I’m Chris Natsuume, producer of the original Far Cry and now Creative Director of Boomzap. AMA!

Hi Chris!

I'm a huge fan of the original Far Cry. Do you think the series has improved over the original (more open-world vs. the fairly linear level-based structure of the original), or has it gotten worse?

For the most part, are people pleased with the "primal" theme? I'm really disappointed personally..

Oh, dude, don't tell me that. My lady and I have been looking forward to its release for weeks. We loved Farcry 4/3.

Eh who cares about that guy's opinion? We don't know nearly enough about it to make a decision like that.

Good point.

In almost 4 years of reddit, the main thing I've taken away from it is this:

Everyone is different. Some are stupid. Don't trust (or completely ignore) game reviews or opinions that don't specifically describe why they think that way. I've seen far too many 100 upvoted reviews that say "yes, buy this game, its great!" Only to buy the game and find out it's a peice of shit. Like, Two Worlds shit.

Don't trust redditor reviews unless they give you a reason to trust them. Circlejerk is real.

This is a pretty good way to look at it. I get pretty tired of people saying "this game is shit because I wanted it to be X and Y and Z" when X and Y and Z are purely opinions. Not all games are for YOU, get over yourself. I don't bust into theaters showing romantic comedies and yell at people because they like movied about Hugh Grant getting laid instead of Star Wars and Star Trek. That's their taste. I have mine. Let people be.

That being said, I think when you start talking about FRANCHISES, you have some duty to respect your current fans. People hated the Star Wars prequels because they looked like they were made for children, and it pissed them off. Me too. I was a Star Wars fan, and the prequels fucked with something I loved by retargeting it to someone else. I loved the new Star Wars because it respected me as the core audience, and tried to deliver something to me.

Far Cry, I have similar feelings about. Over time, i think Ubisoft has found who they are making these games for, and that audience has changed a bit. When I worked on the original one... I felt like we were making something fun and a bit campy. I always imagined Jack Carver as a guy who could have been played by Bruce Campbell. Over time it took a weird turn into something much darker... and I lost interest in it, because I was no longer the audience. Does that make them shit? No. But it did lose me as an audience member, and I have always been a little sad that they went in that direction. But since the first one, it aint been my game. :)

I think it has gotten diffeent. When we did the original, we had a couple of key themes: Long range gameplay, intelligent reactive AI, complete player freedom of movement. We spent a lot of time and energy on these points, and it defined a lot of the design choices we made. The goal was to let the PLAYER define the experiences through their choices - not to cram the player into situations where they would see a lot of prescripted stuff. The battle to defend these design choices defined much of the Crytek/Ubisoft relationship during that process.

When Ubisoft took over the license, they went a lot more to the traditional "here are some wow moments we want you to see - here is the cool video we made for you to watch" route... and I think some of what made the original Far Cry what it is was lost.

Also, I miss the Hawaiian shirt.

Hi.

Have designer's work gotten easier since the release of Far Cry because of the technologies we have now, or harder because our current consoles and PCs can take a lot of information and thus games are more polished?

Thanks for your answers.

Depends... The thing is games have become a much larger and more diverse industry... some games, like the small casual games Boomzap is more known for are wonderful for designers to have "complete freedom" in the sense that they are just working with small teams and small feature sets, which is a much more fertile ground for cheap, fast experimentation. So in that sense, design has gotten a lot easier - especially considering all of the tools we have at our disposal now.

However, if you are talking about big budget games - like the latest Far Cry or GTA titles, for instance... OMG. Teams of 200-300 people. Hundred million +++ budgets. Legions of producers, directors, middle managers... art teams that fill whole rooms... in that environment, doing fast, rapid change becomes extremely onerous. Just looking at the animation list for a single Assassins Creed character - you're looking at tens of thousands of dollars work in that alone... so if you then start redesigning that character's move-set... bam. you have wasted man-months of work. In this environment its very difficult to make a lot of changes.... And the meetings... oh god the meetings. In really big projects liks that, the job of designer takes on a really terrible, political dimension that I ... have no interest in. I like it over here in the smaller, more indie shallow end of the pool.

Wow, that last paragraph sounds so hugely stressful.

Thanks for your answer.

Its honestly one of the reasons innovation has really slowed down in the AAA end of the spectrum. It's just hard to make a case for making the multiple rounds of revisions that real innovation requires when each round of revisions costs potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That part about "fast, rapid change" should be required reading for everyone before they complain about something being "easy to fix" in a game that really isn't.

You have NO idea how much those comments make us depressed. You can be SURE that any problem you have with a video game was WELL known about byy the dev company when the game was rleased, and it bugs them WAY more than it bugs you... but there are ALWAYS reasons - and most of them boil down to "Man, this game needs to ship NOW, and if we fix that, it breaks 20 other things, and we're not shipping for another month"...

Hi Chris,

I absolutely loved the original Far Cry! My question is how do you feel about the series now? Are you glad to see how much the title has grown and expanded, or do you feel Ubisoft have sacrificed a lot to get to where they are?

(see my thoughts in other questions on this)

How do you feel about the gaming industry as a whole at this point, particularly in regards to indie games' rise and success?

I'm not sure I would call what is happening in indie games a "success" - what I see is a lot of people losing a lot of time and money in indie games, burning out, and leaving the industry after a couple years. Most of them much, much poorer than they started. Sure - there are successes, but for every Flappy Bird, there are 1000 games that barely made $100. (that is not hyperbole, that's real numbers)... That's not really sustainable.

The people who are really getting hit are the small-to-mid-range devs. People in 20-40 person studios, doing small titles that require real budgets to make, but don't have the big VC funding or big owning studio to eat the costs of losses if the games fail. These studios are dying very quickly - I could tell you 10 great studios like this I know right now that probably won't see the end of 2016. And even the VC funded studios - they are losing a lot of money, and the VCs are already starting to pull out. In another 2-3 years, we're going to see a massive, terrible crash, and most smaller studios will close or get bought for pennies on the dollar... and become nothing more than brand names at larger publishers - who will likely shed most if not all of the original staff. As they do.

What you will be left with is the hobbyists at one end, and the big studios at the other... and that's going to really destroy mid-range, high quality, innovative content.

I suppose I am coming from the perspective that most typical "gamers" like myself (been at it for 25 years now) probably didn't play an indie game with any sort of regularity until recently. Now games like The Binding of Isaac and Shovel Knight are part of my regular rotation. So success, as I put it before, was in regards to indie games now having the means to become widely available and have the potential for traditional success and acclaim. A typical console gamer like myself would not have given the time of day to say Braid or Risk of Rain in the nineties. To me that is significant.

Thanks for your response. I have a lot of respect for people who won't compromise in working towards what they believe in.

I agree - and I think there are some wonderful things going on in games now - largely on the indie side of the spectrum. But like any part of the entertainment industry... content developers are really struggling. I think people see some successes - like Braid or World of Goo - and think "aha! the rise of the indie has come!" - and from some standpoint, yes - it certianly has. And those are great games, deserving of their success. But they mask a bigger story, which has been the slow destruction of the midsized independent development studio. If you are a animator, coder, or designer thats not interested in being a small indie entrepreneur, but don't want to be cog #2547 at the EA FPS Franchise Factory... you don't have a lot of options these days, and very little job security.

Do you think there is a way to "save" this midsized independent developer sector?

Yes. Start actually buying games from those mid-ranged developers. :)

Snark aside, Free-to-Play in it's current incarnation is destroying the industry. It's creating a "winner take all" world where companies like King (now Activision/Blizzard/King) can spend $8 a user to acquire users, and price all of the rest of us out of the market. It's very hard to compete in the mobile space like that. The result has been a large migration back to PC, and to distribution channels like Steam.

It's humorous that a good part of my career was spent competing directly with Valve (HL vs. FC) but in the end, I look to Valve as one of the big solutions for the core problems that mid-range developers have now - discover-ability and distribution. I genuinely believe the Greenlight process is, overall, a good thing. It has issues, but it's one of the better tools I have seen to responsibly sort the chaff from the wheat in indie games, and make sure that the good stuff gets some support and distribution.

The indie game industry is an absolute disaster. For every big name which sells a ton of copies there are 10 with sell almost nothing (like not enough to cover a single year of work for one person level of nothing), often despite having good reviews.

They then got conned into going into bundles and sales at insane discounts (like 80% off) in the name of exposure which ends up making almost no money and almost no difference to the sales after the fact. With the added downside that a load of those bundle copies then show up on greymarket websites like G2A undercutting the main price further screwing the devs.

Traditional mainstream media are barely touching indie games anymore besides a few from big names, and even when they do the change in sales is small. The only way now to get decent sales is to either pay a big youtube variety streamer do a 'let's play' on it or get really lucky and have one of like enough to play it publically without payment.

I'd like to upvote your take on the Bundling thing. Seriously - thats a fucking plague. "here have 30 games for $10" - it's completely devalued and commoditized games, and created a sense that they should be almost free. I guess it's a small step better than rampant piracy... but only marginally so.

How do you feel about the direction the far cry series has gone in ?

I personally love Number 4.

(see my earlier thoughts in other questions)

Could you link the comment please or i would love to know which is your favorite Far Cry game ?

My favorite? The one I made. Far Cry 1. But I am ovbiously biased. :)

(My original AMA was removed, here's the link.) - feel free to bring up any of those topics again here if you had more questions - I won't be replying there.

Hi Chris! Thanks for taking the time to do this.

This might be a little more mundane, but I'm curious--what games are you playing right now? Is there anything coming out that you're excited to play because it might offer new innovations or just looks awesome to you?

Thanks again!

I have 2 kinds of games: The games I play on my handset when I am in a train/plane/toilet, and the games I actually seriously play when I have free time.

My top handphone game remains Orbital. It's just endlessly addictive, and it costs like $3. I don't think I have ever gotten so much value for a $3 purchase. I also play a lot of Hearthstone on my iPad as a "time filler" game. Used to play Paladin almost exclusively, but have been branching out lately.

When I want to sit down and play games... it's strategy games. I still bust out Civ5 every now and then, but my go-to game is Crusader Kings II. It's huge, complex, and takes weeks to play properly. I love everything about it. Absolutely everything.

What's a question you're surprised your haven't been asked yet?

I honestly don't know. I've been making games ... my entire adult life. After 20+ years, I really lose touch with what this industry looks like form the outside looking in. I really wonder sometimes if I even speak the same language as people who are outside the industry - because I have so much general expectation of insider industry knowledge in the people I interact with every day. being a game developer is like being part of some worldwide cult or something - and i forget what it's like... when you are not part of it already.

What did you study in university? Biggest tip for people who want to become a creative director for a game?

I'll copy paste an answer I gavce in the earlier AMA, before it got deleted, and this one was made:

There has NEVER been an easier time to get into the game industry. So you have that going for you. Let me tell you what nobody else will, though:

Essentially, you're gonna be a coder, artist, sound guy, or designer. All other careers in the industry are some subset of those core skills. (producer = old grumpy designer or coder, tester = designer in training, etc.) What you want to do to get there is simple:

Coder = Go get a BS in Comp Sci from a reputable 4 year university. Focus on graphics, advanced math, and AI.

Artist = Go get a BFA in fine arts from a reputable 4 year university. Focus on core art skills - figure drawing, composition, etc. Anyone can learn photoshop - that don't make you an artist. Being an artist makes you an artist.

Sound = 4 year university. Degree in music. see a pattern here? Design = Pick one of the above and do that. I suggest code. Then, when you start in the industry, it'll be 10x easier to get a job, and you can move into design organically - and by knowing how to draw or code, you'll be a better designer.

Note - I know nobody wants to be told they need to go get a 4 year degree... but let me add some points:

1) You can probably do the first 2 years at a community college that is related to that university, and the education will be just as good at 1/10th the price. I skipped a year of my degree at UT Austin in one hard summer of classes at Dallas County Community College. Best money I ever spent.

2) While in school, don't wait. Build some simple games. Unity, Gamemaker, etc. - more than enough tools for you to be up and making games within a few months. Every university has a game dev club. Game jams are in every city. Don't WAIT to make games - start now. But be getting that degree while you do.

3) Game dev is a collaborative art. University is where you are going to meet other passionate, smart, driven game devs who are gonna help you grow. Spend your time with them, not at home alone drinking beer and binging Netflix.

4) MOST people don't last long in game dev. In fact, the average lifespan of a game developer in the industry is less than 5 years. If you decide later that the unreal hours, incredible stress, and brutal lifestyle of the game industry sucks (it does, by the way) - you don't wanna be caught with 60K of student debt and a degree from some fly-by-night donkey-king university that's worthless for anything but games. A solid BFA or BS in art or code will open a world of doors for you outside of the game industry - and will be just as good IN the game industry as anything more specialized. Better, in most cases.

Lastly - my rant: Specialized game development programs are largely bullshit scams. Even ones at reputable schools. They exist to seperate you from your money by convincing you that you can bypass 4 years of learning in 1 year by focusing on teaching you a couple scripting languages and the basics of Maya and Photoshop. You cant. They are bad people. Don't feed them.

Pick a different career I mean I guess you didn't read OPs answers Cuz he said clearly that the industry is going to crash and it will only be big wigs left

Actually... yes. But for a different reason. Most people think making games will be a great career - but they have no real understanding of the difference between MAKIING and PLAYING games.

Most of game development is NOT about making decisons about what kind of game to make, or what characters to have, or what story to write or any of that fun stuff. Most of game development is "why does this goddamn feature not work properly" or "why does this thing not work" and fixing that.

Also - you rarely, if ever, get to CHOOSE what you are gonna make. Most of the industry is working on the new "Spongebob Squarepants Bowling Free to Play" game or some shit like that - because that's the only job they could find. So - if you really want to be testing why the goddamned horse keeps being GREY instead of BLACK in the "My Little Pony Jakpot Slotz" game at 3 in the morning on a Saturday... yeah, the game industry is a great place for you. If not... you may want to consider another career.

This isn't me being jaded. I love my job. I love the industry. But after 20+ years... I have seen more people than I can remember burn out in less than 3 years, and walk away, because they just didn't love it enough to fight through the shitty parts... and there are a lot of shitty parts.

Hello!

What's your opinion on Primal coming out soon? Will you pick it up at any point?

Loved FC3 but just couldn't seem to indulge myself on FC4 like I did on 3

copy pasting from the earlier, truncated Reddit AMA

Depends on what you are into. I'm certainly intrigued by what I have seen, and have been pretty excited about people trying to do something new with the genre... but I am still a bit confused as to how it is a Far Cry game other than the fact that they think it will bring them more marketing attention than a new franchise title would... but then, if you go look at the answer I gave about our Kickstarter... without a franchise title that people know, it's a real f-ing challenge to market a game... I guess I can understand Ubisoft's desire to use the brand, instead of creating something new.

And to be honest THIS is killing the industry. not just the game industry, but the movie industry as well. People just are really not willing to take risks on new brands anymore, and as a brand creator... that's a nightmare. I liked the new Star Wars movie... but was it really the GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME? Well, box office receipts say it was. Which means, much like the Marvel Universe movies, you can expect Disney to make as many Star Wars themed games, movies, TV, etc. as the market will swill down for the next few years... and thats all money that's not being spent on making new worlds, dreams, or ideas.

Hi! When hiring new developers...What do you think is the best skill to have? I want to work at game-developing but I'm not sure exactly what skill polish first. Thanks for your time!

Depends on discipline.

For programmers, I want to know they have seriously good logic and math skills - that they can solve problems in a systematic, organized way. I also want to know that they actually play games, and make games in their spare time. I rarely if ever hire a coder without a solid 4 year degree in computer science.

For artists: Core art skills. Anyone can learn photoshop - but it takes a real artist to know about color theory, composition, and core figure drawing skills - all of which are critical. While a degree or some formal training shows discipline, I hire entorely based on portfolio. Again - if that portfolio includes evidence that you make game art... better.

Designers: I want to know that you actually MAKE games, not just play them. You should have a campaign you designed in D&D or some other RPG., A card game you made. A new RPG game system. A bunch of levels you made for your favorite game in the editor. Something you built with RPG Maker or GameMaker or Unity. Something. There is no excuse for a game designer not making games - whether or not they have been paid to do so. Without SOME proof that you are seriously interested in MAKING games (not just playing them), I simply won't even consider the resume. Testing or beta testing experience is also good. Being the Guild Leader in your WoW guild or something like that... also good. A game designer must live and breathe games - because trust me, I get applications from people with ALL of these characteristics... every day.

What are your thoughts on Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon?

I thought the idea was awesome, honestly.

Why could the boat hit me with pinpoint accuracy from a mile away?

Because fuck you.

Hey Chris

I still play the original Farcry, it's still one of my all time favourite games. However how did the massive jump between this game and the later additions to the series occur? Not just from a business perspective, but as a game in itself? The only similarities I can identify is the first person aspect and the title itself? How can the later ones bear the same title yet be otherwise completely different from each other? I've never understood this, why not just rename each one since they have no obvious link to each other?

This is purely marketing. Ubisoft realized that by putting the words Far Cry on something, they will get some basic level of press, and some people will buy it. As I was mentioning in an earlier comment, we live in a world of franchises. Getting anyone - be it press, users, or distributors - to give a shit about a NEW idea or NEW franchise is really, really, really hard. and you have to start marketing from the very beginning. Slapping a license on something gives it instant name recognition in a world os thousands and thousands of brands and names... it's hard to resist. and for big publishers putting down hundreds of millions on a marketing campaign alone - much less dev costs - having all of your marketing efforts twice or three times as powerful because you used a franchise... it's impossible for them to resist.

This is the core reason why we live in a Disney world, where we're still making a f-ing Toy Story 4, and god knows how many damn Star Wars movies. There are a thousand great fantasy novels and sci-fi novels that would make amazing games and movies... but you'll never see them because Peter Jackson is busy remaking the Neverending Story. And it's our god damn fault - because we are the ones buying this shit.

How do you find your QA for Boomzap? Is it internal or external and are you looking for help? :)

Our QA is internal - in fact we even do some QA for other companies, especially in Southeast Asian languages. We find them the old fashioned way: Blatant nepotism. Most of our QA are someone who knew someone who knew someone in the company, But, honestly, that's true of most of our staff - or most of the staff of any tech company. We're not hiring right now - ask me again in 3-4 months. :)

How was working on the Harvest Moon franchise?

ha. i get that alot. Thats Natsume 夏目. One U. I'm Natsuume　夏梅. 2 U's. Totally different name in Japanese. I had nothing to do with Harvest Moon.

Good games though.

How do you feel about the deconstruction of the expansion pack or the current push on DLC as a whole?

Used honestly, I think DLC is great. I am all for a game giving me a lower purchase price, and letting me enjoy the experience, and then if I want more, letting me pay for that. It's way more honest and straightforward than Free-to-Play, and allows developers to release smaller games faster, and see if the resonate with audiences before they build a bunch of new levels/content. It also allows developers to develop content based on the reaction that the users have to the original content - which is good.

That being said - the business model of making a whole game, then cutting half of it off, selling the first half at full price as an unplayable mess, and then doling out the rest of the necessary biuts in big DLC hunks... Yeah, fuck that. Thats shit business.

Let me add, this is actually the business model we are using for our new game, Legends of Callasia.

1) Free download. Play a few maps, explore the game, see if you like it. basically a demo.

2) if you like that, buy the rest of the game as an in-app purchase. Now you can play the whole game. It's yours. Nothing more that you have to buy. Have fun. Additionally, this purchase opens an account for you that you can use to unlock the same game on PC, Mac, iOS, Android and (maybe) Linux. Buy once. Play everywhere. have fun.

3) later, if people seem to be enjoying the game, we'll release DLC packs of more heroes, troops, and levels to play.

We've looked at it from every angle, and this seems to us, from the USER perspective, to be the most fair, honest, and straightforward way to sell a game in the current game environment.

NOTE: You CAN get the beta of that game now: http://legends.boomzap.com/demo/ (shameless plug)

Do you feel like the original Far Cry wasn't well received in the states at first? I loved the original (even if it needed decent specs to run) and knew Crytek was going to be a force to be reckoned with in the gaming world.

What was the process like? In the first meetings that demo'd the CryEngine, did you get that feeling of shit, we are really on to something here.

I remember the first videos that had came out demoing it and remember my jaw dropping.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV0gmP5zIsY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq3w9PAqoCg

For the youngins, at the time this was incredible visuals.

I remember going to E3 and showing the first big Far cry demo - the one that ended with the flight on the hangglider.. and just watching the press lose their shit. For a lot of people, it was the first they had ever heard of Crytek or Far Cry. It was pretty damn cool.

Thank you for doing this AMA!

I am trying to get a foot into the gaming industry. So obviously, I have some questions on what are the best methods. Bit about myself:

I've got Photoshop experience of over 7 years, also a chunk with AfterEffects.

I learned the basics of coding and programming in C, C++, PHP and JS.

I've also gathered some experience working with editors, like the WarCraft III map editor, Source SDK Hammer Tool, UE4 Editor, aswell as a bunch of others. I also spent my past visually modding games.

Since I was little, my passion was to come up with interesting game concepts. When I was little, I concepted board and card games, used pen and paper to create it, drawing a playboard, cutting out paper cards and stuff like that. Even today, I concept games and write them down.

What I am actually lacking is the passion for coding. I am fine, using editors, but coding is way too slow for my taste.

I am pretty sure one of my questions is getting pretty clear by now. Do I have a chance to find a job, pure as an editor user? Or is the gaming industry still too dominated by C++ and other coding skills?

Also, I haven't had any luck finding a job offer like that, but maybe you got some knowledge on this: Are there positions, purely for concepting video games?

My current guess is no, since most of the games from AAA companies are more often than not just recycled ones with a couple of different features.

What position would I have to apply for at a company, to do game concepts, even if it means, it's just a part of the job?

I am currently working on a game in Unreal Engine. I am aiming for at least some profit, that helps me tackle next projects. As long as no other opportunity comes up, the current goal is to keep it rolling that way, until I can start up my own company to build those games.

If you want to be a CODER in the game industry... you're gonna want to learn C++. It's the core job skill most people need. There are people who are "Unity coders" - but... if you want a long term career in game coding... learn to code.

But coding is only one part of a game team. Game teams have artists, designers, testers, producers, sound engineers, animators - and none of them need to know how to code.

Game development is a big, collaborative sciencde. Pick a specialty. get really fucking good at it, and work with some other people. Even on a small team. A 3 person team of a great artist, great coder, great designer can get a lot more done faster, better, and happier, than 3 "guys who know a bit about everything"

Why can every enemy see me at just about any distance in OG Far Cry?

We modeled it on reality - and thats as far as people actually CAN see... You're just spoiled form the modern "stealth" modfes where you can walk 4 feet away from an enemy and he has no idea you are there. I can barely play GTA because the "stealth" there is such a joke.

Two 'U's right next to eachother? What's going on there?

natsu = 夏 = "summer" ume = 梅 = "plum" = Natsuume. Yes, I am Mr. Summerplum. I'm not Japanese, but I took my wife's name when I married - and she is Japanese. That was... 15 years ago.

Interesting... Im guessing the first 'u' is soft(barely pronounced) like when they say 'desu' ya?

I liked the first Far Cry more than the newer ones and I havent quite been able to pinpoint why. Shooting those helicopters out of the sky was good fun, well done!

Its actually a common part of the Japanese language to have double vowels like that. The easiest way to pronounce properly is to think of it as 2 words: Natsu Ume. Lots of other words are like that in Japanese. It's actually annoying, because it makes you sound a little bit like a pompous dick when you drop correctly pronounced Japanese into an English sentence... so I have trained myself to use American pronunciation for words like karate and sake when speaking English, and Japanese pronunciations in Japanese.... But when one of those words is your name, it's hard to make yourself mispronounce purposefully.

What was your favorite big title release of 2015?

Honestly, for me the big success story of 2015 was the way Blizzard built up Hearthstone. It's a model for how to do something that's kinda free to play but not in a way that respects users, and makes a very compelling game. I've logged more time in that than anything else this year.

Hello Chris,

I was/am a huge fan of the original Far Cry. I remember playing the demo for the first time, and thinking "...this game will change the way we look at the fps genre".

How did you guys come up with the concept of the original Far Cry? What were your influences? What were some of the hurdles you had to overcome? What was the moment you realized you had created a game that people were really going to dig?

I am asking this as someone who has eventually gotten into the game industry, and who absolutely loves it. I know you are getting bombarded with questions, but I hope you get a chance to answer my questions.

Thank you!

the original game design had dinosaurs. And I forget what else. I came into the process right after the original idea had been sold to Ubisoft. There were literally hundreds of documents. I printed all of them out and covered my new desk with them. It was a pile of paper 3 inches high that covered a full sized desk. Most of it highly conflicting with the rest of it. I went through it all with Cevat Yerli, Tony Davis, Petar Kotevski, Sten Huebler, Marco Corbetta, and a few of the other people who had made the original documentations... and then I threw all of the old documents away, and distilled the stuff they REALLY cared about into a 10 page table that listed the key features of the game. Then we went and built that. I largely disallowed any more documentation - and instead demanded that any new design be done through prototyping - including level designs. This is largely how the game got built - through intensive prototyping and teamwork.

The Crytek team of those years was probably the best fucking group of young fresh developers in the world. I'm honored to have been able to work with them.

"Far Cry? This game is broken. And the story is written by an orangutan. The AI, the AI defies reality."

I am that orangutan. Thanks. :)

I'm really curious about getting into the music/audio side of game development. Where do I start?

Become an mazing musician. :)

Snark aside - focus on SOUNDS. Everyone and their monkey wants to write music for games. What the industry needs is people who can do amazing sound work, especially their own foley work. people with those skills are far more likely to be brought into studios to work inhouse, while composers are far more likely to be outsourced.

Hey, big fan! What are your thoughts on this video?

It's AWESOME. that's what I think.

I miss when hard games were actually hard.

Far Cry 1 was my most played Xbox game by far and I play every far cry after hoping it will be something similar but after 2 they're all so different. I really miss predator mode and how awesome they made it to find game sessions with those who make crazy maps. Do you think far cry will ever go back to its roots ?

Unlikely. I think if you want the real "spiritual successors" to far Cry, you're better off playing Crysis, which was largely the same team that made the original far cry, under the direction of Cevat Yerli, who was the real driver behind the original Far Cry.

Disclaimer: I didn't work on any other Far Cry or Crysis. :)

wow, I never played the original far cry, but I did play the second and third one. I just want to say thanks for such a great genre(?)

my question. How do you feel about the old school game designers going out of the big companies, and starting again like Playtonic games (the people fromm RareWare) and even you?

I think its great. When I started making games in 1992 or so, the industry was still very, very young. With the exception of a couple of people from the old Atari/standup days, there were very few people to "look up to" or learn from in the industry. I was lucky enough to work with one of them, Arnold Hendrick (Pirates, Civilization, more), when I was just getting into the industry, and it was amazing.

Now there is a pretty deep bench of people from my generation of developers available - and it's great to see them out there working with new technology, new tools, and new developers. It's a huge advantage the young generatrion of game developers today have that most people in my generation didnt have.

In what way are you or are you not related to Natsume?

ha. I get that alot. Thats Natsume 夏目. One U. I'm Natsuume　夏梅. 2 U's. Totally different name in Japanese. I had nothing to do with Harvest Moon. Good games though.

I am also completely unrelated to Natsume Soseki.

How can I become your assistant (Jr. Producer I guess)?

Work you way up. Start as a tester. Be good at it. Sadly, I'm not hiring now. But other people are.

Thanks! You maybe got contacts to any of them?

Same advice I gave to another guy applies here - I am not sure who is hiring or who isn't - but here's your plan:

What I did back when I was looking for work was to just send out 20 resumes a day. To every damn company I could find. Starting with the ones I most was interested in, with personalized cover pages that clearly let them know I was interested in THEM, and not justa form letter. Every day, like a full time job. Researching companies and writing them. 12 hours a day. Does not matter if they say they are hiring or not. make it clear you are happy to move to them, and don't require them to pay relocation. Record it all on an excel sheet, and write them back every couple weeks until they tell you no.

If you could reboot any dead franchise what would you take a shot at?

Ape Escape. DAMN I wanna make a new Ape Escape. It has been WAY too long since there has been a good console platformer, and that was the best ever made.

Geeze man, why not make an original game instead of retreading an old franchise? ;P

Just kidding, I know you were only answering the question.

Actually - YES. I would LOVE to make a new, original platformer. Before I worked at Crytek, I worked at a studio in Salt lake called Kodiak (where we made Circus Maximus, Chariot Wars) - and we were building this amazing underground-fantasy platformer called Goblins where you were like this bad ass goblin with a wrench. It was cancelled, but... it was a fucking good game idea - I still dream of making it someday.

Sounds intriguing but I don't really see what would make it unique... A puzzle platformer wherein you use the wrench to manipulate the environment? Build defenses against enemies?

Yeah - that was the idea, it was this big complex environment, and you were going to explore it with this big ass wrench that you could use as a weapon, or use to interact with objects and things... and over the run of the game, you would get more tools and things. We had a demo at one point that was absolutely beautiful. It was on PS2, so it looks dated as hell now, but was amazing at the tme.

Did someone ask you, before they started to male the movie with Uwe Boll? What's your opinion?

Well, nobody asked ME - I was the producer of the game. the game belonged to Crytek, and that call was made by the Yerlis, who owned the license. They were, of course, paid for the rights.

And the movie sucked balls. But... the license fees helped pay the staff to finish the game, so... I'm happy it got made.

Do you ever get any free time playing video games out of pure enjoyment?

Are there any myths you would love to dispel to some gamers who may be misinformed about game development?

What is is like working in the AAA scene compare to the independent scene? Are there any distinguishable pros/cons to each side?

Free time to play games? - Not enough. When I do, it's usually on a train or toilet - so I play a lot of Android phone games. Favourites: Smash Hit, Orbital, Super Awesome Quest

Myths- Hell yes - heres a few:

1) Game Devs are greedy and rich: No, most of us work crazy hours, get paid peanuts, and we genuinely make games because we love games. We're just really having a hard time making moneyt at this anymore.

2) Piracy isn't a problem: Bullshit. We lose millions and millions in pirated games, and the people it hurts the MOST ae the people who DO pay for games. When we know that 2/3 of the people playing a game are pirating it, we have to triple the cost of the game for the people who DO play it to make the money back. If you pay for games, you should fucking HATE pirates. Oh, and you hate always online registration? Yeah - then hate the pirates. Hate DRM? Don't hate us, hate the pirates. Hate Free to Play? Again - dont hate us, hate the pirates. Goes double for the music industry, which has been completely destroyed by piracy.

3) Why didn't the game devs just...: There is no "just..." in game development. the simplest games you play take months to build, The big AAA games, teams of 300+ people over 2 years - thats 600 man-years... They thought of whatever you are thinking of - but doing whatever it is that you want broke something else, and they made a judgement call to do THIS instead of THAT. Your "they should have just BLA" solution was almost certyianly considered and rejected for good reasons.

AAA vs. Independant: You could write a book. But the BIG difference is that small teams give you a lot of freedom to make new, interesting fun shit w/o having toi get buyin fro a bunch of people. But you do that at the cost of not being able to make big, shiny, fancy things.

In response to your opinion on piracy, I have to disagree to a point. Lets assume yes, 2/3 of people playing "Far Cry 5" pirated it.

If devs found some way to eliminate piracy entierly, do you really think that remaining 2/3 would buy the game? No way. Maybe 20% of them.

So yes, piracy hurts the gaming industry, but not as much as big publishers want everyone to believe. Game piracy, and anti piracy measures have been around since before I was born, and the ones that get hurt the most are the consumers.

If you think the best way to fight against piracy is by jacking up prices, and then putting DRM on the games, you're wrong. As a Canadian, if I wanted to buy Metal Gear Solid 5, it would cost me nearly $100.

I don't pirate, but I also don't buy AAA games anymore. Why should I? All publishers do is punish PAYING customers for the actions of pirates, when A LOT of the pirates do what they do BECAUSE of DRM and huge pricetags.

I can guarantee that A LOT of piracy stems from the ridiculous cost of games. Who wants to pay $80 for Assassins Creed 8 when it'll be in the bargain bin in 12 months?

"Don't blame the developer, blame the pirates!" Is just as bullshit as "piracy isn't an issue".

Yeah - I've heard all of these arguments before. I've even made them. They are wrong. It's true - a bunch of the people pirating music/games would never have paid for them... but all you have to do is look at the sales charts after torrenting was available to see that music sales essentially no longer exist. Game sales have increased, but only because the audience has increased with iPhones, etc. if you look at the size of the consumer base, and what they are paying for games... it's brutal.

And no - I don't like jacking up prices or adding DRM or any of the rest of that - it's all punishing customers. But... I guess what the people who make your entertainment want to know is - what is the solution? because "make more shit for us for free" aint paying our bills. These games are very, very expensive to make, and the devs who make your games are some of the hardest working people in the entertainment industry - and piracy is one of a number of forces that has made it very, very difficult for us to make a living.

Now, ONE thing I DO agree with when it comes to piracy is that region codes and reion locks and all of that foolishness is complete and utter bullshit. The idea that a guy in Canada or Australia should pay a different price than someone in the US for the same product delivered electronically... Balderdash. Should be the same price plus tax, period. And in the case where someone jacks up a regional price just because they can... yeah, fuck that guy. Pirate his shit. Because that's just abusive behaviour, and should stop.

Hey Chris! Far Cry is my #1 PC game. I honestly cant think of any improvements. Story, characters, the combat system (the binochs for tagging enemies), everything is top notch. Seriously, well done, mate. Being a true PC game really helped. It was still the best looking, best feeling game years and years later. Still holds up even. I cant even compare the first one with the new ones since you set the bar so high. Care to try it again?

Thanks so much. Games like that are a team effort - when we shipped, Crytek was almost 100 people, almost all of them working on that game... to replicate that success would require more than me - it would require a team like that... and those are very, very hard to put together.

Far Cry 3 vs Far Cry 4. Which one wins?

Can you give tips on getting a job at AAA game companies?

Can you give tips for an indie development?

Final question. How hard is it to get a job at AAA game companies?

Nice work. Best of luck for your adventure buddy!

Far cry 1 wins. The rest are tied for second.

Tips for indie development? Make games that you actually think there is an audience for, and spend more time on marketing, from day 1.

How hard to work at a AAA company? Not that hard, if you have a degree, the right skills, the right attitude, and you're willing to move anywhere in the world at your cost to go where the job is. The last one is the big one. I get a lot of mail from people who are like "I am looking for a job in Seattle, but all the game companies here have turned me down, what do I do?" You go get a job somewhere else, that's what you do.

What's the best region/country in Europe to search for a job as a game programmer fresh from college?

Thanks. My dream job is a game programmer. :)

I wouldn't think about it like that. Every month, different studios have diffeerent needs. There may be 30 jobs in Germany in Feb, and 20 jobs in Portugal in March. Your best odds are looking everywhere, and going where the job is now.

What I did back when I was looking for work was to just send out 20 resumes a day. To every damn company I could find. Starting with the ones I most was interested in, with personalized cover pages that clearly let them know I was interested in THEM, and not justa form letter. Every day, like a full time job. Researching companies and writing them. 12 hours a day. Does not matter if they say they are hiring or not. make it clear you are happy to move to them, and don't require them to pay relocation. Record it all on an excel sheet, and write them back every couple weeks until they tell you no.

Do that religiously for a couple months, you'll find work if you're qualified. If you're not qualified... no tactics will work - spend your time getting qualified.

What I did back when I was looking for work was to just send out 20 resumes a day. To every damn company I could find. Starting with the ones I most was interested in, with personalized cover pages that clearly let them know I was interested in THEM, and not justa form letter. Every day, like a full time job. Researching companies and writing them. 12 hours a day. Does not matter if they say they are hiring or not. make it clear you are happy to move to them, and don't require them to pay relocation. Record it all on an excel sheet, and write them back every couple weeks until they tell you no.

Thanks for the tip and sharing your experience. I will use this technique.

Maybe, maybe maybe... my final question? It's an IAMA!

After a few years, when I get my degree and have the skills but I am fresh from college/university, would you hire me as a game programmer?

Let's say that I have a Bachelors in Computer Science. Have made a few games by myself. And have the skills.

What would be the best way to contact your company? Would I even get that job, considering I have a degree but very less experience? What would be my pay?

Thanks!

God knows where I will be and where the industry will be next year, much less when you graduate. But by all means, look me up - I'm pretty easy to find on the internet. And good luck.

Another question.

How is the market for indie game devs? What's the next best platform for PC after Steam?

Thanks! :)

Depends on the game. Gamehouse, Big Fish Games, and some of those guys have great platforms for casual games - but they have a very specific audience. You can sell direct on the Mac store or on Amazon as well.

How do you find creative inspiration for designing games?

Largely, you look at other games, and something in them sparks you, and you think, "Wow, thats cool - but they didn't do X. I would have done X. I wonder what game that's all about X would look like. Lets build that"

Have you ever had any ideas for games you've been really wanting to do, but just can't because it's just too risky or might be ill received by general public?

Dozens. Absolutely dozens. But mostly you just don't make games because... you're busy making other games. At some level, you do wat someone will pay you to do - whether that person is the developer you work for, the publisher you work with, or the audience you sell to. Nobody makes games for themselves but hobbyists.

Ive always been amazed by game development. To me it seems like many different trades and what not collaborating on one them. My question is how do you start that workflow of creating a game, without it becoming a chaotic shitshow? After the initial concept, do you start with a test level, insert basic movement mechanics into it, generally get it "working" and then start adding features afterwards?

The basic steps to making a game:

1) Play some other game. Think "I think I could do something like this, but way better because of X, Y, and Z"

2) Build demo that proves that X, Y, and Z is actually cool

3) Fail. You always fail. But you DO learn that instead of X, Y, and Z, you should have done A, B, and C. Go build that. Repeat until you have something amazing.

4) Now you have something fun, simple, and playable. Figure out all of the other shit that you need to make the game actually sell. Make a list. Prioritize. Go build.

5) 9 times out of 10, fail because you run out of money, or fail to find a publisher, or completely lose track of what you were doing because you did step 4 badly. Or you realize that YOU were the only one who thought step 3 was so great - or that you were secretly NOT believing in Step 3, but you went ahead hopiung that Step 4 would fix it (it never does).

6) Assuming you don't die at step 5, ship game.

7) Most likely fail due to bad marketing, or failing at step 3 or 4 and not knowing it. If not, Profit.

Does Boomzap do its work remotely, or otherwise not meet physically all the time?

I've played Super Awesome Quest (verdict: much enjoyment), and I was wondering what you consider to be "fun" games to play.

happy you liked Super Awesome Quest - we have a new version of that, which is NOT F2P, and has completely updated kick ass anime art coming out soon called Super Awesome RPG. You should play (shameless plug)

Boomzap is completely virtual. We have no office anywhere. Most of Boomzap lives in Southeast Asia - Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. A few live in Russia and Ukraine. I live in Japan. We meet up every now and then to get drunk, play games, and eat strange local foods (balut: google it).

Favorite character from Far Cry series?

The guards in FC1 who were talking about the morality of being evil and working for an evil overlord. You can only hear the conversation through binoculars.

Hey Chris! I loved the original FarCry (and FC2) because it felt so...visceral. FC3 completely lost it for me. Where do you think AAA titles are going wrong in this regards and how can they recapture it? (i.e. the feeling of the game)

I think modern console games are focusing on the wrong things: Extremely detailed graphics, extremely lifelike animations, extremely "movielike" experiences. Allof these design decisions mean huge planning and overhead - hundreds of thousands of dollars of work per chjaracter - and a huge overhead cost to changes and rewrites.

This is why indie games have become so appealing - even with shit graphics and simple features... they can afford the constant revisions and changes required for innovation - and so they are just evolving much, much more rapidly. I'd like to see us focus on games that are some middle gorund between the two - with reasonably good graphics, but really new, innovative gameplay. Honestly, this is what we TRY to do at Boomzap, but it's very expensive to do high-production-quality games on mobile, when there is such a churn of content... so we're moving back to PC, where there is higher visibility..

Hi there, I realy like Boomzap games, but I've been interested in why don't you take job applicants from western europe and north america?

Largely Time Zones. most of us live in the Pacific Rim, and are less than 2 hours time difference from each other, so it is easy for us to communicate in real time.

was there anything about Far Cry that you didn't like?

The mutants. A few of the "wow scenes" that Ubisoft forced us to have, where the player was railroaded into certain decisions... I really thought the game was at its best in big, broad, sprawling levels where you could really explore, strategize, and try new things.

Were you surprised when you started seeing obstacle, trials, and course maps on Far Cry?

not really - was kinda fun I thought.

My friends and I loved playing split screen on the original Far Cry. That doesn't seem to be a thing anymore starting with Far Cry 2...why is that?

Because Ubisoft cut the feature. I have no idea why.

During the making of Far Cry 3, you must have visited Nepal. What fascinated the team to select the place as Nepal? And how you felt during the stay?

P:S Sorry for bad English.

I didn't make FC3 - so I had nothing to do with it being set in Nepal.

However, I have a deep association with Nepal - one of my best friends is a local tour guide there, and he runs a charity that helps build schools for children in the mountains. I've been involved with this charity for years, and even went out to the Kanchenjunga region of Nepal a couple years ago to go have a look at some of the schools we built. Nepal is completely and absolutely amazing.

Far Cry was one of the best fps experiences until the doom style aliens appeared. Why did that come about? The guerilla style island combat was so compelling at the start of the game, but the pacing switch really disappointed me.

It was thought at the time that the game needed a big twist at the end. In retrospect, I agree. The aliens were the weakest part of the game, and it was a lot more fun just fighting doods in the jungle.

If I made the game again, I would have replaced the aliens with some kind of super-soldiers with better tools and things - like armor and the abililty to jump further or run faster.

How hard does piracy hit the indie gaming scene?

the indie scene? Not that bad, because most of the indies are largely giving their shit away for next to free in bundles. Free to play pricing and the idea that we should all be selling games for $0.25 as part of a bundle... THATS destroying indies - and they still largely think bundles are a good idea. It's a fucking shame.

Did you see what they did to the Far Cry for the Wii? How long was your palm stuck to your face?

No - never played it.

Boxers or briefs?

Dude - I made Far Cry. Commando.

What is your personal opinion on today's business practices in the gaming industry? It seems every new AAA release (and now some indies) are swaying towards microtransactions and bite sized dlc. As a consumer there feels to be a fair amount of disdain towards this practice. Your thoughts?

See my answer to this elsewhere in the AMA.

Hi Chris! What would be you're advice for someone who wants to make video games? I'm in college learning the basics like conceptualizing and coding but what else should I know about?

Code. Code. Code. Nobody can "teach you" design - you learn that through doing and making and testing games. Focus on learning how to code, and using that to make simple games with the tools you have now. Make a fuckton of small games. FINISH them. Everyone starts games, nobody finishes them. if you are still in college, make it your goal to get a bunch of games up on any of the small game sites that accept submissions from anyone - like Kongregate. Build your craft, get good at coding.

When you know how to code, you can control what you build better than anyone else. you can realize your dreams more or less by yourself. The coders control the process - especially on the indie side of games. Be that guy.

What do you think of Oculus rift and Virtuix omni?

Are these future of the gaming industry.

Is it going next big thing?

Like gaming industry evolved from 2d to 3d games. Now it will evolve to motion games

I dont buy the hype, honestly. VR freaks me the fuck out. Sitting in a room, blinded by VR, having to actively turn my head and look at shit... it's... scary, weird, and a lot like work.

But maybe I am just old. I don't like the idea of a future of a bunch of people wearing blinders in a room alone.

How heated were the discussions about the scope lens flare in Far Cry multiplayer?

Maybe it was more of a non-issue at the time, but it's something I've always wondered. Far Cry was an excellent game. We would spend countless hours over weekends during a LAN party on that game. There were many techniques to get around the lens flare problem that made for some very interesting sniper play on that Ascension map.

hah - you'd be suprised how little that was discussed. What WAS discussed endlessly was the save game in single player... thats probably the one issue I was wrongest about in a game design ever. Should have been save-anywhere. I'm sorry.

How does your 100% remote-work Boomzap function in practise from the aspect of working together as a group? The concept sounds very interesting.

Honestly, it works much like any modern office. When I worked in normal office settings, we communicated largely through IM, and in a virtual office we do the same - using HipChat.

Big meetings are overrated - you think you're talking to a lot of people - buty half of the time, they are tuning you out anyway. IN general, a virtual office allows people more focus, more freedom, and the ability to not have their day destroyed by constant interruptions. It's quite awesome.

I remember Crytek back in 2004 was accused of using pirated copies of 3d Studio Max and Maya to make the original Far Cry. What was the outcome of that?

The outcome was that they were raided by the Bavarian anti-piracy team (guns out, with dogs, at 8 in the morning on a workday), thoroughly investigated and no charges were filed. Crytek contines to happily work with Autodesk today. That's all I know.

Fun fact, my daughter was born on the day of that raid, and I called in from the hospital that moring to say I wouldn't be in that day. The Multiplayer Producer, Rich Tsao answered the phone, and before I coud say anything, he was like "Dude, don't come into work - it's fullo fcops. I can't talk, gotta go, bye!" ... And I was left completely confused, in a hospital in germany holding my new daughter... :D

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Dunno - not working on that game.