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Game devs, what's the worst advice you've ever been given in your field?
- Thread starter makonero
- Start date
This isn't a general thing and is very specific to only me, but the worst advice I ever received regarding my game's development was from a consultant who advised me to basically "make it a twin stick shooter" (which would involve basically changing everything about the game) This person was being paid for this take btw. (to those who don't know, I'm making a metroidvania with a hybrid combat system between metroid-ish shooting and castlevania-ish melee).
It was useful in a sense though because I was overly reactive to all the noise I was hearing and it kind of made it clear that sometimes it's okay not to listen.
It was useful in a sense though because I was overly reactive to all the noise I was hearing and it kind of made it clear that sometimes it's okay not to listen.
I'm just small time but my friends and I were told to spend the money to form a L.L.C and protect our ip. It was completely unnecessary and a waste of money. I wouldn't suggest anyone bother to do this until they hit big.
OP
OP
i'm not a game dev, but "make it prettier" is always the least useful instruction/advice. just awful.
Advice is in work feedback or career advice?
For career advice it was some 1st year game programmer who told me (somebody who had 5+ years experience at the time) it wasn't necessary to do side research. Last I checked he got laid off and hasn't been able to get another position.
Also one time after saying that backwards compatibility isn't easy, somebody online said we should be able to easily do it by using something like the Java virtual machine.
For career advice it was some 1st year game programmer who told me (somebody who had 5+ years experience at the time) it wasn't necessary to do side research. Last I checked he got laid off and hasn't been able to get another position.
Also one time after saying that backwards compatibility isn't easy, somebody online said we should be able to easily do it by using something like the Java virtual machine.
I do not entirely disagree with this advice, but probably not for the reasons they meant. I tend to triangulate stuff at the end as I find it easier to find my forms and edge flow using quads.
The good advice to go for quads whenever possible, has been completely blown out of proportion to some idiotic mantra by some 3d artists.
If it's not causing shading issues, or needs to be animated, tris are more than fine if the alternative is doubling the time to get a model done.
It's not video games, but I am a hobbyist writer, and I once had a beta-reader rewrite parts of my story to show me how to actually write and I am still enraged by it. It didn't help that the way they rewrote was bad. It got rid of my own voice in favor of a dull space marine-style character and turned my female character into a stereotypical "bitch" archetype. Still the worse feedback I've ever gotten in five years.
If you build products for people to use this is advice every CEO will give.
More feedback than advice. And then side-eye at my suggestion that it would be $10.
Not advice perse, but I once got instructed to "just copy exactly how Timesplitters 2 AI worked"; even though that game was over 10 years old at the time.
Wonder where you live. An LLC is like 100$ to register and then a few dozen a year no?
Seems smart to me to register as one, as it simplifies your life tax wise if you get big (or at least saves you money). When tax season came, did you file as an individual or did you file your business side too?
Frankly, I don't fully agree with this. While there's a static cost to forming and then a yearly cost to maintaining an LLC, and *financially* it only makes sense at a certain point, LLC's protect you from personal legal liability and if you have any intention of commercially releasing a game and making money, it is absolutely not a bad idea. It can also simplify your taxes, if you do it right.
If you're a hobbyist, sure, stay away. But you often want to do this stuff before you become a target, which means potentially doing it before "making it big".
Source: Me, I almost got sued over the name of my first game, Sequence (now Before the Echo).
Also: I am not a lawyer or accountant, please talk to one responsibly before making personal financial decisions.
And your mom said you would never get anywhere with those games.
California. It was going to cost us about $1000 a year to keep the business going and our sales were practically non existent after the first month (we only launched and sold the game on Steam). We ended up filing individually that year and then dissolved the company. If we got big it would've been worth it but it ended up just being a waste of time and money for us.
That worry of liability was EXACTLY why we were convinced to set it up. It ended up being a waste in the end.
Uh, sometimes I don't need my health insurance but I still pay for it. Was it a waste?
I'm not saying it's a universally great idea, but calling it "the worst advice you've ever been given" doesn't seem accurate or fair. It's reasonable advice in most circumstances.
Edit: Damn beaten by like a second lol
Those analogies aren't appropriate with the experience I had. We could've established the company when we knew we needed to , not before.
Please recognize that this is so incredibly hypermild in terms of advice that could fuck your shit up in game dev
It ended up being bad advice for our case. That's my experience with it.
Uff, I can totally see how 1000$ can feel as a waste of money. My state is 20$ of yearly fees from what I'm checking haha.
Still, being able to deduct all the employees expenses as business expenses should have been worth it, you guys shouldn't have filled only individually. You gotta learn the shenanigans of tax code haha. (This ignoring the obvious benefits of a bankruptcy not affecting you personally and such).
I faced legal trouble after the moderate success of my first game and it was essential that I had it.
I understand the advice "didn't work out for you", but you need to understand the difference between bad advice and "we just didn't end up needing these reasonable precautions".
You take steps to protect yourself. Also, no, you cannot often just "form the company when you need to". Profits attributed to the game prior to the legal entity's creation are dubious, legal protections do not necessarily extend retroactively, etc. etc.
Anyway, this is derailing the thread to some extent, so I'll move on.
We thought about forming it in another state but ultimately decided to just make it easier and use one of our own addresses. The thing was this was out first game we ever developed together ( just three of us) and we wanted to dot our i's and cross the t's. Do it as legit as possible but it was all out of pocket and in our free time. We all had full time jobs during this. It was a really great learning experience for a variety of reasons and it was an awesome time. I just wish we didn't waste the money we did because quite frankly that could've gone towards advertising instead. Which honestly is something we were barely able to do.
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I hope this is in reference to North American game design universities with their debt....
I think it's a pretty important on topic conversation actually. You mentioned having to change the name of your game or face being sued. Did you , for example, hire a lawyer, have one on retainer , or anything of that sort? It's expensive as hell to do so . Were you able to just handle it yourself?
What the hell, that's awful. Loving this thread and inputs, btw.
At that point I had to hire a lawyer, which, yes, was expensive. But if the LLC had not been established, than those profits would be *my personal taxable income*, not my company's. (And, of course, most of a game's profits come very quickly after release, so even a quick filing after release would likely be deeply insufficient). Were I not able to pay damages/restitution, I would have to have declared bankruptcy and destroy my own personal finances for many years to come.
An LLC having to file for bankruptcy would suck, but my wages would not be garnished, my home or possessions not sold off, my own personal finances not utterly destroyed in that case. It is very prudent to take these sorts of precautions, but LLC's also provide 1) Clarity and distribution of profits for more than one owner/developer, 2) Easy of writing off business expenses/claiming deductions, 3) If you claim tax status as an S-Corp (you can do this even as an LLC), you aren't subject to self-employment tax and can contribute pre-tax dollars to a 401k.
I'll say it again: if you're an indie dev, please considering forming an LLC. It may not necessarily be right for everyone, but there are many resources online to help you decide, and you should likely talk to an accountant and/or lawyer.
Here is a blog post on the subject written by my actual current lawyer.
More career advice rather than field advice, but: "Start in QA to get your foot in the door to work toward the position you actually want."
To start off: Yes, it's absolutely valuable industry experience to work in QA, and you gain a lot of perspective on how things work. Full stop.
For the purposes of "working toward the position you actually want" though?
That might work if you're putting in 40-hour work weeks. However, keep your mental and physical well-being in mind when you're working 10+ hours a day, six days a week, for barely above minimum wage - to say nothing of the stress levels that may or may not be present - and still trying to find time for working on your skill set.
To start off: Yes, it's absolutely valuable industry experience to work in QA, and you gain a lot of perspective on how things work. Full stop.
For the purposes of "working toward the position you actually want" though?
That might work if you're putting in 40-hour work weeks. However, keep your mental and physical well-being in mind when you're working 10+ hours a day, six days a week, for barely above minimum wage - to say nothing of the stress levels that may or may not be present - and still trying to find time for working on your skill set.
Players, definitely. Players often (not alway, but often) give terrible advice. I think non-devs assume many things are easier to implement than they actually are. If you see players accusing the devs of being dumb, lazy, etc. for not implementing a certain feature or whatever, I guarantee the devs already thought through the problem and there is a valid reason why it isn't in the game.
When I began working in the industry as a junior artist, a guy who had been at the company a while suggested to me that 'nobody bothers with UV unwrapping anymore' and suggested I try the auto unwrap feature in 3d Coat. I had already seen the outcome, which resulted in a completely fragmented mosaic with seams cris-crossing all over the mesh and was entirely unusable for attempting to paint details on in any texturing software. He seemed happy to just let 3d Coat generate its smart materials despite the visible mess of seams on the maps.
I get it, unwrapping isn't exactly a lot of fun, but it's pretty damn necessary to create anything approaching decent textures.
I get it, unwrapping isn't exactly a lot of fun, but it's pretty damn necessary to create anything approaching decent textures.
Getting a job in QA is a really good way to get your foot in the door for a career in QA.
Honestly, though, QA may be a valid stepping stone in giant studios, but in smaller studios, taking that approach just makes you look extremely disrespectful towards QA people. And like you lied about your intentions. Don't do it. We can smell it. And we love QA.
The worst advice I got personally: "Specialize."
Not specializing is probably the reason I'm happily working at smaller studios with passionate and emotionally healthy teams. Also, there are disciplines (like tech art!) where being overly-specialized really works against you. Having a wide skillset has been way more important to my career than any one particular skill.
100% some modelers will have edge loops for days just to maintain their quads and as a tech animator it makes skinning harder and more annoying when there is useless extra edges all over the place
"You won't amount to anything, and you better get used to it. That way, there are more jobs to go around for the rest of us."
I heard variants of this bit of career "advice" fourteen years ago from veteran art directors and character designers (in interviews from four different game studios), and it only encouraged me to ignore their terrible advice to work harder on my skill set and draftsmanship, which in retrospect was lacking on my part. I focused on working on my portfolio to get into university and strengthen my skill set and draftsmanship, and after getting my diploma two years later, I've been working in the film and television animation industry since and will be applying for an art director's position next Monday.
I am so thankful for where I am, but I am even more thankful for those crusty artists... for giving me the worst advice I've ever received in my life so I can get my act together.
I heard variants of this bit of career "advice" fourteen years ago from veteran art directors and character designers (in interviews from four different game studios), and it only encouraged me to ignore their terrible advice to work harder on my skill set and draftsmanship, which in retrospect was lacking on my part. I focused on working on my portfolio to get into university and strengthen my skill set and draftsmanship, and after getting my diploma two years later, I've been working in the film and television animation industry since and will be applying for an art director's position next Monday.
I am so thankful for where I am, but I am even more thankful for those crusty artists... for giving me the worst advice I've ever received in my life so I can get my act together.
"Some people aren't cut out to be in this industry. Or in QA."
Was said to a group of us contract QA testers when going through "normal seasonal" layoffs. 80% of QA was being laid off, so this was definitely salt in the wound to the almost 100 testers there.
As for something more personal that wasn't said among a group of people...hmmmm. One was at the next company after that one and was told "stop working so hard we don't get paid enough to put in extra work". At the time OT helped me pay bills and I came from a background where as a kid I only got two games a year, so making sure games were as good as possible before going to market mattered a lot to me. TBF I didn't listen to that advice and continued to do my best and that apparently had rubbed some people the wrong way. But I kind of was a stickler in those days and stuck to my breaks/lunches very rigidly. I am a lot more easy going now but back when I was a little greener I was a busybody.
Was said to a group of us contract QA testers when going through "normal seasonal" layoffs. 80% of QA was being laid off, so this was definitely salt in the wound to the almost 100 testers there.
As for something more personal that wasn't said among a group of people...hmmmm. One was at the next company after that one and was told "stop working so hard we don't get paid enough to put in extra work". At the time OT helped me pay bills and I came from a background where as a kid I only got two games a year, so making sure games were as good as possible before going to market mattered a lot to me. TBF I didn't listen to that advice and continued to do my best and that apparently had rubbed some people the wrong way. But I kind of was a stickler in those days and stuck to my breaks/lunches very rigidly. I am a lot more easy going now but back when I was a little greener I was a busybody.
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