Unsung Heroes of the Games Industry: Tools Programmers

The latest IGN Unsung Heroes feature is focused on tools programmers. What’s in the job description? How to become one? What’s it like being one? Tools programmers from prominent studios such as Sony Online Entertainment and CD Projekt Red try to answer these questions. A neat piece of light reading for those interested in how the gaming industry operates. An excerpt:

What it’s like being a tools programmer?

Because tools developers work on a different schedule to the rest of the development team, they are not typically subject to the intense crunch periods characteristic of other roles in the industry. “My work life has almost always been 10am to 6pm,” Gish says. “Since most of a tools programmers tasks don’t overlap with publisher deadlines/milestones, I would definitely say that tools programmers have an easier work schedule than the other disciplines. I’m normally only [in] crunch if I’m trying to show support for my fellow coworkers, or if I’m working on a tool that would greatly help their efforts.”

Tools programmers are helpers: there to fix problems and make the whole arduous process of making videogames just that little bit easier. Hącia offers an illuminating – and wonderfully nerdy – analogy: “Where gameplay or rendering programmers can be compared to warriors or wizards fighting the good fight on the front lines, tools programmers focus on buffing the team’s strength and effectiveness.”

That’s when things go right. What about when things go wrong? Miscommunications and shifting priorities over the course of development sometimes means that tools programmers will invest time and effort into creating tools that are useless or obsolete. On top of that, with a million-and-one feature requests and bugs to resolve, tools programmers sometimes make the mistake of overlooking the little things that distinguish intuitive, easy-to-use software from a frustrating chore.

“It’s easy to forget about, especially when you’re developing something for in-house,” confesses Hącia. “You want the users to be able to ease into working with the tools, similar to how your want gamers to be able to ease themselves into the experience when playing your title. And to achieve this, getting the input of the actual end-users, UI designers, and experienced technical designers is invaluable.”