Table of Contents
Editorial: Incompetence
Chris Crawford
1987 Salary Survey Results
The Readers
Compile Time Thoughts
Ezra Sidron, Andy Kanakares and Ed Isenberg
Letter
Timothy Fredenberg
Video Games / Computer Entertainment
Stephen Linhart
Report on the April Games Symposium
Cliff Johnson
Computer Game Developer’s Conference II
Chris Crawford
EndPage: Ruminations on the Symposium
Chris Crawford
Editor Chris Crawford
Subscriptions The Journal of Computer Game Design is published six times a year. To subscribe to The Journal, send a check or money order for $30 to:
The Journal of Computer Game Design
5251 Sierra Road
San Jose, CA 95132
Submissions Material for this Journal is solicited from the readership. Articles should address artistic or technical aspects of computer game design at a level suitable for professionals in the industry. Reviews of games are not published by this Journal. All articles must be submitted electronically, either on Macintosh disk , through MCI Mail (my username is CCRAWFORD),or via modem. No payments are made for articles. Authors are hereby notified that their submissions may be reprinted in Computer Gaming World.
Copyright The contents of this Journal are copyright © Chris Crawford 1988, except as where noted by individual authors.
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Editorial: Incompetence
Chris Crawford
My last editorial focussed on amateurism among game developers. This time I set my sights on the foibles of software publishers.
The greatest failure of entertainment software publishers lies in the flakiness of their decision-making processes. There are three constituents to this flakiness: irrationality, inconsistency, and slowness.
Irrationality is a strong term to use, but I think that this shoe fits. Rare is the staff member who carefully thinks through his or her decisions. My experiences with software publishers makes me feel like Alice in a high-tech Wonderland, encountering exotic characters jabbering strange thoughts at me. “We want it to be just like last year’s hit, only unique,” one fellow told me. Huh?
The problem seems to stem from a belief that games are so childishly simple that anybody can design a game. Since everybody thinks himself qualified to design games, the decision-making process degenerates into a random series of collisions between opinions. Nobody is willing to compromise because, after all, “My opinion is just as valid as your opinion.” The notion that you can sort things out by appealling to experience and careful thinking seems lost on most publishers.
The arbitrariness of the decision-making process leads to frequent changes of position. They want it done one way this month and another way next month. A contract is issued in January and cancelled in June. The producer with whom you dealt is replaced, and the new producer has different ideas. What with all the zigging and zagging, it’s a wonder anything gets done. The software department at Atari went two years without getting a single product out the door. Thirty programmers kept busy writing lots of great programs that kept getting killed, resurrected, restructured, back-burnered, front-burnered — everything but published. One of the reasons why the industry has turned to freelancers instead of in-house design staffs is that the freelancers are harder to jerk around (by virtue of their geographic remoteness), so they actually get something done.
The randomness and inconsistency that so many publishers exhibit is compounded by the near-universal inability to make up their minds. Most publishers take at least three months to decide whether to accept a game proposal. What happens during those three months? Do the publisher’s people really spend three months agonizing over the decision? I doubt it. My impression is that the decision-making process is so flaky that they need three months to get a week’s worth of deciding done.
The other big screwup at most publishers lies in the QA department. From what I hear, QA at most publishers is either nonexistant or nonfunctioning. Some publishers have a single assistant producer beat on the program for a week, scribbling down problems as they occur. The better publishers have proper QA departments with professional testing and reporting, but these departments seem to have turnaround times measured in months. When deadlines are bearing down on everyone, this can lead to bizarre situations. I’ve heard a story of a determined CEO who barged past his VP/software and physically siezed the disk from the drive, even though the program was still buggy. They shipped it that way. And this was not some garage-shop publisher, but one of the biggest companies in the industry!
Obviously, publishers must be doing something right, or they wouldn’t be able to stay in business. Remember, though, that the games marketplace is not a particularly competitive one, not by the standard ways of measuring competitiveness. I wonder if any of the existing publishers could compete against a truly competent organization. a
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1987 Salary Survey Results
The Readers
Responses
120 postcards were sent out to subscribers of the JCGD for the 1987 salary survey. 41 persons responsed, a response rate of better than 30%. This is an excellent response rate by normal standards. However, I remain disappointed with it. There were quite a few people who failed to respond. Because of this, our data is not good enough to provide a solid statistical picture of what works and what fails in our business. Perhaps next year we will have more data.
Culling the data
Of the 41 respondents, 15 reported zero income. All of these respondents indicated that their primary source of income was not computer game design. Most had little more to offer than the information that they made no money. I therefore set aside these responses. There was one other respondent who reported an income of -$4000. Ouch! Perhaps this person is paying other people. I set this datum aside.
Of the 25 remaining responses, four caused me great difficulty because the incomes reported were abnormally high. These four data points dramatically altered all of the averages. A glance at the histogram of incomes reveals the problem:
After much deliberation, I have decided to present the results of the salary survey in a double format. The primary numbers presented will be for the entire set of 25 data points, but I will also present the same number for the set of 21 data points that excludes the four abnormal data points. Thus, the mean income of all respondents is $60,396, but dropping the top four reduces the mean to $39,995.
A few lucky people are becoming quite rich designing computer games, but the majority of computer game designers get along on far less income. To say that the average computer game designer earned $60,396 last year is misleading. Four lucky people made six-figure incomes, and everybody else earned about $40,000. We have a strange income distribution here and must consider it carefully.
Results
I broke down the data in a variety of ways, looking for useful correlations. The following table summarizes the results. The first column presents the logical condition that I separated out, based on the questions asked in the salary survey. To refresh your memory, I asked:
1. What is your primary CPU?
2. How many people worked on your last project (TeamSize)?
3. What was the duration of your last project?
4. How many years have you been professionally involved in computer games?
5. How many games that you created have been published?
6. Through how many different publishers have you published games ?
7. Are you salaried or freelance?
8. Do you do port work or original design?
The second column lists the number of respondents who met the condition specified in the first column. The second figure, in parentheses, gives the number of respondents in the 21-person group (income less than $100,000) who fell into that category.
The third column gives the mean income of the respondents who met the criterion. The second figure, in parentheses, gives the mean income for the lower-income subset. Thus, for each pair of figures, the first figure is the raw result and the second figure is the massaged result.
Condition Respondents Mean Income
CPU = Amiga 5 (5) $30,900 ($30,900)
CPU = C64 2 (2) $51,500 ($51,500)
CPU = MS-DOS. 6 (5) $47,227 ($36,672)
CPU = Mac 3 (2) $74,250 ($26,375)
CPU = Apple II 1 (1) $83,500 ($83,500)
TeamSize = 1 7 (6) $61,986 ($43,983)
TeamSize < 3 12 (10) $57,138 ($41,566)
TeamSize >= 3. 13 (11) $63,403 ($38,568)
Duration < 10 months. 13 (11) $65,043 ($40,505)
Duration > 9 months. 12 (10) $55,362 ($39,435)
Years < 5 13 (13). $42,389 ($42,389)
Years >= 5 12 (8) $79,905 ($36,107)
Games < 3 10 (10) $36,865 ($36,865)
Games >= 3 15 (11) $76,084 ($42,842)
Publishers < 2 12 (12) $44,722 ($44,722)
Publishers >= 2. 13 (9) $74,865 ($33,694)
Salaried 9 (8) $52,551 ($46,620)
Freelance 16 (13) $64,809 ($35,919)
Port Work 5 (5) $38,172 ($38,172)
Original Design.18 (14) $69,738 ($41,807)
Discussion
What does it mean? These numbers can easily mislead if not treated carefully. Consider, for example, the first group of results concerning the choice of primary CPU. At first glance, one might conclude that the machine of choice is “All”. But note that the $118K figure includes the rich people. Throw them out and the average plunges to $36K. Maybe somebody just got lucky — it’s hard to say with so little data. A similar situation exists with the Mac. Note also there is only one respondent for the Apple II. You don’t get much certainty from a single-respondent statistic.
On the bright side, I think it’s safe to say that developers on the IBM PC made a bit more money than developers on the Amiga. We have some decent numbers there. It also makes a lot of sense. After all, there are lots of people writing games for the Amiga because it’s such a fabulous machine. They’re writing for love, not money, and they get what they go for. On the other hand, nobody writes for the IBM PC for love.
Team sizes suggest a pattern. It appears that larger team sizes make less money per person. But the rich people confuse the issue, and even without them the differences are not large enough to be compelling. My hunch is that the effect is real but small.
The next two sections (Years and Games) must be approached with special care. The raw data clearly indicate something that we all intuitively suspect — that more years of experience and more games of experience yield higher incomes. Sure enough, the raw results show the effect very clearly, and notice also that the effect is gigantic. Experienced people made, on average, about twice what the less experienced people made. All of the rich people fell into the experienced brackets. But the positive effect of experience disappears when we throw out the four rich people. Apparently, people who’ve been in the industry for a long time and published a lot of games, but have did NOT hit it big in 1987 tend to do worse than less experienced people. To put it cruelly, and old turkey doesn’t earn as much as a young turk.
Are you better off sticking with one publisher or moving around from publisher to publisher? Again, the results are tricky. If you’re one of the hot few, then you seem to be better off shopping around. If you’re one of the impoverished masses, then stick with one publisher. At least, that’s what the data suggest.
The same story obtains on the matter of salaried employees versus freelancers. If you’re hot, you want to be a freelancer. If you’re not, you want to work for a salary. I suppose this will insult all the salaried people out there. Sorry about that — I’m just reading the numbers.
Finally, it seems that original design is more lucrative than port work, especially for our rich people. After the port people see this, they will probably raise their rates. Me and my big mouth.
A final note of caution: please don’t take any of these conclusions too seriously. I didn’t bother doing proper discrimination analyses with the standard deviations, but I can tell you that the standard deviations on these distributions all ran high. A difference between any two numbers of less than $5,000 is not significant. A difference of $20K could mean something, depending on how many respondents are involved.
Remember also the strong skewing in these distributions. Four respondents reported six-figure incomes. One reported an income of $300,000. Those who make it big in this industry can become quite rich. Keep in mind that possibility, but you would be prudent to make your plans on the basis of the 21-respondent data.
These results can be combined with other information we have about the computer games industry. For example, we know that the total publisher revenues for computer games in 1987 amounted to about $200 million. If we assume that these revenues paid an average royalty of 12.5%, then we conclude that about $25 million was paid out in royalties. (Of course, many games were created in-house and so generated no royalties, but we can hope that salaries, office space, and other costs were roughly comparable.) If we then apply our overall average game designer income of $60K to this total income of $25 million, we conclude that there were about 400 active computer game designers in 1987. Compare this with my 1986 estimate of 300 active computer game designers.
These are, of course, only estimates based on a mass of weak numbers.
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Compile Time Thoughts
Ezra Sidran, Andy Kanakares and Ed Isenberg
• It has been my experience that you can ask another developer practically any question and receive a straight answer. Most developers will be only too glad to tell you what royalty rate they got on their last contract and in general offer any advice they can before contract negotiations. It has been postulated that this is because “truth” is a very concrete thing to anyone who writes code all day. Indeed, “truth” for a developer is globally defined whereas for many publishers it is often a local variable. It is rumoured that one publisher has even created the “Situational Ethics Boolean” which has a number of states including, “sometimes yes, sometimes no.”
• It has long been noted that a very high percentage of programmers are also musicians. Steve Jobs, in a Newsweek interview was asked the question, “an awful lot of those who work for you play music or are intersted in it. Why music?” Jobs responded, “When you want to understand something that’s never been understood before, what you have to do is construct a conceptual scaffolding.” We keep a Yamaha baby grand at the office and almost everyone here plays it from time to time. This might be an interesting subject for one of Crawford’s surveys.
• Speaking of Crawford’s surveys: ever notice how even his simplest questions are almost impossible to answer? Like, “how much did you make last year?” Your accountant would give one figure, the IRS another and your publishers a third. What I probably should have done was just counted up the change in my pocket.
• Companies that make compilers and linkers should be bonded. That way you could sue them for mental anguish when one of their bugs has you climbing the walls for days. All through college the truism that if there is something wrong with your program it was caused by your error was beaten into our skulls. Now in the real world you have to realise that a good percentage of the time the error might well be with the compiler. Obviously, some compilers are better than others but I have yet to find one that doesn’t have some bug that will appear during the course of a serious project.
• I had the good fortune to have dinner with Dave Lebling of Infocom during the PCW in London last year. When someone at the table pointed out a bug in Dave’s last game he replied, “You are, of course, familiar with Alpha Testing and Beta Testing. Gamma Testing is when we ship it.”
• “User Friendly” is inversely proportional to “Developer Pain in the Ass.” For example: to simply get a string from the user will usually take just one line of code. But to be User Friendly it is necessary to bring up a pre-defined dialog box, support the mouse, scan for other events, etc. It’s probably impossible, these days, to be “User Friendly” with less then thirty lines of code.
• For the good of the industry a moratorium should be imposed on acronyms.
• The curse of having a hit program is that instead of being able to go on to develop the next idea that you have you are bogged down doing numerous conversions. I sincerely wish that there were only two computer companies in the marketplace; and I don’t care which two. An obscene amount of a developer’s time is wasted learning new operating systems, environments and architecture.
• I owe my life to humidity. I wanted to jump out of the window the other day after experiencing my 10th crash, but humidity had swollen it shut. Since we cannot always rely on stuck windows, I think that the height of the programmer’s office should be inversley proportional to the complexity of the computer’s operating system. MS-DOS programmers can work on the second floor. GEM programmers should not go above the first floor. Programmers using EXEC might want to consider the basement. If you insist on working in a multi-tasking environment above the second floor, you should have your belt attached to a bungi cord. Top hat and tails are optional.
• I recently found out that Lattice C 4.0 for the Amiga requires the -b0 option to use 32-bit absolute addressing for data, and the -r0 option to do the same for function calls. The default is a 16-bit offset field. This is the OPPOSITE of what it says in the manual. Oh well, it only took a few months to find out, and my bungi cord broke just once.
• I had a variable that used to increment, but now it’s value doesn’t change. Does that make it an excrement?
• Favorite tech support answers (guaranteed true):
1. Secretary: “Everybody’s offsite. We’ll respond in a couple of days.”
2. Young man: “Wow! That’s a good one!”
3. After a one week wait: “What was your question again? You know its been a whole week.”
• Before exiting a program it is now traditional to ask the user, at least twice, “are you really sure that you want to quit?” Let’s take it all the way and ask the user if he really wants to run the program in the first place.
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A Letter From Timothy Fredenberg
I’d like to take exception to two of the points presented in your article The Ideas of Programming: Languages, April/May 1988. First, I believe that there is a very real difference between an idea and its expression. I have had the experience many times of getting a complex idea in a split-second flash and then taking many minutes to express it in words or on paper. For me, there is very clearly some form that thoughts take that is not language (at least not what we usually mean by language). I recall reading somewhere that some people experience thoughts as I do, and others only experience thoughts as language, so maybe you fall into the second category. I would very much agree however that the expression transforms the idea and so the language used has a profound effect on how the idea is realized.
Secondly, on the future of computer languages, I think you are overlooking the fact that English and other natural languages can be used precisely if the speaker so wishes. I envision the time when I will describe to the computer what I want to do using natural language. If I have been imprecise in some instruction, the computer can simply detect the ambiguity and ask me to clarify. I believe that the computer’s infinite mutability will eventually allow it to adapt itself completely to the human’s mode of operation.
While your article was interesting, it doesn’t seem particularly appropriate for a journal on computer game design. Given your plea for articles and the shorter length of that issue I assume that the article wasn’t used in place of more game design related material. However, when dozens of people respond to your call for articles I would like to see the game material take priority over more general programming issues.
Thank you for a generally great and definitely unique journal.
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Computer Games / Computer Entertainment
Stephen Linhart
[Stephen is a computer game designer for MicroMagic, a computer entertainment studio in Western Massachusetts. He has been in the computer entertainment industry since 1982. He wrote his first computer game in BASIC when he was eight years old.]
Copyright © 1988 Stephen Linhart
In the past decade we have seen an explosion of electronic entertainment. Video games and computer games have evolved, advanced, and increased in popularity more rapidly than almost any other artistic medium in history. To a large extent, this rapid pace has been stimulated by the micro-computer revolution. However, we have also made rapid advances by learning from more mature fields such as drawing, painting, animation, digital music synthesis, AI, prose, and film. The most popular computer games gross millions and sell to audiences around the world. So why aren’t we satisfied? Why do we talk about how crude and simplistic our games are? Why does the prestige of computer entertainment lie somewhere between soap operas and professional wrestling?
I believe that the public (as well as many computer game designers) are really looking for computer entertainment. But we keep coming up with games. We tack on a plot, characters, a musical score, an intro sequence, a short story, and any number of trappings from various entertainment media. But we keep thinking “games”, and the public keeps getting games. Even software without a competitive edge has often ended up very game-like because that’s how we’ve learned to think. We have created some great games which have been very popular - as games go. But, outside of computers, games make up a very small part of the field of entertainment, as an art, and as an industry.
It’s not that games aren’t a part of the future of computer entertainment. The path we are now on will undoubtedly lead to games as subtle and elegant as Chess or Go, and as accessible as Monopoly. Even arcade style video games have a solid future. Sophisticated computer entertainment can’t replace Boulder Dash or Lode Runner, because it doesn’t fill the same needs. However, I don’t think that any fantasy role playing game will ever catch the public imagination the way that Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings have. To reach people the way that classic entertainment reaches people, we need to challenge them with new ideas, not with game or puzzle-like tasks.
I think that the challenge for us is to move beyond the field of gaming without sacrificing interactiveness. This is obviously a complex proposition, but it is very important. If the user can’t affect what happens on the screen, why use a computer at all? I can rent a video I have never seen before for two dollars, and it won’t give me a headache the way that most computer animation does. Scrambling the movie and playing it back in a branching tree rather than a single story-line is not a solution because I watch the whole movie anyway; it just takes more work. Storing and outputting static unchanging data is not the strong point of computers. Entertainment on a personal computer needs to let the user have an effect.
Games are the first and simplest way we thought of to interact with a computer for fun. But many people don’t want to struggle with an evening’s entertainment. They might enjoy interacting with an environment which some computer artist has created, but they don’t want it to keep killing them off. It’s really not so much to ask. Probably the most popular non-game computer entertainment packages have been flight simulators. I expect that most people who use flight simulators are more interested in flying and fantasizing about planes than they are in winning the game which is usually tacked on. When I watch someone using a flight simulator, they usually treat it as a toy, not as a game. They don’t play it, they play with it. I have also seen many people take the same approach with a paint program.
Toys are a good model for computer entertainment. Children use toys to create, learn, and explore; so do adults. There are already many successful computer toys for adults. These tend to be simulations of existing adult toys, such as sports cars and planes. The difference between a toy and a game is that you don’t win a toy. For example, life (I mean the real thing, though it applies equally well to the cellular simulation) is a toy not a game because there is no particular way to win, it’s just something you do. Exploration games, such as Seven Cities of Gold, draw a lot of their entertainment value from the toy aspect of exploration. I only started to get really interested in winning Seven Cities of Gold when I became bored with simply exploring a new world. Because of my own particular tastes, this is also the point at which I stopped playing.
Computer games have often tried to require the user to be creative in order to win. Unfortunately, computers are always susceptible to defeat by trial and error. A little creative strategizing might be helpful, but rote tactics win in the end. I am not good enough at chess to know if the best computer AI solves this problem, but I bet it doesn’t. Even if the computer can beat a good player the first few games, the key is probably in learning the computer’s faults, not improving your play. For serious game players, multi-player games (probably on communication nets) are a solution to this problem. But most people are not going to use computers as a way to play a game with a few friends or family members. On the other hand, I have seen countless examples of people finding creative ways to play with computer games as toys, instead of playing to win.
Playing with toys is inherently creative. It is also more accessible to most people than complex strategizing or solving puzzles. Computers are a unique medium for toys because a computer toy can involve characters and environments which are much more interesting and sophisticated than is possible with material toys. Exploring a computer world presents many possibilities which are not available in any other media. For example, you can meet a strange alien in a movie, but you can’t control the experience. If the author didn’t invite it home to meet your parents, you can’t just change the script. Of course, computer environments will always have limits, but the nature of these limits can be qualitatively broader. I call this sort of computer environment a toy because you play in it, rather than against it.
Are on-line toys the future of computer entertainment? Not particularly; no more so than natural language, multi-player games, better graphics, interactive novels, interactive movies, 3-D, high crunch, or high band-width. Taking any of these ideas as “the answer” is a mistake. They’re just ideas for how to make computerentertainment better. Saying that interactive movies are the future of computerentertainment is like saying that science fiction is the future of novels. It may be catchy to some people, but it’s naive. Probably the most useful wisdom we can extract from the movie industry is that there is no formula for a big hit. The big hits come from hard work, building on the past, and creative use of the medium.
In computer entertainment, creative use of the medium is a VERY broad concept. In this realm, particulars such as “good graphics” are not as useful as more general ideas like self-consistency and character. Of all the popular admonitions, I think the most valuable is “high bandwidth”, but not the way that it is normally construed. For example, Lode Runner has been cited as a popular game with a low bandwidth input. This is simply not true. The few input vectors (up, down, left, right, dig left, and dig right) are sampled with a high frequency, and are continuously comprehensible and relevant. This results in a high bandwidth of human input. Similarly, high-res color graphics don’t insure a high bandwidth of output. For example, a complex game which continuously displayed the internal state of the hardware by changing the color of pixels on the screen could have a very high literal bandwidth of output, but very little significance to most human beings.
I use high human bandwidth to mean a high rate of information transacted with a person’s internal model of the world. A computer program has a high human bandwidth of input if people feel that they have a fluent means of affecting what is going on in that program. Natural language often fails in this regard because it gives a deceptive appearance of communication which doesn’t pan out, and because it is a very slow way to make the available choices. Talking to a computer in English, just ends up being a clumsy way to make menu selections. A program has a high human bandwidth of output if it says something to people in a way they can understand. For example, attaching fancy graphics to a simple and often repeated event does not justify leaving it up on the screen for several seconds. If events move too slowly (or too quickly) the user will not experience them as events, but as obstructions. However, if the same graphics spend the same amount of time on the screen during a substantive event, the user will experience fancy graphics instead of a slow and frustrating program.
I think that the user’s experience of an entertainment program is primarily determined, not by the individual elements of the program, but by the artistic integrity of the whole. In this context, I suggest that a well crafted piece of entertainment software can reach a broader audience if it is NOT highly competitive. The key is to take a creative and consistent idea, and get it across to the audience by an appropriate use of the media. Poetry, for example, can get some ideas across to some people very effectively. On the other hand, some ideas are better put in prose. If a piece of software is not primarily about competition or solving puzzles, don’t make it in the image of a game. The search for a high human bandwidth in whatever medium is just a fancy name for art. The really exciting thing about computer entertainment is the brand new challenge of combining high bandwidth output with high bandwidth input. The input side of the equation is something we cannot learn about from other venerable media, because it is something entirely new.
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Under Frankish law, the theft of a falcon in its cage merited a fine of 45 solidi, while the theft of an unskilled slave would cost 35 solidi. Three punches cost 9 solidi. An index finger cut off cost 35 solidi, while a little finger cost only 15. Calling a woman a prostitute cost 45 solidi, referring to another person in scatological terms earned a 3-solidi fine.
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Report on the April Computer Game Designers Symposium
Cliff Johnson
[Cliff is the creator of The Fool’s Errand, a truly innovative program for the Macintosh. He has a background in filmmaking and taught himself programming because it seemed like the right thing to do.]
While the last conference of the Software Publisher’s Association was held at a prestigious site in Claremont, we game authors had to carpool, hitchhike and finagle our way to the hilly habitat of Chris Crawford to attend the first Symposium of Game Designers. Once you’ve experienced the mossy green foothills of Milpitas, however, I’m sure you’ll agree that not far away must be the site where Bilbo Baggins welcomed Gandalf the wizard into his home. Indeed, what better setting could there be for the meeting of the minds that create computer simulations, arcade games and interactive fantasy?
As the 26 in attendence nibbled on strawberries and Danish, Chris began the Symposium by proposing that the morning’s agenda be devoted to the subject of pure game design and the afternoon to the business aspects of the game industry. He pointed out that we were “not here to pat each other on the back”, but to “focus on the tough issues where we will not agree”. We lost no time in granting his request.
“Arcade games are too intellectually passive!”
“Arcade games are fun!”
“Intense repetition is not interaction. Reaction is not action. Games must challenge.”
“Games must entertain!”
“It’s a cop-out to say that people like everything!”
“People do like everything!”
So, what is the proper role of interactivity? Is interactivity the very essence of what computer games provide? Without process intensity, can there be true interaction? Are users too stupid to appreciate a difficult game? Does a process-intensive game demand too much of the player? Take your pick — arcade zombies or Mensa pinheads.
“Market research is not an end in itself. We have an opportunity if not a responsibility to help the audience decide which products to choose.”
“No, we have to put our ideas before the public and let them decide.”
“No, it is up to us to define the form and structure of the game industry.”
“No, we have to bring in people off the street to tell us what to do.”
“No, the audience is able to change if we show them the way.”
Hit games, so-so games and utter failures. What went wrong and what went right? Even amid a roomful of talented professionals, the haunting question remains — what do we do next? Can we guarantee success from market research? Or must we go with our gut feelings? What’s the price of innovation? Is this an art form to be nurtured? Or a business to be expertly managed?
“We have to overcome computer phobia. High tech is still a threat to the average person.”
“There must be a balance between data intensity and process intensity.”
“Simulation should not override direction.”
“There must be a ratio between input and output.”
“We have to draw symbols from life.”
“We have to drag people into the game.”
“We have to begin with what the audience already knows.”
“We have to push the limits of technology.”
“We have to elicit a response from the user.”
“We have to provide an opportunity for catharsis.”
Whence a game cometh? And where should it go? Can every game have interactivity, artificial intelligence, color graphics, digitized sound, and arcade animation? Are games just a list of features? The consumer wants it all, yet there’s only so much you can put on a single disk.
“An interactive story is a contradiction of terms. Reality is boring. There are too many choices.”
“These are games! Why do we need a story?”
“A plot is not necessary. Creating rich characters that interact creates the story.”
“It’s not the story that involves you, it’s how you progress through the game that counts.”
“The human mind will find drama in almost anything. Where’s the story in a baseball game?”
There was much debate over the “drama” of a computer game and how to achieve it. Inevitable comparisons to the film industry flew fast and furious and even Aristotle was resurrected to recount his classic theory of drama. Yet stubbornly resisting the eloquent attempts of all, the computer game continued to elude a single definition or set of requirements, even the necessity of a story.
“Programmers are artists.”
“No, game designers should design games. Programmers should program.”
“Only the programmer can understand the true nature of the interface.”
“No, professional writers should be the story tellers. There’s no need to be involved in the actual programming.”
“What do writers know about what is and is not possible?”
“It’s the programmers who always say it can’t be done! I don’t need to know about ’interrupts’ to design a game!”
Once upon a time, programmers designed their own games and the question was moot. With more and more companies forming teams of varied specialists, who indeed is best qualified to design the actual game? Are two heads better than one? Or do too many cooks spoil the broth? Does the programmer’s expertise give him/her the edge? Or is a fresh approach needed?
“The responsibility of R&D in the game industry has alway fallen squarely on the shoulders of the lone wolf author.”
“The publishers don’t understand that we have to push the limits and take a few risks.”
“Nowadays, a game designer has to be an artist, sound editor, programmer and writer.”
“It’s impossible for one person to command the technical expertise of all the available machines.”
“Will CD ROM push the programmers out of game design?”
“How can we risk trying a new idea if it costs too much to produce a game?”
“Is this the end of lone authorship?”
And with that, the 26 collapsed in exhaustion and devoured a seven foot deli sandwich. At last, we could all agree on something. The afternoon held the promise of debating the serious business issues of the game industry, though as it happened, most of the time was devoted to planning the next Symposium, a necessary task in itself.
What was discussed reveals the true spirit and purpose of the Symposium, that is, to establish a sense of community among the game designers and, most important, to establish a mode of communication between one another. With every new game and with every new deal, we are all forced to tread the path of those who have gone before, but few of us benefit from what the other has learned (and even fewer know how to negotiate a fair contract).
Everyone felt that the game industry must evolve and become more open, more honest, and more fair. No one benefits from the short term deal. We must work together to build long term relationships with our publishers. This is not a case of “us and them”. We remember well the video game crash of 1984. Cashing in for the quick dollar without regard to quality has no future.
And why is royalty information such a big secret? And number of units sold? And what’s this obsession with non-disclosure and rights of first refusal? Why aren’t there any established guidelines for writing code for optimal conversion to other machines? Why is beta testing often times slow and ineffectual? And who should retain the copyright to our source code?
Chris added that “if we want to insure creativity in this industry, we are going to have to nurture it.” To this end, both the publishers and the game designers must work together.
And so, the next Symposium will be held in a more formal setting, inviting both designers and publishers. However blue jeans will be mandatory and there’ll be plenty of Twinkies and Jolt on hand. But check the word “programmers” at door. We’re game designers!
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Attendees of the First Symposium of Game Designers
Top Row, from left:
Sean Barger, unknown, Dave Menconi (hat), Cliff Johnson (sunglasses), unknown, unknown, Tim Brengle (white shirt), Tim Fredenburg
Middle Row, from left:
Stephen Friedman, Kellyn Beeck, unknown, Brian Moriarty (brown shirt), Carol Manley (in front of Brian Moriarty), Gordon Walton (black shirt), Thurston Searfoss, unknown
Bottom Row, from left:
Gilman Louie, unknown, Jeff Johannigman (red shirt), Ivan Manley, unknown, David Graves, Chris Crawford
Known Attendees whom I cannot recognize:
Mike Duffy, Sean Hill, Dan Howlett, Jeff Jones, Michael Jones, Oran Kangas, Rob Swigart, Norman Worthington
Not in photo but attended earlier:
Brenda Laurel
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Computer Game Developer’s Conference II
Chris Crawford
The First Computer Game Designers Symposium was a rousing success. The excitement and energy level of the discussion was intense. The attendees really seemed to enjoy themselve immensely. And perhaps the only issue over which there was unanimity was the question of whether there should be another conference. The enthusiasm was so high that we formed a steering committee then and there, and there was no shortage of volunteers.
The steering committee has met twice now and has laid down the basic plan of the conference. This plan is presented in the registration form accompanying this issue of the Journal.
Realizing that few members of our community can afford to spend a lot of money on something like this, we have planned this as a low-cost affair. The Milpitas Holiday Inn can provide the services we need at a minimal price, and does not charge high room rates. It appears that it will cost us about $75 per person, and the room rate will be $70 per night for a single room. However, the first number depends mightily on how many people attend. Moreover, the sooner we have solid attendance figures, the more efficient we can be. We therefore created the steeply escalating price structure.
We are excited about this conference. This is the first opportunity for the entire community to gather and talk shop. From what we learned in the first conference, we know that such discussions can be exhilarating and enlightening. We very much hope that all professional game designers will come to this conference. We realize that it will cost you money and time, but we are certain that it will be worth your while. More than that, it is important for the community at large to have an opportunity to gather once a year and recognize itself as a community. Please come and help make this a success.
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Women’s Lib, Circa 500 CE
"When he saw this, King Chilperic sent to ask for the hand of Galswinth, although he already had a number of wives. He promised to dismiss all the others, if only he were considered worthy of marrying a king’s daughter...Galswinth’s father believed what he said and sent his daughter to him with a large dowry. When she reached the court of King Chilperic, he welcomed her with great honor and made her his wife. He loved her very dearly, for she had brought a large dowry with her. A great quarrel soon ensued between them, because he also loved Fredegund, whom he had married before he married Galswinth...she never stopped complaining to the King about the insults which she had to endure. According to her, he showed no respect for her at all, and begged that she might be permitted to go back home, even if it meant leaving behind all the treasures she had brought with her. Chilperic did his best to pacify her with smooth excuses and by denying the truth as convincingly as he could. In the end he had her garroted by one of his servants."
---History of the Franks, by Gregory of Tours.
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EndPage: Ruminations on the Game Designer’s Symposium
Chris Crawford
The April symposium was certainly an intense experience. I have difficulty remembering specific events or statements — it’s all pretty much a blur. Yet some powerful impressions remain.
First was the caliber of the discussion. People made good, solid points, expressed them cogently and concisely. Yes, there was a little inanity, but it was swamped by the generally high level of intellectual energy maintained by most of the attendees.
This doesn’t mean that I approved of everything said. Indeed, as Cliff Johnson’s report makes clear, we disagreed on just about everything of any importance. What struck me is that we all disagreed so well.
I was also pleased by the gentlemanliness of the discussion. We fit 26 people into one room and carried on a group discussion that worked! The intellectual anarchy and self-centeredness that are commonly associated with game designers was simply not in evidence at this meeting.
I think one reason for this lay in the makeup of the group — and this was another surprise for me. I have always thought of game designers as youngsters in their early twenties. Not this group. These people were almost all untrust-worthily over 30. What a striking development! Perhaps a quiet revolution has taken place in the last few years. Perhaps programming talent (more evident in a younger worker) has taken a back seat to design talent, which takes longer to refine and polish. Or perhaps it is nothing more than the same people getting older.
I was also struck by the seriousness of the group. Yes, we had some great laughs — a sense of humor still seems closely correlated with a talent for designing games — but these people were here to learn and share, and there was little wasted energy. Speakers’ statements were short and to the point. Disagreements were aired but not belabored.
This was also a highly professional group. In the afternoon session we talked about business issues, and there was considerable gossiping about publishers, but I was surprised that the gossip was handled so maturely by the group. There was no pettiness or viciousness in it. Several of the attendees related anecdotes of abuse and bad faith on the part of publishers, yet the hard edge of anger was not in their voices. The few attempts at rabble-rousing fell on deaf ears.
But easily the most powerful feeling of the day was the dawning sense of awareness of community. For the first few hours, you could see people looking around the circle of faces with a sense of awe. “My God!” their faces said, “Lookit all these other people who are game designers just like me!” People who have spent years working in isolation suddenly realized that there are others who ask the same questions, fight the same battles, and make the same mistakes they have.
Like I said, the details of what was said have left me, but the powerful sense of community, the feeling of cameraderie with the others in that room will not soon recede. You shoulda been there.