Kotaku news editor Jason Schreier's new book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels offers an in-depth look behind the scenes at how games are made -- from pre-production all the way through to release.
It dives into the development of 10 major games, including several triple AAA titles (Witcher III, Uncharted 4, Destiny), two that were Kickstarter-funded (Pillars of Eternity and Shovel Knight), one that was cancelled (Star Wars 1313), and one breakout indie hit (Stardew Valley).
The book is about game development, warts and all, presented largely through the words and actions of developers, and as such it's a fascinating window into the minds and processes of many of the industry's most interesting people and studios. And while it was written for a general audience, it's full of lessons and insights that every developer could benefit from reading.
We chatted to Schreier about the themes and stories and got his permission to pull out five insightful quotes about game development. Each of these shows a different way in which game devs grapple with the challenges of their craft and try to make decisions that lead to the best possible games.
1) Neil Druckmann on Uncharted 4 and the risks of unchecked passion
“Your life’s passion sometimes isn’t in line with your life’s love,” Neil Druckmann, the codirector of Uncharted 4, said. “And sometimes those things are in conflict. In games, especially, a lot of people enter the game industry because of how much they love this medium, and, for us, how much we feel like we could push it and dedicate our lives to it to a large degree. But at times, if you’re not careful, it can become destructive to your personal life. So there was a lot of really personal experience to draw from.”
Druckmann touches on so much of game development culture here in describing his and the rest of the dev team's relationship to the conflict in the heart of protagonist Nathan Drake, who begins Uncharted 4 as an ordinary civilian — just a guy who lives a quiet life with his wife, but who misses the all-consuming lifestyle and extreme danger of his treasure-hunting past.
"Nearly every chapter contains stories of prolonged and unhealthy crunch, sometimes engaged in willingly, and the heavy tolls it takes."
In working on the Uncharted and Last of Us games, Schreier reports, the developers crunched hard — often staying at the office until 2 or 3am, to the great detriment to their mental and physical well-being — in pursuit of perfection. And it's hardly the only instance of crunch you'll read about. Nearly every chapter contains stories of prolonged and unhealthy crunch, sometimes engaged in willingly, and the heavy tolls it takes.
More than a summation of the Uncharted series' protagonist, Druckmann's quote reveals a problem at the core of modern game development: How do you follow your dreams and embrace your passions without destroying your relationships?
"It sums up the one of the main themes of the book, which is that a lot of people are just like killing themselves for this art," Schreier tells me. "I mean, that's how games are made. It's a lot of people just putting in brutal hours working their asses off. And I think that it's this idea of passion in the industry that leads a lot of game developers to work these really tough hours."
TAKEAWAY: It's important to find a balance between pursuing your passion(s) and maintaining your relationships so that you can have a life outside of games, lest you risk letting one — or the other — destroy you.
2) BioWare designer Daniel Kading on taking responsibility for fixing bad gameplay systems
Playtesting on an early build of Dragon Age: Inquisition revealed that the combat system was in shambles. But rather than make sudden overhauls or throw it out and start again, Schreier reports that lead encounter designer Daniel Kading got approval to grab the whole development team once a week for an hour of combat playtesting sessions. For these sessions, he and a group of other designers devised a set of encounters and post-playtest surveys that would help them pinpoint the problems.
When surveys came back during the first week of Kading’s experiment, the average rating was a dismal 1.2 (out of 10). Somehow, that was comforting to the Inquisition gameplay team.
“Morale took an astonishing turn for the better that very week,” Kading said. “It’s not that we could recognize the problems. It was that we weren’t shirking from them.”
The experiment worked. Every week they tweaked the combat systems based on playtest feedback, and every week the rating improved. After four weeks, when the experiment ended, the average rating from the surveys was 8.8.
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