Support NeoGAF

[Starsailor]

Are you implying that the mid tier mass extinction was engineered? I'm legitimately curious. That's always something I've wondered about.

i think i would be really surprise if the witcher 3 or mirror"s edge or other AAA games dont have this "line of work marxist" system.
It's the case in all studios, and even in some indie games who became popular sadly =/

The undertale "epic story" of conception is an exception.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

It's been said so many times but a lot of people still don't get it- the more people you throw at a project, the harder it is to manage. This is not a problem only related Ubisoft games.

These games are specced and greenlit on the principle that they will sell something like 5+ million units.



Most gamers have no fucking idea how much works goes into making a tiny piece of London as its portrayed in the game. It's a massive undertaking, and one with a shit pay and no prospects other than outrageous overtime, stress and feeding the specialisation.

It's not just for game development- the bigger the project gets, the more specialised everyone becomes. You outsource different parts to different studios to have them specialise. It's very repetitive and time consuming.
And still with all that work, Syndicate has massive flaws that has persisted since the first game. The story is not that good, the character models are repeated endlessly.


People need to understand that big budgets can be an achilles heel. Being able to do too much can be an achilles heel. It's not a comment on the negatives of open world, but any game that decides to water down the pot instead of doing one thing really well.
Someone mentioned Fallout 4 being made by 100 people, but even that is an example of what is wrong the thinking that having a big budget and staff makes it great. F4 is called out for using the same old engine and gameplay systems af Fallout 3 which is ancient. The game is more of the same, and it still took 100 people six years to make that ugly brown drab game. Even if it's a good game.


If people understood what goes into games, they would be more impressed with the workmanship. But if you don't know what goes into it, it goes over your head. Syndicate is an incredible achievement in what they did with London. For that at least, it deserves very high praise. Tens of thousands of hours went into that, and it shows if you really sit down and play it. There is nothing in entertainment that will let you tap into Victorian London like this.
Unity was probably even more impressive for its interiors, and the outstanding visuals. It was a shame that it was forever impaired. IMO Unity is not that much worse than Syndicate, but I still need a few missions in Syndicate.

 

[GHG]

This is part of why I, a programmer trained as a game developer but currently working at a non-game software company, am so hesitant to get a job in AAA. It seems absolutely passion-destroying, soul-crushing, and impersonal. But I don't know of any other way to get the relevant experience I would need to go indie in the long run...

You don't need AAA experience to go indie. You'll either be cut out for it or you won't.

Many ex AAA devs go indie and fail because they need the structure that AAA provides them with in order to be effective.

There's never a perfect time but just go for it when you feel the time is right.

 

[John Harker]

well, the OP quotes only the bad parts. there's a lot of positivity still in working in game production in that article.

 

[Granjinha]

Thats actually pretty huge, and a primary example of How this coeporate culture is homogenizing the industry.

Lets takenew ubisodt back a mete generation and a half. We are in the middle of the sixth gen, except we plug in 'new' factory line ubisoft where old ubisoft was.

Beyond good and evil would have been one of those prototypes cancelled without ever seeing the light of day.

What about Grow Home? Child of Light? Etc

I mean, they do pretty much every kind of game with variable team sizes. It sucks that his prototypes were cancelled but it's not like Ubi doesn't give leeway to their developers

 

[Starsailor]

It's been said so many times but a lot of people still don't get it- the more people you throw at a project, the harder it is to manage. This is not a problem only related Ubisoft games.

These games are specced and greenlit on the principle that they will sell something like 5+ million units.



Most gamers have no fucking idea how much works goes into making a tiny piece of London as its portrayed in the game. It's a massive undertaking, and one with a shit pay and no prospects other than outrageous overtime, stress and feeding the specialisation.

It's not just for game development- the bigger the project gets, the more specialised everyone becomes. You outsource different parts to different studios to have them specialise. It's very repetitive and time consuming.
And still with all that work, Syndicate has massive flaws that has persisted since the first game. The story is not that good, the character models are repeated endlessly.


People need to understand that big budgets can be an achilles heel. Being able to do too much can be an achilles heel. It's not a comment on the negatives of open world, but any game that decides to water down the pot instead of doing one thing really well.
Someone mentioned Fallout 4 being made by 100 people, but even that is an example of what is wrong the thinking that having a big budget and staff makes it great. F4 is called out for using the same old engine and gameplay systems af Fallout 3 which is ancient. The game is more of the same, and it still took 100 people six years to make that ugly brown drab game. Even if it's a good game.


If people understood what goes into games, they would be more impressed with the workmanship. But if you don't know what goes into it, it goes over your head. Syndicate is an incredible achievement in what they did with London. For that at least, it deserves very high praise. Tens of thousands of hours went into that, and it shows if you really sit down and play it. There is nothing in entertainment that will let you tap into Victorian London like this.
Unity was probably even more impressive for its interiors, and the outstanding visuals. It was a shame that it was forever impaired. IMO Unity is not that much worse than Syndicate, but I still need a few missions in Syndicate.

All assassin's creed game in fact of modelisation (and Paris is the Masterpiece of the saga from now) is insane. The amount of detail in Unity and Syndicate is absolutely insane (black flag disappointed me but maybe it's because that's island, but it was really cool). That's one of the reason i will always defend the AC games or others games (maybe the division even if i will not play it).

In each ubisoft game they spend more time to create the universe, than create a good gameplay (sadly). But you can't eraze the fact that all of their games are amazing. I just watched two tv show last night: Turn and Black Sails (i will not explain those show it's respectively in AC3 and AC4 time) and it's amazing that those games respect so much the history that you can "relieve" that in tv show with costume or ambiance, cities... They're is amount of work that is really awesome.

 

[didevol]

It'a always interesting to hear it from other devs, but it seems common for someone to leave when they aren't happy. Why make an article about it?

 

[Breakbeat]

You don't need AAA experience to go indie. You'll either be cut out for it or you won't.

Many ex AAA devs go indie and fail because they need the structure that AAA provides them with in order to be effective.

There's never a perfect time but just go for it when you feel the time is right.

What sort of work experience do you most recommend for it, if you have any experience yourself? Once I have the money I'm planning to high-tail it out of this job a year and a half or so down the line, and I'm trying to form my next step.

 

[lazygecko]

Are you implying that the mid tier mass extinction was engineered? I'm legitimately curious. That's always something I've wondered about.

It doesn't seem too crazy to me that the rising costs can at least partly be explained as an attempt to outspend competing publishers who ultimately can't afford to keep up.

 

[Pifje]

i don't care, i already know how this topic is gonna end

Cool, leave the thread, then. Ignorant drive-by shit posting isn't very pleasant.

 

[Starsailor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGF1c7lOEHI

This game may be the only game that wasn"t downgraded since E3 by ubisoft Lol (and maybe that explain the bugs because PS4 and ONE aren't powerful for that).

But yeah, even if Unity was made in four years, you can accomplished that only with...a workline , sadly.

 

[Overside]

How do you develop a franchise if you localise development to a single office which causes the time-frame of the release to multiply by multiple factor?

Wow there is some loaded ubisoft pr lingo being subconciously used there (develop a franchise huh? I remember that one. That was watchdogs.)

First off, you need a director/lead who knows when to say no, so your project doesnt spin its wheels and spiral out of control.

The most expensive parts of modern games is the ad budget, and cinematics and voice acting. A large amount of content can be made by a moderately small team. Monolith soft had a staff of a little over 120 something for creating the 400 square Kilometers of hand modeled real estate in XcX.

Dont develop a franchise. Make a game you would want to play, make the best you can, and put it out there, if people identify with it, they will buy it, and that success will give you clout to get someone to invest in your sequel, so you can make a bigger sequel with bells and whistles the first game didnt, and if thats a success, you might just have the beginning of a franchise on your hands.

The power was in our hands, instead of a marketing team telling us they are making a new franchise (without a single game in it) with an iconic character (that hasnt even been seen yet) oh, and you can already by one of 30 dlc options...

Or, at least thats how it used to work before AAA scorched the earth, cultivating an audience that wont even look at a game that doesnt have expensive vo, cutscenes, and overbearing marketing, pricing the mid tier out of the market.

 

[Exile20]

New ubisoft bashing topic

Anyway this is something we all knew before.

AAA has grown just so big at this point. When you have to work on a project 24/7 to finish then something is going to blow at some point.

 

[Starsailor]

Cool, leave the thread, then. Ignorant drive-by shit posting isn't very pleasant.

i already said i was sorry for my reaction in previous page.

 

[LiK]

It'a always interesting to hear it from other devs, but it seems common for someone to leave when they aren't happy. Why make an article about it?

Kotaku and Ubi have a history

 

[Kuldar]

Yeah, the description sound like an usual job on big projects. I can understand why you would not like it if you work in a field that is your passion. Best wish for him and his game studio.

 

[Messofanego]

It'a always interesting to hear it from other devs, but it seems common for someone to leave when they aren't happy. Why make an article about it?

Cause you don't get to hear how everything goes down in AAA studios so it's a good insight for the developer to impart on the public and they're probably under contract to not disclose things like that while being in it.

 

[didevol]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGF1c7lOEHI

This game may be the only game that wasn"t downgraded since E3 by ubisoft Lol (and maybe that explain the bugs because PS4 and ONE aren't powerful for that).

But yeah, even if Unity was made in four years, you can accomplished that only with...a workline , sadly.

Let it go?

 

[KingSnake]

I read the article but i already know how ubisoft topics end each time in Neogaf.

You are the one who ruined this thread though. On your own. Repeatedly.

That blog post was an interesting read. It was also interesting to see the difference in approach towards Wii and Wii U ports.

 

[Rad-]

There are downsides to both huge companies and smaller companies. Sure in smaller companies you can give input to wider range of areas and the work generally is more diverse but you also have to half-ass a lot of stuff because you don't have that much time to concentrate in specific issues.

 

[Starsailor]

Cause you don't get to hear how everything goes down in AAA studios so it's a good insight for the developer to impart on the public and they're probably under contract to not disclose things like that while being in it.

well many industries worked like that.
Cars for example. All of the component aren't made on one unique country.

 

[Red Hood]

Not a game developer myself, but I can understand his reasoning. Being part of a 300+ team (or even much larger in Ubisoft's case) can ironically feel underwhelming.

Which reminds me how kinda unique Bethesda is in this regard. Their games sell a fuck ton amount of copies, but their teams are always relatively small for a AAA developer (109 people on Fallout 4, around 90 for Skyrim).

 

[threelights]

The more I see about AAA games and the more AAA games I see announced, the more I hope that we see a big return of mid-tier games (like that PoP Wii game the guy made)...

But yeah, AAA development sucks...

Spoiler

And most AAA games do too.

 

[Bold One]

sometimes there are too many cooks in the kitchen

 

[stufte]

sometimes there are too many cooks in the kitchen

Well it does take a lot to make a stew.

 

[Starsailor]

Not a game developer myself, but I can understand his reasoning. Being part of a 300+ team (or even much larger in Ubisoft's case) can ironically feel underwhelming.

Which reminds me how kinda unique Bethesda is in this regard. Their games sell a fuck ton amount of copies, but their teams are always relatively small for a AAA developer (109 people on Fallout 4, around 90 for Skyrim).

Yeah but, i didn't play Fallout 4...but it's really buggy no?

 

[MHWilliams]

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.

Basically, for each game, there's a single primary studio and then the other 8-9 studios move from title to title. The machine is what's needed to get Assassin's Creed out on an annual basis.

I'm genuinely surprised they really started working on AC:S right after Unity shipped.
I kind of assumed they had already massive resources dedicated to the next project for years, not just the last year. I wonder how their roadmap and resource affectation works.

You are for actively derailing the thread towards this particular (and irrelevant) issue.

As I said above, the primary Syndicate team, the lead developers started working before that. Most AC games tend to get around 2.5 years in development according to various interviews over the years. For the early part of that process, only senior devs are working on the title, deciding what era, which characters, and which features will comprise their game. Then everybody else jumps on to build the damn thing.

 

[Muffdraul]

New ubisoft bashing topic

Do what I do: Use self-hypnosis to pretend there actually isn't a huge amount of rabid and vicious anti-Ubisoft bias around here that's been festering ever since they first announced that AC was going annual. You'll sleep better, blood pressure will drop, chronic teeth gritting will improve.

 

[tuxfool]

Not a game developer myself, but I can understand his reasoning. Being part of a 300+ team (or even much larger in Ubisoft's case) can ironically feel underwhelming.

Which reminds me how kinda unique Bethesda is in this regard. Their games sell a fuck ton amount of copies, but their teams are always relatively small for a AAA developer (109 people on Fallout 4, around 90 for Skyrim).

Yeah. But their teams don't churn between projects and their ideas stagnate.

They don't improve due to a lack of creative control, but because the team is set in its ways.

I would argue that if Bethesda wants to keep making the games it does and maintain the scope then they should do one of three things, reduce their scope, increase their team size or just release a game every 5~8 years.

 

[KingJ2002]

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.

Definitely understand where he's coming from. If you've ever worked for a start up or a smaller company that eventually was bought out by a larger one... no matter how cool the company is... you will eventually feel like he felt.

Marginalized
Demotivated
Uninspired

Not many people do what he did, most just deal.... glad he was able to find his happiness elsewhere. At least in the end he could say he achieved his dream.

 

[Starsailor]

Do what I do: Use self-hypnosis to pretend there actually isn't a huge amount of rabid and vicious anti-Ubisoft bias around here that's been festering ever since they first announced that AC was going annual. You'll sleep better, blood pressure will drop, chronic teeth gritting will improve.

I don't think the fact that AC is annual is a part of the problem, the problem is fw gaffers know what MHWilliams said earlier:

Most AC games tend to get around 2.5 years in development according to various interviews over the years. For the early part of that process, only senior devs are working on the title, deciding what era, which characters, and which features will comprise their game. Then everybody else jumps on to build the damn thing.

And it's funny, the only AC praised by everyone here (brotherhood) is the shortest AC devlopment ever made: 9 months.
The most bashed (Unity) is the longest: 4 and half years

 

[Muffdraul]

I don't think the fact that AC is annual is a part of the problem, the problem is fw gaffers know what MHWilliams said earlier:

Sure, I was just saying that's when the bias and bitching started. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together should be smart enough to figure out they don't make an AC game in a year.

 

[iNvid02]

insightful article, thanks op

Not a game developer myself, but I can understand his reasoning. Being part of a 300+ team (or even much larger in Ubisoft's case) can ironically feel underwhelming.

Which reminds me how kinda unique Bethesda is in this regard. Their games sell a fuck ton amount of copies, but their teams are always relatively small for a AAA developer (109 people on Fallout 4, around 90 for Skyrim).

yeah its crazy on the face of it compared to general AAA devlopment, but take into account how long bethesda takes for a new game and how their technology has remained essentially the same and it starts to look reasonable

 

[Verendus]

Wow there is some loaded ubisoft pr lingo being subconciously used there (develop a franchise huh? I remember that one. That was watchdogs.)

First off, you need a director/lead who knows when to say no, so your project doesnt spin its wheels and spiral out of control.

The most expensive parts of modern games is the ad budget, and cinematics and voice acting. A large amount of content can be made by a moderately small team. Monolith soft had a staff of a little over 120 something for creating the 400 square Kilometers of hand modeled real estate in XcX.

Dont develop a franchise. Make a game you would want to play, make the best you can, and put it out there, if people identify with it, they will buy it, and that success will give you clout to get someone to invest in your sequel, so you can make a bigger sequel with bells and whistles the first game didnt, and if thats a success, you might just have the beginning of a franchise on your hands.

The power was in our hands, instead of a marketing team telling us they are making a new franchise (without a single game in it) with an iconic character (that hasnt even been seen yet) oh, and you can already by one of 30 dlc options...

Or, at least thats how it used to work before AAA scorched the earth, cultivating an audience that wont even look at a game that doesnt have expensive vo, cutscenes, and overbearing marketing, pricing the mid tier out of the market.

Those darned AAA games and gamers!

We'll have our day Overside. When this industry collapses, me and you can be the first to say, "I told you so!"

 

[Canis lupus]

Problem seems to be more Ubi related than AAA gaming, their teams are 5x the size of other studios. AC would be better if it was simpler, they added tons of stuff since 2 and it wasn't for the better.

But yeah, AAA development sucks...

Spoiler

And most AAA games do too.

Most indies suck too, most mid tier sucked too so pointless remark.

 

[SuperDowns]

New poster that didn't read the article.

I think he is talking about an overall trend when Ubisoft is involved.

 

[Starsailor]

Some jobs inside videogames are cool, some maybe not.

This guy for example

He's the historian who worked on every AC games (maybe not the first). He search, visit country, made sketch, reporters... collect intel.
Each AC they hire a specialist in one era but another historian (this guy) work on the data and how to use it on the game.

This job is kinda cool

 

[Roo]

I read the article but i already know how ubisoft topics end each time in Neogaf.

Yet here you are...

 

[Pantaghana]

Too many cooks spoil the broth, and this guy just wants to make a goddamn sandwich. I can empathize with that.

 

[Starsailor]

Yet here you are...

I'm not walter bishop. I can't go to another universe where i didn"t made this comment about the ubisoft bashing to see if REALLY that would eventually happen.

 

[Skel1ingt0n]

I've seen it time and time...

... and time...

... and time again.

It almost seems no matter the profession or the industry, when the team size exceeds about 10, you end up spending way too much time writing emails and joining meetings.

The team size exceeds 25, and the majority of your work day is emails and meetings.

The team is over 100, and all you do is emails and meetings.

But if I put three or four FTEs on an assignment, they work faster and more efficiently than most middle managers (like myself, admittedly) can believe.

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

is ubisoft the new EA?

Ubi has been the new EA for, what, two years now?

 

[Lunar15]

I think this is the biggest tragedy to me: The individual parts of Ubisoft games, particularly the AC series, are nothing short of incredible with every new release. They fucking nail so many different elements and provide things that no other studio can. But with all of those elements, they've struggled to find a way to fit it into a coherent package without resorting to chopping things up into separate and increasingly rote tasks.

This is just a huge problem with major AAA game dev studios in general. It's a shame because there's so much talent at studios like this, but it gets squashed under the weight of development. It gets lost in the mix, so we can't really champion it.

 

[Evolution of Metal]

I think a more suitable blog title would be about AAA games development in general. People aren't going to read the article, and the guy is saying that these problems are basically AAA problems rather than Ubisoft or AC. It might be more evident in companies like Ubisoft where an AAA game is delivered in 2-3 years as opposed to lets say Sony studios where an AAA game takes 3-5 years.

The project really depends on leads/managers. If they have a firm understand of what this projects needs and how to manage it, then it should room smooth. However, I can see it becoming a loop of nonsense if producers are changing their minds or lead artists/designers/programs aren't experienced enough etc.

From that post it seemed that Ubisoft was paying well for his time. A lot of people have unpleasant and unsatisfying jobs, the bright side is that you get compensated for it.

 

[Starsailor]

I think this is the biggest tragedy to me: The individual parts of Ubisoft games, particularly the AC series, are nothing short of incredible with every new release. They fucking nail so many different elements and provide things that no other studio can. But with all of those elements, they've struggled to find a way to fit it into a coherent package without resorting to chopping things up into separate and increasingly rote tasks.

This is just a huge problem with major AAA game dev studios in general. It's a shame because there's so much talent at studios like this, but it gets squashed under the weight of development. It gets lost in the mix, so we can't really champion it.

Well like we said, they're at their best to create good open worlds immersion and life in it. But they're not really good for gameplay in those.
I mean, i'm a fan of AC but i can't deny that the game is almost the same since AC2 despire improving parkour and movement.

 

[kiguel182]

I think that article really drives the point home that games benefit from smaller team sizes that allow a more creative flow for development and keeps everyone engaged in the project.

Big teams sometimes just drains the life of both developers and the game itself.

 

[Starsailor]

I think a more suitable blog title would be about AAA games development in general. People aren't going to read the article, and the guy is saying that these problems are basically AAA problems rather than Ubisoft or AC. It might be more evident in companies like Ubisoft where an AAA game is delivered in 2-3 years as opposed to lets say Sony studios where an AAA game takes 3-5 years.

The project really depends on leads/managers. If they have a firm understand of what this projects needs and how to manage it, then it should room smooth. However, I can see it becoming a loop of nonsense if producers are changing their minds or lead artists/designers/programs aren't experienced enough etc.

From that post it seemed that Ubisoft was paying well for his time. A lot of people have unpleasant and unsatisfying jobs, the bright side is that you get compensated for it.

Well i'm not quite sure Uncharted 4 will be acclaim this time... The last of us raised the bar so high (that even fire emblem awakening was sadly ignore by ceremonial industry in 2013 =-( ) that it will be difficult now to achieve something like that.
All what i saw from U4 didn't attract me, not at all but maybe it will be surprising.

 

[Starsailor]

I think that article really drives the point home that games benefit from smaller team sizes that allow a more creative flow for development and keeps everyone engaged in the project.

Big teams sometimes just drains the life of both developers and the game itself.

Creativity is difficult for an AC game that have historical and technological barrier.
You can create a tank and make fun with it because Da Vinci made a sketch about that...but you can't make "wtf this is awesome" things in AC because there is limitation with "history" and so...technology.

 

[Ramenman]

So, I decided to write about the reality of AAA games development

oh please, overgeneralizing much.

I have no doubt everything he says is true, but 10 studios across the world working in a 1000 person team on one of the most rigid franchises in the industry is not "the reality of AAA game development".

It's one example of one type of projet in one studio.

Some AAA are done with less than 200 persons (at peak !) who all work in one single place and know each other and aren't rushed to ship another iteration of broken mechanics on broken tech.

All AAA studios have their own processes, team sizes, and production issues, and it's very annoying someone would try to pass up his only AAA experience as "the reality of it all".

 

[TheSpaceBetween]

This is a good explanation of why Ubisoft games feel so soulless at times, so factory made, and so same. No, it isn't limited to just Ubi games, but in general it's kind of true because they are known for having the biggest teams and the biggest multi studio collaborations out of any publisher.

Consider this. Ubisoft Montreal alone is roughly FOUR TIMES the size of all of Nintendo EAD. There is a reason why "AAA" Nintendo games have personality and "AAA" Ubi games don't.