Why are game studios failing and what can be done about it? In this video we'll talk about a few of the key ingredients needed to reverse this disturbing trend.
Definitely! It's funny because not doing the right thing for the game, not making the hard decisions, can mean the game will fail and can also lead to you losing your position or the whole studio.
Sounds to me like we talking about a culture/incentive structure that rewards the wrong behaviors, is not always the people, is the ruleset they need to adapt to sometimes.
Do you think that teams are getting way too bloated? Resulting in moving past multiple red tape to get something simple done, leading to longer development and higher budgets. Resulting in returns on investment that are insanely high and unrealistic.
Yes they are definitely getting too big! It's partly due to hiring specialists for each work are versus people that could cover multiple parts of development.
@@laurafryer6321 Articulating “patronage” culture was particularly salient. I’ve long come to realise that I’m best suited to smaller organisations, where decisions are made, not by committee and feedback cycles are quicker and honest. It strikes me that you have managed to inculcate “small lean team attitude” into large organisations - which is not something I’ve ever been able to do. Selfishly, I’d love to learn more about the details of production and how game dev differs from all the frameworks I’ve used - but looking forward to whatever subject you tackle next.
@@xWaxxy It's difficult to create the small team feel in a large organization but it's possible. Essentially you create an umbrella or bubble. Inside it's fast decision making and honest feedback. Regarding game dev vs other forms of development, I've found it doesn't differ much from other types of work...90% of the lessons are the same. The unique thing about game dev is that it's art and code which adds a wrinkle.
@@laurafryer6321 Well, according to my 16+ years experieance as software dev (not gamedev tho) I think it also needs a strong leader/manager to protect and mange honestly and respectfully the team inside the bubble as well as navigating corporate politics and stuff like that. Sadly, I've saw very few people that are managed to do that successfully.
Hi Laura, I’m a studio lead for a small indie studio of about 7 other developers. None of us have made a game before but each has his or her own skills in art/programming/music/narrative etc. I’m incredibly passionate about creating a game and had actually been working on one for the past two years. Long story short, some financial instability and overwhelming personal life, as well as realizing that the game’s scope is much too large, how do I move forward from here? I’m completely ready to honestly address the problem, as it’s been building terribly in my head for quite a while now. Your video was the push I needed to do something for myself and my team.
Great question!I think your next step is to have a conversation with your team about what you can do given your constraints(financial etc). It's more important to make something small and good versus big scope and not fun. If you can make something good you can try to get more interest and investment. It's great that you're thinking about scoping and I wish you and your team the best!
Hopefully at this point you have a playable? Clearly you need to cut, so one thing to consider is "finding the fun" in what you *have* built and then focusing tighter on whatever is working. (Hopefully something is working well, lol.)
Games are hard to make. You have to be tough and develop a pain tolerance over a long period of time while doing heavy lifting over years and years just to get the core foundations to BEGIN to start making a decent game. Our world these days creates weak developers who want to engage with all manner of tertiary nothings other than make a good game. There is now a critical mass of developers who no longer burn the midnight oil and have taken all the focus away from core concerns that lead to a quality product. It was already hard enough trying to complete the herculean task of making a quality product, now it's impossible. As you say in your video, "Reciprocation" has destroyed this industry! Workers no longer want to reciprocate the tough love required to get good, they just want good boy and good girl cookies.
I agree! Becoming great at making games takes time and effort over years. It's part of why I love making games...there is always room to improve. It's the never ending journey. Endlessly interesting! :)
Not even two minutes into this video, I can tell that you have a wealth of knowledge about the industry and process. I can’t wait to binge your content!
one of the better videos on game production and a crystal clear overview of what it’s like for AA/AAA alike. hope your channel continues to grow, it’s nice to have additional voices beyond the same usual set of guys (no offense to them, love Cain, Faliszek, and Sawyer) or endless speculation channels not backed by real world experience. thank you! keep it up. i’ll be citing this to my production mentees
Stumbled upon your channel today (no doubt the CZcams algorithm recommending it after watching many Tim Cain videos) and have been completely hooked, binge watched a bunch of your videos. It's incredibly fascinating to get a behind the scenes look into game development, thank you for taking the time to make these!
This video reminds me of that great documentary, “PsychOdyssey” by Double Fine (I don't know if you've seen it, probably yes because in fact I think you appear!). In the documentary you could see how in the early days of the company, they acted almost as a cooperative in terms of coordination and work management. Each one knew what role they had to play and they didn't have an internal rivalry in order to obtain a position superior to the rest. The culture was also evident in the video. During the production of Psychonauts 2, we see how Tim changes his role in the team to dedicate himself to other things (giving example) and we see how Zak being in charge, things go wrong within the team and a paradigm shift occurs. The workers continued to contribute their ideas, but we observe how Zak ignores the feedback from his team and prioritizes production and design, causing the artists to suffer a great deal of rejection towards him and the direction the project is taking. It's a perfect example of what you're talking about in this video. The person leading the team may receive valuable data from the team, but if that person is unable to interpret that data or knowingly ignores it, how can a project of this caliber succeed? Anyway, I've seen that several of the recurring concepts in your video could be seen in the documentary and it was interesting to mention it. Once again, great video and I look forward to the next one :)
So well made Laura, really good examples and how you’ve broken down the key issues impacting these studios, hope the channel gets the growth it deserves
Not at all what I expected when I clicked on the video. I am pleasantly surprised. You have gained a new Subscriber. Lots of wisdom and sad truths in this video. I could write a loooong post about putting your job on the line because you are actually doing your job.... Maybe some other time. :)
It was interesting seeing you talk about the idea of how new people on the team can get up to speed and browse a history of prior decisions that were discounted. Code commit logs don’t really cut it, but we used to have a back catalogue of screen recordings. It would be even better to somehow capture qualitative feedback on the feeling of playing prototypes
Thank you! Having the history of why certain decisions were made helps the team understand the older decisions and saves time. It's easy to go in circles when new people want to rehash prior thinking. Doesn't mean you can't change things but it does give everyone visibility into what the reasoning was at the time and you learn a lot.
Redfall was a Zenimax created Gaas game that was converted to a co-op shooter, and many devs left before Microsoft bought Zenimax. Harvey Smith as head of Arkane Austin lied or covered up the problems with the game. I'm glad the studio was closed.
Yet another great video about the industry we love. As someone already mentioned in the comments it's criminally underrated. As always, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
When you said the culture changed in 2007. Cause 2007 was one of the best years for gamers ever. Which tells me it takes a long time to make a game and can take a long time for that culture shift to have major impacts. Right now feels like the worst of times and the best of times for games. It’s really weird out there right now.
Really love the insight into management. I've been trying to build up my skills and am looking for ways to build experience in leadership roles (software developer). Your videos provide some very great insight into this field, thank you. Also, I hope Perfect Dark continues to move forward at a steady pace now that we've seen something. I honestly had started to write it off, thinking it was dead and maybe going to be a "back to the drawing board" scenario like with Metroid Prime 4.
It’s so refreshing to see someone with personal experience explain this issue instead of the rage bait CZcamsrs who pursue all the negative subjects just for clout.
I heard somewhere that studios that flop don’t get shut down just because they produced a bad game. But rather they only get shut down when investors don’t see future potential. IE: Rocksteady, despite producing Suicide Squad, can rest easy as long as their next project is a traditional Batman game. Thoughts?
Question for you, Laura! As a project manager for 8 years at a large tech company, I really want to pivot into project management in the game industry, but was wondering how I could break in without the game industry experience? How do I build that experience? I was wondering if you had any advice.
Cool! I think game production is awesome! I would start by looking at as much content as you can on game development with a focus on production issues. For example, the GDC vault has free content you can check out and some of it would be helpful. I'd also find local people that do game production and ask questions, learn from them sort of like a mentor. Many jobs are won through networking so if you don't have local people, you could go to a game conference like a GDC or a game meetup and network there. Build your contacts and learn while doing so.
@@laurafryer6321 That's good. Never heard of that game before. I wish we could get to see more of the game development process of the game as it evolves from an test build all the way up to the final product.
Laura I saw your other comment regarding teams being too big, I agree. YOu mentioned hiring multiple specialists versus people who can do multiple things. What drives this? I do know from hearing game dev stories like yours, that 20 years ago in most big studios there'd be no qualms doing over time and weekends and sleeping at your desk to meet a deadline; hardcore crunch. Is this a response to that old culture, or contributing? And how do you balance that as a leader in modern management
The specialist move started happening due to the size of games. There was so much work to do you needed multiple people so might as well hire an animator versus someone that could model, rig and animate. I don't think people loved crunch but saw it as necessary. For example,I worked everyday the last few months shipping Gears. Each game studio wants to improve and many hire more people but that can make things worse. Studios try to learn to manage their projects better too, but no matter how well you manage, things can still happen.
You would know much more than I would, Laura, but as a former Microsoft fan, it seems to me that at about 2010 and beyond, Microsoft began to slowly regress. It was never a perfect company of course, but it seems like at least in the past, stuff got done and the right decisions were generally being made. Nevertheless, slowly, for whatever reason, Microsoft regressed, and then the problems with Microsoft began to spread to its subsidiary parts such as the games division.
I agree! I've observed that it's very difficult to keep a large organization from becoming a broken bureaucracy. However, I definitely felt an acceleration in the wrong direction and it made it much harder to get the right things done.
Strongly disagree. Its the greedy shareholders the reason why this industry is like it is. These devs have very little to do with it, as Tango Gameworks is a prime example, thier stuff is always great full stop.
@@MorbidEel Ehh? Maybe? I honestly believed Tango Gameworks did a great job, they just didn't fit the shareholders dreams of infinite Lambos is all. Perhaps I will watch again to see why Tango messed up so bad, everyone lost thier jobs. Thats a heavy price to pay for incompetence or whatever?
It's sad what happened to Tango Gameworks because they were doing a good job. I don't think that every time a studio fails it's a moral failing. Sometimes bad things happen to good people.
...OR you have a great studio that repeatedly produces awesome games that get rave reviews and do well financially and you shut it down anyway. That was Tango Gameworks. In cases like this the failure of leadership is not at the studio itself, but the parent company and developers pay the price.
Studios fail because of companies like Sweet Baby Inc pushing their social agendas. DEI has no place in games, female characters should be feminine and male characters should be masculine. There should be no censorship in games, and games that are made to represent an existing IP, should remain true to that IP. DEI is killing the AAA gaming industry, and with these DEI games coming up, I will not be buying them and urge gamers to boycott these games as every financial failure and more studios closing down and more developers losing their jobs the quicker these studios and publishers will reject DEI and focus on making games for the gamers and not for some social forced diversity ideology.
I generally think you're right but I also support creators trying new directions. It's a tricky balance. I think Peter Jackson had the right idea when he said this about the LOTR films: "We made a promise to ourselves at the beginning of the process that we weren't going to put any of our own politics, our own messages or our own themes into these movies. What we were trying to do was to analyze what was important to Tolkien and to try to honor that. In a way, we were trying to make these films for him, not for ourselves."
@@laurafryer6321 just make games for the gamers, don’t change the lore if it’s an original IP, don’t try to make a game that has been built using tick boxes. An example is the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows, its Samurai , so just have all the characters of Japanese origin, it’s simple, however they had to go Sweet Baby Inc and DEI and have offended Japanese culture and people. Suicide Squad KTJL another example of DEI failure costing WB games 200 million. Forespoken another financial failure that ended up closing a studio, again Sweet Baby Inc involved. Gotham Knights and the Saints Row reboot, both financial failures, and both had DEI Sweet Baby Inc written all over it. Alan Wake 2, another DEI Sweet Baby Inc financial failure. Gamers do not want games like these and studios should listen to what the fans want, and in the end they have to realise they need to sell their products to the largest consumer base, which unfortunately is the consumer base these consultancy firms, developers, community managers hate, the white male gamer. If I owned a studio, the remit would be simple, I don’t care who you offend, make me something that will sell and make money, all we do is put out a warning on the loading screen saying this may offend certain groups of people, but no malice intended. You make products and offer services that make you and your shareholders the most money, and not a product or service that pushes an agenda, narrative or virtue signaling, its profit that counts at the end of the day. In my opinion it may take several more big AAA games to fail financially and commercially, and more studios to close and developers losing their jobs, before the AAA industry recovers when they realise that they have to make certain types of games with certain types of content that gamers will buy.
Based on this, I can pinpoint a few problems: - Massive bloat: Diablo IV having 9000 people "work" on it is absolutely absurd. Sounds like a money laundering scheme. - Incompetent leadership: As you said; "Yes Men". This explains the current status of the Xbox brand. - Poor management: Time limits for any project (large, or tiny) is important. Even I wouldn't have progressed much in my art if I hadn't set time limits.
Hi! Good to see you again! Great comments particularly your point about setting time limits. We would time box new design experiments and then evaluate after the time ran out. Seems like that would have helped with Suicide Squad and the vehicle idea.
@@AzureSymbiote It depends on what you're trying to prove out..could be weeks or months. If it's months, I'd put in some checkpoints to see how it's progressing.
Got to call BS on Fortnite... Save the world failed... PUBG was struggling with your engine and wouldn't receive help from you while you scrambled and pushed out a BR... and got lucky there was no testing testing testing in this case.
Too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Having a manager to tell a developer to speed up doesn’t work. Have smaller teams with more developers and less people who don’t even know how to program. One director , one editor and a fairly small group of developers and artists. Cut all the other business people out until the game is ready for non programmers.
Filthy casual here. The video provides a lot of in-depth analysis on individual studio missteps, but given so many recent shutdowns, isn't there also larger factors at work? For example, the massive increase in obesity and diabetes in the USA over the past 3+ decades isn't really a function of the individual moral failings of single people who make bad food choices but rather a manifestation of larger system at work. It's not an individual failure, but a systemic one. This video, intentionally or not, seems to suggest that the recent game studio shut downs are also essentially "moral failings", but I find that hard to believe because of how many shutdowns there have been. I think it's something bigger.
I think the problems she presents here can be extrapolated to a much larger scale. It is a culture of management that spreads through an entire corporate structure. So I dont think theyre mutually exclusive
This is a video about how to effectively manage a game studio. Discussing forces outside the studio and how they affect the studio isn't relevant unless those forces can be managed by those at the game studio and they obviously cannot be because they're larger outside forces beyond their control.
In general most gamers are blaming that need for a live service money as the reason studios are shutting down. As far as moral failings there seem to be a belief that just by being a live service game the studio would make bank on it.
@@brentbentKRFP Well...the video is titled "Why Studios Fail" and the introductory first 20 seconds state "The past few years have been full of failing AAA games. Well-known studios are failing to deliver leading to low reviews and job losses for thousands. It's been heartbreaking to watch, and it's left many wondering what is going on. Why are game studios failing, and what can be done to fix it?" Knowing about the systemic problems/threats allows studios to plan for them, yes?
This channel is so underrated.
Thank you!
Yep.
Agreed, please continue making these AMAZINGLY INFORMATIVE videos :)
It's too legit for the average. This was such an epic find. You just cant beat 1st hand info/stories from the goat. I will watch every last one ❤🤘
That last point is super interesting and something I've seen. People not wanting to take responsibility so as not to threaten their own position.
Definitely! It's funny because not doing the right thing for the game, not making the hard decisions, can mean the game will fail and can also lead to you losing your position or the whole studio.
Sounds to me like we talking about a culture/incentive structure that rewards the wrong behaviors, is not always the people, is the ruleset they need to adapt to sometimes.
Do you think that teams are getting way too bloated? Resulting in moving past multiple red tape to get something simple done, leading to longer development and higher budgets. Resulting in returns on investment that are insanely high and unrealistic.
Yes they are definitely getting too big! It's partly due to hiring specialists for each work are versus people that could cover multiple parts of development.
Fantastic video. As someone that has been working as a producer for 6+ years, these videos are extremely insightful and helpful. Thank you!
Thank you! I'm happy to hear that you (a fellow producer) found it useful!
Sony got rid of their internal development manager Connie last October.
@@startraffick I heard that and now it seems she is at EA which should be interesting.
As a software dev “leader” (not in gaming), i learn so much watching your videos. Thank you for sharing your experience, Laura.
That's great to hear! Thank you!
@@laurafryer6321 Articulating “patronage” culture was particularly salient. I’ve long come to realise that I’m best suited to smaller organisations, where decisions are made, not by committee and feedback cycles are quicker and honest. It strikes me that you have managed to inculcate “small lean team attitude” into large organisations - which is not something I’ve ever been able to do.
Selfishly, I’d love to learn more about the details of production and how game dev differs from all the frameworks I’ve used - but looking forward to whatever subject you tackle next.
@@xWaxxy It's difficult to create the small team feel in a large organization but it's possible. Essentially you create an umbrella or bubble. Inside it's fast decision making and honest feedback. Regarding game dev vs other forms of development, I've found it doesn't differ much from other types of work...90% of the lessons are the same. The unique thing about game dev is that it's art and code which adds a wrinkle.
@@laurafryer6321 Well, according to my 16+ years experieance as software dev (not gamedev tho) I think it also needs a strong leader/manager to protect and mange honestly and respectfully the team inside the bubble as well as navigating corporate politics and stuff like that.
Sadly, I've saw very few people that are managed to do that successfully.
Hi Laura, I’m a studio lead for a small indie studio of about 7 other developers. None of us have made a game before but each has his or her own skills in art/programming/music/narrative etc. I’m incredibly passionate about creating a game and had actually been working on one for the past two years. Long story short, some financial instability and overwhelming personal life, as well as realizing that the game’s scope is much too large, how do I move forward from here? I’m completely ready to honestly address the problem, as it’s been building terribly in my head for quite a while now. Your video was the push I needed to do something for myself and my team.
Great question!I think your next step is to have a conversation with your team about what you can do given your constraints(financial etc). It's more important to make something small and good versus big scope and not fun. If you can make something good you can try to get more interest and investment. It's great that you're thinking about scoping and I wish you and your team the best!
Hopefully at this point you have a playable? Clearly you need to cut, so one thing to consider is "finding the fun" in what you *have* built and then focusing tighter on whatever is working. (Hopefully something is working well, lol.)
Games are hard to make. You have to be tough and develop a pain tolerance over a long period of time while doing heavy lifting over years and years just to get the core foundations to BEGIN to start making a decent game. Our world these days creates weak developers who want to engage with all manner of tertiary nothings other than make a good game. There is now a critical mass of developers who no longer burn the midnight oil and have taken all the focus away from core concerns that lead to a quality product. It was already hard enough trying to complete the herculean task of making a quality product, now it's impossible. As you say in your video, "Reciprocation" has destroyed this industry! Workers no longer want to reciprocate the tough love required to get good, they just want good boy and good girl cookies.
I agree! Becoming great at making games takes time and effort over years. It's part of why I love making games...there is always room to improve. It's the never ending journey. Endlessly interesting! :)
@@laurafryer6321 Great videos, and thanks for taking the time to reply. It's good to hear some sanity in this broken industry.
Not even two minutes into this video, I can tell that you have a wealth of knowledge about the industry and process. I can’t wait to binge your content!
Thank you! I hope you enjoy it!
@@laurafryer6321 oh I did! I love your insight! I yearn for game dev content, so understanding the business of how it works is fascinating.
one of the better videos on game production and a crystal clear overview of what it’s like for AA/AAA alike. hope your channel continues to grow, it’s nice to have additional voices beyond the same usual set of guys (no offense to them, love Cain, Faliszek, and Sawyer) or endless speculation channels not backed by real world experience.
thank you! keep it up. i’ll be citing this to my production mentees
Stumbled upon your channel today (no doubt the CZcams algorithm recommending it after watching many Tim Cain videos) and have been completely hooked, binge watched a bunch of your videos. It's incredibly fascinating to get a behind the scenes look into game development, thank you for taking the time to make these!
Thank you for watching!
This was an amazing video! It’s very clear that you have very deep insight into the subject matter, something that is sadly lacking on CZcams
Thank you! I appreciate your comments and I hope you stop by again!
This video reminds me of that great documentary, “PsychOdyssey” by Double Fine (I don't know if you've seen it, probably yes because in fact I think you appear!). In the documentary you could see how in the early days of the company, they acted almost as a cooperative in terms of coordination and work management. Each one knew what role they had to play and they didn't have an internal rivalry in order to obtain a position superior to the rest. The culture was also evident in the video. During the production of Psychonauts 2, we see how Tim changes his role in the team to dedicate himself to other things (giving example) and we see how Zak being in charge, things go wrong within the team and a paradigm shift occurs.
The workers continued to contribute their ideas, but we observe how Zak ignores the feedback from his team and prioritizes production and design, causing the artists to suffer a great deal of rejection towards him and the direction the project is taking. It's a perfect example of what you're talking about in this video. The person leading the team may receive valuable data from the team, but if that person is unable to interpret that data or knowingly ignores it, how can a project of this caliber succeed?
Anyway, I've seen that several of the recurring concepts in your video could be seen in the documentary and it was interesting to mention it. Once again, great video and I look forward to the next one :)
I've seen some of that documentary and found it interesting. I need to watch more..thank you for the reminder and for watching!
Just subscribed! This was a great history lesson and very informative. Thank you Laura!
Thank you! I'm glad you found it informative!
So well made Laura, really good examples and how you’ve broken down the key issues impacting these studios, hope the channel gets the growth it deserves
Thank you!
Really Great Video :D i love the technical details on game making in all aspects, especially from retro times too :D
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Not at all what I expected when I clicked on the video.
I am pleasantly surprised.
You have gained a new Subscriber.
Lots of wisdom and sad truths in this video.
I could write a loooong post about putting your job on the line because you are actually doing your job....
Maybe some other time. :)
I have a few of those stories myself. :) Thank you for subscribing!
It was interesting seeing you talk about the idea of how new people on the team can get up to speed and browse a history of prior decisions that were discounted. Code commit logs don’t really cut it, but we used to have a back catalogue of screen recordings. It would be even better to somehow capture qualitative feedback on the feeling of playing prototypes
Thank you! Having the history of why certain decisions were made helps the team understand the older decisions and saves time. It's easy to go in circles when new people want to rehash prior thinking. Doesn't mean you can't change things but it does give everyone visibility into what the reasoning was at the time and you learn a lot.
Redfall was a Zenimax created Gaas game that was converted to a co-op shooter, and many devs left before Microsoft bought Zenimax. Harvey Smith as head of Arkane Austin lied or covered up the problems with the game. I'm glad the studio was closed.
Yet another great video about the industry we love. As someone already mentioned in the comments it's criminally underrated.
As always, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Thank you for your kind comments!
Really enjoy it when I see you’ve posted a new video, cause from you I know it’s going to be the real deal!!:))
I appreciate your feedback. Thank you!
Nobody understands what videogames really are.
Really eye opening, thought provoking and Inspirational! Admirable content ! Thank you for you insight, sharing and work!
Thank you! I'm glad you found it inspirational!
This video is amazing and insightful, it can be applied to many other industries as well, thanks a lot for making it!
Thank you and I agree! When I worked in Oculus Research, I found that 90% of game production could be applied to research work.
When you said the culture changed in 2007. Cause 2007 was one of the best years for gamers ever. Which tells me it takes a long time to make a game and can take a long time for that culture shift to have major impacts. Right now feels like the worst of times and the best of times for games. It’s really weird out there right now.
I agree! It's definitely a weird time in gaming. Thank you for watching!
Very insightful and well articulated, thank you for this.
Thank you!
Really love the insight into management. I've been trying to build up my skills and am looking for ways to build experience in leadership roles (software developer). Your videos provide some very great insight into this field, thank you. Also, I hope Perfect Dark continues to move forward at a steady pace now that we've seen something. I honestly had started to write it off, thinking it was dead and maybe going to be a "back to the drawing board" scenario like with Metroid Prime 4.
Thank you! I'm glad that you have found the videos useful!
It’s so refreshing to see someone with personal experience explain this issue instead of the rage bait CZcamsrs who pursue all the negative subjects just for clout.
Thank you! I appreciate you checking out my video.
Bravo Laura! Pure unadulterated wisdom.
Monlith is one of my favorite developers. I hate that they are under WB.
Monolith was fantastic to work with! I miss those teams! Thank you for watching!
I don't know if I've clicked on a video faster in a good minute. I love your insights on the business side of the industry.
Awesome! I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
Holy shit this channel is so good. You've earned a sub.
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the video and subscribed!
I heard somewhere that studios that flop don’t get shut down just because they produced a bad game. But rather they only get shut down when investors don’t see future potential. IE: Rocksteady, despite producing Suicide Squad, can rest easy as long as their next project is a traditional Batman game. Thoughts?
Hey Laura, no questions here, I just wanna give you praise for answering them. Both the video and your responses are incredibly insightful!
Hi! Thank you for letting me know. I appreciate the feedback!
yeeeeeahhhhhhhh!
Thank youuuu Laura. Made my week!
Thank you!
7:13 Culture of production what I'm lacking right now, thanks!
Awesome! You're welcome!
Question for you, Laura! As a project manager for 8 years at a large tech company, I really want to pivot into project management in the game industry, but was wondering how I could break in without the game industry experience? How do I build that experience? I was wondering if you had any advice.
Cool! I think game production is awesome! I would start by looking at as much content as you can on game development with a focus on production issues. For example, the GDC vault has free content you can check out and some of it would be helpful. I'd also find local people that do game production and ask questions, learn from them sort of like a mentor. Many jobs are won through networking so if you don't have local people, you could go to a game conference like a GDC or a game meetup and network there. Build your contacts and learn while doing so.
Did you ever get that build of that Vegas game?
Yes! It took awhile but they did get it delivered.
@@laurafryer6321 That's good. Never heard of that game before. I wish we could get to see more of the game development process of the game as it evolves from an test build all the way up to the final product.
Laura I saw your other comment regarding teams being too big, I agree. YOu mentioned hiring multiple specialists versus people who can do multiple things. What drives this? I do know from hearing game dev stories like yours, that 20 years ago in most big studios there'd be no qualms doing over time and weekends and sleeping at your desk to meet a deadline; hardcore crunch. Is this a response to that old culture, or contributing? And how do you balance that as a leader in modern management
The specialist move started happening due to the size of games. There was so much work to do you needed multiple people so might as well hire an animator versus someone that could model, rig and animate. I don't think people loved crunch but saw it as necessary. For example,I worked everyday the last few months shipping Gears. Each game studio wants to improve and many hire more people but that can make things worse. Studios try to learn to manage their projects better too, but no matter how well you manage, things can still happen.
You would know much more than I would, Laura, but as a former Microsoft fan, it seems to me that at about 2010 and beyond, Microsoft began to slowly regress. It was never a perfect company of course, but it seems like at least in the past, stuff got done and the right decisions were generally being made. Nevertheless, slowly, for whatever reason, Microsoft regressed, and then the problems with Microsoft began to spread to its subsidiary parts such as the games division.
I agree with you (as a former Microsoft fan too).
I agree! I've observed that it's very difficult to keep a large organization from becoming a broken bureaucracy. However, I definitely felt an acceleration in the wrong direction and it made it much harder to get the right things done.
@@laurafryer6321 Roger that. Thank you!
The recorded oral history of Laura Fryer.
Much needed
Thank you! I'm happy you dropped by to check out my video!
This is odd... I swear I've seen one of your videos on gaming prior to this one, but when I look at your list of vids nothing looks familiar.
That's interesting. Thank you for watching!
Strongly disagree. Its the greedy shareholders the reason why this industry is like it is. These devs have very little to do with it, as Tango Gameworks is a prime example, thier stuff is always great full stop.
This is "why studios fail" not "why successful studios still get closed". You might have too much ragebait content in your media diet.
@@MorbidEel Ehh? Maybe? I honestly believed Tango Gameworks did a great job, they just didn't fit the shareholders dreams of infinite Lambos is all. Perhaps I will watch again to see why Tango messed up so bad, everyone lost thier jobs. Thats a heavy price to pay for incompetence or whatever?
It's sad what happened to Tango Gameworks because they were doing a good job. I don't think that every time a studio fails it's a moral failing. Sometimes bad things happen to good people.
Thanks.
You're welcome! I appreciate you stopping by to watch my video!
...OR you have a great studio that repeatedly produces awesome games that get rave reviews and do well financially and you shut it down anyway. That was Tango Gameworks. In cases like this the failure of leadership is not at the studio itself, but the parent company and developers pay the price.
It's true. Sometimes you can do everything right and it still doesn't work out.
I sincerely think making games is harder than rocket science
LOL! :)
Nah. Games are still just software projects. The process of testing and troubleshooting and redesigning is way cheaper than for real life engineering.
Studios fail because of companies like Sweet Baby Inc pushing their social agendas. DEI has no place in games, female characters should be feminine and male characters should be masculine. There should be no censorship in games, and games that are made to represent an existing IP, should remain true to that IP. DEI is killing the AAA gaming industry, and with these DEI games coming up, I will not be buying them and urge gamers to boycott these games as every financial failure and more studios closing down and more developers losing their jobs the quicker these studios and publishers will reject DEI and focus on making games for the gamers and not for some social forced diversity ideology.
I generally think you're right but I also support creators trying new directions. It's a tricky balance. I think Peter Jackson had the right idea when he said this about the LOTR films: "We made a promise to ourselves at the beginning of the process that we weren't going to put any of our own politics, our own messages or our own themes into these movies. What we were trying to do was to analyze what was important to Tolkien and to try to honor that. In a way, we were trying to make these films for him, not for ourselves."
@@laurafryer6321 just make games for the gamers, don’t change the lore if it’s an original IP, don’t try to make a game that has been built using tick boxes. An example is the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows, its Samurai , so just have all the characters of Japanese origin, it’s simple, however they had to go Sweet Baby Inc and DEI and have offended Japanese culture and people. Suicide Squad KTJL another example of DEI failure costing WB games 200 million. Forespoken another financial failure that ended up closing a studio, again Sweet Baby Inc involved. Gotham Knights and the Saints Row reboot, both financial failures, and both had DEI Sweet Baby Inc written all over it. Alan Wake 2, another DEI Sweet Baby Inc financial failure. Gamers do not want games like these and studios should listen to what the fans want, and in the end they have to realise they need to sell their products to the largest consumer base, which unfortunately is the consumer base these consultancy firms, developers, community managers hate, the white male gamer. If I owned a studio, the remit would be simple, I don’t care who you offend, make me something that will sell and make money, all we do is put out a warning on the loading screen saying this may offend certain groups of people, but no malice intended. You make products and offer services that make you and your shareholders the most money, and not a product or service that pushes an agenda, narrative or virtue signaling, its profit that counts at the end of the day. In my opinion it may take several more big AAA games to fail financially and commercially, and more studios to close and developers losing their jobs, before the AAA industry recovers when they realise that they have to make certain types of games with certain types of content that gamers will buy.
Based on this, I can pinpoint a few problems:
- Massive bloat: Diablo IV having 9000 people "work" on it is absolutely absurd. Sounds like a money laundering scheme.
- Incompetent leadership: As you said; "Yes Men". This explains the current status of the Xbox brand.
- Poor management: Time limits for any project (large, or tiny) is important. Even I wouldn't have progressed much in my art if I hadn't set time limits.
Hi! Good to see you again! Great comments particularly your point about setting time limits. We would time box new design experiments and then evaluate after the time ran out. Seems like that would have helped with Suicide Squad and the vehicle idea.
@@laurafryer6321 Time boxing seems like an interesting concept. How long would these time boxes be? A few weeks? Thank you.
@@AzureSymbiote It depends on what you're trying to prove out..could be weeks or months. If it's months, I'd put in some checkpoints to see how it's progressing.
Got to call BS on Fortnite... Save the world failed... PUBG was struggling with your engine and wouldn't receive help from you while you scrambled and pushed out a BR... and got lucky there was no testing testing testing in this case.
Too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Having a manager to tell a developer to speed up doesn’t work. Have smaller teams with more developers and less people who don’t even know how to program. One director , one editor and a fairly small group of developers and artists. Cut all the other business people out until the game is ready for non programmers.
I miss 4G all the time
Me too! He was one of the best people I knew and one of the best producers.
Getting involved with Xbox. Smh
clickbait
Filthy casual here. The video provides a lot of in-depth analysis on individual studio missteps, but given so many recent shutdowns, isn't there also larger factors at work? For example, the massive increase in obesity and diabetes in the USA over the past 3+ decades isn't really a function of the individual moral failings of single people who make bad food choices but rather a manifestation of larger system at work. It's not an individual failure, but a systemic one. This video, intentionally or not, seems to suggest that the recent game studio shut downs are also essentially "moral failings", but I find that hard to believe because of how many shutdowns there have been. I think it's something bigger.
I think the problems she presents here can be extrapolated to a much larger scale. It is a culture of management that spreads through an entire corporate structure. So I dont think theyre mutually exclusive
This is a video about how to effectively manage a game studio. Discussing forces outside the studio and how they affect the studio isn't relevant unless those forces can be managed by those at the game studio and they obviously cannot be because they're larger outside forces beyond their control.
In general most gamers are blaming that need for a live service money as the reason studios are shutting down. As far as moral failings there seem to be a belief that just by being a live service game the studio would make bank on it.
@@brentbentKRFP Well...the video is titled "Why Studios Fail" and the introductory first 20 seconds state "The past few years have been full of failing AAA games. Well-known studios are failing to deliver leading to low reviews and job losses for thousands. It's been heartbreaking to watch, and it's left many wondering what is going on. Why are game studios failing, and what can be done to fix it?"
Knowing about the systemic problems/threats allows studios to plan for them, yes?
@@Palendrome Fair enough. So why are all the studio closures happening now. Is there an epidemic of mismanagement all of a sudden?