Is the development sector leaving its veterans behind?
In the 1970s sci-fi Logan's Run humanity lives in an underground city full of sexually promiscuous party people.
At least they do until they hit 30, when they're toasted by the authorities.
Does this happen to 40-year-old developers, who don't even benefit from the Bacchanalian revelry beforehand? After all, most game developers are young, as we discussed last month.
Assuming managers aren't taking older staff out the back and shooting them, why do the years of long activity of making games involve so few individuals over 40?
Here are a few guesses...
Skewed and Reviewed have written an Opinion Piece covering issues in the gaming industry, how current issues were issues years ago, and what can be done to help restore consumer trust.
Nothing. It's up to the gamers to stop consuming content from companies that they don't agree with.
How do you know if you agree with it or not unless you play it? Which without conventions forces gamers to rely on trailers. Perhaps Demos should be made more frequently. But companies need to do better as well.
But is that not what they have now? Tons of gameplay or are you talking about watching actual gamers play it versus the trailers and streams? The big issue is that some companies pay streamers and influencers and they create content but for me; that is hardly a fair, unbiased, and factual look at a game.
They usually are attached to the money sadly. It would be nice to have gamers in charge but you have so much money invested that business people are needed. Hence the issue; you need people who know business but are also gamers who know have an eye to the community. It sounds simple in theory that if you give gamers quality games that they want to play; money will be made. But that is not always so.
Marie Dealessandri speaks to Borislav Slavov and Gustavo Santaolalla about “the new golden age of games music”.
A famous actor from Starship Troopers has showered praise on Helldivers 2 and said he is open to the idea of playing General Brasch.
We have so many years of gaming experience, it's impossible to put a value on that. I recently decided to switch careers after a decade in the brokerage industry and follow my heart. Sitting in my game programming class, the instructor showed off a couple of levels of an old game he had recreated for demonstrative purposes (Gods which was on the Amiga) I loved that game. It was the first platformer that really embraced it's puzzle elements. I mentioned this to the guy sitting next to me who replied "Dude. I was 3 when that came out."
I'm not knocking young guys, but I think older gamers are just as passionate about gaming. And we've got the life experience to get the job done. Looking around my class I wonder how some of these guys can get to school in the morning, let alone work productively in a group environment, they're so socially dysfunctional. And that's a good 50% of the class. Why would anyone possibly hire a guy who spouts transformer names at random and asks the instructor if "That's his real name"? If you've got two, equally qualified programmers in the room, one is, how should I put this, sane and the other wants to ramble on on about the differences between anime and manga in the interview, seriously. Which is a developer going to pick?
...I was just thinking about that...
I remember when rpg's where just little sprites, but had grander stories then most rpg's these days. I remember the magic, and spirit people use to put in their games and movies alike. Now there is just no soul in the industry. Its all about crunching those numbers Im afraid.
I disagree whenever someone uses the technology moves too fast reason when someone says a job is for the young. I work in a technology field for a large corporation. Our more experiienced people are usually the ones most up to speed on changes, and they coach our younger people. It is just a stereotype, because at least in the USA, there is a superficial part of our culture that does not respect people as they get older.
My thinking on this has more to do with what people want from a career based upon where they are at in life. When you are older, you have been through the ropes, and gone through the ups & downs of working in unstable jobs. Youget more pragmatic about how many more years you expect to work, and want to plan your career path more carefully. Many of us start moving into management positions to mentor the younger workers that are on the front lines doing the work.
I personally think that we need more new designers to circulate.
My step-dad was lead designer on that new Leisure Suit Larry game. (he used to work on titles such as Dungeon Keeper/Populous along side Peter Molyneux, he is now working at Team 17)
LSL was such a suck up game, when compared to his previous titles he worked on. It features fetch quests, linear gameplay with very little immersion into storyline argh I could mention 50 others. but going off topic slightly.
I feel that games have evolved faster than this older generation of designers and such we need an influx of this generation to keep up the fresh ideas and new experimental games.
Of course Im not saying ALL of the older generation are a bit outdated, we wouldn't have hits such as GOW, Uncharted etc.