Love this take, as a generalist myself this was a much needed confidence boost. Its like the old saying "Jack of all master of none." that people have come to misquote. The full quote is a lot more insightful! “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but often times better than a master of one.” William Shakespeare
@@solarydays Perhaps, but there is a way to be a good jack of all trades. You can go deep in many topics and know a lot about them, without "mastering" /being the best at them. Ultimately if you are 70% there on art, coding, music and other stuff is very usefull, even if some are 90% there on only one thing(cause mastery doesn't exist). The extra 20% takes twice as long as the 70%, it's exponential. In fact a generalist is good at everything, perhaps even masterful in one or two things. It is impossible to create a game without having some people with a decent, pretty deep understanding of every facet of the game. A generalist is not at all someone who is "surface level". He wouldn't be able to join up specialists's work, or even improve and correct it, otherwise. Not to mention, for example, how good of a game artist can you really be without having some coding and engine knowledge? I'm pretty sure the best of the best become generalists naturally because getting better at their job involves spreading their wings and their horizons. Making sure your art is seen the way you see it in your head, ultimately involves being able to handle the technology used. No programmer is going to be able to exactly code the right shader for them, choose the right compression for the textures, the right joint placement for the deformation of the face, the hair simulation or keyframe... IF the artist has no idea how to at the very least communicate in the precise, technical terms required by the conversation, or better yet getting their hands dirty and doing it themselves. There is a reason these people end up as leads, directors and producers. They got there because they were the best around. Or at least that's how it was back in the day. Now the people in charge don't even know what a video game is.
If generalists were so valuable they would not be in decline. If you are valuable the market will want you, it's as simple as that. This is like watching grandpa talk about the gold ol days because he cant adapt to a changing world. I personally dont see the value in someone who is mediocre in a bunch of different things compared to multiple experts who are masters in one
@@yangpaan453 wrong. Giant corps and companies want specialists and lots off them so they can make sure nothing goes "wrong" when they're investing millions even though a lot of the time games flop anyways. If you want to be a tiny cog in a giant machine go for it. I make more money freelance generalist than you ever will as a specialist, kid. and its because i am trained in more than one process.
This trend towards specialization has happened everywhere in software, not just games. Generalists as you've described are indeed invaluable force-multipliers enabling everyone around them to thrive and deliver. Generalists often love learning and teaching. The best mentors I've ever had were generalists. They could provide the path forward whether it was treaded or not.
I think specialists like to learn and teach as well, just only within their limited scope of knowledge. But I really like generalist mentors as well, since they radiate this inspiring big-picture energy that explains how every individual thing you know can come together to create something cool.
@@jtaco4101 Indeed, it is and there's a reason for it, but apparently no one wants to hear about that. Suffice to say, it's not unique to the industry.
I'm an embedded systems engineer (with a EE degree), who used to do firmware, front end software, electrical hardware, mechanical hardware, server software, and networking. Now I just do firmware. Haven't designed a CB since 2017. Haven't used solidworks in a decade.
And then the generalists find each other and form indie studios and it's the reason why indie games continue to excite while AAA continues to disappoint.
You don't want to work for AAA studios anyway. It's like working in a sweatshop and you have ZERO creative freedom. You're just a tool to be used by some retarded MBA
Generalization has also declined in larger industries to make it easier to outsource (IMO). Letting cheaper labor handle the grunt work, and people in my role just “review/supervise” their work allows my employer to load my desk with high volume and save money, too. It’s overall a loss (in the long term, by having employees with blinders on) but I think most businesses only care about short term. Sorry, I have a very jaded take. Great video!
Yeah, it's based on the idea that specialization equals optimization. It doesn't really hold water in practice, especially when the specialists don't see the bigger picture.
I don’t think the outsourcing has anything to do with it actually. I think we specialise more and more, deeper and deeper, because the systems and libraries for which we are developing are becoming more and more complex, and more and more numerous. And the software that we develop is becoming larger and more complex itself. I think that that is what drives the increasing degree of specialisation.
Don't be sorry, you are most correct. More declining will happen both, in the industry and society wide, before things change after some pretty big happenings.
I definitely think indie games and modding is fostering a whole lot of generalists. I am working on my skillset to make sure I can deal with the whole audio pipeline from pointing a microphone at a noise, to hooking up the game's parameters to the audio engine to modulate things, to placing the emitters in the level editor. It's a lot, but it's worthwhile!
Modding is so underrated, I'm a nobody working at some restaurant barely scrapping by lol. But I've learned so much by just modding games that I feel I have enough of a grasp on the big picture that I can make my own small game all by myself
@@scoutthespirit1133 modding is so great. Especially when you have a game that's the type of experience you want to make, so you just put your ideas into that framework.
I started with making mods a few years ago on Nexusmods. I'm set to graduate soon with a BA in Game Art & Dev (Creative Writing minor), but dreading trying to get into the industry. I'm a good 3D artist, decent animator & texture artist, bad rigger, and terrible 2D artist (but I can get by). I'm hoping I can find something I can intern as to break through and find my niche. I really like the idea of being a Generalist, but not sure how much of an option that's really going to be. :|
@@scoutthespirit1133 Go for it. If you can stick to working on it regularly, make good progress and eventually get something together, you could try and sell it. Most projects don't fail because they get review bombed or because they are bad, most projects fail because they never make it to the finish line. Both, publishers and smalltime devs lacking confidence, being the key trigger.
As an older guy in tech I feel this. Often times I'm the only generalist on a staff. Almost no one learns all aspects of the industry anymore. When I got started in the 80s most of us were, of necessity, generalists. We could code or build a server from components or run Cat 5 cable. I rarely run across anyone who can do it all anymore. It does change the how we work and sometimes in a negative way.
As a semi new guy (probably semi senior) in tech. I feel the industry (at least in tech) is pushing the true generalists away. They always look for specialists regardless what they had claimed. Companies and recruiters are always expecting you to be a "T sharp" person (main one thing, know most things, even know everything), which sounds like an ideal generalist goal but practically it's not. The amount of "general" stuffs we need to learn today is quite massive. The "T shape generalist" is ironically unapproachable without sacrificing massive amount of times. And they used that term to massively abuse your ability. At least in my definition, T shape is pretty much the ultimate goal that a lot people wouldn't even reach. And not the same definition from the video. At the same time, a lot of people fake themselves as the everylist-ist due to those unrealistic job requirements. The unhealthy competition somehow filters out many who can be the true generalists (sorry, your years of experience for X thing is not enough, even though you know other things quite well). For the risk and the cost, it's just not worth it to be such a true generalist like the video mentioned. Many people said they like it but realistically they didn't. Even you did, your colleagues from different departments might treat you as a threat sometimes. The reality is always complicated.
I think growing up broke also helps to foster generalists in the same way that growing up in the 80s and early 90s did, when I was growing up we couldnt afford anything modern so I was always using hardware and software that were significantly behind the times but through that experience I came to learn a lot about the progress of technology in a way that someone who is capable of affording the latest and greatest whatevermachine was simply not capable of recieving as a result of never having to maximize the value of their dollar
wow your concept of generalist is much different than mine, never ran cables to my servers lol. I can sure code and configure them though and the services they need to run.
I recently entered the film industry. As someone who takes an interest in a variety of disciplines it has been very challenging! When ever I took an interest in someone else's department it was often looked at like I wanted to leave my own department, which is not the case! Sometimes I just want to casually dabble in lighting or animation and build a small skill set in something new so I have a fuller range of ability. Thanks for your video Tim :)
The film industry is a collection of trade unions. They don't step on each others' toes, so they really have no choice but to become specialists. Directors would be the notable exception. I don't know how else you could navigate that industry as a generalist.
I’ve always had the idea from your videos on Fallout’s development that the team was made up largely by generalists which undoubtedly helped make it so memorable. The team had a vision and wore many hats to make it reality.
I think the fall of generalists is the main reason why game development lasts for ages these days. Reminds me of the older story Tim told about the music guy at Carbine, who asked him to switch tracks randomly and Tim had to reiterate it thrice because the guy didn't really understand what he meant with the word "random". I'd imagine that these kind of situation happen an order of magnitude more often than in the 90's, because there are just so much more specialists who don't speak each others' languages. If the asset pipeline could be handled in a way where the core team was composed of just around a dozen or two generalists, I think we'd still see great games being made in a year or two.
This is how indie games with a small team or one person, sometimes make far more impressive things than big budget projects. You got something like a writer, musician, artist that learned how to code with a 3d modeler friend and another few friends that know a bit of everything that help out here and bam, magic happens.
@@3Diana Yep. In the hobby group I am with, I started out doing game testing and highlighting bugs and other issues. Then I started helping out with textures since I had some experience from modding games. Then I picked up Blender and learned 3D modelling and doing texturing within that and other procedural software. Then I learned Shader Graph so I could do special effects I wanted to do as well as being able to setup material maps how I wanted to. I eventually got the nickname Oz Nye because I kept on picking up knowledge about different areas. I happen to have ADHD, jumping between stuff and picking up new skills comes natural to me. I am physically unable to specialise.
@@Ozzianman Pretty much similar story here, and I have adhd too! hah! :D There's def something there. I am most productive when I can jump on different things, like my brain cooldowns from working on something else while I got bored of the first thing, otherwise I can't be at peace.
Either a lot of Generalists, or you need a specialist that is so good at his job that he can explain what he means to someone that does not know the jargon he is talking about. Which is clearly just a special skill in itself.
What Tim I think is also getting at is that generalists are more likely to be artists, and when that’s the case you can somewhat depend on everyone getting the “vision” and the game can naturally become greater than the sum of its parts.
I think it's worth pointing out that when you are someone trying to break in with the industry, you are *explicitly* told to not be a generalist. I've been directly told that saying I'm foremostly a narrative person *but* *also* have received noteworthy praise for QA work, 3D modeling, and management "probably hurt" my chances with various applications. Which would mean this isn't just about people chasing better salaries, but rather, an overt input-output on the hiring end.
Oh my god, huge thanks! I'm a generalist, sorta 60% artist 20% coder 20% game designer and i usually HATED tools i got from purebreed coders, if they even created any. So the last 15 years i've been developing tools for myself to work better. When other artists saw my tools, they wanted to use them, so i had to get good at user experience, as i didn't want them to hate my tools. Instead artists loved my tools. And yet hardly any company valued that!!! I usually got told "why aren't you working on the graphics?" by the managers when i told them 100 times that without the tools it would take MUCH LONGER to work on the graphics. I actually love to create tools, i made tools for 3dsmax, Maya, Blender and Unity. I'm really good at telling when something shouldn't be done by an artist but a tool. Good tools are like the grout between the bricks: You hardly notice them when they are there, but if they ain't, everything feels like it could collapse any moment (and often does).
I recently discussed the exact same topic with studio CEO. We both agreed that companies and studios that hyper focusing on hiring specialists only assembled a team of talents instead of a talented team. Game development by large is a collaborative process, if no one is willing to speak in other discipline's language, it's highly impossible for the team to work towards the same goal. In my internship I reached out to the members of all the other disciplines to understand their work, so that I can get a sense of how to help from my job as a tools engineer. And that insight still helps me for my current job and my game jam team. It was a good move even though rarely anybody could understand why I did it back then.
Keep it up. Becoming a great, highly experienced generalist takes a long time. And you should get good at a few particular skills too so you are an expert in some things plus a generalist. Do that and you'll have a great future and be highly employable. P.S. i like that "a team of talents and not a talented team" saying and will likely use that.
"tools engineer" you make quick programs c# or in your engines script to process assets; you aren't even on par with engine dev, you're like the intern they hired to add a few op codes to a vm. your title is that of somebody who sits on a purpose built codebase, possibly in a company specific language, to drive an asset pipeline created years before you were even hired. "generalist" huh. i wouldn't be talking about cross-team and subsystem communication when your little talk with the CEO is on par with a yearly intern ingress's introduction to the company, mr "tool engineer" and yet somehow not an engine development team member (something something "In my internship" yea yea how could we all tell).
I am a generalist game designer, working as a consultant now. Very thoughtful video, I always suggest becoming a specialist at the start. But once you see the generalist vibe, it can be a profitable career too. No many companies look for generalists, but nowadays we can build a lot of things without being part of any company.
I like the idea of starting as a specialist and widening over time. I refer to this as “t shaped”. The individual is very deep in one area, but has broad understanding and has likely dipped deep into an adjacent field.
Not a lot of companies LOOK for generalists, but quite a few jump at the chance when they find a good/experienced one. I've lost count how many times companies invented an entirely new position just for me after I applied for some other position. Often at a higher level than the positions they have open. For that to work you have to put yourself out there and go to interviews, even if the job you are interviewing for isn't quite your thing. Often I'll interview for something I'm not an expert at that sounds interesting. So maybe I get offered the job and increase my skills in that area or maybe they like me and offer me a different kick ass position that may not have even existed. I'm also willing to take jobs that are below me if they are interesting and I'll learn something new (most people aren't).
In an industry constantly trying to put everyone into specialized roles for the sake of hire-ability and to establish their identities as a devs, THANK YOU. Jack of all trades for sure have their own special value and I appreciate you so well stating it.
i’m not in games but i’m a generalist. i’ve chosen a specialty just so i can say it when i get asked, because for some reason generalists are seen as a bad thing. It’s so bizarre to me that they are seen that way for all the wonderful reasons you listed. They can connect things together when folks are thinking narrowly. I think people will regret the negative attitude to generalists some day. AI tools will make these people some of the most effective. It’s inspiring to see an industry veteran with a lot of wisdom talk about the value of this personality trait, thank you!
This actually makes me think about the medical field too and how hard it is to get an answer for anything from a regular physician. It's as if they don't know anything (despite the years and years of education) and just send you to a specialist. I can understand why the specializations exist but it also feels like something is being lost in the transition.
I'm a game dev. Just last week, I had an (internal) interview where I said my greatest strength was that I can easily communicate and bridge the dev and art teams. This has always felt like a great value to me, and just like you said, I would clarify when people talk past each other. I had never thought about it like you have, and I certainly couldn't express it that way, it just felt right. Thanks for this amazing video!
As a generalist with about a decade in the games industry: thank you for this video ❤ Even with bringing a broad skill set, it’s really hard to find a good place that can actually utilize and appreciate it when most of the team structure and job postings are built around deep specialization. It’s a shame how siloed different teams can become.
I feel like you are describing my career, and i appreciate being seen! I think one reason that generalists are disappearing is that most managers tell themselves that a team of exclusively specialists is the way forward, never stopping to ask why everyone is always arguing
I'm so happy you talked about this!! I'm an artist in the generalist camp. I joined the game industry in '16 as an environment artist and for years I had stressed over this pressure to specialize/find the one thing you really excel at. With all job positions & studios being so specialized it makes it really difficult to branch out in to other fields once you're set on a path, which definitely was happening to me until I finally got the opportunity to become a generalist at the current studio I'm at, and not only have I seen my skills SKYROCKET across the board, but I love the variety that comes with utilizing multiple skillsets instead of the tunnel vision of solely focusing on one thing. Being a generalist is definitely alive and well in the indie scene, since you have much smaller teams and have to wear many hats.
I agree completely Tim, but it's definitely hard for people starting out to find a job that is looking for a generalist, or even just one that won't try to constantly discourage them from ever doing tasks outside of their job description. Indie and small-studio work is the only space currently where a large portion of people are generalists, or can be given the space and support to grow into generalists. But it's still absolutely true that in larger studio environments generalists are still vital force mutlipliers, I just don't know if recruiters actually understand that. If you're starting out in the industry today and seek advice, you're going to be told "if you say you do level design and environment art that means you're half as good as everyone at those two things-focus on one or no one will ever hire you." It's demoralizing for folks who truly have interests and passions beyond a singular focused slice of game dev.
"made in a vacuum". This makes so much sense, I've noticed numerous times in games where some component is almost hidden in a closet. an example that comes to mind immediately is farcry 3. The minimap was probably there because someone said it had to be there, but the world around you was the living map. The outposts and towers could be viewed, and all the herbs you had to pick up were in specific areas ( near a river, in open fields , etc ). The game did a great job showing where everything was, and then added a minimap that displayed everything so why bother looking there when you can just see it clearly displayed on the map. I got a mod that removed the minimap and really only noticed how well displayed everything was when the minimaps over indulgent display had been hidden.
Amen to that. Even if he's worse at his job than a pure specialist, a generalist brings a unique kind of value to the team. The slowest tasks are the ones where several specialists need to communicate with each other. Different specialists speak different languages and might even think in completely different ways from each other. So working with someone from a completely unfamiliar field is like requirements gathering, except it's done in a hurry and without an analyst. And a generalist, even someone like a programmer who merely dabbles in audio mixing or 3D modeling, is like a translator. He can sort of understand Soundengineerese after a few tries, and then he expresses those ideas in fluent Coderian.
Love hearing this as a generalist! For me being a generalist paved an eventual move to engineering management / director of engineering roles. For roles like that it really helps to have a wide variety of experiences and knowledge.
Perfect. I love working for managers who actually understand what they are managing. Personally I tried management and ffelt like I couldn't do the office politics without destroying my soul/integrity.
Yes. They are actually better than generalists. They are generalists who can do everything alone. If you are successful doing a solo game, that means you got professional level skills in multiple disciplines.
Thanks Tim, really needed this. I was at a game developer meetup not long ago and one producer got INCREDIBLY mad when I told him I was a generalist, proceeded to talk down to me and said he'd never hire me because I don't specialize in anything specific, therefore wouldnt know what to hire me for. But seeing everyone in this comment section talk about their own generalist experiences and how they're often times the "force multiplier" on projects makes me feel a lot better. Also he makes NFT games so stuff him.
NFT games? Wow. That dude who berated you has no future. gg ez, ez run into unemployment, to channel some toxic energy back to him. Anyway, I feel as an artist there should always be a base level of respect for others in their craft. Being a professional creative isn't easy, I think.
As an indie dev who cut her teeth in the modding scene, I cannot possibly agree with this video more. Being at least a little bit of a generalist not only helps communicate more efficiently with the rest of the team, it means you don't have to sit around waiting for someone else to have time to work with what is to them a minor issue but to you a major roadblock, which means you're working more efficiently even just on your own. I'm still working on the whole "learning to code well" thing but I can at least hold a conversation with a programmer well enough to figure out what's going on with the issues we're having.
Having worked in CG animation for a bit now, I've noticed generalists end up in lead or supervisor positions. You nailed it with "they can speak my language" - the ability to be the communicator between departments with proper terminology, or to at a glance see why something isnt working saves weeks on schedules. Thanks for all the great content, Tim!
Being a generalist was the biggest mistake of my life. Don't make that mistake too. As encouraging Timothy's comment may be, the industry (even industries beyond video games) expects and actively wants specialists: Unlike you, specialists will always have something to show off how much essential they, which you won't be able to match. You may then tell others how invaluable your ability is to "glue" things up together but, they will rebuke you by saying "Oh, but we can do that with a meeting with specialists." And then, you end up being the guy who do "nothing of value", pass behind specialists who virtually became "stars", and the whole team complains that you're never able to meet their standards in each one's respective domain of expertise, which leaves you passing as a mediocre member of the team. What's worse is that people will often think of you to be pretentious because you are voicing an opinion on a topic you "shouldn't" know as much as specialists do. tl:dr; Find something to specialize in first and then broaden your skillset but not at a detriment to that specialized skill.
I agree. I am a generalist too and skilled in many things. I'm finding people who aren't generalists often difficult to communicate, because they most of the time don't understand connections between components which have to explained to them slowly hoping they'll get it. But sometimes some people don't want to listen and those are the toughest to work with.
I don't generally have a problem communicating. I can talk to everyone from CEOs to specialists. When you have extremely broad knowledge you have to get good at doing that because more often than not you have to explain things to nearly everyone. What I find frustrating is when, due to broader knowledge and/or more experience, I can clearly see certain things but someone else refuses to consider the input because they insist they are correct. Usually I just let it go (unless I'm also the/their lead) but sometimes they won't relent until you concede they are correct which I simply won't do. I'll drop a topic if its contentious and doesn't make sense to pursue, but I won't agree to something I know is wrong just tomplay nice.
There's a talk on this on GDC - Being a Unicorn: Multiclassing in an Industry That Wants Specialization, available on youtube. It dives into the issues multiclass/generalist people face. It seems that it's often easier to leave and start an indie production than fight against the pressure to specialize in a big (or even a mid-sized) studio. It's the same in similar art/tech industries, too.
Couldn't agree more. Cross-discipline folks are almost always the most important folks on a team. Within a discipline is great, but the ones that can reach outside a discipline are even better - I strongly believe that a designer that can also code (or vice versa) is one of the best assets you can have. The ability to balance and juggle the apparently competing requirements of multiple disciplines is just gold - not to mention the fact that having generalists means that they are reducing their cycle time, especially important in exploratory work. For "production" work (churning out models, etc.)? Not so much, but I see few games truly go into "production". One of the coolest things on the EQ2 team was that pretty much, especially in engineering, people owned the things that they did soup-to-nuts. Even the specialists were more like SMEs.... they weren't locked into that discipline, they were just first on the line what it was needed. It was incredibly common for someone to do everything from the UI for a feature all the way to the DB. And I think we were better for it. Towards the end, we even started to pull some design work into that flow as well.
Hey Tim! Game Designer based in Montreal here that wants to add his grain of salt. I would say that your point is very valid, but since, 2019-20, things are changing in the other direction in most of what we call ''major'' studios. Since then, there has been a gradual shift (maybe only on this side of the continent, perhaps) where now, generalist is by far the most looked for profile in game design. This change is the reflection of a switch in terms of team size and production pipeline. Studios here are trying very hard to go back to "manageable'' team of less than 100 people on a given project (from experience, it often goes above even with the explicit intent to avoid it), but the intention is to form a strong core team and avoid any form of outsourcing for any core feature. The Art department is mostly the exception to the rule, sadly. Because of this, flexible experienced designer that can manage multiple non-related features are the one getting hired first. This is true in most departments, flexibility and agility are a most in those teams. This does create a vicious circle of senior recruiting other senior, leaving little to no place to younger or inexperienced folks, but this is a story for another time.
I ran into your RUclips channel this week and I'm finding it is a trove of wisdom. I work in advanced mobile robotics, but so much of what you have to say still fits. Thanks for taking the time to share. My sense on the topic of generalists is that it can be deceptive: to give a program 10% added depth, you might double the complexity. A common trap is for the seasoned veterans to perceive this as all bad things: "ahh frameworks!" "people have no talent these days!" "why does everyone make it harder than it has to be?" Not to say these are never valid criticisms, but more often than not, someone is under-estimating the complexity of added complexity. I'm not exactly sure the nostalgia is for generalists, as much as it might be for when things were less complex and a team of generalists could complete the whole project. Back when a few people could build an entire cottage. But now you've gotta get the plumbing person and electrician and roofers, etc. because cottages are getting bigger and more featured. I find that generalists really shine in architect roles. Someone who knows just enough about everything to be able to speak everyone's language and understand the whole system, and get the right people in the room at the right time. Personally this is why I find tremendous joy in environments like PICO-8 where self-imposed technical constraints helps limit scope creep, forces creativity and cleverness, and minimizes runaway complexity
This is an interesting discussion. I’m not in the gaming industry but working in technology this is a trend and a challenge across the industry. The difficult part is that, as an industry matures with higher standards of fidelity and more complex systems, the talent and experience needed for a generalist to be valuable increases. In a mature a industry a great generalist is millionaire, a good generalist is a force multiplier, but a mediocre generalist is useless. It becomes more and more difficult over time to maintain enough expertise in any one specialty to add value while also dabbling in our areas enough to understand and learn them. Combine that with the massive deadline pressure and burnout in the gaming industry and I imagine it’s hard for anyone to stick around long enough to reach the “deep generalist” level needed to be a force multiplier unless they build the knowledge as a hobbyist or Indie developer first.
This echoes a sentiment given to me while I was still in college. As a prolific writer, designer, programmer, and artist with managerial experience and as an avid Kirkbride fan wholly dedicated to the Elder Scrolls IP, I was told straight out of college that I'd need to specialize to make it in the industry. I pivoted towards flicking the keys on my own games, and honestly I've had such a better life for it. I feel appreciated and valued by even the shadow of my own ruin spurring me forward with its haughty glare, and as an added bonus, I get to be as bombastic and out of touch as I please without censorship or the sabotage of caution!
Plenty of people have mentioned that generalists are indies now so I won’t add to the choir. I will add though that my experience as a generalist in aaa was to be shoved into the nearest fit role and was kept there due to the machinery of a larger production. For all the reasons called out in this video. It’s soul crushing and why I moved to the indie space. It’s not that we’re incapable of executing in a specialized area, it’s that we dislike it.
This is very reassuring to hear as someone who has a hard time sticking to one thing. I’ve fallen out of love with so many practices because I see how talented the specialists in that field are and I’ve never felt competent enough to really count myself amongst them. So while you may have made this video to lament our decline, I can’t say in words what it means to me to hear that there is value in being ok at multiple things. Maybe it’s right to say I feel seen. Thank you.
re:salary - That's a really good point. For programmers in particular, it seems like hiring always boils down to lists of technologies someone knows. Meanwhile in reality, technologies almost don't matter. It's so much more important how someone approaches a problem, how motivated they are to actually do something useful instead of just check off their task, and how resourceful they are in exploring various paths to that solution. But none of these things are ever discussed or questioned during the hiring or salary negotiation process.
Hi Tim, I am an animator. But I was not always an animator. I came to love doing it later than most. I worked in film and did web design. When I was learning to animate I needed to have certain adjustments to my rigs. So I started to do a fair bit of rigging. As I began to get work as an animator in games I would use my knowledge of rigging to communicate with tech artists. And it helped some. What you did not touch on in your talk about generalists is jealousy. Specialists have become very protective of what they do. The industry has become very competitive. Some of the people I have worked with feel threatened by someone pointing out how something can be improved or adjusted to make the game better, unless it comes from their supervisor. Producers can do this because of how they are seen in the hierarchy but people such as myself are not as respected for their knowledge anymore. There is more to say about this but I have to go. Thanks for putting these up for people to watch and listen.
I'm aspiring to be a generalist myself, I love to be able to do a lot and help when needed. In our recent project I was Designer but stepped in as Programmer when our group was in need and helped with hooking everything up inside of Unity, Coding, Designing the game itself and its mechanics while also with a previous self taught experience with Blender, I had a good understanding what was possible for our Artists within our timeframe and just to help link everything up from Blender to Unity and make the code execute the Animations and make everything work this a lot of coded systems. I also enjoy it a lot because in the future I would love to do game as a smaller team and create my own smaller projects on my own aswell. I think so far it's a nice skillset to communicate with the others in the team, but also having that holistic view and skill to go from start to completed makes it possible to work fast on new systems and implement them in Unity.
I forfeited the past 10 years of my life to learn how to program games and I CANNOT get a programming job. I had a non game programming job but the way technology seems to me is that if you aren't ultra experienced and razor sharp at one specific job, you're not getting a job as a beginner. You do exactly what you're told and you don't have an opinion. Just do what they say and get it done fast. No learning on the job. Learn after work when you're at home. A job interview I attended said Google has people learn outside work with their free time and on weekends, so they do it even though they don't pay Google wages. It's impossible to get anywhere without being a super expert on one very specific thing.
I work as a UX Engineer generalist. I do UX/UI design and engineering, plus game design (when applicable). I live by the quote: “a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” It honestly pains me watching this video, because I'm struggling to find a new job at a company looking for generalists. If anyone has any advice for generalists standing out in a specialist-focused market, I'm all ears!
I doubt I'm saying anything you don't already know, but you'll probably find the most success applying with smaller teams (not necessarily smaller companies - I work at a big one you've definitely heard of - but smaller teams). In smaller teams each member's opinion counts for more, so smaller teams tend to value people with more generalized knowledge who can provide informed opinions. The trick is finding those small teams, and unfortunately that usually comes from networking and personal connections. At the same time, make sure you can emphasize what specialty you do have. In my last job hunt (early 2022) I found success in presenting myself as "I understand and can do everything but what I'm really excited about and good at is X." For context, I'm a generalist with emphasis on programming, but I understand and have limited experience with all the other game dev disciplines.
I market myself as a generalist very successfully. But I'm also an extreme case where I can legit show that I have an insanely broad set of knowledge/skills but I'm ALSO quite capable of being a specialist. On that topic I think your quote is a problem. I've mastered several skills and am at the very high end top in those skills but ALSO a generalist with broad knowledge. If you try to sell yourself as "master of none" I think that would be a massive handicap. Pick a skill you already have and want to get better at. Take a job that focuses on that skill for a couple, few years. At the same time maintain your other skills and continue to learn more ( probably on your own time/outside work). Then find a new job that focuses on a different skill for a couple years. Rinse, repeat. Build up a couple skills you are particularly good at while maintaining a broad range of other skills. Then marketing yourself becomes a lot easier. Takes time.
@@FastFilmFXGood point. Though I will suggest smaller companies and if possible smaller startups. Big companies have set roles and you are expected to stay in your lane. Small startups tend to love initiative and someone stepping in to solve something. I once worked at a very small startup and in order to get my desk phone it was going to take over a week to get the specialized outside consultant to come in and set it up. The evening after hearing that I got motivated, found the phone system manual, taught myself how to program it and when the owner came in the next day I had cabled and configured my own phone. He loved it, saved him a couple hundred dollars in fees and next time something was needed he asked me instead of calling the outside consultant. I learned so many different things that way at various small startups. Has to be a small startup that isn't swimming in cash though. Fyi you will get paid less working for them, but do that a few years and the skills you learn will more than make up for it.
I'm a tools programmer and very much a generalist. This really echos my experience. It was a huge shock coming to a AAA studio and seeing how completely silioed everything was. I have noticed smaller indie, but industry veteran run studios have appreciated me as a generalist and sought me out much more than the big studios.
As a generalist myself for almost three decaces now, this video resonated so much with me. The force multiplier reference nails why generalists are so awesome in a team
Generalist here and Self-Taught to boot! Technically over the past 26 years I've been a character animator, but more or more now I've begun emphasizing (to clients/employers) that I began as a Generalist in the late 90's, when "CG" people were expected to know everything regarding 3D anything. So while animation is my forte and what I'm passionate about, I've been increasingly utilized as a Technical Animator (Rigging), Gameplay Implementation and Scripting (AnimBP's and regular BP's), Modeler/Sculptor (characters, props, basic geometry correction for deformation) and so on. It's uncanny (for me) your bringing this topic up and it's validating. I grew up with your games and arguably one of the reasons why I got into game dev, so I'm very much enjoying your ponderings! Too bad you're (semi) retired as I would've loved to collaborate on a project! Cheers Tim!
I think that just in general the push for graphics being the primary focus in all games across the board has been very destructive in a certain way to the entire industry. Games aren't animation or film, that's the point, they have gameplay mechanics, dialogue, music, sound, they introduce engineering problems in all fields, the limitations are what breed a new kind of creativity. I really believe that the players, and thankfully have seen players not buying bad games that are masked by photo realistic graphics. It's a nice thing to see.
Hey Tim - I love this call for generalists. I don't think there are less of these people, but their skillsets ARE being valued in other places. (So it's possible the game industry has lost out on attracting them) I recently wrote "How to be Second" which is a book that talks about a particular identity of person, where one of their core traits is being a generalist. Our skillsets are progressively more in-demand in management or BPM roles, OR, money is being pushed to "specialists" so we're hiding in plain sight so we can get paid even though we're on the team in the same numbers we used to be. (One of the key abilities of generalists is their ability to chameleon to survive, so if the industry wants specialists, that's the color we're showing right now) The work we're doing with How to be Second is to teach people who are this thing, to own that about themselves, and sell themselves as what they are, and how to explain that value.
I've been a Generalist for 23 years. My overall career has been a blast going from one project to the next doing different tasks and teaching my fellow peers along the way. It even lead me down paths outside of the typical CG industry towards being an industrial designer, an architectural designer, even programming for over a decade. Now I'm in broadcast where I'm going on a range of tasks everyday across the entire production pipeline (modeling, rigging, texturing, lighting, animation, art direction, etc.) I always try to encourage all of my peers to be open to learn new things and not just specialize in one task so they can be valuable to an assortment of jobs out there.
Thanks Tim, this made me feel appreciated for what I bring as a developer in a way I haven’t felt before! I’ve also worked with some amazing force multipliers who just seemed to know how everything is connected together or how to find out. As soon as I change teams, these are the first people I miss most. And since I value it so much, I’ve also developed a broad skillset and perspective instead of focusing my career on doing one thing exceptionally. I’m going to pass this on to other generalists I know and let them know how much I appreciate them! Thank you for sharing from your experiences, positive and negative!
When I was studying game design, we had a generalist as a teacher for a few weeks, and she referred to them as octopus. She was taught us the value of generalisation, and while I'm only able to get my head around design and programming, it helped me to have a level of understanding for how the art side kinda works as well, to an extent. There's still a point out goes over my head, but if I'm ever in a situation where I'm out of my depth, I'd dive in to find out just what I'm missing to be able to follow or convey what I need to. Only found your channel a few weeks ago, but I'm enjoying digging through it and learning for if I'd ever have the opportunity to jump from what I'm doing into the games industry. Probably won't happen, but I always enjoy the videos regardless, and try to find ways I can apply parts of it even where I am now.
I just got finished with a game design degree in 2023. Our professors made it very clear that if we wanted to get into the industry then we needed to specialize as a modeller, a coder, a narrative designer, a sound designer or game designer etc. Part of the reason I got into game dev was because I love picking up multiple disciplines. Part of what got me accepted to the program was the games I was making at the time that I submitted, of which I had made every component of and loved every second of. And then what I fell in love with at school was connecting the different disciplines I worked with, acting as a bridge between fields. I ignored the profs suggestions to start practicing game dev in a way I didn't enjoy just to get hired. Now I have skills in almost every nook and cranny of game dev. But I am almost unhireable into current industry roles compared to my friends who spent their 4 years predominantly on one set of skills. The only role that makes sense is producer like you talked about but those roles are often not entry level, and so it becomes very difficult for a generalist to even make it to those roles where they could thrive. I will keep working on my own games and hope that putting in the time will result in either getting hired into the indie scene or getting to start my own thing.
Hi Tim. Love your content. Just discovered you. Please keep sharing your thoughts. One thing I want to push back on. I'm a UX designer who used to be a developer and I believe specialists can also anticipate the needs of jobs they have not worked. As a UX designer of enterprise software, it is often my job to experience what the user goes through. What are their pain points? What are their needs? What are their motivations? I had an "ah ha" moment when I started doing that with coworkers. "Tell me what you're going to do with this deliverable. Tell me what happens when things don't get done a certain way." What I have found is that developing empathy for jobs or tasks you haven't done and mapping this out is a shortcut to being able to macro-level systems thinking. Thank you again for sharing your wisdom. Jon
As someone who entered the industry recently as an env artist, it's so much to learn, , so many specific skills needed to produce the art needed for a AA or AAA game. A recent example, I was playing Fable 2 recently, it's a beautiful game but I couldn't help but think how nice as an artist to not have to blend every single rock into the ground perfectly sculpted and textured etc etc.
I feel like I’m starting to understand a lot more why a growing number of modern games feel like they have lost some of their soul. Too detached, not enough direct involvement in multiple facets of their work. I hope your words can inspire incoming developers to start broadening into different disciplines-I can see how in some cases the artist and the writer need to be one in the same to make things feel right. Didn’t know you had a channel, Tim, so glad I found it!
i honestly cant imagine being anything but a generalist. i'm just too interested and get invested in all the different aspects of game, or in my case in a broader sense: "realtime experience design". I'm a 3D artist / tech consultant, but be it Film and photography, sound design, UX design, some graphic design even concept art. i find myself lost in so many aspects of creating that i cant see just sticking to any one of them. Sometimes i envy specialists who really live their role and become like an authority in a specific field, but i rather see myself always looking at the bigger picture of any project i work on. Creating 3D Art is still fun, of course :) But sometimes i felt i'm missing out on important skills on each of the disciplines and feared becoming sort of a "Jack of all trades master of none", but this video was kind of validating for me: "Maybe, being a generalist is my skillset"
Great video, I think having many specialists is affecting playtesting a lot as well, I think most of the specialists nowadays can avoid playtesting the games they are making and still be good at their job, which is a bit strange. Generalists have to know the game they are making and all the tools they have around most of the mechanics, that's probably why they can communicate better with other disciplins.
I didnt know this was a term but I definitely identify with and have always wanted to be what you call a Generalists, so its nice to hear you like them. It's rough though because every job posting asks to a high number of years in specific skills, skills I can easily learn, but haven't because I've spent my time learning many skills. I love understanding, learning, and teaching/explaining how systems and parts fit together, but it doesn't feel like any of that is a marketable skill right now which has been very demotiviatin, so thanks for the kind words, made me feel a bit better about myself.
I am naturally a generalist. I don't know if it's an issue with us not existing; my resume just doesn't stack up since I never have multiple years in any discipline. Often the person looking at the resumes is themselves a "hiring specialist", and so they have no idea how to gauge whether someone is qualified for the specific thing they're hiring for or not outside of superficial metrics like "x years as..." or "has completed..." I think specialists are just easier to hire.
Great points. I think why generalists have declined is because even micro niches have become well paying silos. Economic rewards and how far one has to go to find their cheese are one big factor in settling down into niches. Not everyone is born with a stomach to keep learning even at the cost of bread and daily comfort and while one can't blame someone for not pursuing their rest of the hobbies, there maybe strong evidence that great achievements in many fields still go to those who can break through niche walls and bring interdisciplinary thinking to their trade and profession.
Thanks for this video Timothy, it spoke to me directly. Been a professional game dev for 10 years, worked for both big companies like Ubisoft, and smaller ones, and, as a generalist programmer, I can feel I am part of a dying breed
The flip side to this is when you run into people with just enough cross discipline versatility to have opinions but not enough experience to understand the fine details. I worked with a designer who would frequently detail out implementations in his specs (and would even write C++ code in them at times lol). Personally it helped me understand his intent, but I often had to explain to him why his solution wasn't viable outside of his vacuum of scope. That said, we had a less experienced engineer who often took this designer's implementation and ran with it, assuming the designer just knew more than him, and all of those systems were extremely short sighted and difficult to maintain as the project went on. Long story short, for the most part I agree and I strive to be a generalist, but I think it's worth caveating that it's important to be careful. The Dunning Kruger effect is very strong when you aren't really an expert in something, but you work "around" it so you assume that you know more than you really do.
Reflecting on my own experience as a lead at Microsoft Games Studios (back in 2000), I thrived in a role where I could contribute to directing and managing art pipelines while also fine-tuning the visual aspects of multiple game projects to ensure a cohesive look and feel for their brand. However, there was an underlying discomfort they had with me doing all of these things. it wasn't until my manager candidly explained the situation that I truly grasped the underlying issue. He essentially told me, "We appreciate the quality of your work, and you've really helped bring so many projects to fruition, but unless you can document and systematize your approach so that anyone can replicate it, it doesn't serve our needs." In essence, the industry (even two decades ago) was moving towards a mass-manufacturing paradigm, akin to how McDonald's hamburgers maintain a consistent look and taste across all their locations (he actually used this analogy). This drive for standardization and replicability is also a factor in the shift away from generalists. It's far more convenient to establish systems with specialists, where if one specialist leaves, another can readily step in to maintain the workflow and quality. In contrast, relying on generalists can introduce variability and uncertainty, making it harder to ensure the consistent output that many modern game development projects demand. As a generalist myself, I agree with you of course, that they are valuable and can accelerate productivity and bring innovative solutions. There's no project I was a lead on that didn't ship and would like to think I had a role to play in that. But corporations don't want competent people that they "need". They want skilled people they can take or leave at any time and still keep the ship operational. To have to rely on someone is a liability for the corporate world.
This is some great insight about generalists in the industry. Funny enough, I graduated from school for a degree that was quite generalist (degree covered both game design and programming, had classes in art and production). I wanted to learn the ins and outs of game development and it helped open my eyes on how games are made. Fortunately, I've had some industry experiences in multiple design roles and in each place I worked at, it was easier to communicate with other departments in how they worked. But yeah, I hope to continue being in these sort of generalist design positions.
Thank you! I feel appreciated. I’m a veteran game programmer and consider myself a generalist. I prefer to work closely with creatives, but have worked on pretty much everything for over 20 years.
As a long-term IT careerist, I've been quite fortunate in that I learned a number of disciplines over the years, mostly out of necessity. I've been a network technician & administrator, sysadmin, help desk/customer service rep, electronics repairman, radioman, and several more roles. Over the last decade or so I've considered myself to be "Napoleon's corporal," so to speak; I'm the guy who understands the in-depth engineers, the senior leaders, and the customers, and can communicate in ways that each of them understands. Being a generalist, in my experience at least, means I'll always have a job and will always be able to provide value to that organization. As I've tried to teach my children, "if you can solve other people's problems, you'll always have a job."
This definitely hits hard as an aspiring indie solo dev, but was honestly pretty affirming! I’d love to see a video on what you think people can do as community members to support game designers, both in the development and post-release phases. Obviously I don’t mean this in a “tone police” kind of way, I just wonder how to support developers as a gamer in ways other than buying/playing. You’re the best!
Tim, I’d argue we generalists are still out there and thriving. We’re just in smaller studios/smaller teams, where you’d have no choice but to wear many hats to get games done!
Strangely enough, in indie, and outsourcing, Generalists are there, mostly because the way to break into the games industry is far from clear, at least in places like Brazil where i'm from. I'm a generalist myself, started as a game designer, then 3D artist, UX designer, Technical artist, programmer, producer and now team lead.
I absolutely agree with you. Yes, there has been a trend towards specialists, everything got way too complex and people who specialize in their discipline are obviously very useful because of this. However, like you've said, generalists can combine knowledge and experience from disparate disciplines, they can see things in ways a specialist cannot do, they can usually connect pieces of a puzzle or a problem in unforeseen ways to a specialist. Any team would benefit having at least one generalist between them. People got obsessed in assigning specific roles to specialists, even team managers are usually specialists in managing (?). Maybe persons for managing people are needed in businesses, but what about people who can have a unique overall picture of a project, and can do a multitude of things, even if not to the point a specialist can, they would be really good in guiding and moving a project forward, they could identify issues, or find unique improvements, all out of reach to specialists. People in the past used to gravitate towards being generalists, eg. scientists of the past studied literally everything. I understand the reasons the push for specialists happened, I think it was the wrong thing not to consider people who are generalists, and with the advent of AI and specific tools that will make the lives of specialists really easy, I can see the value of generalists coming back up. In any case, I think all are needed, both specialists and generalists. Your examples on how generalists would be invaluable in a team were spot on. People admire the specialist Einstein, I admire the generalist Newton. And while people might think it was the powerful immortal soldier Achilles who won the Trojan war, well, not really, he actually died, it was Ulises who won it. Also, MacGyver would always win against any Chuck Norris. 😀
I feel you know what you’re talking about, and I think I’m somewhat of a generalist myself although I’ve specialised in back-end development. I still know a lot about front-end and command line tools, perhaps not about recent front-end frameworks but I understand the concepts. I also have picked up along the way at least some experience with general design, requirements, etc etc. Because back in the days, you did it all. This is a trend throughout the whole software industry. Not just games development. And I very much understand your point about generalists being the ones who can connect the specialists in various domains!
I love your videos. I have been in the industry for over 20 years, which is not much compared to you. However, i worked with a lot of different teams. After a while you can start to doubt yourself as it seems every team really wants to do the same mistakes. When I hear you speak, it confirms my own experience and is a great sanity check. Regarding this video in particular. - The importance of generalist is growing and will keep growing due to the way companies are structured as you said. It is also due to a move to more agile methodologies. - When you have 4 feature teams working on a complex game and each of them with their own vision of what the game should be. Unless you have a creative director/Game Director/Design Director/etc. that has a clear cohesive vision with clear creative pillars for the teams to follow and refer to. It creates silo effects. So what is going on (very roughly, I can't write an essay here). It's that there is a generalists gap in the career progression. IC: Focus on their craft Team Lead: Focus on the team Craft Lead: Focus on their specific Craft Directors: Focus on high level craft strategy usually The positions for generalists are very scarce. So from a career perspective it is really tough until you reach a very high level in the organization (and even then). The industry doesn't like generalists. They want people that have clear and visible outputs usually. This is why producers are often not getting the love they deserve. They are generalists bridging teams communications and plans. I have seen countless Junior/Medior and so called seniors that didn't see the value of having producers. I have been in teams of 120 people with I kid you not 0 producers. The Craft Leads had to do the producing. The project ended up being released 2 years late... The industry doesn't value soft skills much (it is getting better though), it also doesn't value management & leadership skills. I had the owner of studio, being upset because I refused to hire a great craft expert. I told him that we needed someone more mature and able to work well in a team. I was over ruled. The owner wanted the best craftsman. In the end, the company lost at least 6 people due to this bad hire...
AMEN BROTHER! This kind of reminds me of what happens when you're SPECIALIST QUITS and nobody knows how to change a tire. You can't go anywhere until you hire another one. I've always strived to provide re-production concepts, storyboarding, cinematic design, as well as marketing art, video capture and editing, logo design, etc. And yet...people are being SHAPED to recognize that people ARE ONLY ONE THING. And they're so not.
Love this take. It's very true. As a freelance generalist programmer, I've found myself being very useful to studios since I'm not afraid to take a deep dive into any of the code. Bug with UI? Np. Bug deep inside engine/graphics code, I can fix it. For programmers looking to become more of a generalist, I'd recommend building your own game engine from scratch. It thought me so many different things about all the different disciplines
Something that was super interesting listening Skyrim devs talk was related to that. The very simple tools allowed people to take a lot of ownership in their work and touch parts that weren't their specialty. Someone would make a dungeon, they would write the lore and place books, script events, design a boss battle etc... Fairly small team, easy to understand tool allowed new content to be made with a ton of autonomy. Also ++ on the importance of good tools, they are hard to make but are a huge difference. And if I ever get to make my own game, specific tools to help making that game will be a huge priority.
Tim, your videos are helping me out immensely on my journey trying to navigate through the games industry as a 3D artist and I can’t agree enough. It feels good to have someone finally give an insiders take, because being young and getting into this industry is so difficult and intimidating. I don’t feel crazy anymore when I tell people the industry is seriously messed up and profit rules over artistic integrity.
I felt so glad to hear that. I'm a generalist but always heard that I should become a specialist to have success in my career as a game dev programmer. I live in Brazil and here is much more common to be a generalist than a specialist.
I'm not a developer but work in IT, and I've so often found myself as a bridge between different teams with varying levels of understanding of tech & processes. Having somebody that understands enough of both sides to work as a translator and disarm the daunting parts of communication across domains just seems to help so many people, and it's how I've found myself running a lot of projects that I may not have any formal experience for, but know just enough to sit the right people down together and handle the logistics and process around them. Needless to say, none of this was ever in my job description or brought up in any interviews because I am, on paper, a "Specialist" too - everyone is, now (and setting that expectation is harming us greatly, especially in smaller organisations) 🙃
I love this. Just getting into game development now and I see myself preferring the path of a Generalist. Teaching myself to program, but knowing my background in Graphic Design, Music and Literature / Writing - and by extension the many skills I learned being a career Chef for 10 years (Interpersonal skills, work ethic, time management and deadlines, etc..) - as valuable assets is a really reassuring thing to know. Cheers for the videos!
I love this video and big kudos to someone that actually gets it. I am a generalist and have been able to sell myself for years as such. In the last 3 years, I have found that it is certainly misunderstood during the hiring process. I believe it is because potential employers don't understand how this fits into their process and how it would benefit them. I am constantly asked the question of what I want to do, which as a generalist is impossible to answer as I have adapted to many disciplines throughout my career. Admittedly, because of this, I cannot be great at every discipline but I can assist a lot more. I understand a lot of terminology to discuss, coordinate, and increase productivity by actually doing and not telling to do. I code, 3d model, UI, UX, video editing and post processing, FX in game and rendering, web design, character rigging and skinning, technical optimization, project management and associated tools, VR/ AR/ MR toolsets, and planning just to name a few. I would say that this just scratches the surface as I have been in multiple industries as well. Architectural design, gaming and simulation, health care, product design, and military training through technology. Am I invaluable? This is hard to answer because it depends on what is needed and at what level of specialization. I always tell a potential employer or client that I can definitely help them with their efforts in some way. The problem is that requirements are always aimed at a specialist. A product owner is the only title that fits this type of person or at least that's what it seems like. That's my 2 cents.
I'm no longer a game developer but in the 2006-2009 I was a game developer generalist, I knew development, art, gameplay, animations, sound, scripting, tools, Maya, Photoshop, memory optimization, cpu optimizations. I was intereset in learning everything, wanted to know all. And this was me for my whole life, as a kid in school I really loved to learn at all the subjects at school, I wasn't particularly good at anything so I scored better than average at anything, this was a way of being, not many understood it. I know math geniuses that at school they only knew math and they were encouraged at that but in every day life they take bad decisions because they understand very little the rest. Currently I'm working on automotive industry where guess what I'm a generalist that continues to learn anything manufacturing, understanding underlying technology, understanding users, seeing future of the project and potentials obstacles, do a lot of codding and helping everyone understand the final goal of their work. I can confirm I'm a rarity, none of the coleagues in my team wants to understand all with my passion. All will avoid difficult situations, of getting too deep inside the project. I guess that all starts at school level, but today many parents no longer encourage kids to learn at all subjects, many consider that it's not good to learn because they anyway forget, and this leads to decline in education and less generalists because of bad parents. This attitiude will create a bad society to live with people lacking soul and also bad games.
I'm a generalist. I have to be in order to create my game. I can (and have to) do everything, or find solutions. I do have to create gameplay and judge it myself. I am also an artist: I can paint, I can manipulate images, I can create 3D models, I can edit videos, I can create music. Sadly, this doesn't give you more money as an employee - they want ONE thing from you, and it's usually the most expensive thing you can do. In my case it's being a programmer. And I'm good at it, and really don't mind that I don't have to create stupid screenshots for the app stores. I created the initial version of them, and they are great, but I don't want to deal with them any more. This is generally what I aim towards, I really don't want to deal with (my) legacy code.
It's funny, being a generalist myself, I got the impression that this made me unhireable in the industry, so it's nice to hear you saying it's actually an important skill set. Not that I'm looking for a job, I'm just working on my own game, but it's nice to hear that I'm not useless :P
great video! this must be a big reason why a lot of big games feel so anodyne these days - there are thousands of specialists working in a vacuum, sometimes on different continents, and relatively few people are communicating a clear overall vision. as a result, aspects of the game that feel like they should influence each other don’t, or worse, they undercut each other.
Interesting video. Funny thing is, each core member in our indie studio is more/less a generalist and a veteran wit 10+ years in the bussiness. Thanks for the video Tim!
This guy spits nothing but truth on these subjects. And the great thing is that I find that much of what he says, doesn't only apply to game design either! I notice the decline of generalist in something as different and HR - I know, we're demons. A shitty HR person is somebody who knows the laws and the systems of the company. They can't help you, they can only tell you what the rules are. But a generalist knows what people actually do in their jobs, they know what they need, they know how to translate rules and laws into suggestions. They have a more personal touch and can deliver good or bad news without sounding like a soulless robot. I get called ALL the time because some manager needs something for one of their people, but it's 'not possible'. So I help make it possible. I know what they're asking for really and can suggest alternatives that do the same thing. My finding is that what sets generalists apart is that we're interested in the whole picture. We wanna know everything there is to know. Lots of people don't, they stick to their field, their job, that's it. And HR isn't even my passion, gaming is...
I was a generalist for so long because of starting off with such a small company in silicon and synapse and as the company grew we had to become more specialized. Now I am back to learning to become a generalist again but like you said there is so many new parts needed for a game now. Its why I returned to pixel art so I can program design concept and illustrate the whole thing. Well aside from writing marketing produce sound music etc. Thats still outta my wheelhouse. =D
This is why now that I've entered my second industry job, after shipping one AAA Title, I specifically chose a Generalist position that allows a lot of freedom. Which is incredibly rare to find for a decent paycheck. But I felt as an artist and creative I was stifled by the restrictions in place in modern development, and with the end goal being a Directorial role for games I can spearhead, I didn't get the growth I needed. So I 100% agree, generalists vanishing is a genuine issue, the most impressive people in my studio were the 20+ year generalist vets, they taught me more than anyone.
I don't work in games, but I know EXCATLY what you're talking about. My official position at my company is as a mechanical engineer, but I also have formal education and practical knowledge in both programming and IT, and I have proudly considered myself a generalist for a long time in that regard. No matter what kind of business you're doing, if you are working on computers, and you have someone on the team who can deal with X field _and_ understands how computers work, they are going to be invaluable. In the last utility program I worked on for my company, I built a macro that decreased the work time on generating a certain kind of report by over 95% (two and a half hours reduced to five minutes) because I was able to automate it completely. It let the engineers, and myself, spend more time in the field and doing real data analysis and less time doing spreadsheet organization.
I feel this discussion so hard! I've always prided myself on being a generalist both in terms of being a designer but also my overall skillset, and it's very hard in the current environment of larger studios to find a role that puts that to use! Working in Cinematics was definitely the closest I came to being able to flex those muscles, but even then it was more out of fighting to get my hands dirty on something rather than others proactively coming to me or my team.
I've been working for 20 years in a similar fun environment cause it's an open-source project. I have never seen such a great explanation of this topic before. It's one of the best 13 min you can spend on a RUclips video. I never talked about job descriptions, when someone asked what I was doing, I described my job mostly as "I'm the glue". I go in between special interest groups and try to help them to make sense out of it :) There are so many things that clicked in my head when you talked about it. Thank you very much!
Love this take, as a generalist myself this was a much needed confidence boost. Its like the old saying "Jack of all master of none." that people have come to misquote. The full quote is a lot more insightful!
“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but often times better than a master of one.” William Shakespeare
@@solarydays And specialist cannot create anything original or groundbreaking. Tunnel vision is real.
@@solarydays Perhaps, but there is a way to be a good jack of all trades. You can go deep in many topics and know a lot about them, without "mastering" /being the best at them. Ultimately if you are 70% there on art, coding, music and other stuff is very usefull, even if some are 90% there on only one thing(cause mastery doesn't exist). The extra 20% takes twice as long as the 70%, it's exponential. In fact a generalist is good at everything, perhaps even masterful in one or two things.
It is impossible to create a game without having some people with a decent, pretty deep understanding of every facet of the game. A generalist is not at all someone who is "surface level". He wouldn't be able to join up specialists's work, or even improve and correct it, otherwise.
Not to mention, for example, how good of a game artist can you really be without having some coding and engine knowledge? I'm pretty sure the best of the best become generalists naturally because getting better at their job involves spreading their wings and their horizons. Making sure your art is seen the way you see it in your head, ultimately involves being able to handle the technology used. No programmer is going to be able to exactly code the right shader for them, choose the right compression for the textures, the right joint placement for the deformation of the face, the hair simulation or keyframe... IF the artist has no idea how to at the very least communicate in the precise, technical terms required by the conversation, or better yet getting their hands dirty and doing it themselves.
There is a reason these people end up as leads, directors and producers. They got there because they were the best around. Or at least that's how it was back in the day. Now the people in charge don't even know what a video game is.
@@solarydays "what I say is true, what you say is false" so enlightening
If generalists were so valuable they would not be in decline. If you are valuable the market will want you, it's as simple as that. This is like watching grandpa talk about the gold ol days because he cant adapt to a changing world. I personally dont see the value in someone who is mediocre in a bunch of different things compared to multiple experts who are masters in one
@@yangpaan453 wrong. Giant corps and companies want specialists and lots off them so they can make sure nothing goes "wrong" when they're investing millions even though a lot of the time games flop anyways. If you want to be a tiny cog in a giant machine go for it. I make more money freelance generalist than you ever will as a specialist, kid. and its because i am trained in more than one process.
This trend towards specialization has happened everywhere in software, not just games. Generalists as you've described are indeed invaluable force-multipliers enabling everyone around them to thrive and deliver. Generalists often love learning and teaching. The best mentors I've ever had were generalists. They could provide the path forward whether it was treaded or not.
It's not just software either. It's in almost every industry.
I think specialists like to learn and teach as well, just only within their limited scope of knowledge. But I really like generalist mentors as well, since they radiate this inspiring big-picture energy that explains how every individual thing you know can come together to create something cool.
It has happened to every profession, but why do I expect software engineers to know something beside their screens.
@@jtaco4101 Indeed, it is and there's a reason for it, but apparently no one wants to hear about that. Suffice to say, it's not unique to the industry.
I'm an embedded systems engineer (with a EE degree), who used to do firmware, front end software, electrical hardware, mechanical hardware, server software, and networking. Now I just do firmware. Haven't designed a CB since 2017. Haven't used solidworks in a decade.
Im a generalist working on my indie game because no studio around wants to hire a generalist.
Feel your pain… But with A.I. this will change and generalist will have new rise.
me too, every studio wants the more specialized specialist in the tools they use, nobody is really looking for unicorns :P
I am a generalist too. And while some companies are really happy to have me, I do realize that unicorns are really hard to replace.
And then the generalists find each other and form indie studios and it's the reason why indie games continue to excite while AAA continues to disappoint.
You don't want to work for AAA studios anyway. It's like working in a sweatshop and you have ZERO creative freedom. You're just a tool to be used by some retarded MBA
Watching Tim Cain's videos has become part of my daily routine at this point, this man can talk about literally anything and I'd listen 😅
Same, its so nice to hear about his stores. Im a generalist so this video hit hard.
same, its comfy
For real. I just discovered the channel yesterday and I'm all in
Him and Matt Colville.
Same here
Generalization has also declined in larger industries to make it easier to outsource (IMO). Letting cheaper labor handle the grunt work, and people in my role just “review/supervise” their work allows my employer to load my desk with high volume and save money, too. It’s overall a loss (in the long term, by having employees with blinders on) but I think most businesses only care about short term. Sorry, I have a very jaded take. Great video!
Yeah, it's based on the idea that specialization equals optimization. It doesn't really hold water in practice, especially when the specialists don't see the bigger picture.
I don’t think the outsourcing has anything to do with it actually. I think we specialise more and more, deeper and deeper, because the systems and libraries for which we are developing are becoming more and more complex, and more and more numerous. And the software that we develop is becoming larger and more complex itself.
I think that that is what drives the increasing degree of specialisation.
Don't be sorry, you are most correct.
More declining will happen both, in the industry and society wide, before things change after some pretty big happenings.
It’s neat to see that Tim’s studio has a built in day/night cycle
My room has the same, I think they call them windows, but I'm not a room specialist so I wouldn't know 😅
@@Excalibaard I think he uses linux and not windows.
I definitely think indie games and modding is fostering a whole lot of generalists. I am working on my skillset to make sure I can deal with the whole audio pipeline from pointing a microphone at a noise, to hooking up the game's parameters to the audio engine to modulate things, to placing the emitters in the level editor. It's a lot, but it's worthwhile!
Modding is so underrated, I'm a nobody working at some restaurant barely scrapping by lol. But I've learned so much by just modding games that I feel I have enough of a grasp on the big picture that I can make my own small game all by myself
@@scoutthespirit1133 modding is so great. Especially when you have a game that's the type of experience you want to make, so you just put your ideas into that framework.
I started with making mods a few years ago on Nexusmods. I'm set to graduate soon with a BA in Game Art & Dev (Creative Writing minor), but dreading trying to get into the industry. I'm a good 3D artist, decent animator & texture artist, bad rigger, and terrible 2D artist (but I can get by). I'm hoping I can find something I can intern as to break through and find my niche. I really like the idea of being a Generalist, but not sure how much of an option that's really going to be. :|
Smaller teams will have more generalists, that is right.
@@scoutthespirit1133 Go for it. If you can stick to working on it regularly, make good progress and eventually get something together, you could try and sell it. Most projects don't fail because they get review bombed or because they are bad, most projects fail because they never make it to the finish line.
Both, publishers and smalltime devs lacking confidence, being the key trigger.
As an older guy in tech I feel this. Often times I'm the only generalist on a staff. Almost no one learns all aspects of the industry anymore. When I got started in the 80s most of us were, of necessity, generalists. We could code or build a server from components or run Cat 5 cable. I rarely run across anyone who can do it all anymore. It does change the how we work and sometimes in a negative way.
As a semi new guy (probably semi senior) in tech. I feel the industry (at least in tech) is pushing the true generalists away. They always look for specialists regardless what they had claimed.
Companies and recruiters are always expecting you to be a "T sharp" person (main one thing, know most things, even know everything), which sounds like an ideal generalist goal but practically it's not. The amount of "general" stuffs we need to learn today is quite massive. The "T shape generalist" is ironically unapproachable without sacrificing massive amount of times. And they used that term to massively abuse your ability. At least in my definition, T shape is pretty much the ultimate goal that a lot people wouldn't even reach. And not the same definition from the video.
At the same time, a lot of people fake themselves as the everylist-ist due to those unrealistic job requirements. The unhealthy competition somehow filters out many who can be the true generalists (sorry, your years of experience for X thing is not enough, even though you know other things quite well).
For the risk and the cost, it's just not worth it to be such a true generalist like the video mentioned. Many people said they like it but realistically they didn't. Even you did, your colleagues from different departments might treat you as a threat sometimes. The reality is always complicated.
I wouldn't even say you need to do everything but the broad interests can help.
@@doc8527you do have a valid mention that whether intentional or not there is a not so subtle push towards specialization
I think growing up broke also helps to foster generalists in the same way that growing up in the 80s and early 90s did, when I was growing up we couldnt afford anything modern so I was always using hardware and software that were significantly behind the times but through that experience I came to learn a lot about the progress of technology in a way that someone who is capable of affording the latest and greatest whatevermachine was simply not capable of recieving as a result of never having to maximize the value of their dollar
wow your concept of generalist is much different than mine, never ran cables to my servers lol. I can sure code and configure them though and the services they need to run.
I recently entered the film industry.
As someone who takes an interest in a variety of disciplines it has been very challenging!
When ever I took an interest in someone else's department it was often looked at like I wanted to leave my own department, which is not the case!
Sometimes I just want to casually dabble in lighting or animation and build a small skill set in something new so I have a fuller range of ability.
Thanks for your video Tim :)
"...it was often looked at like I wanted to leave my own department, which is not the case!"
The film industry is a collection of trade unions. They don't step on each others' toes, so they really have no choice but to become specialists. Directors would be the notable exception. I don't know how else you could navigate that industry as a generalist.
I’ve always had the idea from your videos on Fallout’s development that the team was made up largely by generalists which undoubtedly helped make it so memorable. The team had a vision and wore many hats to make it reality.
I think the fall of generalists is the main reason why game development lasts for ages these days. Reminds me of the older story Tim told about the music guy at Carbine, who asked him to switch tracks randomly and Tim had to reiterate it thrice because the guy didn't really understand what he meant with the word "random". I'd imagine that these kind of situation happen an order of magnitude more often than in the 90's, because there are just so much more specialists who don't speak each others' languages. If the asset pipeline could be handled in a way where the core team was composed of just around a dozen or two generalists, I think we'd still see great games being made in a year or two.
This is how indie games with a small team or one person, sometimes make far more impressive things than big budget projects. You got something like a writer, musician, artist that learned how to code with a 3d modeler friend and another few friends that know a bit of everything that help out here and bam, magic happens.
@@3Diana Yep. In the hobby group I am with, I started out doing game testing and highlighting bugs and other issues. Then I started helping out with textures since I had some experience from modding games. Then I picked up Blender and learned 3D modelling and doing texturing within that and other procedural software. Then I learned Shader Graph so I could do special effects I wanted to do as well as being able to setup material maps how I wanted to.
I eventually got the nickname Oz Nye because I kept on picking up knowledge about different areas. I happen to have ADHD, jumping between stuff and picking up new skills comes natural to me. I am physically unable to specialise.
@@Ozzianman Pretty much similar story here, and I have adhd too! hah! :D There's def something there. I am most productive when I can jump on different things, like my brain cooldowns from working on something else while I got bored of the first thing, otherwise I can't be at peace.
Either a lot of Generalists, or you need a specialist that is so good at his job that he can explain what he means to someone that does not know the jargon he is talking about. Which is clearly just a special skill in itself.
What Tim I think is also getting at is that generalists are more likely to be artists, and when that’s the case you can somewhat depend on everyone getting the “vision” and the game can naturally become greater than the sum of its parts.
I think it's worth pointing out that when you are someone trying to break in with the industry, you are *explicitly* told to not be a generalist. I've been directly told that saying I'm foremostly a narrative person *but* *also* have received noteworthy praise for QA work, 3D modeling, and management "probably hurt" my chances with various applications. Which would mean this isn't just about people chasing better salaries, but rather, an overt input-output on the hiring end.
Oh my god, huge thanks! I'm a generalist, sorta 60% artist 20% coder 20% game designer and i usually HATED tools i got from purebreed coders, if they even created any. So the last 15 years i've been developing tools for myself to work better. When other artists saw my tools, they wanted to use them, so i had to get good at user experience, as i didn't want them to hate my tools. Instead artists loved my tools. And yet hardly any company valued that!!! I usually got told "why aren't you working on the graphics?" by the managers when i told them 100 times that without the tools it would take MUCH LONGER to work on the graphics.
I actually love to create tools, i made tools for 3dsmax, Maya, Blender and Unity. I'm really good at telling when something shouldn't be done by an artist but a tool. Good tools are like the grout between the bricks: You hardly notice them when they are there, but if they ain't, everything feels like it could collapse any moment (and often does).
I recently discussed the exact same topic with studio CEO. We both agreed that companies and studios that hyper focusing on hiring specialists only assembled a team of talents instead of a talented team. Game development by large is a collaborative process, if no one is willing to speak in other discipline's language, it's highly impossible for the team to work towards the same goal.
In my internship I reached out to the members of all the other disciplines to understand their work, so that I can get a sense of how to help from my job as a tools engineer. And that insight still helps me for my current job and my game jam team. It was a good move even though rarely anybody could understand why I did it back then.
Keep it up. Becoming a great, highly experienced generalist takes a long time. And you should get good at a few particular skills too so you are an expert in some things plus a generalist. Do that and you'll have a great future and be highly employable. P.S. i like that "a team of talents and not a talented team" saying and will likely use that.
@@Me__Myself__and__I Thank you for the encouragement 😄
"tools engineer" you make quick programs c# or in your engines script to process assets; you aren't even on par with engine dev, you're like the intern they hired to add a few op codes to a vm. your title is that of somebody who sits on a purpose built codebase, possibly in a company specific language, to drive an asset pipeline created years before you were even hired. "generalist" huh. i wouldn't be talking about cross-team and subsystem communication when your little talk with the CEO is on par with a yearly intern ingress's introduction to the company, mr "tool engineer" and yet somehow not an engine development team member (something something "In my internship" yea yea how could we all tell).
Somebody got his cereal pissed into, huh. Not feeling special enough, mr. reeeeecesx?
@@reecesx So your wish me to go down the path of being an engine programmer? Very interesting advice.🤔
I am a generalist game designer, working as a consultant now. Very thoughtful video, I always suggest becoming a specialist at the start. But once you see the generalist vibe, it can be a profitable career too. No many companies look for generalists, but nowadays we can build a lot of things without being part of any company.
I like the idea of starting as a specialist and widening over time. I refer to this as “t shaped”. The individual is very deep in one area, but has broad understanding and has likely dipped deep into an adjacent field.
Not a lot of companies LOOK for generalists, but quite a few jump at the chance when they find a good/experienced one. I've lost count how many times companies invented an entirely new position just for me after I applied for some other position. Often at a higher level than the positions they have open. For that to work you have to put yourself out there and go to interviews, even if the job you are interviewing for isn't quite your thing. Often I'll interview for something I'm not an expert at that sounds interesting. So maybe I get offered the job and increase my skills in that area or maybe they like me and offer me a different kick ass position that may not have even existed. I'm also willing to take jobs that are below me if they are interesting and I'll learn something new (most people aren't).
@@AndrewChambersDesignthe problem with starting out as a specialist is that you often will not get the opportunity to break out of that role
In an industry constantly trying to put everyone into specialized roles for the sake of hire-ability and to establish their identities as a devs, THANK YOU. Jack of all trades for sure have their own special value and I appreciate you so well stating it.
i’m not in games but i’m a generalist. i’ve chosen a specialty just so i can say it when i get asked, because for some reason generalists are seen as a bad thing. It’s so bizarre to me that they are seen that way for all the wonderful reasons you listed. They can connect things together when folks are thinking narrowly. I think people will regret the negative attitude to generalists some day. AI tools will make these people some of the most effective.
It’s inspiring to see an industry veteran with a lot of wisdom talk about the value of this personality trait, thank you!
This actually makes me think about the medical field too and how hard it is to get an answer for anything from a regular physician. It's as if they don't know anything (despite the years and years of education) and just send you to a specialist. I can understand why the specializations exist but it also feels like something is being lost in the transition.
I'm a game dev. Just last week, I had an (internal) interview where I said my greatest strength was that I can easily communicate and bridge the dev and art teams. This has always felt like a great value to me, and just like you said, I would clarify when people talk past each other. I had never thought about it like you have, and I certainly couldn't express it that way, it just felt right. Thanks for this amazing video!
As a generalist with about a decade in the games industry: thank you for this video ❤
Even with bringing a broad skill set, it’s really hard to find a good place that can actually utilize and appreciate it when most of the team structure and job postings are built around deep specialization. It’s a shame how siloed different teams can become.
Not just in the games industry!
I feel like you are describing my career, and i appreciate being seen!
I think one reason that generalists are disappearing is that most managers tell themselves that a team of exclusively specialists is the way forward, never stopping to ask why everyone is always arguing
I'm so happy you talked about this!! I'm an artist in the generalist camp. I joined the game industry in '16 as an environment artist and for years I had stressed over this pressure to specialize/find the one thing you really excel at. With all job positions & studios being so specialized it makes it really difficult to branch out in to other fields once you're set on a path, which definitely was happening to me until I finally got the opportunity to become a generalist at the current studio I'm at, and not only have I seen my skills SKYROCKET across the board, but I love the variety that comes with utilizing multiple skillsets instead of the tunnel vision of solely focusing on one thing.
Being a generalist is definitely alive and well in the indie scene, since you have much smaller teams and have to wear many hats.
I agree completely Tim, but it's definitely hard for people starting out to find a job that is looking for a generalist, or even just one that won't try to constantly discourage them from ever doing tasks outside of their job description. Indie and small-studio work is the only space currently where a large portion of people are generalists, or can be given the space and support to grow into generalists. But it's still absolutely true that in larger studio environments generalists are still vital force mutlipliers, I just don't know if recruiters actually understand that. If you're starting out in the industry today and seek advice, you're going to be told "if you say you do level design and environment art that means you're half as good as everyone at those two things-focus on one or no one will ever hire you." It's demoralizing for folks who truly have interests and passions beyond a singular focused slice of game dev.
Well said
"made in a vacuum". This makes so much sense, I've noticed numerous times in games where some component is almost hidden in a closet.
an example that comes to mind immediately is farcry 3. The minimap was probably there because someone said it had to be there, but the world around you was the living map. The outposts and towers could be viewed, and all the herbs you had to pick up were in specific areas ( near a river, in open fields , etc ). The game did a great job showing where everything was, and then added a minimap that displayed everything so why bother looking there when you can just see it clearly displayed on the map. I got a mod that removed the minimap and really only noticed how well displayed everything was when the minimaps over indulgent display had been hidden.
Amen to that. Even if he's worse at his job than a pure specialist, a generalist brings a unique kind of value to the team.
The slowest tasks are the ones where several specialists need to communicate with each other.
Different specialists speak different languages and might even think in completely different ways from each other.
So working with someone from a completely unfamiliar field is like requirements gathering, except it's done in a hurry and without an analyst.
And a generalist, even someone like a programmer who merely dabbles in audio mixing or 3D modeling, is like a translator.
He can sort of understand Soundengineerese after a few tries, and then he expresses those ideas in fluent Coderian.
I'm definitely stealing these neologisms 😊
Love hearing this as a generalist! For me being a generalist paved an eventual move to engineering management / director of engineering roles. For roles like that it really helps to have a wide variety of experiences and knowledge.
Perfect. I love working for managers who actually understand what they are managing. Personally I tried management and ffelt like I couldn't do the office politics without destroying my soul/integrity.
I suppose in a way, indie solo developers are some of the best generalists around.
This is certainly true. They have to be.
Yes. They are actually better than generalists. They are generalists who can do everything alone. If you are successful doing a solo game, that means you got professional level skills in multiple disciplines.
Thanks Tim, really needed this. I was at a game developer meetup not long ago and one producer got INCREDIBLY mad when I told him I was a generalist, proceeded to talk down to me and said he'd never hire me because I don't specialize in anything specific, therefore wouldnt know what to hire me for. But seeing everyone in this comment section talk about their own generalist experiences and how they're often times the "force multiplier" on projects makes me feel a lot better. Also he makes NFT games so stuff him.
NFT games? Wow. That dude who berated you has no future. gg ez, ez run into unemployment, to channel some toxic energy back to him.
Anyway, I feel as an artist there should always be a base level of respect for others in their craft. Being a professional creative isn't easy, I think.
As an indie dev who cut her teeth in the modding scene, I cannot possibly agree with this video more. Being at least a little bit of a generalist not only helps communicate more efficiently with the rest of the team, it means you don't have to sit around waiting for someone else to have time to work with what is to them a minor issue but to you a major roadblock, which means you're working more efficiently even just on your own.
I'm still working on the whole "learning to code well" thing but I can at least hold a conversation with a programmer well enough to figure out what's going on with the issues we're having.
Having worked in CG animation for a bit now, I've noticed generalists end up in lead or supervisor positions. You nailed it with "they can speak my language" - the ability to be the communicator between departments with proper terminology, or to at a glance see why something isnt working saves weeks on schedules.
Thanks for all the great content, Tim!
As a young generalist this was encouraging to hear. Literally everyone else is telling you to specialize.
Being a generalist was the biggest mistake of my life.
Don't make that mistake too. As encouraging Timothy's comment may be, the industry (even industries beyond video games) expects and actively wants specialists: Unlike you, specialists will always have something to show off how much essential they, which you won't be able to match. You may then tell others how invaluable your ability is to "glue" things up together but, they will rebuke you by saying "Oh, but we can do that with a meeting with specialists."
And then, you end up being the guy who do "nothing of value", pass behind specialists who virtually became "stars", and the whole team complains that you're never able to meet their standards in each one's respective domain of expertise, which leaves you passing as a mediocre member of the team.
What's worse is that people will often think of you to be pretentious because you are voicing an opinion on a topic you "shouldn't" know as much as specialists do.
tl:dr; Find something to specialize in first and then broaden your skillset but not at a detriment to that specialized skill.
I agree. I am a generalist too and skilled in many things. I'm finding people who aren't generalists often difficult to communicate, because they most of the time don't understand connections between components which have to explained to them slowly hoping they'll get it. But sometimes some people don't want to listen and those are the toughest to work with.
I don't generally have a problem communicating. I can talk to everyone from CEOs to specialists. When you have extremely broad knowledge you have to get good at doing that because more often than not you have to explain things to nearly everyone. What I find frustrating is when, due to broader knowledge and/or more experience, I can clearly see certain things but someone else refuses to consider the input because they insist they are correct. Usually I just let it go (unless I'm also the/their lead) but sometimes they won't relent until you concede they are correct which I simply won't do. I'll drop a topic if its contentious and doesn't make sense to pursue, but I won't agree to something I know is wrong just tomplay nice.
@@Me__Myself__and__I That's right. This is what I meant.
There's a talk on this on GDC - Being a Unicorn: Multiclassing in an Industry That Wants Specialization, available on youtube. It dives into the issues multiclass/generalist people face.
It seems that it's often easier to leave and start an indie production than fight against the pressure to specialize in a big (or even a mid-sized) studio. It's the same in similar art/tech industries, too.
Couldn't agree more. Cross-discipline folks are almost always the most important folks on a team. Within a discipline is great, but the ones that can reach outside a discipline are even better - I strongly believe that a designer that can also code (or vice versa) is one of the best assets you can have. The ability to balance and juggle the apparently competing requirements of multiple disciplines is just gold - not to mention the fact that having generalists means that they are reducing their cycle time, especially important in exploratory work.
For "production" work (churning out models, etc.)? Not so much, but I see few games truly go into "production".
One of the coolest things on the EQ2 team was that pretty much, especially in engineering, people owned the things that they did soup-to-nuts. Even the specialists were more like SMEs.... they weren't locked into that discipline, they were just first on the line what it was needed. It was incredibly common for someone to do everything from the UI for a feature all the way to the DB. And I think we were better for it. Towards the end, we even started to pull some design work into that flow as well.
Hey Tim!
Game Designer based in Montreal here that wants to add his grain of salt. I would say that your point is very valid, but since, 2019-20, things are changing in the other direction in most of what we call ''major'' studios. Since then, there has been a gradual shift (maybe only on this side of the continent, perhaps) where now, generalist is by far the most looked for profile in game design.
This change is the reflection of a switch in terms of team size and production pipeline. Studios here are trying very hard to go back to "manageable'' team of less than 100 people on a given project (from experience, it often goes above even with the explicit intent to avoid it), but the intention is to form a strong core team and avoid any form of outsourcing for any core feature. The Art department is mostly the exception to the rule, sadly.
Because of this, flexible experienced designer that can manage multiple non-related features are the one getting hired first. This is true in most departments, flexibility and agility are a most in those teams.
This does create a vicious circle of senior recruiting other senior, leaving little to no place to younger or inexperienced folks, but this is a story for another time.
I ran into your RUclips channel this week and I'm finding it is a trove of wisdom. I work in advanced mobile robotics, but so much of what you have to say still fits. Thanks for taking the time to share.
My sense on the topic of generalists is that it can be deceptive: to give a program 10% added depth, you might double the complexity. A common trap is for the seasoned veterans to perceive this as all bad things: "ahh frameworks!" "people have no talent these days!" "why does everyone make it harder than it has to be?" Not to say these are never valid criticisms, but more often than not, someone is under-estimating the complexity of added complexity. I'm not exactly sure the nostalgia is for generalists, as much as it might be for when things were less complex and a team of generalists could complete the whole project. Back when a few people could build an entire cottage. But now you've gotta get the plumbing person and electrician and roofers, etc. because cottages are getting bigger and more featured. I find that generalists really shine in architect roles. Someone who knows just enough about everything to be able to speak everyone's language and understand the whole system, and get the right people in the room at the right time.
Personally this is why I find tremendous joy in environments like PICO-8 where self-imposed technical constraints helps limit scope creep, forces creativity and cleverness, and minimizes runaway complexity
This is an interesting discussion. I’m not in the gaming industry but working in technology this is a trend and a challenge across the industry.
The difficult part is that, as an industry matures with higher standards of fidelity and more complex systems, the talent and experience needed for a generalist to be valuable increases. In a mature a industry a great generalist is millionaire, a good generalist is a force multiplier, but a mediocre generalist is useless.
It becomes more and more difficult over time to maintain enough expertise in any one specialty to add value while also dabbling in our areas enough to understand and learn them.
Combine that with the massive deadline pressure and burnout in the gaming industry and I imagine it’s hard for anyone to stick around long enough to reach the “deep generalist” level needed to be a force multiplier unless they build the knowledge as a hobbyist or Indie developer first.
This echoes a sentiment given to me while I was still in college. As a prolific writer, designer, programmer, and artist with managerial experience and as an avid Kirkbride fan wholly dedicated to the Elder Scrolls IP, I was told straight out of college that I'd need to specialize to make it in the industry. I pivoted towards flicking the keys on my own games, and honestly I've had such a better life for it. I feel appreciated and valued by even the shadow of my own ruin spurring me forward with its haughty glare, and as an added bonus, I get to be as bombastic and out of touch as I please without censorship or the sabotage of caution!
So you've got your own stuff released? Is it on Steam?
Plenty of people have mentioned that generalists are indies now so I won’t add to the choir. I will add though that my experience as a generalist in aaa was to be shoved into the nearest fit role and was kept there due to the machinery of a larger production. For all the reasons called out in this video. It’s soul crushing and why I moved to the indie space. It’s not that we’re incapable of executing in a specialized area, it’s that we dislike it.
This is very reassuring to hear as someone who has a hard time sticking to one thing. I’ve fallen out of love with so many practices because I see how talented the specialists in that field are and I’ve never felt competent enough to really count myself amongst them. So while you may have made this video to lament our decline, I can’t say in words what it means to me to hear that there is value in being ok at multiple things. Maybe it’s right to say I feel seen. Thank you.
re:salary - That's a really good point. For programmers in particular, it seems like hiring always boils down to lists of technologies someone knows. Meanwhile in reality, technologies almost don't matter. It's so much more important how someone approaches a problem, how motivated they are to actually do something useful instead of just check off their task, and how resourceful they are in exploring various paths to that solution. But none of these things are ever discussed or questioned during the hiring or salary negotiation process.
Hi Tim, I am an animator. But I was not always an animator. I came to love doing it later than most. I worked in film and did web design. When I was learning to animate I needed to have certain adjustments to my rigs. So I started to do a fair bit of rigging. As I began to get work as an animator in games I would use my knowledge of rigging to communicate with tech artists. And it helped some. What you did not touch on in your talk about generalists is jealousy. Specialists have become very protective of what they do. The industry has become very competitive. Some of the people I have worked with feel threatened by someone pointing out how something can be improved or adjusted to make the game better, unless it comes from their supervisor. Producers can do this because of how they are seen in the hierarchy but people such as myself are not as respected for their knowledge anymore. There is more to say about this but I have to go. Thanks for putting these up for people to watch and listen.
I'm aspiring to be a generalist myself, I love to be able to do a lot and help when needed. In our recent project I was Designer but stepped in as Programmer when our group was in need and helped with hooking everything up inside of Unity, Coding, Designing the game itself and its mechanics while also with a previous self taught experience with Blender, I had a good understanding what was possible for our Artists within our timeframe and just to help link everything up from Blender to Unity and make the code execute the Animations and make everything work this a lot of coded systems.
I also enjoy it a lot because in the future I would love to do game as a smaller team and create my own smaller projects on my own aswell.
I think so far it's a nice skillset to communicate with the others in the team, but also having that holistic view and skill to go from start to completed makes it possible to work fast on new systems and implement them in Unity.
I forfeited the past 10 years of my life to learn how to program games and I CANNOT get a programming job. I had a non game programming job but the way technology seems to me is that if you aren't ultra experienced and razor sharp at one specific job, you're not getting a job as a beginner.
You do exactly what you're told and you don't have an opinion. Just do what they say and get it done fast.
No learning on the job. Learn after work when you're at home. A job interview I attended said Google has people learn outside work with their free time and on weekends, so they do it even though they don't pay Google wages.
It's impossible to get anywhere without being a super expert on one very specific thing.
I work as a UX Engineer generalist. I do UX/UI design and engineering, plus game design (when applicable). I live by the quote: “a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”
It honestly pains me watching this video, because I'm struggling to find a new job at a company looking for generalists. If anyone has any advice for generalists standing out in a specialist-focused market, I'm all ears!
just say you are a specialist in everything 🙃
I doubt I'm saying anything you don't already know, but you'll probably find the most success applying with smaller teams (not necessarily smaller companies - I work at a big one you've definitely heard of - but smaller teams). In smaller teams each member's opinion counts for more, so smaller teams tend to value people with more generalized knowledge who can provide informed opinions. The trick is finding those small teams, and unfortunately that usually comes from networking and personal connections.
At the same time, make sure you can emphasize what specialty you do have. In my last job hunt (early 2022) I found success in presenting myself as "I understand and can do everything but what I'm really excited about and good at is X." For context, I'm a generalist with emphasis on programming, but I understand and have limited experience with all the other game dev disciplines.
I market myself as a generalist very successfully. But I'm also an extreme case where I can legit show that I have an insanely broad set of knowledge/skills but I'm ALSO quite capable of being a specialist. On that topic I think your quote is a problem. I've mastered several skills and am at the very high end top in those skills but ALSO a generalist with broad knowledge. If you try to sell yourself as "master of none" I think that would be a massive handicap. Pick a skill you already have and want to get better at. Take a job that focuses on that skill for a couple, few years. At the same time maintain your other skills and continue to learn more ( probably on your own time/outside work). Then find a new job that focuses on a different skill for a couple years. Rinse, repeat. Build up a couple skills you are particularly good at while maintaining a broad range of other skills. Then marketing yourself becomes a lot easier. Takes time.
@@FastFilmFXGood point. Though I will suggest smaller companies and if possible smaller startups. Big companies have set roles and you are expected to stay in your lane. Small startups tend to love initiative and someone stepping in to solve something. I once worked at a very small startup and in order to get my desk phone it was going to take over a week to get the specialized outside consultant to come in and set it up. The evening after hearing that I got motivated, found the phone system manual, taught myself how to program it and when the owner came in the next day I had cabled and configured my own phone. He loved it, saved him a couple hundred dollars in fees and next time something was needed he asked me instead of calling the outside consultant. I learned so many different things that way at various small startups. Has to be a small startup that isn't swimming in cash though. Fyi you will get paid less working for them, but do that a few years and the skills you learn will more than make up for it.
@@arcan762😂😂😂
I'm a tools programmer and very much a generalist. This really echos my experience. It was a huge shock coming to a AAA studio and seeing how completely silioed everything was.
I have noticed smaller indie, but industry veteran run studios have appreciated me as a generalist and sought me out much more than the big studios.
As a generalist myself for almost three decaces now, this video resonated so much with me. The force multiplier reference nails why generalists are so awesome in a team
Generalist here and Self-Taught to boot! Technically over the past 26 years I've been a character animator, but more or more now I've begun emphasizing (to clients/employers) that I began as a Generalist in the late 90's, when "CG" people were expected to know everything regarding 3D anything. So while animation is my forte and what I'm passionate about, I've been increasingly utilized as a Technical Animator (Rigging), Gameplay Implementation and Scripting (AnimBP's and regular BP's), Modeler/Sculptor (characters, props, basic geometry correction for deformation) and so on.
It's uncanny (for me) your bringing this topic up and it's validating. I grew up with your games and arguably one of the reasons why I got into game dev, so I'm very much enjoying your ponderings! Too bad you're (semi) retired as I would've loved to collaborate on a project!
Cheers Tim!
I think that just in general the push for graphics being the primary focus in all games across the board has been very destructive in a certain way to the entire industry. Games aren't animation or film, that's the point, they have gameplay mechanics, dialogue, music, sound, they introduce engineering problems in all fields, the limitations are what breed a new kind of creativity. I really believe that the players, and thankfully have seen players not buying bad games that are masked by photo realistic graphics. It's a nice thing to see.
Hey Tim - I love this call for generalists. I don't think there are less of these people, but their skillsets ARE being valued in other places. (So it's possible the game industry has lost out on attracting them) I recently wrote "How to be Second" which is a book that talks about a particular identity of person, where one of their core traits is being a generalist. Our skillsets are progressively more in-demand in management or BPM roles, OR, money is being pushed to "specialists" so we're hiding in plain sight so we can get paid even though we're on the team in the same numbers we used to be. (One of the key abilities of generalists is their ability to chameleon to survive, so if the industry wants specialists, that's the color we're showing right now)
The work we're doing with How to be Second is to teach people who are this thing, to own that about themselves, and sell themselves as what they are, and how to explain that value.
I've been a Generalist for 23 years. My overall career has been a blast going from one project to the next doing different tasks and teaching my fellow peers along the way. It even lead me down paths outside of the typical CG industry towards being an industrial designer, an architectural designer, even programming for over a decade. Now I'm in broadcast where I'm going on a range of tasks everyday across the entire production pipeline (modeling, rigging, texturing, lighting, animation, art direction, etc.) I always try to encourage all of my peers to be open to learn new things and not just specialize in one task so they can be valuable to an assortment of jobs out there.
Thanks Tim, this made me feel appreciated for what I bring as a developer in a way I haven’t felt before! I’ve also worked with some amazing force multipliers who just seemed to know how everything is connected together or how to find out. As soon as I change teams, these are the first people I miss most. And since I value it so much, I’ve also developed a broad skillset and perspective instead of focusing my career on doing one thing exceptionally. I’m going to pass this on to other generalists I know and let them know how much I appreciate them! Thank you for sharing from your experiences, positive and negative!
You can find the "generalist" in almost every kind of job outside game development and they are great. You notice when they are not around.
When I was studying game design, we had a generalist as a teacher for a few weeks, and she referred to them as octopus. She was taught us the value of generalisation, and while I'm only able to get my head around design and programming, it helped me to have a level of understanding for how the art side kinda works as well, to an extent. There's still a point out goes over my head, but if I'm ever in a situation where I'm out of my depth, I'd dive in to find out just what I'm missing to be able to follow or convey what I need to.
Only found your channel a few weeks ago, but I'm enjoying digging through it and learning for if I'd ever have the opportunity to jump from what I'm doing into the games industry. Probably won't happen, but I always enjoy the videos regardless, and try to find ways I can apply parts of it even where I am now.
I just got finished with a game design degree in 2023. Our professors made it very clear that if we wanted to get into the industry then we needed to specialize as a modeller, a coder, a narrative designer, a sound designer or game designer etc. Part of the reason I got into game dev was because I love picking up multiple disciplines. Part of what got me accepted to the program was the games I was making at the time that I submitted, of which I had made every component of and loved every second of. And then what I fell in love with at school was connecting the different disciplines I worked with, acting as a bridge between fields.
I ignored the profs suggestions to start practicing game dev in a way I didn't enjoy just to get hired. Now I have skills in almost every nook and cranny of game dev. But I am almost unhireable into current industry roles compared to my friends who spent their 4 years predominantly on one set of skills. The only role that makes sense is producer like you talked about but those roles are often not entry level, and so it becomes very difficult for a generalist to even make it to those roles where they could thrive.
I will keep working on my own games and hope that putting in the time will result in either getting hired into the indie scene or getting to start my own thing.
Hi Tim. Love your content. Just discovered you. Please keep sharing your thoughts.
One thing I want to push back on. I'm a UX designer who used to be a developer and I believe specialists can also anticipate the needs of jobs they have not worked. As a UX designer of enterprise software, it is often my job to experience what the user goes through. What are their pain points? What are their needs? What are their motivations? I had an "ah ha" moment when I started doing that with coworkers. "Tell me what you're going to do with this deliverable. Tell me what happens when things don't get done a certain way."
What I have found is that developing empathy for jobs or tasks you haven't done and mapping this out is a shortcut to being able to macro-level systems thinking.
Thank you again for sharing your wisdom.
Jon
As someone who entered the industry recently as an env artist, it's so much to learn, , so many specific skills needed to produce the art needed for a AA or AAA game.
A recent example, I was playing Fable 2 recently, it's a beautiful game but I couldn't help but think how nice as an artist to not have to blend every single rock into the ground perfectly sculpted and textured etc etc.
I feel like I’m starting to understand a lot more why a growing number of modern games feel like they have lost some of their soul. Too detached, not enough direct involvement in multiple facets of their work. I hope your words can inspire incoming developers to start broadening into different disciplines-I can see how in some cases the artist and the writer need to be one in the same to make things feel right.
Didn’t know you had a channel, Tim, so glad I found it!
The UI specialists is something i noticed when arkane split the ui for redfall became very basic while the ui for weird west was top notch
i honestly cant imagine being anything but a generalist. i'm just too interested and get invested in all the different aspects of game, or in my case in a broader sense: "realtime experience design". I'm a 3D artist / tech consultant, but be it Film and photography, sound design, UX design, some graphic design even concept art. i find myself lost in so many aspects of creating that i cant see just sticking to any one of them.
Sometimes i envy specialists who really live their role and become like an authority in a specific field, but i rather see myself always looking at the bigger picture of any project i work on.
Creating 3D Art is still fun, of course :)
But sometimes i felt i'm missing out on important skills on each of the disciplines and feared becoming sort of a "Jack of all trades master of none", but this video was kind of validating for me: "Maybe, being a generalist is my skillset"
Great video, I think having many specialists is affecting playtesting a lot as well, I think most of the specialists nowadays can avoid playtesting the games they are making and still be good at their job, which is a bit strange. Generalists have to know the game they are making and all the tools they have around most of the mechanics, that's probably why they can communicate better with other disciplins.
I didnt know this was a term but I definitely identify with and have always wanted to be what you call a Generalists, so its nice to hear you like them.
It's rough though because every job posting asks to a high number of years in specific skills, skills I can easily learn, but haven't because I've spent my time learning many skills. I love understanding, learning, and teaching/explaining how systems and parts fit together, but it doesn't feel like any of that is a marketable skill right now which has been very demotiviatin, so thanks for the kind words, made me feel a bit better about myself.
I am naturally a generalist. I don't know if it's an issue with us not existing; my resume just doesn't stack up since I never have multiple years in any discipline. Often the person looking at the resumes is themselves a "hiring specialist", and so they have no idea how to gauge whether someone is qualified for the specific thing they're hiring for or not outside of superficial metrics like "x years as..." or "has completed..."
I think specialists are just easier to hire.
Great points. I think why generalists have declined is because even micro niches have become well paying silos. Economic rewards and how far one has to go to find their cheese are one big factor in settling down into niches. Not everyone is born with a stomach to keep learning even at the cost of bread and daily comfort and while one can't blame someone for not pursuing their rest of the hobbies, there maybe strong evidence that great achievements in many fields still go to those who can break through niche walls and bring interdisciplinary thinking to their trade and profession.
Thanks for this video Timothy, it spoke to me directly. Been a professional game dev for 10 years, worked for both big companies like Ubisoft, and smaller ones, and, as a generalist programmer, I can feel I am part of a dying breed
The flip side to this is when you run into people with just enough cross discipline versatility to have opinions but not enough experience to understand the fine details.
I worked with a designer who would frequently detail out implementations in his specs (and would even write C++ code in them at times lol). Personally it helped me understand his intent, but I often had to explain to him why his solution wasn't viable outside of his vacuum of scope.
That said, we had a less experienced engineer who often took this designer's implementation and ran with it, assuming the designer just knew more than him, and all of those systems were extremely short sighted and difficult to maintain as the project went on.
Long story short, for the most part I agree and I strive to be a generalist, but I think it's worth caveating that it's important to be careful. The Dunning Kruger effect is very strong when you aren't really an expert in something, but you work "around" it so you assume that you know more than you really do.
Tim you are the best thank you for the consistent content. I come from zero bg in game dev and your insight is like a treasure trove of wisdom.
Reflecting on my own experience as a lead at Microsoft Games Studios (back in 2000), I thrived in a role where I could contribute to directing and managing art pipelines while also fine-tuning the visual aspects of multiple game projects to ensure a cohesive look and feel for their brand. However, there was an underlying discomfort they had with me doing all of these things. it wasn't until my manager candidly explained the situation that I truly grasped the underlying issue. He essentially told me, "We appreciate the quality of your work, and you've really helped bring so many projects to fruition, but unless you can document and systematize your approach so that anyone can replicate it, it doesn't serve our needs." In essence, the industry (even two decades ago) was moving towards a mass-manufacturing paradigm, akin to how McDonald's hamburgers maintain a consistent look and taste across all their locations (he actually used this analogy).
This drive for standardization and replicability is also a factor in the shift away from generalists. It's far more convenient to establish systems with specialists, where if one specialist leaves, another can readily step in to maintain the workflow and quality. In contrast, relying on generalists can introduce variability and uncertainty, making it harder to ensure the consistent output that many modern game development projects demand.
As a generalist myself, I agree with you of course, that they are valuable and can accelerate productivity and bring innovative solutions. There's no project I was a lead on that didn't ship and would like to think I had a role to play in that. But corporations don't want competent people that they "need". They want skilled people they can take or leave at any time and still keep the ship operational. To have to rely on someone is a liability for the corporate world.
This is some great insight about generalists in the industry.
Funny enough, I graduated from school for a degree that was quite generalist (degree covered both game design and programming, had classes in art and production). I wanted to learn the ins and outs of game development and it helped open my eyes on how games are made. Fortunately, I've had some industry experiences in multiple design roles and in each place I worked at, it was easier to communicate with other departments in how they worked. But yeah, I hope to continue being in these sort of generalist design positions.
Thank you! I feel appreciated. I’m a veteran game programmer and consider myself a generalist. I prefer to work closely with creatives, but have worked on pretty much everything for over 20 years.
As a long-term IT careerist, I've been quite fortunate in that I learned a number of disciplines over the years, mostly out of necessity. I've been a network technician & administrator, sysadmin, help desk/customer service rep, electronics repairman, radioman, and several more roles. Over the last decade or so I've considered myself to be "Napoleon's corporal," so to speak; I'm the guy who understands the in-depth engineers, the senior leaders, and the customers, and can communicate in ways that each of them understands. Being a generalist, in my experience at least, means I'll always have a job and will always be able to provide value to that organization. As I've tried to teach my children, "if you can solve other people's problems, you'll always have a job."
This definitely hits hard as an aspiring indie solo dev, but was honestly pretty affirming!
I’d love to see a video on what you think people can do as community members to support game designers, both in the development and post-release phases. Obviously I don’t mean this in a “tone police” kind of way, I just wonder how to support developers as a gamer in ways other than buying/playing. You’re the best!
Leave them be would be my guess, imagine how many angry or "helpful" crazies they have to put up with. Give them peace, leave them be.
You have a very charismatic way of explain things! It's very easy to listen to you!
Tim, I’d argue we generalists are still out there and thriving. We’re just in smaller studios/smaller teams, where you’d have no choice but to wear many hats to get games done!
Strangely enough, in indie, and outsourcing, Generalists are there, mostly because the way to break into the games industry is far from clear, at least in places like Brazil where i'm from.
I'm a generalist myself, started as a game designer, then 3D artist, UX designer, Technical artist, programmer, producer and now team lead.
I absolutely agree with you. Yes, there has been a trend towards specialists, everything got way too complex and people who specialize in their discipline are obviously very useful because of this. However, like you've said, generalists can combine knowledge and experience from disparate disciplines, they can see things in ways a specialist cannot do, they can usually connect pieces of a puzzle or a problem in unforeseen ways to a specialist. Any team would benefit having at least one generalist between them. People got obsessed in assigning specific roles to specialists, even team managers are usually specialists in managing (?). Maybe persons for managing people are needed in businesses, but what about people who can have a unique overall picture of a project, and can do a multitude of things, even if not to the point a specialist can, they would be really good in guiding and moving a project forward, they could identify issues, or find unique improvements, all out of reach to specialists. People in the past used to gravitate towards being generalists, eg. scientists of the past studied literally everything. I understand the reasons the push for specialists happened, I think it was the wrong thing not to consider people who are generalists, and with the advent of AI and specific tools that will make the lives of specialists really easy, I can see the value of generalists coming back up. In any case, I think all are needed, both specialists and generalists. Your examples on how generalists would be invaluable in a team were spot on. People admire the specialist Einstein, I admire the generalist Newton. And while people might think it was the powerful immortal soldier Achilles who won the Trojan war, well, not really, he actually died, it was Ulises who won it. Also, MacGyver would always win against any Chuck Norris. 😀
I feel you know what you’re talking about, and I think I’m somewhat of a generalist myself although I’ve specialised in back-end development. I still know a lot about front-end and command line tools, perhaps not about recent front-end frameworks but I understand the concepts. I also have picked up along the way at least some experience with general design, requirements, etc etc. Because back in the days, you did it all.
This is a trend throughout the whole software industry. Not just games development.
And I very much understand your point about generalists being the ones who can connect the specialists in various domains!
Tim, you don't know how much I needed this. Thank you!
I love your videos. I have been in the industry for over 20 years, which is not much compared to you. However, i worked with a lot of different teams. After a while you can start to doubt yourself as it seems every team really wants to do the same mistakes. When I hear you speak, it confirms my own experience and is a great sanity check.
Regarding this video in particular.
- The importance of generalist is growing and will keep growing due to the way companies are structured as you said. It is also due to a move to more agile methodologies.
- When you have 4 feature teams working on a complex game and each of them with their own vision of what the game should be. Unless you have a creative director/Game Director/Design Director/etc. that has a clear cohesive vision with clear creative pillars for the teams to follow and refer to. It creates silo effects.
So what is going on (very roughly, I can't write an essay here). It's that there is a generalists gap in the career progression.
IC: Focus on their craft
Team Lead: Focus on the team
Craft Lead: Focus on their specific Craft
Directors: Focus on high level craft strategy usually
The positions for generalists are very scarce. So from a career perspective it is really tough until you reach a very high level in the organization (and even then).
The industry doesn't like generalists. They want people that have clear and visible outputs usually. This is why producers are often not getting the love they deserve. They are generalists bridging teams communications and plans. I have seen countless Junior/Medior and so called seniors that didn't see the value of having producers.
I have been in teams of 120 people with I kid you not 0 producers. The Craft Leads had to do the producing. The project ended up being released 2 years late...
The industry doesn't value soft skills much (it is getting better though), it also doesn't value management & leadership skills.
I had the owner of studio, being upset because I refused to hire a great craft expert. I told him that we needed someone more mature and able to work well in a team. I was over ruled. The owner wanted the best craftsman. In the end, the company lost at least 6 people due to this bad hire...
AMEN BROTHER!
This kind of reminds me of what happens when you're SPECIALIST QUITS and nobody knows how to change a tire. You can't go anywhere until you hire another one.
I've always strived to provide re-production concepts, storyboarding, cinematic design, as well as marketing art, video capture and editing, logo design, etc. And yet...people are being SHAPED to recognize that people ARE ONLY ONE THING.
And they're so not.
Love this take. It's very true. As a freelance generalist programmer, I've found myself being very useful to studios since I'm not afraid to take a deep dive into any of the code. Bug with UI? Np. Bug deep inside engine/graphics code, I can fix it.
For programmers looking to become more of a generalist, I'd recommend building your own game engine from scratch. It thought me so many different things about all the different disciplines
Something that was super interesting listening Skyrim devs talk was related to that. The very simple tools allowed people to take a lot of ownership in their work and touch parts that weren't their specialty. Someone would make a dungeon, they would write the lore and place books, script events, design a boss battle etc... Fairly small team, easy to understand tool allowed new content to be made with a ton of autonomy.
Also ++ on the importance of good tools, they are hard to make but are a huge difference. And if I ever get to make my own game, specific tools to help making that game will be a huge priority.
Tim, your videos are helping me out immensely on my journey trying to navigate through the games industry as a 3D artist and I can’t agree enough. It feels good to have someone finally give an insiders take, because being young and getting into this industry is so difficult and intimidating. I don’t feel crazy anymore when I tell people the industry is seriously messed up and profit rules over artistic integrity.
I felt so glad to hear that. I'm a generalist but always heard that I should become a specialist to have success in my career as a game dev programmer. I live in Brazil and here is much more common to be a generalist than a specialist.
I'm not a developer but work in IT, and I've so often found myself as a bridge between different teams with varying levels of understanding of tech & processes. Having somebody that understands enough of both sides to work as a translator and disarm the daunting parts of communication across domains just seems to help so many people, and it's how I've found myself running a lot of projects that I may not have any formal experience for, but know just enough to sit the right people down together and handle the logistics and process around them.
Needless to say, none of this was ever in my job description or brought up in any interviews because I am, on paper, a "Specialist" too - everyone is, now (and setting that expectation is harming us greatly, especially in smaller organisations) 🙃
I love this. Just getting into game development now and I see myself preferring the path of a Generalist. Teaching myself to program, but knowing my background in Graphic Design, Music and Literature / Writing - and by extension the many skills I learned being a career Chef for 10 years (Interpersonal skills, work ethic, time management and deadlines, etc..) - as valuable assets is a really reassuring thing to know. Cheers for the videos!
I love this video and big kudos to someone that actually gets it. I am a generalist and have been able to sell myself for years as such. In the last 3 years, I have found that it is certainly misunderstood during the hiring process. I believe it is because potential employers don't understand how this fits into their process and how it would benefit them.
I am constantly asked the question of what I want to do, which as a generalist is impossible to answer as I have adapted to many disciplines throughout my career. Admittedly, because of this, I cannot be great at every discipline but I can assist a lot more. I understand a lot of terminology to discuss, coordinate, and increase productivity by actually doing and not telling to do.
I code, 3d model, UI, UX, video editing and post processing, FX in game and rendering, web design, character rigging and skinning, technical optimization, project management and associated tools, VR/ AR/ MR toolsets, and planning just to name a few. I would say that this just scratches the surface as I have been in multiple industries as well. Architectural design, gaming and simulation, health care, product design, and military training through technology.
Am I invaluable? This is hard to answer because it depends on what is needed and at what level of specialization. I always tell a potential employer or client that I can definitely help them with their efforts in some way. The problem is that requirements are always aimed at a specialist. A product owner is the only title that fits this type of person or at least that's what it seems like.
That's my 2 cents.
Thank you Tim, it is very insightful not just from a perspective of 'gaming' industry alone.
I'm no longer a game developer but in the 2006-2009 I was a game developer generalist, I knew development, art, gameplay, animations, sound, scripting, tools, Maya, Photoshop, memory optimization, cpu optimizations. I was intereset in learning everything, wanted to know all. And this was me for my whole life, as a kid in school I really loved to learn at all the subjects at school, I wasn't particularly good at anything so I scored better than average at anything, this was a way of being, not many understood it. I know math geniuses that at school they only knew math and they were encouraged at that but in every day life they take bad decisions because they understand very little the rest. Currently I'm working on automotive industry where guess what I'm a generalist that continues to learn anything manufacturing, understanding underlying technology, understanding users, seeing future of the project and potentials obstacles, do a lot of codding and helping everyone understand the final goal of their work. I can confirm I'm a rarity, none of the coleagues in my team wants to understand all with my passion. All will avoid difficult situations, of getting too deep inside the project. I guess that all starts at school level, but today many parents no longer encourage kids to learn at all subjects, many consider that it's not good to learn because they anyway forget, and this leads to decline in education and less generalists because of bad parents. This attitiude will create a bad society to live with people lacking soul and also bad games.
I'm a generalist. I have to be in order to create my game. I can (and have to) do everything, or find solutions. I do have to create gameplay and judge it myself. I am also an artist: I can paint, I can manipulate images, I can create 3D models, I can edit videos, I can create music. Sadly, this doesn't give you more money as an employee - they want ONE thing from you, and it's usually the most expensive thing you can do. In my case it's being a programmer. And I'm good at it, and really don't mind that I don't have to create stupid screenshots for the app stores. I created the initial version of them, and they are great, but I don't want to deal with them any more. This is generally what I aim towards, I really don't want to deal with (my) legacy code.
It's funny, being a generalist myself, I got the impression that this made me unhireable in the industry, so it's nice to hear you saying it's actually an important skill set. Not that I'm looking for a job, I'm just working on my own game, but it's nice to hear that I'm not useless :P
great video! this must be a big reason why a lot of big games feel so anodyne these days - there are thousands of specialists working in a vacuum, sometimes on different continents, and relatively few people are communicating a clear overall vision. as a result, aspects of the game that feel like they should influence each other don’t, or worse, they undercut each other.
Interesting video. Funny thing is, each core member in our indie studio is more/less a generalist and a veteran wit 10+ years in the bussiness. Thanks for the video Tim!
This guy spits nothing but truth on these subjects. And the great thing is that I find that much of what he says, doesn't only apply to game design either!
I notice the decline of generalist in something as different and HR - I know, we're demons. A shitty HR person is somebody who knows the laws and the systems of the company. They can't help you, they can only tell you what the rules are. But a generalist knows what people actually do in their jobs, they know what they need, they know how to translate rules and laws into suggestions. They have a more personal touch and can deliver good or bad news without sounding like a soulless robot.
I get called ALL the time because some manager needs something for one of their people, but it's 'not possible'. So I help make it possible. I know what they're asking for really and can suggest alternatives that do the same thing. My finding is that what sets generalists apart is that we're interested in the whole picture. We wanna know everything there is to know. Lots of people don't, they stick to their field, their job, that's it. And HR isn't even my passion, gaming is...
I was a generalist for so long because of starting off with such a small company in silicon and synapse and as the company grew we had to become more specialized. Now I am back to learning to become a generalist again but like you said there is so many new parts needed for a game now. Its why I returned to pixel art so I can program design concept and illustrate the whole thing. Well aside from writing marketing produce sound music etc. Thats still outta my wheelhouse. =D
This is why now that I've entered my second industry job, after shipping one AAA Title, I specifically chose a Generalist position that allows a lot of freedom. Which is incredibly rare to find for a decent paycheck. But I felt as an artist and creative I was stifled by the restrictions in place in modern development, and with the end goal being a Directorial role for games I can spearhead, I didn't get the growth I needed.
So I 100% agree, generalists vanishing is a genuine issue, the most impressive people in my studio were the 20+ year generalist vets, they taught me more than anyone.
I don't work in games, but I know EXCATLY what you're talking about. My official position at my company is as a mechanical engineer, but I also have formal education and practical knowledge in both programming and IT, and I have proudly considered myself a generalist for a long time in that regard. No matter what kind of business you're doing, if you are working on computers, and you have someone on the team who can deal with X field _and_ understands how computers work, they are going to be invaluable. In the last utility program I worked on for my company, I built a macro that decreased the work time on generating a certain kind of report by over 95% (two and a half hours reduced to five minutes) because I was able to automate it completely. It let the engineers, and myself, spend more time in the field and doing real data analysis and less time doing spreadsheet organization.
I feel this discussion so hard! I've always prided myself on being a generalist both in terms of being a designer but also my overall skillset, and it's very hard in the current environment of larger studios to find a role that puts that to use! Working in Cinematics was definitely the closest I came to being able to flex those muscles, but even then it was more out of fighting to get my hands dirty on something rather than others proactively coming to me or my team.
I'm so happy to hear that, I love every sector of a game dev pipeline
I've been working for 20 years in a similar fun environment cause it's an open-source project. I have never seen such a great explanation of this topic before. It's one of the best 13 min you can spend on a RUclips video. I never talked about job descriptions, when someone asked what I was doing, I described my job mostly as "I'm the glue". I go in between special interest groups and try to help them to make sense out of it :) There are so many things that clicked in my head when you talked about it. Thank you very much!