Owlcat Games - One Hour Interview @ IGM

IGM has interviewed Owlcat Games:

Owlcat Games

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We devote the ninth episode of the Chronicle of the Russian game industry to Owlcat Games - the creators of Pathfinder: Kingmaker, a landmark for our industry.

Thanks Redglyph!

More information.

Interesting to see where they're coming from, and the lessons they've learnt from Kingmaker

It's strange to hear Oleg Shpilchevsky say there aren't game schools over there yet. There must be a huge potential, I see more and more products in games and in development tools, that are of the highest quality.

Traditionally Russians can tell good stories and fairy tales. So it would be nice to see more CRPGs from Russia.

Originally Posted by Redglyph
It's strange to hear Oleg Shpilchevsky say there aren't game schools over there yet. There must be a huge potential, I see more and more products in games and in development tools, that are of the highest quality.

Not really considering the relations with Russia for a lot of countries right now is basically another political cold war. So I don't see western funding an opening of a school.

Anyway Russia used to be a heaven for a vast piracy underground. Add to the fact most games were utterly crap, but times are slowly changing it seems in the last five years.

Originally Posted by Redglyph
Interesting to see where they're coming from, and the lessons they've learnt from Kingmaker

It's strange to hear Oleg Shpilchevsky say there aren't game schools over there yet. There must be a huge potential, I see more and more products in games and in development tools, that are of the highest quality.

The fact that there are not game schools in Russia I would list as a positive. They promote a unity of thinking to game design.

Originally Posted by Redglyph
There must be a huge potential, I see more and more products in games and in development tools, that are of the highest quality.

Yes, the tools and assets available now make the situation day and night, compared to say five years ago. There's a lot of amateurs teaching themselves now, and I've seen some devs advocating not spending the money on academic qualifications. I think to some degree that's been the case in a lot of the I.T. world. Back when I was working in that realm, there were a lot of youngsters recruited with Computer Science degrees, but the skills they really needed were mostly developed on the job.

I've also noticed that some of the game development communities are livelier now than the game playing communities. I'd say game-making is becoming a very popular hobby.

Originally Posted by Silver
The fact that there are not game schools in Russia I would list as a positive. They promote a unity of thinking to game design.

Do you mean that if there were schools, students would all think alike and there would be no progress, no creativity?

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Not really considering the relations with Russia for a lot of countries right now is basically another political cold war. So I don't see western funding an opening of a school.

But can't they fund them on their own? As he said, there are ample learning material available today, and Russia has already acquired a lot of know-how.

I'm not sure it's a necessity. I have friends who went to such schools, it seems to give them all the tools for the job. Some people don't need that because they're self-taught, or have learnt part of the tools and the companies will teach them the rest.

But maybe that's not enough. I see it here, it's so hard to find good students (or other people) with the necessary skills, and it's such an investment to teach them (and see them go to another, bigger company once they've acquired the know-how). That's why we interact with universities, so they can adjust their programme to the reality, and teach the students all about bleeding edge tech (and especially the base skills to get there).

So maybe those gaming schools may help the students find a path to what they want to do, and help the companies with a more regular flow of skilled candidates.

Originally Posted by Redglyph
Do you mean that if there were schools, students would all think alike and there would be no progress, no creativity?

The schools are setup a certain way for large AAA developers imo. They need people for trivial repetitive tasks of no acclaim. Think of all the details that go into 3d environments for instance. They also desire developers to have the philosophy of monetisation and to know how to exploit player psychology. These ideas have to be taught as they are not what attracts people into being developers in the first place. You should watch some developers talk about designing mobile games. Yikes.

I still remember reading about aspiring developers all wanting to make survival games and being told that they can't work. Schools teach to a curriculum and that involves a certain inflexibility and tick box mentality regardless of the teacher. And schools also have many ideological assumptions about what makes a 'good' game that closes minds rather than opens them.

Originally Posted by Silver
The schools are setup a certain way for large AAA developers imo. They need people for trivial repetitive tasks of no acclaim. Think of all the details that go into 3d environments for instance. They also desire developers to have the philosophy of monetisation and to know how to exploit player psychology. These ideas have to be taught as they are not what attracts people into being developers in the first place. You should watch some developers talk about designing mobile games. Yikes.

I still remember reading about aspiring developers all wanting to make survival games and being told that they can't work. Schools teach to a curriculum and that involves a certain inflexibility and tick box mentality regardless of the teacher. And schools also have many ideological assumptions about what makes a 'good' game that closes minds rather than opens them.

Wow, quite interesting but I didn't suspect that.

It's weird. Here in engineering schools and universities, people are taught how to apply the science, and given notions of ethics, economics and law to give a better idea of the boundaries in which they should operate. Everything related to the customer's psychology, the market, is rather for students in economics and marketing. Later, those will be product owners who will observe the market, define the features, monetisation targets, and specify that to the developers.

Trying to teach both sides to the same individuals seems unnecessary, except if they want to start alone, which is hardly possible in that field.