Your Experience Has Little Value

I've been searching for a new position these last few months. I've seen an interesting trend that I didn't expect, and I find it pretty disheartening.


If you've been working at a big AAA game developer more than likely you've been using their proprietary engine.  In my case I was working with Dunia which is a far deviated version of the CryTech engine.  I've worked with this engine for almost 9 years.  My role was to build and script game play areas and missions.  I did not consider however that while I was working with Dunia the industry was changing.

Unreal 4 & Unity made game development so much more accessible for small startups which is was great!  Big AAA publishers are really more of a money machine who's goal is to churn out cash rather than taking risks with innovative ideas.  Giving these little studios access to make something new not only helped them, but it helped the industry as a whole. The competition forces AAA out of their comfort zones and drives the whole industry forward.  So when the time came for me to move on I jumped out into the job market with 20+ years of game development experience expecting that I'd be in demand, but that was the wrong assumption.

Working for 8+ years with a proprietary engine translates to zero experience for most companies that use UE4 or Unity.  They're not interested in dealing with anyone that would need to get up to speed with their production.  They want someone that has been living with their engine daily for years. Sure, I've used UE4 and I can create a map and script it but this is not a major part of my portfolio. I've been building in Dunia and id Tech engines shipping titles like Farcry 5 but this is of no value to them.  I had one developer straight up tell me, "My years of experience means nothing because it was with proprietary engines.  I have no useful knowledge for UE4 / Unity devs."   He went on to say, "You need to be using UE4 every day for 2 to 3 years min."

Let me be frank about this shortsightedness.  Most game engines are similar.  They all basically do the same thing.  For a person to move from one to another does require some time to get up to speed. An experienced designer generally knows what they are looking for, they just need to learn where to find it in an unfamiliar engine environment.  This would take two weeks, maybe three.  After that you then have a designer that has shipped top selling AAA titles since before you even started in the business.  Isn't that worth it?  Are two weeks going to be such a setback?  I shared this feedback with a friend and studio Creative Director he replied, "What a load of bullshit. That excludes so much of the industry workforce."

This attitude isn't just in regards to engine experience, its with platforms as well.  People that have worked on PC or console titles are at a huge disadvantage if they're looking to change to mobile or VR development.  Mobile studios aren't interested in console devs and vice versa.  Even within familiar platforms if you've only worked on single play VS multiplayer or if you've never worked on a free-to-play game you're immediately less desirable.  So what are these developers looking for?  I think I've found the answer.

Right now the majority of studios don't seem to be looking for creative, experienced people to help improve their titles.  They want someone who can quickly fill a seat and close some JIRA tasks.  No thinking required or even desired.

Has My Career Been a Success??

Over the years I have found my career in the gaming industry a strange mix.  On the one hand I’ve without a doubt devoted myself to my career having started back in 1997 as a lowly phone rep at Activision and clawing my way to design in 2000.  From then to today I’ve worked on many AAA titles and have the respect of many of my peers.  But on the other hand I’ve found a kind of emptiness in that I’ve only worked on what feels like other people’s ideas.  Certainly I’ve had creative input to the content of Wolfenstein, Quake, Farcry, titles but none of them are what I would call “my game.” They weren’t my concept.

Do I have my own idea?  Wow! Certainly!  I’ve been documenting my design ideas since the early days and have many fresh takes and completely new concepts.  Back in 2000 I and a small group of people from what was Gray Matter studios pitched one of my ideas to Activision.  They loved the idea but we were really “green” and they wanted us to get a few more titles under our belt before they would be willing to fund us as an indie company.  So we all drifted into our separate careers in Ubisoft, Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and others.

 With the accessibility  of game engines like Unity, Unreal, and others why haven’t I jumped in and started doing my own thing?  Well that is a question that haunts me daily.  First of all it’s often hard to work on games all day and then come home and work on games all night. I know it’s a very popular assumption that working on games isn’t work but it really is.  Like the saying goes, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”  Also it’s one thing to work in a particular role and something very different to assume all roles.  The stack of work gets rather high when you realize you have to do it all yourself.  I can certainly handle the game design and level design.  I have an art degree so I could fill the role of art and modeling.  I have done scripting so I could handle some light code.  But I am certainly NOT a programmer.  Numbers and I have not been friends in the past and I’m not thrilled with the idea that I need to learn serious programming.  My experience has been that if what you want to do is not something you’re engine can do then you’re on the right track.  You’re not going to break new ground doing what everyone else is doing.  But to bend the rules you need to program a way to do it.  So in that lies the turmoil.  The obvious solution is to get a programming partner but I am soooooo reluctant to involve someone else. 

Another hurtle is that as a designer most studios don’t allow us to have side projects.  You are in breach of your agreement if you are either designing for someone else or yourself while working for a studio.  Luckily Ubisoft has an option.  You can pitch your idea to them and if they are not interested they will sign a “Right of First Refusal” agreement that allows you to freely work on it.  Of course there is a chance they would be interested which for me would be tragic.  You could say I have trust issues and that would be pretty true.  Like letting your child out into the world, really you can only hope for the best and I’m just not ready to do that yet. 

So I should be able to sit back, proud of my career accomplishments thus far and the big AAA titles I’ve worked on.  But I really envy the little indies that aren’t following the money making trends and are chasing their dreams.  I might get there eventually fingers crossed.

Measuring My Art Chops

I've been tinkering around with a project at home.  It's a little overwhelming to sit down in front the computer and just create a game that isn't there in any form.  Where do you start?  What can you do yourself and what do you need help with?  These are the questions you don't have answers for until you dive in.

I have an art degree so I thought I might be able to handle the art myself but as a game designer it's been a long time since I created much art.  So I thought I should see what I can do in Photoshop.  My goal for the project's look is to have a style that was fun and sort of cartoonish, something like Warcraft.  To start I decided to do something simple and just create a board or a texture for a beam of wood.  No particular scale or metrics, just see if I could get the look I was going for.

This was sort of whimsical and fun like I wanted and was going the right direction but it needed more details like dings and chips.

So from start to finish I'd say it took about 3 hours and looked pretty close to what I had in mind.  At least I accomplished my goal of measuring my current art ability.  At the start I felt a little rusty but after turning on some music and digging in it started flowing pretty naturally.  I think it turned out alright.