Stress-Free Game Development: Powering Up Your Studio With DevOps

In this 2020 GDC Virtual Talk, Butterscotch Shenanigans' Seth Coster walks through how his team learned to use DevOps to get more done while working less.
Update: A previous version of this video unfortunately had unsynced audio and video. That has been corrected with this version.
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[@BillyViBritannia]

To all indie solo devs: Solo Dev here, I thought I dont need any of this since its just me so no task switching, no motion, no bottleneck ... Except in reality I was all these at the same time. The motion and task switching was happening in my head. The bottleneck was me in one of my many roles that I was bad at. The heroics... well if you're a solo dev you know about the heroics. So one day I started with a trello, organizing my thoughts, organizing my processes and rotating between tasks in a more controlled way, having regular "meetings" with myself etc... all the things Seth said. Almost all. The result: more work and my gf doesn't complain I have too little time! Just listen to this guy, he will save your project.

[@bestboy007]

make tutorial. we dont get whatu saying

[@kallango123]

Great adition to the video!

[@EduardoKerrGames]

my problem with this talk is that most of his problems were solved with some kind of automation e the restructuring of the development process kinda came in second, I don`t have the resources to automate like that, so it kinda left me hanging. Still, really great points about organization and stuff, that shit really makes a difference.

[@esqueletaoplays7671]

@@EduardoKerrGames a lot of automatization can be done programming

[@Unreality3D]

@@EduardoKerrGames I didn't get the impression that it was the specific automations that helped their team reduce waste and stress, but rather it was the intentional evaluation of their processes and looking for ways to optimize. Your processes will naturally be different, so the optimizations you need will be different. Even just taking a new organizational approach can improve your processes, like adding the step of prioritizing tasks before launching into doing them. I felt like the advice throughout the video was universal, while their automations aren't applicable outside their studio.

[@dannykay4649]

this has to be the most useful gdc talk I've ever listened to.

[@warpzone8421]

Somebody forward this to Todd "It Just Works" "16x the detail" "We aren't planning on doing anything about it" Howard.

[@charlesreid9337]

it's not like that's actually a big accomplishment :P

[@dannykay4649]

@@charlesreid9337 just saying i got the most out of this talk than any other.

[@ilearncode7365]

"platitudes are useful!!! Now I know I can keep taking it easy and will somehow still become the next Carmack or Crane!"

[@nikkorocksalot5254]

Wonderfully practical explanation. Thank you!

[@aronedwards118]

NOTES:: -- Managing Flow -- >Work should flow in one direction >Eliminate waste >Make work visible >Deliver work in small batches >Prevent defects moving downstream >Align everything towards the global goals -- Eliminating waste -- >Anything that does not add value >Tends to be self-perpetuating >Circle [1] Motion: movement of materials/info [FIX] self-service systems {2,3} [2] Task Switching: expense of context change [FIX] batch work types {3,9} [3] Waiting: Something not happening that should [FIX] Deliver in small batches {2} [4] Heroics: Unreasonable workload for required result [FIX] Avoid through good process {All} [5] Manual Processes: Repeated actions [FIX] Automate {1,2,3,9} [6] Extra Processes: Wasteful action [FIX] Stop {1,2,3,9} [7] Unfinished Projects: Work stopped for extended period [FIX] Small functioning deliveries {4,9} [8] Extra Features: Features that don't add to experience [FIX] Cut {9} [9] Defects: Not usable downstream [FIX] Fix problems at source {1,2,4,7} -- Heroics -- >Signals failure of effective processes [FIX] Stop, rebuild processes, involve entire team >Making work visible = Meetings(set goals), Visual task tools (Trello) -- Trello -- >columns => Inbox(always first), To-Do, doing, testing, done >Avoid unplanned work >Time as constraint, not a flexible resource (refuse crunch/burnout) >All items pass through flow >Helps spot problems and align to goals -- Bottleneck -- >Every production line has one >Team output can only be increased by increased bottleneck capacity -- General Rules -- >Continuous Deployment: Detect problems quickly, reduced catastrophic failures, easier problem identification, quicker fix >Painful processes need more attention, so can be confronted & fixed >Automated deployment: reduces [5] Manual Processes, [9] Defects >Tooling : start basic, keep improving, get feedback from downstream, >Continuously improve: Routine evaluation structures

[@yellowflower8505]

Thanks

[@play-game-101]

Thank you so much!

[@whatsinitfortina]

What kind of Markdown syntax is this??? Looks nifty

[@aronedwards118]

@@whatsinitfortina it's not one 😆

[@mittens2015]

With so many of us working from home and realising how much stress we've had and can now avoid by being exposed to our family, be able to take flexible breaks or even sneak in a nap after some bad sleep, I genuinely hope this talk will REALLY resonate with people. Many studios rely on overpromising to publishers for funding, others have toxic managers, there are unique issues everywhere... But we can all agree that making a game should not be treated as life and death. And we'll make better games by doing so. Thank you so much for this talk.

[@warpzone8421]

Oh, but GameStop is an "essential business!" 🙄🙄🙄

[@StackOf64ilE]

@@warpzone8421 my man what are you talking about

[@freemind.d2714]

Yeah, funny how if one making the game in those heroics manner will have no time to playing the game

[@LiraeNoir]

One of the best GDC talk of these past years, and maybe the best this year. Good grounded explained advice, through a good production value (with better audio than some irl GDC Talks).

[@gbrayner]

Great presentation. Switching tasks is a huge problem in art pipeline, Thanks a lot Seth Coster.

[@Cloganart]

One of the most insightful and relatable GDC talks ever. Needs to be shared with everybody.

[@thepolyglotprogrammer]

As a devops professional getting into the game development world, this was amazing!

[@herblewis6250]

I'm a fan of how earnest the talk is(the references and summary at the end speak volumes for that) and the example scenarios are spot on. My biggest takeaway from this is that no one at Butterscotch Shenanigans had any professional experience in the software field before making the company(something I'm suspicious of whenever an individual introduces them self with 4+ titles), as the processes implemented are very much devops 101. Which may sound harsh but it's refreshing to hear the experiences and story of an indie success. No one can take away what your team/family has accomplished and the game dev community is better with the feedback your studio has provided over the years.

[@sethcoster2425]

I wouldn't call that harsh, because it's true! We are all self-taught and don't come from software development backgrounds. So the goal of the talk was to introduce the ideas as a sort of Devops 101 for people who are in a similar situation as us. I appreciate the comment!

[@nicobu]

Guys, this thing is the best I have ever seen on YT. Absolutely amazing! Keep it up!

[@paulprograms]

Easily my favorite talk. Watched it like 3 times on Twitch to put together some notes based on what is talked about. Was great seeing the Phoenix Project as a recommendation too.

[@AssasinZorro]

This is a beautiful and amazing presentation! The industry needs it and you've given me a gift of interest in DevOps that I didn't have before. Thank you!

[@jameskotzian2866]

Absolutely incredible talk. Makes me hopeful that you can actually make games without huge constant stress.

[@Yenz30415]

Ya know I heard very consistently amongst the st louis game devs that you guys figured out an incredible system that got your studio working super well, and I was hoping to find out what all the talk was about. Thank you so much for telling the world what that process is, because it alleviates so many fears I've had going into indie. I'm so glad you guys are part of this industry, you've done so much more than just make games.

[@unfa00]

Fantastic talk. This is probably the most important lesson in game development. How to stow wasting time and resources, and start making games.

[@paulocorrea6896]

It's good that you guys found a way to work through a process. Companies usually use SCRUM or KANBAN to regularize features into small "pills" of development, instead of putting a huge effort on something that is also huge. Although i haven't learned anything new on this video, i'm happy that this information is here! Keep up with the good work!

[@leriat]

Thanks for putting this together. It is nice to see it laid out with examples.

[@InfinityDz]

I'm currently an associate professor in my country that's only considering to enter game development, but I feel like I'm going to rewatch this talk many times since the info given is so vital to me. I've burnt myself out preparing courses, slept late, got frustrated with students, got fed up, and completely abandoned doing research. I hope watching this is going to help.

[@faizanasif7042]

This is so so useful and essential. Everyone in the game industry should know the importance of DevOps. Whether it is a studio or an indie game developer, everyone can do much more in a short period of time by following standardized principles and by continuously improving one's work-process.

[@AhmedOmar21181]

this video is the single most useful DEVOPS video i watched to date, thank you ^_^

[@vishnuprasanth4725]

This applies to not just gamedev but a wide range of disciplines. Thank you for the great talk.

[@fabiolean]

This is the best talk on agile software methodology and devops I’ve ever heard.

[@sadeghmirzaee8258]

Awesome video! I'm a person with pipelines, systems, and structures in mind... I was doing some of this! But the video was insanely Complete! I had this video on my watchlist for months. And I'm so happy that finally, I spent time watching it to the end. Thank you, Seth! 😊

[@IsraelAF]

Definitely one of the best talks I've got to hear. Thank you!

[@elshadshirinov1633]

Something every business should listen to, not only games. This is so much more general. Thank you!

[@chuckolator1859]

Absolutely fantastic! I'm probably gonna rewatch it again at some point. I hope more and more people see this and apply it wherever they can. Bless you for sharing!

[@RobinClower]

I would recommend reading The Phoenix Project, it's what this talk is based on and goes more in depth

[@xinoHITO]

this is pure gold

[@mark_makes]

Really amazing talk. Great value for every developer, artist, and team. Very cool to hear the journey of your studio.

[@warpzone8421]

Content begins at 13:43 I talked to one of these guys online way back in the Freeway Mutant days. Can confirm that life was stressful prior to DevOps!

[@thepolyglotprogrammer]

I don’t know how many times I watched this talk. Its a must watch!!

[@johanlarsson9805]

I get training from major corporations in the programming and consulting field, and this was such a good presentation that it beats all that I've seen so far. Thanks for your hard work.

[@NanoEppa]

This talk is priceless. It can be applied to all development processes (not only in game dev). Thank you soo much Mr. Seth Coster for sharing your remarkable experiences.

[@MarieCool888]

I loved that presentation ! Motivating, inspirational, demonstrates real issues and improvements. Being aware of your workflow is the first step at improving it. I thank you immensely for this amazing presentation, I learned a lot and will definitely be implementing it, and making more people aware of that workflow

[@deanwilsonmusic]

I was listening to this thinking that it sounded exactly like the Phoenix Project. Glad you recommended it at the end of the video. Great book! Thanks for the talk.

[@Atenvardo]

Butterscotch Shenanigans really are a good example of, good, honest and open game devs who love the communities they build. Very humble people, highly recommend their pod cast with hundreds of episodes on it now, all about game dev, with comedy to it !

[@redpandacreations]

This talk also has great implications for software development in general - have worked in plenty of web dev/software dev with continuous deployment/integration environments that never got the process quite right and really investigate the bottlenecks. Good food for thought.

[@pixelotix]

This is utterly fantastic. I left the game industry because of the Heroics and over the last 10 years, have become a professional developer using agile and DevOps methodologies. I’ve been wondering if those concepts can and have been applied in the game industry. So refreshing to hear you run a studio that doesn’t have to play by those horrible rules. I’m rooting for you so much!

[@anotherplatypus]

Very elegant discussion. Seems like he's explained these points so many times he just chained them together for his talk. These are the people that write good books.

[@evgenkonyshock4913]

Pure gold! Thanks you. That's the best explanation of what DevOps is.

[@CurtisJensenGames]

Man, I really wish I had an inbox so that my bosses could stop telling me what to do while I was in the middle of doing something else, but they just won't take no for an answer and it's something I've gotten from multiple bosses in multiple industries!

[@charlesthedev]

I am very tired from crunching and my brain is tender. This video popped up on my feed at the right time !

[@odoboj]

This story is relatable at every moment. 8 Minutes in and this is the exact same thing I've gone through just recently

[@robelbelay4065]

Amazing talk, I'm currently trying to start a business and this talk was gold! Thank you so much for sharing your lessons. :)

[@itisWhatitis12345]

This is very useful. Coming from a coding background and industry experience I learned these process at big tech companies but for someone starting out without this background or a lot of game dev companies surprisingly these process are the difference between a stress free life and constant crunch.

[@FullMe7alJacke7]

I always felt like I was doing it wrong, just wasn't sure how to make it easier on myself. Thank you!

[@kleszcz89]

Great presentation, thank you Seth. I love the way you've presented lean management without mentioning it even once. Maybe that is the right form of spreading it through the industry as talks about Kanban or Lean in general don't seem to work well.

[@UAknight]

This is live changing! Thanks for the great talk!

[@connorhillen]

Outstanding talk. Really incredibly well done, informative, and practical.

[@JeanLucMG]

This was amazing, thanks for the great presentation!

[@alexanderhuliakov6012]

This is brilliant! Very good content, very good visual presentation, very practical advice.

[@paradudum]

This was the best GDC talk ever

[@Josue12111]

I study industrial engineering but always had a passion for gaming, I always wondered if I could enter the gaming industry with my degree and I always thought it was very difficult but seeing this talk and seeing a lot of the things that I’ve studied for the past four years applied to a gaming studio gave me hope that I can one day help work at the industry and what better that to help a studio to have a dignified work life instead of the common and standard crunch culture that game development has!

[@johndoejr.7180]

You made a very good presentation. I like the pictures and your explanations

[@brandonh.6654]

This man is speaking nothing but the truth. If you’re someone looking to start up a team or studio I would not hesitate to watch this video. Do not skip a single second.

[@harrysadlermusic]

These guys have better understandings and have built better processes than most tech companies.

[@DietChugg]

"Only have people do things that only people can do." I love that quote. I'm huge on automating things.

[@TheOneWexx]

Great talk! This is relevant for much more that just the game industry!

[@grixxy_666]

Most useful gdc talk to date thank you so much for this info

[@gazeth]

Very inspiring, looking forward to going all in DevOps

[@imgekko4142]

Such an amazing talk, thank you for the knowledge and wisdom

[@JakeBirkett]

This is a great talk. I love that circle of waste! It's all horribly familiar.

[@FrancnBeans]

The best game dev talk there is tbh

[@SharpedUnity]

One of the best talk in GDC.

[@RazielIgor]

Thanks for such an insightful presentation. I'm a solo developer but I think this will help me greatly as well.

[@davidoflight1313]

Just what I needed; outstanding presentation.

[@danielzettl]

Huge talk, the takeaways are endless!!

[@user-tr4ej8mw4s]

Very useful, insightful, informative and plainly excellent!

[@fahimfaysal1753]

This was quite an eye opening vid after releasing my first commercial game. Really solid points especially about automating manual work. Can't tell you how much of a game changer even a simple script to publish to all platforms has been for my small game. And all of the new stuff(automating trello, changelists) is the next step. That said, where am I going to get a motivated QA team?

[@Rollersteaam]

You can probably cultivate an "unmotivated team" into a motivated one. Obviously dependent on the individuals you hire, for one they should definitely enjoy playing games generally otherwise that's a red flag. But if the entire process is rewarding for them, they're just going to be more motivated and do a better job, regardless of who you're talking to. I think ways you could do that are: - Making them feel included in your team and your team's mission (have them talk directly to developers about the issues they encounter potentially, however that would introduce Motion waste, so maybe a different solution is needed here) - Including them socially within your teams - Automating pain points that they have to go through in their job (think checklists for testing features for example, or automatically pushing updates to their Steam account) - Making their QA work visible so it's rewarding when they see issues they find resolved - Maybe use stats so a QA tester sees their performance, or leaderboards to compete other QA testers against others if some might enjoy the competition Every solution here is a YMMV but it's just a few ideas. The book Atomic Habits talks a lot about how you can improve motivation essentially, within yourself or within teams.

[@bangjey5439]

Thank you very much for the speech! It is all really valuable to me

[@jozbornn]

This was absolutely fascinating to listen to!

[@ZefugiLive]

Thank you so much for this talk !!!

[@ekings2119]

Magnificent resource. Thank you.

[@RobinClower]

If you enjoyed this talk, you should read The Phoenix Project, it's what the talk is based on and is super useful

[@rayfox1984]

Golden knowledge, wroks. Thanks for this!

[@toffeethedev]

What an incredible talk! I love this guy, I want him to be my boss 😭

[@sadeghmirzaee8258]

Oh, I see the "Conventional Commits" format right there... Good Job, Adam! I liked that! 😉

[@LammyGaming]

Absolutely loved this!

[@efegurkannn]

Best introduction ever.

[@Cloud7050]

Oh Butterscotch Shenanigans! The guys behind Crashlands! Nice!

[@AudioBoi1]

wow, this is insanely good! great content and great teacher )

[@janpaulbergeson3557]

Amazing. Thanks for the video.

[@masterthnag105]

This is full of Lean6 methodology. Great talk.

[@MarkTDKKnight]

Really informative, excellent presentation - thank you!

[@vespirbelmont3131]

THIS. When I went to college for game dev I was garbage at coding, art, music; everything. So, once I finally started going I had to put in a huge effort compared to others to create quality projects. Which worked out great since I started to top everyone in the entire surrounding area. BUT! The cost of that messed me up later, no sleep for days at a time to grind out features and fix bugs often ones I'd make worse. Consuming 3-5 Mega Monsters a day! Sometimes a couple within a few hours. Destroyed my social life with other great devs that I could've been working with and making better projects with. The cost of becoming good really fast and pump out projects was so high. And I realized once I stopped all that, put 4-7 hours aside for game dev each day my passion for each project was always high and rarely lowering. I'm constantly pumping out content for my projects and being able to add more to each update than expected. And what I'm able to create is more diverse and less stressful. I feel every college and any online-learned game dev should be shown this talk and study it. If I ran a college class this talk would be the first test within the first week.

[@WinglessAngelic]

This is just good business advice for anything from production to retail

[@AristAristA]

Awesome storytelling. Loved it.

[@chrheca]

This is awesome really well done

[@invntiv]

These guys are a fucking awesome resource for budding game developers

[@KyleWard]

Great video -thanks!

[@VladyVeselinov]

For engineers who wanna learn agile ways of working, I suggest getting a job for a medium-sized tech company for a year so you can learn how to do these things at scale. I love game devs but we really are terrible at managing projects and learning from our mistakes fast.

[@superpotato657]

Glad i found this

[@mariuszmacieja2444]

Great talk, thanks!

[@ClutchPictures]

LOVE this video.

[@CaptainWumbo]

this is one of those things that trips up small teams and that smart people learn to fix. sadly large teams too big to fail never fix these problems.

[@FrudTV]

This was very useful!

[@jdavidwebb]

Great talk, thank you! But oh my gosh when you said it's important to ask "can we not," I just imagine a level designer wanting to throw in a puzzle room and the ragged game dev sighing and saying, "okay but can we not???"

[@_vallee_5190]

Amazing talk absolutely great.

[@etistyle96]

best GDC video ever.

[@yolostudio5972]

02:24 The talk layout. 12:38 Life after DevOps (the main content start). 13:52 What is DevOps. 14:41 The first way: Managing the flow of work. 15:58 The circle of waste. 23:21 Heroics - The most dangerous kind of waste causes. 26:06 Trello board - Making the work visible. 30:00 The bottleneck of a game studio. 32:38 Deployment problem. 35:42 The GamePipe - Deployment tool. 41:01 The GamePipe - Concluded. 45:51 The second way: Amplify feedback loops. 50:50 The third way: Continuous Learning. 59:27 Some resources for learning. To Recap ======================================================= The three ways - Managing the flow of work. - Amplifying feedback loops. - Continuous learning. Big takeaways - Make the work visible. - Waste is worse than you think. - Focus efforts on bottlenecks. - Focus on small-batch delivery. - Use continuous deployment to improve quality. The types of waste - Motion. - Task switching. - Defects. - Waitings. - Manual processes. - Extra processes. - Extra features. - Unfinished projects. - Heroics. ======================================================= We are #yolostudiogame - an indie game studio with two members. We are seriously learning about the game industry. So we tweet a GDC video summary every Tuesday. Happy making game, everyone!

[@HungTran-ul5cf]

Thanks man.

[@TechZTony]

Really good talk, I wish the video had some time stamps. Still, very good talk.