Challenges Facing Game Programmers

I talk about my experiences as a game programmer, including some challenges game programmers may face and the one trait all programmers need to cultivate.

[randomrandom]

Designer: I want to do that like that.
Programmer: Don't do that, it wont work.
*Designer does it anyway*
QA to Programmer: This new thing doesn't work.

[Delaterius]

The programmer is the healer if the dev team. All of the blame and none of the credit.

[devantejeffries]

Facts, working in the industry reminds me of working in a busy kitchen. It's pretty loud and hectic back there in the kitchen and the chef will even yell at you- but the chef isn’t angry at you, the chef is just passionate about what they love to do.

I was 18 at the time and couldn't handle it, but I'm 25 years old and i can handle it now. I learned so much since then.

[cheater]

"patience" called it out before you said it! Wish i'd recorded it - programmer since 35 years

[insane_krab]

Being interrupted each 15-20 minutes?! It takes me about that long to get back into that concetrated mind-map state after being interrupted; I literally wouldn't be able to work on anything hard!

Otherwise I think it's the same challenges all programmers have, though sounds it's much more intense in gamedev. I had other programmers instead of artists, ignoring documentation, breaking my libraries in fun and unexpected ways. Patience is the key :)

[Fdstamp]

In all my years of working in IT (7 years) if i learned anything, its that users don't want to feel stupid, they just want to get their job done well (hopefully). So if you understand their frustration and try to guide them through what is happening instead of just handing them a solution (unless its a blatant issue), you'll find that they'll often fix the issue themselves or adapt because they want to feel smart and useful. A good explanation is worth 3 different solutions sometimes. Of course this isn't for everyone but its a good baseline in my experience. I'm not a developer (trying to be... hopefully one day) but i feel like this is in the same sorta area as what i deal with at work.

[Julesv]

Thank you for posting videos every day, you've become part of my morning routine. I hope this becomes a series, I really enjoy the specifics of how you're supposed to operate within a game development role. The accompanying stories are incredibly helpful for understanding your points and are just plain interesting to hear. I'm really happy you started uploading here, I wish others were so open about their development stories in this format. Thanks for sharing and posting Tim!

[Kaiser_Johan]

As a programmer in a large game studio this is spot-on

[FluffySylveonBoi]

I remember running Fallout1 and 2 on a 486 computer once. It was one of the fastest computers of its type, still Fallout could run on it, but slow. No memory bugs and problems, but the loading screens and map travel took ages.
Before there was a travel patch, the travel time was dependent on the processing power of your PC. I was happy though, because I like grinding exp and items, and I had a melee character who had about 12 random encounters before he got from Arroyo to Klamath in Fallout 2.

The era of singleplayer games is still here, only the multiplayer people are more vocal. (It also needs certain types of personality to play multiplayer, not every time but in general, these people are louder on the internet than single player people.)

[Welter]

Man between you and Mark Darrah on YouTube this is a wonderful new genre of veteran game devs sharing their experiences. You love to see it. Can't wait for you to share some Outer Worlds 2 and Avowed dev stories someday. And maybe god forbid Bethesda let's you guys make another Fallout with more than 18 months.

[NikoNOJ]

Really enjoyed outer worlds. Stumbled over your channel here and am equally enamoured!
Was too young for fallout and f2.

Thx for all the videos. It‘s a joy to listen to you! ❤

[Whetold]

I was watching video while standing next to my stand desk. Fell dowjn to the ground when you mentioned you made bug in your code

[LahceneBelbachir]

These videos are an immensely valuable and most importantly free insight into the game industry,
I love to listen to them while working on my own game, I got Blender and Unity open as I'm typing this,
and I don't have to tell you that my game is a post apocalyptic / retro futuristic, lol,
you are very much appreciated, Tim! <3

[Novous]

Mike Acton (previously Lead Engine Architect at) Insomniac Games said they tried all kinds of mechanisms and tests to get good employees. In the end, the only thing that actually tracked whether people would last, is if they had an insatiable desire to learn and absorb new information.

The kind of person who is never stopping just because the job is done. For example, if a program stopped working, and the team fixed it __but didn't know how they fixed it__, the person would have to find out--they weren't content with the problem disappearing, lest it come back again.

[owevovb]

Tim, i am Gleb and I like fallout wery much for all. But the most liked things is the consept line and the story. The second part of follaut was not so was not so absorbing and conceptual, much was built on the first part, the second gave the impression of an attraction of the first part. And I'm glad I put off doing two because there was a disc of the first. Thank you very much and a huge request, tell us how the heads appeared on the buildings in the first part, what formed the basis for their creation.

[alexfrank]

This is why Tim is good leadership/manager material. lol
Many programmers like me would've just added restriction that block artists from importing/packaging oversized assets AT ALL.
If people want to ask me something but I'm busy coding, I'd just tell them to come back in an hour. Unless it's urgent enough to have manager show up, it's usually insignificant compare the actual coding issues I'm working on. Thus objectively-speaking it is simply a utilitarian decision to prioritize the bigger issue. :D
A technically competent person with great patience/empathy and affable personality is a rare trifecta.

[cmdr.jabozerstorer]

Afternoon Tim,

I'm unsure whether you want to speak about it but I'd love a video on the 30/60fps issue that's currently going on and speak about CPU bottlenecks and the like. There's a lot of people out there who just don't understand it's not always a graphical issue that lowers framerates but can also be the CPU and other things.

You mentioned it briefly in this video in relation to South Park, so I thought it might be worth expanding upon.

Also you're correct about bugs and fps issues not always being a programmers issue. An online game I play had FPS drops and it was often related to graphical assets not being culled properly and lack of proper optimisation.

[sharpedog]

These videos are insightful, thanks very much Tim. loving the content dude!

[BillyJackmanD]

Your videos are great inspiration fuel for me. Thank you for making them!

[peacechief]

Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and expertise! ✌