USA 2016Video Coverage

J.C. Connors: A Passion for Helping Game Developers | Casual Connect Video

September 26, 2016 — by Catherine Quinton

main

USA 2016Video Coverage

J.C. Connors: A Passion for Helping Game Developers | Casual Connect Video

September 26, 2016 — by Catherine Quinton

We have 'an unlimited supply of ideas, from practical to outrageously ambitious.' - J.C. ConnorsClick To Tweet

Like games are often inspired and driven by the players, engines can be driven by developers and their needs - this is exactly how things are with Amazon’s Lumberyard. Their Head of Product J.C. Connors presented this roadmap and their vision of industry challenged at Casual Connect USA in a panel with MaxPlay, Unity, King and Epic Games.

J.C. Connors Amazon Lumberyard
J.C. Connors is Head of Production at Amazon Lumberyard

J.C. Connors, Head of Product at Amazon Lumberyard, claims that ”The passion that surrounds game development is something special and unique in our industry, and always makes the work environment exciting.” Certainly J.C. has been passionate about games from an early age, even sending his own game designs on graph paper to Atari when a child. By the end of college, “I loved games so much that I decided to ask for career advice by writing to the people in the credits of my video game manuals. I got responses back from some passionate developers who were excited to talk to someone interested in game development. One of them offered me a position as an associate producer on a kids’ educational game, and off I went into the game industry. “

After 20 years in the game industry, including running a studio for Glu Mobile and Foundation 9, J.C. made the decision to join Amazon. With expertise in game production and game design, the opportunity to kick off a completely new team was too enticing to pass up.

How Can I Help?

J.C. particularly enjoys the opportunity this work offers to interact with game developers of all sorts. Succeeding as a developer is not easy. As J.C. points out, “You need to move fast, build the highest quality game, reach more fans, and make money… and I love sitting down with those customers and asking “How can I help?”

Amazon Lumberyard wood logo
Amazon Lumberyard wood logo

Before coming to Amazon, J.C. worked with a great variety of successful game publishers who consistently produced great games and notes that they approached the challenge in different ways. This inspired a desire to help many games succeed every year. Since Amazon has been helping game developers in different ways, including e-commerce sites, Twitch, AWS and its devices, working for them seemed ideal.

Another enjoyable aspect of the job is working with talented engineers on the Lumberyard team. Game developers are very vocal about their ideas and the engineers love turning these ideas into real tools and technology.

Developers are very vocal about their ideas and the engineers love turning these ideas into real tools.

J.C. proudly relates, “I am incredibly fortunate to watch this project go from an idea, to hiring a great team of industry veterans, to working with the earliest customers and delivering new versions on a fast cadence, to surprising the game industry with our launch and our commitment to our customers.”




One of the first things J.C. learned as head of a game studio was that margins are always thin in the game industry; it is rare to find a game developer who does not need the next game to be a success. In fact, the reason Amazon decided to make Lumberyard free — no subscriptions, no royalties — was because it is so difficult reach financial success in the industry. And they have received great feedback from developers, saying this business model allows them to hire more staff to build better games.

Changing Technology

lumberyard-rin-1
Scalable and stable cloud infrastructure to host session-based multiplayer games: challenge for devs.

Changing technology is a constant challenge in the game industry but Amazon has been a major part of game development for years, so their direct contact with game developers allows them to hear about technological changes and pain points quickly. As soon as they hear of a problem, they begin working closely with developers to find a solution. As an example, J.C. describes hearing that many game developers were struggling to build scalable and stable cloud infrastructure to host session-based multiplayer games. So they leveraged their cloud and scalability expertise in AWS to build Gamelift, a managed service that enables developers to scale session-based games in minutes, with fewer back-end engineers on their team. J.C. points out “We hear about these sorts of emerging challenges all the time, especially since it’s so critical for game developers to use technology to help them stand out and succeed – and of course we have more on the way to help developers.”




Working Backwards

J.C. strongly believes in creating through a process of working backwards. At Amazon they begin by writing a press release first, one that will put a smile on their customer’s face. Even while a game designer, J.C.’s beginning point was writing the back of the box, and sometimes a mock review, before ever writing the design document.

At Amazon they begin by writing a press release first.

Since the biggest challenge in creative development is getting the team on board and forming all their ideas into a cohesive whole, J.C. finds starting with the end product a great way to encourage debate and discussion so everyone is moving in the same direction.  “If you were to go back and read the original, working backwards press release for Lumberyard, I think you’d find it matches quite nicely with the actual product.”




Fans Shaping Games

J.C.’s great ambition is to build with a great veteran team and engage with fans from the beginning so they can shape the game as it is built. More and more developers are working this way; the original version matters less than how it evolves through fan feedback. With community-driven games the way of the future, J.C. loves to immerse in how to make this easier for teams, while insisting that few things are more inspiring than fans: in Lumberyard’s case, the engineers, designers and artists that use their tools on a daily basis. “They are an unlimited supply of ideas and innovation, ranging from the practical to the outrageously ambitious.”

Using the Cloud

J.C. believes the future of the game industry will see the vast computing and storage capacity of the cloud make game experiences possible that were impossible or extremely difficult only a few years ago. The deep integration of the cloud will drive everything, from faster production workflows to massive worlds and high-fidelity characters, to big data being used to deeply customize player experiences. As a result, game engines must be able to use the additional compute and storage for games that connect millions of players together and experiences that can’t run on a single device. This is why they have designed Lumberyard as an AAA game engine deeply integrated with the AWS cloud.

Amazon Lumberyard editor
Amazon Lumberyard editor

In designing Lumberyard, they simply asked developers what they needed, and what they wanted was an engine with great performance, workflows that let developers iterate quickly, customizable technology, and the ability to create the quality of game that matches their vision. So far they have been very happy with what Lumberyard offers in meeting these needs.

Then J.C. heard from developers that making a great game is no longer enough; the real challenge is building the audience. A game engine traditionally stops at helping with creating the game. But Amazon thinks of Lumberyard as a game engine that goes beyond traditional game tools, and helps developers build and connect fans, freeing up money to use for content, user acquisition, and to stay profitable.

The All-Important Fan Base

lumberyard-logo-whiteDeveloper feedback let Lumberyard know how important it is to make multiplayer and connected games; these are some of the best at building and retaining fan bases. One response was Lumberyard’s AWS integration that allows developers to spend more engineering time building gameplay rather than the backend.

Lumberyard’s Twitch integration assists in building the fan base by giving designers tools to create real-time interaction between players, broadcasters and fans. Twitch recently showed that some games owe 20% of their sales to their Twitch fans, making this extended audience very important to developers. And Twitch integration in Lumberyard allows developers to be more creative. For example, J.C. relates, “I talked to a designer who was going to use Twitch ChatPlay to let spectators vote to drop power-ups into a multiplayer game to their favorite players.”

New Challenges

The new game engines such as Lumberyard do bring new challenges for developers. In addition to using the cloud to connect massive communities and offer new experiences, developers say that performance is a growing challenge. According to J.C., “Developers have to consider new display hardware, such as VR, HDR, AR, 4K, soon 8K and still maintain a steady framerate and be visually beautiful.” This is why Lumberyard is investing heavily in engine performance and graphics technology, to help customers take advantage of display technology. The latest Lumberyard release includes two new profilers to optimize their game, HDR support and modular VR support since, with new VR devices constantly being announced, developers must move fast to support the latest hardware.

Amazon Lumberyard prototype
“Developers have to consider new display hardware, such as VR, HDR, AR, 4K, soon 8K and still maintain a steady frame rate and be visually beautiful.”

Building Games for the Entirety of Fans

Today game developers must extend their focus beyond their vision for the game; the game experience now encompasses mass connectivity, esports, game conventions, cosplay and fan-fiction. It is more than just player experience.

Game experience now: mass connectivity, esports, game conventions, cosplay and fan-fiction.

Game mechanics and game genres must evolve to accommodate this shift. “I’ll challenge game developers to imagine a game that has been designed to be as much fun to watch as it is to play or a game that is designed from the ground up for mass player interaction, similar to how Twitch Play’s Pokémon had over a million unique players engaging with it in an entirely unique way,” J.C. says. “The game developer who figures out how to build for the entirety of their fans – not just their players – is going to make something very special.” And J.C. can’t wait to ask, “How can I help?”

 

Comments




Catherine Quinton

Catherine Quinton

Catherine Quinton is a staff writer for www.gamesauce.org. Catherine loves her hobby farm, long walks in the country and reading great novels.

logo
SUPPORTED BY