Wednesday, January 4, 2012

The Stresses and Strains in Computer Game Development

By Carl Morgan


Despite some general beliefs, the folks that make computer games aren't working in a stress-free environment. Video game companies and their workers have to cope with numerous external and internal issues. These issues, inevitably, lead to varied disorders and psychological issues. In unusual cases, they may even develop early symptoms of arthritis.

For major computer game corporations, or those that already have strong footholds in the sector, the stress can come from performance anxiety. Pressure is exerted on these corporations to up the ante since they currently have a name for quality and fun in terms of computer game design. Game-players became accustomed to the high standards of prior game offerings and, naturally, they expect an increased level of quality from new versions or the newest games. This recurring requirement for something new and better, mixed with the often unstable nature of the modern business environment causes performance anxiety from the video game developers to the humble programmers, even up to the producers who make the rules in game development.

For other firms, it's not the organization's reputation that is at risk. Their own stressor is the drive to to surpass their own previous offerings. Outdoing their own product is simply their obsession. A prominent example of this is Blizzard, the creator and publisher of the "Warcraft" and "Starcraft" games. Both games were known for making the most of technology existing at the time, as well as being some of the best games in the Real time Strategy (RTS) category. In South Korea, "Starcraft" is still played heavily in spite of being having been released over ten years ago. Buckling under the pressure, some unnamed employees have let slip that if Blizzard management did not implement an open time frame for releasing sequels to the above games (allegedly, to guarantee quality), most workers would have suffered from extraordinary cases of performance anxiety. This has ended in Blizzard, as a business gaining a name for taking just about 10 years to supply a follow-up to one of their titles due to problem with their team learning how to deal with anxiety and the pressure.

Naturally, it is not simply the mind that is worked and drained by being in the video game industry. The body is just as big a target for a bunch of issues, as the mind is. In fact , games still have to be designed, the concepts have to be developed, and the beta releases must be driven through a thorough quality testing process.

For the visible and auditory side of the games, the most likely problem would likely be muscle pain and headaches. Some have reported signs of arthritis. Artwork for video games goes thru multiple processes, and it's not entirely unusual for artists to get asked to rush through the art idea for the game. For smaller companies, one or two artists might be given strict cut offs for the concept art of more than one project. The rapid pace of drawing makes them subject to muscle pain, while the recurring thinking and visual analysis may cause headaches.

Another section of the company which will suffer from muscle pain would be the programming team. Games need to be coded, with each work of art and every bit of story converted into a language that the PCs and consoles can understand. Most people are not aware of exactly how much goes into even a simple video game like "Tetris" far less some of the 80-hour long epics produced by SquareEnix, a major Japanese game developer. This is further complex when there are numerous possible interactions within the game's context, ranging from character creation options to how categorical in-game capabilities have interaction with one another. Now, top that off with a deadline, and you're all set to see programmers afflicted by symptoms of arthritis, possibly with migraine headaches as the spiteful cherry on top.

Migraine headaches are also far from alien when it comes to the quality control teams, who are tasked with playing the beta versions of the games. Beta versions are unreleased, unfinished versions of the game that require intensive testing to work out if everything works. Except for that, the quality team must also check on the other game elements, for example difficulty or the plot. Since the beta versions are incomplete, there are naturally a considerable number of graphical failings, some of which have been known to cause headaches.

For millions of gameplayers around the world, they enjoy the virtual worlds without even knowing the large pressure and lots of headaches that came in designing their fave video games. For most youngsters, playing computer games is pure fun. But for the game-makers, developing video games isn't play time at all.




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