No Stone Left Unturned

by Kenneth R. Ramsley

Deadlines – that’s the name of our new adventure title – and a good way to summarize my life. I’ve been in this business the last several years – which most days has us working crazy hours for studios looking down a barrel-load of deadlines aimed at us by the money honchos. At first, the honchos are hoping for the next big franchise – like Mario or Laura. And after the usual delays and cost overruns it isn’t long before they’re looking to recover 50 cents on the dollar – once they see us pissing money trying to hit some unrealistic schedule. Forget about profits. When a new title goes on sale – for the money people – it’s shear terror.

Like all works of art designed to make a profit – most attempts fall short. And that’s why we have two dozen Marios and fifteen Tomb Raiders while the truly creative studios working on cutting-edge projects fold like lawn chairs.

The honchos behind cutting-edge games like Deadlines are called ‘investors’ to their face and ‘fools’ behind their backs. And despite the usual threats, rarely have we hit any of their milestones – and when we do, it’s usually because we had to gut the project. I started a list of the ways projects get delayed. It’s finger-pointing that could go either way, but mostly we’re late because we overestimate the market value and underestimate the work – or more to the point, once we recognize the magnitude of what we’re trying to pull off – we don’t compromise soon enough – and instead, compromise right near the end when it does the most harm.

My official title on the Deadlines team is ‘Quality Manager.’ Unofficially, I’m the ‘quality guy’ and my department is where we test for bugs and crashes so players standing knee-deep in snow waiting to drop fifty bucks on our game won’t find these for us.

Unless I find a pink slip in my mailbox or a padlock on the door our team play-tests until we loathe the game to the point where we can’t imagine anyone paying a nickel, much less fifty bucks – because that’s the only way to find the screw-ups.

I’d like to say how quality failures ruin the reputations of people like me, but we have little to lose by way of reputation down here in the cave, so it’s pointless to worry about it. The whole quality department stands on the lowest rung of the game-design ladder – as in every industry – and simply acknowledging our existence would be too much of an honor. If things go well and the studio makes money, and if everybody’s writing good reviews, and if we somehow wind up famous for fifteen minutes – they’ll let us go at the end of the project all the same – as in fired – furloughed – shit-canned. So reputations are little valued – no matter your position – especially once the game finds its way into the bargain bins at Wal-Mart selling for a buck.

By then I’ll be back at, though – happy for a paycheck once the next project rolls around – even if unhappy for the 80-hour weeks and everything else.

In the cave we start around midnight—once the so called ‘Creative Department’ runs out of pizza and beer and submits their latest work for review. We have until noon the next day to play-test, log our results, and deliver the bad news before the ‘talent’ returns like driftwood on the tide to fix the mess – and make even more. Usually I’ll stay for the afternoon staff meetings, and after a frustrating 14-hour-day, head past the usual gauntlet of slacker-talk on my way out the door. If the ‘talent’ pushes a little too far, I sometimes give them the ‘glare’ – reminding them how easily we could make their lives into a living hell chasing embarrassing defects we keep in reserve – in case they drift too far out of line.

Besides endless lock ups, system crashes, or a game that simply runs in circles and can’t be won – we spend almost as much time arm-twisting the Deadlines ‘talent’ into facing real deadlines. And when they get royally pissy, and ignore the ‘glare’ too much, I’ll drag them into the cave and show them just how weakly built the thing is – and how I can break their game five ways to hell anytime I want. And if they still won’t back down, I start sending bug lists until they drop – or quit the project.

Everyone bad-mouths the quality guys almost as much as we bad-mouth ourselves for doing a thankless job nobody appreciates – except for Tom – our producer – and the only reason I haven’t quit yet.

Same as the ‘talent’ I ignore my own reality. It’s easier to finger-point. But I have only myself to blame for this job. As kid, I built all sorts of mods—modifications and extensions to existing games – new levels for Doom and Quake. Studios like to hire people with a background in mod-making, since you really can’t build a decent mod unless you understand the nuts and bolts of a game engine – the software running under the hood that ordinary players never see.

Long before Deadlines – ten years ago – with mods in-hand – I talked my way through the door of an established studio northwest of Boston – starting in the QA department – which is where most designers get their start. Unless you own the door or know someone who does, Quality Assurance is the fastest way into the design department because it’s one job insiders avoid like the Black Death. And after a stint in the quality cave the producers figure you must know something about game engines and maybe they’ll give you a shot at design the next time around—of course, only after they fire everybody and hire a new team. So the best time to apply for a job in QA is near the end of a project – so you can jump that much sooner.

I guess I’m better at giving advice than taking it myself – because I’ve been stuck in this cave the last four years. Deadlines the name of our game – but in reality it’s the project that never ends.

Tom has me in charge down here because I’m the one person in the whole company who knows why we built the game the way we did. But that is only going to keep me down – and right now he needs me in the cave more than he needs another designer rolling in with the tide. So that’s the main reason why I have myself to blame – because nobody’s holding a gun to my head – I should have quite years ago.

At my first QA job they set me up with a complete copy of the game engine and all the editing software. I could tweak anything I wanted – and I did whenever I got the chance. Normally only the senior guys get to plow into the nuts and bolts like this – but the QA boss was short-staffed and he took a chance that I wouldn’t tamper with the original design code. After a few months I was so bored, and I started tweaking what I should have tweaked – mostly fixing obscure problems and then sneaking changes back onto the server. If the designers found any of this I figured I’d be a hero for watching their backs and saving them some work. And when they did find out and got all pissy with me – it didn’t matter. Design guys are always pissy even without someone looking over their shoulders. “So-what?” I told them, Do you really want to complain about somebody doing your job while you’re ordering pizza and beer every night?

It almost worked – I’m good at dodging most bullets – except for one guy really pissed off that I’d screwed with his design. And of all the ‘creative’ guys – this guy made the biggest mess – always late – always whining – and now he’s slacking off big time. When the head designer threatens to show him the door – he shows all of the bosses how I was mucking around in the database. So of course – now – all the problems had to be my fault. There was no quick way to prove otherwise. Nor did I have any chance once beefy security guys dragged me around by the elbows right to my car and watched as I left the parking lot.

My boss figured this out eventually – in fact, he probable already knew. But screwing with the design archive is a really big no-no – even if I was fixing the game. A while later he called offering to deliver a box of stuff I’d left behind – I told him to mail it – which he did.

For the next five years I flipped burgers – and waited for another door – any door leading back into a game studio. My old boss called a few times, and the last time he ever called he offered to shop my name and give me a reference if I needed one. But I was still pissed by the whole thing back there – and I told him where he could stuff his reference.

That was seven years ago – and the last time he ever called.

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