Game development in fictional media...

It’s fun to see aspects of game development on television/media.

Tonight’s episode of westworld has some bits involving a game designer and deadlines.

Spoiler: Westworld episode 5

the story designer rips the characters, plot and music from an westworld storyline for shogunworld because of time pressure.

There is also a fun little show on Netflix called Loaded about a small Mobile game team that makes it big. Pretty fun.

Others?

 

The last season of the guild starts to get into game dev.

Its a bunch of caricature MMO players. Most of the show is just about the interactions between the real world and the game world. But in the last season they get hired on to help the dev team.

Its not very good or accurate. But it's pretty funny if you run out of things to watch on YouTube.

 

There's a whole anime show (and manga) about gamedev:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Game!#Anime

 

Yep. And there is even a big discussion post, about it too.
https://forum.unity.com/threads/new-game-the-anime-has-unity-in-credits.482964/#post-3497147

 

Reamde by Neal Stephenson has a reasonably ok depiction of gamedev, but it's a fairly dud read alongside his better sci fi such as Anathem.

 

Anyone ever heard of Adventure's in Game Development with Falco Girgis and the Elysian Shadows team? They're on Youtube. I think they're about to launch the game too (after 10 years in production and a very successful kickstarter run) and the project lead just quit to get a job at MS on the DX12 dev team.

 

2012: "Indie Game The Movie"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_Game:_The_Movie

 

Indie Game: The Movie isn't fictional, it's just S***.

 

Just finally watched Ready Player One. I know I'm a bit late to the party. But it was a pretty decent take on gamer culture, and did a little bit on the developer.

 

The movie was a vast improvement on the book. I think the screenwriters did quite a bit more research into gaming culture than was originally done for the book. While I enjoyed the book for other reasons, It didn’t “get” gamers and terribly misrepresented developers. Fun though if you grew up in the 80s.

 

Well...
Grandmas boy was a little about game dev, but the part where JB is bug testing the player walking down the road, then their head falls off? That made the movie.

 

Game development, as a subject for entertainment, could be handled quite well. It usually isn't, but it could be. The big problem is that you have to focus on the less pleasant aspects in order to make it a viable show. This is true for a lot of content, but it is especially true of game development.

The fact of the matter is, most general consumers will never be able to understand programming. Period. Full stop. And game development involves a lot of programming. Other disciplines, like art production and sound design, would be easier to relate to a broad audience. But those only account for a portion of game development, and not one of the larger portions. At some point, you have to address the programming, and programming is insanely difficult to make exciting in mass media. It's also a contentious subject. If you try to make it entertaining, you usually end up portraying it in a way that is flashy, but highly inaccurate. This will please a general audience, but massively upset the actual programmers in the audience who will immediately recognize it for what it is. And heaven help you if you try to adhere to accuracy. You will please the die-hard programmers, but general audiences will be bored to tears by those sections of the show.

The best approach is usually to minimize any and all references to the actual labor that gets done, and instead focus on the characters. A colorful cast of misfits who have to face constant challenges makes for a good premise, no matter what context it's in. Game development is a shoe-in for that type of approach. Even cursory research into game development will bring up all sorts of fascinating material to work from. The game industry is currently fraught with challenge, chaos, and all manner of drama. Cook up a decent cast of characters, throw them in the mix, and stay as far away from depictions of actual game-dev work as you can.