Ask a professional Game Dev any development or design questions that bother you

[Farlander]

Hey, everyone. I am not sure if AMA-type threads are allowed, didn't see any restrictions against that.

After participating in certain threads over my stay here, I noticed that a lot of people have interesting questions about the nature of game development, and sometimes it can be difficult to catch all of them. So I figured, considering that I wish for more transparency and less industry secrecy myself (even though it is not always feasible on a project/company level), it would be worthy to create a thread where people who are not part of the game industry can ask questions to game industry professionals, and get answers.

I will try to reply to as many questions as I reasonably can myself, but I invite any willing game dev to do so as well.

When it comes to me, I have 10-year experience in the field. Started as QA at EA for Origin, then worked as a designer back home in Moldova for a mobile company, then had a 6 years experience at Ubisoft in Kyiv and Bucharest (been a GD for Trials Fusion and Trials of the Blood Dragon, the Lead Designer on Trials Rising project, one of Lead GDs on Watch Dogs Legion and briefly one of leads on Rainbow Six Six Extraction), and now am back in mobile space again.

Have a burning game industry or simply gaming-related question that you'd like to hear a game dev reply to? Ask away!

EDIT: If you don't see your question answered straight away that might happen when me or someone else have more time to properly answer it.

 

[Cow Mengde]

Ooooh, this is interesting. Let me think of some questions.

 

[Kapote]

Thanks for this, really cool.

I always wondered if (and how much) developers read what forums like Era or Reddit are saying about their games and if it has any influence on DLC plans, updates, sequels, etc

 

[PlanetSmasher]

My question is: do developers actually like including RPG elements in games that aren't RPGs? I play so many modern games nowadays that have token RPG elements - usually stats on gear, but sometimes character levels or otherwise - that feel extremely tacked-on and shallow. The stats usually don't tangibly impact gameplay in a positive manner and often wind up resulting in combat feeling kind of unbalanced if you fight anyone who isn't exactly your character level.

Do developers actually enjoy doing this, or is it something usually requested/mandated by the publisher because the Powers That Be believe that the illusion of RPG elements, regardless of execution, promotes greater engagement with the game?

 

[Neoxon]

How often do you interact with the console dev kits before the optimization phase of development?

 

[PLASTICA-MAN]

Open world gameplay can become very tiresome repetitive and boring after quite some time. How can an open world game keep freshness all the time? If it is just the same old missions then it gets redundant. GTA5 manages to overcome this thanks to quirks and quips but a military only and shooter game may not have that luxury.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

Thanks for doing this, I would love to see more topics like this.

I have a question that's been on my mind recently with lots of outsider discussion about "blaming the engine". There are a lot of high profile examples of games from AAA studios like Square Enix and Bioware having really rough development cycles due to teams being shackled with insufficient engines for the job at hand. As a result of this, you see people suggesting whenever a game is having development trouble that the studio should have just used Unreal from the outset or something like that.

How much truth is there to studios being forced to make their games with insufficient tools?
Why are engines chosen for projects they are "clearly" (emphasis on the scare quotes there) not suited for?

 

[Farlander]

My question is: do developers actually like including RPG elements in games that aren't RPGs? I play so many modern games nowadays that have token RPG elements - usually stats on gear, but sometimes character levels or otherwise - that feel extremely tacked-on and shallow. The stats usually don't tangibly impact gameplay in a positive manner and often wind up resulting in combat feeling kind of unbalanced if you fight anyone who isn't exactly your character level.

Do developers actually enjoy doing this, or is it something usually requested/mandated by the publisher because the Powers That Be believe that the illusion of RPG elements, regardless of execution, promotes greater engagement with the game?

Click to shrink...

There is no one answer for this.

Sometimes it is mandated from above and devs are against this (had personal experience with this kind of thing).

Sometimes it is an attempt to get a feeling of progression that is lacking, but since it wasn't thought of from the get go might feel tacked on.

Sometimes it is done just because another game does it.

And sometimes devs really want to do it, and usually cases like that are where it works best :)

 

[Lobster Roll]

No questions. Just wanted to say thank you for being on Era and also being open to having this Q&A. The way people talk about games development on here sometimes is so far disconnected from reality and ... well, niceness, that I'm surprised that devs stick around here.

 

[Gangrel]

For PC ports how do you decide where you store save data? I've seen saves stored anywhere from Documents to AppData.

 

[Turnscr3w]

Yoooo, I like this !

1. How much does RAM matter in game development ?
2. What's the main difference between first person and third person game development?
3. What goes into the art style of a game?

Thank you for doing this!

 

[Farlander]

Thanks for this, really cool.

I always wondered if (and how much) developers read what forums like Era or Reddit are saying about their games and if it has any influence on DLC plans, updates, sequels, etc

Click to shrink...

I don't remember a case where a single post or anything would affect any plans, but general community response is certainly measured and can influence decisions. Most of the time community managers gather info for dev teams, a lot of devs read forums and reddit themselves too but... let's just say some places can be quite toxic and reading how people expess their thoughts can be daunting.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

There is no one answer for this.

Sometimes it is mandated from above and devs are against this (had personal experience with this kind of thing).

Sometimes it is an attempt to get a feeling of progression that is lacking, but since it wasn't thought of from the get go might feel tacked on.

Sometimes it is done just because another game does it.

And sometimes devs really want to do it, and usually cases like that are where it works best :)

Click to shrink...

That makes sense to me, yeah. You can kind of tell when the devs were really engaged with making the RPG elements actually work and you can tell when it feels more like something they did because they felt they had to.

 

[ScOULaris]

Mine is an oddly specific question that you might not be able to answer, but I'll let it rip anyway.

Why do so many developers struggle with offering decent scanline/CRT filters for retro-style games or emulated releases? This is something that the emulation scene figured out decades ago, and there are dozens of excellent-looking shaders and filters readily available today that offer clean scaling and an authentic high-end CRT look. But in nearly all commercial game releases (indie or otherwise), if scanline or CRT visual options are included they look awful. They either don't scale evenly, or they're just a crude overlay of black lines, or they go too far in adding artificial noise to mimic a really bad composite connection on a shitty CRT. Even friggin' Nintendo themselves can't get it right with their NES and SNES NSO apps.

I just don't understand why this relatively simple and long-resolved design aspect seems to escape so many developers who decide to include such a visual option in their 2D games.

I'm genuinely seeking understanding here and not looking to put any developers down. It just strikes me as odd that you have such technically talented programmers and artists working on games that don't seem to mind or notice how bad these CRT filters tend to look in commercially released games 90% of the time.

 

[Farlander]

Mine is an oddly specific question that you might not be able to answer, but I'll let it rip anyway.

Why do so many developers struggle with offering decent scanline/CRT filters for retro-style games or emulated releases? This is something that the emulation scene figured out decades ago, and there are dozens of excellent-looking shaders and filters readily available today that offer clean scaling and an authentic high-end CRT look. But in nearly all commercial game releases (indie or otherwise), if scanline or CRT visual options are included they look awful. They either don't scale evenly, or they're just a crude overlay of black lines, or they go too far in adding artificial noise to mimic a really bad composite connection on a shitty CRT. Even friggin' Nintendo themselves can't get it right with their NES and SNES NSO apps.

I just don't understand why this relatively simple and long-resolved design aspect seems to escape so many developers who decide to include such a visual option in their 2D games.

Click to shrink...

I wish to hear an answer for that too :D I never had the chance to talk to somebody who worked on that and a lack of a proper filter or color correction in GBA game collections at least bothers me to no end.

 

[est1992]

How much of the writing of narrative driven games are done beforehand and throughout development? Games such as TLOU, Spider-Man, Ghost of Tsushima, etc.

 

[MamaSpaghetti]

What metrics are used by corporate to track game success, outside of game sales. Are 24 hour peaks on steam for example a metric that is measured, is DLC attachment rate measured, etc. And how does this affect the early planning stages of the game design itself?

IE If DLC Attachment is very important, are you instructed to craft DLC plans early on, when it was something that may have been a smaller section of the game but included from the beginning? Just general ideas like this.

 

[Deleted member 14089]

Oooh, I enjoyed the Q&ERA! threads. This is quite spontaneous! Thank you for being open to questions and taking your time.

Any 1 of these would be nice if someone can :). I hope I formulated them well and they're relevant to the thread xD.

1. How do you come around and pitch a game you'd like to see? I've seen cases of exploration phases in game development, but there may be moments where something you or someone else had in mind didn't come to fruition.
2. Do you feel more constrained nowadays in game development regarding what you can make? Some games may seem like they're set up to be the big competitor to TITLE X, whereas the talent may be better off doing something original.
3. What were some scary/exciting moments you may have had up to the lead up for E3/Gamescom?
4. How do you handle the transition from genre to genre and platform (e.g. PC/console to mobile)? For example, separate your the mindset for an open world to something more constrained like a platformer.
5. Do you feel like there is a flatter hierarchy when it comes to the platforms? For example, gaming on mobile has as much weight and importance as PC/console, but also in terms of the technical size due to technology shifting and allowing better graphics to appear on phones?

1. Varies from company to company/publisher to publisher. Generally speaking larger companies have a whole process of pitching/greenlighting/having different "gates" so to speak, while in smaller studios it can be more freeform/organic.
2. I think nowadays there's a lot more possibilities on how you can choose a project you would rather work on. Even in a larger studio.
4. The funny thing about this is that a lot of high-level design principles between all the different types of games - from fighting to puzzle to open-world, are sort of very similar. It's all about loops, pacing, game feel, etc. etc. (broadly speaking), it's just that you have to apply some different details depending on the genre. But I never had big issues transitioning because of that.
5. Not really for one reason: even though platforms have very similar capabilities now, they have very different uses. People on PC play differently (different session lengths, different preferences, different priorities) than on mobile and those play differently than on Switch and those play differently than on PS/Xbox, the latter two being the most similar platforms nowadays due to both being high fidelity consoles.

Click to shrink...

Thank you very much for sharing and the answers ^^. I got a new perspective on things

 

[Jiraiya]

How difficult is it to make a good photo mode? And does the main perspective make it anymore difficult than another? This is going to be a beautiful generation and i like taking pics of all your hard work.

Thanks for the thread.

 

[Lengualo]

I wish to hear an answer for that too :D I never had the chance to talk to somebody who worked on that and a lack of a proper filter or color correction in GBA game collections at least bothers me to no end.

Click to shrink...

I'm an artist.

Its because of how modern screens work. Scanlines on old CRT monitors were a natural occurrence stemming from how the technology behind the screen works. Modern screens use completely different technology, and its very difficult to replicate that affect convincingly.

You're attempting to artificially recreate a naturally occurring phenomenon, which often isn't going to be as realistic as the real thing.

Another part of why, could also be related to technical knowledge. Your average technical artist or shader programmer probably doesn't understand the ins and outs of why a CRT creates scanlines beyond a surface level understanding, less how to simulate that. Its such a specific issue that isn't in high enough demand for most artists/technical artists to research. So, instead try to replicate it "by eye".

 

[BennyWhatever]

Are Accessibility features usually planned parts of development, or are they more of an afterthought? Thinking things like text size adjustments, color contrast adjustments, etc (not necessarily difficulty settings).
I ask because I play a lot of games where it would be great to be able to resize things like UI components or text due to the screen I'm on, but those options aren't available which really affects my enjoyment of a game.

 

[Thera]

Thanks a lot for that :)

A lot of questions, but I will just ask one which is a common problem recently :

Where you forced to release an incomplete / broken product to meet a deadline? If so, how the team copped with that?

 

[Farlander]

Yoooo, I like this !

1. How much does RAM matter in game development ?
2. What's the main difference between first person and third person game development?
3. What goes into the art style of a game?

Thank you for doing this!

Click to shrink...

1. Depends on a game, but generally speaking A LOT. On Legion for example we had to store a lot of info in memory for scheduling and playing as anyone, that meant things like a 40 NPC limit in the area (with PS4/x1 as target), some massive hacks like Blackout had to be cut and some NPC behavior like ambulances arriving after someone is injured too, because messing up the schedule of tons of NPCs wasn't an option. This is just but one of many examples when RAM matters.

2. First thing that comes to mind is a LOT more animation work for the main character :D Movement that feels good is trickier to do. Camera is a pain as well. First person has its challenges too of course but I would say often it is more straightforward.

3. That's a very broad question that I am not sure I can answer.

 

[OGlol]

Man I feel like I always have so many questions for stuff like this but drawing blanks now.

How do you balance your vision of the game and plans for it vs what the fans/community wants if they don't align?

 

[Pheonix]

Ok.. first f thanks for this. Now my question,

Do devs not know when they have a bad product on their hands? Like, times there s a collection 70+ devs on a project, and times a lot more of that number has actually touched the project. DO they not all see when there are obvious mechanical, design, or even graphical flaws with the game? Or is there some sort of group let's just push it out the door and be done with it type thing?

 

[Dr. Monkey]

I don't remember a case where a single post or anything would affect any plans, but general community response is certainly measured and can influence decisions. Most of the time community managers gather info for dev teams, a lot of devs read forums and reddit themselves too but... let's just say some places can be quite toxic and reading how people expess their thoughts can be daunting.

Click to shrink...

+100000. Keep yourself safe out there. <3
I think a lot about Charles Randall's (now sadly deleted; captured here) twitter thread about this some years ago and how impactful this can be both on devs and on conversations like this one, so thanks for starting this for folks!

Thanks for this, really cool.

I always wondered if (and how much) developers read what forums like Era or Reddit are saying about their games and if it has any influence on DLC plans, updates, sequels, etc

Click to shrink...

Hi! Not a dev but a researcher in game studies and there's a lot of interesting work on this, particularly at the intersection of technical and professional writing studies and game studies. Cody Reimer has a really great chapter on League of Legends and interplay between reddit users and LoL devs, and Luke Thominet has done great work on open dev communities, tracking what kinds of feedback gets kicked up the chain and what gets... I'll generously say less engagement. If anyone is interested in reading perspectives from that side, there's some great work, and Reimer is also host of a podcast called Game Studies Review in which he and co-host Alex Layne worked through one of Thominet's pieces. I'm happy to pull full citations if anyone's interested but can't google this stuff up.

There's also a research collective focused on Discord now that I expect will be looking to study these phenomenon in dedicated and official servers.

I'm in the middle of a project on industry pathways right now so a lot of this is fresh in my mind, so I figured I'd drop it in the thread in case anyone was curious about how this stuff is viewed through academic lenses!

 

[Farlander]

How much of the writing of narrative driven games are done beforehand and throughout development? Games such as TLOU, Spider-Man, Ghost of Tsushima, etc.

Click to shrink...

The biggest mistake one can make is write the story first and then try to build a game around it.

Second biggest mistake is make a game first and then try to push a story into it, like Mirror's Edge.

Best when it is in parallel. While the game itself is in conceptualization phase, the story beats and structure is conceptualized as well. You can make that way the gameplay and narrative play off each other, and then once the direction is finalized - detailed writing comes into play.

Of course just like with design there will be iterations once things start taking a clearer picture.

 

[2Blackcats]

Thanks.

Are devs upset when their game details leak before the big reveal?

 

[Farlander]

Are Accessibility features usually planned parts of development, or are they more of an afterthought? Thinking things like text size adjustments, color contrast adjustments, etc (not necessarily difficulty settings).
I ask because I play a lot of games where it would be great to be able to resize things like UI components or text due to the screen I'm on, but those options aren't available which really affects my enjoyment of a game.

Click to shrink...

The answer is "yes" :D i.e. it is both, depending on the project. Though nowadays accessibility features are more often thought in advance which is great! But sometimes can still be an afterthought, sadly.

 

[BennyWhatever]

The answer is "yes" :D i.e. it is both, depending on the project. Though nowadays accessibility features are more often thought in advance which is great! But sometimes can still be an afterthought, sadly.

Click to shrink...

Awesome, thank you!!
I know I just started Forza Horizon 5 last night and it has a bazillion Accessibility options front-and-center and I love that. It seems to be much more common today than it was just 10 years ago.

 

[Turnscr3w]

1. Depends on a game, but generally speaking A LOT. On Legion for example we had to store a lot of info in memory for scheduling and playing as anyone, that meant things like a 40 NPC limit in the area (with PS4/x1 as target), some massive hacks like Blackout had to be cut and some NPC behavior like ambulances arriving after someone is injured too, because messing up the schedule of tons of NPCs wasn't an option. This is just but one of many examples when RAM matters.

2. First thing that comes to mind is a LOT more animation work for the main character :D Movement that feels good is trickier to do. Camera is a pain as well. First person has its challenges too of course but I would say often it is more straightforward.

3. That's a very broad question that I am not sure I can answer.

Click to shrink...

Thank you very much for the answers !
Yeah, the 3rd one was probably too broad and general :D, sorry about that.

If it's ok to change the question, can I ask what goes into optimization?

 

[Rhaknar]

Farlander we have all (I'm sure including yourself) ran into those "what were they thinking?" moments with videogames. A badly designed puzzle, a weird difficulty spike, some random boss with some bullshit, whatever.

My question is, have you ever had one of those moments in a game you worked on? Like did you ever go "yeah what were we thinking with that particular section" or something?

 

[Monarch1501]

Very nice thread :)

Thanks.

Are devs upset when their game details leak before the big reveal?

Click to shrink...

Always.

 

[Farlander]

Ok.. first f thanks for this. Now my question,

Do devs not know when they have a bad product on their hands? Like, times there s a collection 70+ devs on a project, and times a lot more of that number has actually touched the project. DO they not all see when there are obvious mechanical, design, or even graphical flaws with the game? Or is there some sort of group let's just push it out the door and be done with it type thing?

Click to shrink...

Devs know flaws of their games better than any player that is going to touch it.

The question is never "do devs not see it", but "how early the problems are caught and what you can do about it within the time or budget or team capacity".

Here is the thing: no game is good INSTANTLY. You can agree on some direction with a prototype that is quite good, but a prototype is still a prototype. Games act and look like shit when they start developing. It is normal. Systems and things are creates out of nothing, lol.

So the thing is, unless the direction itself has been red flagged, at the beginning problems are not an indicator of a bad product - they are just a natural part of development.

And then things start getting finished.... and that's when you start noticing problems. But at that point things are already in motion, you can't just easily change stuff, and besides the skill of a dev or a team there are so many other things that influence the final quality of a game.

But to answer your question, devs do know when they're releasing a bad game and it is a shitty feeling.

 

[2Blackcats]

Very nice thread :)



Always.

Click to shrink...

Thanks.

To you and any other devs reading, we all really appreciate your hard work. Thanks for all the games.

 

[Zim]

Thanks.

Are devs upset when their game details leak before the big reveal?

Click to shrink...

Why wouldn't we be?
If something leaks that is pre-alpha, then the whole internet thinks that represents the final product.
I get people wanting more transparency from game development, but y'all are too quick to judge EVERYTHING lol.

 

[makonero]

Do developers not realize how small their text looks like on the console it's playing on?

 

[Cantaim]

actually I have a question that might be a bit more specific but im curious to hear your response. When designing systems to allow users to make user made content. Have there been times where after you've been caught off guard with what users were able to make with the tools provided with them? Or does it fall within your expectations but with some users putting in a level of effort that get you going "I didn't think somebody would work this hard with what we gave them".

I ask this because I see your experience with Trials and with the stuff I've seen for it over the years. I'm curious if you ever just saw something one day and went "huh didn't think they could do that" haha

 

[BennyWhatever]

And then things start getting finished.... and that's when you start noticing problems. But at that point things are already in motion, you can't just easily change stuff, and besides the skill of a dev or a team there are so many other things that influence the final quality of a game.

Click to shrink...

This makes me think about big budget games that were announced way before they were ready, in which we hear that development had to restart. It almost sounds like there's a point of no return with a sunk-cost fallacy.

 

[Farlander]

How often do you interact with the console dev kits before the optimization phase of development?

Click to shrink...

I rarely do personally, usually play development builds on PC because 80% of the time that is more than enough for my work, but in general it is standard to keep making builds for all platforms and checking the game on all of them cause many other people need it.

 

[AAION]

Is there a lot of overlap in roles in game design? Do you generally feel like your feedback is welcome or appreciated even when it's for items outside your own scope?

 

[BumbleChump]

Why do developers not design their visuals to consistently hit performance targets? Even right when a new console generation starts, there are games that can't hold a steady frame rate, or utilize the max resolution of said console.

Certain games or series get this right, such as smash bros. Native 1080p and pretty dang good 60fps on a Wii U of all things. Even on the 3ds it was handling full res, 3D, and 60 fps. I do recognize that it's a fighting game, and only has to design around one platform at a time though.

 

[Atom]

Lovely idea for a thread, thanks for doing this.

 

[SickNasty]

Devs know flaws of their games better than any player that is going to touch it.

The question is never "do devs not see it", but "how early the problems are caught and what you can do about it within the time or budget or team capacity".

Here is the thing: no game is good INSTANTLY. You can agree on some direction with a prototype that is quite good, but a prototype is still a prototype. Games act and look like shit when they start developing. It is normal. Systems and things are creates out of nothing, lol.

So the thing is, unless the direction itself has been red flagged, at the beginning problems are not an indicator of a bad product - they are just a natural part of development.

And then things start getting finished.... and that's when you start noticing problems. But at that point things are already in motion, you can't just easily change stuff, and besides the skill of a dev or a team there are so many other things that influence the final quality of a game.

But to answer your question, devs do know when they're releasing a bad game and it is a shitty feeling.

Click to shrink...

This is a good response I want to agree with. (I am a AAA dev also so I'm not talking out my ass)

No one knows how much of a stinker something is as much as the people who made it, but like he says, that realisation often comes late in development.

There is also the reality that sometimes the time and ability is just not there. There's a perception that if the team realise something is bad, the solution is 'ok then just make it good.' Problem is, if 'just make it good' was easy, there would be no bad games ever! Sometimes there's no time left, or no budget left, or simply no ability or understanding to do it, or the person who made some of those systems left two years ago and you don't want to rip it all out at this point.

Sometimes things just end up bad and you have to just accept reality.

Unfortunately gamers aren't very good at that last part lol.

 

[Farlander]

actually I have a question that might be a bit more specific but im curious to hear your response. When designing systems to allow users to make user made content. Have there been times where after you've been caught off guard with what users were able to make with the tools provided with them? Or does it fall within your expectations but with some users putting in a level of effort that get you going "I didn't think somebody would work this hard with what we gave them".

I ask this because I see your experience with Trials and with the stuff I've seen for it over the years. I'm curious if you ever just saw something one day and went "huh didn't think they could do that" haha

Click to shrink...

I never expected to see someone make fully functional Minecraft in Trials. We hired that person as a level designer for Rising. :D

 

[Sweet Blue]

I rarely do personally, usually play development builds on PC because 80% of the time that is more than enough for my work, but in general it is standard to keep making builds for all platforms and checking the game on all of them cause many other people need it.

Click to shrink...

Yeah as a Dev Tester, I can confirm, you never know when a platform-specific issue can show up, so we have to check all the devkits quite often (And with cross-generation development, all of you can imagine how time-consuming it can be =) )

 

[Wreckord Collection]

Are devs upset when their game details leak before the big reveal?

Click to shrink...

Depends on what the nature of the leak is. I wouldn't say I get "upset," but it can be disappointing and has a tendency to change how devs communicate with fans. Announcements and reveals can be a good morale boost for the team/studio and leaks often deflate these moments. I don't think any dev enjoys it when there's a leak.

Is there a lot of overlap in roles in game design? Do you generally feel like your feedback is welcome or appreciated even when it's for items outside your own scope?

Click to shrink...

Sometimes.
The best studios I've worked for welcomed constructive feedback from anybody in the studio. We're all here to work together and make the best thing possible, right?
The worst studios I've worked for would ignore feedback if it doesn't come from the right department or even the right person within that department. This tends to be a symptom of larger personnel issues within a studio's culture.

 

[2Blackcats]

Why wouldn't we be?
If something leaks that is pre-alpha, then the whole internet thinks that represents the final product.
I get people wanting more transparency from game development, but y'all are too quick to judge EVERYTHING lol.

Click to shrink...

Absolutely.

Also there's a massive difference between wanting more transparency and leaking something. One certainly doesn't justify the other.

Depends on what the nature of the leak is. I wouldn't say I get "upset," but it can be disappointing and has a tendency to change how devs communicate with fans. Announcements and reveals can be a good morale boost for the team/studio and leaks often deflate these moments. I don't think any dev enjoys it when there's a leak.

Click to shrink...

Nice, thanks.

 

[zoodoo]

I never expected to see someone make fully functional Minecraft in Trials. We hired that person as a level designer for Rising. :D

Click to shrink...

That's pretty cool

 

[Skies]

With budgets and expectations constantly growing, the typical AAA gaming product seems to be bigger and more complicated than ever before.

I would have to imagine that experience gained on the job and toolsets becoming more user-friendly might offset some of that increased pressure, but in your experience would you say that working at an AAA studio has become easier or harder over time?