Developers Corner

Hello, this is not a post like the one so hillariously entertaining in the Programming section right now, asking how do I make my own game.  I am not a programmer, etc. nor am I in the game industry, but I am an avid fantasy reader and as most ppl on this site have a lot of ideas (which I am not going to list).  What I would really like to hear is the process of a game being made.  So if anyone works in the industry or knows anything about this, pls share - I think the community in here will also be interested.

How do companies go about looking for a new idea for a MMO game?  How do they go about designing it / programming?  What is the process?  Why, for example, are there not more games made based on books/movies?  Are the rights very expensive?  LOTR got made only after the Hollywood made that horrible movie which is 10 times worse than the book ( and I didn't even like the book that much ) - there are hundreds of better fantasy worlds out there based on, around Tolkien's ideologies, or not at all.

AoC is now coming out to be another game based on an existing mythological world, and who would have thought that Conan world would be chosen for a MMORPG?  It is so crude and uninteresting, there are authors out there who really think the realities they write about through to the smallest details and nobody cares to look into their ideas.

How do companies think about selling their games to subscribers?  Is it the more ppl subscribe the better (make a different version of WoW), or does originality count (not too apparent from recent releases)?

I was always interested in MMORPG ideas and have thought about writing, so I thought it may be an interesting compromise to write about an MMORPG world.  I don't really know where to start.  What do you think?

Hyper-intensive planning.  and getting a handful of people to agree on a lot of things(assuming you're indy).

Developing a game used to be as easy as just having a code compiler with one guy in a basement and too much time on his hands, then it grew into needing 3 or 4 different tools (compiler + 3D modeling tool + texturing tool, etc.) with a small team of friends, and now it's a huge political mess not dissimilar from Hollywood with each project needing at least 200 people to complete.

Right, well it's sort of hopeless for a single person (or small group of people) to make a triple-A game nowadays since it's all about money and marketing; but if you've got an unlimited source of money somewhere or know where to get a couple million, then you're all set and this is how it works:

1. Pre-production phase. Brainstorm ideas with tons of people (morph your ideas by colliding them with others), even with people you don't know. Ideas used to be sacred in this industry and were worth protecting, but now since it's so expensive to make a game, ideas are nearly worthless. Come up with heaps of ideas, good or bad, and sift through them until you find the ones that you and your core team thinks are the best.
2. Next you go into the production phase of development. You hire sla- er, grunts: fresh-from-college script kiddies and artists (they cost less when they're fresh and have no experience) and get your producers to work with them to make what you and your lead artist / programmer think should go into the game. Programming requires a more hands-on approach to test and scrutinize, while the concept art can be swiftly judged simply by writing X's on the ones you like and throwing away the ones you don't like. If a concept artist doesn't draw enough clevage on his female characters or you just don't like the way he dresses for work; fire him, there are plenty more you can pick up later if you need them.
   1. Be sure to buy lots of middle-ware to give your programming department a heart-attack. You'll be forcing them to learn new and highly arbitrary and obscure scripting languages in less than a month, and then they'll have to patch it all together in a (hopefully) operational  and coherent heap of sh!t that they'll have to spend the rest of their miserable lives optimizing to even run on current technology.
   2. Thank you, Epic Games.
3. All that should take about a half-year if you're on schedule. Now you get into the real nitty-gritty and tedious part of game development. You have to constantly check asset quality and keep tabs on what everyone is doing to ensure that they are following your** master plan and design to the letter. This would be best demonstrated by some kind of video montage of people working in cubicles day in and day out  (very boring). Also, if there are areas of game lore that you just can't quite fill in on your own, you can always hire a history / philosophy / literature major to fill the gaps for you (if you don't have the money, then forget it, lore isn't that important because all your market wants is boobs and gore). This is also the point where you should make a website with some ideas of what your game is about, and you probably should get with sites like mmorpg.com about your project, so more potential consumers will be in the know.
   1. Really, this point in development is about going between all the different departments (programming, art, sound, accounting, marketing, and design) to make sure everybody's doing what they're supposed to and they're not wasting money. Make sure to pay some really expensive composer like Jeremy Soule to write a somewhat memorable epic theme to go with your game.
   2. ** If you're going through a publisher, they'll tell you what goes into your game and what doesn't.
4. 2 or 3 years later... By now, your game should represent a somewhat playable shell of what it's meant to be. You'll have most of your art and sound assets completed unless you have a lot of voice acting in your game, but programming is an on-going process as the code is always being optimized and updated as you squeeze in more little options here and there to make the game more interesting (although it's mostly just scripting by now).
   1. Be sure to fire more artists to save money, nobody likes them anyway.
   2. Since you do have a marginally playable product, now you get your marketing team together to go to E3, AEE (especially if your game has lots of skin in it), and GDC with a tech demo of whatever polished parts of the game you have completed and show it off.
5. Maybe another year later or so at the tail-end of development, you should start Closed Beta to get free QA. Let them suffer through your mess for a while, complaining about glitches and issues that your team will likely never fix or only patch over with the code-equivalent of chewing gum to clog a crack in a bursting dam. After a month or three of closed beta, unleash open beta just one month before launch because you know that your game isn't anything special like you thought it would be.
   1. Tell your marketing team to put "Innovative and original" all over the box so you'll get as many initial sales as you can before everyone quits in disappointment and spreads the dooming words of warning.
6. Postmortem (hopeful outcome): if you somehow played all your cards right, you'll have many months of painstaking updates to look forward to. Be sure to fire all your old staff members (300+ individuals) and hold onto the core team and some helping hands to keep your game running with new monthly content. be sure to put your name all over your next product, because people are sure to know who you are if you've made something they enjoy, right? ... right?!
7. Postmortem (realistic outcome): if nobody liked the game, you'll still likely have a few remnant fanboys who will never leave, so cave in to their demands and call it your niche. When the income potential drops too far below the initial loan fees and monthly expenses then you pull the plug, file for bankruptcy, and try again under a new company name.

Also, if you go through a publisher, you'll likely have to change your initial design plans a little bit in order to fit the current money-making mold. Right now it's World of Warcraft; so if you were to develop a game at this time through a publisher, you'd probably end up producing another version of LOTRO or EQ2 whether you want to or not.

There you have it, game development as a lead designer! Take all the corruption and slime from the seamy underbelly of media that is Hollywood, put it on freshly toasted bread and you've got the Game Development industry. Enjoy.

Actually, that was all opinionated bullshit to be entirely honest. Some of it was true, but that's up to you to decide. My experience with the industry has led me to say such nasty things about it, but I still stand by my opinion.

I'm not entirely sure about the process the bigger companies go through, but I will tell you that licenses are A: Difficult to work with, and B: Extremely expensive, which is why you don't see more book-based or movie-based MMORPGs.

Licenses and intellectual property are a bit more difficult to work with since your creativity is limited to that of the creator's, but you're usually approached by somebody else to do them anyway (often an agent from your publisher) so you don't have much say about which one you get to develop or even what goes into the game. Basically, the publisher buys the rights to the IP and passes it down to you to develop it into a game based on specifications given by the owner of the IP, if any. If you decline, you'll be out of work until they give you something else to do or approve one of your own projects.

Truthfully, game development isn't really that complex; it's just juggling game features vs. budget and deadline (it's about money, coordination, and timing). The structure is really simple: it's divided into 'worker' departments, producers coordinate the departments according to plans made by the design team, and the designers take orders from the publisher if there is one.

The reason we don't see more high-grade games is because the process is extremely expensive regardless of what license you're using as the game's setting. Everyone has an idea they want to be in a game, but very few have the drive and means to actually do it.

So as a note to ANY individual who wants to be a game developer: ideas are not sacred. Share whatever ideas you have with as many people as will listen. They can't do anything with them (since developing a game isn't something you can just jump into), but they can help you think about the importance of the concepts as well as ways you can make them better or fit them within a tight budget.

Anyway, unique setting or not, good games are dreadfully expensive to create these days...

... so don't go writing up a 1000-page manual and expect it to magically transform into a blockbuster hit when you wake up the next morning. I already tried that, the Game Fairy didn't grant my wish.

Hahaha, wow Plasuma, very nice indepth outline of the process.  Thank you for the post, it's exactly what I wanted to learn about.  So it is Hollywood afterall, I was wondering about that - seemed to me that the MMO gaming communities are so ardent and dedicated that at least parts of the industry could still listen to the people and be open to close creative interaction.

Too bad, gaming industry has such endless creative potential... 

Anyway, not that I hoped to make my own game, but it's a shame that with so many great ideas out there the most hyped up upcoming MMORPG is based on one of the most boring mythological worlds I've come across.  You could probably come up with a better game theme using the Scientology bible.  Perhaps I just thought that game developers havn't yet discovered the plethora of fantasy and sci-fi ideas out there, looking only to other games for them.

So we'll be watching what happens with the industry in the 21st century, not holding my breath though.

Game development as a whole isn't limited to the Hollywood-type money-sponges which I describe with loathing and disgust. Although you do need a lot of money to make a grade-A film or game, you can still make a home movie or flash game for practically free... and if it's good enough, you'll get noticed and can become a money-sponge yourself!

Happy day!

If not, no loss, since you just did it for fun anyways.

Unfortunately, an MMO is one of those things that you can't easily make on a low budget. Similar to many high-grade movies, MMORPGs require expensive technologies and a team of deft experts to coordinate them properly. You need powerful servers and connections, expensive editing tools, a good lawyer, and a hell of a lot of knowledge that I don't think a single person can possibly have all at once within a sane lifetime.

Game development is (almost) free and open to all who are willing to learn of it, while MMORPG development is a bit more exclusive.

Originally posted by Plasuma!!!

Game development as a whole isn't limited to the Hollywood-type money-sponges which I describe with loathing and disgust. Alt