DEVELOPER'S LIFE PART 14: NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS
(High-Res, Low-Res, And Every Mipmap In Between)
By François Dominic Laramée

I, François Dominic Laramée, fine purveyor of games that few if any people ever want to play, hereby pledge my dedication to the following badly needed forms of self-improvement:

Resolution #1: Be More Optimistic
Uh, on second thought, maybe not.

Or maybe yes. I'm not sure.

Last April, our local IGDA chapter received visitors from LyonGame, an association of developers from the French city of Lyon (obviously). Not long before, an unholy alliance of stock market tribulations, dubious strategies and circumstances beyond anybody's control had decimated the once-thriving (if low on mega-hits) French development community, leaving it in shambles. These guys had survived, picked themselves up, bonded, and kept going. I found their testimonials uplifting. But it was hard to miss the chilling undertones. This could happen anywhere.

On the other hand, the outlook in my tiny frozen corner of the world is brighter than it has been in several eternities. The little guys are doing well. So are the big ones. Between them, Ubisoft Montreal and the city's new EA affiliate will create hundreds of new jobs in 2004 – and EA's recruits will get that most precious prize of all, the chance to work on original, non-licensed intellectual properties. (Of course, you can't open your doors wide open without using your hands, so if Ubi's and EA's can't be pried away from each other's throats at some point in the near future, all of these great plans will come to naught, but one can always hope.)

On the gripping hand, the last couple of months have seen a number of depressing news items litter the wires. Gone is the former Microprose, where Sid Meier and Brian Reynolds once made Railroad Tycoon and Civilization I and II, its staff laid off after completing one last game that will probably not enjoy the same lasting fame. Gone, too, is Capital Entertainment Group, the "production company" that wanted to do for games what so many of its cousins do for films, which is fund development of original projects that the big publishers are afraid to touch with ten-foot poles. And in a truly bizarre conclusion to a year of disasters for British developers, Muckyfoot Productions called it quits, its homepage replaced with stream-of-consciousness dialogue and its key employees reportedly trying to start a new company - in Argentina.

But then again, the funky little EyeToy is a big hit. And hackers cracked the N-Gage within weeks of its release. And there are rumors that Microsoft will unveil the next generation of the Xbox at GDC. And to top it all off, a Scottish designer is suing Rockstar over alleged theft of his original concept - for Grand Theft Auto. (How is that for irony?)

So you tell me: should I be optimistic, pessimistic, or just dizzy?

I tell you what: I say optimistic. But I'll keep trying to land more assignments in TV writing and stand-up comedy. Just in case.

Resolution #2: Read More
As of this morning, I have a total of 4 game development books, 13 novels and collections of short stories, 3 science books, and two months' worth of magazine subscriptions in my unread pile. (I just checked.) And the collected stories of Arthur C. Clarke weigh in at nearly 1,000 pages, so they probably should count double.

I had better pick up the pace, because this year promises to be a doozy for the game development book publishers, several of whom have honored me by asking for my advice on proposals, manuscripts, and galleys. Obviously, I can't say a whole lot about books that haven't been published yet, but look for a lot of fantastic material on the shelves very shortly.

Resolution #3: Play Better With Others
I have a confession to make: I don't like multiplayer games very much.

Oh, sure, once in a while I find one that becomes like a second home for a time. I will carry to my grave the fond memories of the evenings I spent on GEnie's NTN trivia, oh-so-many years ago, with 10-20 people who had the good sense to pay more attention to each other's funny lines than to the game's clunky interface and to the clues it painfully dragged through our 2,400 bps connections. (The game itself might not have been worth paying $3 to $6 an hour, but with good folks like that, I didn't care.)

But for every friendly, welcoming community, there are a hundred online hellholes crawling with "griefers" who like nothing better than to ruin the experience for everyone else. (At least, "griefers" is what they're called in public forums like this one. Buy me a soda at the next GDC and I'll disclose a few juicy alternate appellations for these morons.)

In 2003, I sampled two MMOGs, one of which I had been anticipating for some time. I didn't make it past the trial period of either, and in both cases, the very reason why people would want to play online, e.g., the interaction with each other, was the culprit. Sadly, the share of the online game-playing audience that doesn't deserve to be interacted with, except maybe with a paddle, is far from inconsequential.

Call me antisocial, but I don't want to fight with 1,000^th level hackers, or have my chat box littered with spam, racial slurs, and religious propaganda, or be locked out of every interesting event by tribes of treasure-hogging Orc supremacists. So I play alone.

But I promise I'll log on again, and if I find a place that is really worth being there, I'll let you know early and often. Maybe if we flock to one of these realms, the companies who make the others will get the message. (And those who already get the message but can't find the resolve to do a whole heck of a lot about it will grow a new set of corporate cojones.)

Resolution #4: Practice More
I love games that have depth. I love to play the same game over and over again, finding some new delight every time. It's a bit of an inconvenience, because other games pile up in the in-box, but it's worth it.

Not counting magazine demos and one evening at a friend's house, I have played exactly two games in the past four months: Madden NFL and Europa Universalis II. I have spent well over 100 hours on each, and well spent they were. Madden, a franchise I hadn't visited in years, taught me an enormous amount about football, a sport I thought I knew as well as I ever could – for example, when I watch a game, I can now read a blitz coming and guess the quarterback's reaction. And by the time I'm through with EU2's incredibly well-researched historical simulation, I will be so old and gray that I won't remember how to uninstall software from a hard drive. Try them; you won't regret it.

But, please, note that deep and big are not the same thing. A game that requires me to suffer through 100 hours of repetitive behavior just so I could look at new sets of pretty textures annoys me. A lot. For the love of all that is holy, good or decent in this world, and for the love of me, too, if that's the kind of games that you make, stop it. Now.

Happy New Year!
To all of you, whether you mark time by the Gregorian calendar or not, a felicitous year brimming with joy, fulfillment, love, delightful surprises, and manageable levels of stress. And many more after that. And then some more. Can't have too many good ones.

Gotta go now; got a couple more Super Bowls to win before dinner.

BIO
If you aren't really tired of FDL by now, don't say so in public unless you are looking for a serious beating. He's been the bane of the game industry for over 10 years, during which he cajoled and threatened his way into over 20 credits as designer, producer, programmer and writer. For some reason, magazine and book editors seem to like him; his Game Design Perspectives and Secrets of the Game Business are available now from Charles River Media. With the dozens of articles he has contributed to other industry publications and the roundtables he hosts at GDC every year, it is getting really hard to avoid him these days. But there is hope; FDL has been freelancing for 5 years, so we expect him to starve to death any day now. Visit his mediocre web site, http://pages.infinit.net/idjy, at your own risk.