Cary Brisebois is the senior programmer at a video game company. He has
worked on some pretty big-time video games. Perhaps you've heard of Fox Basketball
2000 and 2001, The Simpson's Road Rage, The Simpson's Hit and Run, The Incredible
Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, or Crash Tag Team Racing? But he started out small.
"I've been a professional programmer for eight years, but I've been programming
games for 23 years," he says. "I got started because when I was a kid, my
parents bought me a Tandy TRS-80 computer and a book on programming. I learned
how to copy game programs from the book, and learned I could modify the games
and make them my own. I've been hooked on both video games and programming
ever since. I was eight years old when I started."
Most video game developers get into it because they love video games. But
not all. "I got started sort of by coincidence," admits Emanuel Borsboom.
He was a video game developer for three years. Now he is a senior software
engineer.
"The company I was a partner in went out of business, and a video game
company that one of the other partners knew the owner of was looking for good
people, so I and three of the other partners went to work there."
Lesley Phord-Toy has worked on Happy Feet, Scaler and Ed, Edd 'n Eddy.
She's been working professionally in the game industry for four years.
"I enjoy working with people of different talents and a wide array of backgrounds,"
she says. "There is a creativity that comes from collaborating with these
different types of people that you don't generally find in most other industries."
Robert Riedl's been developing games for 10 years. He is currently the
executive producer at a video game company. "I've always been interested
in computer games ever since I saw Adventure on the Atari 2600, and I used
to create primitive computer games when I was a teenager," he says. "I never
imagined that I could actually get paid to make games, but once the chance
presented itself, I took it."
"I got into games because I love playing games," says Rick Marazzani, who
has worked on well-known games such as Sim City 3000 and Prince of Persia
3D. Marazzani is the also founder and general manager of a video game company.
"I've been playing games all my life: Board games, then Dungeons and Dragons
in the fifth grade, then Apple computers, then Commodore 64, then Amiga, then
PC. I really enjoyed exploring systems, and how to recreate systems and how
to make systems fun and interesting so other people can play with them."
While the hours may be long during the infamous "crunch time" at a project's
completion, programmers say the rewards make it worthwhile.
"I find it very gratifying to create something that entertains millions
of people," says Riedl. "It's comforting to know that someone's life somewhere
out there is having a moment of happiness because of something I did. And
this is a huge responsibility because I then worry that someone else out there
isn't enjoying the game. But they tend to be just grumpy critics!"
"It's fun, number one," says Marazzani. "It's a good job; everyone will
be playing games, so there's some job security. There's always a new platform
coming out that's going to need games and there's always new people discovering
games, so it's a stable industry to work in. The pay is good. You learn new
things all the time; since the state of the art is changing, you're not able
to rely on what you learned four years ago in high school or college classes.
It's an industry where you have fun while you stay on the cutting edge."
"Instant gratification of seeing my work evolve into a game as it is being
created," says Brisebois, when asked what the best part of his job is, adding
with a chuckle, "That, and cold hard cash."
"Whenever you get a group of highly creative people in a cramped space
consuming large quantities of caffeine for long periods of time, strange and
odd things tend to happen," laughs Riedl. "Some instances that come to mind
include using our bodies as ramps for electric cars, dressing up as kung fu
masters for 'research', spending a night in a haunted castle, wrapping up
the entire office in string, and putting pants in the freezer."
Sounds pretty zany! It's all part of the creative process, according to
some.
"Our job is to make fun!" says Phord-Toy. "So it's always great if you
can incorporate fun or goofiness into your workplace, too. I like to keep
the atmosphere light, but also with an understanding [that] we have a job
to do, too."
"I work with creative people, so we can get into goofy discussions or make
things that make fun of each other," chuckles Brisebois.
So those are the good times. What about the bad times? Long hours are the
big complaint.
"For me, it was the hours and the way the job took over my life," says
Borsboom. "I really liked the rest!"
"Shipping the game," reveals Riedl when asked about some drawbacks. "You
work all this time on it and pour out every ounce of your creative being into
it, and then you have to let it go. You worry that it's not ready, that if
only we had one more day, we could add to it or tweak it a bit. It's like
sending your child out for the first day of school."
So is there something more going on here than meets the eye, or is it all
just fun and games and a paycheck? Is there a larger social importance to
the work of a video game developer?
"Hard to say, really," says Brisebois. "I'm not curing cancer or ending
war, but I am making fun games that give people a break from their lives and
so give them a little joy."
"A professor once told me that we, as game developers, are
master teachers.The content we create can affect the way millions of children
and adults view the world," says Riedl. "And so yes, as a form of mass media,
computer games definitely do have social importance and relevance."