Blood, Sweat, and Pixels

by Jason Schreier

  Robilliard went on to compliment the team’s work on gameplay (“The jetpack was the final piece of the puzzle”) and visual technology (“All of the effort and consideration that went into our carefully and lovingly constructed look was so worth it”). He praised the work they had done on the E3 demo (“I lost count of how many publications and interviewers at E3 said that Star Wars 1313 was literally the ‘best thing they had ever seen.’”) and lamented the fact that LucasArts would never get to deliver on the game they’d promised.

  “I have plenty more to say, and so much more gratitude to show you all but right now it’s too hard to articulate it,” Robilliard wrote. “I genuinely care for everyone on this team and hope desperately that we will work together again someday. . . . Until then I will dedicate all my time and energy over the coming months to making sure that anyone who is thinking of hiring a Star Wars 1313 team member knows that they will be making an amazing investment and the smartest decision of their career. You are the greatest team I have ever known and I love you all.”

  Video games get canceled all the time. For every shipped game under a developer’s belt, there are dozens of abandoned concepts and prototypes that never see the light of day. But something about Star Wars 1313 has always felt unique, not just to fans but also to those who worked on it. “From my point of view, the game was not canceled,” said Steve Chen. “The studio was canceled. It’s a very different thing.” Years later, members of the Star Wars 1313 team still speak of their time on the game in revered tones. And many believe that the game might have been a huge success if it had been given an opportunity to succeed. “If the phone rang,” said Evan Skolnick, “and it was them calling to say, ‘Hey, we want you to come back and make a new 1313,’ I’d be asking what time they want me there.”

  In one LucasArts meeting room there was a big bulletin board, adorned with beautiful illustrations and hundreds of colored Post-it notes. From left to right, these notes told the story of Star Wars 1313, laying out how Boba Fett would descend into the depths of Coruscant. There were ten missions, given tentative yet evocative titles like “Downfall” and “Scum and Villainy.” The designers had plotted out every sequence in shorthand, lining up cards like “fight in back of casino” and “chase droid through subway tunnels” alongside brief descriptions of the powers you’d get and the emotional beats you’d hit. If you read them in order, you could visualize exactly what Star Wars 1313 might have been. Eventually that board would come down, but as LucasArts closed its doors and its staff said their final farewells to the once legendary game studio, it was a story frozen in time. A snapshot of a game that would never happen.

  Epilogue

  Two years later, you’ve done it. You’ve made a video game. Super Plumber Adventure is out on all the big platforms—PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, even Nintendo Switch—and you can finally brag to all your friends that you turned your dream into a reality.

  You might not tell your friends how excruciating the process was. Your plumber game was a year late, costing your investors an extra $10 million (which you swear they’ll get back when Super Plumber Adventure becomes the hottest thing on Steam). It turns out you overscoped in preproduction—how were you supposed to know that each level would take four weeks, not two?—and you had to delay Super Plumber Adventure twice just to fix all the game-breaking bugs. Your team had to crunch for at least a month before each major milestone (E3, alpha, beta, etc.) and even though you bought them all dinners to make up for it, you still can’t stop thinking about the missed anniversaries, the lost birthday parties, and the evenings they didn’t get to spend with their kids because they were stuck in meetings about the best color schemes for your plumber’s overalls.

  Is there a way to make great video games without that sort of sacrifice? Is it possible to develop a game without putting in endless hours? Will there ever be a reliable formula for making games that allows for more predictable schedules?

  For many industry observers, the answers to those questions are: no, no, and probably not. Game development is, as BioWare’s Matt Goldman describes it, like being on the “knife’s edge of chaos,” where the sheer number of moving parts makes it impossible for anyone to find predictability. Isn’t that one of the reasons we love video games in the first place? That feeling of surprise when you pick up a controller and know you’re about to experience something totally new?

  “Making a game . . . it attracts a certain type of workaholic personality,” said Obsidian’s audio director, Justin Bell. “It just requires a certain kind of person who’s willing to put in more time. . . . Crunch sucks. It fucks your life up. You emerge from crunch and—I’ve got kids. I’ll see my kids, and I’ll look at them, and I’ll [think], ‘Wow, six months have passed, and you are a different person now. And I wasn’t there.’”

  In 2010, a Japanese company called Kairosoft released a mobile phone game called Game Dev Story. In it, you manage your own development studio, trying to release a string of popular video games without going bankrupt. You design each game by combining a genre and a style (example: “Detective Racing”) and to make progress, you’ll have to make a series of managerial decisions involving your studio’s staff. It’s a hilarious, if simplistic take on game development.

  One of my favorite things about Game Dev Story is what happens during each game’s production cycle, as you watch your pixelated minions perform and finish their tasks. When one of your designers, artists, or programmers is doing particularly well, they’ll hit a hot streak and, quite literally, get set on fire. Their adorable, cartoonish sprite will sit there in the office, coding away, as they’re engulfed in a giant ball of flames.

  In Game Dev Story this is just a sight gag, but something about it rings true. These days, when I marvel at the incredible vistas of Uncharted 4 or blast my way through Destiny’s addictive raids, or when I wonder how a bad video game turned out the way it did, that’s the image that comes to mind: a room full of developers, setting themselves on fire. Maybe that’s how video games are made.

  Acknowledgments

  This book would not have happened without many, many people. First and foremost, thanks to my parents for their love, for their support, and for buying me my first video game. Thanks to Safta for more than I could ever list in one place. Thanks also to Rita and Owen.

  I’m indebted to my agent, Charlie Olsen, who planted the idea for this book in my head with a single one-line e-mail and never looked back. My superstar editor, Eric Meyers, put up with my barrage of e-mails and shepherded this project from lunch conversations to finished book (no DLC required). Thanks to Paul Florez-Taylor, Victor Hendrickson, Douglas Johnson, Leydiana Rodriguez, Milan Bozic, Amy Baker, Abby Novak, Doug Jones, Keith Hollaman, and Jonathan Burnham at HarperCollins for all the support.

  My dear friend and podcast cohost Kirk Hamilton offered sage advice, notes, and weather updates. My former editor Chris Kohler and my current editor Stephen Totilo both taught me just about everything I know. And my entire team at Kotaku makes work fun every day.

  Thanks to Matthew Burns, Kim Swift, Riley MacLeod, Nathaniel Chapman, and several others (who asked not to be named) for reading early drafts of this book and giving crucial feedback. Thanks to everyone who put up with my gchats, texts, e-mails, and nonstop chatter about this thing.

  This book would not exist without Kaz Aruga, Chris Avellone, Eric Baldwin, Eric Barone, Justin Bell, Dmitri Berman, Adam Brennecke, Finn Brice, Waylon Brinck, Daniel Busse, Ricky Cambier, Steve Chen, Wyatt Cheng, Eben Cooks, David D’Angelo, Mark Darrah, Travis Day, Graeme Devine, Neil Druckmann, John Epler, Ian Flood, Rob Foote, Aaryn Flynn, Rich Geldreich, Matt Goldman, Jason Gregory, Jaime Griesemer, Christian Gyrling, Amber Hageman, Sebastian Hanlon, Shane Hawco, Marcin Iwiński, Rafał Jaki, Daniel Kading, Shane Kim, Phil Kovats, Mike Laidlaw, Cameron Lee, Kurt Margenau, Kevin Martens, Colt McAnlis, Lee McDole, Ben McGrath, David Mergele, Darren Monahan, Peter Moore, Tate Mosesian, Josh Mosqueira, Rob Nesler, Anthony Newman, Bobby Null, Mar
ty O’Donnell, Erick Pangilinan, Carrie Patel, Dave Pottinger, Marcin Przybyłowicz, John Riccitiello, Chris Rippy, Josh Sawyer, Emilia Schatz, Josh Scherr, Evan Skolnick, Bruce Straley, Ashley Swidowski, Jakub Szamałek, Jose Teixeira, Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz, Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, Piotr Tomsiński, Miles Tost, Frank Tzeng, Feargus Urquhart, Sean Velasco, Patrick Weekes, Evan Wells, Nick Wozniak, Jeremy Yates, and the dozens of other game developers who spoke to me on background. Thank you all for your time and patience.

  Thanks to Sarah Dougherty, Mikey Dowling, Radek Adam Grabowski, Brad Hilderbrand, Lawrence Lacsamana, Arne Meyer, Ana-Luisa Mota, Tom Ohle, Adam Riches, and Andrew Wong for helping coordinate many of these interviews.

  And finally, thanks to Amanda. I couldn’t ask for a better best friend.

  About the Author

  Jason Schreier is the news editor at Kotaku, a leading website covering the industry and culture of video games, where he has developed a reputation for dogged reporting on a variety of tough industry subjects. He has also covered the video game world for Wired, and has contributed to a wide range of outlets including the New York Times, Edge, Paste, and the Onion News Network. This is his first book.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Praise for Blood, Sweat, and Pixels

  “Making video games is one of the most transformative, exciting things I’ve done in my two decades as a freelance writer. Making video games is also an excruciating journey into Hellmouth itself. Jason Schreier’s wonderful book captures both the excitement and the hell. Here, at long last, is a gripping, intelligent glimpse behind a thick (and needlessly secretive) creative curtain.”

  —Tom Bissell, author of Extra Lives and Apostle, and writer on the Gears of War, Uncharted, and Battlefield franchises

  “So many of the cultural problems both within the game industry and among fans come down to a lack of realistic public understanding of the tribulations of development. Jason opens a crucial door into an abnormally secretive industry, in the brave hope of teaching us a little more about its flammable alchemy.”

  —Leigh Alexander, author and tech journalist

  “A meticulously researched, well-written, and painful at times account of many developers’ and studios’ highs and lows. May need to make it required reading for the developers at my studio.”

  —Cliff Bleszinski, creator of Gears of War and founder of Boss Key Productions

  “The stories in this book make for a fascinating and remarkably complete pantheon of just about every common despair and every joy related to game development.”

  —Rami Ismail, cofounder of Vlambeer and developer of Nuclear Throne

  “Jason Schreier brilliantly exposes the truth about how video games are made. Brutal, honest, yet ultimately uplifting; I've been gaming for thirty years, yet I was surprised by every page. Turns out what I didn't know about my favorite hobby could fill a book. This book! Can’t recommend it enough to any serious fan of this generation’s greatest new art form.”

  —Adam Conover, executive producer and host of truTV’s Adam Ruins Everything

  Copyright

  blood, sweat, and pixels. Copyright © 2017 by Jason Schreier. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  first edition

  Cover design by Milan Bozic

  Cover illustrations © Shutterstock

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Schreier, Jason, author.

  Title: Blood, sweat, and pixels : the triumphant, turbulent stories behind how video games are made / Jason Schreier.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Harper Paperbacks, [2017] |

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017015481 (print) | LCCN 2017034583 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062651242 (ebk) | ISBN 9780062651235 (paperback)

  Subjects: LCSH: Video games. | Video games—Economic aspects. | Video games industry. | Video games—Design. | BISAC: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Industries / Computer Industry. | GAMES / Video & Electronic.

  Classification: LCC GV1469.3 (ebook) | LCC GV1469.3 .S37 2017 (print) | DDC 794.8—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017015481

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  * A game’s frame rate is the frequency at which images are displayed on the screen. Our eyes are trained to play games at a baseline rate of thirty frames per second; when the frame rate dips lower than that, everything in the game starts to look choppy, as if it’s being run on an old projector.

  * According to data from the Entertainment Software Association, the US video game industry generated $30.4 billion in 2016.

  * In game development, a producer’s job is to coordinate schedules, wrangle the rest of the team, and ensure that everyone is on the same page. As Ryan Treadwell, a veteran producer, once told me, “We’re the people who are responsible for making sure that a product gets made.”

  * The role of a designer can vary from studio to studio, but in general, it’s a designer’s job to make decisions about how a game will function. These decisions range from major (what kind of weapons will the player use?) to minor (how will the game distinguish between doors that the player can open and doors that just stay locked?).

  * THQ stopped operating nine months later, in December 2012, selling off all its projects in a bankruptcy auction the following month. South Park: The Stick of Truth went to the French publisher Ubisoft.

  * Double Fine would release this game as Broken Age in 2015, following a painful three-year development cycle that the studio documented in a series of excellent short films.

  * Originally developed by the Wisconsin-based Human Head Studios, the project known as Prey 2 bounced around several times before ultimately getting rebooted by Arkane Studios as Prey, which came out in May 2017.

  * Fallen would later morph into an RPG called Tyranny, which Obsidian released in November 2016.

  * As we’ll see in several of the chapters in this book, the analysts were way off. The PS4 and Xbox One were both quite successful.

  * Avellone had even partnered with Brian Fargo, the founder of Interplay and a longtime friend of the company, on the Kickstarter for a game called Wasteland 2.

  * This figure is according to Todd Howard, the director of Skyrim, who mentioned it in a November 2016 interview with the website Glixel.

  * Fulfilling and shipping Kickstarter rewards like T-shirts and portraits would drain hundreds of thousands from that sum, so the actual budget was closer to $4.5 million.

  * An engine, which we’ll discuss more in chapter 6, is a collection of reusable code that helps developers
create games. Unity is a third-party engine that’s commonly licensed and used by independent studios.

  * “Polish,” in video game parlance, generally refers to bug-fixing, fine-tuning, and all the other fiddly little acts that make games feel smooth and fun to play.

  * One particularly malicious and random bug, discovered in the days after Pillars of Eternity launched, would wipe an entire character’s stats if a player double-clicked on an item before equipping it. Said Josh Sawyer: “Sometimes when a game ships, you see a bug and you go, ‘How in the world did that possibly get through?’”

  * Andy Kelly, “Pillars of Eternity Review,” PC Gamer, March 26, 2015.

  * A platformer is a genre of game in which your primary action is jumping over obstacles. Think Super Mario Bros. Or Super Plumber Adventure.

  * Thanks to the unusual way it handled data, the PlayStation 3’s Cell processor was famously difficult for engineers to work with. Various developers criticized this architecture in the years following the PS3’s launch, including Valve’s CEO, Gabe Newell, who called it “a waste of everybody’s time” in a 2007 interview with Edge magazine. (Three years later, perhaps as a mea culpa, Newell showed up at Sony’s E3 press conference to announce that Portal 2 was coming to PS3.)