Developers, Academics, Gaming

Developers, Academics, Gaming

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embrace the chaos

Section I: Intro

What is our Point?

April 19, 2023 Gaming, Academia, Peril, etc. 3

Our Point is….

There is cool research being done in academia on many subjects which are related to gaming and interactive work. Often it ignores actual gaming, and vice versa.

This is too bad.


Background: Who are we

• We have academic backgrounds

• We have game development backgrounds

• Predisposition towards analysis

• Interested in game design and technology

• Willing to push at current conventions


So why are we frustrated

• Concern with what could be, not what is

• Very meta, it’s about what games are about

• Seems unaware of actual current market

• Lack of understanding of development

• Tech research tantalizingly close to relevant

• Maybe we are just missing the good stuff?


Evolution of Industry is Slow

• New hires need extensive training

• Design evolves slowly, technology quickly

• Hard to take risks in commercial space

• Little analysis or understanding of history

• Little research or data on game players


Goals

• Identify and examine interactive issues

• Involvement from non-commercial view

• Examine history/provide context for growth

• How to utilize academic work in gaming

• What can gaming provide to academia

• Better quality/range of experiences

Section 2: Vocation

What is the work we do


The Industry

• PC, Console, Handheld, Internet

• on PC, 300K is a hit, on Console, 1M

• End-caps, circulars, shelf space paid for

• Publisher/Developer royalty deals

• Like book industry, but costs are ~$3-5M

• 80+% of titles lose money


Some Genres

• Fighting Games

• Sports Games

• Action/Shooters

• Driving Games

• Puzzle Games

• Role Playing Games

• Dance and Rhythm Games


Summary of Markets

• Console: sitting on the couch with friends

• Handheld: solo gaming up close

• PC: solo gaming in enclosed area

• Internet: solo gamers connected


The Development Process

• Write initial technical and design spec’s

• Get a publisher to agree, sign contract

• Finalize hiring of the initial dev team

• Turn out regular demoable milestones

• Reach alpha, begin serious test

• Reach beta, feature lockdown

• Gold master release candidates


The Development Team

• Producer, represents publisher

• Project lead, builds common vision

• Designers, build levels, spec gameplay

• Programmers, build tools and game

• Artists, provide 2d, 3d, texture, models, etc

• Audio, records SFX, speech, music

• QA, tests the game, tracks/verifies bugs


Realities of development

• The first design is never right

• Usability is more important than correctness

• Performance is essential

• Shipping is really hard

• Never enough time

• Creative collaboration is really hard

• Its just like any other design/tech job


Who we want to hire

• Basic knowledge of all development aspects– biz, design, art, code, producer, qa

• Have played a lot of games

• Significant work in creative teams

• Involvement in self-driven creative work

• Understanding of the platform

• Cross-disciplinary, ready to do random stuff


Who we normally get

• People who run a D&D Campaign

• … who wrote a sci-fi novel in high school

• … who want to play games

• … who want unconditional creative control

• … who’ve implemented Baraff’s Papers

• … who don’t think it is hard to write games


The problems

• Long training time

• Limited innovation

• Sloppy development process

• Many risks

• Expect player to do “what I want”

• Balkanized development community

Section 3: Theory

What we are

(and should be)

talking about


What’s been done

• Meta-design unconcerned with real games (what interactivity should be)

• Social analysis (Barbie to Mortal Kombat)

• Technology research– physics: Baraff, Witkin, Lin– Motion/controllers: Hodgins– rendering: Teller


Design issues to explore

• Impact of play style/environment on player

• What constructs engender interactivity?

• User-interfaces for actual gameplay– I.e. fitting player desires onto a psx controller– Interfaces which become transparent quickly

• Generalizable lessons from specific genres

• Semiotic analysis of “interactivity”


Abstract “Tools” for interactivity

We’ve been using computers for gaming for a while, and certain things have proven to be effective in allowing an interactive designer to achieve a certain design vision. This is true across genres and technologies.

What are these things, how and when are they effectively used.


Technology we want to know about

• Better Characters/Motion

• Natural Language/Conversational Models

• World Representations (physics/rendering)

• Better creation tools for interactive spaces

• Tools for meaningful designer specification of behaviors and events in dynamic worlds

• Group AI, Tactics, Teamwork, Attitude


Developers Never do This

• We are so busy “shipping” we don’t think

• Infighting, secrecy, lack of journals

• Attempt to ride current wave, rarely push

• Spend pathetically small time on tools

• Evolving platforms “force” rewrites

• Less permanance/control over destiny

Section 4: Exploration

What directions might we go


Academics have to play games

• It is hard to credibly expand on what games and interactivity can be without context

• Look at viable evolution to things people do

• Don’t assume all games are beneath them

• Explore what it is players are responding to

• Need faith in the interactive environment


Game Developers need to interact with Academics

• Have to check out and respond to research

• Establish forums where communities talk

• Accept and address complexity of current game development, and actually work at it

• Come up with some way to fund research and prototyping in university settings?


Come join the “fun”

• The real market is big

• Many (most?) of them are annoying…

• But, they are real users who really respond

• If you do an unreal mod, people will try it


This is an opportunity

• If you want to explore interactive design, you can play existing games and do little demo games of your own.

• If you want to try new types of things, you can actually do them, and real people will play them, and give you real feedback.

Documents

Developers, Academics, Gaming