February 7, 2016 at 22:11Why I left Ubisoft - my dream job
- Transfer
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 bosses asked me where I see myself in 10 years, to which I replied that I saw myself in the role of software architect of the largest AAA-class game projects. A dream came true just a few years later when I started working on the Assassin's Creed Syndicate project in the role of, you guessed it, a software architect. And now, it would seem, finally, my dream of being ranked among those cool, highly respected game developers becomes a reality in the process of working on a prestigious gaming franchise.
But everything changed, I left work in favor of my indie projects. Several friends and family members, of course, condemned my sudden and thoughtless decision, in their opinion. 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 most likely guessed why. Of course, most professional game developers most likely knew the true reason for my departure.
In general, after everything, I decided to write an article not about my departure from the company, but about the real process of developing AAA-class games, as I saw from the inside, working for Ubisoft.
2005, Ubisoft open a new studio in Quebec. This is about 250 kilometers from their famous Montreal studio, where games such as: 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, all of us there were about 30 people. 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 delighted myself with a branded guitar from the first salary for $ 2000. Most people who start their careers in game development or game design are very dedicated people, they also like to play games as well as create them. To be honest, in the first working week I could not believe
The first two years I worked on little-known projects, these are 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 pleasure 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’t remember the exact number), that is, each member of the team knew each other, for me it was like a small family, and the team’s spirit was always high. Although, from today's point of view, I see this whole team as nothing more than gathering newcomers who have a lot of work that needs to be completed on time. But one thing united us at that time - we all wanted to work on a AAA-class project. It's not really cool when you tell your friends
After the Surf's Up project, the director of our studio gathered us all in a conference room (yes, imagine the size of our team, that we all fit in a small room). He said that our next project will be a Wii version of Prince of Persia, which is due to enter the market soon. I perfectly remember that strange silence after the announcement, since no one knew if 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 ones before. Of course, it was not Assassin's Creed, but who cares. I remember I was a little disappointed that it was a port under Wii, since my interest was always towards PS3, but to hell, it was very good news. The project lasted about three years, and was known as Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands.
It was not an Xbox 360 / PS3 port, just a specific Wii version. 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, I was not some inconspicuous screw 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 very much, 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 large family of course, but still a family. In the process of working on the 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,
After Prince of Persia, I participated in several more projects, and finally, it was the turn of the project to port Assassin's Creed 3 to 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 about 15. I was completely absorbed in the project like never before, and many in the company thought that this project was doomed to failure from the very beginning due to the difficulty in porting. The entire series of Assassin's Creed games is very demanding on CPU and GPU. Believe me, when you are in gaming cities like London or Boston, your console is at the peak of its performance. In addition, 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,
About a year later, we came to the point where we could assume that the port was successful and game performance remained at the level of the Xbox 360 / PS3. It was undoubtedly a success. Even Nintendo’s colleagues were pleasantly surprised that we did this. Life was beautiful. But still, the second part of this project was not as exciting as the first, which consisted of a constant repetition of port => bug fixes => optimize again and again and again and again. By the end of the project, I was already glad to do anything, but not this.
After AC3, I worked on internal projects, due to the NDA, I can’t say anything concrete about the projects themselves, but they were very important for me personally.
The first project. There were 6 people on the team, all senior. It was a multiplayer game and our job was to create a working prototype within a month. I can describe the development process of this prototype as follows:
- We play the game all together
- We write out the features + changes that we want in the next release
- We make them
- We repeat everything until we get a working prototype
Team spirit is incredibly high. During the gaming sessions, we were so excited that we shouted and squealed with delight, I think it bothered colleagues in the neighborhood, but damn it, it was awesome. Since we were a small team, we did not have any restrictions on who does what. For example, everyone could influence the design of a project. A third-party UI-box made a level design, since we did not have our own in the team. I did gameplay programming, although this is not my specialty at all (I'm still more of a low-level engine and graphics optimizer). But, unfortunately, after some time the project was canceled.
After that I started working on a second internal project, with an even smaller team: we had 2 programmers and a producer. This project certainly had an indie spirit. It was again a multiplayer game, and again, we made a cool prototype in a few weeks. Every day during dinner, we invited anyone from the studio to play. We even organized an internal tournament with over 60 participants. But, again, the project is canceled.
I have never been so happy as participating in these last two projects. I worked with very talented and very dedicated people. Since the team was small, I could offer a more creative view of the project, more non-standard ideas, before which the techies were not given such an opportunity. And it was awesome. When you work on a small project, your contribution is huge, which makes your motivation grow rapidly. As my colleague once said about this project, once having tasted the forbidden fruit, there will be no turning back.
Then our studio was appointed responsible for the development of the next version of Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. We knew that this frashiza was very popular, since we took part in the development of all parts starting with Brotherhood. However, this time, it was not just a partial participation in the development. For the first time in all time, our studio has become a leader in development. It was a great achievement for us, but I was not at all happy about it. The memory of the last projects that I liked was still fresh, but of course, I realized that I would have to work on this project, since there was no other choice.
Development began, I gradually got involved in the workflow, I wanted to give it a chance, because I was afraid that after the last projects, I could no longer work on such projects. After several months, development progressed substantially. The team has been constantly growing, but for me, huge teams are the main root of the problem of large AAA-game projects - there are 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, in another they just started their working day.
There are a lot of people of different specialties, a lot of work needs to be done, and there are no people who would know the whole 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 easily replaceable screw in the system. You can imagine what kind of motivation people have after that.
With specialization comes a tunnel vision, that is, when your competence is limited, you will most likely convince yourself that you are fulfilling the most important part of the project. People become biased, this makes solving problems more difficult, sometimes the winner is the one who was louder, although this solution does not make any sense.
In large projects, it is not possible to establish good communication 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 that you want to those you want, because there is too much information and people to whom it should reach. Hundreds of decisions are made every week on important issues, over time, it is inevitable that the person who should have been consulted before making his decision was simply forgotten. This over time begins to disappoint. In addition, sometimes too many people are involved in decision making. Usually you do not want to make any important decisions at a rally with more than 20 participants, as this is trite ineffective.
As an architect, I possessed a fairly complete vision of the entire technical part of the project. Yes, on the one hand it’s cool, but on the other hand it’s not. The higher you are, the less concrete the impact you have on the project. Here you either participate in the development of a narrow specific thing of the project, or you are a top manager who answers mail and goes to rallies. Both positions are frankly shitty for various reasons. It doesn’t matter what your work is when you don’t make a significant contribution to the project, you are just a drop in the bucket, and as soon as 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 participation in large projects, there are many reasons why AAA projects do not bring the pleasure that was expected. But don’t get me wrong, this is not all specific to Ubisoft or 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 dedicated to the project, super-motivated. True, these are usually novice developers who have not worked on projects of this magnitude before. But when you were there a couple of times, involvement comes to naught, there remains only a sad daily routine reality. In most cases, experienced developers quit this job over time.
From the very beginning, I already knew at the company that I would not stay here until the end of my days, since already at that time I dreamed of opening my own indie studio, making my own games.
Indie development does not have the problems of large projects. In my opinion, the ideal team is 5-6 people. When team spirit is highest. You do not spend your time on mail and other similar unimportant things. The team does not have a sharp separation by specialization, so everyone participates 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 can I do it.
Yes, this is my main # 1 the reason for leaving Ubisoft in favor of his own indie studio.
from a translator: translated, I just liked the person’s story about my experience, I am neither for nor against his conclusions, since I do not work in gamedev, but the author’s thoughts are clear and understandable :)
Introduction
2005, I remember how the bosses asked me where I see myself in 10 years, to which I replied that I saw myself in the role of software architect of the largest AAA-class game projects. A dream came true just a few years later when I started working on the Assassin's Creed Syndicate project in the role of, you guessed it, a software architect. And now, it would seem, finally, my dream of being ranked among those cool, highly respected game developers becomes a reality in the process of working on a prestigious gaming franchise.
But everything changed, I left work in favor of my indie projects. Several friends and family members, of course, condemned my sudden and thoughtless decision, in their opinion. 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 most likely guessed why. Of course, most professional game developers most likely knew the true reason for my departure.
In general, after everything, I decided to write an article not about my departure from the company, but about the real process of developing AAA-class games, as I saw from the inside, working for Ubisoft.
Humble beginning
2005, Ubisoft open a new studio in Quebec. This is about 250 kilometers from their famous Montreal studio, where games such as: 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, all of us there were about 30 people. 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 delighted myself with a branded guitar from the first salary for $ 2000. Most people who start their careers in game development or game design are very dedicated people, they also like to play games as well as create them. To be honest, in the first working week I could not believe
The first two years I worked on little-known projects, these are 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 pleasure 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’t remember the exact number), that is, each member of the team knew each other, for me it was like a small family, and the team’s spirit was always high. Although, from today's point of view, I see this whole team as nothing more than gathering newcomers who have a lot of work that needs to be completed on time. But one thing united us at that time - we all wanted to work on a AAA-class project. It's not really cool when you tell your friends
Years of PoP
After the Surf's Up project, the director of our studio gathered us all in a conference room (yes, imagine the size of our team, that we all fit in a small room). He said that our next project will be a Wii version of Prince of Persia, which is due to enter the market soon. I perfectly remember that strange silence after the announcement, since no one knew if 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 ones before. Of course, it was not Assassin's Creed, but who cares. I remember I was a little disappointed that it was a port under Wii, since my interest was always towards PS3, but to hell, it was very good news. The project lasted about three years, and was known as Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands.
It was not an Xbox 360 / PS3 port, just a specific Wii version. 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, I was not some inconspicuous screw 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 very much, 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 large family of course, but still a family. In the process of working on the 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,
AC3 for WiiU
After Prince of Persia, I participated in several more projects, and finally, it was the turn of the project to port Assassin's Creed 3 to 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 about 15. I was completely absorbed in the project like never before, and many in the company thought that this project was doomed to failure from the very beginning due to the difficulty in porting. The entire series of Assassin's Creed games is very demanding on CPU and GPU. Believe me, when you are in gaming cities like London or Boston, your console is at the peak of its performance. In addition, 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,
About a year later, we came to the point where we could assume that the port was successful and game performance remained at the level of the Xbox 360 / PS3. It was undoubtedly a success. Even Nintendo’s colleagues were pleasantly surprised that we did this. Life was beautiful. But still, the second part of this project was not as exciting as the first, which consisted of a constant repetition of port => bug fixes => optimize again and again and again and again. By the end of the project, I was already glad to do anything, but not this.
Trying Forbidden Fruit
After AC3, I worked on internal projects, due to the NDA, I can’t say anything concrete about the projects themselves, but they were very important for me personally.
The first project. There were 6 people on the team, all senior. It was a multiplayer game and our job was to create a working prototype within a month. I can describe the development process of this prototype as follows:
- We play the game all together
- We write out the features + changes that we want in the next release
- We make them
- We repeat everything until we get a working prototype
Team spirit is incredibly high. During the gaming sessions, we were so excited that we shouted and squealed with delight, I think it bothered colleagues in the neighborhood, but damn it, it was awesome. Since we were a small team, we did not have any restrictions on who does what. For example, everyone could influence the design of a project. A third-party UI-box made a level design, since we did not have our own in the team. I did gameplay programming, although this is not my specialty at all (I'm still more of a low-level engine and graphics optimizer). But, unfortunately, after some time the project was canceled.
After that I started working on a second internal project, with an even smaller team: we had 2 programmers and a producer. This project certainly had an indie spirit. It was again a multiplayer game, and again, we made a cool prototype in a few weeks. Every day during dinner, we invited anyone from the studio to play. We even organized an internal tournament with over 60 participants. But, again, the project is canceled.
I have never been so happy as participating in these last two projects. I worked with very talented and very dedicated people. Since the team was small, I could offer a more creative view of the project, more non-standard ideas, before which the techies were not given such an opportunity. And it was awesome. When you work on a small project, your contribution is huge, which makes your motivation grow rapidly. As my colleague once said about this project, once having tasted the forbidden fruit, there will be no turning back.
Ac syndicate
Then our studio was appointed responsible for the development of the next version of Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. We knew that this frashiza was very popular, since we took part in the development of all parts starting with Brotherhood. However, this time, it was not just a partial participation in the development. For the first time in all time, our studio has become a leader in development. It was a great achievement for us, but I was not at all happy about it. The memory of the last projects that I liked was still fresh, but of course, I realized that I would have to work on this project, since there was no other choice.
Development began, I gradually got involved in the workflow, I wanted to give it a chance, because I was afraid that after the last projects, I could no longer work on such projects. After several months, development progressed substantially. The team has been constantly growing, but for me, huge teams are the main root of the problem of large AAA-game projects - there are 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, in another they just started their working day.
There are a lot of people of different specialties, a lot of work needs to be done, and there are no people who would know the whole 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 easily replaceable screw in the system. You can imagine what kind of motivation people have after that.
With specialization comes a tunnel vision, that is, when your competence is limited, you will most likely convince yourself that you are fulfilling the most important part of the project. People become biased, this makes solving problems more difficult, sometimes the winner is the one who was louder, although this solution does not make any sense.
In large projects, it is not possible to establish good communication 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 that you want to those you want, because there is too much information and people to whom it should reach. Hundreds of decisions are made every week on important issues, over time, it is inevitable that the person who should have been consulted before making his decision was simply forgotten. This over time begins to disappoint. In addition, sometimes too many people are involved in decision making. Usually you do not want to make any important decisions at a rally with more than 20 participants, as this is trite ineffective.
As an architect, I possessed a fairly complete vision of the entire technical part of the project. Yes, on the one hand it’s cool, but on the other hand it’s not. The higher you are, the less concrete the impact you have on the project. Here you either participate in the development of a narrow specific thing of the project, or you are a top manager who answers mail and goes to rallies. Both positions are frankly shitty for various reasons. It doesn’t matter what your work is when you don’t make a significant contribution to the project, you are just a drop in the bucket, and as soon as 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 participation in large projects, there are many reasons why AAA projects do not bring the pleasure that was expected. But don’t get me wrong, this is not all specific to Ubisoft or 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 dedicated to the project, super-motivated. True, these are usually novice developers who have not worked on projects of this magnitude before. But when you were there a couple of times, involvement comes to naught, there remains only a sad daily routine reality. In most cases, experienced developers quit this job over time.
Total
From the very beginning, I already knew at the company that I would not stay here until the end of my days, since already at that time I dreamed of opening my own indie studio, making my own games.
Indie development does not have the problems of large projects. In my opinion, the ideal team is 5-6 people. When team spirit is highest. You do not spend your time on mail and other similar unimportant things. The team does not have a sharp separation by specialization, so everyone participates 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 can I do it.
Yes, this is my main # 1 the reason for leaving Ubisoft in favor of his own indie studio.
from a translator: translated, I just liked the person’s story about my experience, I am neither for nor against his conclusions, since I do not work in gamedev, but the author’s thoughts are clear and understandable :)