John Griffiths · Lead Environment Artist

Yeah, I would say that there is an element of, we need to get this done now, so you've just got to do it. That's generally when the deadline's getting nearer. Up until that point, it is thinking about where people excel, like you say, where they can be most effective, but also most successful. But having said that, it's up to the artists themselves as well to kind of say, oh, I kind of want to push myself on this next one. Can I do this? And then we'll just bear that in mind when we are doing the scheduling or the assignment of tasks, because ultimately, if you just keep doing the same thing, yes, you're going to get really good at it and really fast at it, but you're also going to pigeonhole yourself as well. Ultimately, our teams might move around and we'll have different people, and they'll all have different things they're good at or bad at. And it's just, we want to have artists, maybe they've got one strong suit, but then the rest of what they work on is still good. And there's no real kind of dropouts from that.

Jared Huckaby · Host, Community

You don't want to run a daycare where you only work on the things that you want to work on, or you only work on the things that you're good at. But at the same time, you want to pair people up with where they're going to be the most effective when possible. It's like if I put Tom on this task, it would take him six weeks because this isn't where he's particularly strong. But if I put him over on this other task, he could get that done in three weeks because that happens to play to all of his strengths, and maybe we save that first task for somebody else. But the flip side of that is, well, Tom's never going to get any better at that other thing unless we put him on those things that he's less strong at. But then you have to accept that it's going to take longer to have that thing developed. This is an eternal struggle within all game development.

John Griffiths · Lead Environment Artist

I think for me, I've worked in a lot of places where there's been limited career development. You'd have one review a year and you may as well roll the dice on how it's going to turn out. Even when you're doing great work, there's no guidance to it. Whereas now, what I want to do or try to do is take into consideration people's careers and where they want to go with it. So yes, it might take this person six weeks, but they're never going to grow as an artist unless they do do that. And we just balance it around. So if this takes longer here, then maybe their next thing is a lot shorter. So there's a bit of contrast to it, so they don't feel like they're bogged down in this one massive thing which has taken ages, which they're not very good at.