Comments on: Sticks and Stones

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:41:34 +0000

I don’t have a lot to say, but you should keep on posting.

I’ve had a couple run-ins with EA censors with posts I’ve made on forums, but none of them were my home turf so it wasn’t too unsettling really.

By: Zack

Zack — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:21:50 +0000

Bryan, everyone knows it is the graphics on Level 3 that need tightened up. They are all loosey-goosey down there.

And naturally I knew/know not to talk about what I am personally working on. But when you work for EA, one of the most diverse in terms of portfolio game companies in the world, what becomes off-limits? Tiburon’s games? Sports label’s games? Games of companies they partner with? (Valve, id) Games of companies they _may_ partner with? (They own a 16% stake in Ubi. Is it safe to talk Far Cry 2?) How do you talk about a design philosophy in sports games without talking about something EA has its fingers in?

I imagine this is just Tangible Design Withdrawl. Not only have I been unemployed for a year where my only fun design has been some card game stuff that no one will ever see, but the last year and a half at EA had been cancelled title after cancelled title.

I mean seriously: have you seen Level 3?

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:52:36 +0000

I say keep the blog. If a designer’s job isn’t to give their opinions on things, then what purpose do they serve? Certainly they don’t actually make the game (that’s what programmers and artists do)- they’re the ones telling the guys that make the games what to do, meaning there has to be an opinion there. Otherwise it’d just be “guys, do whatever”. Or worse “my boss says do this”. Heck, even if you say “tighten up the graphics on level 5″ at least that’s an opinion that the graphics are bad.

So a designer is only useful for his opinions, and I think saying them on a blog is a useful tool to show potential employers that you at least care about design and care about their games enough to notice (and analyze!) them.

Of course, once you get a job I think the expectation- in any corporate environment- is that you publicly toe the company line, or just don’t even really talk about them. At one point this week I thought about posting a picture of my white board full of tasks to facebook to show how busy I was, but thought better of it in case there was anything on there that we hadn’t announced.

It sucks on principle, of course, but what might be a fine internal disagreement (and I think those are mostly healthy) becomes a different beast when put on the internet. “Designer says he wanted better graphics on level 5″ doesn’t look good for the company if anybody ever gives a low review score to the graphics on level 5. Like I said, it sucks, but it’s the same in any corporate environment. It’d be like the president at Bank One blogging that he only has accounts at Bank of America.