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Behind the Guildhall - The Story of the Students 111

Posted by Zonk from the game-design-for-fun-and-profit dept.
Sam Machkovech writes "Multiple stories about SMU's Guildhall game design school have already shown up on Slashdot, but none like this. My friend and coworker Paul dug into the motivations and stories behind people who dropped their lives to learn the art of game design in an upstart school, and what the story may lack in technical information, it more than makes up for in the students' accounts. Included is a particularly touching story about a student who survived the 2002 Sari Club terrorist attack in Bali. It also touches upon the excessive overtime and dedication that the job requires, which means graduates should be plenty prepared for their future careers."
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Behind the Guildhall - The Story of the Students

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  • Is it worth it? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Mr.Dippy ( 613292 )
    I would love to learn hard core C++ and design 3D interactive worlds but spending 60 to 80 hours a week working is not my idea of a satisfying career. I know it's not the same thing but if you love programming and want to try to make a career out of it set your sites to application work in PHP/PERL/Java/etc/etc. just my 2 cents
    • I don't think everyone can get the same sense of accomplishment and satisfaction from PHP/Perl/Java/etc web stuff as you would creating 3D worlds. I think controlling gravity, the length of a day, the general physics of a world would give me slightly more of the "I AM GOD" feeling than taking numbers from form fields and putting them in a database.
      • There might be more of a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction in creating 3D worlds, but I wouldn't be willing to put so much time and effort into it. I would rather find something relatively easier and high-paying and create 3D worlds in my spare time.

  • Wait a minute (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 24, 2004 @10:38AM (#10909267)
    "...graduates should be plenty prepared for their future careers."

    We should be trying to remedy this work situation, not prepare people for it.

    • Re:Wait a minute (Score:2, Informative)

      by Darkon ( 206829 )
      It's a joke. Laugh.
    • If people are aware of the situation that they are getting into, and choose to get into it anyhow, should government legislate it?

      Now, I think employers should be required to divulge what actual working conditions are. Not just to prospective employees, but to the public as a whole. Then, as a consumer, I can choose whether or not to buy a product from a given company.

      And all "subsidiaries" ought to display who their parent company is. I get sick and tired of a large company dividing themselves up... one
      • But bottom line: Make the information public, and you will find the need for gov't intervention decreases

        Won't gov't intervention be required to make the information public?

      • Re:Wait another minute (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 24, 2004 @10:53AM (#10909386)
        I for one would buy games from companies that use only free range programmers

        • Re:Wait another minute (Score:3, Insightful)

          by gclef ( 96311 )
          How would that work? I mean, seriously...even if you open the door to the coop, they'd just stay in & play games. What can you do if your free-range programmers don't want to range free? Can you still use the "organic software" (now there's an interesting term) label if you gave them the choice, but they didn't take it?

      • Re:Wait another minute (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot&worf,net> on Wednesday November 24, 2004 @10:53AM (#10909391)
        Depends.

        The game companies can get away with all sorts of stuff because demand is huge vs. supply. I'm sure most of us at one point or another wanted to have a job that did nothing but involved games (or perhaps more correctly, to show our parents that playing games can be a job). A QA tester (which is probably where most people start) has a pretty nice job description - "Play games all day and report bugs" - sounds fairly enticing to sit in front of a computer/TV playing games - prerelease games, at that! Of course, while accurate, the true job is far more mundane, and the reality of it all sinks in (60 hour weeks, $8/hr, must find X bugs every week), and the "play" involves running into walls continually.

        Others see programming as the way to go. Given the option (without knowledge of working conditions) of a boring job programming Microsoft Word, or some application using a database for insurance companies, and an "exciting programming job" as entry level game programmer, which looks more appealing?

        EA and other companies have long treated employees this way - it's nothing new. Just until quite recently, it was more or less a poorly-kept industry secret (I can't recall when I first heard about it, but I knew when I graduated). Of course, I *did* apply to gaming companies, but this was more of "finding a job" rather than "I want a job in the gaming industry".

      • Re:Wait another minute (Score:5, Insightful)

        by EnderWiggnz ( 39214 ) on Wednesday November 24, 2004 @10:53AM (#10909392)
        If people are aware of the situation that they are getting into, and choose to get into it anyhow, should government legislate it?

        so - if a company has a policy to hire only 8 year old girls to work the sewing machines, but discloses it, they should be allowed to do it?

        take your randian shit and go home. the only way capitalism works, is if it is well-regulated.
        • thank you. I'd give you all my karma points if I could.
        • Your logic is flawed. In the example I am citing, the workers are over 18. They are intelligent enough to be programmers, therefore should be intelligent enough to make a choice about whether to take a job or not.

          I am merely stating that we should be given all the infromation we need to make an intelligent decision.

          And I see in another subthread, you bring up minimum wage. I live in the inner city, and work in my spare time with the children there. One of the biggest problems is a lack of jobs in these ar
          • And I see in another subthread, you bring up minimum wage. I live in the inner city, and work in my spare time with the children there. One of the biggest problems is a lack of jobs in these areas, and laws that make it very difficult to get jobs if you are under 18. Minimum wage and child labor laws stopped many abuses. However, it has created a wonderful mess... if you are under 18, and you want to earn money, it will either be through illegal means, or collecting a check for becoming a parent.

            It could

      • Just because a prospective worker is aware of the situation doesn't make it legal/ethical to deprive that worker of overtime or compensation. Instead of developing a reasonable number of games at a time, it sounds like developers with perpetual crunch time are working on twice as many games as they should be, overworking the employees and pretty much turning unpaid overtime and comp time into company profit, essentially stealing from the employee.
      • Yes, governments or some power (Unions perhaps) need to be a counter force against the companies in situations like that. Look at the mill towns that sprang up in the South during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Working conditions there were horrible. Those people knew of the situation they were getting into as well. They had no choice.

        • Yes, governments or some power (Unions perhaps) need to be a counter force against the companies in situations like that. Look at the mill towns that sprang up in the South during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Working conditions there were horrible. Those people knew of the situation they were getting into as well. They had no choice.

          Don't worry, the minimum wage cause a lot of those companies either to move or go out of business. A lot of the lobbying for the minimum wage was actually done by

          • For the people living in these towns their choice was work in the mill or have no job at all. The mill WAS the town. At most maybe 2-3 mills in a given area and the owners of those mills were organized otgether to keep working conditions horrible. The same thing happened in the North as well (read The Jungle). Without some kind of group with power to represent workers companies will walk all over their employees.
          • I won't deny the working conditions were horrible, but why do you way they had no choice? That should read:
            I won't deny the working conditions were horrible, that certainly was true, but why do you think they had no choice?
            • because the individual, living in a rural town, dominated by one company, has no practical choice.

              his choices are work at the company, or starve.

              there is no choice here, there is no mobility, there is only one option, work for the towns company, or starve.

              the individual mass man has very little power in a business relationship, especialy one where his labor is a commodity product itself (i.e. production work), and his environment is dominated by one powerful business.

      • Would you rather buy a game from a company who guarantees that their programmers never work more than eight hours per day and are given a full hour lunch break and aren't expected to come in for overtime ... or a game from a company who says it has teams of programmers and artists working virtually round the clock, constantly working to create a product that is as good as possible and get it to the shelves as soon as possible.

        Even if people knew, it wouldn't necessarily stop this kind of behavior. It might

    • Re:Wait a minute (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 )
      Thing is, there really isn't a remedy for it sometimes. All the game houses I know of go into crunch mode right before release. Lots of overtime, lots of work to try and get everything together and out the door. Now in the good companies, things cool off after this and everyone gets a break, then it starts again with the next game, slow at first, ramping up to a frantic pace at the end.

      It's kinda unavoidable if you want to have games that are current in regards to technology, which is something gamers dema

      • Re:Wait a minute (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Cecil ( 37810 )
        It's kinda unavoidable if you want to have games that are current in regards to technology

        No, it really isn't. This is what shows that game development is a very immature industry at the moment. There is no reason a game should have to be so tightly laced to the graphics engine, or to the sound system, or the physics engine, or the network implementation, that you cannot upgrade those components to a newer component with relative ease, if not plug-and-play ease. The problem is that such things are not com

        • Re:Wait a minute (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Surt ( 22457 )
          Actually, most games are built with swappable software components already. The problem with intense end schedules has to do with building:

          a) the swappable component replacements. Often these are very sophisticated pieces of code, that in the particular case of video or sound have to talk to hardware at a very low level to achieve good performance.

          b) squeezing in last minute improvements. Since large numbers of games are competing with each other, there are often last minute requirements driven by new m
    • > "...graduates should be plenty prepared for their future careers."
      >
      > We should be trying to remedy this work situation, not prepare people for it.

      Why not both?

      "Included is a particularly touching story about a student who survived the 2002 Sari Club terrorist attack in Bali."

      On the day when the EA employees collectively go postal, this guy will not only get out alive, he'll probably get one of the many newly-vacated corner offices! :)

    • We should be trying to remedy this work situation, not prepare people for it.

      The Merc [mercurynews.com] is carrying an article just today on a lawsuit against EA [mercurynews.com] [reg may be req'd] regarding deceptive work environment practices. It seems to me that companies that behave this way are just asking for unions.

  • It's like proper engineering but you dont get to blow shit up.

    On the other hand when you say 'I design games' people dont assume that you fix washing machines for a living :\

    What we _really_ need to do is force executives to work a 80+ hour week whilst we go and play golf (or rather, drive around really fast in those little carts and ram each other). After all they can fuck the whole company over in 30 minutes a day between arriving late and leaving for an early lunch, how much worse could it be if the ev

    • Re:Game design (Score:4, Funny)

      by mordors9 ( 665662 ) on Wednesday November 24, 2004 @11:05AM (#10909480)
      You just don't understand. They have to go play golf and relax. The pressures of managing the rest of us must be tremendous. Actually it seems like the more time they spend working, the more problems they cause. I for one would prefer they spend more time away from work.

      • Re:Game design (Score:3, Funny)

        by Specter ( 11099 )
        "The pressures of managing the rest of us must be tremendous."

        You don't know the half of it. You can't imagine how stressful it is to keep you wage slaves, er workers, from wasting time on /.. Don't you know that Thanksgiving vacation doesn't start until tomorrow? GET BACK TO WORK!

        Now, where did I leave my putter?

  • All your overtime are belong to us! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Evil W1zard ( 832703 ) on Wednesday November 24, 2004 @10:47AM (#10909338) Journal
    If you love the work that you do and don't mind getting overly engrossed in it then it is not so bad working the long hours, but simply preparing students for the drudge and grind of the real-life workplace because it simply is the way it is just plain sucks IMO. Get them excited about their careers and then let them decide if they want to burn themselves out instead of preconditioning them for it.
    • I"m not sure it is okay to let people overwork themselves because they expect it. I assume these people might want to start families someday (however much trouble they, as computer people may have with such an activity). However, I don't think they're going to think about this when going for that uber-cool high stress high hours job. While you could argue that they could find a new job once they have a family, I argue that they'll have a hard time having any sort of relationship or social life in the fir
    • This is perhaps true if you get compensated in some way for the long hours. I love my job, and frequently lose track of time, and though I can't claim overtime, I can take that time off at my discresion. This doesn't happen in the game industry, and that is wrong, pure and simple.
      • In some places royalties are the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I'm not sure what kind of royalty deal Rock Star North has but when you're working on a project that generates 2 million sales in a couple weeks there's a lot of money in the potential royalty pot. I imagine Bungie folks are looking forward to some fat checks right now. Whether those are royalty or bonus checks, I don't know. And I've heard good things about the kind of money the GT team gets. But the point is that in some of these plac

    • caveat: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mblase ( 200735 )
      If you love the work that you do and don't mind getting overly engrossed in it then it is not so bad working the long hours ...provided that you're single, or don't care about your family, or otherwise have no social skills whatsoever.

      Part of the reason I finally decided I wasn't cut out to be a programmer was because I felt guilty working overtime on projects while my wife and kids were expecting me back at home, and that wasn't even on a regular basis.
      • An off topic note:

        Well done on your insightfully posted comment to:

        http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/2 3/ 1816257&tid=107

        -grin-

        Made CmdrTaco look like a right fool... ;)

        (Didn't know how else to get this message to you...)
    • Agreed. I think a much better curriculum for the school would be "How To Start Your Own Game Company" not "How to Be a Game Programmer".

      I'd like to see people being told that they don't have to follow the industry norms. Bust out of the box, think off the wall, not status quo. If that guy wants to build a game with positive black characters, he should do it and the school should fund him, or at least act as a clearing house for people who would fund him.

  • Last Frontier... For Now. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by automag ( 834164 ) * on Wednesday November 24, 2004 @10:55AM (#10909403)
    The thing I find interesting about game programming is that it is the'last frontier' of art created for consumption by a mass audience that still requires a huge learning curve and cost expendature to be successful in.

    Think about it- used to be that you needed a bazillion dollars, a ton of talent, and a lot of connections in order to successfully make a movie, or a record. Now? People are doing it in their basements with equipment that costs a few hundred dollars.

    The big question is how long will it take for someone to figure out how to make designing a video game 'accessible to the masses' the way Digital Video and computer-based audio recording have done for those industries. I'll bet it won't take as long as you think...
    • Actually making a good record has an enormous learning curve. It's just become socially acceptable to be a poor musician and still be viewed as a sucessful artist. Our society has extremely low musical standards at the moment, and anyone who can bang on an instrument is labeled a musician.
      • I make no value judgements on the quality of the work. Being both a musician and a filmmaker I've seen some damn good work come out of basements (including my own). I say that lowering the barriers to admission will let crap through, but it also lowers the barriers for folks with amazing talent and little $$$ or no family connections to succeed as well. Is the learning curve 'enormous?' Well, I'm not arguing that it is 'flat' by any stretch of the imagination, but 'enormous?' No way. Not today. One thing y
    • Hmm... I think this is a good point and I'm not so sure why it was modded as overrated.

      Look at this list of tools you can use to create your own games with little to no programming knowledge or experience. [ambrosine.com]

      Back in the 50's or 60's, nobody thought of how easily you could "write" a hit by sampling "I'll Be Watching You" because the technology wasn't there. What if, in a few years, we see technology capable of creating redundant (but enjoyable) FPS games over and over again? We're basically getting the
      • Back in the 50's or 60's, nobody thought of how easily you could "write" a hit by sampling "I'll Be Watching You" because the technology wasn't there. The technology was there. Early hip hop started in the late 70's with just a turntable and an MC. No complex software needed.
    • All it really needs is a good, cheap engine for the type of game you're looking to create. Some will probably never be easy (MMORPGs need lots of infrastructure, that'll never come cheap), but others will probably come pretty quick after the availability of an engine.

      It's starting already, actually: Look at all the player-created stuff that's come out for Neverwinter Nights based on their editor.
      • Actually, MMORPG infrastructure will eventually be quite cheap. What it typically requires:

        High bandwidth connection: getting cheper all the time. Start with a DSL and buy upwards as your subscription base grows.

        Multiple servers: Start with a few budget servers and buy upwards as your subscription base allows.

        Lots of content: let your players build it, based on a trust model ala MUDS. Just requires tools, which are getting easier and easier to build.
    • It's already happened. Look at Counterstrike - that was "made in a basement", and its already orders of magnitude more popular than any other multiplayer FPS.

    • Games don't necessarily require "bazillions of dollars" to make.

      How much technical expense does it take to come up with a game like Bejeweled? Or Chris Sawyer's [chrissawyer.com] original Roller Coaster Tycoon?

      EA's business model is mega-budget games with mega-expensive licenses and mega-production costs, but that doesn't mean that's the only way to make games.

    • You mean beyond downloading a free SDK and compiler and doodling up a game? Seriously, making tetris takes 1 guy in his basement an hour.

      Movies still cost a prohibitive amount to most people. Clerks cost what? $27k. Recreating... Bejeweled and posting it for download costs peanuts.

  • This is just another system of control

    The following text file was liberated from the president of the university. It's his welcome speech.

    welcome.speech.txt

    Greetings. The Master Control Program has chosen you to serve your alma mater on the Game Grid. Those of you who continue to profess a belief in the Users will receive the standard substandard training, which will result in your eventual elimination. Those of you who renounce this superstitious and hysterical belief will be eligible to join the

  • This story is depressing. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nathan s ( 719490 ) on Wednesday November 24, 2004 @11:00AM (#10909446) Homepage
    Frankly, I don't understand how people can do this for any amount of money or passion. You don't do good work when you're running constantly on 6 hours of sleep, and I'm surprised that any of these guys have any sort of a family whatsoever.

    I think that if these sorts of conditions are typical in the gaming industry, it might explain why games in general have slid into the sequel-after-sequel hole and there's very little new or original stuff coming out. You can't think clearly when your brain is sleep-addled and you are living on beer and Cheetos.

    I'd rather them spend three times as long producing games, so long as the games were actually original and entertaining, and not yet another boring sequel with an ending that sets up for YAYABS [yet another yet another boring sequel]. (Or, in the case of that guy Levy, some sort of social campaign inspired by the modern equivalent of strange women in ponds handing out swords.)
    • I think you'll find the overworked programmers have very little to do with the plot, and very much to do with the bits that are so good you take them for granted, like the graphics and physics engines.
      • Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if they can't crank original work out of their overworked programmers because it's easy to get their overworked guys to rehash stuff they've already done, since they're too dazed to do anything new.:-P

  • Guildhall.. (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I heard it is a big time party school

  • School of GAME DESIGN? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CrazyJim1 ( 809850 ) on Wednesday November 24, 2004 @11:12AM (#10909540) Journal
    Everyone thinks they're a game designer. Its not game design the companies are looking for, since EVERYONE thinks they're a game designer. Game companies are looking for highly intelligent programmers, or highly talented artists. Its EXACTLY like Hollywood, where they don't think they need writers, but they need big name actors and special effects.

    Game design has some real challenges to it, and theres many things that seem like a good idea but isn't fun in a game. I'd be interested in taking an online course on game design just to see what they got right. I'm not saying I know everything, but I know some stuff like balancing mechanics, MMOG theory, etc. Like I said, everyone thinks they're a game designer, including me. And man is the industry hard to break into. I've had about 7 interviews in ten years and hundreds of job applications.
    • If you want to be a game designer, you design and analyse games all the time. If you don't, you don't really want to be one.

      This is similar to all who says "I want to be a writer, but I've just not gotten around to it". This is complete and utter bullshit. Anyone who wants to be a writer, writes constantly, whatever they are writing, that is what they do. Because that is what they want to do - and it is the only way to learn it and improve.

      Otherwise, you just want to be the lead guitarrist that gets to st

  • They are not ALL chop shops.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by th1ckasabr1ck ( 752151 ) on Wednesday November 24, 2004 @11:20AM (#10909600)
    I work as a programmer for a video game company. We don't work suicide hours unless it's a crunch period, we deathmatch after work a few times a week, and I completely love doing my job. I have fun just about every day I come into work. Top it all off with the fact that I get to do for a living what I've dreamed of doing since I was five years old and life is pretty good right about now.

    I know this isn't how it is everywhere in the game industry. I've read the EA stuff and heard the horror stories. Our management takes quality of life issues extremely seriously, which probably makes us the exception rather than the rule, but with all of this recent coverage it seems as if people are finally stepping back to take a look at what is really happening in this industry. This business evolved very quickly, with lots of passionate people involved who were willing (and happy) to work suicide hours in order to get the game out of the door. The days of a couple of guys making Doom in their basement and pulling in millions is long gone.

    Of course, coverage focuses on the negative and larely ignores the positive. I doubt there will ever be a slashdot story about how employees at game company X are working 40 hour/weeks and loving life. I just Hope that the lessons EA employees seem to be learning will be taken to heart by more than those people directly affected by it.

    Of course, having a title that sells a ton of copies makes all of this stuff easier. Someone should tell that to the EA execs.

    • It's called "the other side of the story". Not so big on slashdot; important, however.
    • Enjoy it while you can... how long before your (and everyone else's) jobs are outsourced to India, where they "don't care" about long hours and work for relative pennies?

      Oh, that's coming, too... and while it'll probably start at a company like EA, it'll extend to others.

      Nope. Time to find a "new way" of making a living in the USA that can't be shipped to a third world country. 8(
  • What I mean is that gaming thou now a HUGE BILLION $ industry is not innovating and experimenting like the garage gamers of the past.

    I remember when shareware games were coming out at an incredible rate and selling their warez on BBSes and through mail order. There was a lot of really cool games and more importantly ideas! And this is were I think game development will eventually return.

    Using internet and grid computing a game development team can be assembled from all over the planet and work as a single
    • For those who have been *cough* "working" with computers for longer than we want to admit, we've seen everything go in cycles, big multiuser computers (mostly before my time), "personal" computers (before expensive commerical software), the "modern" PC/windows, and now Linux/Open source.

      In 5 years things will change again, in a significant way. Don't know exactly how, but I suspect that Open Source/Free software will be the biggest part. Just draw the trend lines, they will probably continue going the

  • Now I understand what's wrong with their football team.

  • Graduates and Jobs? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Capt_Troy ( 60831 ) <tfandango@ y a h o o .com> on Wednesday November 24, 2004 @11:34AM (#10909709) Homepage Journal
    I realize this program is new, but I'd be very interested to know how many of these students get gaming jobs after graduation. I tried to break into the industry for a while, and came close a few times, but it's a very hard thing to do (looking back I'm happy with where I am now). If this program (and/or others like it) can prove itself valuable to game companies such they their students are quickly snatched up, it would remove a major hurdle for interested developers.
  • Does anyone know of any game design related accredited scholls that offer online education? I recognize the power of google, but it also brings a lot of crap up to sift through.
  • Wasn't the main dude from Unreal II black?

    You know, he's a pretty ordinary dude. And he is a a lot like those dudes described in the article, in that he's stuck doing a job that doesn't give much satisfaction. He grinds away, flying around a boring part of space, keeping the peace, dreaming about the glory of the NEG Marine Corps who won't let him in because he has to do his current job 'cause noone else wants to do it. Then he gets a chance to prove himself, and to get satisfaction from his own existence

    • Come on guys, you might disagree with the parent's comment, but it is not a troll! Someone please mod it up so it's not at a negative score.
  • The story of the 2002 Sari Club reminds me of the "The Andrea Doria" episode of Seinfeld (transcript can be found here : http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheAndreaDoria.htm / [seinfeldscripts.com]

    In that episode George is denied an apartment because one of the other applicants is a survivor of the Andrea Doria (a ship that collided with the Stockholm in dense fog 21 miles off the coast of Nantucket ; thank Kramer for that info ;) )

    Whereas the story told by the other applicant is supposedly true, George, in his pissed-off-ness,

  • What's so touching about his story involving Bali? He was a block away. My cousin, a former Australian professional footballer had literally just walked outside of the club. He survived, but some of his friends didn't. (May they rest in peace).

    Levy had no actual connection to the Bali bombing other than being a block away and thinking about it. Personally, I find the attempt to literally involve him with the terrorist attack somewhat distasteful, particularily when other people were actually killed and los
  • I read the article and couldn't help thinking, "how cool!" primarily because their experiences reminded me so much of my own.

    As a computer science graduate from a major engineering school, I went through a lot of the same things, include the 100+ hour weeks, not sleeping for 4 straight days (thank you ephedra), and trying to coordinate and balance work in a team of with wildly disparate skills and strengths. While I hated it when I was doing it, I'm very proud of the fact that I did it. Of the 135 who st

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