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Show 18 | MyWeberMedia.com | December 7, 2018 GAME DEVELOPMENT ››continued from page # 17 delopers likely operate in relatively small groups, usually working remotely and only meeting occasionally. Most communication takes place via conference calls, and work comes in the form of contracts for projects from major publishers or in-studio, independent work. The problem, Fox said, is getting noticed. The novelty of smaller, bite-sized games in the XBLA format has worn off, and people are more commonly playing free-to-play mobile or console games. According to Fox, though these games are free-to-play, they have triple-A development effort behind them, and it’s hard to compete as a smaller developer. “You’re competing against people’s time. As people play games, they’re going to be playing with their friends on the top five high-quality games,” Fox said. “(Players) don’t have time to look at a ton of other things because they spend so much time playing ‘Fortnite’ or their favorite triple-A game. Even if you create just as good of a game, you don’t get noticed. I think that’s the bigger problem as a developer — not creating a good game, it’s just getting attention.” Fox said the market, and the industry overall, has changed drastically from the XBLA days. According to Fox, major publishers put more effort and funds into developing games closer to triple-A titles than independent ones for a larger profit. Smaller games just don’t typically receive the same funding. “Of course, there are exceptions, but they’re kind of small. If you looked at the number of exceptions that make lots of money each year, there are probably 20,” Fox said. “But there are thousands of developers trying to be those 20.” According to Fox, even programs like ID@Xbox, a recent effort by Microsoft to bring more independent titles to the Xbox One, only provide a platform for those independent titles. Microsoft doesn’t necessarily provide any funding during development. If those games made more money, Microsoft might fund more of them. It’s no fault of Microsoft or any other major publisher, according to Fox. It’s just the nature of a business: a business has to make money. Fox believes the biggest influence on the game industry in Utah isn’t financial. Rather, it’s an industry constantly in flux. To make it in this industry, a developer has to create something uniquely theirs. “When you say there are developers that are making money and you can’t find their website, that’s probably because it’s one or two people who have found a way to make a living; they can make their house payments,” Fox said. “It’s a little niche they’ve carved out, which is great, but they’re not going to expand any time soon. Their niche isn’t big enough to cover any kind of expansion.” There’s always the chance a studio in Utah could be the developer of the next “Fortnite.” However, according to Fox, it’s more likely a small developer will have to find a different niche in the constantly evolving industry of technology. Even a developer with a niche, however, must handle the larger systemic differences between the gaming culture at large and the culture of their own community. For Utah, that conflict seems to be the choice between game development or family. Avalanche Software was a company, like EA Salt Lake, that operated and subsequently became defunct in Utah. Blake Wilks, a former artist for Avalanche Software, believes the major shortcomings of the video game industry lie in the culture surrounding game development itself. During Wilks’ time at the company, Avalanche was a game studio primarily focused on animated movie tie-ins. According to him, the problem with trying to remain in the game industry was the level of time commitment required during surges of work colloquially referred to as “crunch periods.” “We had ‘Code Red,’ which was mandatory 60 hours plus and at least one weekend, or one day in the weekend,” Wilks said. “We knew it was coming. It’s part of the deal you sign up for. Some companies are better than others about giving you free time off afterward. You’re just burned out and frazzled.” After major crunch periods, studios like Avalanche would have down time before development on the next project began in earnest. Crunch periods have experienced increased exposure in recent months after an interview from a major Rockstar Games developer and co-founder Dan Houser. Houser claimed some of his employees were working 100-hour weeks during key development times throughout 2018. Initial reports from this interview sparked renewed outrage in the gaming community at large, according to a report from Kotaku’s Jason Schreier. In his statement, Houser claimed the 100-hour weeks were necessary to finish the 300,000 animations, 500,000 lines of dialogue and countless lines of code for “Red Dead Redemption 2.” Houser later clarified his statement in an update to the Kotaku report. “We obviously don’t expect anyone else to work this way,” the update reads. “Across the whole company, we have some senior people who work very hard purely because they’re passionate about a project … But that additional effort is a choice, and we don’t ask or expect anyone to work anything like this.” A report from the International Game Developers Association stated crunch time is relatively common in the game industry. According to the report, 51 percent said their jobs involve crunch and another 44 percent reported working long or extended hours they don’t refer to as “crunch.” Forty-three percent said they experienced crunch more than twice in the last two years, and 53 percent said crunch was expected at their workplace. The report also showed of those employees working crunch, 37 percent reported working between 50-59 hours, 29 percent reported working between 60-69 hours and 14 percent reported working more than 70 hours a week in a given crunch period. Wilks said crunch periods at Avalanche could last as long as six months. As Wilks got older and had greater commitments to his family and his children, those crunch periods became harder and harder. “When I first started, I had younger kids, and it was okay to work all night if we needed to,” Wilks said. “But it starts to wear on you.” The wear, Wilks said, was often for work that would end up being completely thrown out. According to Wilks, some of the senior members in the company would grow tired of a project or portion of a project, and they’d scrap it entirely for something new. Wilks was one of the artists who worked on the Playstation exclusive |