Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Josh Sawyer is taking a break from directing games

Lycra Suit

Prophet
Possibly Retarded
Joined
Sep 6, 2016
Messages
1,842
Location
Political refugee in Canada
The industry has gotten so much more competitive that he would get a worse position if he struck out on his own today than when he did fifteen years ago?

Not just the industry but also the Californian economy.


Even though he has a much higher profile and a much better track record now?

Straight out of directing an infinity engine game was a much better record. I wouldn't have anything to argue at all if he left right after New Vegas either.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,653
Josh has spoken quite a bit about his career opportunities in the past.
I think of myself as someone with vocational knowledge.
Liberal arts programs typically emphasize critical thinking, which is arguably the most important skill a game designer uses on a daily basis. Humanities courses are not focused on vocational skills, but the construction, analysis, and deconstruction of ideas. Another way to look at it would be to say that critical analysis *is* the primary vocational skill for all humanities-related fields.

While there are job-specific proficiencies that designers develop over time, there really is not much about my job that someone off the street could not do. Judgment is ultimately what helps designers produce quality work.
I've attempted to find other occupations into which I could go, but most of them require going back to school for two or four years. I do not have any marketable talents or vocational training outside of what I have learned in the game industry -- very little of which is applicable outside. Whether I'm good or bad at it, video game development is the only place where I can make a wage that allows me to fulfill financial obligations to people who depend on me.

If I were to work alone, I would have to learn to program. That's outside of my skill set, and if it were in my skill set, I would have many more potential career opportunities than making games. If I were to work with others, I would either have to employ them, which means I would be running a company (an investment of time and capital that I don't have), or I would have to deal with them as de facto equals, which ruins the mythic dream of the one person super developer and in practice is terrible/unworkable.

I make a living as a game designer and project director because I have a moderate amount of critical thinking skill, can give people clear directions, and know hundreds of ways that people should *not do things* when developing games. That's a small amount of skill set and a much larger amount of practical vocational experience. It doesn't transfer well into other careers, not even into an independent one-man game development show.

Jobs with the National Park Service, (management) jobs in non-game software development, jobs with various humanitarian organizations, motorcycle/car mechanic (n.b.: one of my co-workers was a mechanic prior to being a game developer and has described it as back-breaking monotony). Most of these jobs either pay next to nothing or require a specialized degree/significant relevant experience. Vocational experience is extremely important in almost any field, arguably more important than "natural talent" or intelligence.

I don't have any "what if" regrets because a) that's dumb as hell and b) I've already had more success and fun in 12 years of game development than most people will have in a lifetime of jobs.

I know I'm ruining some visions of game development as this Real Genius-esque environment where passionate imagineers in wacky goggles chuck dry ice around and re-assemble cars in offices as pranks, but there is a pretty big gulf between that and, say, mining coal for thirty years and dying of pneumoconiosis.

Artists who work in movies often have less creative freedom (and are generally paid more) than those who work in games. Creative occupations fall at various points on a sliding scale between full creative control and big bucks. I don't have complete creative control, nor much control over logistics, but I'm paid far beyond my practical value to society at large and I still have a healthy amount of freedom in what I do. I stop short of investing large amounts of myself in what I make because to do so would be to ignore that what I am making *does not belong to me*.

A group of guys made the original Fallout at Interplay, but it belonged to Interplay, not them. Then Black Isle made another Fallout game, and Interplay had MicroForte make yet another Fallout game. Then Interplay internal made a Fallout game and Black Isle's internal Fallout game was canceled. Bethesda bought the rights from Interplay and Bethesda internal developed Fallout 3. Then Bethesda contracted Obsidian to make Fallout: New Vegas. Concurrently, Interplay is working an a Fallout MMO. Where will the Fallout license go next? Beats me.

Intellectual properties are just that: properties. In the hearts and minds of gamers, they might "rightfully" belong with certain parties, but in a court of law, it's a much different story. Developers do work for hire and, short of independent operations like Jeff Vogel's, that's pretty much how it goes.
 

Lycra Suit

Prophet
Possibly Retarded
Joined
Sep 6, 2016
Messages
1,842
Location
Political refugee in Canada
where exactly do you see Sawyer in your imaginary job interview gone wrong?

I don't picture an imaginary job position gone wrong I just picture studios who require their directors to have a business/engineering degree. I also imagine studios that require designers that have a specific portfolio that interests them and/or to be young malleable graduates willing to overwork themselves.

Sawyer as far as I'm concerned is a poor designer, to his own admission doesn't have creative talents, isn't young, doesn't have a relevant degree (history iirc), is too mature to be impressionable, and ?apparently? doesn't want to shave years off his lifespan anymore. He has good vocational managerial skills in his own words which to my knowledge would help him get starting as a consultant (external producer).
Had he left straight after New Vegas he could have, maybe, used his immediate connections to surf on his project's success and land another director job in a big studio. But that was 8 years ago.

Feel free to keep giving my posts bad ratings but I don't buy those delusions. I go by my own experience with aging managers who had a hard time landing jobs after being laid off because their qualifications were strictly vocational (they lacked the magical engineer/MBA titles) and weren't seen as young and energetic anymore by prospective employers.
 

Xeon

Augur
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
1,858
I kinda always thought devs who can finish making a game on schedule and with a limited resources and ends up not being bad are considered pretty good.

I think Josh made 2 games or maybe more like that. Another similar dev seems to be Wasteland 2's I think.
 

DosBuster

Arcane
Patron
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
1,861
Location
God's Dumpster
Codex USB, 2014
Dude has shipped three titles as project lead that were well received. He wouldn't even need to go through the job interview process
 
Unwanted

Bladeract

It's Neckbeard Shitlord. Again.
Dumbfuck
Joined
May 19, 2018
Messages
239
Location
-66.273, 100.984
That's not 'balanced' that's the truth. His career is Obsidian. He started as a community manager and ended up leading major projects, but outside Obsidian's door he is still 'just' a community manager. He doesn't have any advanced coding skills that we no of and certainly no writing skills. Having last directed a commercial failure wouldn't help either. The best he could hope for would be senior game tester or contracted work as an external producer.

He has management experience in something technical so he can become a project manager for a software shop and lord it over some Indian ITT tech graduates if he wants to. A nutless monkey with a spreadsheet could do the job but it's probably less stressful than his current gig.
 

hemtae

Savant
Patron
Joined
Aug 29, 2014
Messages
149
Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
For what it's worth, In his book Jason Schreier said the game industry is experiencing a shortage in senior positions due to burnout.

Who knows as far as the work and the human cost, whether it's sustainable. There are no real stats on any of this. You can't get stats on people who are burnt out or leave the industry. Nothing like that exists. I hear anecdotally about how it's impossible to find senior leads on games because so many people have just stopped, and so the industry skews towards youth. It's a lot of people who have just joined, or have been working on games for a few years and haven't burnt out yet. I think it's something a lot of people are talking about, but because there are no numbers there's no way of knowing.

If that's true, I doubt Sawyer who worked on many well received games at the senior level will have a whole lot of trouble finding a job.
 

Frozen

Arcane
Joined
Jan 1, 2014
Messages
8,303
BioWare
Those romances need balancing.
Him and Casey bros for life, tattoos on chests, what happens in New Vegas stays in New Vegas.
 
Joined
Nov 23, 2017
Messages
4,012
Sawyer

is

not

a

name.


Literally and figuratively wrong. In fact, by now Sawyer is not just a name, but a face.

There are very few people in the gaming industry who are a name, let alone a face that's known to most everyone even in gaming circles. There's probably but a few in western game development that were names, like Will Wright and John Carmack, and most of them aren't doing much of anything in video games anymore. Sawyer isn't a name outside of niche circles, (and I'd bet some people get what he's done mixed up with Avellone) David Brevik is barely a name and he did the first two Diablo games.
 
Self-Ejected

Sacred82

Self-Ejected
Dumbfuck
Joined
Jun 7, 2013
Messages
2,957
Location
Free Village
Sawyer

is

not

a

name.


Literally and figuratively wrong. In fact, by now Sawyer is not just a name, but a face.

There are very few people in the gaming industry who are a name, let alone a face that's known to most everyone even in gaming circles. There's probably but a few in western game development that were names, like Will Wright and John Carmack, and most of them aren't doing much of anything in video games anymore. Sawyer isn't a name outside of niche circles, (and I'd bet some people get what he's done mixed up with Avellone) David Brevik is barely a name and he did the first two Diablo games.

my friends

since when do you have to be known to literally every single gamer to become a creative director in any place, or for a company to profit from your name? Josh's name is known to CRPG players, how many exactly no one knows, but probably a lot. You try to market a CRPG, you can drop his name. On any other product, probably not.
 
Self-Ejected

Sacred82

Self-Ejected
Dumbfuck
Joined
Jun 7, 2013
Messages
2,957
Location
Free Village
I also imagine studios that require designers that have a specific portfolio that interests them

ok, let's come back to reality for once. Which studio exactly would be interested in hiring Josh as a creative director? Beats me, though I'd never rule it out. Who would have foreseen Gaider working for Beamdog? Quite a step down after Bioware. And then the project he was working on never materialized. But he did land the gig.

Sawyer as far as I'm concerned is a poor designer,

that's just, like, your opinion man

and you're probably a hardcore RPG nerd with strong opinions on the placement of +1 daggers in linear starting dungeons. Not necessarily true for every recruiting person.

to his own admission doesn't have creative talents,

+1 honesty, recruiters are looking for things that stand out. I mean, if he had nothing to his name, they could simply take it literally, but not in this case.

isn't young, doesn't have a relevant degree (history iirc), is too mature to be impressionable, and ?apparently? doesn't want to shave years off his lifespan anymore. He has good vocational managerial skills in his own words which to my knowledge would help him get starting as a consultant (external producer).
Had he left straight after New Vegas he could have, maybe, used his immediate connections to surf on his project's success and land another director job in a big studio. But that was 8 years ago.

Feel free to keep giving my posts bad ratings but I don't buy those delusions. I go by my own experience with aging managers who had a hard time landing jobs after being laid off because their qualifications were strictly vocational (they lacked the magical engineer/MBA titles) and weren't seen as young and energetic anymore by prospective employers.

Still not a reason why Josh would have to start over in QA instead of being e.g. an underpaid designer.

Tbqh though, since Josh loves hammering out kinks in the systems, maybe QA is not so different from his last job. He also came up with most of the lore. Seems like they got this 'aging' (since when is age a hindrance in a creative endeavour again?) man to take all his work home every day. He's probably worn so many hats since 2012, this shit here is basically a case of burnout.
 

Riddler

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 5, 2009
Messages
2,353
Bubbles In Memoria
he game industry is experiencing a shortage in senior positions due to burnout.


That's for programming and graphic positions = The ones that compete with other, much more comfortable, industries. The gaming industry has no shortages of designers and writers.


That makes no sense. The quality of game writing has gone down the absolut shitter since the early 2000s (arguably even before that) which implies that there is a dearth of writing talent, not an oversupply.

My theory of why this happened is that companies delineated between writers and designers. There is a significant cost to having pure writers on projects as they are removed from the actual gameplay. Additionally good writers don't want to write for games so the ones who do are invariably shit. Having the somewhat sane designers and programmers and write is a vast improvement to having the mediocre english majors who despise the subject matter and medium do it.
 
Last edited:
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
I kinda always thought devs who can finish making a game on schedule and with a limited resources and ends up not being bad are considered pretty good.

I think Josh made 2 games or maybe more like that. Another similar dev seems to be Wasteland 2's I think.

Your mistake was in assuming that game developers are valued by companies.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,175
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
The quality of game writing has gone down the absolut shitter since the early 2000s (arguably even before that) which implies that there is a dearth of writing talent, not an oversupply.
disagree. The drop is caused by pandering to wider audiences, and changing focus to hollywood style cinematic and narrative, not lack of talent. Execs wants an easy to digest simple story following focus group and trends
 

Riddler

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 5, 2009
Messages
2,353
Bubbles In Memoria
The quality of game writing has gone down the absolut shitter since the early 2000s (arguably even before that) which implies that there is a dearth of writing talent, not an oversupply.
disagree. The drop is caused by pandering to wider audiences, and changing focus to hollywood style cinematic and narrative, not lack of talent. Execs wants an easy to digest simple story following focus group and trends

I would agree with that but almost uniformly when games go for a more nuanced narrative they fall on their faces. I think the talent simply isn't there anymore by and large.
 
Joined
Nov 23, 2017
Messages
4,012
Sawyer

is

not

a

name.


Literally and figuratively wrong. In fact, by now Sawyer is not just a name, but a face.

There are very few people in the gaming industry who are a name, let alone a face that's known to most everyone even in gaming circles. There's probably but a few in western game development that were names, like Will Wright and John Carmack, and most of them aren't doing much of anything in video games anymore. Sawyer isn't a name outside of niche circles, (and I'd bet some people get what he's done mixed up with Avellone) David Brevik is barely a name and he did the first two Diablo games.

my friends

since when do you have to be known to literally every single gamer to become a creative director in any place, or for a company to profit from your name? Josh's name is known to CRPG players, how many exactly no one knows, but probably a lot. You try to market a CRPG, you can drop his name. On any other product, probably not.

Your point was he's not only a name, but a face. My point is: Not really. He isn't totally unknown, he's known to a little group of people, but he's not a "name", not really. The idea of someone being a name is they're known to a lot of people, not just a smallish group. Few people in video games are names.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom