Game Development, and Information Release.

[skatch13]

Do you feel that game developers are open enough about the process of game development. Do you think enough information is released. When problems arise do you find yourself happy with the explanation given, or do you feel you are left in the dark?

Do you feel that we have a right to know anything about game development, or is that gamer entitlement? Do you think that buying the games you like, and avoiding ones you dont is enough of a voice in the industry? Do you feel the games market is being driven by what gamers want, or what publishers want to sell?

Lots of questions. I would just like some opinions. Feel free to answer all or some or none, but in any case, thanks!

 

[LaoJim]

No, ultimately the game developers don't have to tell me anything. They might want to tell me stuff, to get me to buy their product, but its not a right I have.

I think what a lot of people don't get is that game development (well any software development or even any large project) is a messy business. Leaders have creative differences, budgets get cut, game mechanics are tried and don't work, whole levels that they wanted to include just don't get finished on time, concessions are made all round just to get something that ships on time.

You really don't want gamers to know every step of the process and you definitely don't want them to compare the game you are shipping to the game you had on a design document two years ago. Even if the game is great they'll find something missing and ***** about it. We're just like that.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Do you think that buying the games you like, and avoiding ones you dont is enough of a voice in the industry?

I don't know if it's much of a voice but it works for me.

 

[skatch13]

whole levels that they wanted to include just don't get finished on time, concessions are made all round just to get something that ships on time.

Who decides "on time"? Ideally it would be the consumer or the developers themselves, but i would imagine it is publishers, investors, or marketers, IE: People who dont make games.

You really don't want gamers to know every step of the process and you definitely don't want them to compare the game you are shipping to the game you had on a design document two years ago. Even if the game is great they'll find something missing and ***** about it. We're just like that.

Why would there be complaints? Is it because we dont know enough about the process? What about games on kick starter and indy game devs who do reveal a large part of the process? Should AAA devs be as open and honest?

Would you rather hear about the game from an actual dev of the game, or from a community manager that the publisher hired?
Are we as gamers not mature or intelligent enough to handle straight talk from the devs themselves? Does it need to be dumbed down by PR and Marketing?

 

[LaoJim]

Who decides "on time"? Ideally it would be the consumer or the developers themselves, but i would imagine it is publishers, investors, or marketers, IE: People who dont make games.

All of them except the consumer. While publishers are often painted as evil, and they often are, one of their jobs is to make sure the developer is aware of the realities of the market. Every extra day you spend polishing a game is money spent, money that won't necessarily be returned in extra sales because of the improvements you've made that day. Money which investors are going to want back.

Put another way if Peter Molyneux was given the time to make good on all the promises made, we probably still wouldn't have Fable 1.

What about games on kick starter and indy game devs who do reveal a large part of the process?

Kickstarter is a whole other ball game, having consumers as investors really complicates this discussion and I don't full know the answers as to what is best.

Why would there be complaints?...
Are we as gamers not mature or intelligent enough to handle straight talk from the devs themselves? Does it need to be dumbed down by PR and Marketing?

Sorry I'm going to have to shout over all the noise of the ZQ debate.

Some gamers are mature, some aren't.

The issue is, if someone tells me early on that Bayonetta 3 is going to feature Mecha-Bruce Lee fighting Octo-Godzilla and then, for artistic, technical or licencing reasons that turns out not to be possible, psychologically Bayonetta 3 just got a whole less awesome. Even if I'm mature about it I'm still going to think "That's a pity" and have disappointed that its not quite the game I was expecting.

Would you rather hear about the game from an actual dev of the game, or from a community manager that the publisher hired?

I'm not suggesting the marketing guys can't be pretty skevy sometimes and I'm always interested to know more about the development process. But these are multi-million dollar projects and one unguarded comment can end up costing you in sales, so you can hardly blame the publishers for wanting a certain amount of control.

 

[skatch13]

Kickstarter is a whole other ball game, having consumers as investors really complicates this discussion and I don't full know the answers as to what is best.

Are consumers not ultimately investors at the end of the day. I mean its kind of backwards. Someone gives a team of Devs money to make a game, but as soon as that money is givin it ceases to be the Devs game, and becomes the publishers game. Bayonetta 3 may have had Mecha-Bruce Lee fighting Octo-Godzilla as an original concept, but the publishers stepped in, and said "Marketing tells us people are not into Bruce Lee any more, we need to cut that." Now we may never hear that, PR will step in and say, "Mecha-Bruce Lee was too hard to animate."

I'm not suggesting the marketing guys can't be pretty skevy sometimes and I'm always interested to know more about the development process. But these are multi-million dollar projects and one unguarded comment can end up costing you in sales, so you can hardly blame the publishers for wanting a certain amount of control.

I would say one untruthful comment would cost you sales. I have seen far more damage caused by bad PR and deceitful marketing than honest discourse from the mouth of the Devs. Of course we hardly ever hear from actual game Devs. We dont actually know the people who code, and write, and animate the games we play. We know a face, or a publishing house. It would be nice to hear more about games from people who make them, instead of people who are paid to talk about them.

 

[ThriKreen]

Do you feel that we have a right to know anything about game development, or is that gamer entitlement?

Lots of questions. I would just like some opinions. Feel free to answer all or some or none, but in any case, thanks!

Well, having been on the dev side, there's no right or wrong way to make something. Tons of methods are out there (do you use LUA or Python or C# for your gameplay code? Max or Maya? Unity or UE4?), so exposing the dev process would get a lot of people nitpicking over the tiniest decision. You think people second guessing decisions after the game has been released was bad? Sure, things can always be viewed in hindsight, but try doing it during development where everything is a constantly moving target.

You want the game out faster, but you want devs to also spend the time to read forums and comb through all those posts for a possible solution for an issue?

At the same time, a lot of the decisions that go on can be pretty technical and would go over a lot of people's heads. How many people here deal with writing graphics shader code or dealing with physics collision?

I wouldn't necessarily say it's entitlement, but more of managing expectations. As stated above, a game project lists a funky new feature "MechaBrucezilla" - people love it. For reasons, it gets cut - doesn't fit the concept, ideas change, problems with copyright from Lee's family.

Now people think the game sucks because it's removed - as opposed to realizing it's removed to make other parts better.

I still like to equate making a game like it was baking a cake - we're not removing the orange filling out of the cake and leaving it as is - we're removing it to expand the existing strawberry filling (that and orange+strawberry might not be a good combo).