where with video game developers the talent stays with each project barring mergers, layoffs or outright bankruptcies.

Very cute that you ignored that bit. Let's take a trip to SJWpedia, no not Rational wiki, the one wiki that people sadly take seriously.

Interplay Entertainment
By 1998 the financial situation at Interplay was dire and the company was in bankruptcy court. To avert bankruptcy Interplay went public in order to raise capital and pay off debt. Interplay was successful in its public offering and avoided bankruptcy. Shares were sold on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange and the Interplay changed its name to Interplay Entertainment Corp.

Interplay continued to endure losses under Brian Fargo due to increased competition, less than stellar returns on Interplay’s sports division and the lack of console titles. This forced Interplay to seek additional funding two years later with an investment from Titus Software, a Paris-based game company. Titus agreed to invest 25 million dollars in Interplay and a few months later this was followed up by an additional 10 million investment.[10] Despite releasing critically acclaimed games such as Descent 3 and FreeSpace 2 the company then reported several additional quarters of losses.

By 2001, Titus Software completed its acquisition of majority control of Interplay. Immediately afterwards, they shed most of Interplays publisher functions and signed a long-term agreement under which Vivendi Universal would publish Interplay's games. Interplay founder Brian Fargo eventually departed to found InXile Entertainment as Fargo's plan to change Interplay's main focus from PC gaming to console gaming failed.[11]

Herve Caen took over the role of CEO to perform triage and made several unpopular but arguably necessary decisions to cancel various projects. Interplay then sold Shiny Entertainment and several game properties while closing BlueSky Software. Due to a low share price, Interplay's shares were delisted from the NASDAQ in 2002 and now trade on the over the counter (OTC) market.[12] On December 8, 2003, Interplay laid off the entire Black Isle Studios staff.[13]

Burdened with debt, Interplay faced bankruptcy again and was brought to bankruptcy court in 2006. In order to pay off creditors the company altered its licensing agreement with Bethesda Software and then sold the Fallout IP to Bethesda Softworks in 2007.[14][15] Interplay retained back-licensing rights to Fallout Online and the rights to sell the original Fallout games. Interplay began development of Fallout Online in 2007. Following a lengthy lawsuit by Bethesda Softworks, both sides agreed to a settlement where Interplay would receive 2 million dollars and the rights to sell the original Fallout games for a limited time.

Oh look, we got mergers, layoffs and multiple bankruptcies. My point still fucking stands.

 

[karfhud]

Can't really agree with her. It comes down to the differences in these two mediums, movies and video games. A movie script is a very efficient blueprint for the final product and it's considerably cheap to produce. The screenwriter hands in a draft, he goes over it with the director (and/or sometimes a script doctor), they find what's working, edit out the stuff that's not working and a couple of weeks/months later, they have a shooting script. Of course, shooting scripts often do undergo additional changes on the set, but most of the time, it's a dialogue change, something minute. In a nutshell, then, you know what's your movie gonna be like with two/three people's work.

In case of video games, it's just much, much harder. Story-driven games need, obviously, a story to be hashed out first. Writers iterate and then the project's greenlit, but no one can say, this is going to be awesome. No one's able to predict that just off the script. The issue here is, that you can plan out an awesome quest, but when you play it out, it turns out it needs massive changes... and at that point some amount of work's been already put into it in the other departments (artists produced location outlines, first character passes, scenes are drafted etc. etc.).

That's why, unless we're talking indie development here with a small scope and an equally small team, changes are bound to happen and you can't manage a development period from the get-go.

 

[Immortal]

So I'm guess I'm dumb - just taking the quoted part from the OP as the relevant part - but a lot of the rest of the article is actually spot on and is worth a read. She covers the nature of sequels, publishers, and several other interesting topics.

Well, I finished it, at the end she falls apart and goes back into her echo chamber where she blames gamergate and hails indies as the greatest thing and the hope for the future. Oh well.
The stuff before that is still good reading.

Lol Anthony.. You just can't help yourself.. always have to touch the poo.
Great insights either way.. Not sure why SJW's haven't smashed down your office door yet but it's always refreshing to read your commentary.

 

[Kontra]

So I'm guess I'm dumb - just taking the quoted part from the OP as the relevant part -

I said it was hard to see. OP needs to make some space betwen th link and the pic... This thread is like an open manhole.


What all these devs need to do, is stop talking and start doing... Diplomacy is over. They either make something better than before or they didnt made anything at all. Thats how i see it.

And how hard can it be? Youd think with all this new tech itd be easier, but no. And the last time i checked gameplay cant be copyrighted...yet. So, they have the blueprints in all the old games they have the tools and whats stopping them from just copying the same thing and spicing it up a bit? Because thats all there is to it. It aint rocket science.

 

[Mustawd]

What all these devs need to do, is stop talking and start doing... Diplomacy is over. They either make something better than before or they didnt made anything at all. Thats how i see it.

Kind of lost me here. What's your point?

And how hard can it be? Youd think with all this new tech itd be easier, but no. And the last time i checked gameplay cant be copyrighted...yet. So, they have the blueprints in all the old games they have the tools and whats stopping them from just copying the same thing and spicing it up a bit? Because thats all there is to it. It aint rocket science.

Think about the things that constantly change: New engines; new user tech that a teams needs to optimize the game for; new pipeline methods/programs for creating art assets; I mean that's not even mentioning the fact that you can't just use the same concepts form a previous game and plug and play. And this assumes there's enough resources to make the game you initially wanted to make.

Besides, from what devs have said in interviews, it seems like the biggest issues they have in terms of game development are: cutting a timeline short (i.e. we ship earlier for XYZ reason), running out of resources or allocating resources away from the project for unplanned reasons, and failing to properly scope their project.

As a game dev specifically, you really only have control over the last one. It's up to the business guys to take care of the first two to set the dev team up for success.

 

[Kontra]

Kind of lost me here. What's your point?

I dont know man... I guess i dont want just old games but better games than those. Because this is 2016... How come the first Thief still has the best AI? The game is almost 20 years old ffs. Youd think by now we would have something better but no, nothing. I guess i was saying i want to party sure, but like its 2016 not 1999.

Think about the things that constantly change: New engines; new user tech that a teams needs to optimize the game for; new pipeline methods/programs for creating art assets; I mean that's not even mentioning the fact that you can't just use the same concepts form a previous game and plug and play. And this assumes there's enough resources to make the game you initially wanted to make.

Thats true but isnt that how it was before too. You cant say that Deus Ex for example was easier to make back in 2001 than it is now because they had worse tech... Its like they have to do more stuff now to make a game than before. I dont know maybe youre right but it just puzzles me... Tech goes forward and games go backwards. Its strange.

When i said they should just copy it i meant it more in gameplay sense. If you take a game like Thief and people played it to death and its clear to everyone why its great. And its also clear what could be better and not just to game devs but to regular players who know nothing about making games. Things like - guards noticing closed doors or missing colleagues etc. Stuff like that, better AI in general. So it seems pretty straightforward to me what devs should do. Just take the existing thing and add more stuff to it. But then new Thief comes out and they didnt add anything, they did the exact opposite. Zero progress. And that just pisses me off.

 

[Excidium II]

There's just different expectations. Complexity is much greater, but not in a way that is related to gameplay depth.

 

[:Flash:]

I was always wondering why it's possible to plan a movie from start to finish before actually making it while games only seem to start/get money based on vague sales pitches (equally to publishers or backers).
I mean someone with experience in games production should be able to do it.

The effects of errors are far greater.
If you have a bad actor in a movie, you get some bad acting. If someone else makes a mistake, you have a microphone hanging in from above, a continuity error, or other things which movies are full of.
If you code a bug into a game, you cannot simply let it be, you have to find it, fix it, etc., or else it will crash the game, ruin the savegame, or whatever. That is why it's far easier to plan time for filming a movie than for coding software.

 

[Morkar Left]

I think you simplify moviemaking too much here. Maybe true for low budget but for bigger movies? Locations, weather, injuries, not reusable assets etc. can all fuck up your production as well.

 

[Mustawd]

Kind of lost me here. What's your point?

I dont know man... I guess i dont want just old games but better games than those. Because this is 2016... How come the first Thief still has the best AI? The game is almost 20 years old ffs. Youd think by now we would have something better but no, nothing. I guess i was saying i want to party sure, but like its 2016 not 1999....

...When i said they should just copy it i meant it more in gameplay sense. If you take a game like Thief and people played it to death and its clear to everyone why its great. And its also clear what could be better and not just to game devs but to regular players who know nothing about making games. Things like - guards noticing closed doors or missing colleagues etc. Stuff like that, better AI in general. So it seems pretty straightforward to me what devs should do. Just take the existing thing and add more stuff to it. But then new Thief comes out and they didnt add anything, they did the exact opposite. Zero progress. And that just pisses me off.

I think a lot of it has to do with the trends of gameplay like Excidium II said. a lot of the old school sensibilities have kind of atrophied haven't they? I mean look at what happened with AoD. Steam forums were full of people complaining how they couldn't do what they wanted with any character build. One poster went as far as to say something like "You should learn the lessons of modern RPGs. They're that way for a reason". As if to say that RPG gameplay has been refined to the point that different types of gameplay shouldn't even be attempted.

TL;DR It's the of gaming. Not so much that they CAN'T do it. But that devs are trying to walk that line where enough hardcore fans will say "meh, good enough" and enough casuals will still play it. And sometimes that leads to shitty games that no one likes.


Anyway, back to the movie topic...I'm pretty convinced it's a bad analogy. Plenty of movies fail to recover their budgets. Much more than successful ones. It's the reason the studios love franchises. Because it's easy money. When films fail it's for the same reasons games can fail. Some are poor planning but sometimes crap just happens and it's hard to recover.

I mean to take it to a logical extreme this is true for any large project. Look at Window Vista. Software development has tons of planning. Doesn't stop people from making mistakes in judgement.

 

[Major Malfunction]

She mentions the race to the bottom that is happening now. I think she used de 20's metaphor to support a particular point she was trying to make "production still sucks on videogames and producers are still many times arrogant clueless amateurs ." but people tend to jump the gun and think the whole text was about the 20's movie industry comparison, what isn't.

The question was, going by the op, "Is it difficult to predict how much a game is going to cost?" and the answer was three paragraphs of irrelevant bullshit basically stating that, well, if the team doesn't give a flying fuck about predicting costs then, err, yeah there will be a problem with predicting costs. The films industry in the 20's is shoehorned into the mix for no good reason because nothing has changed on that front -- then and now people know how much money they have on hand, how much shit is expected to cost and whether the two figures overlap. Either you have a group of pros leaning on the experience accumulated over countless years in the theater, or even circus, or you have a group of amateurs whose calculated costs stop at camera and film at which point they may as well be monetizing youtube videos, but the same thing goes both for current trends and pioneering days of film alike. Why the 20's analogy when the current movie industry is more ripe than ever with bloated budgets that pay for crap nobody watches?

Producers being clueless amateurs is a different matter altogether because it's a timeless problem for any medium you can think of. On top of that, those who are exceptionally good at their jobs essentially stifle the work put forth by the creative visionaries of the project so as not to inflate the budget with anything overall grand and irrelevant. It's not uncommon for there to be a conflict along these lines of priorities and conflicts are seldom resolved in favor of both warring parties. This is also much of the reason kickstarter exists, where your pitch is able to draw public interest but unable to convince producers that there is such an interest.