History Main / HollywoodGameDesign

* '''Producers''' foot the bill for the project as a whole and have various oversight roles, making sure that everybody else is doing what they're supposed to be, and is on time and budget. They have a reputation for being [[ExecutiveMeddling curmudgeonly bastards with no respect for Art]], but they have an important role [[ProtectionFromEditors keeping the project grounded in reality]]. Often the ''producers'' are a separate company from the ''developers'' (roughly, the first three groups, and sometimes the testers), which certain people -- [[FanDumb fans]], [[CowboyBebopAtHisComputer the media]], JackThompson -- are [[{{Misblamed}} apt to forget]].

* '''Testers''', as their name suggests, test the game for [[GameBreakingBug bugs]] and [[GameBreaker balance issues]]. This may be the least skilled job in production, but when their job isn't done then you end up with an ObviousBeta. Note that being a tester is ''not'' a slacker's dream job where you get to play awesome video games all day and get paid fat bucks for it. [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/1/25/ This]] ''PennyArcade'' comic (and [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/2010/1/25/ its accompanying news item]]) provide some insight.

* '''Game Designers''' develop the concept and rules of the game. In an [[RealTimeStrategy RTS]], they decide what stats units have, in [[FirstPersonShooter FPSes]] they decide what guns do, and so forth. Generally they are led by a "Lead Designer" or similar, who is roughly analogous to a film director. Though they are arguably the most essential element in production, they tend not to show up much in media, since (unlike programmers, artists, or executives) most people [[WhatExactlyIsHisJob don't have a clear handle on what they actually do]].

* '''Pre-alpha''': This covers the beginning of the game's development, starting from the basic idea. In early pre-alpha, the game generally doesn't exist outside of prototypes and concepts, which means it can be easy to make sweeping changes ("what if it was co-op?" "what if the player was a rabbit?" "what if we added aliens?"). Eventually, a core concept and feature set emerge and are agreed upon, and programmers begin to hash out the essential "features" -- the basic functions the game will need to do what they want it to. At this point, the in-house artist(s), if any, will work on "concept art" that defines the visual and audio styles.

* '''Release''': After a protracted beta period, spent pounding bugs flat and polishing the assets, the game is ''finally'' ready to sell. However, this isn't necessarily the end of the job. Often the team is kept on to work on DownloadableContent or sequels. In addition, modern games are expected to be "supported" for a period after launch, meaning that programmings will be kept on to fix bugs and other problems that show up after release.

* The titular game of ''StayAlive'' was apparently made by one guy drawing creepy pictures in a notebook. Over the course of the movie we see almost his entire house ''[[HeadDesk and he doesn't even have a computer.]]''

Making VideoGames is a tricky business. While they're most often compared to movies, they have both their own culture and very different technologies driving them. A game is not only a complex computer program, it can have a full-blown GUI and render 3D graphics in real time (as opposed to the nearest non-interactive equivalent, CGI movies, which have the luxury of using existing software to "film" and can spend hours or even days on a single frame, rather than 1/60 of a second). The technologies involved also shift much faster than in movies. TV and movie writers, however, have very little in the way of first-hand experience with their sister industry (even game writing, which arguably overlaps the most with "normal" scriptwriting, requires to writer to make the gameplay and narrative complement each other). The result is this trope; other media tend to misunderstand the complex process of making a game. A few simple points that address common misconceptions are below:

* More recently this idea has made a comeback, since DigitalDistribution services like Steam and the [=iPhone=] app store allow smaller developers to produce and sell simpler games. The prohibitive cost of "dev stations" (modified consoles which allow prototype versions of a game to be played on them) keeps this from working for big console releases or multiplayer {{Party Game}}s, and so-called "indie" games tend to be relatively short, with a simple ([[{{Retraux}} often retro]]) aesthetic.

Making VideoGames is a tricky business. While they're most often compared to movies, they have both their own culture and very different technologies driving them. A game is not only a complex computer program, it's a full blown GUI which must render the best 3D graphics possible in real time (as opposed to the nearest non-interactive equivalent, CGI movies, which have the luxury of using existing software to "film" and can spend hours or even days on a single frame, which a modern game needs to render in 1/60 of a second). Not to mention the fact that the technologies involved shift much faster compared to movies. TV and movie writers, however, have very little in the way of first-hand experience with their sister industry (even writing game scripts requires some knowledge of how to ensure that the gameplay and narrative complement each other). The result is this trope; other media tend to misunderstand the complex process of making a game. A few simple points that address common misconceptions are below:

* The days of larger commercial games being made by a guy in his basement on his own are long (relatively speaking) gone. A commercially viable fully 3D game made from scratch would need a large team to put together, if only because of the many skill sets needed to put it together (someone to program graphics, physics, AI, level design, character model design, etc.).
** Note that there are open source libraries (collections of pre-written code) to handle some parts of this task, so someone could create a game with a smaller team if he used one of these (for example an {{API}} to handle the graphics) or licensed an existing GameEngine.
** More recently this has made a comeback, since DigitalDistribution services like Steam and the [=iPhone=] app store allow smaller developers to produce and sell simpler games. The prohibitive cost of "dev stations" (basically modified consoles which allow prototype versions of a game to be played on them) still makes the above true for big console releases or multiplayer {{Party Game}}s.
* There are roughly three different groups involved in the technical side of game production: programmers, designers and testers. These are not formal or standardised so the lines are blurred somewhat (for example, designers and programmers could test their own games, programmers probably know something about design, and designers probably know at least something about programming).
##Programmers write the skeleton and muscles of the game (as it were), they create the actual program which makes everything move, allows enemies to think and so on. When their job isn't done you end up with {{Vaporware}} (i.e. nothing), or at best, an obvious GameMaker work.
##Designers put the flesh and skin on this skeleton, without the models and textures the player sees then all the programmer's work would do is crunch numbers. Without their sounds and visuals PacManFever would still be a TruthInTelevision.
##Testers, as their name suggests, test the game looking for bugs for the programmers and designers to correct. This may be the least skilled job in production, but when their job isn't done then you end up with an ObviousBeta.
*** And note that being a tester is ''not'' a slacker's dream job where you get to play awesome video games all day and get paid fat bucks for it. [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/1/25/ This]] ''PennyArcade'' comic (and [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/2010/1/25/ its accompanying news item]]) provide some insight.
* A common way of showing that someone is making a game is to show a wire-frame (or other CGI) model in 3D modeling software. This establishes the work of a 3D artist or a level designer.
* Programmers don't deal entirely with code. Their program still has to render graphics, so they may well have something like the above on their screen.[[hottip:*:Note that some programming languages such as Visual Basic and C# ''do'' deal with what's shown on the screen in addition to having code that decides what the objects on the screen actually do, as opposed to how other languages like C (and its extended cousin, C++) pretty much exclusively consist of written code.]]

See also: PacManFever, UltraSuperDeathGoreFestChainsawer3000 (for misconceptions about gameplay which tend to appear more frequently) and SmallReferencePools.

* The live action version of ''[[OneHundredAndOneDalmatians 101 Dalmatians]]'' had Roger's profession updated from music composer to games designer. The process of making a game apparently involved him taking a game (which he presumably made on his own) to a group of suits who let an [[AnimationAgeGhetto obnoxious child]] review it (apparently having played it for a few minutes) and give him feedback.
** The kid did provide some valid feedback, though. A good villain doesn't have to be a CompleteMonster; he just has to make you want to punch his face in.
** [[ExecutiveMeddling Sounds like exactly what a bunch of suits would do]].

** Deconstructed in an [[http://threepanelsoul.com/view.php?date=2008-06-04 issue]] of ''ThreePanelSoul'', where the creators point out that video games aren't programmed by randomly mashing the buttons on a video game controller. Also, the last panel has one guy lamenting that his friend's mother's dementia is growing worse and worse every month.

* ''NCIS'' episode "Kill Screen" has the lead programmer for an online game insert a sophisticated piece of code into the game with the intent to create a botnet supercomputer able to hack into the Pentagon. The company he works for is portrayed as a fairly large and successful organization and it is quite implausible that he would be able to sneak something like that into the program without it being detected by other programmers and testers (particularly since it ignores the fact that the software would be tested as above).

* The days of larger commercial games being made by a guy in his flat on his own are long (relatively speaking) gone. A commercially viable fully 3D game made from scratch would need a large team to put together, if only because of the many skill sets needed to put it together (someone to program graphics, physics, AI, level design, character model design, etc.).

* Commercials for Westwood College and Collins College follow this trope, as seen [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p73stdpg3_8&feature=related"#t=m20s" here]] and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwlE1aASc4g&feature=related here]]. It's a good thing that guy was there to notice the graphics need tightening up.

* Commercials for Westwood College follow this trope, as seen [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p73stdpg3_8&feature=related"#t=m20s" here]] and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwlE1aASc4g&feature=related here]]. It's a good thing that guy was there to notice the graphics need tightening up.

* An advertisement for Westwood College some years back promoting a game design degree featured two guys sitting on a couch with console controlers: it looks like they're totaly goofing off when their boss comes in, asks them how the level design is coming and leaves with the instruction to "tighten up those graphics!" (The commercial became a bit of a running joke in at least one Game Developer's Conference backchannel. Why can't ''we'' have Universal Graphics Tighteners, huh?)

* ''NCIS'' episode "Kill Screen" has the lead programmer for an online game insert a sophisticated piece of code into the game with the intent to network the computers the game is installed on into a supercomputer able to hack into the Pentagon. The company he works for is portrayed as a fairly large and successful organization and it is quite implausible that he would be able to sneak something like that into the program without it being detected by other programmers and testers.

* The titular game of ''StayAlive'' was apparently made by one guy drawing creepy pictures in a notebook. Over the course of the movie we see almost his entire house ''[[WallBanger and he doesn't even have a computer.]]''

** Deconstructed in an issue of ''ThreePanelSoul'', where the creators point out that video games aren't programmed by randomly mashing the buttons on a video game controller. Also, the last panel has one guy lamenting that his friend's mother's dementia is growing worse and worse every day.

** Note that there are open source libraries (collections of pre-written code) to handle some parts of this task, so someone could create a game with a smaller team if he used one of these (for example an {{API}} to handle the graphics) or licensed an existing GameEngine. Think GarrysMod.

*** One of the especially well known examples of this trope being played straight is Toady One, sole developer of DwarfFortress. The game has been in development for four years, is still in alpha, and "The user interface is coming; it's not coming in your lifetime, but it's coming." This is because the entire game is being programmed ''and'' designed by [[OneManArmy one person]]. As you might expect, it's buggy, slow, and incredibly ''awesome''.

* Programmers don't deal entirely with code. Their program still has to render graphics, so they may well have something like the above on their screen.[[hottip:*:Note that object-oriented languages such as Visual Basic and C# ''do'' deal with what's shown on the screen in addition to having code that decides what the objects on the screen actually do, as opposed to how other languages like C (and its extended cousin, C++) pretty much exclusively consist of written code.]]

* One episode of ''LawAndOrderCriminalIntent'' featured a game designer as the murderer of the week. It portrayed him as being only one of two people working on a game, asking whether the lighting on a level he was designing was OK (a designer places lamps in a level, and the engine uses them to light the level) and a review apparently not only mentioned him by name but ''criticised his programming'' as being "sterile". As anyone who's read a review will know, an individual programmer won't be known by name, nor would a programmer be criticised for the graphics (that would be the job of the designer). But it turned out that the level had an EasterEgg of the designers name, and the designer was one of the owners of the company.

* ''GrandmasBoy'' is essentially this trope layered over a StonerFlick.

* The titular game ''StayAlive'' was apparently made by one guy drawing creepy pictures in a notebook. Over the course of the movie we see almost his entire house ''[[WallBanger and he doesn't even have a computer.]]''

* Programmers don't deal entirely with code. Their program still has to render graphics, so they may well have something like the above on their screen.

* ''CSIMiami'' had an episode where a game executive [[spoiler: provided some teenagers with tech9s and encouraged them to act out events from his GTA clone to build up hype]].

* The chick-lit novel ''Lucy Crocker 2.0'' by Caroline Preston, OrSoIHeard (actually, it was written by the wife of a former professor). The heroine is a housewife and one-time artist who helps her programmer husband make wildly successful computer games. Unfortunately, Preston can't even accurately describe a woman checking her e-mail, much less what goes into designing a game. The process seems to consist of Lucy Crocker painting something with watercolors, and her husband scanning the image into his computer.

##Programmers write the skeleton and muscles of the game (as it were), they create the actual program which makes everything move, allows enemies to think and so on. When their job isn't done you end up with {{Vaporware}} (i.e. nothing).

* One episode of ''LawAndOrderCriminalIntent'' featured a game designer as the murderer of the week. It portrayed him as being only one of two people working on a game, asking whether the lighting on a level he was designing was OK (lighting is handled by the game engine; a ''designer'' won't have much say in it) and a review apparently not only mentioned him by name but ''criticised his programming'' as being "sterile". As anyone who's read a review will know, an individual programmer won't be known by name, nor would a programmer be criticised for the graphics (that would be the job of the designer).
** Actually that was explained in a plot point. The level was revealed to have an EasterEgg of the designers name. Plus the designer was one of the owners of the company.