Why I left Ubisoft - my dream job
Free translation of the article gingearstudio.com/why-i-quit-my-dream-job-at-ubisoft from a former developer from Ubisoft.
2005, I remember how the authorities asked me where I see myself in 10 years, to which I replied that I see myself as a software architect of the largest AAA-class game projects. The dream became a reality in just a few years when I began working on the Assassin's Creed Syndicate project as, you guessed it, a software architect. And so, it would seem, finally, my dream to be counted among the coolest, highly respected game developers, becomes a reality in the process of working on the most prestigious gaming franchise.
')
But everything changed, I quit my job in favor of my indie projects. Of course, several friends and family members condemned my sudden and rash, in their opinion, decision. They were surprised why I left a well-paid, respected job.
Saying goodbye to everyone on their last working day, no one even asked why I was going into indie development, since even people who barely knew me probably guessed why. Of course, most professional game developers probably knew the true reason for my departure.
In general, after all, I decided to write an article not about my departure from the company, but about the actual process of developing AAA-class games, as I saw from the inside, while working at Ubisoft.
2005, Ubisoft opened a new studio in the city of Quebec. This is about 250 kilometers from their famous Montreal studios, where games such as the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Splinter Cell and Assassin's Creed were created at the time. I was hired by the company just at that time and was sent to a new office on the very first day, there were about 30 of us there. I think you can already understand how much I was delighted with the new workplace - the first day in the largest company, and even in the newly opened new office. In honor of this, I pleased myself with the branded guitar from the first $ 2000 salary. Most people who start their careers in game development or game design are very dedicated people, they also love to play games as well as create them. To be honest, on the first working week I could not believe that I was also paid for this work, it was better than a vacation.
The first two years I worked on little-known projects, this is Open Season and Surf's Up under the Playstation. These are ordinary mediocre games, not bad, but there was nothing special about them. However, I got a lot of fun working on them. I learned a lot, met good people, many of whom became my friends. The team was relatively small, about 15-25 people (I can not remember the exact number), that is, each team member knew each other, for me it was like a small family, and the team spirit was always high. Although, from today's point of view, I see this whole team as nothing more than a collection of newbies who have a lot of work to complete on time. But one thing united us at that time - we all wanted to work on an AAA-class project. It's not quite cool when you tell your friends that you are working on a game based on a children's cartoon plot.
After the Surf's Up project, the director of our studio gathered us all in the conference room (yes, imagine the size of our team, that we all fit together in a small room). He said that our next project will be the Wii version of Prince of Persia, which is soon to enter the market. I remember very well that strange silence after the announcement, since no one knew whether it was good or bad news. Then someone shouted "Hurray." Of course, he shouted it out, because the new project was much better than our last were before. Of course, it was not Assassin's Creed, but who cares. I remember being a little disappointed that it was a port under the Wii, since my interest was always towards the PS3, but to hell with, this was very good news. The project lasted about three years, and was known as the Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands.
It was not a port for Xbox 360 / PS3, just a specific version for Wii. For all the time spent in the company, I would say that I am very proud of this project. The development process brought me a lot of pleasure, I felt complete ownership of the project, that is, it was not some kind of inconspicuous cog in a large system, but had a significant impact on the development process of the entire project. My contribution to the project was enormous, and when I played the game, I could see it on every corner. Of course, it motivated me a lot, I wanted this game to be the best of the best. Most developers, I think, are familiar with this feeling. The team already had about 75 people - a big family, of course, but still a family. In the process of working on a project, I had to interact with most of them, I am generally confident that at least once I spoke with each of the team. You probably ask why I am so fixated on the size of the team, but more on that later ...
After Prince of Persia, I participated in several more projects, and, finally, it was the turn of work in the project on porting Assassin's Creed 3 to the WiiU. This project was completely different from all my past. The team was incredibly small: two programmers at the start of the project, at the peak of about 15. I was completely absorbed in the project as never before, and many in the company believed that this project was doomed to failure from the very beginning because of the difficulty in porting. The entire series of Assassin's Creed games is very demanding on the CPU and GPU. Believe me, when you are in gaming cities like London or Boston, your console is at its peak. In addition, the WiiU was weaker than the PS3 and Xbox 360 at least for those. characteristics, so the odds were not on our side. Even worse, we had to make a direct port, that is, without changing the content of the game, only acceleration by optimizing the code, since it is much cheaper than changing the quality of the content (graphics, etc.) of the game.
About a year later, we came to the point where we could assume that the port was successful and the game's performance remained at the level of the Xbox 360 / PS3. It was undoubtedly a success. Even colleagues from Nintendo were pleasantly surprised that we did it. Life was beautiful. But still, the second part of this project was not as exciting as the first, which consisted of constant repetition of port => bug fixes => optimize and again, and again, and again. By the end of the project, I was already happy to do anything but that.
After AC3, I worked on internal projects, because of the NDA, I cannot say anything concrete about the projects themselves, but they were very important for me personally.
The first project. There were 6 of us in the team, all of the senior level. It was a multiplayer game and our job was to create a working prototype within a month. The development process of this prototype I can describe as follows:
- We play the game all together
- We write out the features + changes that we want in the next release
- making them
- We repeat everything until we get a working prototype
Team spirit is incredibly high. During the game sessions, we were so excited that we screamed and squealed with delight, I think it bothered our colleagues next door, but damn, it was awesome. Since we were a small team, we did not have any restrictions on who did what. For example, everyone could influence the design of the project. The third-party UI pager did the level design, since we did not have our own team. I did a gameplay programming, although this is not at all my specialization (I am still more of a low-level engine optimizer and graphics). But, unfortunately, after a while the project was canceled.
After that I began working on a second internal project, with an even smaller team: we had 2 programmers and a producer. This project was undoubtedly indie. It was again a multiplayer game, and again, we made a cool prototype for a few weeks. Every day during lunch, we invited anyone from the studio to play. We even organized an internal tournament with more than 60 participants. But, again, the project is canceled.
I have never been as happy as participating in these two recent projects. I worked with very talented and very dedicated people. Since the team was small, I could offer a vision of the project from a more creative side, more non-standard ideas, before this the techies did not give such an opportunity. And it was awesome. When you work on a small project, your contribution is huge, from which your motivation is growing rapidly. As my colleague said about this project, that once having tasted the forbidden fruit, there will be no way back.
Then our studio was appointed responsible for developing the next version of Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. We knew that this phrase was very popular, since we had been involved in the development of all parts since Brotherhood. However, this time, it was not just a partial participation in the development. For the first time ever, our studio has become leading in development. It was a great achievement for us, but I was not at all happy about it. The memory of the last projects I have loved is still fresh, but of course, I understood that I would have to work on this project, since there is no other choice.
The development began, I gradually became involved in the workflow, I wanted to give it a chance, because I was afraid that after the last projects I would no longer be able to work on such projects. After several months, the development has progressed substantially. The team was constantly growing, for me, just huge teams are the main root of the problem of large AAA game projects - too many people. Syndicate was created by more than ten studios from around the world, 24-hour non-stop development, people in one studio went to bed, the other just started their working day.
A lot of people of different specialties, a lot of work needs to be done, and there are no people who would know the entire game project as a whole, that is, only highly specialized people, this can be compared with the assembly line at the factory. People eventually realize that they are just an easy-to-replace cog in the system. You can imagine the motivation of people after that.
Tunnel vision comes with specialization, that is, when your competence is limited, you will most likely convince yourself that you are performing the most important part of the project. People become biased, it makes solving problems more difficult, sometimes the one who was louder wins the argument, although this solution makes no sense.
In large projects it is not possible to establish a good relationship with team members. How would you deliver a specific message to a specific person at the right time in this situation? You will not be able to deliver everything you want to those you want, as there is too much information and people to whom it should go. Hundreds of decisions are made every week on important issues; over time, it is inevitable that the person who should have been advised before making his decision was simply forgotten. This eventually starts to disappoint. In addition, sometimes too many people participate in the decision making. Usually you do not want to make any important decisions at a rally with more than 20 participants, since this is trivially ineffective.
Being an architect, I owned a fairly complete vision of the entire technical part of the project. Yes, on the one hand it is cool, but on the other hand it is not. The higher you are, the less specific impact on the project you have. Here you either participate in the development of a narrow specific project thing, or you are a top manager who responds to the mail and goes to meetings. Both positions are frankly crap for various reasons. No matter what your work is, when you do not make a significant contribution to the project, you are just a drop in the ocean, and how soon you realize this, the faster your sense of importance disappears, and without a sense of your need there is no motivation in the project.
I can continue in the same vein about the process of participating in large projects, there are many reasons why AAA projects do not bring the pleasure that was expected. But do not misunderstand me, this is not all related to the company Ubisoft or the project Assassin's Creed, this is the inevitable second side of the coin of the process of creating large-scale games with a huge team. Of course, not everyone thinks like me, many people are completely devoted to the project, super-motivated. True, these are usually novice developers who have not worked on projects of this scale before. But when you have been there a couple of times, engagement is fading away, only the sad daily routine of reality remains. In most cases, experienced developers eventually leave this job.
From the very beginning in the company I already knew that I would not linger here until the end of my days, because already at that time I dreamed of opening my indie studio to make my own games.
Indie development has no problems with big projects. In my opinion, the ideal team is 5-6 people. When team spirit is highest. You do not waste your time on mail and other such unimportant things. There is no sharp division by specialization in the team, so everyone is involved in all aspects of the project. For me personally, indie development means working not only on the technical part of the project. No, I really like the technical part, but I also like to take part in the development of gameplay, visual and sound aspects of the project. And only in the indie studio I can do it.
Yes, this is my main # 1 reason for leaving Ubisoft in favor of my own indie studio.
from the translator: translated, I just liked the story of a person about his experience, I am neither for nor against his conclusions, because I don’t work in gamedev, but the author’s thoughts are clear and understandable :)
Introduction
2005, I remember how the authorities asked me where I see myself in 10 years, to which I replied that I see myself as a software architect of the largest AAA-class game projects. The dream became a reality in just a few years when I began working on the Assassin's Creed Syndicate project as, you guessed it, a software architect. And so, it would seem, finally, my dream to be counted among the coolest, highly respected game developers, becomes a reality in the process of working on the most prestigious gaming franchise.
')
But everything changed, I quit my job in favor of my indie projects. Of course, several friends and family members condemned my sudden and rash, in their opinion, decision. They were surprised why I left a well-paid, respected job.
Saying goodbye to everyone on their last working day, no one even asked why I was going into indie development, since even people who barely knew me probably guessed why. Of course, most professional game developers probably knew the true reason for my departure.
In general, after all, I decided to write an article not about my departure from the company, but about the actual process of developing AAA-class games, as I saw from the inside, while working at Ubisoft.
Modest beginning
2005, Ubisoft opened a new studio in the city of Quebec. This is about 250 kilometers from their famous Montreal studios, where games such as the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Splinter Cell and Assassin's Creed were created at the time. I was hired by the company just at that time and was sent to a new office on the very first day, there were about 30 of us there. I think you can already understand how much I was delighted with the new workplace - the first day in the largest company, and even in the newly opened new office. In honor of this, I pleased myself with the branded guitar from the first $ 2000 salary. Most people who start their careers in game development or game design are very dedicated people, they also love to play games as well as create them. To be honest, on the first working week I could not believe that I was also paid for this work, it was better than a vacation.
The first two years I worked on little-known projects, this is Open Season and Surf's Up under the Playstation. These are ordinary mediocre games, not bad, but there was nothing special about them. However, I got a lot of fun working on them. I learned a lot, met good people, many of whom became my friends. The team was relatively small, about 15-25 people (I can not remember the exact number), that is, each team member knew each other, for me it was like a small family, and the team spirit was always high. Although, from today's point of view, I see this whole team as nothing more than a collection of newbies who have a lot of work to complete on time. But one thing united us at that time - we all wanted to work on an AAA-class project. It's not quite cool when you tell your friends that you are working on a game based on a children's cartoon plot.
Years of PoP
After the Surf's Up project, the director of our studio gathered us all in the conference room (yes, imagine the size of our team, that we all fit together in a small room). He said that our next project will be the Wii version of Prince of Persia, which is soon to enter the market. I remember very well that strange silence after the announcement, since no one knew whether it was good or bad news. Then someone shouted "Hurray." Of course, he shouted it out, because the new project was much better than our last were before. Of course, it was not Assassin's Creed, but who cares. I remember being a little disappointed that it was a port under the Wii, since my interest was always towards the PS3, but to hell with, this was very good news. The project lasted about three years, and was known as the Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands.
It was not a port for Xbox 360 / PS3, just a specific version for Wii. For all the time spent in the company, I would say that I am very proud of this project. The development process brought me a lot of pleasure, I felt complete ownership of the project, that is, it was not some kind of inconspicuous cog in a large system, but had a significant impact on the development process of the entire project. My contribution to the project was enormous, and when I played the game, I could see it on every corner. Of course, it motivated me a lot, I wanted this game to be the best of the best. Most developers, I think, are familiar with this feeling. The team already had about 75 people - a big family, of course, but still a family. In the process of working on a project, I had to interact with most of them, I am generally confident that at least once I spoke with each of the team. You probably ask why I am so fixated on the size of the team, but more on that later ...
AC3 under WiiU
After Prince of Persia, I participated in several more projects, and, finally, it was the turn of work in the project on porting Assassin's Creed 3 to the WiiU. This project was completely different from all my past. The team was incredibly small: two programmers at the start of the project, at the peak of about 15. I was completely absorbed in the project as never before, and many in the company believed that this project was doomed to failure from the very beginning because of the difficulty in porting. The entire series of Assassin's Creed games is very demanding on the CPU and GPU. Believe me, when you are in gaming cities like London or Boston, your console is at its peak. In addition, the WiiU was weaker than the PS3 and Xbox 360 at least for those. characteristics, so the odds were not on our side. Even worse, we had to make a direct port, that is, without changing the content of the game, only acceleration by optimizing the code, since it is much cheaper than changing the quality of the content (graphics, etc.) of the game.
About a year later, we came to the point where we could assume that the port was successful and the game's performance remained at the level of the Xbox 360 / PS3. It was undoubtedly a success. Even colleagues from Nintendo were pleasantly surprised that we did it. Life was beautiful. But still, the second part of this project was not as exciting as the first, which consisted of constant repetition of port => bug fixes => optimize and again, and again, and again. By the end of the project, I was already happy to do anything but that.
Trying the forbidden fruit
After AC3, I worked on internal projects, because of the NDA, I cannot say anything concrete about the projects themselves, but they were very important for me personally.
The first project. There were 6 of us in the team, all of the senior level. It was a multiplayer game and our job was to create a working prototype within a month. The development process of this prototype I can describe as follows:
- We play the game all together
- We write out the features + changes that we want in the next release
- making them
- We repeat everything until we get a working prototype
Team spirit is incredibly high. During the game sessions, we were so excited that we screamed and squealed with delight, I think it bothered our colleagues next door, but damn, it was awesome. Since we were a small team, we did not have any restrictions on who did what. For example, everyone could influence the design of the project. The third-party UI pager did the level design, since we did not have our own team. I did a gameplay programming, although this is not at all my specialization (I am still more of a low-level engine optimizer and graphics). But, unfortunately, after a while the project was canceled.
After that I began working on a second internal project, with an even smaller team: we had 2 programmers and a producer. This project was undoubtedly indie. It was again a multiplayer game, and again, we made a cool prototype for a few weeks. Every day during lunch, we invited anyone from the studio to play. We even organized an internal tournament with more than 60 participants. But, again, the project is canceled.
I have never been as happy as participating in these two recent projects. I worked with very talented and very dedicated people. Since the team was small, I could offer a vision of the project from a more creative side, more non-standard ideas, before this the techies did not give such an opportunity. And it was awesome. When you work on a small project, your contribution is huge, from which your motivation is growing rapidly. As my colleague said about this project, that once having tasted the forbidden fruit, there will be no way back.
AC Syndicate
Then our studio was appointed responsible for developing the next version of Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. We knew that this phrase was very popular, since we had been involved in the development of all parts since Brotherhood. However, this time, it was not just a partial participation in the development. For the first time ever, our studio has become leading in development. It was a great achievement for us, but I was not at all happy about it. The memory of the last projects I have loved is still fresh, but of course, I understood that I would have to work on this project, since there is no other choice.
The development began, I gradually became involved in the workflow, I wanted to give it a chance, because I was afraid that after the last projects I would no longer be able to work on such projects. After several months, the development has progressed substantially. The team was constantly growing, for me, just huge teams are the main root of the problem of large AAA game projects - too many people. Syndicate was created by more than ten studios from around the world, 24-hour non-stop development, people in one studio went to bed, the other just started their working day.
A lot of people of different specialties, a lot of work needs to be done, and there are no people who would know the entire game project as a whole, that is, only highly specialized people, this can be compared with the assembly line at the factory. People eventually realize that they are just an easy-to-replace cog in the system. You can imagine the motivation of people after that.
Tunnel vision comes with specialization, that is, when your competence is limited, you will most likely convince yourself that you are performing the most important part of the project. People become biased, it makes solving problems more difficult, sometimes the one who was louder wins the argument, although this solution makes no sense.
In large projects it is not possible to establish a good relationship with team members. How would you deliver a specific message to a specific person at the right time in this situation? You will not be able to deliver everything you want to those you want, as there is too much information and people to whom it should go. Hundreds of decisions are made every week on important issues; over time, it is inevitable that the person who should have been advised before making his decision was simply forgotten. This eventually starts to disappoint. In addition, sometimes too many people participate in the decision making. Usually you do not want to make any important decisions at a rally with more than 20 participants, since this is trivially ineffective.
Being an architect, I owned a fairly complete vision of the entire technical part of the project. Yes, on the one hand it is cool, but on the other hand it is not. The higher you are, the less specific impact on the project you have. Here you either participate in the development of a narrow specific project thing, or you are a top manager who responds to the mail and goes to meetings. Both positions are frankly crap for various reasons. No matter what your work is, when you do not make a significant contribution to the project, you are just a drop in the ocean, and how soon you realize this, the faster your sense of importance disappears, and without a sense of your need there is no motivation in the project.
I can continue in the same vein about the process of participating in large projects, there are many reasons why AAA projects do not bring the pleasure that was expected. But do not misunderstand me, this is not all related to the company Ubisoft or the project Assassin's Creed, this is the inevitable second side of the coin of the process of creating large-scale games with a huge team. Of course, not everyone thinks like me, many people are completely devoted to the project, super-motivated. True, these are usually novice developers who have not worked on projects of this scale before. But when you have been there a couple of times, engagement is fading away, only the sad daily routine of reality remains. In most cases, experienced developers eventually leave this job.
Total
From the very beginning in the company I already knew that I would not linger here until the end of my days, because already at that time I dreamed of opening my indie studio to make my own games.
Indie development has no problems with big projects. In my opinion, the ideal team is 5-6 people. When team spirit is highest. You do not waste your time on mail and other such unimportant things. There is no sharp division by specialization in the team, so everyone is involved in all aspects of the project. For me personally, indie development means working not only on the technical part of the project. No, I really like the technical part, but I also like to take part in the development of gameplay, visual and sound aspects of the project. And only in the indie studio I can do it.
Yes, this is my main # 1 reason for leaving Ubisoft in favor of my own indie studio.
from the translator: translated, I just liked the story of a person about his experience, I am neither for nor against his conclusions, because I don’t work in gamedev, but the author’s thoughts are clear and understandable :)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/390265/
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