[gameprogrammer] Re: gameprogrammer Digest V4 #5

On Tue, 2007-01-09 at 11:11 -0800, Alan Wolfe wrote:
> Hey Bob,
> 
> "I would never hire someone as a game programmer who is not interested
> enough in the field to have written a game"
> 
> what if they have a bunch of half finished projects that use diff
> things like oct trees, height maps, physics simulations and random
> other techniques but don't actually have a full or completed game,
> what would be your take on that?

That depends on a lot of different things. Do any of those things look
like a game, or have major game elements? For instance, height maps are
great, can you show me a walk through using height maps? What did you do
with the oct-trees? Was it an animation? How impressive is the total
work? And, how junior a person do I want to hire? How critical is the
need for the specific skills this person has demonstrated? 

But, most importantly, I have never put out a call for programmers that
did not generate 50+ resumes of which 5 or 10 had already written games.
So, there isn't much reason to hire someone with no experience. Ten or
fifteen years ago it was harder to find people with experience. Fewer
people had grown up with computers and computers that could run any kind
of game were pretty expensive, hard to program, and decent tools were
pretty expensive. Now days, I run into middle school kids who have
written games. Crappy games, to be sure, but they have written games. 

IIRC Lord British started with an Apple II in his closet when he was in
middle school. 

These days it is so easy to write a simple game there is little excuse
for someone who wants to be a game developer not to have written a game.

                Bob Pendleton

> 
> On 1/9/07, Bob Pendleton <bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Tue, 2007-01-09 at 10:09 +0100, Latimerius wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jan 08, 2007 at 01:59:39PM -0600, Bob Pendleton wrote:
> > >
> > > > It could also be that the game industry is a lot younger in Europe than
> > > > in the US. Ten, or fifteen years ago game companies would hire people
> > > > based on skills without requiring them to have done a complete game.
> > >
> > > I beg to differ.  If you look it up you'll notice major hits coming from
> > > European studios roughly since the end of 80's.  I'd estimate that
> > > videogame industry is probably 3-5 years younger in Europe than in the
> > > U.S.  That doesn't mean much considering that the industry is +/- 25
> > > years old now and considering the huge rate of adoption of new things in
> > > the industry.
> >
> > Ah, I didn't know.
> >
> > >
> > > If you meant that the game industry in Europe is *smaller*, then I'd
> > > agree.  I don't think that there ever were as many developers and
> > > devteams in Europe as in the U.S.
> >
> > That is not what I was talking about.
> >
> > >
> > > > There are other major differences between the US and Europe. As I
> > > > understand it, it is very difficult to fire or layoff people in Europe.
> > > > That means the people doing the hiring are taking a very long view of
> > > > someone when they hire them.
> > >
> > > That's absolutely true, it's difficult to layoff people here.  But that
> > > would, as you note, mean that the interview should be more thorough.
> > > Yet, complete games don't seem to be required here.
> >
> > Yes, more thorough, because the employer takes a longer view of the
> > employee. When hiring for the longer term you look for what the person
> > can learn to do. When hiring for the short term you look for what the
> > person can do *right now*.
> >
> > >
> > > I think it's probably more a question of culture than pragmatism.  I can
> > > name tens of great game programmers I know who never focused on
> > > finishing small games, and I could argue that in a team of 30
> > > programmers, none of them does anything resembling finishing a clone of
> > > a simple game.
> >
> > I don't know a single game programmer who did not do a number of small
> > games.
> >
> > >
> > > And I'm sure that you can produce numerous examples of great game
> > > programmers that *did* finish their simple games, and show how finishing
> > > simple games made them great.
> >
> > Crawford and Carmack come immediately to mind :-)
> >
> > >
> > > I guess you can do it both ways.
> >
> > I suppose so... But, I would never hire someone as a game programmer who
> > is not interested enough in the field to have written a game. Just as I
> > would not hire a database programmer who had never written a database
> > application.
> >
> >        Bob Pendleton
> >
> > >
> > >       latimerius
> > >
> > >
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> > >
> > >
> > >
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