Part of me hates to even write this. But I know it's true, so I will anyway.
Now that the dust has settled over most of the ME3 fiasco (even if you like the endings, it was still a fiasco in one sense or another...) I wanted to make a point that I feel is getting lost on everyone these days.
You write code. You are not an artist, you are an engineer. Allow me to explain the difference.
An artist doesn't care for "how" in any way, shape, or form. An artist only wants to answer two questions: what and why. A programmer, on the other hand, doesn't care why - they only want to know what and how. An example would be in order, I suppose.
You are trying to make your character, we'll just say Shepherd for the hell of it, walk. That's right, you just want him to walk. As an artist, you need to understand WHY he/she walks the way he does. Not just what your engine is doing or how either cool or goofy the animation is, because that's all answering What. Your question as an artist is WHY? Why does Shepherd, and to a drastically greater extent, Garrus and other squadmates, walk the way they do. (Personally it looks to me like they all really need to pee, especially compared to the walking in ME2, but whatever.)
The thing is, I'm willing to bet that nobody at BioWare ever asked this question. Instead, they asked HOW. How do we make the movement faster for the sprinting, how do we make the cover transitions work, etc. In essence, the standard walking animation is (I'm guessing, but I don't see any other explanation) a direct result of asking HOW to make it fit with the other animations.
Thus, you are all, or at least mostly, programmers, not artists. Even those of you who paint textures are not artists. I won't elaborate on this any more except to say that, aside from the writers, there are NO artists in any sense of the word designing video games. The writers explain WHY. Everyone else on the whole damn dev team is just trying to answer one single question: HOW do we translate this awesome script into a good game?
Now onto my main point. Yeah, that was all lead-in.
Beyond asking why, if you are an artist, you must maintain a measure of artistic integrity. This is pretty obvious. Yet, we have to assume that, should you ever be willing to compromise your artistic integrity, this would in turn render you no longer an artist. Either an absolute requirement to be an artist is this artistic integrity, and thus its loss prohibits your status as an artist, or else it is not required at all and you can sell out every single line you write and still be an artist. There isn't really any room in between, because nobody can agree on where you draw the line once you start redrawing it, and as an artist, it's not about whether YOU think you are an artist - it's about whether everyone ELSE thinks you are.
And this, in turn, is my main gripe with people in the video game industry. You can have your artistic integrity, but if you do, you're going to suffer for it. Alternatively, you can willingly throw all control over your own product to the wind and your fans will love you for it, but when it comes sequel time, well...you may not like what you're forced to write to keep people happy. My problem is that every other artist seems to have figured this out - except those working at video game studios, who seem to think they can have their cake and eat it too.
Once again, an example. In country music, there is a band called Sugarland. They wanted to be a rock band. They were signed as a rock band. They now play country. Their whole band is on record having said that, while they enjoy country, they'd still rather play rock. And yet they probably never will. They are successful, their fans love them, but the price they pay for this is that they have lost control over what they can play.
Another example. John Grisham was interviewed after his first book that didn't involve judges, lawyers, or the court system - a standard detective story of some sort, I forget the name. It had recently gone on sale - and flopped. To date, it is one of his only 2 departures from his staple of writing, and they both fared poorly, though the other did turn a small profit. In the interview, he stated that his original vision for Rudy Bailor (the newly minted lawyer and main character in the Rainmaker) was as a detective, but his publisher told him it wouldn't sell, so he made Rudy a lawyer even though it wasn't what he wanted to write. To date it is still his best selling work.
In both cases, these artists compromised what they really wanted to do in order to appease their fans. We can have some argument about the calibur of talent in Sugarland (I think they're above average, even if just barely) but I'm pretty sure John Grisham will be on everyone's "top 20 authors of all time" for at least the next several centuries. If an artist with this level of skill is willing to ditch his artistic integrity, then it begs the question: why won't the video game companies.
And the answer is they already have, they just refuse to acknowledge it. When BioWare released their response (from the EA guy who was over them at the time, I believe) there was a bunch of bitching and moaning about "artistic integrity" without anyone at EA apparently understanding what the hell it meant. Allow me to clarify it: The moment you made the decision to not kill Tali before ME2 because, and I quote, "she is just too popular with the fans" you officially kissed 100% of your artistic integrity goodbye. And guess what? THAT'S GREAT!
Artistic integrity leads to games we can't mod. It leads to stories with bizzare twists and endings that we don't like. On imports, it leads to awkward dialog which should probably be "interpreted" a bit more rather than trying to "stay true to the original" to the point where we have no clue what the hell people are trying to say. Artistic Integrity is partly to blame for half of the bad decisions ever made in any game since freaking Pong, and easily 90% of the screw-ups that nobody will fix.
Out of time? Over budget? Had to rewrite the game because the engine doesn't support Pixel-Shader-Anti-Aliasing-Lens-Flare 29.5? Fans getting uppity over a pre-released screenshot showing your character in a manner they don't like and you want to fix it to make them happy before release? These aren't things to be ashamed of. They are the kinds of problems that people like you encounter every day. Yanno, programmers. Which you are, whether you think so or not.
So let's dismiss this whole myth that you are all modern-day Monet's and start focusing on doing what you were all hired and well paid to do - asking HOW, ans solving it beautifully. Do that right, stay true to what your customers want, and you'll come to find out nobody will think any less of you.
Now that the dust has settled over most of the ME3 fiasco (even if you like the endings, it was still a fiasco in one sense or another...) I wanted to make a point that I feel is getting lost on everyone these days.
You write code. You are not an artist, you are an engineer. Allow me to explain the difference.
An artist doesn't care for "how" in any way, shape, or form. An artist only wants to answer two questions: what and why. A programmer, on the other hand, doesn't care why - they only want to know what and how. An example would be in order, I suppose.
You are trying to make your character, we'll just say Shepherd for the hell of it, walk. That's right, you just want him to walk. As an artist, you need to understand WHY he/she walks the way he does. Not just what your engine is doing or how either cool or goofy the animation is, because that's all answering What. Your question as an artist is WHY? Why does Shepherd, and to a drastically greater extent, Garrus and other squadmates, walk the way they do. (Personally it looks to me like they all really need to pee, especially compared to the walking in ME2, but whatever.)
The thing is, I'm willing to bet that nobody at BioWare ever asked this question. Instead, they asked HOW. How do we make the movement faster for the sprinting, how do we make the cover transitions work, etc. In essence, the standard walking animation is (I'm guessing, but I don't see any other explanation) a direct result of asking HOW to make it fit with the other animations.
Thus, you are all, or at least mostly, programmers, not artists. Even those of you who paint textures are not artists. I won't elaborate on this any more except to say that, aside from the writers, there are NO artists in any sense of the word designing video games. The writers explain WHY. Everyone else on the whole damn dev team is just trying to answer one single question: HOW do we translate this awesome script into a good game?
Now onto my main point. Yeah, that was all lead-in.
Beyond asking why, if you are an artist, you must maintain a measure of artistic integrity. This is pretty obvious. Yet, we have to assume that, should you ever be willing to compromise your artistic integrity, this would in turn render you no longer an artist. Either an absolute requirement to be an artist is this artistic integrity, and thus its loss prohibits your status as an artist, or else it is not required at all and you can sell out every single line you write and still be an artist. There isn't really any room in between, because nobody can agree on where you draw the line once you start redrawing it, and as an artist, it's not about whether YOU think you are an artist - it's about whether everyone ELSE thinks you are.
And this, in turn, is my main gripe with people in the video game industry. You can have your artistic integrity, but if you do, you're going to suffer for it. Alternatively, you can willingly throw all control over your own product to the wind and your fans will love you for it, but when it comes sequel time, well...you may not like what you're forced to write to keep people happy. My problem is that every other artist seems to have figured this out - except those working at video game studios, who seem to think they can have their cake and eat it too.
Once again, an example. In country music, there is a band called Sugarland. They wanted to be a rock band. They were signed as a rock band. They now play country. Their whole band is on record having said that, while they enjoy country, they'd still rather play rock. And yet they probably never will. They are successful, their fans love them, but the price they pay for this is that they have lost control over what they can play.
Another example. John Grisham was interviewed after his first book that didn't involve judges, lawyers, or the court system - a standard detective story of some sort, I forget the name. It had recently gone on sale - and flopped. To date, it is one of his only 2 departures from his staple of writing, and they both fared poorly, though the other did turn a small profit. In the interview, he stated that his original vision for Rudy Bailor (the newly minted lawyer and main character in the Rainmaker) was as a detective, but his publisher told him it wouldn't sell, so he made Rudy a lawyer even though it wasn't what he wanted to write. To date it is still his best selling work.
In both cases, these artists compromised what they really wanted to do in order to appease their fans. We can have some argument about the calibur of talent in Sugarland (I think they're above average, even if just barely) but I'm pretty sure John Grisham will be on everyone's "top 20 authors of all time" for at least the next several centuries. If an artist with this level of skill is willing to ditch his artistic integrity, then it begs the question: why won't the video game companies.
And the answer is they already have, they just refuse to acknowledge it. When BioWare released their response (from the EA guy who was over them at the time, I believe) there was a bunch of bitching and moaning about "artistic integrity" without anyone at EA apparently understanding what the hell it meant. Allow me to clarify it: The moment you made the decision to not kill Tali before ME2 because, and I quote, "she is just too popular with the fans" you officially kissed 100% of your artistic integrity goodbye. And guess what? THAT'S GREAT!
Artistic integrity leads to games we can't mod. It leads to stories with bizzare twists and endings that we don't like. On imports, it leads to awkward dialog which should probably be "interpreted" a bit more rather than trying to "stay true to the original" to the point where we have no clue what the hell people are trying to say. Artistic Integrity is partly to blame for half of the bad decisions ever made in any game since freaking Pong, and easily 90% of the screw-ups that nobody will fix.
Out of time? Over budget? Had to rewrite the game because the engine doesn't support Pixel-Shader-Anti-Aliasing-Lens-Flare 29.5? Fans getting uppity over a pre-released screenshot showing your character in a manner they don't like and you want to fix it to make them happy before release? These aren't things to be ashamed of. They are the kinds of problems that people like you encounter every day. Yanno, programmers. Which you are, whether you think so or not.
So let's dismiss this whole myth that you are all modern-day Monet's and start focusing on doing what you were all hired and well paid to do - asking HOW, ans solving it beautifully. Do that right, stay true to what your customers want, and you'll come to find out nobody will think any less of you.
