Let me introduce myself. My name is Eric, or "redfella", and I use to be an avid hobbyist level designer for games such as quake3, wolfenstein, farcry, etc for several years (if you want to take a quick peek at some of my work go here ). I have a lot of great memories from that period of time in my life when I was completely obsessed about game development and level design. And although I never became a professional, I think I had (and have) a pretty good idea what game development was all about solely based on the team projects that I worked on. Anyways, for the longest time I have wanted to do a project related to the story of game developers. I want to tell the world about the world that I experienced when I was a hobbyist. Which is to say; the world of video games, technology, late nights, cold pizza, friends, community interaction, and of course, crafting, designing and tweaking the damn coolest maps and games our brains could possibly fathom. I want to capture the essence and obession of the world of game development and in a style similar to that of David Kushner's "Masters of Doom". (Which if you haven't read yet, I would highly recommend doing.) After pondering this idea, now and again, for the last 4 years, I am guessing that I might have a decent story to tell. Personally, I think that it would be a great story. So what the hell is the point of this post? I guess the point of this post would be to gage what you guys think about my idea. And also to find out how I might actually go about doing it. Honestly, any type of input would be great. I've tried several times to spark interest in my project (meaning, I've tried to find hobbyists and pro game devs to interview) but I've come up empty handed each time. I'm not really sure how to bring it together. Any input would be helpful. Thanks.

You know...my guess is that those that are game developers already know the world you're describing, and those who aren't have absolutely no interest in reading how geeks spend their nights. I could be wrong of course...

Quote: Original post by mikeman
You know...my guess is that those that are game developers already know the world you're describing, and those who aren't have absolutely no interest in reading how geeks spend their nights. I could be wrong of course...

I actually think the non-geek world could use a bit of demystification - after all a game development cycle isn't too dissimilar to making a movie and people watch DVD extras and all that all the time. Granted, you won't have star power going for you in a documentary about ergonomic suicide from programmers' point of view, but IMO there are a number of things (eg working out a concept, doing motion capture, securing music and other IP rights) that might make for a fun ride and could show players (of whom there are aplenty) that it's work like any other, only cooler and you hardly ever become famous.

Quote: Original post by redfella

Cool maps. :)

I kind of agree with mikeman. For me it's not so much about the subject, but if you tell a

">compelling story, I'll read it.

I think Masters of Doom is as close as you can get to what you describe while retaining any kind of mass appeal.

Quote: Original post by mikeman
You know...my guess is that those that are game developers already know the world you're describing, and those who aren't have absolutely no interest in reading how geeks spend their nights. I could be wrong of course...

There were two indy documentaries run on PBS recently ("Helvetica" and "objectified"). The first was entirely about the font helvetica. The second about the lives of designers. Both would seem to be of the case you've stated. Both were very entertaining.

There's also the enormous market of gamers that do care about the development that never get a real look inside.

edit: I guess what I'm getting at is that a well made documentary of a boring subject can still be very interesting. "Helvetica", a documentary about a SINGLE FONT, is one of my favorite documentaries in the past couple years.

double edit: Now I'm in a helvetica rant mood. If someone came up to you and proposed helvetica to you it would probably go like this:

"I want to do a documentary on a font"
"Which fonts are you going to be doing?"
"No... just one font."
"You're going to spend an hour and a half talking about a single font..."
"yes... helvetica..."
-backs away slowly-

I think there's enough interest to make it a good read/documentary. However, I think more depends on your ability as a storyteller than the content. As lazy said, you can make a good documentary about a font. Conversely, you can have a great story, but have a crappy book/movie because it's done poorly.

I think this is an interesting idea, but you'd have to be selective on the types of stories you pick out. If it's 10 pages of someone talking about copious amounts of pizza and diet coke they drank it would get pretty dull and probably wouldn't appeal to anyone let alone non-geeks. Granted I'm enough of a code groupie that I'd read it if Carmack was talking about it, but I wouldn't care much about it.

However I've listened to people talk about 'old school' stories and was enthralled by just the most basic premises. For example, a teacher I had in college described how she and her team practically lived and slept in an abandoned strip mall they had rented out as their office.

I guess the stories need to have substance although all you'll probably end up with is a glorified, book version of the behind-the-scenes videos found on most collector edition games.

Oh and I love Masters of Doom, just had to put that out there.