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"Why I Quit My Dream Job at Ubisoft" (blog post from former AC: Syndicate developer)

S

sflufan

Banned
I read about this post on Kotaku, but decided to link it directly (sorry Jason!)

Some context:

After a few months, Syndicate started for real. The team was getting bigger and bigger as we entered production. For me, this is the root of all issues on AAA games: big teams. Too many people. Syndicate was created with the collaboration of about 10 studios in the world. This is 24 hour non-stop development. When people go to sleep in one studio, it’s morning in another one.

With so much people, what naturally occurs is specialization. There’s a lot of work to do, and no one can master all the game’s systems. So, people specialize, there’s no way around it. It can be compared to an assembly line in a car factory. When people realize they’re just one very replaceable person on a massive production chain, you can imagine it impacts their motivation.

With specialization often comes tunnel-vision. When your expertise is limited to, let’s say, art, level design, performances or whatever, you’ll eventually convince yourself that it’s the most important thing in the game. People become biased towards their own expertise. It makes decision-making a lot more complicated. More often than not, it’s the loudest voice who wins… even if it doesn’t make much sense.
 
J

jelani435

Member
Mind adding some context and quotes to the post itself for people who don't wanna leave NeoGAF? It might be helpful.
 
S

Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew

Banned
jelani435 said:
Mind adding some context and quotes to the post itself for people who don't wanna leave NeoGAF? It might be helpful.
Click to expand...

SPOILER: He went Indie. He worked on two prototypes/internal pitches at Ubisoft in small teams that he really enjoyed, but didn't like that they got canned. So he went indie to work on smaller projects with creative freedom.

From the blog:

Since my very beginnings at Ubisoft, I knew I wouldn’t spend the rest of my days here. I already dreamt of starting my own indie company. Making my own games. Back at the time, I didn’t know much about making games. I still don’t know a lot, just a tiny bit more.

Indie games don’t suffer from big projects issues. I think the ideal team size is around 5-6 people. That’s when the team spirit is at its highest, as well as ownership and drive. You’re not wasting any time with endless email threads and bad communication. There’s a lot less specialization, because a handful of people are doing everything. The job isn’t tedious and rewards you every day.

For me, going indie also means I can work on non-technical stuff. I like tech, but I also love the creative aspect of games… gameplay, visuals, sounds, ambiance… the whole experience. Only indie games will let me cover all aspects of the creation process.

So that’s it. That’s the #1 reason why I quit Ubi to make indie games. I’m sure if you ask other developers, they’ll tell you another story. Some of them really like it, I’m sure. Others might be unhappy for a completely different reason.

For me, this leap of faith was the right and only thing to do.
Click to expand...

http://kotaku.com/what-its-like-to-work-on-a-massive-ubisoft-game-1754260745

"Beaudoin’s first post-Ubisoft project is a puzzle game called OpenBar that comes to mobile next week. You can check out the trailer here."
 
entremet

entremet

Member
Good inside baseball account.

I like that it wasn't a tired out exposé.

He was pretty respectable about his previous employer and his concerns seemed more endemic of developing bigger games than Ubisoft itself.
 
E

EpicBox

Member
tl;dr - Working in a team of hundreds of people makes it hard to feel important and have any meaningful say in the piece of art you want to be able to pour passion into.
 
S

Starsailor

Banned
New ubisoft bashing topic

tumblr_nodhipcR5K1sgm7h3o1_500.gif
Click to expand...
 
P

-Pyromaniac-

Member
Pretty interesting. I know it's not unusual in lengthy programming projects to pass the work off to the next person who will finish it but when you have different people with different skill levels who are good at different things...it usually doesn't end well.
 
Z

Z3M0G

Member
Skimmed over it, there are some nice sections in here.

Nothing at all to raise pitch forks about... he doesn't even get angry about anything. The only major negative part is how AC: Syndicate was too large of a project spread across 10 studios... but that's nothing surprising. Though it was interesting to read impressions of the process.

He had the most enjoyment out of small projects where he got to be very creative and feel his own contributions when playing the game.
 
R

Ralemont

not me
This is basically just Marx's commentary on work becoming disassociated from the worker, in which case the worker stops feeling a sense of ownership and thus pride from what they do and make. Of course it would happen in video games as it happens everywhere. I'm just glad that game makers have a potential alternate route in indie games. Hard to be a local blacksmith these days.

And yeah not an anti-Ubisoft thread. It's just a reality of big industry production necessitating specialization.
 
G

Garlador

Member
Starsailor said:
New ubisoft bashing topic
Click to expand...
Just read the bloody article.

Syndicate's actually good.

But Ubisoft's "go big or go home" approach is definitely awful for more middle-tier games.

This guy worked on Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands Wii and gushed over how much fun that development process was... and the industry sorely needs more projects like that with developers passionate about what they do, rather than just a small cog in a large machine.
 
L

leeh

Member
Cool to read about some areas of the software life cycle of game production and how it differs from what I'm personally used to. Other than that, its the usual software developer stance. Tired of feeling like a small entity, so he goes to a smaller, startup company.

Cant count how many times I've seen this happen. It's the main reason for why people leave whom are doing well.
 
R

Rezae

Member
Read the whole article. Interesting but no real surprises.

I think these few paragraphs towards the end sum it up real well:

"I could go on and on. There’s tons of other reasons why AAA projects are not satisfying. Don’t get me wrong: it’s nothing specific to Ubisoft or Assassin’s Creed games. This is an inevitable side effect of creating huge games with an enormous team.

I have to add that, obviously, some people are motivated. Those are usually juniors and people who never got the chance to work on a AAA project before. But when you’ve done it a couple of times, the excitement disappears, and you’re only left with the sad, day-to-day reality. That’s a huge problem for studios working on AAA projects one after another. Senior staff gets tired and leave."
 
B

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
Not a unique perspective but it's a good read anyway. I wish that person luck for the move from quitting a financially stable position. (Software architect at Ubisoft is probably one of the more safer positions in the games industry.)
 
T

tearsintherain

Member
I'm honestly amazed any ubisoft game is able to complete in a fairly "good" fashion, their entire system seems to be built around massively overstaffing games. I loved Syndicate, its a great game. But jesus christ, 10 studios worked on it? Thats just insane to me.

I mean, look at fallout 4 its dev team was what... around 100 people? Sure, it took nearly six years and its ambitions aren't that grand but honestly I don't see a massive shift in scope or quality from Fallout 4 to Syndicate or Far Cry 4 or Rainbow Six or even The Division. Tomb Raider is also a great comparison to Syndicate, and I doubt that had even 1/10th the size of the Syndicate team. The next big jump up I'd say is something like Black Ops 3 or Destiny which do have huge teams but multiplayer is such a big part of that.

At some point the ubisoft paradigm I think is going to come crashing down, just burning out the good people so every year you get lower and lower quality people working on your game. Unity was one of the first warning signs, I think Division and maybe even Primal may be big alarm bells.
 
O

Overside

Banned
Starsailor said:
i don't care, i already know how this topic is gonna end
"assassin's creed are bad games except AC2 blah blah blah" ....
Click to expand...

Not quite. I mean, its not going to be about calling them shit, but realizing why they are shit.

Like this:
'Oh so this is why games like this feel like homogenous factory line produced shit, its because they ARE homogenous factory line produced shit'.
 
J

- J - D -

Member
Game development can be grueling both in AAA development or indie. But at least now he has more control over it. Good for him.
 
S

Starsailor

Banned
matrixman92 said:
Even with that, Syndicate turned out to be one of the best games in the series
Click to expand...

I agree, but Syndicate paid for the Unity "zero patch" bug sadly.
It's like you're in a bar with a friend and suddenly you escape and run for not paying and you're friend gonna pay your beer.
 
C

Concept17

Member
Senior staff member gets burnt out, goes indie. Pretty standard stuff for the industry. Is love to know what the 2 projects were.
 
M

MiniBossBattle

Member
entremet said:
Good inside baseball account.

I like that it wasn't a tired out exposé.

He was pretty respectable about his previous employer and his concerns seemed more endemic of developing bigger games than Ubisoft itself.
Click to expand...

Pretty accurate and similar feelings, especially for AAA. Its all about your leads and access to the other departments to make fixes. If all else fails, you have to scrum with a level designer, artist and programmer and try to get it done while also meeting your own milestones. No one will know.....

The tunnel vision comment is too real.
 
S

Starsailor

Banned
dezzy8 said:
Doesn't sound like bashed at all to me. Just sounds like the developer wants to work on all facets of game development and not just focusing on one.
Click to expand...

I know and it's good to have this info from a developer, but i talk about this topic, not the article.
Each time someone talk about ubisoft, this is gonna happen.
 
J

jooey

The Motorcycle That Wouldn't Slow Down
With specialization often comes tunnel-vision. When your expertise is limited to, let’s say, art, level design, performances or whatever, you’ll eventually convince yourself that it’s the most important thing in the game. People become biased towards their own expertise. It makes decision-making a lot more complicated. More often than not, it’s the loudest voice who wins… even if it doesn’t make much sense.
Click to expand...
Was this his first office job?

Then again, people do need reminding what the game business is actually like.
 
L

leeh

Member
tearsintherain said:
I'm honestly amazed any ubisoft game is able to complete in a fairly "good" fashion, their entire system seems to be built around massively overstaffing games. I loved Syndicate, its a great game. But jesus christ, 10 studios worked on it? Thats just insane to me.

I mean, look at fallout 4 its dev team was what... around 100 people? Sure, it took nearly six years and its ambitions aren't that grand but honestly I don't see a massive shift in scope or quality from Fallout 4 to Syndicate or Far Cry 4 or Rainbow Six or even The Division. Tomb Raider is also a great comparison to Syndicate, and I doubt that had even 1/10th the size of the Syndicate team. The next big jump up I'd say is something like Black Ops 3 or Destiny which do have huge teams but multiplayer is such a big part of that.

At some point the ubisoft paradigm I think is going to come crashing down, just burning out the good people so every year you get lower and lower quality people working on your game. Unity was one of the first warning signs, I think Division and maybe even Primal may be big alarm bells.
Click to expand...
You answered your own question in your post.
 
M

Maintenance

Member
Not even halfway through the first page and there are already people saying people "won't somebody think of poor Ubisoft".

Good lord.
 
R

Ralemont

not me
Starsailor said:
I know and it's good to have this info from a developer, but i talk about this topic, not the article.
Each time someone talk about ubisoft, this is gonna happen.
Click to expand...

It's still better to say stuff like that after a thread has gone to shit than before and lead it on the path.
 
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