Tried to install my newly purchased Modern Warfare 2 this evening. Started up steam and registered the product (as Modern Warfare 2 requires Steam to run) and began downloading. For some reason it refused to download any faster than around 200kb/sec, which I found very annoying since the entire game is around 11gb large. This was going to take forever, so I cancel the download and pop the first DVD in. It kindly starts the installation and the installation is handled through steam but it takes the files directly from the disc instead. Handy! Or so I thought…
After installing the game I try to start it, and it starts to update the game, at 0%. In 200kb/sec. !?!?!?!?
I restart steam again and it still wants to install MW2 from the start, through downloading. I’m confused at this point, so I go into the Steam folder and look for the MW2 folder that I should’ve just installed. And there it is! Just as big as it should be, just sitting there.
At this point I’m thinking that something must’ve gone terribly wrong, so I reinstall the entire Steam application and then the game once more. SURPRISE! Same problem still!
I also noticed that there is 2 DVD’s in the box. What the hell is that all about? What is the second disc for?
At any rate, at this moment I’m installing MW2 through downloading it off of Steam, and it is sloooooooow. Will be done sometime tomorrow I think. Mind that if I start some other random download of any sort outside of Steam, it goes at the speed of over 1mb/sec.
I wasn’t really keen on Steam before this, but as of today I am a pure Steam-opponent. Digital distribution can fuck off! Give me a box that proves that I bought the game and let me use the discs to install it. It will ALWAYS be quicker than download it, and it will ALWAYS be more fail-safe.
Also, I wonder what happens if Steam were to close down? I guess all of our game licenses goes bye-bye. I’m not buying a game through digital distribution anytime soon, that’s for fucken sure.
There is a small crunch currently going on at work. To meet a milestone that is only a few days away. This means overtime for a big part of the team. Personally I haven’t been crunching for a very long time, compared to some of the other guys (mainly programmers). But I did work this past Saturday, and the office was close to empty. The thought of going to work on a Saturday was really bugging me, because it does indeed suck as I don’t get paid for the over time (one rarely do in game development). But when I actually sat at my computer, animating per usual, I really felt at ease. For some reason I got more work done per hour than usual. I think mainly because there wasn’t as many distractions as there is on a normal day (since the office was close to empty). But also because I wanted to go home, and that could only happen when I was finished with my tasks for the day.
A lot of people, especially outside of the industry but also within it, thinks it’s completely awful to work overtime for free. Personanlly I don’t mind as long as it’s not insane amounts of extra work, like 14h days. But I won’t say I like it either, but then again I am in game development because of my burning interest of video games and video game creation. I am investing my personal interest and time into this project and I do care about the result. So, if needed, I will always be willing to work that little extra to reach the quality we aim for.
In the end though I think one can only do so for so long. When you get older and maybe got a family to take care of I think you will probably get less and less keen on spending your already short spare time at work, doing something you’ve been doing for 10+ years. But I guess it depends on what kind of person you are and/or what kind of life you want to have.
But generally I would (regretfully) say: Expect overtime in game development and do expect difficult hours.
Indeed, that is the engine we’re working with at People Can Fly/Epic Poland. A really sweet engine if you ask me. By far the best engine I’ve worked in, in terms of over all quality and the possibilites when it comes to features etc. One big reason is of course that the Unreal Engine is a product that studios can buy, which makes it a “complete product”. Compared to other in house engines at different studios, where the engine always a work in progess solution for what they need right now and might need in the future.
Anyways, I heard today that the unreal engine now is free for developers to use! Which is awesome news! The deal looks like this: You, as a developer, gets to use the engine and make money off of your game. Up to 5000 dollars that is. After that Epic games gets 25% off the profit. Not the best deal out there probably, but for indie developers this is really brilliant.
You can read more about this here: http://www.unrealtechnology.com/news-article.php?id=102
After working with Unreal Engine I really think that it’s a really good idea for studios to use licensed engines like the Unreal Engine. It’s much more easy getting started and most of the features are already there. Of course there is the cost of the actual license, but it’s not free to developer your own engine either since it takes A LOT of time.
This may seem like a commercial kind of post, sorry about that. It is not my intention!
