Lessons By Company

I talk about some of the lessons I learned over my time in game development, broken down by where I was working at the time.

Videos I reference:

[deltapi]

Lesson 0 (0:30): People lie.
Lesson 1 (2:00): No one give you anything unless you ask.
Lesson 2 (3:34): Not all adults are mature. Not all liberal adults are gay allies. Not everyone gets treated fairly by everyone else.
Lesson 3 (4:31): Teams need to work together to make the same game.
Lesson 4 (5:00): You have to guard your game from the inappropriate ideas (from within and also outside of the team).
Lesson 5 (5:54): Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphant.
Lesson 6 (7:18) : Learn about your limitations
Lesson 7 (7:47): Learning from failure is conscious learning.
Lesson 8 (8:36): Importance of Editor (curate feature sets) in Game Development.
Lesson 9 (9:15): Game Companies should be run to make money.
Lesson 10 (10:04): Teams REALLY need to learn to work together.
Lesson 11 (10:31): If you loose to many of key players things will crumble.
Lesson 12 (10:59): Money is not worth the stress
Lesson 13 (12:10): Perspectively learn to see things less black and white. Learn to treat your publishers better.
Lesson 14 (12:45): Environment matters: Bad players may have deep influence. Good players might help you overcome.
Lesson 15 (13:07): Bigger scopes and teams become harder to control and avoid problems.
Lesson 16 (13:40): Certain adults have blatant problems with taking responsibility and throw others under the bus.
Lesson 17 (15:24): Distance brings perspective. Don't overshare in mid business ;-)
Lesson 18 (15:40): Highest rated games had least interference from publishers. Publishers should think about it.

[deltapi]

Thx for this dense list of personal lessons and industry wisdom Tim. Really appreciate your channel.

[Notemug]

Finally! All caught up! I spent the last couple of months watching all the videos in chronological order. From now on I can watch them in real time.

[philiplinden]

All of this wisdom applies across any industry and career, not just game dev. All of your stories resonate deeply with me as an aerospace engineer. Great video!

[concord]

You're doing a great service for us here. I have the feeling that 30 somethings these days have grown up with expectations that careers should be continuous success after success - progress without failure. My generation takes setbacks hard. Hearing about your candid hard learnt lessons is a salve for my ego and an inspiration to work harder. Thanks.

[Postal]

LOL. I worked at a job where we had to document every caught defect and explain the cause. When I would review this document weekly, it was generally lines like, "I missed X". "I incorrectly handled X issue." Etc. All except for one employee who would write lengthy essays on why the issue was everyone's fault but his. Those were always fun to read.

[Kerrigan]

You know what Tim, I'm going to help you out. I hereby claim that I was lead programmer on rags to riches. I take full responsibility for it and I will start adding it to my resume.

[lookalivebrett]

That ending! The mic drop heard 'round the world.

[rhinosaur]

Really great info Tim. i learned similar lessons at Carbine since it was my a lot of my firsts (office job/game studio). Some of the greatest lessons i learned there were what not to do in game dev and what parent companies not to work for.
The fungible lesson is great. one of the studios i worked at used the term "brain drain" for talented individuals who were feature/vision leads leaving halfway through implementing because either they were seen as fungible or not appreciated (through financial or recognition, etc. etc.)
I've really been enjoying the videos, and i try to watch as many as possible and miss the chocolate meetings and D&D.

I'd love to see a video on how you would keep team morale up during stressful times at work. The Chocolate tasting meetings you had were a great, and 'the bacon fairy' was a highlight during work. even if the 'fun police' didn't like it. it really helped keep us a bit more sane :)

[Lighty-jzgm]

6:31 In classical Latin, it'd be Tacitus with a hard /k/, or like Greek koppa κ. In ecclesiastical Latin, it'd be Tacitus with a /tj/, or like 'ch'.

[kintaro]

Very valuable final lesson! In a similar vein, my most successful engagements have always been when the client left the "how" completely up to my team or when senior stakeholders simply accept and work with your recommendations. Backseat drivers very rarely add value, they simply add to the likelihood of a crash. The rare ones who do add value need to have 2 qualities. 1) Specific experience in exactly the situation that is in front of you and 2) A recommendation about what to do. A lot of people will have 2) without 1), and similarly you will get people who have 1) are so are happy to criticize, but won't provide you with 2)!

[gencymexmex]

Tim, I really appreciate your videos. Your wisdom will help the young people that are starting their journey into the industry. We need more people like you to reflect on their career and give honest advice, so that they don't get taken advantage of or continue to be a cog in the machine that supports the dark side of the industry.

[joacosilva]

Thank you very much for sharing these things that are often swept under the rug and are part of every professional career. I believe that many people going through stressful situations today can relate to moments like those. Thanks!

[Jamsaladd]

Hey, Tim. Love all your videos and you are a big inspiration for me. Question, how do you feel about kernel level anti-cheat in your games and in general? Thanks!

[felicianofrontado]

Question for Fun Friday: Who would you say was your favorite follower from Arcanum ?

[TheBadRandolph]

That stare at the end... That's gold.

[Johannes_Brunnhuber]

Thanks Tim, these will stew for a while. I'd be interested to know how (or if) you intentionally find "your people" when joining a new place.

So much of my joy in game making comes from my immediate network but maybe I've just been lucky to land among great folks. Maybe that's not always possible and I wonder if the work can still be fulfilling without those strong bonds

[Marandal]

I love the faces you make in thumbnails Uncle Tim!

[vivekviswanathan]

Speaking of games funded through Kickstarter / without a publisher, if you were handed $6m (through Kickstarter or otherwise) to pull a team together and make a game true to your and your team's vision, would you say yes?

[lovzi]

I'm really alergic to people not taking responsibility. Either for their actions, or for their lack of actions when needed. Just thinking about these people I sometimes work with makes me wanna star my own game company.