Writing games in the video game industry?: Monty's Minute Ep20 (Video)

Written by: QuintLyn (Twitter @QuintLyn - Google+) | February 15, 2013 4:44 pm

19 Comments

This week on Monty’s Minute, a few viewers would like to know about writing games in the industry.

One viewer wants to know if it is possible to get a gig writing games as a story writer without any knowledge of coding or software. Are companies seeing out people who specialize in writing story? What is required to for a writer to get his work in front of a game company?

Another viewer who would like to more about getting a job writing games, states that he is currently working on a fantasy series and his first novel. Once he’s done with these projects he wants to work for a game company and would like to know how developers feel about hiring novelists.

New heroes?

This question isn’t so much a “how do I get a gig writing games” question as it is about the material that is written. The question points out that a lot of games are already based on pre-existing material and asks if it is possible to create new heroes in today’s environment rather than just reusing the ones we know.

Online degrees in “Game Design”?

We’ve all seen the ads for degrees in game design and I’m pretty sure most of us have rolled our eyes at them and moved on. But, one viewer wants to know: are these degrees actually legitimate or should he concentrate on a more traditional and less-focused degree like computer science instead? And, if they are legitimate, which schools are the best?

Hard-coding vs flexibility?

One viewer wants to know why a game company would choose to hard-code certain things in rather than making them flexible — particularly in MMORPGs. He uses the example of City of Heroes devs telling players that they couldn’t change spell effect colors due to them being hard-coded, as well as World of Warcraft’s recent addition of green fire for warlocks — which took a pretty substantial amount of time to do.

To get Monty‘s answers to all of these questions, tune in the video above. And if you missed last week’s episode be sure to check it out here.

Don’t forget to send your own questions in to Monty’s Minute via monty@gamebreaker.tv

Writing games in the video game industry?: Monty's Minute Ep20 (Video)

3:23

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9 comments

http://twitter.com/crocodilius ryan phillips

well of course The Witcher games are well written, they’re based off novels.
everything, every character already exists.
a more apt example would be something like Mass Effect.
- Old Ben
  
  > well of course The Witcher games
  > are well written, they’re based off novels.
  
  And there are, of course, no bad novels out there. ;)
Jeremy Keat

You think the game industry needs new blood? Kind of dull having the same people jump game company to company when they have probably exhausted their ideas and brainchilds, doing what they should’ve gotten in the industry to do.

I know game companies are obsessed with experience, and triple A title guys but I wonder when they find it great to pick up newbies who may actually be fresh-minded and see things from the game player perspective maybe a bit better. The only type of job role I would ignore in this is programming for obvious reasons, but writers, artists, and especially designers or producers.

I don’t think a lot of people making games really play hard as they should to know exactly what (the market) people demand. Then of course there are people like the first person said who don’t have the mindset for making them, just playing.

On another note; a hard part when they talk about designing a game is I can program, but I dislike programming complete programs, I’d rather be the designing and developing mechanics and ensuring it plays right. Never met a programmer willing to program something of mine for free, ya know (not like I plan to make money myself from it)? Though I have programmed some cheesy games before, it’s the biggest headache ever… especially AI. Most people I know don’t program or are lazy about it. All I know are some artists, with questionable graphic art skills.

So you know how to attract people willing to work for free, just to have a portfolio like me? I have had a bad experience with finding willing or compatible people.

Anybody know where to look for QA positions, or even CS in gaming- with it be mods/admins for the companies. I’ve been to numerous sites but hard to find them you pretty much have to get lucky because I have applied to some, but 2 out of 24 months are those positions ever posted and quite a enduring process finding and looking through all of such seeing if you fit the criteria.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr
  
  It’s a slightly different world when you are talking about big, recognizable companies and the smaller indie/start-up guys. If you want a job with the big boys, you have to show you know what you are doing – it’s not like getting a job at your local Target or Wal-mart where you can be trained to do something and there’s no real consequences for the company if it turns out you can’t do the job. In the games industry, you have to know what you are doing and be able to do it according to an impossible deadline.
  
  It’s been said time and again. If you really want to break into this industry you need to put the time and effort in to make and publish your own game on your own – and that means doing stuff you dislike doing. If you can’t do that, then you need to find other ways of proving you have what it takes. A resume means practically nothing, nor does an application. If both are interesting enough it may get you an interview, but with nothing else to back it up, you won’t even get that. In my company, if we are hiring someone who will need to administer our SharePoint or Exchange servers, then we need someone who has the experience administering them, we don’t have time to deal with people who haven’t used those systems, even if they are good learners, because time is money and if one of those systems goes down, we need someone who can bring them back on line ASAP, and not fiddle their way through searching for a solution. Someone who has that experience and has examples of using it – even if they implemented their own private servers in a test environment at home will at least get an interview over someone who only has paper credentials to back it up.
http://twitter.com/RichardIRL Richard Elder

The point of being adaptable and having good communication skills are so very important in almost any career, not just in game development. If you fail at those, you’ll probably find yourself struggling professionally.
rulez

Colors for spells, isn’t that usually responsibility of an artist instead of an actual programmer? Because I would expect it to be based on textures and/or particle effects not about a color value coded somewhere.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/APHJB3QZIDC34QYRLE2RAUSLMU TJ
  
  Actually no, the artist makes the textures, the programmer puts them into the game. When putting a texture into the game it is possible to recolor it (as well as a lot of other options). So its a combination of both.
  - Old Ben
    
    It would be an extremely inefficient workflow if changing a particle’s source texture (which is typically where it gets its color from) required actual recoding.
    
    Most game developers start by coding an engine, followed by some tools that allow specialized artists to modify effects such as particle system simply by dragging around nodes in a flowchart-like interface and entering some numeric values. Plug the “little red star” bitmap into the particle system, and the wand shoots little red stars. Plug the “yellow star” bitmap instead, and it shoots yellow stars.
    
    It’s similar to the way particle systems are created in 3D animation packages, in fact (and you probably wouldn’t call 3D artists “programmers”, right?)
    
    While the guy setting up the elements of the particle system might not always be the one who created the textures, he’s still generally referred to as an artist (since he’s the one determining what the particle effect looks like). The term “programmer” is typically reserved for the ones coding the engine, the tools, and the game logic.
    
    Adding a new compositing mode, for example (i.e., making the particles additive, or changing the way they actually behave) does require changing the engine, but once that new behavior has been coded, it’s again up to the FX artist to create the effect players will see (decide on the speed, color, amount of particles, lifespan, etc.).
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/APHJB3QZIDC34QYRLE2RAUSLMU TJ
      
      You obviously know nothing about programming.
      
      Why create 15 different collored little star textures when you can create 1 texture and use the game engine to tint the entire thing a different color.
      
      And as far as adding the abiltity for players to choose their color.. really that is not all that hard as long as you know you are going to have adjustable spell effects in the first place. However if you are trying to update an 8 year old game it would be very tedious.
      - Old Ben
        
        > You obviously know nothing about programming.
        
        Thanks for the chuckle. Guess what my job has been for the past 30 years…
        
        > Why create 15 different collored little star textures
        > when you can create 1 texture and use the game
        > engine to tint the entire thing a different color.
        
        Oh, I don’t know… because you might want particles with different _shapes_ for different effects? Or particles with more than one color…?
      - http://profile.yahoo.com/APHJB3QZIDC34QYRLE2RAUSLMU TJ
        
        thats not what you said…
        
        ” Plug the “little red star” bitmap into the particle system, and the wand shoots little red stars. Plug the “yellow star” bitmap instead, and it shoots yellow stars.”
        
        if you want to change your request then of corse the method for doing your request is different.
      - Old Ben
        
        Oh, I’m terribly sorry for not describing every single possible color and shape combination in my post. I had no idea I was getting paid by the word.
      - Kevyne_Shandris
        
        By the looks of it from his profile, he spends his time trying to correct people. Problem is it can backfire, royally.
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Really good show. Adding the profile is a helpful feature.
http://www.facebook.com/gabe.lopez.14 Gabe Lopez

awesome episode guys! very insightful
Jado Cast

Another good one! Keep them coming please.
Old Ben

It’s not so much a matter of “better writers” (although better anything is always good), it’s a matter of _different_ writers. Game publishers / developers need to understand that writing for a game isn’t the same as writing a book, and someone who is great at one thing might be terrible at the other.

Even within games, writing for an MMO with a persistent world is completely different from writing for a single-player game, and the inability to understand that distinction is the Achilles heel of a lot of recent MMOs. When the story is well-written and given center stage (ex., TSW), it tends to turn the rest of the game into background, and eliminate the feeling that you’re sharing a world with the other players. And when it’s badly written (ex., GW2), it just reduces the overall value of the game.

Multi-player games need writers that are primarily world builds (think Tolkien), even if they’re not very good wordsmiths or even very good storytellers.
Dekin

Y’all need a high five….put your hand up to your computer….boom high five.

I continue to find this show so interesting. Honestly I think most of the advise that is given can be placed on any job hunt. Work hard, press on, take the job, be flexable, and have goals.
Revanhavoc

CD Projekt Red is my favourite developer at the moment. I get this vibe from them that reminds me of old school Bioware.

Writing games in the video game industry?: Monty's Minute Ep20 (Video)

This week on Monty’s Minute, a few viewers would like to know about writing games in the industry.

New heroes?

Online degrees in “Game Design”?

Hard-coding vs flexibility?

Blizz Blues From The GAMEBREAKER Vaults Ep2:
What’s A Fire Festival

The Republic Ep142:
SWTOR On Consoles?

Unicorn Duck Shadow Puppet Ep4:
WildStar For The Holidays?

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