Every once in a while, a game comes along that just makes you wonder whether some people should rethink their career choice.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a game developer (even though I’d like to be) so I’m not really sure about the development cycle or the different pipelines of different companies but there are some games that just leave you scratching your head… Games like HAZE (even though it was severely overhyped), Damnation, Vampire Rain: AS, Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust etc… Now let’s point some fingers!

Creative Director

Now not all games have a Creative Director, but this is the person who is in charge of the creative vision of the game, getting all of the different leads (art, tech etc.) unified to his picture of the game and keeping them all busy for the entire development cycle.

How he fucked up?

“Hey everybody! It’s Margarita Monday!”
“Phil, it’s Friday.”
“Better start preparing for Monday, then!”
*chugs from Tequila bottle*

Game Designer

The Game Designer is someone who is responsible for the gameplay being created and, hopefully, intertwined with the story elements and everything else – Just making the game smooth and FUN. In short – to keep the gameplay consistent and entertaining throughout the entire game.

How he fucked up?

Well, imitating other games is a sure way to make your game blend into the hundreds of other titles being released each year. Make it stand out, do something different, don’t use something from another game unless you make it equally as good or better. If you’re copying a game, make sure it’s a good fucking copy.

Executive Producer

An executive producer is someone who is getting paid a ridiculous amount of money for sitting in meetings and bossing people around, basically. He is responsible for making the game cost-efficient but still assuring that the game reaches a certain standard. The unique mix between communicating with the development team together with the pressure from above i.e. the publishers and marketing folk desperate to keep their initial deadlines makes for a very demanding position to fill.

How he fucked up?

Well, he could be a greedy bastard who only cares about the money. On the other hand, he could be overseeing a team of inbred turds who couldn’t model a brick wall if their lives depended on it.

Lead Tech

Ah yes, the Lead Technical… He is usually the guy wearing a funny haircut and glasses who jokes about D&D during lunch, successfully repelling any women within 10 yards. Joking aside, though – The amount of responsibility on this guy’s shoulders is immense. Picture it yourself, being in charge of multiple teams working with the tech behind a game. That requires you to know a lot about every single part of the game’s engine and being able to keep many things in the air at once…

How he fucked up?

By not putting the lotion on it’s skin!!!

Game Testers

I believe that these bastards could be a big part of why games fail to perform… You see, many of the great game development companies will tell you that the best approach to Game Design is called “Iterative Design”. That means that you test the game. A lot. You make up a game concept – test it. If it passes, you create a very simple version of the game – test it. If anything goes wrong, you go back and brainstorm – then test it. Seeing a pattern here?

How they fucked up?

Now you might see why Game Testers might have a part in not making the game as good as it could be. If a Game Tester doesn’t know what makes a game fun or is too chicken-shit to tell the team what they really think – the game will suffer.

Yeah, it’s a long shot but it’s not impossible.

CEO

I don’t really have to tell you what a CEO is and does. You all know it. Could it be that the CEO is a brainless moron who only cares about profit? Perhaps.

That’s how he fucked up.

Evil Publishers

Now we all know that publisher companies eats babies for breakfast and makes a living off of people’s tears, broken dreams and lunch money. So basically, if the publishers have a plan for a game – you better follow that plan. Or else.

Bloody fascists.

So there you go, that’s some of the people who we can blame for certain games sucking as much as they do.

However, the alternative theory is that it’s YOUR fault. And GameTrailers.

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