Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

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teams establish trust with their fellow team members over time. This is why teams
that gel together and know how to work well together are so highly sought after.
The team-specific design mix is a serious piece of chemistry in action. Remember
that as a commercial game designer, you are working to support and help define the
design intentions for a game title. It is usually an extremely collaborative process.
You do not work on an island. You might be asked to lead something up, and begin
to feel like you’re on an island for a particular project or miniproject, but normally
you work in heavy collaboration with everyone around you. You are not creating
your own personal piece of art. There is no shortage of ego inside the war rooms of
many game developers, and one of your most important skills as a designer will be to
navigate the ego minefields.
You will have to find quick resolutions and approaches to design ideas headed in
seemingly opposite directions. (For example, for a given license, Herb may want to
do an action-oriented RPG, because that’s his personal favorite game style, whereas
Virgil may want to mix puzzle-based operations into the world’s first FPS puzzle/shooter.)
You need to be able to quickly recognize design factions segmenting
your team into neat little pie pieces, and do your best to eliminate the choosing of
sides. There are no sides. You have to manage the situation with a sports team
mindset. You have to build propaganda, and reinforce the idea that divided you will
fall—and you will. I can’t tell you how many teams I’ve seen spin out on the game
development highway due to ridiculous divisions among “team” members.
Why the ridiculous divisions? Well, you wouldn’t believe how many professional
game developers seem to think that game titles are their personal canvas of expression
and their own unique little chance for some weird and meaningless gaming immortality
(great work needs no introduction—it speaks for itself). The “personal canvas”
idea couldn’t be more opposite the commercial confines and realities of modern
game development.
On the other hand, some developers really get it. They know what the stakes are,
and they show up ready to play hard for the team. They never trot to first base. They
never fail to slide into a base headfirst. As game studio management, these are the
folks you want to keep. I’ll take a hard-working, talented individual with a team ethic
any day over a so-called “superstar” talent with a galaxy of ego to match. One misplaced
“superstar” can kill your game project in time for lunch. Five talented
team-ethic players can help build five successful games in a row, and still be fun to
play foosball with at 3:30 in the morning.
Your physical working conditions will probably vary by the size of the developer
you join. Smaller developers, say 15 to 30 people, may work under fairly cramped
quarters, and may be in the early phase of their growth as a development studio. They
can run out of money by dinnertime. You won’t even want to ask where the payroll is
coming from. It’s best not to know. That way you might avoid being subpoenaed.
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Getting Started in Game Development