Denrei's Blog

Stolennotebook recently attended the brand new Madison chapter of the IGDA. (btw the “I” stands for International, not Independent). It felt kind of similar to our E3 visit, we gained insight into the industry and met the real flesh and blood folks behind the scenes – which ended up kind of depressing.

In some ways, it was really exciting to be able to just mill around and talk with people who do this stuff for real. At the same time, it was very apparent that many of them lacked the same… energy about making games we have here at stolennotebook. In an episode of Creating Kaos, Damon Grow has a similar meeting with other local game developers where several of the interviewed professionals refer to themselves as “paycheck programmers”. This strikes me as really lame, and completely contrary to everything I’m about with regard to game making. Paycheck programmers belong at Intel and Sun, not game studios. The crew we met with had much of this same lameness about them.

One element I had correctly predicted was the sheepish attitude of the artists. They seem to have tasks thrown at them by people who are technically proficient, and just kind of do as they are told. I was asking all kinds of questions about the creative process in their studios, and I was mostly met with confusion. “They tell me to make a box, so I make a box.” type thing. There is not much that is artistic about the artist’s job, it seems. I’ve known for a long time this is the kind of environment game makers work in (American game makers, at least) but its still kind of alarming to see someone who’s aesthetic sensibility has been consumed so completely by it.

And so my vigor as an independent game maker is renewed.