It is probably my curiosity about how things get made that have turned me into a developer in the first place. It is only natural that I enjoy movies about real life events and documentaries on engineering feats. Getting under the sheets of a production or an event is exciting, as you start to see the human element to each story. And with that human element you begin to understand, that anything is possible and everything is achievable. On practical level you start to learn how exactly has that thing been achieved. And as we all know, you learn best from mistakes. It is essencial for our development to make them. Yet, it is better to learn from a mistake of another than to repeat the same lesson yourself, so you can get further than those before you.
As my hobby and my current occupation is in the game industry, game documentaries provide me with both entertainment and tools to get better at my craft. I enjoy occasional GVMERS and I have supported NoClip for over a year. There are other channels and written pieces that deal with retrospectives and do editorials, giving insights in gamedev business, but these two I am going to mention heavily in the following paragraphs.
But first, what is a documentary? This term is generally applied to a video production that explains with historic accuracy an isolated event, a chronology of events, a physical subject or a phenomenon. It usually deals with a context of its subject matter (key figures, locations and occurrencies) and presents different points of view. This implies a degree of objectivity, because otherwise however accurate the subject is depicted, it is likely propaganda, and not a documentary. Oftentimes documentaries are based on public knowledge and documents, statements and other depictions, especially of contemporary nature. But sometimes they require research and investigative journalism, some level of deduction and having multiple sources to confirm stated facts. This too adds to objectivity of a documentary.
So, I want success stories, and I want to learn from mistakes of others. And I want the story told to be objective. Unfortunately, I do not believe, that it is currently possible to have such documentaries in videogame industry. Success stories tend to be composed like a hero's tale, and failures are hidden behind NDAs and fear of spoiling public image. Take NoClip for example. Some of their most successful projects are Rocket League, Doom (2016), Warframe and Final Fantasy XIV. Each of these stories is a success story and an underdog story. Psyonix was a contractor for Unreal Engine games, finally making its breakthrough with a car football game. id Software has failed at Doom 4, but has made a comeback with a bright new take on the franchise. Digital Extremes took a free-to-play concept and turned it into a successful and sustainable product, but only after the initial release had failed. And Square Enix had to restart their online entry completely, figuring out what went wrong in the first place. These are beautiful documentaries and worthwhile stories, inspiring to get up and get better. Per aspera ad astra. But they would never have been made in such fashion, if after all attempts to achieve greatness any of those developers have actually failed.
Channels like GVMERS or Raycevick make videos about those scenarios. How did Command & Conquer series came to its demise? Why did Mirror's Edge fail to find its audience? Will we see another Prince of Persia any time in the future or did this series die with the rise of Assassin's Creed? These are questions, that are hard to cover, and the reason is: no company wants to talk about its failures, and people who were part of those projects may be legally barred from being interviewed. And without direct sources, such documentaries turn into Wikipedia pages being narrated, compiled from public reports, news and rumors. Watching videos from GVMERS is like hearing half of a story. It can be insightful, but for the most part it just feels stale. It is not that I require juicy details for the sake of it. Full picture can put things in a different perspective and change the lesson entirely. We could speculate, why Rocket League was never made or how Warframe fell short and turned out to be another microtransaction ridden garbage, if those projects failed. We do it with Half-Life 3 and Left 4 Dead 3 these days. But how much of it is true to what has happened? Misinformations spreads in rumors and leaks, interpretations and opinions become facts and a basis for speculation. What lessons can we learn from such misshaped stories? None.
So, how did NoClip get developers to open up? After all, they do talk about some failures in those videos. Well, this is what made me stop supporting them eventually. I was disenamoured by a realisation, that Danny O'Dwyer has a longstanding relationship with those people and he is considering many of them his friends. And these videos are mutually beneficial. One friend makes a project they need to sell, the other makes a video about how cool their friend is and shares some tidbits about the development process. Some mistakes and failures can be described. But they must be used to show, that a company or a person have eventually overcome them. These videos are curated, obviously, but that makes them dishonest. Take Bethesda for example. Danny and Todd Howard are acquaintances, they have worked together before. They have a working relationship, so would NoClip documentaries have questions about questionable quality of the latest The Elder Scrolls or Fallout? No, why would they. Zenimax certainly would not allow it, even if Todd had no shame to actually discuss their shortcomings. And then NoClip underlines their friendliness towards developers by making videos about upcoming games, like Fallout 76, Hades and Doom Eternal. Are those documentaries, or are they just puff pieces?
In the end, we have to live with one type of videos or the other. It is either retelling of public records with tough questions, but no actual response from people involved, or it is an image boosting two-way street for a developer or a publisher, and a person reporting on them. But neither can trully cover its subject matter, and it sucks.