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So you want to be a video game programmer? - The Specs

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Re: So you want to be a video game programmer? - The Specs

#11

Post by amcintyre »

kabdib wrote: post #6
amcintyre wrote: post #3

Thumbs up for telling people they need to know some math. Even if you're not planning to work in the specialized areas that are mentioned in the article, it wouldn't hurt to be more comfortable with math than most developers are, because you may need to step in and help somebody in one of those areas, and (for me, at least), learning stuff like that on short notice is really hard.

You don't really need to know 3D math unless you're working on graphics. It helps. But you don't /need/ it.

Sure, and there are a lot of other things you don't /need/, but that will make you more valuable to employers, or to your customers if you're a business owner.

Everybody has to choose things to learn and not learn, but my experience has been that putting math in the "not learn" category can make your life/career more difficult in some job markets. If most game devs decide they don't need to know math, that's just more opportunity for me, so I'm not too bent out of shape about it. :)

Re: So you want to be a video game programmer? - The Specs

#12

Post by chulipuli »

Silhouette wrote: post #9
fferen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I've been suspecting after reading dozens of tutorials and examples on all manner of game-related APIs and libraries. It seems like game programmers as a whole care less about code organization, style, and all the other values that are exalted in other fields.

You're probably being unfair there. The programmers who work on games are often very smart, very capable people who genuinely want to make a good product. A lot of so-called professional programmers could learn a thing or two from games developers about everything from writing high performance code to co-ordinating large development teams via the value of developing in-house tools to make development work more effici…

Such is the reason the only game I play is a Quake clone (Urban Terror). It is mostly bug free, runs on cheap hardware, and most importantly: it is very fun (due to the great gameplay.) It also has a great community (with a lot of hackers/nerd types.

Re: So you want to be a video game programmer? - The Specs

#13

Post by davidsiems »

gfodor wrote: post #8

Video games are an interesting phenomenon. They manage to pack many of the most interesting problems of computer science into one of the most superficial, yet profitable, applications. They're kind of like the warping of space time, an anomaly of extremes that manages to relentlessly suck brilliant minds away due to its siren call. And yes, I love video games, and considered working in the field. But, stepping back y…

Get off your high horse.

You could say the exact same thing about books, TV, movies, paintings, etc.

Games are just like any other form media. Yes, many of them are superficial, but a lot of them tell incredible stories, teach life lessons, and evoke powerful emotions. To top it all off they can also be incredible teaching tools.

Just because you think something's a waste of time doesn't mean other people aren't deriving real meaning from it.

Re: So you want to be a video game programmer? - The Specs

#14

Post by teamonkey »

Silhouette wrote: post #9
fferen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I've been suspecting after reading dozens of tutorials and examples on all manner of game-related APIs and libraries. It seems like game programmers as a whole care less about code organization, style, and all the other values that are exalted in other fields.

You're probably being unfair there. The programmers who work on games are often very smart, very capable people who genuinely want to make a good product. A lot of so-called professional programmers could learn a thing or two from games developers about everything from writing high performance code to co-ordinating large development teams via the value of developing in-house tools to make development work more effici…

I agree with most of your post, but I don't think the problem is bugginess.

The real problem is the short-term fix nature of games. As you say, they're (mostly) not designed to be one-shots, with the majority of players playing through the game for a couple of weeks each, within a period of a few months of each other. That is why bugginess is tolerated, not the other way around. It's not worth the time to fix non-critical edge-case problems in situations. By the time the bug can be fixed, and tested, it'll only be useful to, say, 10% of total players.

In multiplayer games (and other games where the player is expected to engage with the game for months at a time) then you find that there are frequent updates and bug fixes.

Re: So you want to be a video game programmer? - The Specs

#15

Post by agavin »

Silhouette wrote: post #9
fferen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I've been suspecting after reading dozens of tutorials and examples on all manner of game-related APIs and libraries. It seems like game programmers as a whole care less about code organization, style, and all the other values that are exalted in other fields.

You're probably being unfair there. The programmers who work on games are often very smart, very capable people who genuinely want to make a good product. A lot of so-called professional programmers could learn a thing or two from games developers about everything from writing high performance code to co-ordinating large development teams via the value of developing in-house tools to make development work more effici…

I'd have to content that my own games (Crash + Jak) are far far less buggy than the typical web or desktop application. We had a VERY low tolerance for bugs. I NEVER EVER shipped with a known crash bug (there were some I didn't know about of course). As entertainment we always felt that the consumer had zero tolerance for bugs. Something like MS Word is riddled with serious bugs that don't get fixed major release after major release. We had a huge staff of in house QA and even more external.

Re: So you want to be a video game programmer? - The Specs

#16

Post by SoftwareMaven »

I've worked for a couple of game studios over the years. Unfortunately, conditions were atrocious at both, something that seems to be fairly common in the industry. My hypothesis is so many coders spent their teen years playing video games, wanting to write them, that they are willing to work in sub-par conditions.

I won't work at another one, unless it's my own. Sadly, I'm not skilled enough to start my own.

Re: So you want to be a video game programmer? - The Specs

#17

Post by michaelchisari »

kabdib wrote: post #5
acgourley wrote: post #2

It's worth reading this even if you're not interested in games or the industry that makes them. The game industry is one of the most mature industries in software and it offers a possible future for YOUR corner of the software world. Besides being one of the longest running industries in software, it iterates teams and products rapidly. Because of this it has performed a gradient decent more than any other software i…

Most games are trainwrecks inside. They are /just good enough to ship/ and often no better. They are fragile, fickle things that for the most part have a market lifetime much shorter than the time it took to develop the title. You get your money back -- if you do -- in the first few months of sales. Games are pragmatic and hard, cheap bastards that chew up teams and spit them out. It's fun. :-)

I wonder if it's a different story with longer-running MMORPG's like WoW, FFXI, etc. Wouldn't the situation force the development process to be more stable and follow best practices?

Re: So you want to be a video game programmer? - The Specs

#18

Post by chaostheory »

acgourley wrote: post #2

It's worth reading this even if you're not interested in games or the industry that makes them. The game industry is one of the most mature industries in software and it offers a possible future for YOUR corner of the software world. Besides being one of the longest running industries in software, it iterates teams and products rapidly. Because of this it has performed a gradient decent more than any other software i…

I think what's sad when you compare the games industry to others like finance or telecommunications, (based on my experience) a typical (large) game company does way way more testing than say a big bank or telco.

Re: So you want to be a video game programmer? - The Specs

#19

Post by gfodor »

davidsiems wrote: post #13
gfodor wrote: post #8

Video games are an interesting phenomenon. They manage to pack many of the most interesting problems of computer science into one of the most superficial, yet profitable, applications. They're kind of like the warping of space time, an anomaly of extremes that manages to relentlessly suck brilliant minds away due to its siren call. And yes, I love video games, and considered working in the field. But, stepping back y…

Get off your high horse. You could say the exact same thing about books, TV, movies, paintings, etc. Games are just like any other form media. Yes, many of them are superficial, but a lot of them tell incredible stories, teach life lessons, and evoke powerful emotions. To top it all off they can also be incredible teaching tools. Just because you think something's a waste of time doesn't mean other people aren't deri…

This is the inevitable response that I get when I dare suggest that those of us with the gift of being able to program computers in such a interesting time choose wisely where we place our efforts.

I'm not saying it's immoral, unrewarding, or not plain fun to play and build video games. I'm saying that in life you get to choose how you spend your time, and in my view building the next killing simulator when you have the talent and means to do so much more is probably something worthy of self-reflection.

Re: So you want to be a video game programmer? - The Specs

#20

Post by SoftwareMaven »

michaelchisari wrote: post #17
kabdib wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most games are trainwrecks inside. They are /just good enough to ship/ and often no better. They are fragile, fickle things that for the most part have a market lifetime much shorter than the time it took to develop the title. You get your money back -- if you do -- in the first few months of sales. Games are pragmatic and hard, cheap bastards that chew up teams and spit them out. It's fun. :-)

I wonder if it's a different story with longer-running MMORPG's like WoW, FFXI, etc. Wouldn't the situation force the development process to be more stable and follow best practices?

I worked at Riot Games (makers of League of Legends) for a while. In some ways, it was much better: good, iterative practices, tracking technical debt, etc. In other ways, it was no different: long hours, little regard for anything but the release, etc.

Now that they've been released for a while, it would be interesting to see how things have changed.

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