"BioWare Magic" - Rants
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- čas přidán 19. 06. 2024
- Let's talk about "BioWare magic"
Its a term I thought had stopped being used but SOMEONE used it on Anthem
BioWare magic when used within the studio refers to a particularly bad bit of development that causes crunch.
It isn't good or cool. Its naming a crappy thing in order to make it seem better, or ok.
Much of this channel is dedicated to trying to improve process so that "BioWare Magic" or whatever other studios call it can disappear forever.
Chapters:
0:00 "BioWare Magic"
0:40 The Hockey Stick
1:41 Terrible
2:30 DO Something
3:06 Naming it Doesn't Make it Better
4:04 Its not JUST BioWare
5:16 Anthem
6:02 We can do BETTER
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"things aren't finishing, things are accumulating" I feel this in my bones
Did I say that?
That's a good line.
I'm still watching the video but that definitely reminded me of feature creep. lol.
Or this and hear me out. We stop supporting products that we know have bad business practice which includes crunch. Companies start to act when their bottom line is hurt
I've basically been doin' "BioWare Magic' for college assigments this whole time.
Not uncommon at all
I can't thank you enough for making this video. You so clearly illustrated exactly how it is in a lot of creative studios. I worked for multiple animation studios where the term "magic" was thrown around like a positive thing by the people at the top, but "magic" is just a flowery term for crunch. It's absolutely equivalent to bad process, and yet the people who use the word "magic" in this way are PROUD of it, while being completely ignorant of how soul-crushing it is to the animators. It's an awful feeling, having months and years of overtime, stress, and exhaustion written off as MAGIC, like it's a good thing. Studios need to stop being proud of their bad work pipelines and be better to the employees they're responsible for.
indeed
hey Mark, Steve Sim here - thanks for this video - hopefully it falls upon ears that are listening. Though it certainly will not... "BioWare Magic" made me go from a "best job ever!" mentality to "games suck". I couldn't even play games for YEARS after leaving BioWare due to extreme burnout.
Hope you have recovered...
@@MarkDarrah mostly, though Kotaku posts like this (and the infamous Anthem post from 2 years ago) certainly still trigger me. Then I go for a hike and smoke a big joint, all is forgotten again :)
This is an important video. Thank you for upload this!
Hopefully it helps.
This is great, we need more retired developers to do this. We're somehow going backwards in quality it seems, went back and played some games from 2010 and they're just... Wow. Way cooler than a lot of the games we have today, especially from AAA.
As teams and budget go up, there are just way more moving parts…
@@MarkDarrah Could it be that budgets go up but instead of being put to production, they're wasted on marketing and high-end tech (which are placed lower on the hierarchy of needs). I mean it's safe to say we've experienced most of the original video game ideas by playing games from the 90s to the early 2010s. And now the only way to attract a potential customer is done by investing in visuals and advertisement; gameplay, on the other hand, suffers or is of barebones functionality. Even story scripts are less interesting. There are exceptions of course.
@@phlegios It could also be in how teams are managed. Putting in more effort or money for that matter, doesn’t equate to a higher quality product if you’re not efficient about it. To put it in an example, say you have a small team of five people working on a passion project. You all know the vision and are all able to communicate well. Now lets say there’s a team of 50 people working on a project. That’s much more difficult to manage and requires a lot more proper communication that has to be set up.
There’s also the problem that modern AAA games are trying to appeal to a massive audience at once and need to do like 10 things at the same time (appeal to tons of players, make a huge profit, please investors/stockholders THROUGHOUT THE PROCESS (this is a big one, a major problem with modern games is getting announced too early, but they need to to tel stockholders things gamers want are being made years in advance)). As a small example, its REALLY hard to make successful micro transactions. That’s not to defend them, but it is to say it takes serious effort. You’re essentially making an entire economy from scratch and you need to properly price everything so it feels reasonable and compels players to spend. In game you need to be generous enough with currency so that they don’t get turned off from the store, but not so generous they don’t spend real money at all. For that matter, loot systems are hard, co-op is hard, a live service game with a 5+ year roadmap is hard (not even making the game, just planning it out). And this is all on top of telling the studio to make a bigger and better game than the last one.
Luckily game development had gotten a lot easier to enter with more free tools and training than ever. Also more support from publishers to publish indie games or ways to self publish. This means we see games more similar to those from 10+ years ago, and more overall variety that makes it more likely than ever to find something you enjoy.
@@MarkDarrah
Have the processes in making games not also become more streamlined to account for the increased scope?
@@elderscrollsmoddingtech7252 Not enough, apparently. Game development was never easy but back in the day you could make relatively large changes during development without having to tell a publisher why you need ten more months and millions more dollars to develop better content when you only need to develop it so you can cut shitty or ill-fitting content that also cost millions of dollars and hundreds, maybe thousands of man-hours to create. The original Deus Ex famously came together incredibly late, much like a contemporary BioWare game, and its director spoke about that process almost like it was a positive and necessary thing, the systems all suddenly clicking together and making sense after the developers made huge revisions months before launch. That sort of playful, perhaps even laissez-faire attitude is completely unfeasible for game development today. Too many moving parts.
Oh man, I can't believe the amount of times we heard "BioWare Magic" in all hands or team emails. Most people in production knew it for the BS it was, but it is great seeing it broken down like this. As you said, if you can't play the game until the end (cough Anthem) then how do we make proper decisions on where we put our effort.
exactly
Thank you for this!
I'm really looking forward Dragon Age 4 (and The Elder Scrolls VI) but I'm don't want workers, devs getting screwed and scarred while some big shots keep a straight face and get profit.
One more sub!
Agreed
Thank you, Mr. Darra, and your team for putting Anthem together under such conditions. Great artists and designers put a lot of work into it. I still sometimes go into it to enjoy the beauty, flying and gameplay. It's really sad that the game didn't get as much lore and locations as Mass Effect. The hub concepts in the artbook were impressive.
I do love flying in Anthem
@@MarkDarrah That’s great to hear. I still don’t regret buying anthem at full price on my PS4 (and again on sale for my Xbox Series S), just because I honestly enjoyed those core gameplay mechanics. I was really hoping to see more armors, new mechanics, and crazy rich lore and story, but at the end of the day a lot of great work was put into it. I’m sad it didn’t pan out, but under the conditions its a magnificent game.
I'm so glad you addressed this. It's such a huge problem, in games and many industries.
unfortunately common
I found your channel all the way back to when this video was a major talking point in gaming news for a bit, and I come back here every time I need motivation to use my time for school stuff more wisely. Great video with a great point.
Thank you!
This is definitely my widest reaching video.
Your videos bring me so much joy, I love your insight and just how your mind works. Thanks for taking the time to share
Thanks you
I'm glad that attention is being paid to this and that there is an effort being made to reduce crunch. I think the biggest problem right now is that there is a mismatch between what people want and what people expect. Of course, everyone _wants_ there to not be crunch in the game they ship or buy. But when you ask the consumer what they'd be willing to sacrifice: Well, what if the game shipped 6 months later than originally announced? What if the game was 40 hours of playtime instead of 60? What if you _can't_ pet the dog? You might as well be asking them if they would be all right chopping off an arm for how they react.
There are smaller studios who are shipping games ontime (or close to) without crunch, but I expect that if the answer to avoiding crunch in a larger game were simple, then it wouldn't be the problem it is. I hope everyone keeps at it to try to resolve the issue, though, because I don't expect the industry can't sustain itself like this.
The industry is working on it. Not always well. And there are back slides but it is getting better.
Partially I think because the average age of devs is going up
@@MarkDarrah between that and covid re-aligning people's work-life balance decisions, any shop that continues to rely on last-minute crunch is going to find themselves shedding devs.
I can definitely see people using the term "BioWare Magic" as a sort of snarky "can you believe this s---" response to the hockey stick and not a genuine sentiment. I would definitely keep my ear out for it as an early warning sign of team morale issues if I were a team leader at BW.
I’m more than happy to wait for games and have shorter games. Honestly, most of the play time in longer games is just grind-y bloat to get players to spend more money to play less of the game they payed money to play. But profit motive means that my willingness- even preferences are irrelevant to the idea that any money I’m not immediately handing over to (insert game company) is money lost.
Thank you for talking about this and giving insight to the process!
You are welcome!
Thank you, Mark. I'm not a game developer and I won't know exactlyhow that feels, but my job does similar garbage with a team of 3, expecting a crap load done in a 9 hour period. They like to tell me to "work my magic".
"sprinkle some magic on that there task"
Great insights Mark. While I don't develop code for games, we face the same crunch problems in my corner of the industry (fintech). The worst part about the 'magic' is that the business seizes on it and it always seems to make things worse for development. So many times we were crunching to complete a project and just barely pulling through. Me and the other developers would just be completely exhausted. We try to explain that we can't keep doing this only for business to say 'you pulled off a miracle/magic' and since you were able to accomplish this we'll expect the next project to be done in even less time, because you guys work miracles.
Using the last disaster as the starting point and then saying you can do it faster is… a thing
Thanks for this amazing video, it was time someone came out with this video and show the actual reality of the situation. Thanks for everything you have done.
Hopefully it helps
Thank you for the informative video! I'm a graphic designer rather than a game designer, but I've decided seen some of the similar issues with workflow on marketing and branding projects I've worked on. I feel like across creative or media driven mediums as a whole are suffering frrom the lack of consistent benchmarks and early forward momentum.
yes, its definitely not a special flaw of gaming
Mark, we love you man. Just sucks you've had to go through all this development hell but at the end of the day, you're one of the good ones.
I hope so but there are mistakes in my past for sure
Well good to hear you speak up now. I understand you could not during your career but I hope more developers speak up.
There is a resurgence happening in the industry and I hope we finally, FINALLY see some change.
I hope those that come after me can do better than I did.
Thank you for the insight! The first time I ever heard about "Bioware magic" was in terms of Inquisition. To me, it was a great game but to others, it was a triumph of this "magic". A "magic" that needs to die.
May the algorithm bless this video!
Seems to be so far...
@@MarkDarrah I found the video through an article so the headline of "Ex ‘Dragon Age’ producer says BioWare Magic is “bullshit” " might be doing some legwork.
Came here through Yong Yea, i applaud you for speaking out. Its not an easy thing to do, but it has to be done. Bravo. Greetings from the Netherlands!
thank you
The hockey stick visual was great, and I feel it can apply to many different situations as you turn it and flip the stick around and it’s made me consider what my own progress looks like.
Props to you as well for managing to reply to every single comment here too, though I can’t imagine how uncomfortable it is to engage with an audience only for some to start digging for drama within the studio or make up their own conclusions about people still within the studio when they’ve got your attention.
I have confidence in the people at BioWare.
To make great games and to continue to try to improve the WAY they are made too
Just gained a sub. This is the stuff that needs to be spoken out loud and discussed in the industry. Thank you for this
Welcome
I have only just left Bioware, I worked in the VFX department ( I am sure people who read this and worked there, will know who I am) , I kid you not for the last 8-9 years I did pretty much endless overtime, my wife almost divorced me a few times as I was easily spending 60-80s hours a week in the office for a majority of the years. I worked on BF , DAI, Mass effect andromeda, Anthem, Mass effect legendary, ( DA4 not released) ... which means literally it was from crunch to crunch to crunch
Despite this, I loved being part of the Bioware magic, I loved my job at Bioware the team were fantastic but some of the decision making were the true cause for the long hours, Every department is / are / were overworked due to poor decision making or for them churning their wheels in the mud to make decisions/changing minds.
To add insult to injury I was super excited to join DA4, I was so invigorated as I loved that franchise and I respect Matt G and Matt R as top tier level, so I couldn't wait to really push the creative level.
It was amazing at first, I was making ground breaking elements, doing talks and presentations in EA with the stuff we were doing.... I was super excited to come into work or go to my desk... then the nightmare hit...... some person in production who works outside of the VFX network and has never worked in it .......decided it was a good idea to outsource VFX using the frostbite engine, which isn't a public engine, not designed for outsource and also did the CARDINAL SIN of using outsource with a 12 hour time difference.
I had no problem working with the Bioware magic when I was making the goods and visual pleasing entities but I found myself working even longer managing and directing an outsource team extremely late at night .....11pm /1am/ 3am / 5am times. etc plus my normal duties.
it finally got to the stage that I decided my sacrifice to the studio just wasn't worth it anymore.
You can make the 12 hour time difference work for outsource. But those assets better be self contained because iteration is virtually impossible
@@MarkDarrah yes, I agree, it's possible to make it work, in some cases it can work great as you have a production cycle working essentially 24hours a day. For me it was hell and basically I was helping Bioware save a $..Happy times!!
Thank you for this upload. And for what it's worth, for the amount of time you all had with Anthem, you made one of the most gorgeous games I've seen. It was a real pleasure to just ... fly around, and take in the sights. Just everything visually, from my suit to the underwater segments, made me very happy to roam around in it.
Flying is great in Anthem
Learnt about crunch time when i studied games development, it was around that point I decided I dont think games development is for me
Definite a fair reason
great video! you are on point! it's a common mistake and a old way of approaching design processes. Instead what they need is a holistic iterative design process - no hockey sticks allowed there. And it seems like BioWare (or who ever is repsonsible for the design process) could benefit from a good service design. speaking as a designer here.
It is very common.
The industry is getting better in process but larger games make it harder
great video and important message. but how to feel that completion urgency earlier? I’m a young game designer and this situation, of not doing much progress for a long time and then hitting this pivot point, felt very familiar to me. i’d love to hear from more experienced people on how to circumvent that. Thanks.
I talked about it a bit in the crunch video but this is DEFINITELY an open topic
This was so insightful!! Thank you so much for sharing!
I'm glad to teach something...
Thanks for making it clear to many viewers of "gaming news channel" on how dev generaly works, where i work we had to do work 20h a day for 3 days straight because of a closing deadline, something that could have been prevented if the workflow during the previous 2 years was smoother.
I feel like in most cases the bad process happens because of a PO that lacks technical knowledge or is busy working on multiple projects at the same time, i lost count on the number of times where a dev asks a "simple" question around the project and the PO just comes back with :"i'll get back to you on that" only to end up calling a meeting with all the devs and then that turns into a brainstorming as if we are still in the planning phase...
Then when shit hits the fans, magically the PO has answers to everything and is available 24/7 and can answers any questions without delay, only at that point there is so little time left that everyone has to work double their shift to achieve the goals.
Yes, high completion urgency sure makes things go faster.
Hi from Portugal! ^^
Thank for doing this, I hope you don't get in trouble because of this.
I hope that more devs could talk about this and maybe change the industry of gaming.
One side quest, what tier do i need to choose to have access to your discord?
Sorry about my bad english and thankt you.
Have a nice day
Discord access is at the lowest tier (If You Are Doing Triage)
Early video access is at Flip Chart Exercises (2nd tier)
That sounds really stressful, the crunch I have experienced was alot like that but on a way smaller scale. I can't imagine it on a large scale with so many moving parts. 😓
a 100 person team is way more than 10 times as complicates as a 10 person team
This is an excellent video. Thank you for making this and for not pulling a single punch.
Its been chewing away at me, apparently
@@MarkDarrah All the respect to you.
from my experiences it was almost always the inversed hockey stick or 80/20 rules, where you start off strong iterate early on the many aspect of your game, develop the methodologies/tooling required and, THEN fill out the content, since everything is set and tested. I've always worked in the indie sphere and mostly where overtime was not an option, but has you stated this way at least you've established earlier the vertical slice and are ready to scope accordingly toward release.
Small teams have an advantage of not being able to handle inventory.
Inventory leads to the hockey stick
@@MarkDarrah thx a lot for your content and all the amazing project you've accomplished over the years. I've found myself binging a lot of your videos :p I'm totally allowed now that I'm freelancing haha. freedom is priceless ;p
Magic doesn't work when you become Tranquil. Luckily, as hinted in DAI there might be a cure for Tranquility
Solved
"some additive gets added to the water' i lost it
Productivity juice
Thank you for calling out these terrible practices and helping to bring to light what actually is happening in the games industry.
Hopefully we can improve.
Thank you for this video Mark! I love video games but I also want devs to not be abused and burned out. I really hope crunch is something that goes away. Treating devs better will make our games better!
I work in Marketing and I feel like this type of bad practices apply to so many industries. Expecting people to “work their magic” on a project poorly planned and with not enough time.
It isn't unique to games, for sure
It's not like I dind't know this. But. Having someone who worked there (and not just anyone btw), saying it outloud. Ahhhh, it feels amazing.
Sometimes it helps hearing it. Even when you know.
I'm glad you can be brutally honest, its rough having faith in people/ companies only to see so much time, money, potential thrown into the wind.
Not to mention the tons of employees burnt out, depressed, and quitting.
I really hope everyone piggybacks on this and it slaps some sense into the people who enforce these terrible practices. all that lost understanding, are they just blind? its not helping anyone.
seeing all the stress come out while you're talking just makes me mad that this shit happened in the first place, you and everyone else deserve better
I DO believe it is getting better
@@MarkDarrah i believe so too. seeing things like avtivision blizzard buyout and responses alluding to giving freedom back to devs and workers is excellent, but with money behind everything we need to keep on top of the issue. Thank you for your part in the fight!
Thanks for the vid. Always great.
Thank you!
I’ve been working in the Triple A gaming space as a Producer for 6 years now and have ran into this pivot on every single one of my projects.
How have you gotten your teams to embrace better process earlier in development to reduce lost understanding/ long term crunch? I usually run into a culture wall that is, any process, early in development is bad as it “reduces creativity”. Yet, I’m the first person blamed should crunch inevitably happen.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience online for anyone to watch regardless of their involvement in games. I’ll be sharing this video within my Production organization in the hopes of driving positive change.
The hourglass (or pile of sand) is something that I was using to try to increase completion urgency earlier.
czcams.com/video/i5yNc0_lH4M/video.html
Experience is golden... (some of the names lurking in the supporters list who get this, makes me feel very reassured)
Blech
Thanks for great insights into the world of game creation. That hockey club = bad mojo for the individual's stress levels and "working health", too.
Oh yes
Can confirm
- QA on Mass Effect 1,2,3...
magic...
@@MarkDarrah Bioware Magic made me bald. Bioware breakfast made me...rotund.
I remember reading the book Significant Zero by Walt Williams, most well known for writing Spec Ops: The Line. In it, he had a rather bizarre defense of crunch that he deservedly got blowback for. It was a blemish in an otherwise great book that's well worth reading, but he basically tried to argue that he and a lot of others are workaholics that love to crunch, which makes it okay for some reason, a pretty disappointing conclusion from an otherwise bright guy.
There are people in the industry with very regressive views here
Thank you Mr. Darrah for making this video. Gives us the gamers a better understanding of the experience of the devs working on the ground floor. I do have a question, its regarding the tech demo or early conceptual gameplay trailer of Anthem that we all saw at E3. Why was the voice acting so...cringe? Like the woman reacting to her loot drop, that Volt Rifle called Jarra's Wrath, did anyone think oh god this was badly put together? Or was that part done by EA thinking that is how gamers talk to each other?
ERP.
This was unfortunately common at the time.
Yes those are supposed to be PLAYERS talking to each other
Thanks for your candor Mark, keep shooting straight
I hope so
This was actually very interesting. That is a life lesson for everyone. My first real job I was told 'if you get hit by a MAC truck tonight, anyone should be able to walk off the street and continue your job. There should be no question where you are on your project, what steps to take and the timeline.' We called it the MAC truck theory. I'm surprised any company trying to make money wouldn't have set timelines for getting things done so it can mesh with the other parts. Sounds chaotic but I like lists.
Planning for fun can be hard
Thank you for this video, Mark. It hits so close to home, because it's true and a lot of studios really ARE working like this.
There is no such thing as "studioname magic". There are only people, budgets and processes.
Indeed
I built the core of a game (everything) in Python once, functioning menus, game loop, etc. and made everything iterative once the core was assembled (i.e. different areas, enemies, abilities, etc. can all be added later on with minimal difficult and no re-writing).
The thing is, you need to have a general idea of what the core systems should look like, and build the shell.
Indeed
Well said, Mark, BRAVO!!! Which only makes me want to see you return to BioWare all the more because you COULD move mountains there, no YT rant will be equal to actually making a difference where the problem actually is. As of late I've seen several BioWare devs follow Casey Hudson to Humanoid Studios and it saddens me. Is that what you're considering? To rebuild from the ground up like Casey? I just wish I knew who to root for at this stage.
No plans to start leading 200 people any time soon.
@@MarkDarrah Understandable. Wishing you all the best and I'll deffo support your channel and share your content at the studio I'm working for.
@Persephone's Underworld: I think this encouragement that someone should rejoin a workplace which suffers from bad employment practices like crunch & lack of scope, because they 'could make more of a difference on the inside' (aka it would be even worse without them), misses the point.
The duty to change corporate culture is with the financial and organisational leaders. In this case Bioware management and EA. Not the creatives.
But Bioware itself seems stuck in an abusive relationship with its publisher, EA, which is sucking it dry and asking for ever larger collectathon games with more pervasive monetization and higher sales targets, also leading to genericization of the games for lowest common denominator appeal.
EA will not allow limiting to 40 hour work weeks, paid overtime (best medicine against crunch), indefinite term contracts, unionization.
No employee of a subsidiary will be able to effect meaningful change under those conditions *nor should that be expected of them*. It's much better to start anew with a group of like minded people so the problem is solved structurally instead of merely 'making some ditterence'.
Why is it 'sad' if former Bioware devs follow Casey to a new studio? I hope they find better working conditions there and are free to make more original content.
Rant on! Crunch sounds like soul crushing labor. I understand now why you've made past content about trying to hit goals earlier in a project. I really pray that this kind of culture can be changed.
Indeed. This video is a lot of motivation for other videos coming out.
Hm... having worked at almost a dozen studios of all sizes over 26 years I can't think of a project that wasn't shaped like that. Do you have any examples of projects that were more straight forward to develop?
DLC content and other live service avoids this.
But the point isn't that it doesn't happen.
The point is
1. Don't romanticize it
2. Don't accept it
3. Lessen the effect where you can
Mark, what a surprise! I would love to hear your thoughts on Anthem since i stayed so close as a "fan" of that game and i knew when it launched something very very bad happened. I'm just so curious about what happened and the mystery that surrounds the development of that title. The huge lack of just vision, it felt like it was taped together and led by 4 different devs. It's just a complete nightmare because god damn...the combat and flying was perfect, it could've been so great and it still makes me sad and confused to this day. Would love to hear more! You got a new sub out of me anyways, love when a ex-dev shoots straight.
Anthem will get it’s day…
It's like Mass Effect Andromeda in that sense. Open world (or at least map size) became lewding and was promoted instead of adapting it to the content.
Both ended up generic and uninspired, afraid to take any risks and lacking anything unique. I barely remember a single side quest from Andromeda whilst I remember almost everything from the Mass Effect Trilogy.
@@MarkDarrah I sure as shit hope so because despite the glaring issues it got a lot right such as flight/combat/character customization but it had the depth of a kiddie pool. I will say using that engine did them no favors whatsoever and i really hoped EA would've given them another show to make Anthem NEXT a thing... so much potential.
@@sy-ky_buddy4603 same here. I really did like Anthem and I saw the game's backbone. I was sad that Anthem Next did not push through but yeah maybe someday.
Hi Mark, I watched your video with great interest and have one question: From what I could gather, there seems to be a problem with managing projects at Bioware. The development teams also appear to have issues with setting a project vision in stone. That said, how exactly would you, as somebody who had a rather high position at Bioware, attempt to remedy the "Bioware Magic" situation? I am sorry if this question has already been asked, I flew over the comments and didn't see any relevant discussion. I also imagine an answer could be lengthy, so it could be incentive to make a follow up video. 🙂 👊
The single biggest thing to improve is completion urgency.
If SOME things are driven to completion earlier, it will raise that initial line.
You likely can't eliminate it completely because large teams have to work in parallel which means you will always have an integration step for SOME things.
Wow, now that's a rant, but I totally understand, It must have been hella frustrating hearing during all those years, especially seeing that the press sometimes states this as positive/unique.
While we are moving past this mostly, the press has a bad track record of celebrating destructive passion
Scary to see how steep that curve gets.
When did this "Bioware magic" begin with the studio? Did this become a serious issue with more recent games, like ME and DA, or did it begin earlier than that?
BTW, thank you for making this channel. It is fascinating to hear from someone whose contributed to so many of the games I've loved since I was a kid. Your videos have been educational, fun, and thought provoking. :)
It worked this way on BG1
Bigger teams mean more dependencies which adds an additional complexity
Hello, first i want to say thank you for everything you have done and worked on that i consumed and enjoyed and that now stays close to my heart forever.
I wanna ask your POV, is bioware with the development of DA4 on a path where they will have to invoke at some point "the bioware magic" again or they are on a more clean path with the development?
I hope that not only people at bioware see your video but other people from the industry, and take the informations out of the rant swallow the pride and use it, and to come back after they release their games and thank you everything you said
I think the hockey stick will occur due to parallel development. But I think they are on track to tip the handle up a lot. Which will mitigate it immensely
@@MarkDarrah I see, it is true that change comes in time but nevertheless things look bright if "the things" are changing in a good direction.. I know that i am just a stranger from the internet but i want to say that i truly respect you and your work and the fact that you exist in this industry. I wish Bioware the best and i can't wait to see what they will release and i hope they will make you proud too
CZcamsr Jesse Cox mentioned this video in his 5 min Gaming News show. Congratz on making it to the 'mainstream' gaming news.
wow
This is a great video! Hope this change for the better.
Also just wondering if it will be cool if I can share this video on other platforms?
Like link it? Go for it!
@@MarkDarrah thanks will do it.
As a professional outside the gaming industry, and in the Environmental Sciences, I feel as though multiple companies suffer from this mentality. I have been involved in several archaeological projects that have had lackluster work done due to the simple fact that they pissed away the budget and we had to crunch to get the job done before the client found out. Good advice all around. Sharing in hopes some people I know pay attention.
It certainly isn't unique to video games
Just curious, but do studios ever implement performance pay regimes at the level of partial project completion? So, for example, if the team FINISHES part X by Y date then everyone gets some kind of bonus. In theory, could such incentives motivate everyone to finish all the individual parts of the project on time such that the final product is delivered on time WITHOUT crunch, missing features, broken features, etc.? Or would that open some other can of worms that would actually be bad for overall development?
Not as far as I know.
Independent studios get paid by PUBLISHWERS that way, however, so I could imagine them doing it.
It could result in degenerative behavior and fake passing things to get the bonus.
What a beard. I am so jealous I could hardly focus
Lol
Thank you for speaking so openly and frankly.
Hopefully it helps someone
I arrive by Yong Yea.... Love the video. Very revealing.
Thank you
What would need to happen to fix this? I assume it's multiple things such as the decision makers need to realise just because it happened to work out in the past that doesn't mean it's the best thing to do. I also wonder if this "hockey stick" effect happens because the game was too slowly being designed or because once the systems came together it was rushed to push it out.
Great video :)
Honestly I think embracing completion urgency earlier will make a huge difference.
This largely is a management thing as they inject much of the unnecessary change.
But it is cultural.
It would be great if we could see devs that works/worked at different studios talk about their experience like this. Though, the core - making a game - is the same, I highly doubt the process and work-culture are that similar. What a vid it would be if there's a CD Projekt dev, Guirella Games dev and a Blizzard dev in one discussion, for example... the things we all could learn and realize O.O
Sorry for being a bit off topic - I didn't buy into "BW magic" cover word even before. Nice to see a bit more emotions in this rant, caught me by surprise (in a good way).
I think you might be surprised how much is the same…
@@MarkDarrah Interesting 🤔
I love this. Not only is this good for current industry “leaders” to hear, it’s good for future and aspiring devs of all stripes to hear. The last thing anyone should want is for people to just assume these broken, shitty processes are “part of game dev,” and they can either get with it or get out. That’s stupid, and I hope more people hear it from you that it doesn’t have to be that way.
It doesn't have to be that way but its going to change slowly
With regard to that pivot point when there's enough content systems working that the game is coming together - isn't this where working vertical slices should be a priority in a preproduction phase? Like in indie development often with game jams, teams will come upon a working fun version of a game that they then build on, but throughout development they'd have that initial prototype to reference. Of course in AAA this is a much bigger process to reach that prototype but especially with the budgets involved that should make this even more of a priority righ
Completed things generate completed things.
A vertical slice CAN be that but can also be a giant pile of fake that delays completion
so is this a management issue, a team issue, a publisher issue, or an individual issue? Also, Love you, Love your work. I truly hope Bioware pulls up on the yoke because I love this studio and the games and stories it creates. I was truly saddened to see you leave the studio but glad you are out there pursuing your happiness.
yes.
All of those
@@MarkDarrah please give me a moment while I fanboy over the fact that the man behind my favorite games just replied to me. ok, ok, ok I think I am good now. This is a conversation my friends have a lot while we debated the wave of half-finished games being released or after hearing media postings about publishers rushing games to meet holiday deadlines or whatever the case is. In your opinion what is the solution? what steps can be taken to resolve this? personally, I would rather wait 5+ years to see the true vision of say, the next Dragon age game than see it rushed out in 2. Would I still buy it? yes, but I would prefer developers have the creative freedom and time to make their vision a reality.
I´ve worked for a couple of small game studios, we never had crunch. Well maybe their founders did, but they never forced us to work overtime, actually actively denied us that saying we would burn outselves out. I guess the bigger the studio, the worse the worker conditions (usually).
There is some truth to that.
Though there are indie studios with horror cultures.
This is an absolute asinine philosophy companies have. Cyberpunk comes to mind so much. No matter how bad it is it all just comes together at the end? That is Todd fucking Howard philosophy. “Everything just works” 😂 No it doesn’t at what cost ? At the cost of sanity, quality and creativity that’s what. Absolutely terrible philosophy.
Indeed
Thank you for this ❤️
You are welcome
It is quite amazing how everyone knows not to do any project like this, yet many projects are actually completed in this manner; cramming at the last second and hoping it works out. How would you feel about studios adopting Agile development methods or do you feel like there are certain factors which are too prohibitive for it to work out?
Most studios actually do use a FORM of agile...
@@MarkDarrah That is very interesting to know, because the hockeystick would suggest more of a waterfall approach.
I've in the past talked with other developers about Agile and they insisted that it can't work for games due to the tight deadlines, but I personally disagree with that assessment.
@@inciaradible7144 I think you need some form of agile BECAUSE its a creative thing.
You need to be able to pivot and Agile considers that.
Waterfall doesn't.
But Agile (at least SCRUM) sucks at dependencies
That hockey stick seems... like when a plan goes wrong not for that to *be* the plan.
Precisely.
You can't plan to this. And yet.
I would like to thank Bellular for pointing me here. I used to be.. maybe still am a big fan of old bioware games even then unpopular ones like Jade Empire. Seemed to me like I stopped playing Bioware games at just the right time, ME3 was my last Bioware game, tho I return to Dragon Age 1 at least once a year :)
There are a lot of stories left to be told at BioWare. Maybe they will draw you back
A very important video.
I hope it can make a difference
Thank you for your service. *salute
thank you
This NEEDED to be said.
I thought so.
@@MarkDarrah Of course, personal piece of mind is a good reason too! ha!
I've worked at at least 2 studios that had * Magic*... this describes verbatim what was going on.
Yup, for sure
I have worked as a project manager in construction and the “hockey stick” gives me max anxiety! Holy! Considering the amount of money that is involved in game development these days this really surprises me actually. I’m assuming that schedules/programmes are created but not followed ? Don’t get me wrong I think that there levels of crunch in every type of project but I think in gam development is seems pretty severe. I really hope it does get resolved for developers!
Creative development increases schedule uncertainty to a nearly unfathomable extent
@@MarkDarrah ah well then it makes sense that things become pretty unpredictable and a standard schedule wouldn’t do the job. Has certainly opened my eyes to that ways of managing become very different with more creative projects. I really appreciate game devs working hard to give us the products we enjoy so much.
Also thanks for that insightful video! I look forward to more! 😊
I hope Phil Spencer acquires EA and brings you people back to Bioware.
I can't imagine Microsoft buying ATVI AND EA...
@@MarkDarrah no one had atleast till now.
@@MarkDarrah if you are not offended may I ask youa question.Don't you think this is going to make Microsoft the industry dictator?
Yeah of course, getting a monopoly to take over games will sure bode well for us players, like it did for movies.
@@fivesanti that's the biggest fear for me otherwise I'm a PC guy and don't have anything against Microsoft.
If it's frustrating for us as consumers see a beloved or potentially appealing franchise being ruined by poor management and leadership, I can't begin to imagine the stress and frustration of being part of the team who's struggling to ship said franchise, thank you Mr. Darra and all other devs for your hard work and dedication to deliver something even when things look dire.
Let us hope that things improve as time goes on, wishing nothing but the best on your future endeavors.
The industry is getting better.
Slowly with a lot of fighting, but it is happening
Haha definitely understand the rage. Nothing's magic, it's all about hard work and believing in your creative endeavors.
Planning for a pivot is hard to plan
@@MarkDarrah Facts fam.
Hey did you like Cytonic? Haven't started it yet, looking forward to it.
It was good. I feel like the series has too much… I dunno change book to book
They need to learn from Yoshi P. Dude remade FF14 from scratch in 2 years. A full MMO with full content and functionality. Damn impressive for such a thing to happen.
Not really relevant in the general case
This existed in a production capacity within government hardware programs, with the only "magic" being the kick in the ass of money deadlines. Sadly it didn't save everything, but damn was your passion and distilling of this so vindicating to hear even from a non-game/software dev environment. Cheers Mr. Darra!
Thank you
I am sorry for stupid question, but what can junior do in such situation?
Unfortunately only a little.
Finish things.
Finished things will move other things towards done
Makes you wonder what the hockey stick would look like if those release dates weren't set before the whole project was scoped and estimated. Feels like there might be a better way to handle that whole process, something a little more agile....
Yes.
THOUGH, a lot of teams will extend that flat part out FOREVER without SOMETHING triggering completion urgency.
Agile SHOULD do that but doesn't in my experience
@@MarkDarrah Probably because in non-GaaS dev, you don't have existing customers beating down your door for new features.
Even if agile won't suffice, just having some sort of flexibility with release dates would allow teams to disperse that end-game urgency out across the project life. Tie some bonuses into milestones or something. I can't claim to have the answer there, but something to make the pressure stay constant across the project with some mild swings as opposed to the wild swing from 0 to 100 at the end.
Im telling you, Game Dev documentary's are about to pop off with the amount of fuckery that has been exposed this last Generation. I'm here for it. To see Mark make a video like this is refreshing and enlightening.
Change is happening for sure
@@MarkDarrah I spoke to a game developer, and he said that video games right now are like Hollywood in the 20's-30's, where there were few regulations and actors unions were not existent. I am looking forward to the reforms that await it, they seem inevitable what with the ubisoft and activision-blizzard situations
@@yungboy4216 yes this is a good analogy. Not just from a labor relations perspective but also the technology changes and craft mastery
I feel like studios have been hearing this forever plus I'm sure they'd like to avoid paying OT if they could. It seems like any organization with hundreds/thousands of people will be difficult to keep agile, but the other side of that coin is that people expect the new game to be out by Christmas. Not sure a great answer exists. I'd love to see everyone unionize but even then the entire industry will just need to tack on an extra 2-5 yes of dev time to budgets.
There are a lot of positions on salary in the games industry.
And, therefore, no OT.
Love the video, and I love the description and perspective on the hockey stick production model. In your experience, where does "pre-production" exist on the hockey stick? Is the whole stick after the pre-production process ends (if it ever really ends - the transition to production from "pre" may not be clear), or does it exist somewhere in the flat part of the stick, or is the transition from the flat to the steep part considered the final end of the pre-production cycle? Forgive me if you've already done a video on this - my backlog is way too long :(
I ask because I'm curious if effective use of a pre-production cycle can help reduce the hockey stick effect and create a much more linear (or smoother) line. My outsider's perspective has been that the flat part of the hockey stick exists (or is at least lengthened) by ineffective use of pre-production to set clear and reasonable goals/direction/scope. Basically, the flat stick is just leftover pre-production working its way through and getting in the way of "non-pre" production. The jump to the steep part of the stick is then when enough people end up realizing "oh crap, we've been doing this for X years and we have little to show for it" and essentially brute-force their way to completion through crunch. At that transition point, the goal/scope/direction they have on hand is solidified after being severely cut down or thrown out entirely for something much smaller and achievable.
I don't think effective pre-production would solve every problem that exacerbates the hockey stick, and no matter how effective it is, there's always going to be unforeseen issues, but it always seemed like a good part of the problem lay in how effective that part of the cycle was. I work in financial services, which is a completely different beast so it may not apply, but this as a major problem in our projects. Problems caused by ineffective use or or errors made during our preparation phase of the job (analogous to a pre-production cycles I assume) can cause our projects to be significantly delayed or take more hours to complete, often by upwards of 20% or more.
I think a PERFECT pre-production would cause you to have a perfectly flat production
Perfect pre-preproduction is impossible but they better you know everything entering production, the less dependencies occur, the less you need to wait.
Like a #BOSS , Mark!! Bravo!
thank you
The famous computer scientist Dr. Leslie Lamport of UC Berkeley once said this - Design software like you are designing a house. As an embedded software dev, I think this approach mitigates the need for a final stage crunch.
Here’s my thinking:
Games aren’t software.
They contain software.
Does that make the above untrue… maybe. Hard to schedule creativity and fun.
Mr. Darrah I run an Italian RPG channel and it would be my honor to interview you about your long career, do you think you could find some time for a Zoom or discord interview? I'm a big Dragon Age Fan and I think Origins is one of the most great rpgs ever done with a lore so incredible you could go on for weeks talking about it, truly amazing! Thank You for everything you have put into the series.
Pierfrancesco "Frankie" Pedone
Is Frankie's Lair the channel?
Yeah have that "magic" too, its called "I despise my past self" lol, when i have two days left until deadline and i am only starting to write 5000-word essay in 20 hours.
Past me is a jerk too.
Unrelated, but I spy some Brandon Sanderson on that shelf back there ;)
Its the YA space series
ubi here... yep happens all the time. Sometimes its terrible , sometimes its .. almost bearable. I measure the screwupness of the project mainly by two things - how late new things stop appearing... if you get tasks for completely new shit up to 1 or 2 weeks before gold , the screupness of the project is high... My second measurement system is how early I can actually start just playing around aimlessly in the game / how early I can get free time to do it. A lot of times this point is after gold which is not a good indicator :D.
That second point I think is key. Get something real sooner. It will drag everything else along