So basically someone that can cater well to customers and investors and can manage a team so people don't become burned out and what to hate their lives ? While this person knows the ins-and-outs of the workflow of the programmers so they can relate and communicate better ?
QA. Easily QA.
Theres plenty of amazing people in every other discipline. But so many companies treat QA as second class, as not devs, and as disposable. They'll have a skeleton crew for most of the dev cycle, and then pull in whoever applies later in development for more eyes on the project. Just to get rid of them after launch.
I've had the pleasure of working with who I view are the best QA in the world now. We have a streak going of passing platform cert first time. I think we're at about 10 passes now across the different platforms and DLC.
You can't do that without good QA. They save you time, money and help you ship a better game.
Lord, yes!
The difference working with a great QA team makes is like night and day.
The QA team on my current project is very well integrated into our processes and crucial part in our development cycle. They're the project guardians and really earn the name of the title.
Quality Assurance. Testers.
Their job is to play your game, find the bugs, find the things which the platforms will reject you for, so the rest of the team can fix them.
Platforms have a huge list of reasons to fail you. Some are quite pedantic. Like this: https://x.com/KenneyNL/status/1805956175982186840
Really solid QA doesn't just play the game and find bugs - we're embedded in the dev process from the planning stages so we can highlight potential pitfalls before time is even spent coding.
Game development is a bit behind regarding modern QA practices, unfortunately, although it's definitely improving. As someone who works in QA, I left games for other forms of software to get more development exposure and career advancement. If you want to try the cool new QA ideas, it's unlikely you'll get as many opportunities in game dev.
Totally. We have a heavy emphasis on automation testing in our studio and our embedded QA even write automation tests as well.
It leaves the more fun part of destruction testing left to the human QA.
Can QA and product management pair well together in a small team ? basically managing the blind spots and the errands developers aren't suited to take care of in their situation?
In a small enough team, everyone will have to be wearing multiple hats. So I don't see why not.
I've seen quite a few Senior QA move over to Production too, so there might be some skill overlap anyway.
Thanks for your perspective, it's very helpful. I'll just throw this out there, if anybody would like to chat, my skills lie in : Marketing, Communications, product design, graphic design, writing (fiction, plot, copywriting), community management I can help with finding funding, managing a community and catering to users and players. I'm studying in the Top 2 Marketing school in my country, so pick anything you need and I'll see if I can help, i'm still learning. My hobbies lie in system administration, cloud computing, webdesign (CMS wordpress), I know a bit of python and I have broad knowledge of IT.
I'd like to learn, try new things, I already have a job so i'm not looking for money. Passion is key but communication and knowing people's limits and desires in a team is important and fundamental. I'd like to test my skills and help in people's projects
I find the art side really tough but I can muddle through and am usually happy with how things turn out.
For me PR & Marketing is that skill I will never get, it's a completely different skillset to creating a game.
My last game (on Android) has made £43 in 2 years and is still has yet to reach 50 downloads despite my attempts at getting it out there 🥺
I mean that would be awesome, assuming it's ok to post a link that is..
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.CreepiesGames.AstrodriftSpaceRacing](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.CreepiesGames.AstrodriftSpaceRacing)
Marketing marketing marketing.
I've heard rumors of legendary indie studios with rev share marketers on their teams. That means they get paid entirely based on their performance.
It sounds like the perfect storm, but good luck finding someone interested in that.
So we're left balancing way more work than anyone has any right to do making our games, and then we have to market on top of that. Usually instead of sleeping.
At the moment, publishing.
As for the creation of my current project, shader artistry. There would be so much quality to be grained into the visuals using a lot of shaders, but it's not worth it to spend more time learning with this project.
We struggled to find a skilled remote Technical Artist and eventually the position wasn't filled
Skilled remote VFX Artists are really hard to find as well
Skilled PM who understands how to nail edge case scenarios and can clearly convey an idea through documentation is a rare and welcome sight.
Their works affects absolutely everything, from ideation to development, planning, testing and releasing a game. Having a concrete, good vision saves iterations, prevents logical conflicts and makes cooperation between teams super easy.
Tech art. Understanding how to effectively put in graphics really brings value to a game. Art sells games and if that art is light on processing and looks really good then it can help a world be dynamic.
This role has become so important since PBR and materials have gotten so much more complicated.
Did they exist as much back in the day of just normal naps etc. it seemed to be much more just textures and modelling back then.
Well the first games pretty much were made by tech artist. Meaning they had to program every pixel. Directly in assembly. The thing is that you donr really have a video game without the video :p. Over the years the industry has expanded so much that there had are specialists now.
Investors :)
Makes sense !
Probably not what you are looking for but the world is hard for people with non-existent social skills.
Are there some people that couple well with programmers to meet these social skills needs ?
high EQ managers with programming backgrounds. very, very rare
So basically someone that can cater well to customers and investors and can manage a team so people don't become burned out and what to hate their lives ? While this person knows the ins-and-outs of the workflow of the programmers so they can relate and communicate better ?
My bad, you said roles, not skills. I was still sleepy.
QA. Easily QA. Theres plenty of amazing people in every other discipline. But so many companies treat QA as second class, as not devs, and as disposable. They'll have a skeleton crew for most of the dev cycle, and then pull in whoever applies later in development for more eyes on the project. Just to get rid of them after launch. I've had the pleasure of working with who I view are the best QA in the world now. We have a streak going of passing platform cert first time. I think we're at about 10 passes now across the different platforms and DLC. You can't do that without good QA. They save you time, money and help you ship a better game.
Lord, yes! The difference working with a great QA team makes is like night and day. The QA team on my current project is very well integrated into our processes and crucial part in our development cycle. They're the project guardians and really earn the name of the title.
I'm sorry, what is QA ?
Quality Assurance. Testers. Their job is to play your game, find the bugs, find the things which the platforms will reject you for, so the rest of the team can fix them. Platforms have a huge list of reasons to fail you. Some are quite pedantic. Like this: https://x.com/KenneyNL/status/1805956175982186840
Really solid QA doesn't just play the game and find bugs - we're embedded in the dev process from the planning stages so we can highlight potential pitfalls before time is even spent coding. Game development is a bit behind regarding modern QA practices, unfortunately, although it's definitely improving. As someone who works in QA, I left games for other forms of software to get more development exposure and career advancement. If you want to try the cool new QA ideas, it's unlikely you'll get as many opportunities in game dev.
Totally. We have a heavy emphasis on automation testing in our studio and our embedded QA even write automation tests as well. It leaves the more fun part of destruction testing left to the human QA.
Can QA and product management pair well together in a small team ? basically managing the blind spots and the errands developers aren't suited to take care of in their situation?
In a small enough team, everyone will have to be wearing multiple hats. So I don't see why not. I've seen quite a few Senior QA move over to Production too, so there might be some skill overlap anyway.
Thanks for your perspective, it's very helpful. I'll just throw this out there, if anybody would like to chat, my skills lie in : Marketing, Communications, product design, graphic design, writing (fiction, plot, copywriting), community management I can help with finding funding, managing a community and catering to users and players. I'm studying in the Top 2 Marketing school in my country, so pick anything you need and I'll see if I can help, i'm still learning. My hobbies lie in system administration, cloud computing, webdesign (CMS wordpress), I know a bit of python and I have broad knowledge of IT. I'd like to learn, try new things, I already have a job so i'm not looking for money. Passion is key but communication and knowing people's limits and desires in a team is important and fundamental. I'd like to test my skills and help in people's projects
Do game jams.
Man, what did the world ever do to deserve Kenney
Long-term investors! Preferably Private Equity. Because most of the so called 'gaming VCs' are pretty much cancerous to indie game studios.
I find the art side really tough but I can muddle through and am usually happy with how things turn out. For me PR & Marketing is that skill I will never get, it's a completely different skillset to creating a game. My last game (on Android) has made £43 in 2 years and is still has yet to reach 50 downloads despite my attempts at getting it out there 🥺
Maybe I could take a look at your app and lend you a hand on that issue !
I mean that would be awesome, assuming it's ok to post a link that is.. [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.CreepiesGames.AstrodriftSpaceRacing](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.CreepiesGames.AstrodriftSpaceRacing)
I checked it out, I don't have the capacity of trying out the game, maybe I can give you my observations, do you have discord ?
I'm also 'creepyd' on discord I do have some free keys if you'd like one!
Sent you a friend request
Game design. I think I'm pretty good at game design, but you can always be better. Your best tool for getting somewhere is to know where you're going.
Marketing marketing marketing. I've heard rumors of legendary indie studios with rev share marketers on their teams. That means they get paid entirely based on their performance. It sounds like the perfect storm, but good luck finding someone interested in that. So we're left balancing way more work than anyone has any right to do making our games, and then we have to market on top of that. Usually instead of sleeping.
I wish I was better at making art/design
At the moment, publishing. As for the creation of my current project, shader artistry. There would be so much quality to be grained into the visuals using a lot of shaders, but it's not worth it to spend more time learning with this project.
People to run usability suites.
Art and music. I’m a coder. I am not artistically creative. I cannot art
Art for sure!
We struggled to find a skilled remote Technical Artist and eventually the position wasn't filled Skilled remote VFX Artists are really hard to find as well
Skilled PM who understands how to nail edge case scenarios and can clearly convey an idea through documentation is a rare and welcome sight. Their works affects absolutely everything, from ideation to development, planning, testing and releasing a game. Having a concrete, good vision saves iterations, prevents logical conflicts and makes cooperation between teams super easy.
Tech art. Understanding how to effectively put in graphics really brings value to a game. Art sells games and if that art is light on processing and looks really good then it can help a world be dynamic.
This role has become so important since PBR and materials have gotten so much more complicated. Did they exist as much back in the day of just normal naps etc. it seemed to be much more just textures and modelling back then.
Well the first games pretty much were made by tech artist. Meaning they had to program every pixel. Directly in assembly. The thing is that you donr really have a video game without the video :p. Over the years the industry has expanded so much that there had are specialists now.
Honestly, UI artists.