Robert Wells - Junior Client Coder @ Playdemic & Chris McCoy - Game Designer @ 360 Studios

Today’s guest lecture was different to the others that we have had in the past weeks, presenting for us were two previous University of Bolton students, Robert Wells and Chris McCoy. Both Rob and Chris are currently employed in the games industry in different sectors, Rob is a junior client coder at Playdemic whilst Chris is a games designer at 360 Studios, based in Manchester.

Chris McCoy - 360 Studios & Robert Wells - Playdemic

The structure of the presentation was split into two sides, almost like two presentations. Robert’s presentation was named; ‘Life as a Games Coder’, whilst Chris’ was named ‘Being a Games Designer’. This allowed two versions of experiences once leaving University to be put forward which helped me as a student to pick up as many tips and tricks that will help me in the future. Robert explained once he was employed at Playdemic, he didn't have any experience with the in-house game engine that is used in the studio, but with a lot of time invested in learning that particular engine he would soon be up to date with the software. Throughout the games industry there are multiple choices of game engines that can be used for a little cut of your profit, but still various studios prefer to create and use their own modified engine. With multiple high end game engines suddenly going free to use such as Unreal Engine 4 and Unity 5, this has sparked the question, is it worth creating and using your own games engine? This begs to differ in different studios, for example it is more common for a AAA studio to use their own games engine as this doesn't limit their project also it is much cheaper as they don’t have to pay any fees to other companies for using their games engine. “If you are an indie game developer and you are maintaining your own custom engine, you’re already behind the competition.” - Peter Angstadt, 2015 The real argument in my opinion is whether you should create and use your own games engine if you are an indie company. According to a recent Gamasutra article written by Peter Angstadt he states that if you are an indie developer and using your own custom engine, you’re already behind the competition. In my opinion this is correct due to many factors that come into consideration when working independently, such as; time, money and usability. An indie developer that wants to get a game released and out on the market knows it isn’t worth writing and creating a game engine from scratch. The days and weeks that are spent creating your custom features for your game engine can be time spent inside a ready engine, improving the game completely. Usability is another massive problem when it comes to creating your own engine, during the presentation Robert Wells described how at Playdemic they have a customised engine, but the problem is that the creator of the engine is solely one employee, who you have to branch out to with any problems. Rob described how this was quite annoying as he would much rather like to search the internet to solve a problem as there is always somebody who has already encountered the issue. Within already known and free game engines such as UE4 and Unity 5, usability is not a big problem due to the amount of information that can be found online. This is another factor that benefits indie studios if they are using a third party engine, with so much information in forms of tutorials, videos etc. it is much easier for the studio to learn and progress.

References: Peter Angstadt (2015) Why I’m Not Rolling My Own Engine. Gamasutra [ONLINE]. Available from: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PeterAngstadt/20150505/242688/Why_Im_Not_Rolling_My_Own_Engine.php [Accessed 01 May 15]. Why are AAA video game developers making their own engines? – Quora. 2015. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.quora.com/Why-are-AAA-video-game-developers-making-their-own-engines. [Accessed 01 May 15].