>>>MIKE WILSON SAYS computer game developers should be treated like rock stars. <<<
But they get treated like dirt. The artists and programmers make the product, then the lamos in management step in and try to put their fingerprints on it (if successful.) At this stage the developers stop being invited to meetings and the management and marketing types go stand in front of it at e3.
It wasn't like this in the beginning, of course. When the industry had legs, you always got to meet the developers standing in front of their products at the shows. Now it's totally phoney.
All this, compensated for by the long hours, pressure, lack of formal credit, and bad pay. And people wonder why the games are full of bugs.
Note that the two really big successes of the last six years, Doom/Quake (Id) and Myst/Riven (Cyan), were both produced with the original programmers and artists in complete control of the product design, with no producers, proposal review committees, hardware manufacturers committees, 'game experts', or development VPs anywhere in sight.
Cheers,
Chaz |
