Fundamentals of Game Development

I recently taught a course about the Fundamental of Game Development. It was an interesting experience for me, first of all because I was back in a class after about four years and secondly because it was the first time that I had a class about game development, a topic which is quite interesting for me these days and I've been involved with during the past 6 years. The great thing about teaching in a class is getting exposed to fresh new minds, trying to help them achieve their goals and also finding a time to reflect on yourself and your own status. Too much teaching is not something that would be good for me but a little is what I would need.

Here is a link to the course material I had prepared for this class:

http://fanafzargames.com/ahf/gdi

Students ranged from people who were aiming to pursue their studies in different categories related to game development, some technical, some art and some related to game design. Quite diverse and the topics needed to be quite diverse also.Alas, this is the real beauty of game development!

Why do you make games?

Edge magazine had an article where they had asked 18 respected game creators "why they make games!". There are a few interesting answers but I found what Ken Levine had said super awesome and could not resist sharing it here.

"I make video games because it's difficult. We're still figuring out how they work. What other job in the world combines the coolest parts of the creative (art, script writing, etcetera) with an engineering challenge that is evolving every day? I work with a team of superheroes. It's the most beautiful thing in the world to watch them solve problems. The most challenging creative tasks imaginable get thrown at videogame developers, and they figure it out. How much have movies evolved in the last 20 years? TV? Theatre? Now think how much videogames have evolved. I make videogames to be able to work with the people who made that happen."

Ken Levine, Creative Director and Co-founder, Irrational Games

Video Game Optimization

Here is a link to the slides for the recent workshop I held on video game optimization:

Optimization presentation slides

JC

Watching Carmack's keynote in QuakeCon2012 is really interesting in many ways:

1 - A case study of how you can maintain your energy in a 3.5 hour talk.
2 - Passion of a man.
3 - Respect for the audience.
4 - How context affects the relevance of phenomena.
5 - Lots of informative tidbits from a matured code guru.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt-iVFxgFWk

Biz 101

I read recently that the Steam digital distribution portal is valued around 3 billion dollars. This is amazing and definitely a huge figure, although something that can be expected considering the un-imaginable success of the platform which has truly changed the PC games scene. The portal has been up for several years now and it has only improved every month.

I read another news recently that : "The Pentagon said Wednesday it planned to sell 60 Patriot missiles to Kuwait in a deal worth an estimated $4.2 billion, as the emirate tries to bolster its defenses against the threat from Iran." source

Now it seems that making some efforts to continue and turn a "Boogieman" out of a country and pull money out of arabs is a much much more beneficial business than years of hard work in one of the best studios of the world, Valve Software. I am certain there is even more serious technology behind Steam than the missiles.

The Free Jungle

There is so much hype and news about the Free to Play model for games these days. Like anything else, it has its pros and cons but I'm afraid there is a serious issue with this model when you observe it from a grand scale.

Yes it is good to provide a free test for players so that they can see if they like the game or not, which is something that was always possible with free demos. It can fight piracy and make the players pay for things in the game by risking strange game design decisions sometimes, shoving different monetization methods into the players face. (I can not think how a game like god of war can use the new monetization methods).

The thing which is not usually talked about is the consumers time. Every potential target purchaser (spender might be a better term in the F2P model) has a limited time every day in the week. If this time is filled with useless noise, then thats it, no more time left. Browsing the infinite catalogs of free to play games, downloading them, checking them out for 30 minutes just to find out that you do or do not like them is the noise, you have already spent the time you had. The next day, lots of other new free to plays, you check them out, times up! The tendency to pay for a game is highly reduced for such a consumer while there is hope for a good free to play to show up one of these days and while there is a significant time consuming hunt in the free game world everyday.

In the traditional model, the consumer would browse game information, maybe watch a few videos and then decide about a game to purchase but in the new F2P model, the same consumer would try out the free game, try out the other one, try out the one after and then continue on the next day. Wandering in the free jungle.

I'm curious to see how things end up in a few years.

To Deal with the Devil

"I will empower you in return of your soul", this is a cultural motif which has been repeated in may told stories, books and more modern media. People with exceptional abilities who have sold their souls to the devil.

Even if there aren't any demons around to offer us the special powers and abilities for the price of our souls, still, the above statement works today and has probably carried a lot of meaning throughout different times. In order to see how, we need to look at the process from the opposite angle.

A person with a special talent or ability. Such a person has gained this talent, say a great musician or an exceptional sword fighter, through extensive practice and focus. Innate skills help but are usually not enough and some proper amount of time needs to be spent on mastering the ability (10,000 hours according to many people including the outliers book by Malcolm Gladwell). The only way for someone to find the discipline to follow such focused practice and hard work is only through love. Love for the specific craft or skill. A love which will lead the person into the psychological state of "flow" that will make him forget about the passing of time, his needs, social or physiological.

Events related to this person's goal, which is to return to the state of flow, by practicing the craft or art (music or swordsmanship) will matter and will pull the attention of this person, all else can be ignored and seem redundant.

Great feeling for this person, but how does the society view such a specialist? "Anti-social" is a polite word for describing this person, weird or selfish are what follows and it can go on until this person can be regarded as "Not a Person" or also known as a person with out a soul. How best to describe a person with no soul but to say that he has sold his soul to the devil. This way the society can feel relieved about the reasons for the exceptional talent too. In return of his soul, the devil has offered him such skills. Oh ... how dangerous this soul less creature should be! Lets define a mighty devil and be afraid of it in order to justify our own laziness. We were not able to achieve anything in this world but we should not worry since we have a soul that will live like a king in another world just because we deserve so but this man is really happy and able and different from us so he must have sold his soul and there is no eternal happiness for him. We are fine, we can sleep well, it is ok to be lazy and afraid.

Nietzsche's Uberman has been described as a free and powerful man which is frightened by normal people. Frightened? Sure, why not, this is a person following his own will, a will to follow the inner love, to focus on the inner desire and achieve special abilities that can be only achieved by listening to your heart only. Listening to your heart is usually in contrast with the structures and rules imposed by the society so you will resemble an outlaw, you will not follow the pre-specified routes designed for you in order to achieve what you feel needs to be achieved. To them, you seem different, anyone different from them should not be a human, or at best a human with no soul, someone to be afraid of, someone who has dealt with the devil. Keep away, keep away.

If you're serious about doing something and do not want to be regarded as the guy who has a diabolic contract hidden in a chest somewhere, you better learn how to be a good actor!