(PA) Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

[DeepOcean]

I agree that the 80 h week of work is insane but I don't understand this emphasis in 31 year old white man, childless men. How being a white, having 31 years and don't having children magically makes you immature and have anything to do with games stagnation? So, if you have children and a bitch to pester you, you are going to become more mature? He talk about two different things that have nothing to do with each other. Worker exploitation from EA/Activision and etc. and maturity from the developers. What he mean by mature? Being mature is to please a bitch and having the responsability of paying for children that you aren't going to see for most part of the day anyway, even with 40 hs per week? If you are a dumb asshole, when you get old, you are going to be a old dumb asshole. Age has nothing to do with maturity and maturity has everything to do with the capacity of someone to think. Develpers aren't immature because they don't have children or a woman or because they work too hard but because they are making games that don't need to engage their intelect and force them to think. One thing is you making Torment, Fallout, Thief, System Shock, you learn alot because you need to learn , another thing is you making CoD, Angry Bird and other shovelware all your life. You only learn and become more wise when you need to learn.

 

[Cassidy]

Can a decent game be developed with a team working roughly 9 to 5? Is it the industry that causes the problems or is it something fundamental about computer games?

If you got your funding for it from a Kickstarter and have enough competence to set realistic development objectives and plans, or if you're doing it on your own like Iron Tower Studios, surely.

 

[Konjad]

One thing is you making Torment, Fallout, Thief, System Shock, you learn alot because you need to learn , another thing is you making CoD, Angry Bird and other shovelware all your life.

Why does making CoD requires much lesser intelligence than making Torment? I don't see where are you coming from.

 

[Zarniwoop]

I agree that the 80 h week of work is insane but I don't understand this emphasis in 31 year old white man, childless men. How being a white, having 31 years and don't having children magically makes you immature and have anything to do with games stagnation?

Believe it or not, for once the answer actually is LIBRULS. The modern politically correct bullshit narrative tells us that being white is bad, being male is even worse, and being white and male somehow makes you the most worstest thing ever. This is so prevalent in western society these days that as soon as an article mentions "OMG X IS FULL OF WHYTE MENZ", it is automatically assumed to be a bad thing and something that needs to change for some reason. It's like the author thinks that games would magically be so much better if they were made by 32 year old, half-black, half-amerindian tranny females with 11 children each.

The first part of the article does actually make some sense (being expected to work insane hours, only really young people seen as valuable etc.) but I lost interest when all that loaded crap came after it.

 

[Damned Registrations]

His point was that only white 31 year old men with no children would put up with such a shit job. Older guys move on, women and minorities either don't get hired in the first place or tend to find other shit to do than sit in a basement with a pile of smelly game devs that haven't bathed in a week subsisting mostly on soda and pizza. Obviously people with families tend not to work 80 hour weeks (and if they did they quickly find themselves without a family.)

 

[DeepOcean]

One thing is you making Torment, Fallout, Thief, System Shock, you learn alot because you need to learn , another thing is you making CoD, Angry Bird and other shovelware all your life.

Why does making CoD requires much lesser intelligence than making Torment? I don't see where are you coming from.

How about making the same game for years? How about making a game driven by marketing instead of quality? How about making a game for the lowest common denominator? How about making a game that the core experience is watching EXPLOSIUNS? I'm not saying that the developers are dumb idiots but I'm sure as hell they don't need to use their intelligence.

 

[DeepOcean]

His point was that only white 31 year old men with no children would put up with such a shit job. Older guys move on, women and minorities either don't get hired in the first place or tend to find other shit to do than sit in a basement with a pile of smelly game devs that haven't bathed in a week subsisting mostly on soda and pizza. Obviously people with families tend not to work 80 hour weeks (and if they did they quickly find themselves without a family.)

But I don't understand his point. Okay, only 31 years old man without children would accept those jobs but so what? Okay, they have very unhealthy lifestyles, working their ass off and barely seeing the light of the day, the publishers should stop exploiting people this way. What the publishers are doing is exploiting their dream of developing games and only allowing them to make shovelware, it isn't a mystery to why alot of them are giving up. But what this have anything to do with "vicious cycle of immaturity" and gamining stagnation. Even if was 40 hs per week of work, there is no way that the publishers are going to fund anything different and don't have proven mass appeal. There is alot of people that are willing to sacrifice even a potential family life for their dream but when the only thing you get in return of the 80 hs work is a shitty wage and a boot on your ass if you complain too much, what is the point?

 

[chestburster]

Okay, only 31 years old man without children would accept those jobs but so what?

Because if the creators of games are of a homogenous demographic, they tend to produce highly homogenous products.

30-year-old childless White nerds tend to like similar things, which is why the games they make are always about space marines, aliens, big-titties, and shooting the Brown people and Russians.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Because if you had more guys with families and 10+ years of experience, you'd see much better game design. This is what a lot of the old classics were designed by- not even necessarily guys with game experience, just life experience. Doom wasn't made by a bunch of young guys being forced to work 80 hour weeks with no plans for the future.

Publishers do fund different things from time to time, but it often ends up shit anyways. How many failed MoM clones have we seen? It's not even a terribly complicated game. But when it's getting made by a bunch of desperate yesmen only working in the hopes of getting promoted so they can call the shots later, it turns out shit every time. The industry needs devs with some job security and self respect, so when they know an aspect of the design is bullshit, they call it out. And the 45+ guy who has raised two snotty teenagers and deals with his hellbitch of a wife is a lot more likely to do that than the 22 year old kid with an empty resume that can be replaced within hours. And it needs these guys in the trenches, as well as at the top. Because the current guys at the top are the ones who got there by licking boots, not by making awesome fucking games.

 

[DeepOcean]

Okay, only 31 years old man without children would accept those jobs but so what?

Because if the creators of games are of a homogenous demographic, they tend to produce highly homogenous products.

30-year-old childless White nerds tend to like similar things, which is why the games they make are always about space marines, aliens, big-titties, and shooting the Brown people and Russians.

Really? I don't remember System Shock 2 , Thief, Torment, Icewind dale, Fallout and other interesting games being made by 40 years old men with 3 kids.

 

[DeepOcean]

Because if you had more guys with families and 10+ years of experience, you'd see much better game design. This is what a lot of the old classics were designed by- not even necessarily guys with game experience, just life experience. Doom wasn't made by a bunch of young guys being forced to work 80 hour weeks with no plans for the future.

Publishers do fund different things from time to time, but it often ends up shit anyways. How many failed MoM clones have we seen? It's not even a terribly complicated game. But when it's getting made by a bunch of desperate yesmen only working in the hopes of getting promoted so they can call the shots later, it turns out shit every time. The industry needs devs with some job security and self respect, so when they know an aspect of the design is bullshit, they call it out. And the 45+ guy who has raised two snotty teenagers and deals with his hellbitch of a wife is a lot more likely to do that than the 22 year old kid with an empty resume that can be replaced within hours. And it needs these guys in the trenches, as well as at the top. Because the current guys at the top are the ones who got there by licking boots, not by making awesome fucking games.

There are alot of mature developers of the mobile and social games market but I'm not seeing any improvement in the quality of those games (taking in consideration the platform limitations) and they are as homogenous as any AAA game. I have no doubt that a developer like MCA that have years of experience making good games is going to make a better game than a 22 year old guy without experience. But if MCA experience was making shovelware for publishers that don't give a fuck about quality for his whole life, the fact that he has kids and a bitch for a wife isn't going to make too much of a difference. Games are shit because publishers want this way and they know that they can sell because people in general have very low standards.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I don't remember System Shock 2 , Thief, Torment, Icewind dale, Fallout and other interesting games being made by 40 years old men with 3 kids.

Well Tim Cain is gay, so it'd be kinda odd if he'd had 3 kids.

 

[DeepOcean]

I don't remember System Shock 2 , Thief, Torment, Icewind dale, Fallout and other interesting games being made by 40 years old men with 3 kids.

Well Tim Cain is gay, so it'd be kinda odd if he'd had 3 kids.

Well, he made fallout when he was 30-32 years old on Black Isle and not on shovelware factory #200.

 

[Irenaeus]

I'm a childless 31(32, in fact) year old white man, so I'm ok with this.

 

[dnf]

One thing is you making Torment, Fallout, Thief, System Shock, you learn alot because you need to learn , another thing is you making CoD, Angry Bird and other shovelware all your life.

Why does making CoD requires much lesser intelligence than making Torment? I don't see where are you coming from.

How about making the same game for years? How about making a game driven by marketing instead of quality? How about making a game for the lowest common denominator? How about making a game that the core experience is watching EXPLOSIUNS? I'm not saying that the developers are dumb idiots but I'm sure as hell they don't need to use their intelligence.

And yet COD probably has more writers than Torment... go figure...

 

[Irenaeus]

And yet COD probably has more writers than Torment... go figure...

It must be hard to create Conspiracy Theory #232

 

[Regdar]

That article pretty much summed up my experience working for Deloitte (one of the "Big Four" financial auditing companies). Except I was payed less.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

80 hours per week? More like 20 hours + 60 hours of slacking off and introducing new bugs. I don't believe people can do high-concentration work like game development for more than 8 hours a day and it's already pushing it.

Also, I don't know why people still pretend that MCA wasn't excommunicated over the whole inability to grasp a single interface and inability to play games stuff.

 

[Damned Registrations]

You have to remember that is the average age. So for every 60 year old guy, there are 3 20 year old guys who weren't even fucking born yet when say, the gold box series was around. Or maybe instead of 3 20 year olds, it's 12 25 year olds. Guys that young think fucking everything is original and novel and great. It's the old fart who's read 1984 and Dune and saw Johnny Mnemonic and is into H.P. Lovecraft that is going to have the cool fucking ideas. I want more guys like this in the industry, because they bring incline even to shitty iOS games like this.

 

[buzz]

I don't think that's really the industry's problem. Pretty much most of the recent games are trying to sell themselves with edginess, uniqueness and cool concepts. Even the infamous Call of Duty does that. Look at games like Bioshock Infinite, DmC or Assassin's Creed. The medium is full of creative fucks with tons of ideas. But these people are all incompetent, they just lack the ability to manage a market, create solid games and properly think ahead.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Cleveland Mark Blakemore

 

[Azarkon]

I don't know why game biz articles and Codexers keep conflating the average developer with the guys doing the creative work.

Average developer = programmer / artist. You are told what to do, especially the former. You have very little involvement in the game design and the creative side of the game. Ken Levine doesn't let his 22-year-old tech. intern tell him whether Infinite's ending sucks. Even his 40-year-old senior systems programmer doesn't get that privilege.

This is not an irrelevant side. There are plenty of people who think making games is the coolest thing ever, but when they get into the industry and they see that all they get to do is software design and code monkeying, they leave. Why stay in the industry when the job is the same with every other programming job, but pays less and demands extra?

Before articles and Codexers go off talking about how games are the products of 31-year-old white childless men, they need to first make sure it's the 31-years-old white childless men who are making the important creative and design decisions.

MCA, Ken Levine, David Gaider, etc. are not your average game developer.

 

[Damned Registrations]

To someone who hasn't seen much, CoD clone #23 and "I want to be a dragon." IS creative.

We need more jaded oldfags who think that crap is cliched decline.

 

[buzz]

You're wrong Dammed Registrations, seriously. You just mentioned the gold box games in your previous post, which consisted of fairly cliche and generic fantasy or sci-fi worlds. That's not their main appeal.
Consider Bioshock series compared to the System Shock series. The former upped the ante in terms of setting originality and presentation, but where it really failed was in gameplay and level design.

 

[DeepOcean]

I don't know why game biz articles and Codexers keep conflating the average developer with the guys doing the creative work.

Average developer = programmer / artist. You are told what to do, especially the former. You have very little involvement in the game design and the creative side of the game. Ken Levine doesn't let his 22-year-old tech. intern tell him whether Infinite's ending sucks. Even his 40-year-old senior systems programmer doesn't get that privilege.

This is not an irrelevant side. There are plenty of people who think making games is the coolest thing ever, but when they get into the industry and they see that all they get to do is software design and code monkeying, they leave. Why stay in the industry when the job is the same with every other programming job, but pays less and demands extra?

Before articles and Codexers go off talking about how games are the products of 31-year-old white childless men, they need to first make sure it's the 31-years-old white childless men who are making the important creative and design decisions.

MCA, Ken Levine, David Gaider, etc. are not your average game developer.

Yeah, and what is more funny is that ken Lavine has 46 years old, he should be a really mature guy to create such amazing game that Bioshock Infinite is... . David Gaider is the more mature writer in the industry, Right? I have an idea... If I was a publisher, I would make a video game with a budget of 100 million dollar and call Richard Garriot and John Romero, David Gaider should write the story... Nothing could go wrong, right?

 

[Dexter]

Because if you had more guys with families and 10+ years of experience, you'd see much better game design. This is what a lot of the old classics were designed by- not even necessarily guys with game experience, just life experience. Doom wasn't made by a bunch of young guys being forced to work 80 hour weeks with no plans for the future.

Yeah dude, totally... I mean just look at BioWare, they had/have a lot of developers with 10+ years of experience in the industry at the studio and they're making their best games ever.

Or Trent Oster and his crew ..., veterans of the gaming industry making the amazing Baldur's Gate: Enchanted Edition, or Ken Levine (his games are always getting better through his industry experience and seniority), Peter Molyneux, Richard Garriot, David Cage etc.

They're all so mature and awesome... it's not actually the young guys in their basements trying to and making cool new things because of their passion (e.g. FTL, Super Meat Boy, Hotline Miami etc.) Or the dudes that did the Wadjet Eye Adventure games or the developer of STASIS, I might even bring up Notch. They're all outright geriatrics too and should probably feel ashamed for being white.

What the industry really needs is more washed up veterans, wait let me bring up these amazing speeches from the last GDC about "mature gaming" again...



It's not like they did their best work in their younger years too (see Bullfrog, Origin, id Software etc. and many companies that literally started from "garage development").

And it would totally matter if the grunts doing the programming were transexual black people instead, because they totally have a lot to say into what goes into a big project and the money guys (publishers) aren't going to get what they want anymore... Call of Duty would be a creative powerhouse.

The one thing is a legitimate complaint, software developers should unionize like the movie industry people and many other industries around the world and they should generally demand to be treated better. The other is a retarded "we want a 50% quota of X people in all companies, because that's totally going to make their work so much better."

Also yeah, Carmack, Romero & Co. weren't "31 year old white guys", no Carmack was actually 21 when he founded id Software and started with Commander Keen and Romero was 24 with Tom Hall being the oldest of the bunch at 27. They were also all black people with lots of life experience and dozens of children to take care of too...