Ask a games programmer

[Thoughtful Thug]

1. Do you get a lot of groupies?

2. What gaming developer that you wish to work for? My pick would be Rockstar Games

Seriously: That's cool that you do this for a living. Never knew this side of you.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

1) No

2) Rockstar? No! Nintendo, of course

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Does makin' games sour your ability to play games or improve them?

Do you like to play your own games?

I make suggestions on how to improve gameplay, but often it's a case of "it's a good idea, but leave it as it is. Often the difficulty is totally dumbed down which I don't like.

Towards the end of a project we have to play the game non-stop looking for bugs, it gets pretty tiresome then.

Do you sometimes write patches to fix games?

Nope, I do console games. They go through a rigorous approval process, so most of the bugs get found. Sometimes later territory releases get more bug fixes than others though (so the Japanese version ends up as the best one, usually).

How do you feel about the games you make? Would you consider some of them decent games you'd reccomend to someone to buy or overpriced shovelware?

Mostly shovelware. Jungle Party was quite good fun though, with a group of players.

 

[Gigaz]

Did you want to become a games programmer from start? What sort of education are the developers looking for?

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

Do you do any shader programming as part of your job?

Do you use any particular software development processes?

 

[aelf]

Towards the end of a project we have to play the game non-stop looking for bugs, it gets pretty tiresome then.

Don't you hire cheap labour to do that kind of thing? I did that for a while once. It was definitely tiresome, but I also thought that was partly due to the company I was working for and the games they made.

 

[Ajidica]

Since you seem to deal heavily with art assets, are you any good at skinning/modeling? Or does somebody else do all of that and you just make sure it works in game.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

Nope, I do console games. They go through a rigorous approval process, so most of the bugs get found. Sometimes later territory releases get more bug fixes than others though (so the Japanese version ends up as the best one, usually).

What do you think causes the low quality of a lot of EA Sports games? They're notorious for putting out games with bugs, which are then exploited by cheesers in online play.

Do they have testers who aren't football fans? Are they under pressure to meet deadlines? Or do they just not care because they have a monopoly?

 

[Ajidica]

Or do they just not care because they have a monopoly?

I think you just answered your own question.

 

[GhostWriter16]

What gaming company DO you work for?

 

[Labtec600]

What is your education back ground? What experience did you have before getting into this position?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Working on a Saturday, another great thing about working in games

I quite wanted to be a games programmer when I was at school, but got into it completely by accident, I went on a C programming course and the first job I saw at the Jobcentre that was looking for C programmers turned out to be a games company (only found at when I arrived for the interview), and I got the job!

We have character artists and animators to do the skinning/modelling, I just extract the data and turn it into the required format for the game engine. I am rubbish at art

We don't have any in house testers, we only have 24 people in the company I work for.

I haven't played an EA sports game since FIFA '95 which was far worse than the original FIFA soccer

I have a degree in maths and had no games experience before getting my first games job - actually my first "proper" job (apart from writing a text version of minesweeper on my C programming course when I was bored). It's hard to get a job these days without some experience though.

I don't write shaders myself but can offer help with the maths part (although it's mostly type ins from a shader book for the shader guys).

 

[GoodGame]

Since there was a thread about new "Ask a" threads.

Small company, underpaid, oversexed.

Can't talk about current games under non-disclosure.

Can't talk about specific companies who produce the games for us, I'd get angry then.

I mainly do tools coding (getting assets from art into the game) but also do gameplay stuff when we need to hit a deadline. AI, 3d maths and C++ are my main skills.

A. Programmers are oversexed?

What pick-up lines work for you:
1. at work?
2. at the bar?
3. online?




B. By tools coding, you make software for the graphic artists and level designers to use?

C. Have you had to do stints of Quality Assurance (beta tester, game player)? Did they help you get your foot in the door?


D. Have you mostly worked at one company, or jumped between companies? Is the profession mostly direct hire, or do you work freelance through an agency/on-your-own?

E. Did you intern during college? Did it influence where you ended up working?


EDIT: I'm guessing this is who you work for based on the clue you dropped:

Spoiler :

About Us

Magenta Software is a UK Games Developer based in Liverpool, with offices located at the historic Albert Dock complex overlooking the waterfront of the River Mersey.

Founded in 1994 by developers whose roots went back to the early days of home computer games, Magenta Software's in-house focus has always been towards developing great game play, which we believe is the true life-blood of any great title.

Over the years we have worked with some of the industries top publishers including Sony, Disney, Atari and Vivendi. We have also worked on a number of high-profile licenses including Stuart Little, Treasure Planet and The Cat in the Hat. These were all delivered day and date to coincide with the release of their respective films.

In 2006 we created the concept and IP that would become the 'Buzz! Junior' franchise for Sony. For the first game in the series, Buzz! Junior: Jungle Party, we won the 2007 Children's Videogame BAFTA. For the second game, Buzz! Junior: Robo Jam, we won the 2007 Children's Jury Giga Maus.

We are a first party developer for Sony on both the Playstation 2 and 3. In addition we are registered developers for Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii.

For further information about any aspect of Magenta Software just contact us at info@magentasoftware.com.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

A) Well I am.

1. No girls at work
2. Usually too drunk to remember
3. Great questions, hun

B) Mainly tools for exporting from 3d Studio to the game engine. I also do Windows tools for use by programmers and artists.

C) Nope, but we do extensively test at work when we get a new build etc.

D) I keep coming back to the 2nd company I worked for. Although I did do 18 months at another company before it was killed by not being given any new projects.

E) Nope. I just went on a 6 month course to learn C.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Any examples of particularly complicated mathematics used for programming mundane in-game features?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Lighting equations are very complicated, but hardly ever used in real-time. We can bake the lightmaps in 3D Studio Max.

Shadowing is quite complicated too, but I don't do that

Most stuff we do isn't that complicated, it's linear algebra (vectors, matrices, dot and cross products) and trig.

Physics is quite complicated though, but again we can use 3D Studio to do the physics simulation and export an animation. We haven't got enough coders to roll an in-house real time physics solver.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Shadowing is quite complicated too, but I don't do that

I guess that's why disabling shadows improves game performance significantly.

Most stuff we do isn't that complicated, it's linear algebra (vectors, matrices, dot and cross products) and trig.

I bet the average gamer would disagree.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Yeah, there's 2 ways to do shadows properly, either render the scene from the viewpoint of the light (so drawing several scenes a frame), or creating shadow volumes by projecting extra vertices away from the light direction. Both are quite expensive (multiple render passes vs. extra geometry).

 

[bathsheba666]

As an old time mainframe cobol/db2 programmer back in the day, this one always appealed to me:

What did the cobol progremmer say to the c programmer?
Do you want fries with this?

These days, I have to say it appeals less, as it moves nearer to prophecy from satire...

 

[squall78]

How much are your hands tied to satisfying shareholders/mainstream gamers? It seems to me nowadays with production costs being so high companies are taking the safe route over and over again.

If you could design a game with no expectations of profit, but just for fun, what type of game would you design?

What are your thoughts on Blizzard games?