Game Development Cost

[FrieChamp]

I guess the truth is somewhere in between, no matter how much you think ahead and how experienced you are, there can always something unexpected happen, something going wrong or nut turning out to be quite as you had hoped it would be.

Especially when you try to do new things, nobody has been done before - how can you know if it will work?

I guess the key is to waste as little ressources as possible on unsafe things and prototype everything in small teams, before the whole team is doing something, that gets scrapped later on. You can save a lot of cash when you do things right during pre-production and test your ideas, before you give orders.

It's also a matter of how well your project manager(s) handle(s) the ideas and decision process, while keeping an eye on the schedule and available ressources. On the other hand, some really good ideas pop up, when the project is in full production - so each time it's a struggle to decide whether the feature is worth implementing, or has to be cut. It's frustrating when it's your idea and you know the game would be better if it was realized, but if this process wasn't controlled, everybody would be tinkering on his pet project and the release date gets pushed out even further.

Companies handle this differently, depending on their ethic and liquidity - Valve can afford to spend 6 years on a game to "get it right" (according to their vision and high quality bar), while other companies have to play on the safe side and get their game out the door on time.

[Taylor]

Basically, there’s a difference between an iterative process and a balls up.

Valve described their creative process, the cabal, in an article on gamasutra (I think) a while back, it sounds like a really awesome way to work and probably gets the best results out of the team. If you’re Valve. Otherwise it sounds like a really awesome way to bankrupt your company.

[Steppenwolf]

I doubt that development without managers and/or Producers would work for the most companies. Seriously do you think artists in a 100+ people company should be bothered with stuff like dealing with publishers, management, PR etc.?

And lets be honest here: valve pretty much fucked up somewhere during the development of HL 2. No game on earth needs 6 years development time if the ressources and goals are managed properly. They must have lost shitloads of money.

[dux]

Not so much fucked up, more like never happy with their product I think it was?

[Steppenwolf]

Not so much fucked up, more like never happy with their product I think it was?

I would count that under fucked up. Something must have been wrong with the vision for the final product then if that was the case.

[dux]

I read that they just weren't happy with how it was so remade pretty much 90% of it.

[R_Yell]

Half Life success was enormous, they wanted to push so much in every direction that it wasn't about making a game anymore, but a worth successor to the most successful first person shooter ever. I guess something similar happened with DNF.

I remember reading something about how they had the physic gun for the last levels, and after some testing in the middle of the development process they decided it had to be a basic weapon from the beginning. Things like that settles the line between industrial and artistic/creative game development process. I'm really glad there exist people with that mentality.

[Hourences]

Im not. They should have figured out that you need to introduce such a cool game early on in the game BEFORE they started production!

It is called planning and thinking ahead.

This is exactly why this industry burns so much money.

I read that they just weren't happy with how it was so remade pretty much 90% of it.

And that is exactly what Steppenwolf said. Fucked up. Their initial vision of the game must have been wrong if they had redo 90 percent of it.

[dux]

So do we have a word or term for 3d Realms and DNF?

[Hourences]

Yes. Very fucked up.

[R_Yell]

I'm pretty sure they tried to plan every possible detail before starting production, because no one wants lose ends in a multi million dollar project. But the creative side of making games isn't a science. Something may look incredible fun on paper and later the players don't understand it or don't find a piece of fun. Or someone may come with a genius idea in later stages. In the end I think common sense dictates what to do. I doubt HL2 would be the same game without the gravity gun.

However I agree such decisions are quite risky and if you aren't Valve probably will derail most game companies

[Zeta]

I talked to some quake wars guys yesterday and apparently that game took 5 years to make, which shocked me.

[dux]

5 years for QW's?! I own the game and used to play it regularly, sure didn't feel like 5 years of work.

[Zeta]

I'm pretty sure the bulk of the time was trying to force the engine to do vehicles and outdoor environments but yes I openly expressed suprise when i heard it.

[2d-chris]

Design is an iterative process, something like 80% of the work in design you do will be redone, that's partly why everyone thinks they are a designer, an till they get fustrated by the process. It's the same when writing a book, movie script or interface design for a mobile phone. You only have to take a look at all the best games of the last few years, the best results come from big changes in development and being able to accept mistakes and learn from them. Bioshock is a good example of that, there are some articles talking about the problems they had.

The day games can be made with ease and no loss i'll gobble my own penis, if you think games are bad take a look at the movie industry a little deeper, then consider how refined that should be.