Ask a Game Dev

Ask a Game Dev I graduated as a CS major four years ago but I've only worked in IT since then.. Rarely do I get to use the core of the knowledge I gained in school. Do you have a book or exercise site you can...

Are there any books or exercises you recommend to keep programming skills sharp for game dev? (Spoiler: Not really. You should build your own small projects in the area you're interested in)

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Have you ever been on a game from start to ship? Do you normally onboard sometime during the middle? (Spoiler: The more experienced you are, the earlier you're usually brought onto the team)

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Ask a Game Dev On the topic of communication and doing so publicly, how often do you see people in game development bragging about stuff they did not accomplish, or heavily exaggerating their contributions? How...

Have you ever seen people try to lie or exaggerate about their contributions? (Spoiler: Only once, bad results. It's really hard to fool real experts)

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Communication is Important (Spoiler: ... for your career progression)

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On being "Friendly and Outgoing" at work Following up on previous question, I understand the importance of understanding social cues and all, but is it necessary for me to be more "friendly and outgoing"? Moreover, where's the line between.....

I get the importance of social cues, but must I be "friendly and outgoing"? Where's a line between "enduring this" and "toxic environment"? (Spoiler: You should absolutely be able to communicate. The toxicity line depends on the perspective)

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Ask a Game Dev A colleague once describe me as someone off in their own world and unaware of social dynamics in everything around me. Some said that this is good since it means I'm focus on my duty and mind my own.....

I'm mostly unaware of social dynamics. Friends say that's ok. I'm afraid I'll miss out on important info and survival in the office. What do you think? (Spoiler: Yeah, recognizing social cues and hidden norms is important because humans are social creatures)

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Ask a Game Dev Hi, Dev! Can you outline exactly who owns and does what regarding Pokemon and who has the most say with it? That series is such a hodge podge of ownership that I just find it confusing what actually.....

Can you outline who owns what with regards to Pokemon? (Spoiler: Sure)

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Thanks for your post about widening a job search beyond game dev. What kind of adjacent jobs for producers are there? (Spoiler: Project manager, scrum master, line producer, etc. - look at tech or tv/film/content creation)

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(Before the announcement) I started seeing vague advertisements for Fable. Are they about to do something? (Spoiler: Yes)

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Have there been any dips or crises in the game industry where the greater economy has been fine? (Spoiler: Sure. Things operate at different levels of scale)

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What are your predictions for 2026 in terms of game industry stability, job hunting, and growth? (Spoiler: I think there are two major potential scenarios on a macro level that are worth considering)

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Ask a Game Dev How do you recommend developers survive until the game industry crisis passes a bit? I know this has happened before, but what should people who were affected by layoffs, or were just fired do? One...

Thoughts on navigating the job hunting process for the next few? (Spoilers: Broaden your search and scratch your creative itch in your off time)

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Ask a Game Dev When designing characters/items, what sort of methods do you use to decide how many abilities or how strong those abilities are when adding them to the design of the kit but before you run internal...

When you're designing a character/item/ability/thing, what kind of methods do you use to decide how many abilities/effects or how strong they are when adding them to a kit before running internal tests? (Spoiler: We prototype first, then we make rules)

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If the AI data centers hypothetically go unused for some reason, what could game devs use that computing power for? (Spoiler: It's more server power, but we're still limited by the player clients)

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Is there really space to innovate in game design? (Spoiler: Of course)

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Thoughts on Sandfall and Larian's use of Generative AI? (Spoiler: Putting aside the tribalism, it's normal for dev studios to evaluate new tools)

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Are the rising costs of hardware (RAM, GPU, etc.) affecting game dev? (Spoiler: We go fishing where the fish are)

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Ask a Game Dev Hope you had good holidays. Question since Steam and a bunch of games went down on Christmas Eve. Who handles emergency holiday issues? Every dev studio is a little different, but most live service...

Who handles the problems that come in during the holidays when everyone is on vacation? (Spoiler: We usually keep a rotating "on call" schedule)

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This is important - asking questions is super important - but it's also important to *try* first. If you give up immediately and act helpless, especially as a new hire, it reflects badly on you as your team evaluates where they expect you to fit in. Ask, but be as informed as you can when you do!

Ask a Game Dev This has been bugging me for a bit now. I've played mmos and rpgs for a looooong time. How do people brought in during an expansion that weren't there for the base games development get brought up to....

How does a new hire get up to speed on a long running franchise project without being there for the initial creation? (Spoiler: Investigation, observation, and asking questions when needed)

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Ask a Game Dev Do game dev award wins mean anything for developers who earn them or meaningfully contributed to them? For example, if the game you worked on won a narrative award, would putting that on your resume.....

Do game dev awards mean anything to the devs who earn them? (Spoiler: Yes, but less than you might think)

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Ask a Game Dev So, maybe a bit too vague but how do you go about designing a character? Within the context of game development, there's usually two ways to approach this. In the first, you start with the character.....

How do you design a character? (Spoiler: Usually, we figure out what role the character is supposed to serve in the game and then figure out how to show that to a player visually)

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Ask a Game Dev Relating to your weakness question, what are you best strengths as a designer right now? I am the one people call on to "get it working". I probably won't be able to get into the extreme depths of any...

Following the weakness question, what's your greatest strength? (Spoiler: I have a wide variety of skills I use to make things happen)

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Ask a Game Dev As a game designer, what do you think are your personal weaknesses in game design that you have not been able to diminish or resolve through working hard, and how do you mitigate or get around those.....

What do you think your main weaknesses are? How do you mitigate them? (Spoiler: I'm not good at visual design, but I try to learn the principles to both improve and figure out where my boundaries are)

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Ask a Game Dev When a game is announced/released to multiple platforms but not all modern platforms, what decisions lead to choosing which platforms will be supported? For example if a game is released for PC,...

Why would a cross-platform game not go to a particular platform? (Spoiler: Could be technical, financial, or any of a number of other reasons)

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Ask a Game Dev I was recently playing Super Mario World on the Switch 2 via the virtual console, and I noticed that the game still suffers from frame lag when many objects are on the screen simultaneously. Why...

Why does Super Mario World on Switch 2 Virtual Console still have screen slowdown? Shouldn't better hardware fix that? (Spoiler: If the emulator doesn't allow for it, it won't happen)

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Ask a Game Dev I saw a video about cutscene incompetence, basically where a character in a game who is easily able to handle a situation when we are in control is unable to do the stuff we can do in gameplay or does...

How does "cutscene incompetence" work? (Spoiler: It's called 'ludonarrative dissonance' and it comes when different design groups operate independently)

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Ask a Game Dev Could you explain "deduplicating data" and why more AAA games don't do this? Helldivers 2 was reduced from 150 GB to 23 GB. With how large AAA games are nowadays, it seems odd that this isn't more.....

What is de-duplicating, why did Helldivers do it, and why don't other game companies do it too? (Spoiler: It's an optimization that trades disk space for loading speed)

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Could there be a reason that future content causes delays to dlc that's ready to release? (Spoiler: It would be rare, more likely there's a problem with the "finished" dlc)

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Ask a Game Dev Hi! I just got a job on a AAA project at a junior position. It’s my first job in a studio this big since ive started out— i’m overjoyed! But also quite scared of how it’s gonna turn out once i’m...

What should a junior do to prepare for things like crunch or difficult relationships with coworkers? (Spoiler: Forewarned is forearmed)

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