Design Blog

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Standard Practices, and Lack Thereof

Well it looks like I'm officially unemployed now. I've been looking for a job for a little while now, but things have now escalated a bit.

In that vein I've been taking many different design tests in these past months, so far I haven't had too much luck with them, but I'm always hopeful that I will do better on the next one.

However it's brought to my attention an interesting problem with the game industry.

"There are no standards."

Now I don't necessarily mean standards as in pricing or genre, as those things are somewhat established. I refer more to standards when it comes to hiring and best production practices. This is partly the fault of the type of work that is done in the industry and partly a result of the young age of the industry.

The fact of the matter is that every single company I have ever applied to has had radically different design tests, procedures for their interviews (and in the ones that I've visited) significantly different working practices and environments. Naturally you would expect different companies to use the interview procedures based on factors such as size and the nature of the work, but even within similar companies you get very inconsistent results. Similarly when you get a design test, it can range anywhere from six hours in one block to several weeks to complete a level, and the content varies as well, sometimes its a questionnaire, sometimes it's a paper level, other times it's a level built in an editor, and occasionally you get a test that asks for just about all of them at once.

Now I want to be clear that I'm not blaming the companies for this, as they each have developed their own way of doing things. What I am concerned about however is the isolation that has resulted in these types of differences and the results on people interested in getting jobs.

When every company does creates their own special way to create games the result is that workers become incredibly specialized to a certain way of working. If company A has their own procedure for creating a game of a certain genre that involves specialized job descriptions and certain procedures, then it becomes difficult for the company to find new workers and it becomes difficult for workers at that company to find new jobs should they want/need to move on.

For example, say company A has designers wear multiple hats and design levels, script scenarios and write the dialouge, while another company B has a separate jobs for designing, scripting and writing that are fulfilled by specialists. Designers from company A will not be specialized enough to work at company B and workers from company B will not be experienced enough in the other job aspects to handle work at company A.

This is probably more of a designer issue than an artist or programmer issue however, since designer jobs seem to be the ones that differ most significantly from one company to another. However the testing procedure for hiring new workers is something that seems inconsistent for all development disciplines.

While I understand the value of testing potential applicants and I don't think it should stop, I simultaneously question why the transitions between companies is so jarring. I can be working on a week long written exam for one week and then follow it the next week with an intense 3 day design work in specific level editor. With jumps in productivity like this I think it only makes it more likely that the odd pacing will result in lower quality work overall in the long run. Additionally because of the length of time some tests take it makes it difficult to apply for multiple jobs at a time, this again, can result in a lower quality of results. Finally because the content of an employment test can vary significantly from test to test it's impossible for a job seeker to practice or prepare himself, which means the test will not necessarily be an accurate measure of his abilities.

Personally I'd like it if there was some kind of standardized way to test for certain qualities of design in a way that did not result in the guessing game that seems to happen from both sides when an employment test is issued. Of course, I realize that it's not likely to happen for a while, since part of what makes this industry so vibrant and changing is the spontaneity that pushes the limits of gameplay and design.

In the end, game design ability isn't easily measured because it's not like building a house or fixing plumbing; it's creating fun experiences from nothing but imagination.

Which unfortunately can't really be measured with a ruler.

Labels: game industry, job

posted by Saikyo at 11:03 PM