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The Almighty Buck Games

They Quite Literally Don't Make Games the Way They Used To (theguardian.com) 158

Posted by msmash from the changing-culture dept.
The days of two developers making games in a shed are over, an article on The Guardian says. Spend any time with your grandparents and at some stage the age-old phase "they don't make them like they use to" will pop up as nostalgia gets the better of them. Usually it's just the rose-tinted glasses talking, but for video games it's a fact: they quite literally don't make them like they used to. Back in the 1980s, when the industry was in its infancy, games were often created by two-person teams consisting of one programmer and one artist. In the 1990s, sprites gave way to 3D modelling, and development teams mushroomed in size, hoovering up specialists in disciplines across animation, level design, character modelling and artificial intelligence. Today, creating the most advanced, triple-A games has become too big a task for a single developer leading to the rise of what is best described as a modular approach, where different developers work on different parts of a single game. The article adds: One developer that is pioneering the modern modular approach is no spring chicken. Set up in 1984, Newcastle-based Reflections swiftly established a reputation for bringing cutting-edge graphics to side-scrollers such as Shadow of the Beast and the gloriously named Brian the Lion. It then morphed into a driving-game specialist, thanks primarily to the Destruction Derby and Driver franchises. French publisher Ubisoft acquired the studio in 2006, expanding its remit way beyond its previous practice of churning out a new Driver game every three years or so. Reflections is crafting the vehicle components of the upcoming Watch Dogs 2 and Ghost Recon Wildlands and has just finished the Underground downloadable content (DLC) pack for The Division. It's finishing Grow Up, the sequel to 2015's Grow Home -- ironically, a small, innovative download game made by a 90s-style 10-person team.
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They Quite Literally Don't Make Games the Way They Used To More

They Quite Literally Don't Make Games the Way They Used To

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  • Unless you count games like Downwell [wikia.com]...

    • Or, FlappyBird.

  • Right (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    They used to be made for DOS, Commodore64

    Now they are made for things other than DOS, Commodore64

  • Actually, they still do make games that way (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @10:56AM (#52677627)

    Are we forgetting that indie game developers are still frequently one programmer and one artist? Fez, Terraria, Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Shovel Knight and Undertale are all games made by unbelievably tiny teams.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by eth1 ( 94901 )

      Are we forgetting that indie game developers are still frequently one programmer and one artist? Fez, Terraria, Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Shovel Knight and Undertale are all games made by unbelievably tiny teams.

      And, IMO, the games are way more fun, even if they're a bit less shiny.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nomadic ( 141991 )
      Indie games are actually much more common now than they used to be.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q4Fry ( 1322209 )

      Crawl [powerhoof.com]

  • As an indie developer who is making a profit... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @10:57AM (#52677629)

    I call hyperbole.

    Unity has allowed me to develop games on my own just fine. Easily portable across multiple platforms.

    • Re:As an indie developer who is making a profit... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @11:07AM (#52677685)

      This. Unity is a godsend for indies. Easy to pick up, allows to get something presentable in rather little time and compared to the days of yore where matrix algebra pretty much had to be your first hobby (with games coming at a somewhat reasonable distance) if you wanted to as much as think about game development, you also need rather little in terms of actual coding experience to produce something.

      Sadly, that's not the case with graphics. I'm a programmer with no graphics skills whatsoever, what I'd have needed was the opposite of what Unity brought us. :(

      • Programmers without artistic skills should be exploring the boundaries of procedural generation.

        "Art" based games rely on standard libraries that all work the same way (sprites for 2D, geometric transformations for 3D) intended to accurately portray in photo-realistic ways, or some effects that have become standard (glows, bumps, reflections, etc).

        However, games can be made with 100% abstract representations that don't require any drawing skill (you'd still required to have some taste in selecting a color p

      • For every programmer without an artist is an artist without a programmer. That's why I tend to do tabletop/rpg/boardgames, easier to produce by myself.
    • And you're not the only one. Lots of one-man or small shops are making games today. A few of the best VR games were created by single developers, with some adding a couple of voice actors. We're in an indy-development boom right now, where any creative person with some basic skills can create games in Unity or Unreal. You don't even have to be an artist. You can buy the art from asset stores and focus on game play.

    • I think you're forgetting Unity was made by a pretty substantial 'team' of people over the years.

      I'm not saying it's bad for a great tool to exist, but you do stand on the work of many people to get your 'one man game' done. In much the same way big studios rely on in-house internal tools to create what they create.

      • Using that logic there has never been a case of a one man game, every game leans on compilers, and libraries that were not solely created by a single developer.
        • Hate to be a counter example to your argument, but I used to write my games in hand-compiled hexcode for Z80/6802/6502 - as a hobbyist programmer. Professionals used an assembler.

        • Games like Pac-Man and Centipede were not built with compilers or libraries.

          • What do you call the instruction sets they used on the chips to control everything? It's a very rudimentary library but still a library of commands.

            • That's not a "library", it's an instruction set. It's two different things. A "library" in software is a collection of subroutines that can be reused from project to project and allow you to develop software faster than having to reinvent the wheel every time. An instruction set is the most primitive way to interact with a CPU, and consists mainly of instructions used to move data and to perform logical or arithmetic operations on it. More modern CPUs (esp. Intel ones) do have more complicated instructi

      • I think you're forgetting Unity was made by a pretty substantial 'team' of people over the years.

        Or that pretty substantial 'team' of people over the years who created integrated circuits to perform basic arithmetic?

        • Do you actually take yourself seriously here?

          That's apples to oranges. Unity is specifically tailored to game development.

          • Do you actually take yourself seriously here?

            No.

            That's apples to oranges. Unity is specifically tailored to game development.

            What part of "but you do stand on the work of many people to get your 'one man game' done." is contingent upon "specifically tailored to game development"?

            • The entire crux of the article is 'we don't make games like we used to', and the counter argument in this particular post is 'I use Unity, so I do'.

              My point is no, you really aren't. What you're doing is licensing the work done by said team and forgetting they exist. Work done specifically to game development, as in 'stuff these AAA big companies are hiring staff to do' as mentioned in the article.

              Honestly I thought it was pretty clear from the context. Jumping to 'integrated circuits' and 'what about those

  • Is that true? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    What about the indie studios releasing indie games with teams of 1-4?

  • I've never heard of any games being developed inside a shed. A garage I can understand as that is part of the Silicon Valley mythos. But a shed?!

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @11:04AM (#52677661)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Our studio uses a contemporary coding process thats actually quite simple.

      Your process is missing a few things. Your programmers don't write unit tests and you don't have dedicated QA team to look for bugs.

      • Re:frankly our new process is best. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jeff4747 ( 256583 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @11:49AM (#52677925)

        Our studio uses a contemporary coding process thats actually quite simple.

        Your process is missing a few things. Your programmers don't write unit tests and you don't have dedicated QA team to look for bugs.

        So he's accurately portraying contemporary coding processes at game development companies.

        • So he's accurately portraying contemporary coding processes at game development companies.

          Not sure about unit tests. I was a video game tester for six years at Accolade/Infogrames/Atari (same company, different owners, multiple personality disorders). Everything got tested.

      • Obligatory JIra Jr:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

        "Are we doing any usability testing?"

        "No time!"

  • A Shame kind of (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Maybe it's because of my age but I kind of like the simplicity of the games of the 80's and early 90's. No big learning curve, no really big back story just jump in and play without a huge investment of time. But to make a game like that today with the consoles we have would just feel like a ripoff. There's a charm to having to have pixel perfect precision to making a jump or simple space shoot em ups, or even flying your weird ostrich around in Joust and don't even forget Tapper.

    • But to make a game like that today with the consoles we have would just feel like a ripoff.

      Maybe with consoles but my kids (age 8 and 10) hardly touch their console. They spend most of their time playing tablet games which are very much like the old school games. Simple graphics easily created by one developer. Many are side-scrollers that look like something pulled straight out of the 80s. Some even go out of their way to make it look like pixelated 80s games.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tepples ( 727027 )

        One problem with gaming on a tablet is that compared to a joystick and buttons that gives tactile feedback when an action is input, a flat sheet of glass gives far less feedback. Thus many genres need to have their control schemes completely rethought for a flat sheet of glass. Do your kids use an external Bluetooth controller with their tablets? If not, do they stick to point-and-click games or 1- or 2-button continuous runners?

        • One problem with gaming on a tablet is that compared to a joystick and buttons that gives tactile feedback when an action is input, a flat sheet of glass gives far less feedback. Thus many genres need to have their control schemes completely rethought for a flat sheet of glass. Do your kids use an external Bluetooth controller with their tablets? If not, do they stick to point-and-click games or 1- or 2-button continuous runners?

          I think most of the games are tap to jump or tap to shoot type games. I didn't say that they are comparable gameplay. Even an NES with a joystick and 2 buttons is superior gameplay. The point I was making was that they have nice consoles and for some reason would still rather just use their tablets. Not exactly sure why, honestly but I know that they are not the exception. It seems most people accept the limitations of a tablet and still prefer playing on a tablet or phone even when other options are a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nomadic ( 141991 )
      I started playing PC games in the 80's and I have to disagree; the best games back then were complex ones, the open-world RPGs like Wasteland and Ultima 4-onwards. Or Infocom. They actually were in many cases more complex in terms of what you had to do than the blockbuster big-studio games now.
      • Depends on the mood i am in. Many of the old Atari 2600 games were quite addictive, and a hell of alot more enjoyable than many the AAA 3d super high tech games of today, even with the primitive, flickery, stairstep edged sprites. Often, I find the 3d detracts from the game play, as the authors feel they need to have all kinds of spinny fancy character animations that are implimented in a way that they break and interupt the flow of gameplay (A very big no no in an action/arcade game), Worse, they feel the

  • Puff Piece (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @11:09AM (#52677691)
    And more often than not, those AAA games turn out to be fast-food McVideo games with all the bullshit that comes with prioritizing revenues over gameplay.
    There's plenty of examples of indie hits not made by AAA studios, this article is just a Ubisoft puff piece for that abhorred thing called a Watch Dogs sequel and their other less than exciting franchises.
    Seriously, what happened to Ubisoft after Assassin's Creed 2?

  • Oh really? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @11:09AM (#52677697)

    I'll grant that the small team is no longer the industry norm, but suggesting they don't make them like that any more is just preposterous. The biggest game launching this month, No Man's Sky [wikipedia.org], was originally developed by a team of just five developers. It wasn't until a year or two into development (well after the game was announced and the first trailer shown) that they brought in five more developers. And I was just looking at Prey For the Gods [kickstarter.com] the other day. It's being made by three guys working out of a basement or garage, as I recall. Braid [wikipedia.org] was a two-person job (programmer + artist) with music that was licensed from others. And how could I forget mentioning Cave Story [wikipedia.org], which was entirely developed by a one-man "team" who did all of the artwork, programming, and music himself?

    Pick an indie game, and it's likely built by a small team. They may not all stay small (e.g. Minecraft), but you can only suggest they don't make games like that any more if you start by ignoring the entire indie scene which is doing quite well for itself.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      The biggest game launching this month

      That'd be Deus Ex: Mankind divided. [wikipedia.org] I'm expecting No Man's Sky to be kinda like Elite: Dangerous, lots of potential falls flat on it's face with execution. If it manages to pull a Minecraft I'll be pleasantly surprised, No Man's Sky is the biggest indie title to launch this month though.

      but you can only suggest they don't make games like that any more if you start by ignoring the entire indie scene which is doing quite well for itself.

      Look at the source: The Guardian, don't be surprised at the lack of research that goes into what they're pumping out these days. It's the same across the board though with most publications, they need to draw in the hits t

      • Truthfully, I had forgotten about Deus Ex coming out this month, despite owning most of the games in the franchise, otherwise I would've couched my phrasing a bit more carefully for exactly the reasons you pointed out. And you may well be proven right about Deus Ex being bigger in the end (it's certainly bigger in terms of budget), but it looks like I'm not alone in thinking No Man's Sky is a bigger launch [gamefaqs.com].

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Mashiki ( 184564 )

          To be honest trusting a poll on gamefaqs is like trusting neogaf not to ban you because you like breasts on a women these days.

          • GameFAQs definitely has its own hive mind, just like any other site that's been around for awhile, and they definitely lean in certain directions that differ from the mainstream. Even so, all I was attempting to get at is that No Man's Sky is shaping up to be a much-anticipated launch, arguably the biggest one this month. Given the level of coverage in the press, the water cooler talk I've been hearing around the office, and other anecdotal evidence such as the poll, I think that's a fair assessment.

            For my

      • Re:Oh really? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @11:45AM (#52677899) Homepage Journal

        I'm expecting No Man's Sky to be kinda like Elite: Dangerous, lots of potential falls flat on it's face with execution. If it manages to pull a Minecraft I'll be pleasantly surprised, No Man's Sky is the biggest indie title to launch this month though.

        It won't. The reviews are coming in and they're brutal: it's interesting for the novelty factor at first, but quickly becomes tedious and boring. The "procedurally generated planets" boils down to "picks a few random colors and resources." Even people who enjoyed it can't recommend it to other players because it's yet another one of those games that mistakes "hours of content" for "depth." Because if you had fun doing a task once, clearly you'll have 100 times as fun doing it 100 times. That's how fun works, right?

        Which is a problem I've seen a lot in games recently: the apparent assumption that the solution to a lack of gameplay is to just repeat the same gameplay many times, as if that will make up for a lack of content.

        I guess they really don't make them like they used to, when it was OK for a game to be short as long as it was fun to play.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Mashiki ( 184564 )

          Which is a problem I've seen a lot in games recently: the apparent assumption that the solution to a lack of gameplay is to just repeat the same gameplay many times, as if that will make up for a lack of content.

          Shouldn't be a surprise though, a lot of the big names(Polygon, Kotaku, RPS, etc) in games media publications are still on the "walking simulators are great! Walking simulators will even love you through those long cold nights."

        • ^THIS^

          Even old school JRPGs like Final Fantasy VII only managed around 30 hours of gameplay.

          No Man's Sky has a bigger world than an MMO like WoW...but has tedious crafting/gathering/combat like WoW.

          Take the most tedious MMO ever made and just remove the multiplayer. Great game idea.

  • Yes they do (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Gems such as Stardew Valley, Banished, Factorio, and even less successful games such as Castle Story, Rimworld, Gnomoria, are all created by either a single person or a small team. AAA-Games need a big team, but they are all soulless pieces of designed by committee shit, a bit like Hollywood.

    Now if you'll excuse, I've gotta play.

  • Minecraft? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JasterBobaMereel ( 1102861 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @11:19AM (#52677735)

    ...They do make them like they used to ... then they become larger, then they sell out to a large company

  • That's a lot of people (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Back in the 1980s, when the industry was in its infancy, games were often created by two-person teams consisting of one programmer and one artist.

    For most games, that's a exaggeration. It was half that many people. The programmer had to draw the 8x8 pixel image of the rocket, and if didn't look all that great: fuck you, I never claimed to be a graphic artist. You can tell it's a rocket, so quit complaining.

  • O Rly? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wbr1 ( 2538558 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @11:23AM (#52677751)
    We don't manufacture cars the way we used to. We don't build houses the way we used to. That and a million other things. Time marches on, methodologies and scale changes, sometimes for the better. Sometimes not.

    • We don't manufacture cars the way we used to. We don't build houses the way we used to. That and a million other things. Time marches on, methodologies and scale changes, sometimes for the better. Sometimes not.

      Exactly. Almost nothing is done "they way it used to be done", and most of the time that's a good thing.

      • Yes. The expression "They don't make em like they used to" is meant to convey an appreciation of the quality of the products, not their production process.

        You know what else isn't made like it used to? News.

    • . We don't build houses the way we used to###### This is actualy quite a shame, as old houses were typicaly built strong, and have a unique and beautiful character you just don't see today anywhere. What I see being built now is either some IKEA box, or a McMansion type house that is a very pale interpretation of the old, classic designs of about a century ago. They might be energy efficient, not drafty, have modern utilities, etc, but they are also built cheaply, and start decaying and falling apart in s

      • Survivor bias. Cheap houses were made back in the day, too, but they've long fallen (or burned) down.

        Do people take shortcuts now? Yes, but today's standards, whether set by the industry or governments, are far superior to those of the past. We don't run cotton-insulated wires across ceilings to bare bulbs with exposed brass terminals and no ground wires. We use advanced foam materials and fibreglass for insulation, instead of newspaper (or nothing). We don't use exposed wooden beams. We use double an

  • Don't count me out yet. I'm half of a two-man team. [agileperception.com] Okay, plus some short-term contract work to help us with this or that.

  • Games ain't like they used to be... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    In the late 70's to early 80's, video games played by pinball rules: get the high score to win. In the mid 80's to mid 90's the pinball mechanic was adapted and games had a story structure with a clear beginning and end. In the mid-late 90's games graduated in a big way to be able to tell a cohesive story in a way few games before had done. By the mid 00's the pinball mechanics were being phased out with more of an emphasis on story (but achievements took the place of a score) with some "choose your own adv

  • Gaming is growing so big and complex, the next version of Solitaire will require government funding, just like Hoover Dam.

  • Team Size? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    When I first read the title, I assume they would be complaining about how games have changed over time.

    Pay to Win taking over, especially in the mobile market.
    Games that only let you play so much at a time before you are cut off - unless you pay. Half the reason for cutting you off is that there isn't much depth to the game and you could finish in an hour.
    Puzzle games that are too easy and over way too fast because people have a short attention span - and even those you can pay to skip levels.
    Inability to f

    • There are many games that still demand absolute perfection. Which Mario Bros. didn't, incidentally. You had multiple lives and many ways to get more. The main difference was that you couldn't stop to eat or sleep until passwords and battery backups were thought of, which nobody in their right mind considers a feature.

      The other difference is that most modern games make that an optional mode which confers an achievement so you can go brag about it to everyone who will quietly pity you for it. This is becaus

    • The problem with the old games that you had to beat all the way through without losing X number of lives is that they could only be so long. Maybe 3 or 4 hours of play time at most. Imagine a game like Super Mario Galaxy which might require 20 hours to beat even with unlimited lives. Imagine every time you lost too many lives you had to start all the way over from the beginning. How many people would beat that game? Almost nobody is going to replay 19 hours every time they die on the last hour of game pl

  • Several of my favorites from the past few years were made by one guy.

    The game voted best of all time on GameFAQs last time was released last year by one guy.

    Just stop.
  • ...they don't manufacture cars in wooden sheds, use non safety glass for the windshield, or fill them with leaded gasoline anymore.

  • An Open Source FPS is still being built in people bedrooms by a small team. http://www.xonotic.org/ [xonotic.org] There's also a MOD that lets you mke massive changes to the game and physics to basically create crazy game play. https://github.com/MarioSMB/mo... [github.com]

  • Two words: Dwarf Fortress.

    Nobody makes them like that, except Tarn Adams.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07... [nytimes.com]

  • Now I'm building a seamless open world massively multiplayer real time strategy game in the style of Command & Conquer BY MYSELF. How could one guy do that? Dedication and licensed art and sound effects. Big team or little the job is no different. Yes, I should have picked something easier - but what fun would that be?

    The Imperial Realm::Miranda: [theimperialrealm.com]

  • Duh (Score:3)

    by krkhan ( 1071096 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @01:58PM (#52678743) Homepage
    They quite literally don't make anything the way they used to. Do you think a single person these days can create a spreadsheet program [wikipedia.org] that's of any good in terms of feature parity with the other offerings?

  • I dont buy games like i used to (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I used to pay attention to the big coding houses like EA & Rockstar.

    Now, you couldnt pay me to play a game by EA or Rockstar. I'm tired of the same cookie-cutter crap year after year. I only buy indie titles, theyre the only ones doing something new.

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