10,000 hours of game development

November 2 2011, 5:16pm

In #AltDevBlogADay article this week Phil Carlisle discusses the work process of game developers and what it takes to overcome project paralysis. Carlisle is the CTO at Namaste Entertainment and teaches classes in Advanced Games Technology at a University in the UK. Carlisle proposed that game developers look to the research of Anders Ericsson in his book Outliers, which states that is takes a regime of 10,000 hours of work to become an expert in a given topic.

When working with students on game development projects, Carlisle reports that most students experience a case of project paralysis when faced with the sheer freedom of creating a game from concept to completion. However, this is commonly not a case of procrastination or laziness. Carlisle states that, “this is something else and I feel like it has some relationship to the expertise issue. Which is that they simply have never practiced actually thinking of making a project from scratch for themselves. Or rather, they haven’t practiced often enough for it to be second nature that you have a hundred ideas you want to create and never have enough time for them. Almost everyone I know in the games industry has both done more than 10,000 hours worth of work in their respective roles and has also gotten hundreds of ideas for games they would like to make.” In order to combat paralysis and “put in your 10,000 hours”, Carlisle offers a set of simple steps to practice analyzing and prototyping ideas. Suggestions include taking on new math skills, experimenting with new technology, and starting with small projects that you make from scratch. Continue reading more at #AltDevBlogADay