Portraits of Russia: Igor, Game Designer

How I got to such a life

I’m already used to the fact that when everyone is asking me what I do, it’s hard for me to answer. That is, it is not difficult for me to answer, but to those who ask is difficult to understand. I train on taxi drivers. He used to answer: "I make games." This is understandable, they say, but what are you doing? Now I answer: "I come up with the rules of the game." If people are interested in playing these rules, I did my work well.

Tolkien is to blame for everything. I stumbled upon him in the fourth grade, when the first book from the trilogy fell into my hands. What Tolkien was talking about ... It was absolutely incredible: battles on swords, orcs, trolls, Gandalf falls into the abyss. I was natural in shock. Then, at the university in Krasnoyarsk, I met the role -players: I suddenly saw not far from the hostel, as people with swords march into the forest. I followed them. And it rushed. But the real congress of the roof happened when I found out about board role -playing games. In these games, it was not only possible to play, but there was a special person, the presenter, he was called the "owner of the dungeon master). And he came up with adventures for the players. Incredible buzz - power over players when you can kill or have mercy on them. And you need to run around the edge, so that they are interested, but that they understand: a little that, and their elf or gnome will be killed. We played for days, for weeks in the hostel, did not leave the rooms. Then I got bored in Krasnoyarsk, I wanted more scale, moved with my wife to St. Petersburg. Once she saw the announcement: "A game designer is required." I wrote a resume, in it indicated that I managed the team (I worked in the so-called Internet portal and I had only one that was the so-called subordinate-a friend in such a female cloak). Then they told me that they took me just because of the line, where I wrote that I managed people. Gave a test task. I didn’t have a fool, I went to a friend who spent a hundred years in games, and said to him: "I put a box of beer if we do test and take me now." The idea rolled. By the way, a friend now works as the director of this company.

At first, I believed that the work of a gam designer is temporary, a means of earnings. I received space money - $ 500 in 2002. Our studio was cool. The first in Russia made games for consoles. But this was not easy for everyone. We spent the night in the office for weeks.

How the games are invented

Games begin in different ways. Sometimes someone gets up and says: "But if we make a game similar to A, only cooler." Sometimes people come and bring their ideas. And money. Without money, they rarely take ideas from the outside. Then designers, such as me, sit down to invent a project of a future game. The design-documentation is written, it is something like an architectural project. Then programmers, artists discuss the project together, rule, think how much time and money will take, and pretend to earn a chance to earn such a project. Well, it is mainly thinking about earning studios and marketing. Although a good designer always thinks about why he comes up with something in the game, how it will be sold and whether it will be at all. The design of the games is very dependent on how the money is collected from the project, which sales model. If this is a one-time purchase of a game for n dollars, as in classical games-this is one story, then, regardless of the game genre, the designer only cares that the game is really interesting, fascinating, spectacular. If the game is distributed according to a conditionally deposit model, and even, for example, it is a multi-user, this is a completely different story. There you need to think how to first lure a person into this game, then how to hold it, then - that he will already buy it inside the game and how, provided that some will buy thousands of truths, and others, do not make the game interesting in competitive terms for everyone: those who pay and those who do not pay. Such games are probably the most difficult in terms of design.

But successful games of such a plan live longer (this is a service, not a product, it must be supported so that people do not leave), and bring huge incomes. In short, the developers will discuss all the nuances, and forward - programmers program, artists draw, designers make sure that all this does not fall apart, and prepare more and more detailed documentation for every little thing in the game. Then, in an ideal case, the game will be redone once, if there is money and time, then they are tested and launched.

According to statistics, in the West 10% of games are successful in a commercial sense, 90% of the projects are unprofitable. In social networks, the top 10 projects are more or less earn in the list of each of the networks.

What the game designer is thinking about

In order to become a designer, you need to penetrate the essence of things and phenomena and understand how they are arranged. What drives people, why they act like this, and not otherwise in any specific situations. Engineering of human souls, in short. You have to read and watch a lot. Inspiration comes completely from an unexpected side. For example, I made one obvious improvement in the game only because I read at that moment the book of Torstin Veblen, The Class Theory. The book about the economy was written at the beginning of the 20th century, but come on, you helped a lot.

There are more simple things at first glance, it is simply important to track them. For example, where you look when you go in the subway. There is a crowd, but if you are a man, your gaze certainly rushes to the female asses. Now recall the success of Lara Croft. Tomb Raider is a third -person game, and the player looks at Lara Croft from the back all the time. And he needs to manage Lara so that she runs somewhere, but it is completely unimportant for the game, it is important that Lara’s ass is all the time, and she moves, and you seem to see it as a man who caught up with her. And you just want to catch up and fuck her. That's all. Ancient game, a simple secret.

The best games use the features of perception, and therefore their creators know how to hint that there is a gold chest around the bend, but so that you feel smart because you understand this, and not because they took you by the subconscious eggs and led you to the chest (remember this candle on the bend right? For some reason, and not to the left, where the road went to a dead end).

Who plays and makes games?

People who come up with games are almost all crazy. Fantasers, sociopaths. There are no typical portraits. Among the players are also completely fantastic people. When I played World of Warcraft, we had a FSB lieutenant, a tax service employee, an accountant from the bank in our guild (she had her nails long, and she often for two buttons instead of one sting, which caused the consequences in the game), the spinning watchman of the zoo and the real deacon. Everyone plays games, just while shy about it.

Women play more and more, especially on social networks. It’s just that there were no games for them before, the games took a lot of time, and the aunts follow the children, they have a lot of life worries. In addition, the aunts look much more realistic at the world. The ex-wife once said to me: "How can you play it, it is not real." You might think the world is real.

About colleagues

A lot of infantile people in the production of games. For example, they are sitting, and their task is to make a conditionally deposited game. But they do not want to do it, because they are all the players themselves, and from their point of view "dishonest" - to throw money into the game and win. And the fact that they are paid a salary while they think about honesty, they are not very worried.

But, on the other hand, there are many very interesting people. It is clear that everyone has their own rattles in the hut, but to communicate with a certain informal circle of like-minded people is still interesting and instructive.

Games are good and not very

There is one question that people often ask themselves the so -called creative professions: "For whom do I do this - for myself or for others?" It seems to me that this is the question of the devil, from the series "Who do you love more, mom or dad?" You can’t make games only for others and ignore your interests, you can not make games for yourself, ignoring the outside world.

When you do for yourself, you do not understand and do not feel the psychology of others, you only ask yourself what you need, and you answer yourself. In addition, people have a tendency to lie to themselves, they want one, but they need a completely different one. Once I asked myself a question (ten years of work): "What do you like to make a game about?" And he answered himself: "About sex and violence." And then I made a game about violence and family values, roughly speaking. Appeal to internal experience impoverishes. A person who closed from the world and is trying to extract something from himself, ignores a huge source of everything that can only be-culture, history, anthropology, economy. He is just stupidly ignorant. Our personal experience is a grain of sand on the shore of the beach, it would be nice to understand this.

There are a lot of good games: Left 4 Dead, Fallout: New Vegas, Skyrim, Patapon, Planescape: Torment, God of War.

World of Warcraft is a good game, but she drank blood from me, so she did not become a favorite game. There are dummy games. For example, Borderlands-2, recently came out. Like at first very cool, but you will play an hour and hello, boring. As for the bad games ... I do not remember them and do not play them. It is much more interesting that there are good games that sick people make. I would not do this myself. Darkness, for example, a game. She is about such a horror that even adults are afraid of, I don’t know what teenagers have in their heads when they play this. The faces of people are pulled out with their hands and so on.

Marketers, whom Pelevin in many respects deservedly calls the darkness - cruel and smart people. For example, Skyrim: The game in the marketing sense is designed for ultra -right and sympathetic. On latent fascists, roughly speaking, which in Europe are millions. Marketers understand how in Europe everyone for*Bali Migrants, so Skyrim, they deliberately do about the Vikings who shout “Skyrim for the Nords” during the game (the Vikings there), and all the drawings of achievements repeat ultra -right tattoos: Thor's Hammer, all matters. And this is a calculated move. There is a struggle of the empire, which Kirdyk from the separatist-nationalists. They are not fools, read ancient sources and understand what is the nerve of our time. I personally rejoice, because the games have matured to the point that you can save them, or you can destroy the empire, and not protect the princess from turtles in Mario.

As for the benefits and harm from the games, it is impossible to talk about it like this: “harm or benefits”, because it is much more important - to whom harm and to whom is the benefit. For example, there are people who cannot eat pork. Or allergies that cannot eat citrus fruits. The point is that there are certain people who are harmful to play certain games. And on other people the same games do not have the same effect. A very simple example: on one shelf are games like Quake and the World of Warcraft type, but they should not stand on the same shelf, just like Ketchup and Fig. In Quake, you can win, in the game World of Warcraft - no. One game has clearly expressed victory rules in one specific duel for 15 minutes, equal conditions for all participants, and the other does not. In one game, you strain reflexes more than intelligence, in another you strain the intelligence more than reflexes. Is this a reason to put these games on one shelf just because they are games? The same game for some people is harmful, but for others it is useful. I am to explore people, not games, for their harmfulness/utility. And what is the benefit of games? Yes, there is no, nor the slightest. And from life too. Just for Fun. Are you useful to live? If so, then the games are good for you, and if not, nothing will help you at all.

About success and career

Some have successful projects the first time, and some ten projects need to be done, or twenty. We must love this business. In fact, without shit. Many people ask me how you can play games, you make them. Much of this issue is revealed-firstly, it is clear that people who ask, hate their work, and secondly-hate people for whom they do this work. Well, I don’t know, it’s not very clear to me how you can actually entertain people, if a) you hate them, b) you do not know them. And what, stupid - play moronic games? I play good games and admire twice - as a player and as a person who sees how cool this is all done. You just understand the work of the master when you yourself have an idea of ​​how all this is done. I tremble every time I think that I could work at work that I hate, for example, all my life. And yet: when I realized that this is mine, all things went uphill at once, even in money. It is impossible to succeed where everything is through force.

About Russia

There will be no reasoning on general social topics. Let the artists tell us or musicians about this in TV how to live. Every miracle-yudo begins to talk about how to equip Russia. Live the way you want Russia to live. If you take an example from you, everyone will live like that in a hundred years.

Modern Russia is a country that I love, with all its shortcomings and difficulties. When I make a cool game that will capture the whole world, I will write in the credits: "Glory to Gagarin."