Ever more producers

Except maybe, the french: http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~simmers/snake09.htm

 

MWahaha! Vive la Difference! Except now with their new prime minister fella there will no longer be any "difference".

Back to EtM. It did have a fairly extensive QA process but as is always the way with lame film licences it was tied to a movie release date, (yes...which it missed), so the QA process was cut far too short.
Suffice to say, I liked the game better than I did the second, (or third), film...although that's really not saying much. I could go on, and on...and on..... about those films. But I won't.


That is all. Move along. Nothing more to see here.

 

Integrated QA

I have found that having a dedicated QA team based around a core of reasonably well paid leads can add immeasurably to the development process. My teams involvement begins at the design doc stage and deubugs the design doc and created test plans based upon the functional spec for the project. This has a number of benefits.
Firstly it means that when the product comes into test, there is already some degree of familiarity with it which reduces the ramp up time significantly.
Seocndly it also gives the QA team a taste of the whole dev process which means when it is time for them to move on into AP or design or even art roles, they are more prepared to cope with thos new roles.
I suppose what I am saying s that within this company I have created a career path out of QA for everyone in the lab with the exception of me

 

Surely "it is time" is only when they're ready for the new role anyway? No company could be silly enough to move someone out of test just because they've been there a long time, could they?

I dunno, I find the whole idea of "hey, you're good at testing and finding bugs, you've earnt a chance at making schedules now" horrible.

 

I agree entirely, but by being involved in the shceduling of alpha, beta and the milestone deliverables and by building testplans to validate those deliverables they are effectively learninng to schedule. It isnt merely a "you have served your time, so you are now an AP" thing. The point I was making was that a person will be brought to that level of preparedness much sooner than one who is just given a build and told to find bugs.

 

You would hope that no company is going to promote someone from QA unless they showed some sort of aptitude for production. I know I was given several AP tasks to do when I was in QA before I was promoted. Likewise, I was given much more responsibility as an AP (looking after more than one project etc.) before I was promoted to producer.

 

I've always thought the next obvious step for someone in testing is to suggest programming as a career. That's a hard next step though (and this isn't admitted often enough, programming is fucking hard). Then possibly design, although thats a large assumption (analysing the results is very different from juggling the design and constraints upstream). Finally, maybe, just maybe, production (which is more a management role in my head than a design one) if these people have show a real aptitude for people and costs. But thats only if you want to avoid all the loveliness of having a person who understands development from the start of the process (promoted from design/art/programming) and can really appreciate what the trade offs are.

I think it may sometimes be "here's an eager young soul, not aware entirely of the development woes (unlike those awkward development types), they'll be easily moulded to ignore those fuckers and bring the hardnosed edge to things". Of course there's always going to be a percentage of good talent in QA like every other discipline and I don't mean to put that down. Nor to I want to suggest QA shouldn't be a real part of the "dev" team, but often they just aren't, which is a shame. There's a real us and them about things when it comes to QA (much more so than the typical programmer/art divide).

Solution as always is more love.

 

Are you saying that production shouldn't be involved in the design of the game and should stick to what they do best which is the project management of the title without tinkering and micro-managing, effectively creating distrust and a lack of task ownership in the team?

Well that's just CRAZY TALK!!

 

You're joking! I can see designer and producer, but we already have enough troubles with "proper" programmers who can't code their way out of a wet paper bag but somehow managed to complete university with a good degree.
Our best designers and producers were recruited through testing, but in the same way our most useless designers (Put every idea they have into the design document, and then complain to managment because they don't want to be "limited by technology") as well as our worst producers (let's cut some almost-finished and working levels so we have more time to complete some unfinished levels that require some completely untested gameplay) come from there.

 

I didn't say they'd be very far along the programming career track. But all those problem solving/psuedo-debugging skills; binary chop the problem space, remove irrelevant variables, step through simply, try find connection between cause and result, suggesting fixes; are closely connected to some of the skills a good programmer needs. And then there is management of people if you are a test lead, so that applies to a producer. But what skills learned in testing apply to design? Seeing where things are going wrong doesn't really mean you have the stuff to carefully design new games. It's often said here on these forums that players are not ideally placed to design games either just because they play them. So QA are closer to the dev role than a player, but only in the sense that they see more bugs than the average player. Right, wrong?

 

My experience is the best producers don't come from QA. And I've never seen a senior producer who started in QA. Instead they all tend to be former artists or programmers. And I even know of an ex lawyer!!

Inside everyone is an idea for a game; A good producer can recognize the great ideas and has the ability to make these ideas become reality.

 

I know a senior producer who used to be QA. Won't say owt in case of prying eyes.

 

Does it really matter where a Producer comes from? If that Producer is good at their job, has a clear understanding of what it takes to make a video game and helps to inspire the team onto bigger and better things, then who gives a crap if they drew pretty pictures, pointed out what was wrong with everyones "baby" or knew how to make a BBC Acorn print "Hello" onscreen?
A good producer should have an objective view over all disciplines involved in making a video game and should understand that if they wanted to design/draw/program/debug video games then they should have stayed doing that in the first place.

I could say more but it's Monday morning and I'll get myself into all sorts of trouble. The anger needs to subside. Bring on the happy pills..

 

I agree - I'm not sure it makes much difference where someone comes from, being a capable producer is about being a capable producer. As long as someone is prepared to learn about all aspects of game production, regardless of which discipline they came from, they can be effective. Possibly.

 

Well Mathematix I'd love to hear more about this little tidbit you might have.....unfortunately I can't.......
BECAUSE I STILL DON'T HAVE F**($%G ACCESS TO THE F*&%#@G PRIVATE FORUMS.

 

Haha,
I'm finding this delay entirely too amusing

 

I also agree that it depends on the person rather than where they started. Some people join QA to get a foot-in into the industry and have what it takes to become managers.

In my experience there's as many bad Producers who started as coders as those who started as testers. It's not the discipline they come from but their ability to manage a team and weigh up all the risks and options open to them. A producer who used to be a coder has some advantages in certain situations over someone with no coding experience for sure, but the job of a producer is much more wide-ranging than only dealing with code issues.

 

I shoudn't laugh, but hell that was funny!

I wouldn't even let on in the private forums, tbh. Not worth it. Don't think they're a TCE member anyway.

 

Happy to provide comedic content for the masses. I'm not really fussed about who this Senior Producer might be to be honest, I just couldn't pass up yet another opportunity to shout and gripe about still not being able to view the private forums.

 

Maybe the question should have been: Where do good producers come from and what do they do? More field studies necessary.