"The best teams have all seniority levels", notes Blizzard and Ubisoft old-timer

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Blizzard

The biggest videogames are taking longer to make, according to Diablo 4 lead engine engineer Marcin Undak, and one consequence is that there are fewer junior openings at industry dreadnoughts like Blizzard and CD Projekt, because companies prefer to hire juniors right at the start of development. This isn't ideal, Undak suggested, because "the best teams" have a healthy mixture of crabby old wizards and sparky bantlings. OK, he did not call anybody either a wizard or a bantling. Maybe next time.

Undak offered these thoughts during a presentation at this year's Digital Dragons conference about what working on an "AAA" game is really like. "AAA" is a much-bewangled buzzword, of course.…