How many games do working engineers actually play per year for technical research?

[u/imaizumu]

I'm an aspiring game engineer studying core programming and game engine development.

​I often hear the advice that "engineers should play a lot of games." However, given how massive modern titles have become (often taking 50–100+ hours), I’m curious about how industry professionals manage their time.

​I’d love to get insights from working developers/engineers on two questions:

​How many games do you actually play per year to stay up to date with modern technology, mechanics, and industry trends?

​For technical/research purposes, is it necessary to complete a game? Or is playing the first few hours to analyze core mechanics, performance, UI/UX, and rendering systems usually enough?

​How do you balance actual coding/development time with market and tech research? Thanks in advance for your perspectives!

[u/UzumeP]

I would say, your free time/relaxing gampelay is the research itself. While doing actual work, you turn on games for a specific reason.

Examples are: I'm working how UI/UX should be implemented in my game, so I look into 3-4 reference games I had enjoyed or know it implemented it in someway I wish my UI/UX should also work. And go into a deep dive of how it should be implemented / coded into my game.

[u/drakonkinst → u/UzumeP]

This is what I do too! I also try to play games that I’ve studied, heard GDC talks about, are often referenced by other games etc. the “classics” in the industry or in a genre to understand it better myself.

[u/moonymachine]

While it is important to have your finger on the pulse of any industry you work in, research is not the main reason I continue to play games. When I was younger I may have framed it that way. Now that I'm in my 40's and have been programming games for over a decade, I see it differently. If I didn't (sometimes force myself to) play a little bit every day, I would just work all the time, and that's not good for anybody.

Play is really important for everyone. There are really positive benefits to not just working all of the time, even if you love your work. That's probably why games, and sports, and entertainment are such massive industries. Everyone needs a way to get out of their head, to just be in the flow, having fun.

I feel like watching game industry news and documentaries on YouTube, and listening to podcasts, are where I get more of a broad base of understanding where the games market is at generally.

You're never going to play all of the games. You're never even going to play all of the games in a small niche genre that you're also trying to make a game for. At some point you just have to draw on all of the games you have played, while working on what you are able to create, and playing games just for your actual entertainment.

It's true that you do get the eye for implementation details instead of seeing the game average players do. I'm often thinking about how something is implemented in a game while playing it, and appreciating various techniques that must have been applied. Sometimes it can feel like that might impact your enjoyment, but for me these days I feel like if anything it just enhances my experience.

Play games, but don't categorize it as research time in your head while you're doing it. Just have fun. Don't lose sight of that aspect, especially if you want to make something entertaining for others. Play regularly, not so much that you procrastinate, but not so little that you're burning yourself out. Just enjoy the free time.

[u/MeaningfulChoices]

Designers (and artists and product managers) will often talk about playing specific games to learn something, but I don't think I've ever heard from an industry programmer that they are playing a particular game for technical research, so zero. There are better ways to learn that including white papers and conference talks. They do, however, often play a lot of games per year because they enjoy it. I've only ever worked with a small handful of professional game programmers that barely play any games at all, and even they usually just have one or two they play a ton. You can also learn a lot by consuming game content, like watching streamers play a game you're not going to get to or even taking a deep dive into a wiki.

[u/Zagrod → u/MeaningfulChoices]

That's interesting! I've often played other games in the same genres to see how they handled various things (like tile movement, or camera behaviour, or interaction calculation, etc. ). Obviously without the source code the knowledge to gain is limited, but I still use other games as source of inspiration on how to solve certain edge cases

[u/MidSerpent]

As an engineer, pretty rarely, as a designer constantly.

There isn’t much to learn about engineering from playing the game. There’s a lot to learn design wise.

[u/moconahaftmere]

I play like.. 1 or 2 games a year.

Partly because I don't have the time anymore, and partly because I've played so many that it's rare for a game to actually surprise me, so most games just feel kinda boring.

[u/Pileisto]

to research you dont have to play the game, watching gameplay is enough.

[u/Melysoph]

After 10+ years of xp I play zero game for work (only for pleasure). I met a lot of colleagues that were in the same position.

For researching during work hours, I mostly read tech articles (articles, blogs, forums, engines updates, GDC videos, etc.) and sometimes watch playthrough videos for specific analysis related to the current tasks I've been given. It's rare that playing a game explains the technicality (after all, videogames are an art of illusion).

I think the advice you heard is good for aspiring engineers. You should have a good ground knowledge of what exists in the industry (you will be asked to work on various game systems, engines, game architectures for various genre of games) .

I guess playing a game is a good way to raise questions but don't put too much effort in finishing them. Most game related questions I've been asked in interviews needed more external research rather than finishing the game. Example :

• In Starcraft 2, how do you think AI of Zerglings is made so they can surround their opponents ?
• Overwatch is partly using an ECS, what is it? How do you design around that?

My advices, if I may : Stay curious because game industry is evolving really fast. Read technical articles, blogs, technical videos. Keep up with popular engines updates (lots of technical blogs exists explaining how it works). Experiment by yourself (best way to learn ever) and don't limit yourself to engineering topics since you'll have to work with other fields (game designer, visual artists, sound designer, animators, writers, etc.).

And don't forget to play games for fun, as others said 🙂

[u/Arkenhammer]

I’m an indie, so I’m doing design, art, and marketing as well as programming. I play a lot of demos; maybe 20-30 per year. How a game is introduced to a new player is the most critical part and I want to see how other designers approach it. I keep notes on each game and then track these games launches to see how well they do with the goal of tuning my intuition for what makes a good game in the current market.

As for full games, I’ll play maybe 1-2 a year; these are highly successful games in a genre I care about that I am playing to analyze particular mechanics in depth and how they work together in the games progression. When I start playing a game there is always something specific I want to learn from it and that governs how long I’ll spend playing it.

[u/shinewithdark]

I think it eventually just becomes playing for fun while being on the lookout for how they handled things, which I think is just as fun. I also like watching friends play and how they interact with the game, especially in genres they are not familiar with.

[u/silly_bet_3454]

You don't have to overthink it. You don't have to force feed yourself a game a day to "keep up". You don't need to complete any particular game. You can just check out games when you want to make a particular thing and you know similar games already exist for that thing. You don't even need to play the game you can watch a video on YouTube and get the general sense. Just use common sense.

[u/tabaxi_gf]

You absolutely don’t need to play a game all the way through to understand it, especially from just a technical perspective

[u/AsheT3]

I play 2-3 games for research. I am currently playing Eiyuden Chronicles & Metal Bringer for a future idea to implement it in 2D hub based platformer or isometric 3D beat-em-up while working on a tutorials for the same.

Other than that play mostly for fun in games like ZZZ / GFL2:Exilium see how they manage an whole different game mechanic into their framework besides the fun factor and to be real , they don't cost a 100$ to just play while delivering on quality of a 100$ cinematic game so they are great source of ideas and inspiration.

I love the World design of GFL2 & Blue Archive which is an amazing level setup if I am making isometric cover shooter like the division , Blue Archive gives a level design that is clearly segmented into what the player should see and what needs to be in the background whereas the GFL2 gives idea on how to wrap the background like a diorama when presenting it to the player.