Whether it's a RTS focusing on 19th century British colonialism or a space shooter from the 24th century, research is required for *nearly* every game created today. I posted yesterday in the main lounge about how as the curtain falls on my college career and the real world will be taking center stage, I am seeking a path in game development. Today I was at Barnes and Noble, and no matter how many times I would return to the computer game development shelf, I would find myself walking back to the history or reference sections. It was today at the bookstore that I realized where I may have found my nitche. I thrive on information and the obtaining of stats, figures, anything and everything. I own over 20 of those "Idiot's Guide to..." book though I never put their contents to practical use. I'm in love with Wikipedia and I used to read the Oxford English Dictionary as a pasttime when I was younger. I've come to realize all ideas need solid facts, statistics and figures for them to materialize into anything sound, especially in game development. This is where I would like to hear your opinions on the importance of the researcher in game development. How needed is a person whose sole purpose is to find those missing numbers, get that date, or dig deep to find the missing culture's treasure that our hero will find? While I have a high interest in game development, I've come to realize that I am not a programmer, an artist, or a designer. What I am good at though is getting facts, hard facts, deep facts, impossibly obscure facts, the type that a developer would use for either the entire scope of the game, or as simple as who was the current ruler of China in 1203. Where do you stand in your observation of a need for this type of team member, and would you encourage someone to pursue "selling" their abilities to research as a viable entry into game development? Thanks for you time, I look forward to seeing some insightful responses. Cheers!

Heck yeah man, go for it. Games sell well when they have a solid background, and a lot of cookie-cutter games could actually do well with some more story to them.

You moved the post as I was typing a reply! Luckilly my lightning fast cut-and-paste skills have come to the rescue! (Unfortunately, I'm not sure whether this post was worth saving...)


I'm afraid I'm a bit stressed out at the moment for an insightful response, but I'll give my two cents worth anyway (any excuse to distract me from work for a bit!)

The way costs are ballooning for commercial development, there might actually be a market for dedicated researchers for large companies, in the same way that some movies hire researchers to ensure that their films are factually accurate. However, I think it will be some time before game companies consider pure dedicated researchers to be a valuable asset to their team. Heck, most developers don't seem to hire a dedicated writer yet, and research seems easy to most people. Plus most games don't seem to have a huge dedication to being factually accurate.

And in the other sort of research, the academic side, which I have a bit of experience in, the field is growing too, but slowly. However, it is very hard to secure funding for something that seems as esoteric as "gaming". Most arts places are strapped for funding as it is, and games haven't achieved acceptance yet as a fully fledged art-form worthy of study. It is growing however, but it will be a long time before it's has a fully accepted place in academia.

Those developers focusing on history based games will likely understand the need better than most. I think others will come to realise in the future. However you may need to have a "portfolio" of research put together to show what you can provide (and explain how you collected it).

I work at a leading game company. I don't see a big need for this type of role. Anyone can look up facts on Wikipedia. In preproduction all the designers spend months doing research. The hard part is turning that into a game that is fun to play.

Quote: Original post by Kant Lauren
Where do you stand in your observation of a need for this type of team member, and would you encourage someone to pursue "selling" their abilities to research as a viable entry into game development?

I was recently reading about the development of God of War (great game by the way) - initially the designer wanted to stress that the setting was ancient Greece, not Rome. However, they came to the conclusion that 95% pf the players wouldn't know the difference or care - so they ended up focusing on making a game that was fun to play rather than stay completely in snyc with greek mythology.

There probably are some genres where research is important - simulation games and games recreating historical battles come to mind as possibilities. But in most games companies are far more likely to spend their time and money on things like gameplay or making the game look pretty, rather than research.

Anyways, hopefully you'll prove me wrong
good luck

Large companies will hire consultants when they want to achieve historical accuracy and/or realism. Take EA's Medal of Honor franchise as an example. The team consulted with Cpt. Dale Dye. He's the same guy who was consulted for films like "Saving Private Ryan" and HBO's "Band of Brothers".

Maybe your value is not as solely knowing WHAT to look for, but WHO to look for as well. Cpt. Dale Dye is well-known in the industry, but archeologists and reputable historians are hard to come by. Someone will have to look for the right person, interview them, get reference material with their help, and otherwise be the intermediary between the game developers / designers and those specialists.

Well, art, architecture, writing, research, science, its all here in game design and more. The people, the parties, the postathons, heh, don't spread it around, ok?

Seriously though, research is such an important thing to writing and creativity in general, that most people are surprised just what kinds of innovation spring from obscurity. No pun intended, Mr. Marchant <grin>

There seems to be a bunch of historical games coming around in the genre cycle, similar to that of the film industry. Gun, for the PC, is called GTA in the old west, is coming out soon. There is strong market argument for historical games because of the draw to the older market segments who are now comfortable with e-mail and browsing the aarp web site and are looking to interactive computer entertainment as the next step in technological involvement, especially since the relationship between game playing and fighting dementia is being indicated by more and more studies. And, frankly, in history are the keys to future dramatic extrapolations. As that dude from skywalker ranch is fond of saying when he wants to point to yet undiscovered dramatic possibilities, "Only 6 percent of dramatic structure survived the Greeks"

Have fun, these technological cognoscenti around here are a good crew to roll with..

Adventuredesign