[MUD-Dev] JOB: How to get into Game Design / Game content

[Matt Mihaly]

Before I start this post, I just want to add the disclaimer that I do
not hold up my experience to be typical, nor do I necessarily
recommend that anyone try to do what I've done without a serious
self-examination first. The way I've done things is not very common
(off the top of my head I can think of Daniel James, Mike Sellers, and
Scott Martins who have done something similar commercially, in that
chronological order), and it's kind of a lonely thing to do sometimes,
but I have to say that I have the best job of anybody I know, aside
from those who are retired and can claim the luxury of not having to
have a job. I _love_ my job. How many people can honestly say that? 
And not only do I really love what I do, but I get compensated quite
appropriately in more than one way.

Comments below.

On Fri, 25 May 2001, Brian 'Psychochild' Green wrote:

>> I've been a professional web developer for coming up on seven years
>> now.  I've become frustrated with the web industry as of late and
>> have begun to look into gaming, especially the online games.

> Why are you frustrated at the web industry?  Unfortunately, the game
> industry might have some of the same things here to frustrate you.
> We routinely have to put up with clueless bosses (Dilbert is a live
> and well in the industry), stubborn people with fragile egos,
> underfunding, insane deadlines, etc.  The game industry isn't a
> perfect land without frustration. :) Lots and lots of people just
> don't get the online gaming industry, but are put into positions of
> power anyway.  Check out the most recent "Biting the Hand" article
> on Skotos' web site.

You know, I can honestly say I've not had to put up with any of the
above in doing Achaea. That's not to say I haven't had problems of my
own, but they didn't include any of the above (ie bootstrap
development of a reasonably successful commercial text MUD).

 
> For large scale games, a designer has to know quite a bit about
> quite a few areas.  It's been said many times before that designers
> have to be Renaissance people.  You have to know enough about
> programming, art, writing, music, etc to be able to talk to the
> myriad of people that make today's games.  You don't have to be an
> expert, just at least conversant in the field.

That's for sure. And if you're doing it in a small way, without the
money to hire other people, you have to actually be able to do
everything yourself, or find the money to hire contractors, and as
money was tight, that didn't happen very often.

 
> I was the guy with long hair and... uh... a beard.  Yeah, that
> differentiates me from all the other gaming geeks at the
> conference. :) (By the third day of the conference, I'm lucky to
> remember my own name.)

I saw you. There you were. Yup.

 
>> What skills and experience should I be trying to rapidly acquire to
>> get hired in the gaming industry? I think that my biggest barrier
>> is no gaming experience. Ultimately I'd like to get a job as a game
>> designer or as part of the content team for a MMORPG. I'm also
>> interested in working on the web site for a game, especially one
>> that is integrating the web site into the game.
 
> Experience is the catch-22.  Can't get a job without experience,
> can't get experience without a job, eh?

Could create your own job. You know, 150 years ago, the majority of
Americans (I believe) were self-employed. Industrialization brought
the possibility of that to an end because of the efficiency of scale,
particularly in resource intensive industries. The internet and the
possibility of remote networking in general allows one to be
self-employed in numerous fashions. It doesn't even take much money to
do it. It mainly requires that you're willing to live sparsely for
awhile, but if you're designing, writing and coding 15 hours a day,
you don't have time to spend money anyway. Luckily, that sort of thing
doesn't last forever (though I certainly wondered sometimes).

> Quite a few professionals got their start in text MUDs.  I misspent
> nights I should have been working on computer science homework or
> reading 19th century Spanish poetry playing and working on MUDs
> myself.  :)

Some professionals even work in text MUDs, and don't expect that text
MUDs will be dying out anytime soon.

  
>   1) Game design isn't sitting around coming up with "good ideas".
>   The fact is that 90% of a designer's work is filling in the
>   details of someone else's idea.  Even if you manage to become a
>   lead designer, someone higher up on the food chain usually
>   dictates what you are going to do next, at least to some degree.
>   You have to get become a "name" like Sid Meyer or Will Wright to
>   get to do your own games, and sometimes not even then.

You do not have to be a name to do your own stuff. You can simply do
your own stuff. You just can't do your own stuff on the same scale as
Sid Meyer or Will Wright unless you are Sid Meyer or Will Wright.

 
> You should realize that game companies have more ideas than they
> could ever handle.  Consider that the typical team size for modern
> games ranges from 15-40 people.  Say half of those people have an
> idea for a "great" game.  Who's idea are they going to use for the
> team's next project?  Probably the manager's. ;)

The joy of being your own manager is hard to underrate, at least for
some people.

 
>   2) Making games isn't the same as playing games.  This point
>   should be obvious, but some people don't get it.  They think that
>   playing games is fun, so making games should be just as fun.
>   Unfortunately, doesn't work that way.  It's still a job; it can
>   often get stressful and frustrating.  But, it can also be
>   extremely creative and rewarding, too.

Well, that's certainly the same as with my experience.

 
>   3) Everyone wants to be a game designer.  Only a select few really
>   geeky programmers that just love programming aren't interested in
>   designing; everyone else thinks they'd make a great designer.
>   Mostly because they haven't learned the truth of item number one
>   above.

It's 'cause game designers get the best chicks. ;) (Apologies for the
sexism implicit in that joke.)

 
>   4) Be prepared to pay your dues.  You're going to spend a lot of
>   time doing grunt work at the start.  Especially in design work,
>   there's going to be a lot of people looking to get into the
>   position.  Many of these people have more experience than you do.
>   Your best bet is to get in on an entry level job, but those aren't
>   exactly common.

And if you do it my way, you don't really get paid (aside from
whatever investment money you can raise that can be used to pay you a
salary) until you have customers.

 
>   5) Hope you don't have a family or like money.  Be prepared to
>   make less than you are now.  Unless you are horrifically
>   underpaid, you are going to take a pay cut going into the
>   industry, especially without experience.  After working at a game
>   company for about 2 years, I left the company for a dot-com job.
>   I was making almost twice the salary at the dot-com compared to
>   the game job; the hours were better, too. :) The stories about
>   80-hour work weeks aren't exaggerations.

It used to be that way for me, certainly, but it's not that way now. I
wouldn't even consider putting in a 60 hour week frankly. I love
Achaea and I love my players and volunteers, but Achaea is not the
only important thing in my life. And I'm not underpaid. Having said
that, Achaea does dominate my life in that it's often combined with
other activities. Until recently, there was no real possibility of me
having a vacation where I wasn't in contact with Achaea. On the flip
side, I am able to take a lot of time off. If I want to go somewhere
for a week, I do. If I want to take the afternoon off to go hiking, I
do. Maybe I have to work until 2 am to make up for it, but as I'm
working in my home office, it's not really painful. It's often work I
enjoy doing anyway.

 
>   7) Luck helps.  I got my job working on Meridian 59 by being at
>   the right place at the right time.  I wanted to get into game
>   development, and I figured I'd pay my dues on the single-player
>   side of things.  I used a recruiter an applied to 3DO to work as
>   an N64 programmer (with no previous experience!).  I happened to
>   have had a lot of MUD experience, and the hiring manager just
>   happened to be a producer that wanted a developer to work on
>   maintaining Meridian 59.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Christopher Kohnert (an occasional poster), whom I just hired, got a
job with Achaea by making a few intelligent suggestions as a mortal,
getting a job as a volunteer coder, getting some small ownership for
some various specific work, and is now has our new engine, called
Rapture, in beta. He has a full-time job now with a real salary, and
will be the second-largest owner, after me, when Rapture is out of
beta. Again, that's not typical, but being in the right place at the
right time was all that brought Chris and Achaea together.

 
>   8) You have to have a passion for what you're doing.  It ties into
>   most of the points above.  You're going to be working long hours
>   for low pay.  You're going to spend most of your time implementing
>   someone else's idea.  You're going to pine for the days when you
>   could sit down for a few hours at night and play the latest game
>   without interruption. Why do you keep working under these
>   conditions?  Because you have a passion for these things we call
>   games and are ready to get back into the trenches tomorrow.  > >
>   Okay, so maybe you're still reading this instead of curling up
>   under > your desk and sobbing.  So, what should you do now?
>   Sounds like > you're on the right path so far.  You have enough
>   interest to start > learning about the industry.  > > Read
>   industry news and get familiar with the people and companies in >
>   the industry.  Get in the know on the topics important to the
>   field.  > This mailing list is a great resource for that.  When I
>   was a wannabe, > I read Gamasutra (http://www.gamasutra.com/).  I
>   stopped reading it > after a format change a few years ago, but
>   I've heard it's still a > good place to chat with other people and
>   get industry information.

You know, that sounds good, but I'll give you a completely different
take on it. I had _no_ idea what I was doing, in retrospect, when I
started. I mean I was really quite clueless. I hadn't coded a thing
since Basic and a _bit_ of Pascal in high school. I was a poly sci
liberal arts guy. I never read any gaming sites, had probably never
heard of Bartle's types, etc etc. However........

 
> It's also important to be a gamer.  This seems pretty obvious, but
> you'd be surprised the number of people that want to make games that
> can't stand playing them.  Having a good knowledge of what else is
> out there helps.

........I was a gamer. I've also got a diverse liberal arts background
(which is eminently helpful I find), an extremely stubborn and
persistent personality, and a general willingness to cheerfully
believe that I was going to make it. I really cannot over-emphasize
the importance of just keeping the vision and being persistent. Those
two qualities alone will get you 90% of the way.

 
> Never stop learning.  I have spent a lot of time reading literature,
> talking to experienced people, and experimenting on my own.  This
> industry truly embodies the old saw, "the more you know, the more
> you realize you have no clue about."  Be willing to absorb the
> information provided out there.  Especially in the online gaming
> industry; some teams have been terrible at learning the lessons of
> previous generations of games.

More importantly, just be persistent. All the roots of Achaea's
success were planted before I had subscribed to mud-dev, or really
read any serious literature on MUDs. The knowledge I've gained since
is certainly valuable, but not nearly as much as the experience of
just having developed and run Achaea for 6 years is.

You know, I'll sum up by saying that I'm starting to believe what
people tell me. I've somehow lucked into having this ridiculously good
job running a text MUD for god's sake. I love it. Even after 6 years,
I still feel like I love the players generally (excepting certain
pain-in-the-arse individuals).

It's the beauty of doing something small. You're the head of this
great little community where, even though by now everyone doesn't know
each other, at least is small enough so that everyone basically knows
someone who knows someone else. I can't even remember the last time I
was at home and bored. If I had absolutely nothing else to do, I could
always hop into this lovely virtual world I've constructed, which is
my living, and just interact with the other people who are buying into
my dream world. There are always old friends there, as well as the
opportunity for a creative outlet. Aside from winning the lottery,
it's just about as good as it gets. Further, I can't tell you how good
it makes me feel to be able to give Christopher a similar lifestyle.


> If you have the passion and you are willing to learn, then I think
> you'll fit in just fine.  Just be prepared to be a bitter, crusty
> old veteran of the industry after 3-5 years. :)

Yeah, I'll buy that. I'd advise against the bitter part
though. Bitterness doesn't do you any favours. It's much better to
look at your job and say God DAMN, I have the best job ever, cause I
f*cking make games. Woot!

--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev