Heartwarming Video lol
3:50 coming from an ex dev as a players perspective
What I got from that:
-Video game development is a business.
-Players shouldn’t criticize developers.
-Players are really just know-it-alls.
-Developers should give us more stuff.
-Small sized gaming studios should be bigger.Can I have my 5 minutes back please.
Swing and a miss. The points of the video are quite simple.
1: A game devs are not in it for the money but for the lvoe of games. They cant do this for free so they attempt to make money, though as she mentioned they could go to microsoft or amazon and make much more then they can through a game.
2:She is talking to those players who think it is easy or they can do a better job and that games should be purely free or have x amount of content.
3: about the same as 2 but this is more of a “i can make a better game” kind of comment. The truth is said person can’t, and no they would not change anything if they were x dev or x position in a company.
and my fave part 4: This is a nice message to the devs, She is talking about how closed door game devs are about what they are working on and how they would let the community know what is going on. Be a bit more active with them and even listen to feed back.
Now before anyone bashes me for my reply, let me just throw out there that much like her i use to work on games. most were browser games but they took just as much work and love as a normal mmo.
She makes it sound like game employees are so scared of losing their jobs by questioning established process that it wouldn’t be an environment you would want to work in anyway. Surely not everyone in the game’s industry is so spineless? Perhaps the ones that weren’t are now unemployed or running their own company. We see which one she chose.
#1 Commander/Player NA: Promotions
What I got from that:
-Video game development is a business.
-Players shouldn’t criticize developers.
-Players are really just know-it-alls.
-Developers should give us more stuff.
-Small sized gaming studios should be bigger.Can I have my 5 minutes back please.
Swing and a miss. The points of the video are quite simple.
1: A game devs are not in it for the money but for the lvoe of games. They cant do this for free so they attempt to make money, though as she mentioned they could go to microsoft or amazon and make much more then they can through a game.2:She is talking to those players who think it is easy or they can do a better job and that games should be purely free or have x amount of content.
3: about the same as 2 but this is more of a “i can make a better game” kind of comment. The truth is said person can’t, and no they would not change anything if they were x dev or x position in a company.
and my fave part 4: This is a nice message to the devs, She is talking about how closed door game devs are about what they are working on and how they would let the community know what is going on. Be a bit more active with them and even listen to feed back.
Now before anyone bashes me for my reply, let me just throw out there that much like her i use to work on games. most were browser games but they took just as much work and love as a normal mmo.
(((I understand the massive effort it takes to make a game. It takes many hours of effort, patience, and love. Not bashing, just disagreeing on some things.)))
1. The lower ranking game devs in a company are in it for the games, not the money. Once you get high enough on the corporate ladder, you might still be in it for the games. At that level though, your all but required to worry about budget/time/resources/manpower/keeping stockholders happy/etc., and much less of the actual games themselves.
This is a fact in any business. Marvel Comics has lots of people that work there and work because of their love for writing/drawing comics. Higher up in the chain of command though, all that matters at a point is the bottom line. You’ll see priorities change, and comics get canceled mid-run, and the people that actually love what they do get tossed around thanks to shifting company goals and priorities.
2. Isn’t that how we got the original GW1 though? People (probably avid gamers themselves) who left other big companies, thinking that they could do better with less?
The thing is, if you can do better, go out there and do better, prove it (and its been proved by many gamers/developers many times). If you can’t do better, then shut the hell up. Actions speak much louder than words. People shouldn’t just go masquerading on the forums talking about their apparent superiority with game making, when they often have nothing to prove otherwise.
I’m not saying you can’t criticize Arenanet for their decisions on the direction of the game(or Bungie, Or Blizzard, etc….). Fact is, you paid for it, and you play it. If any of these people want you and others to keep paying and playing, your criticism and feedback is necessary.
3. Same as point 2.
4. I agree with you on that part.
and my fave part 4: This is a nice message to the devs, She is talking about how closed door game devs are about what they are working on and how they would let the community know what is going on. Be a bit more active with them and even listen to feed back.
It’s not always their call though. Personally, I think almost any game dev would like to be very open with what they’re doing. I would like that to. But it gets a bit more complicated when things are of the scope that an MMO like GW2 is, where you could potentially could have thousands upon thousands of voices coming at you from all angles. It might also be a bit tough when you have a ton of different projects going on, some of which end up getting scrapped for some reason, and then people getting kitten over it. There’s sometimes a point where you need to block out some of that stuff and not let too many cooks in the kitchen. But perhaps ANet does need to be a bit better at keeping people in the loop.
She makes it sound like game employees are so scared of losing their jobs by questioning established process that it wouldn’t be an environment you would want to work in anyway. Surely not everyone in the game’s industry is so spineless? Perhaps the ones that weren’t are now unemployed or running their own company. We see which one she chose.
It can be a rather unforgiving environment, although I don’t have personal experience as a game developer. Part of being an employee is following the established policies (assuming they’re ethical, of course). If you don’t want to do that, they’ll probably find another very talented person to take your place. You don’t just go to work and do whatever you want. Potentially not having a job is a trivial matter as people need the income to live. Starting a company is a massive undertaking with an extremely high rate of failure, so it’s not like that is a reasonable alternative for most individuals.
It’s why people always say you need to be “crazy” to work in game development. You often need to be very talented to have a specific set of skills to make it good, potentially work very crazy hours, and not get paid as much as an equally talented software developer/engineer who isn’t working for a game developer. The main thing that draws them to game development is their passion for it, which is important to them. As the end users, we often don’t see the ugly side of it.
In any case, it sounded like she had a lot of pent-up stress in the video and was mostly venting it out.
She makes it sound like game employees are so scared of losing their jobs by questioning established process that it wouldn’t be an environment you would want to work in anyway. Surely not everyone in the game’s industry is so spineless? Perhaps the ones that weren’t are now unemployed or running their own company. We see which one she chose.
Well, unless you’re in a relatively small company, your say doesn’t account for much unless it’s being asked specifically for.
It’s not so much about losing your job (unless you somehow keep managing to sneak things into releases that aren’t intended at all), but really there’s only so much that people can do because the company objective keeps changing.
Imagine you work at Gamestop and you had all these great idea’s for how they could improve their customer experience. What do you do about it? You suck it up and keep doing what your boss tells you to do. If you tell your boss, that’s great, he can’t do anything about it, either. This is what happens in lots of jobs.
She makes it sound like game employees are so scared of losing their jobs by questioning established process that it wouldn’t be an environment you would want to work in anyway. Surely not everyone in the game’s industry is so spineless? Perhaps the ones that weren’t are now unemployed or running their own company. We see which one she chose.
Well, unless you’re in a relatively small company, your say doesn’t account for much unless it’s being asked specifically for.
It’s not so much about losing your job (unless you somehow keep managing to sneak things into releases that aren’t intended at all), but really there’s only so much that people can do because the company objective keeps changing.
Imagine you work at Gamestop and you had all these great idea’s for how they could improve their customer experience. What do you do about it? You suck it up and keep doing what your boss tells you to do. If you tell your boss, that’s great, he can’t do anything about it, either. This is what happens in lots of jobs.
If I really thought they were such amazing ideas, I’d probably just do it anyway and face the consequences or find a way to get it done (volunteer to be the fall man to your boss should it come to it etc.). If the ideas don’t stick and I thought they were so great then its not somewhere I’d be able to work anyway knowing that it could be better. I’d find somewhere else that shared my goals/vision.
#1 Commander/Player NA: Promotions
If I really thought they were such amazing ideas, I’d probably just do it anyway and face the consequences or find a way to get it done (volunteer to be the fall man to your boss should it come to it etc.). If the ideas don’t stick and I thought they were so great then its not somewhere I’d be able to work anyway knowing that it could be better. I’d find somewhere else that shared my goals/vision.
You would, or you have done so in the past? Cause it’s easy to talk big about such things when it’s not your paycheck on the line.
Or words to that effect.
The problem is that the people that actually develop the games are not the ones making the overall larger decisions on what is and isn’t going to be done within a game. People at the top, as it is with most, if not all, companies will have their set of rules and guidelines. They will have their overall idea on what all they want and on a MMO priorities can change since MMOs are live games that typically receive several content updates a year for several years.
The developers that many run their mouth about are not truly the ones at fault as they are doing a job within the guidelines and restrictions they have to work with. If they don’t follow this then often said people will be replaced with other people equally as talented that will do what is asked of them.
I think the real problem is that too often MMOs end up being a bottomless pit for people to toss their hard earned money into rather than a truly unique and changing but improving gaming experience month after month. Even if some things, especially textures, need to be rehashed then so be it. If that adds more areas to explore and more events and quests to enjoy then that would keep players imo.
If a company wants to make more money from a MMO then they should simply get smarter with the gem stores, cash shops etc. They should add non-pay2win items that will be desirable enough that people will happily spend money on it. Lots of games rehash things but if done right it can look and feel different, it can even look new. It kittentainly be enjoyable.
Living story is fine but so much more can be done without any real extra effort. I never was a developer but close enough. I used to create detailed maps, character models and other things in games over the years in the past. If it wasn’t that time consuming for me to do then surely these big companies could tell their dev teams and allow them to push out more content.
Companies could also benefit from players simply wanting a better game and providing test servers for potential future content and allow some of the players to test and provide feedback. I know some games have done this but it’s just one way to reduce cost while pushing out more content without devs having to sit and test and nitpick through every single thing added.
If I really thought they were such amazing ideas, I’d probably just do it anyway and face the consequences or find a way to get it done (volunteer to be the fall man to your boss should it come to it etc.). If the ideas don’t stick and I thought they were so great then its not somewhere I’d be able to work anyway knowing that it could be better. I’d find somewhere else that shared my goals/vision.
You would, or you have done so in the past? Cause it’s easy to talk big about such things when it’s not your paycheck on the line.
If you think that’s talking big then I pity you. That’s like a major principle to living any sort of satisfying life. That’s like saying I can breath is talking big.
#1 Commander/Player NA: Promotions
(edited by Crysto.7089)
OMG she is beautiful and she makes some interesting points. But WOW 10/10 her bf is one lucky dude.
Necromancer Main
1: A game devs are not in it for the money but for the lvoe of games. They cant do this for free so they attempt to make money, though as she mentioned they could go to microsoft or amazon and make much more then they can through a game.
2:She is talking to those players who think it is easy or they can do a better job and that games should be purely free or have x amount of content.
3: about the same as 2 but this is more of a “i can make a better game” kind of comment. The truth is said person can’t, and no they would not change anything if they were x dev or x position in a company.
Just my 2 cents:
1: I’m not implying that the devs have the money in mind when creating new content. But I do say that the managers of ANet/NCSoft have. I’m furthermore convinced that the chosen monetisation is ok but could be way better. At the moment I find myself “forced” to buy stuff from the gemshop, simply because the gemshop gets all the updates I care about while the normal PvE updates are “meh” for the most part.
2: I’m not saying that I could do better but the only part where I would say that the devs really did a bad job is the “former town-clothes” disaster. Tonics and outfits are no proper replacement for the townclothes.
3: I think the game overall is great, I’m just saying that the game would be better if the chosen direction pre-launch would’ve been pursued more consistent.
If I really thought they were such amazing ideas, I’d probably just do it anyway and face the consequences or find a way to get it done (volunteer to be the fall man to your boss should it come to it etc.). If the ideas don’t stick and I thought they were so great then its not somewhere I’d be able to work anyway knowing that it could be better. I’d find somewhere else that shared my goals/vision.
You would, or you have done so in the past? Cause it’s easy to talk big about such things when it’s not your paycheck on the line.
If you think that’s talking big then I pity you. That’s like a major principle to living any sort of satisfying life. That’s like saying I can breath is talking big.
And interestingly, you didn’t answer the question. It’s great to have principles, but unless you’re talking from direct experience, you should keep in mind that standing up for all of those pretty principles takes a lot more courage than your imagination can come up with.
Or words to that effect.
I do like to make things interesting.
#1 Commander/Player NA: Promotions
Pretty much confirms what many of us have been saying all along, that it doesn’t seem like the developers have the wheel but that the game is being developed by the shareholders which is never good. Just look at what happened to Archeage, nothing at all like the Korean version by the time Trion “westernized” it.
Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!
players shouldn’t complain, devs can drive a game into the ground, we should all be a big transparent happy family.. yeah, that was totally worth five minutes, ok..
Pretty much confirms what many of us have been saying all along, that it doesn’t seem like the developers have the wheel but that the game is being developed by the shareholders which is never good. Just look at what happened to Archeage, nothing at all like the Korean version by the time Trion “westernized” it.
Nowhere did she mention shareholders, and I doubt that’s what she means. Shareholders don’t run companies, management teams do, who are answerable TO shareholders. Many shareholders have no expertise at all and just hold shares to make a profit.
The bottom line is that all the company has to do is show a profit in excess of expectations for shareholders to be satisified. They make decisions based on making a profit like ALL businesses.
OMG she is beautiful and she makes some interesting points. But WOW 10/10 her bf is one lucky dude.
Everything she says is ruined by her last statement “it’s just kittening videogames” this is such a stupid argument.
GuildWars 2
Currently playing Heart of Thorns.
Currently playing Heart of Thorns.
OMG she is beautiful and she makes some interesting points. But WOW 10/10 her bf is one lucky dude.
Everything she says is ruined by her last statement “it’s just kittening videogames” this is such a stupid argument.
I can only compare that to what I know and even in pro sports they have used the argument “its just a game”. But I can understand your POV.
Necromancer Main
OMG she is beautiful and she makes some interesting points. But WOW 10/10 her bf is one lucky dude.
Everything she says is ruined by her last statement “it’s just kittening videogames” this is such a stupid argument.
Yeah, that coming from someone that makes (or made) a living out of them… well… yeah.
She’s just exploiting her pretty face.
OMG she is beautiful and she makes some interesting points. But WOW 10/10 her bf is one lucky dude.
Everything she says is ruined by her last statement “it’s just kittening videogames” this is such a stupid argument.
Yeah, that coming from someone that makes (or made) a living out of them… well… yeah.
She’s just exploiting her pretty face.
And is that a bad thing how, exactly? Despite the whole “vidya gaems is srs bsns” schtick, and despite our passion for this form of entertainment, we should always keep in mind that video games are still video games.
What I got from that:
-Video game development is a business.
-Players shouldn’t criticize developers.
-Players are really just know-it-alls.
-Developers should give us more stuff.
-Small sized gaming studios should be bigger.Can I have my 5 minutes back please.
Don’t take it the wrong way, but you got really selective hearing if that’s all you understood about the video. My two cents are this:
1. From the lowly employee all the way up to the top brass in a company, they make video games out of love for the genre (at least initially). It’s just that they are doing what they like to do and getting compensated for it in the process.
2. There are people who think that they can do a better job than the current devs assuming that they do get employed. But what they need to realize is that the devs may have already thought about what those people are thinking and they would think that it’s a good idea as well. But the moment you work for a video game company, seeing those changes exactly as you visioned it realized is never going to be as simple as you are led to believe. In a business, priorities are always set to keep things in order. If employees do whatever they want, despite their good intentions, more often than not, everything would go topsy-turvy. Bottom line is: nothing wrong with criticism but always consider the other side before you say something sucks or that you could do better.
3. It’s not like devs should give more stuff but rather asking the developers to be very very transparent with their player base as effective communication between the two parties can lead to a very strong relationship. Developers could get a more detailed perspective on what the players want in a game and Players, upon getting a fair gist of what the developers are doing would feel a strong sense of engagement and loyalty towards said developer if they feel involved in a game’s creation.
FOR SKYRIM!!!!!
To be honest, some parts of the whole job of creating a game can be done better and for less money than the actual people working for the game: if I was given 1g every time I saw a bad translation in French, I would have been able to buy the whole gemstore with just in-game money… Sometimes it’s clearly Google Translation, because some translations in French really suck…
Guild leader of The Nephilim of Elysium.
Son of Elonia.
Son of Elonia.
She has valid points, casting it aside because it is a she in front of the camera is just dumb.
Four years is a long time in a company, that she did not trash them after leaving has got to say something positive.
Live development roadmap…
Best quote of the entire video:
“People want to see transparency in you… Be transparent with what you are working on. Give people that sense of personal investment in your company.”
This would solve a ton of problems and get us all focused on what is actually going on. Good or bad. Anyway, that quote is something Anet should listen very carefully to and take to heart. The community needs this.
(edited by Prophet.6257)
^This.
After the huge problems with communication, they communicated… But now it has been a while since we had news or anything.
I don’t mind waiting 6 months for something that I know is coming, because having 6 months with no news is a bit depressing…
Guild leader of The Nephilim of Elysium.
Son of Elonia.
Son of Elonia.
Live development roadmap…
Best quote of the entire video:
“People want to see transparency in you… Be transparent with what you are working on. Give people that sense of personal investment in your company.”
This would solve a ton of problems and get us all focused on what is actually going on. Good or bad. Anyway, that quote is something Anet should listen very carefully to and take to heart. The community needs this.
Coming from someone who has worked on this game, arenanet needs to reconsider their stance. How many other more devs at Anet realize this but don’t speak up? Maybe this will open some eyes, but i doubt it. Might be too confusing for the higher ups.
Eh, very little substance in what she’s saying. Blaming game flaws on business practice at arenanet still lays the blame at the feet of arenanet.
Her voice and her hair are also annoying, and easy to see why her comments and ratings are disabled.
It’s no secret that NCSoft are a shitstain on the underwear of game publishers, but in the end, they’re in charge and they have very little reason to change their policies and practices while they are still making a profit. That’s the long and short of it.
I love ArenaNet, unfortunately, they are owned (and likely restricted) by NCSoft, thus ArenaNet’s creativity and awesomeness that I know they have (Just look at GW1) is censored and crushed by NCSoft’s crap
Resident smug Englishman on the NA servers, just because.
(edited by rapthorne.7345)
A load of nonsense.
Let’s take gw2 for example, we see the balance team making random, over the top or unnecessary buffs and nerfs and she doesn’t want us to question it?
It sounds like she’s saying “because they’re devs they are infallible”…
As though devs will know what needs buffing and nerfing more than the people who actually play the game.
I like her, she seems sassy. I subbed to her YouTube channel now lol
Not to do the exact opposite of what she is saying, but…
This video was way, way more professional better planned out and implemented with proper lighting, backdrop, and audio compared to GW’s points of interest etc.
Add “United Chi” to your friends list or guild!
Everything she says is ruined by her last statement “it’s just kittening videogames” this is such a stupid argument.
Except that it’s not an argument……..
It’s just a reminder for us all to come back down to reality and remember that at the end of the day, video games are not life-and-death. They’re just entertainment.
Or words to that effect.
1: A game devs are not in it for the money but for the lvoe of games. They cant do this for free so they attempt to make money
Isnt this the “normal way” that people that have a talent for something try to find a job which they like and in which they can use that talent?
So its not a surprise that people who want develop video games, liked video games.
And after they started their job it then becomes a business for them.
I do find it more interesting when she talks about that the (missing) quality of several things in a video game has not so much to do whith the “raw talent” of the developer, but with shifting constraints and priorities (coming from the management), so a developer has to focus permanentely on different things.
Yes, that is also normal for a business from time to time. But if this happens too much too often for a company that is normally a sign of bad management (or/and unhappy shareholders)
Greetings.