Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

C H A P T E R 1 0
As these two parties proceeded to slug it out all day long, by the end of the day
there seemed to be some resolution and it had quieted down for a little bit. Soon after
the calming passage, we suddenly heard some tires screeching. It didn’t sound like
someone playing Twisted Metal Black in the game room down the hall. Before we
knew it, we heard an explosion of glass and timber and ceramics and we wondered
why the walls were shaking. It sounded like a missile hit the front of the building. I
ran out of my work area, down the hallway, and around the corner. I saw a coffee pot
rolling around on the floor. It wasn’t even full. I didn’t have my Underdog cup. I
thought: “C’mon guys, that’s just wasteful. You’ll get carpet hair in the coffee!—and
we’ll want coffee later because I have to finish another proof of concept before leaving
tonight. You knuckleheads.”
A missile had hit the front of the building. It turned out to be a missile driven by a
Brillo-haired programmer in a Dodge. Apparently, he had popped his cork and the
stereo circus music was now playing full blast inside his disgruntled noodle. He’d had
enough of this game development life, so he had decided to drive his Jeep through the
reception area and into the coffee bar. God help us. I mean, we didn’t really care
about the reception area, insurance would pay for it, but couldn’t he have swerved to
avoid the coffee bar? That’s just malicious.
He wasn’t injured much, and after some mental adjusting he went on to work
again for many companies. But future developers take note: this is probably not the
kind of workflow you should be striving for.
CASE STUDY COMMENTS ON
FINAL THOUGHTS FOR DESIGNERS
If you stick around the game industry long enough, you will go through several
booms and busts. It’s been the same for everyone that has gone before you. In the industry’s
earlier days, nobody assumed you could earn “a living” off of making games
anyway. By day, you programmed databases for some city’s weed abatement program,
and by night you made games.
To last over the long run in games, you have only one ally: a diversified approach.
Your own skill set must be game ready (some pun intended), but at the same time you
need to stay flexible and able to apply your abilities to a few parallel endeavors. The
booms and busts are always relative, and you may feel either one of these extremes
deeply or only marginally. When you read the nonstop news articles about the billions
upon billions of dollars being hefted away by each and every local game developer on
your block, don’t be deceived. These numbers are humorous, amusing, even suspicious,
and that’s about all. Developers do not share the biggest portion of the game
industry’s revenue.
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Getting Started in Game Development