BC GAME DEVELOPMENT
Saved by @Alex1Powell

Late last night, I did a ranty thread where I talked about why game development is hard (and why that makes schedules hard to predict and things like crunch happen). The thread is below. This thread is some responses to my thread

/thread

 Yes. AAA games are usually multiple miracles held together with ducktape.
https://t.co/alyz4N2EmT
Not really. It's because what you're talking about is designing something with the artistic ambition of a hollywood blockbuster with the technical complexity of a space shuttle.
https://t.co/wFf2AOqbFU
No games ship without overtime. But Supergiant claims to have shipped Hades with relatively little crunch and forced vacations.
https://t.co/ReO3NUl3um
Not just the games themselves. The connective tissue between them and publisher SDKs, billing platforms, telemetry needs, and other connective tissue is getting exponentially more ridiculous as well.

https://t.co/57lbQZftfF
Google 'EA Spouse'. There's a reason EA at least makes an effort to do better.
https://t.co/uItHvjlqng
The first fifteen minutes gets a ridiculous amount of scrutiny, mostly from devs who know every beat of it.

But also it's the only part of the game that an exec will see if they just download a build and play without telling anyone.
https://t.co/EJH0RibfTT
Games are different because they almost always must be devoured linearly. If your first chapter isn't good, only 20% of your players will see the second chapter. Mobile companies have 'funnel graphs' that fanatically track this falloff.
https://t.co/omH86W0lnr
There is some of that but honestly the problem is that the first draft of a game always sucks. Schedules work by breaking games into components, but it takes a lot of work to put those components together and make them sing.
https://t.co/2vW7OvB7av
Demos usually have non-negotiable delivery dates. E3 isn't getting moved for anyone.
https://t.co/SON0x8elCP
Ever meet a producer whose job is to 'manage a relationship'? That means 'this relationship creates so much extra work we have to devote permanent resources to keep it from spiraling out of control'.
https://t.co/c4PVt8wWta
Screw those money grubbing developers and their need for 'food' and 'rent'!
https://t.co/mNjNLrQMJd
The economics work out this way for unique and beautiful snowflake games. You can't build a business on that assumption.
https://t.co/DJ5SKaGdI3
The worst crunch is not a death march. The worst crunch is the death march where it feels like it was all for naught at the end. Every dev should pour one out for the CDPR team tonight and hope that things turn out okay.
https://t.co/oFYS69dBOx
Sometimes crunch is the only tool you have in the toolbox, but make no mistake, crunch is absolutely capable of destroying teams, and every leader and executive should consider the team the company's most valuable resource.
https://t.co/HX7DazKGiP
The biggest difference between AAA and indie projects is that the big boys will sometimes hit the things I mentioned in my thread MULTIPLE TIMES ON THE SAME PROJECT.
https://t.co/0MnyGGnEyF
What we're usually talking about is something like 'we only have 60 levels, but the guy doing naval combat wanted to be sure it was important, so every fight gives you a level'.
https://t.co/jgyQAKfYA6
My favorite genre of Kickstarter are people who think they're making a licensed MMO for $500K.
https://t.co/MvLNeLNrch
Ah yes, the non-stop dunkathon on Rise of Skywalker is my pinned tweet, if anyone else is interested.
https://t.co/Gi9EQRQSuE
I think they're gonna be okay.
https://t.co/d0okfwlKKN
My reputation precedes me.
https://t.co/ryoQpBMQKF
I think this overlooks the fact that a lot of games ship at high quality just fine. Spider-man, God of War, Ghost of Tsushima are all great. (1/2)
https://t.co/xWb1adbdwR
Could they have been bigger and better? Sure. And designers always want to push for that. But a lot of games wear out their welcome long before players reach the end, which means DLCing them is fine. (2/2)
I once had a guy in an interview tell me he spent a month on making 'jump' feel good in a game. The rest of the table thought that was crazy, but I was sitting here thinking 'this guy gets it'.
https://t.co/Ha7gSSq6gA
You can add people, or you can add time. In almost every case, those options are tried first. What, did you think some of these games set out to be eight-year dev cycles with 500 people on day one?

https://t.co/ooSB0yqBkq
Yes, and crunch makes it happen faster. There's always a new kid eager to take that job and break into the new exciting realm of games, but the amount of institutional knowledge the org loses when someone burns out and quits is tremendous.

https://t.co/kL3Y5JqvqH
I don't doubt it.

https://t.co/mXmwRbGx6A
The companies who do the best are the ones who do annual releases that CANNOT MISS THEIR DATE. Think Madden. But this is usually very nearly a content-only game (new uniforms, new stadiums!) and they still work intense hours.

https://t.co/OK0A75x3zS
Being good at it is one of the most important skills a creative director can have.

https://t.co/iQEBf2R8xZ
The best tactic I've found is to figure out ways to make people in these positions realize they have to choose between two realities (you're not getting everything, here's the price tags on everything you want).

It doesn't always work.
https://t.co/VLzsbU9Hjz
Nobody, not even evil CEOs, want to ship shitty games. They are acutely aware of the damage they do to their companies, their brands and their IP when they do so.

But they have to somehow make sense out of fiscal realities. Games are still a business

https://t.co/9BvHd2lnoY
Something to think about: This Christmas is the last Christmas you can ship with just PS4 quality graphics. If you missed this Christmas, you basically have to start committing to upgrading all your art for 2021.

https://t.co/jIpDgcI3oF
You might like my GDC talk called "Behind the Curtain" for GDC 2012 where I talk about the lunacy that was doing Bioware stories in an MMO.
https://t.co/rA3XVZOTbZ
Everyone in leadership in a games company should be familiar with the "Second System Effect". Google it.
https://t.co/vFgoLS5M9U
Plot twist: You think you have it tested with automaton, but it turns out your bots in no way mimic actual players in any way that's useful.

https://t.co/6U5oWSXKET
Once the deal is signed, usually the moneymen will leave you alone until the numbers you originally told them start to be STUPIDLY wrong.

https://t.co/PlXN5mQ6XP
I love this.
https://t.co/ot7bAQQUDN
The best hope is to not leave preproduction until shit is nailed down. If you can solve the core loop and figure out the art style before you really staff up, you could save a lot of pain. It never seems to work out like that.
https://t.co/73J53cnmhx
Christmas is a big deal because most kids can't afford $60 games but Grandma can. Going digital isn't going to change the harshness of this deadline.
https://t.co/Gs8XFAP2hN
First draft RPGs are usually a joke, because they're put in before you have all the systems that can feed into them.
https://t.co/s8Ioe0qu5b
Yep, and a ton of work, but usually pretty easy to manage if you start early enough.
https://t.co/VhJOkSzYMY
It's hard to ship a big game without SOME overtime or light crunch. The big warning flag is when managers schedule months of crunch in advance.
https://t.co/Y8QHIE9TFW
Many games, when they go from paid to F2P, get as many as 10X the users.

And every game that's NOT free is competing now with games and other entertainment that IS free.
https://t.co/xJ1NgXe5GL
Ayup.
https://t.co/kmlHAeO9C6
A common example are engine improvements allowing for better art. Another is failure to optimize the engine requiring you to simplify art and worldbuilding.
https://t.co/VrTM6xecRd
Honest to god, it's USUALLY not bugs, it's "this just isn't good enough".

What may be lost in my original thread is that 90% of the time, the rework I described is ABSOLUTELY THE RIGHT CALL, you just wished it happened sooner or was managed better.

https://t.co/3DaCm1bafM
One fun thing is when contract houses uses the Varsity Team to land the contract with you, and then pass the work to the JV team once the ink is dry. The quality slowly degrades (1/2)
https://t.co/URk1iTa1SO
Also, in all these cases, there's this inherent desire to 'let it ride' because doing otherwise blows up your schedule - hell, it takes time just to find a new art house! (2/2)
Another fun one is "Hey, you know that guy we fired? Turns out he HASN'T been doing anything for the last 3 months!"
https://t.co/WsETNCEA9R
If it's not fun, they won't spend. If it is fun, but they can do everything for free, they won't spend. If it is fun but they can beat it in 2 days, they won't spend. It's a difficult needle to thread.
https://t.co/7e7nsg9CBL
Believe me when I say the 'nephew' is something that is not unique in this industry (although sometimes it's a son or grandson). I can count 3 instances I know of alone.

https://t.co/PRjoTbRLn4
Shitty, unstable engines and tool chains that get justified when you think you're shipping in a year so it's just a little suffering... and then that year turns into two... into three...

https://t.co/u5rbTFfly9
My pet peeve is super obvious bugs (we call them 'clown shoes bugs at Boss Fight) go unfixed for months because someone decides it's a P3 and you never see it again.
https://t.co/UZgrSo0SQ2
As mentioned previously, crunch is a production failure, but it's also an incredibly difficult production problem often with no easy answers, and we usually DO try the alternatives (more time, more people) first if its at all feasible.

https://t.co/JEAsGsr49a
Makes more sense than you think. Giving your game to a fresh set of eyes is usually a great way to point out super obvious shit. The problem is just when that opinion gets more weight than other playtesters for political reasons.

https://t.co/TY0uUQ3h9m
Nine women can’t get together to have a baby in one month. https://t.co/5GYZYlCSoT
Absolutely. Hell, unless you scavenge the carcass of another project you’re lucky to even find, hire and relocate a candidate in a month https://t.co/YxwWAW0BGh
If it’s in your blood, you can’t imagine doing anything else. There’s something exhilarating about trying to straddle this gap between tech and art and the high you get when you *discover something* are magical. https://t.co/yHCAmwsiFT
This guy gets it. https://t.co/SuBxYHaB10

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