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DNF #1
Duke 3D #1
Hey! this is my first post here, but I figured it should be brought to everybody's attention since the Duketarded community has disbanded ever since DNF I feel.
This is from a one-time poster over at Gearbox Software under the alias Johnqpublic.
The link to the post is..,http://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=274852
I must admit, this helped provide me with some closure.
Hi everyone I should have posted this long time ago when there was still interest about the game. The fact how the game ended is also a bit of my fault. This is something for me just to feel a bit better.
Most of the game faults came because no one openly spoke about what they think. We had serious problem issuing our concerns. There was very little feedback from both us and management. There were no board meetings like you could imagine, just George running from computer to computer to check our progress. Sometimes I knew I screwed up and George would just say he doesn't like it but that I should continue anyway instead of just whoop my ass. He had very hard time addressing what is wrong and what should be done instead. He always tried to be polite - and sometimes You just can't. There was this tense unpleasant atmosphere in the company covered by the mask of kindness. I believe it was also our fault. If your boss is this dove-like daddy figure instead of some power hungry jerk you know what I mean. Whenever there was a problem almost no one had the balls to talk to George. He was so deeply invested in this game personally that no one wanted to hurt him. This self censorship lead to a double standard that even when we were dissatisfied with the direction of the project anyone who got vocal about it was called a traitor - the quitters were cowards and so on. I wanted several times to come to his office and leave the project but when I saw how enthusiastic he is about some new stuff we made I didn't had the heart to do it. We were so personally attached to him that the growing problems were swooped under the rug until someone would finally trip over the pile.
This pile was simply money. We were working for the minimal average in the industry. We could get more after the game was released having percentage of the sales. The obvious fault of the system is that the longer the game takes the longer Your true paycheck is suspended. People were working for the same money for few years straight. With no signs of completing the game people quit - very valuable and key people. Another problem was that with very small team we had to work at least 80h a week (which is a standard now but then it was a little different) otherwise nothing could be done on any reasonable pace. Because we were working on a percentage from sales everyone was pretty reluctant to see new faces on the team as people feared they percentage would be negotiated if too many people would come. So we lacked manpower and at the same time - no one wanted for the team to grow. Project was taking too long and some people started having issues with their families, some people got kids and just couldn't afford working a basically two full-time jobs for less than quarter what they could get in other companies with their talent - regardless of the potential benefits and atmosphere at work. What I think the worst was that we felt exploited and exploiting. George exploited us with his fragility over money and we exploited his kindness over control. Everything slowly started to rot and fall apart. Everyone was seemingly doing their things but nothing of value was produced. George focused on small things but didn't had the big picture (or didn't want to see it) and we were frustrated over lack of clear goals.
Then George and Scott came and told us that consoles are the key citing Prey sales. I knew that game will ported onto consoles but for me that was one of the worst thing that could happen to the project. I had to delete all the pickups which took months of work to put in some sensible manner and ego mechanic which was another several months of work and replaced with regeneration. We threw the editor out from the release as no one would ever use it on the consoles. But this was no the worst part of it. The engine we were working with was almost impossible to get good performance on multi-core ps3. We had to rewrite some of the game code and cut some content we hadn’t finished yet in order to get it on time. We couldn't fit the game into X360 disc so we had to cut. There was not enough memory on the consoles to handle open levels we had in mind so we had to either streamline the level or cut completely. Suddenly almost half of the initially designed game was trashed and the other half had to be changed. Memory budget we had was limited to 1/4 - we either had to scale down levels, cut them into parts, corridor them or just replace textures with something less demanding. Surely You could build an awesome looking game on consoles with limited memory but You had to do it from start and using some dirty tricks - which our engine nor our game just wasn't fit for. I was all for the engine switch at that time - we could start the game with a new engine because we had to rewrite a lot of content anyway and without this hampering zombie we made from unreal engine. I believe at that time the only thing that stopped this was money. Licensing another engine was a costly issue so George had to make tough decision - game was going nowhere and he either had to sped up existing things or restart and meddle with another 3 years on the project.
He choose to finally finish the game - for the first time we had a project manager, a plan and clear direction. Team had to grow in order to finish the game on time so new people came in. From the start we the "old guard" were at least unfriendly towards the new ones. The new guys just basically thought that they will finish the game in just one year. They had to be fully paid because in no way they agreed to work on a percentage - they knew that they are needed and exploited this without mercy when negotiating their contract. Enough to say - we were in the company for years working our ass overtime and never had a raise. They came from the ass and from start got twice as we had. Some of the people working from the start this time called quits. New guys (now I think its funny) were outside our little cult - when something was wrong they didn't hesitate to call our manager or even George, "it can't be done", "this is stupid", "you are wrong", "I won't do it" was the stuff he never heard from us in years and now it was his breakfast, lunch and dinner. George was pretty miserable at that time - it seemed he lost control and heart for his project. He wasn't even there - I think he couldn't deal with constant criticism and in the end started hating his game. But the results were coming, game was going forward and finally it could see the release. But the company for me died. I was also expecting a child - and some new more profitable business opportunities came. I noticed that I didn't want to work here anymore. I didn't had time to quit. I was fired.
It was okay when 20 people worked 80 hours a week. But when 40 people started working 40 hours a week for the same wage as before developing costs quadrupled. George and Scott quickly ran out of money - they took some loans and asked publisher for support. They had a knife on their throats and either had to get the money or the new guys would leave 24h when they didn't get their pay. They made the deal with the devil. For this amount of loan they effectively seized control over its release. At that time George and Scott wouldn't know they would give up. If he did he would never do it. Probably just one day he summed things up and decided he is fed up. The costs of finishing it up were too big just for two people to handle and even with loans they would never sell as much as they wanted. I remember we were almost still a year from finishing the project - and no one had enough money for another year on full-time working team. It is now easy to judge them but they invested their own money - something that nowadays would sound ridiculous at least even on the average budget for projects like this. He is a married man and has more important things to do than spending money on making video games. I understand him fully - after I got fired I finally could spend some time with my wife and kids. Until then I didn't even knew how much I lost from life.
I don't know much what happened to the game after my departure. I knew the game was bought up by another company and scheduled for a release. I had my share of doubts if I really wanted to know how the game will be. Of course I bought it with the DLCs on steam sale and played it. My thoughts about the game? Seriously? It was a horrid experience. I could seriously see that almost nothing was done since I left. Nothing new was added, maybe few things were tweaked and finished plus all bad decisions made at that point were still there. The limitations went even further - blood decals were missing, texture quality went down and to cover this up a nice smudge of post processing and depth of field. Some of the levels went into DLC, some multiplayer maps should be in singleplayer and so on. The game wasn't good at least for me - nor did I remember it any better when working on it sadly. My worst fears that for all those years I was working on a project that in the end won't be that good were realized. It was a little heartbreaking to see the end result this below average after so much time spent on it. I had this feeling of guilt that I should did something during the development I should voiced my concerns when there was still time. It is too late now.
Was working on the game fun - yes it was. Was it worth it - no it wasn't. Nothing is worth so many years spent making a basically a elaborate toy for someone's amusement that is taking the toll from Your personal life. I regret it didn't come to me any sooner - the joy of female companionship, the smile of a child, look of a beautiful blue summer sky, walk in the park. All those simple things I missed when thinking only about work. Right now I am far away from the business and hope to keep it this way. I hope that people who are so obsessed with video games both making and playing them in general could just leave them for a moment and think. You are not winning anything and basically just wasting your time achieving nothing instead of doing some meaningful things in the real world. It is a pity I understood this so late in my life. Cheers and have a happy weekend!
And if you are helping someone bootstrap a startup... there is some necessary and unavoidable "rolling up the sleeves" and taking a lower pay with higher effort. That's just the nature of the startup beast in any field. Especially if you are trying to be smart and lay a solid foundation.
