4 ms·

> What’s interesting about this particular bunch of smart people, is that they are also what actors call “grounded”. There is little bullshit going around. Tech

> What’s interesting about this particular bunch of smart people, is that they are also what actors call “grounded”. There is little bullshit going around. Tech is not made for tech’s sake. We don’t even have an engine, in a time where even if you really just have a game, one game, one codebase, you would call silly codenames each library and each little bit of tech, and maybe put some big splash screens before your main titles. Made with.. xyz. This is actually a lesson that originates from the early days of Call of Duty at IW. From what I’m told, IW never named their engine, because any time you name something it becomes a bit more of a thing, and you start working for it. And they were a studio making games, the game is the thing. Nothing else. This taps into a really interesting idea that I've been thinking about a lot. In high school, when I first started making games, this is exactly what I'd do. I would have Unity open on two monitors, and post to my snapchat story of how excited I was to be an indie developer. I had a similar thought when I watched the making of documentary for The Last Jedi, everyone was so excited that they were making a Star Wars movie. But in 1977, I'm sure George Lucas was just thrilled to be able to make what he wanted to make. I think this is what PG meant when he described playing house[1]. I think there's a lower local maximum for imitating what your heroes did or innovating for the sake of innovating than the global maximum of trying to make something really good. There's nothing wrong with getting excited about what you're created, but if you have any way to direct that excitement, direct it towards making something that people will love. (Not something that you'll love making). [1] http://paulgraham.com/before.html http://paulgraham.com/before.html

cwyers 8y ago
I don't know. I've played games where the engine had no name, and games where the studio-made engine had a name, and games where they licensed an engine and made it work. And I don't think there has been any kind of a trend in what games I've enjoyed more, or even which ones had better rendering. This sounds like one of those things that doesn't really matter, but if you've gotten used to doing it one way, you think it's the right way.
- magicalist 8y ago
  Many enjoyable games also came together in extended crunch time. Doesn't mean that's a good way to get to the end result.
- c0de517e 8y ago
  Author here - you are most definitely right, there is little correlation between game tech and end results anyways. It's mostly internal stuff, there are millions of other variables. But that doesn't mean that as far as internal policies go, that "engine without name" one doesn't make a lot of sense
ben_jones 8y ago
Reminds me of Battlefield's endless reference to its amazing Frostbite engine, which didn't change the fact that their last ~4 releases (BF3,4,1,5) all hit walls at launch, earning EA and Dice the reputation that their titles launch as Alphas and you don't get the real game for a year after despite paying a full sticker price. Great engine though... Also I realize I left out Hardline. It was intentional (though I heard it was a solid game despite its lackluster popularity and quick demise).
tsukikage 8y ago
"We don’t even have an engine" There is a horrible morass of politics in this area, to do with short term goals vs long term investment. As a game approaches its release date, the codebase accrues technical debt in the form of title-specific hacks and optimizations, but also features and fixes that may be useful for other titles sharing the codebase. The former makes the latter difficult to propagate. The pressure of internal milestones throughout a game project precludes the team devoting much time to significantly improving any shared codebase during any given title's development, but it also cannot happen any other way since that would involve "people not working on a game". In this situation, a decision to mostly or entirely eschew code sharing begins to appear quite reasonable.

cwyers 8y ago

I don't know. I've played games where the engine had no name, and games where the studio-made engine had a name, and games where they licensed an engine and made it work. And I don't think there has been any kind of a trend in what games I've enjoyed more, or even which ones had better rendering. This sounds like one of those things that doesn't really matter, but if you've gotten used to doing it one way, you think it's the right way.

magicalist 8y ago
Many enjoyable games also came together in extended crunch time. Doesn't mean that's a good way to get to the end result.
c0de517e 8y ago
Author here - you are most definitely right, there is little correlation between game tech and end results anyways. It's mostly internal stuff, there are millions of other variables. But that doesn't mean that as far as internal policies go, that "engine without name" one doesn't make a lot of sense

ben_jones 8y ago

Reminds me of Battlefield's endless reference to its amazing Frostbite engine, which didn't change the fact that their last ~4 releases (BF3,4,1,5) all hit walls at launch, earning EA and Dice the reputation that their titles launch as Alphas and you don't get the real game for a year after despite paying a full sticker price. Great engine though... Also I realize I left out Hardline. It was intentional (though I heard it was a solid game despite its lackluster popularity and quick demise).

tsukikage 8y ago

"We don’t even have an engine" There is a horrible morass of politics in this area, to do with short term goals vs long term investment. As a game approaches its release date, the codebase accrues technical debt in the form of title-specific hacks and optimizations, but also features and fixes that may be useful for other titles sharing the codebase. The former makes the latter difficult to propagate. The pressure of internal milestones throughout a game project precludes the team devoting much time to significantly improving any shared codebase during any given title's development, but it also cannot happen any other way since that would involve "people not working on a game". In this situation, a decision to mostly or entirely eschew code sharing begins to appear quite reasonable.