It's amazing to read about the incredible expansions happening elsewhere in the games industry. The generous tax incentives that developers receive in Canada, for instance, has spawned these newly termed "Super Studios". Think Krome's 400 employees in three studios around Australia was impressive? Try THQ's 400 employees in one complex in Montreal, or the 800 capacity mega studio that Assassin's Creed producer, Jade Raymond, is heading up for Ubisoft Toronto.
It's been fairly common for big studios to recruit new talent from the local educational institution graduates and to quickly nurture and guide them with the senior talent onboard that have dozens of titles under their belts and years, perhaps decades of experience behind them. Jade Raymond describes the common industry practise as an important step in growing her new studio...
(Jade)...because we are going to be working on triple-A products from the start, we've been able to attract a lot of senior talent as well, and that means we have a good base of people who can be mentors and coach the other people working at the studio.
The key to growing Ubisoft Toronto successfully is making sure that we're hiring talent and giving them the framework to grow and reach their potential as quickly as possible.
The danger for the Australia games industry is that with the big closures we've had of our big studios like Krome, Pandemic, Auran, Ratbag etc, and the resulting scattering and loss of experienced staff is a big blow for the local games industry and it means much fewer places and opportunities for newcomers to be nurtured by that talent.
It's a problem that hasn't escaped Glenn Watson. During the IGDA Melbourne Christmas party held last week on the rooftops of BigAnt Studios, the ex-Ratbag, IR Gurus/Transmission, Krome, and Infinite Interactive programmer who's turned to independent games development has noticed a big shift between the kinds of developers in the Melbourne scene, a change that is likely followed by the rest of the country as well.
The observation by Glenn was that there was hardly any commercial developers around. Most of the party goers were unrecognisable by veteran games developer, Kevin "Zaph" Burfitt, who, with 15 years of experience going as far back as Beam Software and dozens of titles under his belt, hired a great amount of Melbourne games developers - an estimated quarter of the Melbourne games industry.
Zaph himself is one of many veterans who are vital to the Australian games industry but are no longer in an established studio but have so much knowledge and experience to offer, and Glenn cites other great talent who are now lost to the industry...
(Glenn) There are numerous developers that worked for Melbourne House/Krome who were some of the strongest programmers I have ever worked for. One guy in particular was perhaps one of the best optimisers in the Australian Games Industry. He had worked on all games platforms since the early 90s and the great thing he brought although he adapted well to newer languages/techniques he was able to take the lessons learnt from the old school. For example without his skills I doubt Viva Piñata Party Animals would have been as smooth running as it was when it was released.
The loss of games development experience and knowledge is something Glenn doesn't want to see happen, and he encourages others to break out of the veil of secrecy common in the games industry and be more open with ideas, techniques, and even code before it's too late. He's doing so with his blog and sharing ideas with others at events like Freeplay, and hopes others will do the same.
Please head on over to Glenn's blog and respond to his article there at the following link...
You think that's big?
You think the 800 man (and woman) studio in Toronto is big? When I was at Ubisoft Montreal in 2006 we had 1600 people there. And at the time that was the second biggest game development studio in the world. EA Vancouver had about nearly twice that, but spread over two offices some distance apart.
Great article but too bad
Great article but too bad independant studios like bigant etc will be dead within 3-6 months. Its a tough time and a cycle that is desparately needed to flush out the baddies and give room to
Indie studios to flourish. Atleast most of the people running these indies are doing things differently and are willing to learn the ropes to succeed.
hmmmm
Big Ant started as an indie with five or six people in 2001, I guess if you hire a lot of people you are somehow a "baddie" and evil... lets hope none of the current indies start hiring people, train them, and help grow the industry as that would be really, really bad for us all...
Thanks for the compliment. I
Thanks for the compliment.
I think in some ways you are failing to see the point of the article.
I would argue there are no "Bad" game developers.
The article is suggesting that the current indie developers are focusing on light weight heavy design based games, while the old school worked on more technical larger style games.
The old school studios have alot to give the indie, mainly in regards to the technical elements. And the newer school can help keep the trend of design heavy fun games coming along. If you look at games like Viva Pinata Party Animals they look fantastic, you can tell the amount of hours gone into their production, but the design is the weaker side of the game (not saying its not fun though). You look at Train Conducter from The Voxel Agents, such a fun game but technically compared to something like Viva Pinata its weaker.
It's become obvious that the US publisher model can't sustain game developers in Australia anymore. The indie developer have exploited the various mobile phone market app markets to provide their own publishing model. I think this is the real value of their success.
The whole idea of the article is to help promote sharing information, techniques etc to help all type of game developers.
- Glenn
far from a compliment, I was
far from a compliment, I was replying to the post above. Your post is purley observational from the point of view of a niche audience that you had some drinks with, I give it little merit.
If everyone rushes like sheep to the same platform and same set of consumers then there is only one way that can go.... it is, and will continue to be, very crowded with not enough oxygen....
You may also note that it
You may also note that it wasn't in reply to your "Hmmm" reply, but in the one above.
Please observe the threading.
give them room? Some people
give them room?
Some people are idiots.
"too bad independant studios
"too bad independant studios like bigant etc will be dead within 3-6 months"
That's quite an assertion... care to elaborate?
I think it's not so bad
I think it's not so bad people are going overseas, as they will come back at some point. Australia is a pretty good place to live and work. Even though theres not much work around at the moment it will turn around in the future, when the smaller successful companies eventually expand. I think the real problem is people moving into other industries and not wanting to come back due to poor conditions, bad job security and pay.
I think taking the general
I think taking the general IGDA Melbourne crowd as a balanced cross-section of game makers in Melbourne is unrealistic. Generally the turnout from studio folk has been far less than that of 'indies' and students/games industry hopefuls.
I have no knowledge of what the make-up was pre-Transmission closure, since that reignition of IGDA in 2009 one of its greatest challenges has been to have talks and information evenings that appeal to the needs of professional developers.
There are less professional game dev roles currently in Melbourne than has been seen for some time. But o draw a bow from the IGDA Melbourne representatives to the number of professional devs in Melbourne is rather long and tenuous.
Firemint had their Christmas party the night before the rooftop party, and as such there were many apologies from there afterwards having not made it due to such a big one the night before. They not be alone.
Valid observation. The IGDA
Valid observation.
The IGDA Melbourne is just a background setting rather than the entire gist of article.
Elite?!?
This guy is kidding right?
I was also at the party and I agree that there was a fair few that I didn't know. Thats because the IGDA is about getting together from within the industry and outside the industry (students).
Loosing the elite? The first letter of a few surnames of people that I know that are are actively working within the Australian games industry with their "years served". These are without doubt some of the most talented people I've worked with, one of them is the best I've worked with and I'm ever likely to:
Me 12 years
D 5
L 5
E 13
S 13
L 15
H 5
J 6
S 8
I could go on, these are just the ones I know off the top of my head (using linkedin to confirm years).
I'm not going to deny that we are loosing people, but the elite? thats just laughable.
Controversial bit:
Darwin had a great theory which applies to the games industry too, survival of the fittest. If you're good enough and want to stay in games in Australia, you will. The weak will get weeded out.
The melbourne house guys are
The melbourne house guys are around average 15+ years experience in the Aussie games industry.
Considering that is around 20+ people thats 300+ years compared to your 70.
Then add the people from Krome in general no getting jobs. Lets say average 5 years experience each, and lets say 20% retain jobs of the 400 other employees thats 1600+ years experience lost.
I would say your 70 is looking fairly miserable.
I worked with a guy with 25
I worked with a guy with 25 years experience a few years back. Couldn't program for shit. He was stuck in the 80's
I'm not saying that it's not a tragedy, I'm just saying saying it's Australia's elite is a bit big headed. We still have major publishers like EA, THQ x 2, 2K and Sega with studios, plus the independent studios. No "elite" people work for them?
Stuck in the 80s
I can think of only a few with that many years experience, would be 28 years now since it was a few years ago. Unless they were from OS they must be ex Beam/Melbourne house. AB, but I wouldn't call him stuck in the 80s. GS, nope. BP and RR, I could see that, but they left games. There are a few others that moved out of the programming area that I would say were stuck in the 80s if they ever touched code now.
GS I would never say being
GS I would never say being stuck in the 80s.
GS, definitely not
If it was misinterpreted, I definitely don't tthink GS in stuck in the 80s. He has kept coding constantly and evolved with the technology.
Leaving the Australian games industry, sure
One of the big reasons is that over the years it has grown in size enormously and seems to be filled up with people with huge egos and little tallent.
There are some big egos, some
There are some big egos, some not.
There are some who are talented, some who are not.
It's like any industry.
Very true
The difference seems to be now days the management is less hands on and don't realise when some of these egos self promote to earn status way above their abilities. In the early days when the industry was smaller these bullshit artists didn't last long, now they are likely to be your lead.
Still the same
Hmm don't know about that one. If you wound back the clock to Melbourne House/Beam many, many years ago you certainly would have seen some ordinary management, depending on what project you were on. That said, at the time, there was some great work done by some really talented people and the development environment was impressive for its time.
There were bullshit artists then and always will be.
The interesting thing about the indie platforms is this : rapidly the hardware will get quite sophisticated in terms of performance and content rich games will be possible on a small device.
Hence as far as production values, in a few years (probably 5 or less) games are going to converge pretty soon with their console brothers. Devs will need to be able to manage production values and team sizes if they want to compete with being a top tier game unless they are going the unique route that hopefully might turn out to be a popular hit.
There is of course also the opportunity for being the place where the console work is ported down to mobile platforms, but that just constrains you to work-for-hire which can be a tough place to be at times.
FWIW, I don't think you can ever use years of experience as the definition of elite - there is an element of talent and intellect that goes with that. I've seen some people come fresh into the industry that have just have a natural aptitude and persistence that gets the current elite nodding in acceptance and thinking 'yeah, he can play'. You also have take into account the quality of environment of those years of experience too. The difference now is that back then in the 2D days there was so little content and systems to get working and functional compared to what you need for a 6 hour+ AAA game.
Agreed
There are some great new guys in the industry. I see the iPhone like the NES and SNES, etc, of yesterday. A few people can make a great fun game without too much tech getting in the way. After all if the tech is there you have to use it right? :) So eventually teams will grow to the 30, 60, 120 people in size and the new independants will be the same as the console studios. That will require big budgets and big risks and support from international publishers. Competition on development costs then becomes an issue and the work goes elsewhere. And so the wheel turns round again. In fact it seems that it's an ever accelerating wheel. I see no stability in the games industry of the future. When your young and living at home or have no kids and mortgage, can afford to have your life almost exclusively dedicated to developing games, go for it. It's like taking a back packers tour of europe. If you are older and have things like a mortgages, kids and would like something more reliable, I don't think the games industry in Australia can offer that any more.
I think you'll see a lot more
I think you'll see a lot more game developers become contractors. The work has too many peaks and valleys in terms of work availability to consider it a full time position.
The reality is you'll probably mix it up with other technical based work.
Nice to see BTW some intelligence come into this thread :)
Contracting vs quality
I wonder how contracting will impact game quality. Typically it takes a few projects for a team to really learn to work well on games. That and having everyone really up to speed on the tech, development methods used, etc. For example, for the most part, MH games and tech improved with each game cycle. I can see keeping a core team of perminants would preserve the team experience gained from project to project. How big should that team be? What roles? How much time will be lost getting new contractors up to speed?
Proportional to management
The further away from the critical path of engineering is the usual space where you can incorporate contractors. It also depends on the duration of you project as well - longer timelines let you integrate people as you need them, get them working on-site to the point where they are part of the team.
It also depends on the type of game you are making too. Presume AAA?
Art is usually the first point, then design components (usually level based, not core systems design) and eventually engineering is the final area, but can be successfully done. I think its moreso a function of good management to be able to streamline contractors and get them into the fold. It can be planned for something like mulitplayer or a PC SKU.
As far as intergration timelines, you'd consider them a new hire. So yeah a couple of weeks until they start becoming initially productive - all comes down to your learning curve. You can contract people to do low level optimization as long as you give them enough lead time.
M
Reboot
The good thing about the IPhone is two of the typical barriers - getting to market and getting the tools to work on content are very small if not removed. Console dev requires you to get dev kits, be seriously accredited and that is a fairly arduous process for a startup, though certainly doable.
So more or less its a rebirth for developers of all shapes and sizes. Which is a good thing as the game dev scene in Australia has taken some heavy hits lately and it desperately needs some opportunites for growth.
Most of the Oz game companies that are (or were around) all started small. Most of them on one project or a demo and then a project. Some of them have done well while others have imploded.
The challenging thing is to grow a revenue stream from your games so you can gradually get some form of stability and pay for your team and then diverge from there.
Becoming evil
As time goes and these small developers grow. Expanding there studios, doing more and bigger projects. At what point do they become evil personified like the current and recently deceased studios? ;) After all those studios followed the same path.
How do you know they weren't
How do you know they weren't evil to begin with? :)
You have to assume some level of technical or entreprenurial competence gets a studio rolling in the first place (barring a big pile of cash falling from the sky). It probably isn't the intent of the founders to go out of business.
Also depends on your definition of evil too.
M
I doubt many of the employers
I doubt many of the employers that went out business in the last two years had CEO's with manic evil laughs, thinking and plotting "how can I cause my employees pain and suffering".
I imagine they just felt the change in the market.
The good/evil thing was a joke really
So many posters on Tsumea seem to post established studios and bad and should close, new startups equals good.
As to the going out of business, I guess it is how it is done. Not paying your employees for months and telling them they will be paid when you know damn well you won't is evil. Setting up a new company while you are doing this so there is a soft landing for managers/owners is evil. Just going broke and then trying to make the best you can with what's left over is just unfortunate.