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Because games that are developed exclusively based on committees and focus testing are bad, any sort of analytics are bad. Conversely, "going with your gut" and "being creative" exclusively always make great games. This should be obvious to everyone 
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May 14, 2012 06:27
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Internet Janitor posted:Aliginge: I think the information that can be extracted from analytics is much less useful than what you can gather by observing playtests, even if this means you're considering fewer datapoints. If you can directly measure something, like where 90% of players die in a level, you can try to fix it, but you can't directly measure the things that would give the data context- is the player having fun, even if they're dying? Are they frustrated by being killed, or is that death a "learning moment" where some mechanic clicks for them? It's also worth considering that beyond a very coarse level of granularity gathering raw analytics data and poring over it isn't "free". If you have a small team, it could be a poor tradeoff. Please stop with the false dichotomy -- there is no reason to assume that analytics is exclusive of some other method of refinement, like observing playtests. You can do both, or all, or any combination of methods that works -- and noone here has claimed that "every single design decision" would need to be justified using data from analytics. What exactly are you arguing against? Because it doesn't seem to be anything posted here. speng31b fucked around with this message at 06:47 on May 14, 2012 |
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May 14, 2012 06:28
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FreakyZoid posted:are you that student who collared me? Oh good lord no- I'm rarely this insufferable in person. Y'know what, guys, fine- I can see that there are cases where analytics can be a valid option. I just felt like there was some value to a dissenting opinion, since there wasn't any discussion of the downsides. Apparently I am a crazy person, so I will return to my cave and store my vitriol in clay pots.
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May 14, 2012 06:36
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The Cheshire Cat posted:That said, it can be worth spending time developing a game's story if you know how to tell it properly. I think the Half-Life games did a great job at building a world with an interesting story without harming the gameplay at all. You can see how they've refined this over time in Portal 2 - the story is equally "unskippable" but it's almost always as you're on the move, or if you have to remain stationary it's usually very brief. The Half-Life series looks very antiquated in a lot of ways nowadays because they're like a decade old at this point, so try to remember them in a modern context.
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May 14, 2012 07:25
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Internet Janitor posted:Aliginge: I think the information that can be extracted from analytics is much less useful than what you can gather by observing playtests, even if this means you're considering fewer datapoints. If you can directly measure something, like where 90% of players die in a level, you can try to fix it, but you can't directly measure the things that would give the data context- is the player having fun, even if they're dying? Are they frustrated by being killed, or is that death a "learning moment" where some mechanic clicks for them? It's also worth considering that beyond a very coarse level of granularity gathering raw analytics data and poring over it isn't "free". If you have a small team, it could be a poor tradeoff. quote:As for how this can stifle creativity, would any of you enjoy being required to justify every significant design decision in your game by referencing historical data from your own games and what you can piece together about competing games? If you were, don't you think you would tend to create things similar to what you had already built, deployed, studied and laboriously refined in the past? quote:Do you decide to make a platformer because other platformers are popular on your social network of choice, or because you think you have a fun idea? Do you decide the hair color, gender and walk cycle of the main character by meticulously A/B testing half a dozen choices with a "beta" collection of users? At what point does it cease being a good idea to base your decisions on user statistics and fine-tuning everything for mass appeal? But what if I were working on a huge Eve style game with millions and millions of users and the ability to custom design your own characters was a central part of the marketing of the game and of the game itself? Surely no one would want to go into such a mammoth task blind and with no data as to what the users prefer and what styles and fashions of characters would be most popular?
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May 14, 2012 08:34
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Aliginge posted:But what if I were working on a huge Eve style game with millions and millions of users and the ability to custom design your own characters was a central part of the marketing of the game and of the game itself? Surely no one would want to go into such a mammoth task blind and with no data as to what the users prefer and what styles and fashions of characters would be most popular? Excuse me while I go cry in a corner completely out of context.
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May 14, 2012 09:33
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What's the most popular tool for obtaining iOS game metrics?
Analytic Engine fucked around with this message at 10:37 on May 14, 2012 |
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May 14, 2012 10:33
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We had metrics years and years ago in early MMOs and we'd use them to decide where to target monthly content, which classes or items needed to be buffed or nerfed, which dungeons were popular and which weren't, and so on. It was far easier than listening to the extremely loud forum populations. The metrics were primitive and we didn't really know what we were doing when we made them and it would involve iterating over every (or every 10th or whatever) player's account and individually querying their state. A query would take a day or more and had to be coded by hand for each different one. Yuck! By our second or third MMO, we had a "system" in place for doing it, which logged and aggregated common things like levels and economy health and whatnot. The UI was kludgy, but it ran as a part of a nightly process so you could look at these core metrics in the morning, piping fresh from the night before. Writing custom stuff still had to be done by hand, but this felt like we were living the high life indeed. In both of these cases, most of the design still happened by intuition and touchy-feeliness, and we only used the metrics to decide what we might need to fix next. It was backward-looking and not predictive. Nowadays though, I can go for a swim in one of the largest datasets on the planet, asking all sorts of esoteric questions to fine-tune a feature or figure out why something failed or did really well. When we launched our last game, I looked at my boss and said "I never want to launch a game without a dedicated team of analysts ever again." Like a few people have said, it's just another tool, and while sure, I could sit around and scratch my long white beard and try to divine the truth by just staring at a feature, it's so much easier to be able to say, "Oh, duh, the presentation order of these two quests conflicts when the players have come in via this other quest, which only happens 5% of the time, but it screws that 5% of our players up and ONO!" And then for balance or other predictive systems? It's amazing having a wealth of existing data you can validate your assumptions against instead of saying, "Well, these numbers FEEL right and the beta testers sort of agree!" That said, everything starts the same way it always started. Someone has an idea or wants to fix something that they don't like or push something that they do. The database query tool is never going to walk up to me and say, "Players really want to fly! You should add that!" (though it will say, "Players can't figure out your stupid flying UI in 12% of cases, maybe look into that, eh?"). Like people have said, it's just another tool. Much like I'd never make a game where I wasn't allowed to use Excel or the game data was in an easily accessible format and couldn't be modified at run-time, I have no desire to make a game ever again where there isn't a well thought out data taxonomy and aggregation system.
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May 14, 2012 11:30
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To have a good game IMO you need a team with a strong vision of what the game should be and you need to execute on the vision successfully. Execution relies on a ton of small decisions where it's hard to know for sure whether doing A or B lines up more with what your vision is. That's where analytics helps. Analytics isn't going to give you a vision for your game, but you can use it as a data point to steer you in one direction or another when either one would line up with the vision of the game. Remember also that as a designer you have to make sure that you're designing games for people, not just for yourself. And that what you may like or dislike isn't always what your players like or dislike. When you throw limited resources into the mix you have to start making decisions about what you are or are not going to do, and how you're going to do it, and again that's where analytics is super useful. If you found out that 95% of players skipped your cutscenes, you might not do them on your next game - not because you only care about maximizing revenue, but because you want to spend your resources where most players will appreciate them. Finally, analytics are insanely useful as a balancing and technical tool. If you gather framerate and crash data from people, you can find parts of your game that are running slow and fix them. If you find weapons are over/underused, you have good starting points for changing the balance of the game.
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May 14, 2012 15:37
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Analytic Engine posted:What's the most popular tool for obtaining iOS game metrics?
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May 14, 2012 16:26
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Shalinor posted:Flurry is hugely popular, but not sure if it's still king of the hill. We met with Flurry a couple weeks ago, they claimed something like 80% of the top 500 uses their service in one way another. But that's both ads and metrics.
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May 14, 2012 17:50
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Crytek passed on me, so there's still a level design position open there if anyone is looking. The Frankfurt position.
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May 14, 2012 18:52
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For those of you who don't listen to the 8-4 Play podcast (here http://www.giantbomb.com/podcast/2/ ), they had someone from the Skulls of the Shogun dev team on the last episode, with a lot of indie studio talk. As tempting as it seems to eventually go indie, it is really nice to have stable hours with almost no overtime, and being able to focus on a single job and not bounce through all the hats like that guy was.
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May 14, 2012 18:59
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Comte de Saint-Germain posted:Crytek passed on me, so there's still a level design position open there if anyone is looking. The Frankfurt position. Did you get a chance to find out about their office culture? I assume being part of EA it's a massive operation.
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May 14, 2012 19:01
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Resource posted:Did you get a chance to find out about their office culture? I assume being part of EA it's a massive operation. Just FYI this is a common misconception but Crytek isn't owned by EA, they're just our publisher for the Crysis series  . HF2 is published by THQ, Warface is with different publishers per region, so on.
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May 14, 2012 19:07
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baldurk posted:Just FYI this is a common misconception but Crytek isn't owned by EA, they're just our publisher for the Crysis series Welp, I feel extra dumb now. So, Frankfurt Crytek, awesome? fun? crunchy? how many people are there in the office?
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May 14, 2012 19:13
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Someone else can answer better than me, I'm in Nottingham and haven't really been over there. From general emails and osmosis of atmosphere it seems pretty cool but there are also a lot of dedicated folks over there so I also get the impression that they're pretty hardcore at the same time. That might just be the engine coders though who I have the most contact with.
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May 14, 2012 19:19
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Devilmouse or anyone else: We're looking for a good Flash UI consultant that is a ActionScript guru. Need him in house for about a week. Anyone know someone that would fit the bill?
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May 14, 2012 19:25
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Mega Shark posted:Devilmouse or anyone else: We're looking for a good Flash UI consultant that is a ActionScript guru. Need him in house for about a week. Anyone know someone that would fit the bill? Anyone I know who would fit the bill is already employed here or elsewhere, sorry! I'll keep my ears out though... where are you located?
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May 14, 2012 19:48
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To pile on with Mega Shark: Glass Bottom Games has now parted ways with the previous artist, and we're (I'm) in the market for an aspiring jr/intern/etc artist. The next game on deck is a 3D side-scrolling iOS runner/explorer (feeding into a series of larger games), so what we're mostly looking for is 3D modelling, texturing, and characters/animation. The art style's a bit unique, and we'll have more room for 2D illustrative stuff than there might otherwise be, but I believe we've mostly got enough help there already. Unfortunately, we're fresh out of toasters, so we'd just have to pay you in actual currency. (and if someone above jr/intern level is interested, cool, just, that's the level of cold hard cash we can afford) Hit me up at megan@glassbottomgames.com with your portfolio if interested. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 19:53 on May 14, 2012 |
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May 14, 2012 19:50
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devilmouse posted:Anyone I know who would fit the bill is already employed here or elsewhere, sorry! I'll keep my ears out though... where are you located? We're in Orange County, CA
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May 14, 2012 20:05
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Shalinor posted:To pile on with Mega Shark: Glass Bottom Games has now parted ways with the previous artist, and we're (I'm) in the market for an aspiring jr/intern/etc artist. The next game on deck is a 3D side-scrolling iOS runner/explorer (feeding into a series of larger games), so what we're mostly looking for is 3D modelling, texturing, and characters/animation. The art style's a bit unique, and we'll have more room for 2D illustrative stuff than there might otherwise be, but I believe we've mostly got enough help there already. I have a friend, I'll e-mail you.
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May 14, 2012 20:06
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floofyscorp posted:Excuse me while I go cry in a corner completely out of context. http://i.imgur.com/mUF6Z.jpg Context, Floof fuckin loves the poo poo out of character customisation things and would probably go so far as to customise character's nail polish and shoes so they match 
GeeCee fucked around with this message at 21:55 on May 14, 2012 |
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May 14, 2012 21:21
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So, I have a phone interview coming up this week with some people. Any good tips I should know and things I should stay away from?
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May 14, 2012 23:32
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Lemon King posted:So, I have a phone interview coming up this week with some people. Don't talk about hitler. ... well actually just be yourself. If they don't like you how you normally are, you'd probably be unhappy working there.
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May 14, 2012 23:41
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Juc66 posted:Don't talk about hitler. That aside, be honest. Be real. Phone interviews are about "can this person hold an adult conversation while being pressed on things they might not have used in a while." Basically try not to stress out, and you'll usually do fine if you know what you claim to know. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 23:55 on May 14, 2012 |
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May 14, 2012 23:51
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Shalinor posted:That aside, be honest. Be real. Phone interviews are about "can this person hold an adult conversation while being pressed on things they might not have used in a while." Basically try not to stress out, and you'll usually do fine if you know what you claim to know.
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May 15, 2012 00:11
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Anyone know if the Durham Insomniac satellite is doing casual games, major titles, or is that all secret? I guess Epic's hiring too, though the competition for that's probably fierce. 
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May 15, 2012 00:16
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OneEightHundred posted:Anyone know if the Durham Insomniac satellite is doing casual games, major titles, or is that all secret? Red5 has a ton of positions open right now.
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May 15, 2012 00:22
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Aliginge posted:http://i.imgur.com/mUF6Z.jpg Man I got excited when I saw I could change my APB character's nail polish colour... But all the shoe options were ugly-rear end flats The very first thing I asked an ex-RTW friend was 'Were there ever going to be high heels for female characters?!'Hey I know what I like ok.
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May 15, 2012 00:32
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Lemon King posted:So, I have a phone interview coming up this week with some people. I like to have the list of artists, games, movies, etc., that inspire me (discussed a few months back in this thread, great advice) as well as the questions I have for the studio printed out so I can refer to it and jot down notes. It came in really handy since I can get nervous on the phone and forget names. Also, my last phone interview was going to be with 'an' artist and when I got the call it was the whole production team on conference, so be aware of that sort of thing too.
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May 15, 2012 00:38
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Lemon King posted:Any good tips I should know and things I should stay away from? Or, maybe that's a plus. I don't even know anymore.
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May 15, 2012 00:39
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floofyscorp posted:Man I got excited when I saw I could change my APB character's nail polish colour... But all the shoe options were ugly-rear end flats Hey, you never know, Paddy is (a?) community manager for APB now. Maybe give him a nudge?
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May 15, 2012 00:57
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Lemon King posted:Red5 has a ton of positions open right now. I'm not terrifically interested in casual games either so that pretty much leaves Epic and, if the Insomniac studio isn't a casual games satellite, that. Bhodi posted:Maybe don't mention you made the most annoying add-on in WoW that caused countless petitions until blizzard actually patched the game to minimize the damage? OneEightHundred fucked around with this message at 01:11 on May 15, 2012 |
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May 15, 2012 01:04
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OneEightHundred posted:Yeah, I'm trying to cherry-pick something in Raleigh/Durham right now though. I know most of the jobs are on the west coast but I can't do that for at least a few months. His avatar's a clue. He made an unironically hilarious addon for WoW that would randomly set raid targets over party members. I think this was back when the random dungeon finder first came out. People got irrationally mad about having a skull or triangle over their heads.
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May 15, 2012 01:12
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Bhodi posted:Maybe don't mention you made the most annoying add-on in WoW that caused countless petitions until blizzard actually patched the game to minimize the damage? Well, it definitely demonstrates Lua fluency, API knowledge, and the ability to think outside the box to finding a creative niche that players will enjoy, so there's that in the positive column. That said, not sure if I'd necessarily use it as a leading example... quote:His avatar's a clue. He made an unironically hilarious addon for WoW that would randomly set raid targets over party members. I think this was back when the random dungeon finder first came out. People got irrationally mad about having a skull or triangle over their heads. You missed the automatically constructed taunts upon death :P
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May 15, 2012 01:18
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wodin posted:Well, it definitely demonstrates Lua fluency, API knowledge, and the ability to think outside the box to finding a creative niche that players will enjoy, so there's that in the positive column. That said, not sure if I'd necessarily use it as a leading example... It was a retooled version of BGIcons, I made work in 5mans and give it some customization. Lemon King fucked around with this message at 18:28 on May 16, 2012 |
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May 15, 2012 01:25
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wodin posted:You missed the automatically constructed taunts upon death :P I haven't set foot in WoW: Goon Squad since I quit the game ages ago. Can't risk a relapse.
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May 15, 2012 01:47
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Shalinor posted:For what it's worth, even though I didn't come in looking for feedback, the criticisms brought up in this thread are appreciated. They've got me questioning a lot about our artwork thus far. Especially, I seem to have been way too close to judge it properly. I'm a bit late to this conversation, but my two cents: Presentation always matters, always. I think you hit the nail on the head by calling yourself art dumb. That's totally fine, not every developer is everything, but I would encourage you to find not an art intern, but a member for your team who isn't "art dumb," who is consistently looking at the art and saying "that could be better" and can put specific words to how. That means experience, and I wouldn't undervalue it. Games don't need to have cutting edge graphics technologies to succeed, but even Farmville has a consistent style to it, and Frontierville's art could be considered quite good for what it needs to do. Casual doesn't need to mean low quality.
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May 15, 2012 05:18
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EgonSpengler posted:Presentation always matters, always. I think you hit the nail on the head by calling yourself art dumb. That's totally fine, not every developer is everything, but I would encourage you to find not an art intern, but a member for your team who isn't "art dumb," who is consistently looking at the art and saying "that could be better" and can put specific words to how. That means experience, and I wouldn't undervalue it. )? Sure  Until then, simply being aware of my inherent art dumbness should hopefully be enough. Because of this whole thing, I've now got a network of artist friends more than happy to provide feedback, and I'm aware enough to pass them more or less anything I'm the least bit uncertain on. There's also the friend factor. When you're working with someone you regard as a partner, who's handling another area of the business? You try and keep your nose out of their business. If they seem to think something in their realm is ok, well, maybe it is. When you're working with juniors, or really anyone you've hired vs someone that's a partner, you're always in the critical feedback zone. EDIT: I'm just damned lucky to have this hit now, on the short who cares experimental project, instead of it hitting after I'd sunk all my finances into something that wouldn't sell. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 05:36 on May 15, 2012 |
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May 15, 2012 05:26
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