And now for something a little bit different...Mikael Hedberg, a software engineer at DICE, has written up a very interesting post on his Entertaining Code blog that gives you a look inside the inner workings of DICE and some insight into how your constant feedback on forums is handled. Here it is - A Tour of the Games Studio:
You can check out this post as well as many others at Entertaining Code.
<div style="float:right; padding:0 0 5px 10px;"><a href="http://images.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/dice-entrance.jpg"><img src="http://images.totalgamingnetwork.com/images/thumb_dice-entrance.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></div>There’s a whole slew of misconceptions and weird comments that inevitably go around as soon as any large game studio announces a game, or releases a game, or… well, just about anything else. So with this post, I’d like to welcome you to a small sightseeing tour of how a games studio works, on the inside.
I hope to give you a chance to see how a games studio works — maybe it’ll create better understanding of what it is you’re saying when you chatter around forums about the latest greatest game from some studio, or maybe it even gives you valuable insight if you’re looking to get into the games industry.
The Myth of the A-Team and the B-Team
As soon as a game announcement turns up, knowing fanboys will appear on all forums around, claiming grand things like “Wow, this sure is great. Now we know DICE has the A-team is working on this while the B-team was doing (other title here).” Substitute with “good team” and “bad team” or whatever you will.
The reality is not only that there isn’t any first or second-rate teams, but that the teams themselves don’t really exist as a concept. People move between teams constantly — some project doesn’t need any more audio work now, so the sound designers move over to the next one. Meanwhile, the programmers are fixing the remaining bugs and getting set to ship the game. Most of the artists left the project before that.
Continue Reading...I hope to give you a chance to see how a games studio works — maybe it’ll create better understanding of what it is you’re saying when you chatter around forums about the latest greatest game from some studio, or maybe it even gives you valuable insight if you’re looking to get into the games industry.
The Myth of the A-Team and the B-Team
As soon as a game announcement turns up, knowing fanboys will appear on all forums around, claiming grand things like “Wow, this sure is great. Now we know DICE has the A-team is working on this while the B-team was doing (other title here).” Substitute with “good team” and “bad team” or whatever you will.
The reality is not only that there isn’t any first or second-rate teams, but that the teams themselves don’t really exist as a concept. People move between teams constantly — some project doesn’t need any more audio work now, so the sound designers move over to the next one. Meanwhile, the programmers are fixing the remaining bugs and getting set to ship the game. Most of the artists left the project before that.
You can check out this post as well as many others at Entertaining Code.
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