How many years in development is "okay" for a game?

[Negatempest]

With games that have been in in "development hell" or sequels released 1 year after the original game there seems to be some unspoken law of how long a game can be in development before costumers worry.

What is the length more appropriate to be in development from your point of view?

For me a good 5 years, more or less, would be considered a good time in development. Possibly one year for VO if it has any. Another year or two to get the background/aesthetics correct. While the last few years working on making sure the animation is smooth.

Any "sequel" in my own opinion, that is not from the past, that takes 1 year to create is considered an expansion to the original title. So to me a game like Madden, DA2 or L4D2 is a scam to charge for full price.

 

[craftomega]

As many as it takes... Look at blizzards games.

If your game is going to suck either trash it or take as much time as it needs.

DONT RELEASE UNFINISHED FUCKING GAMES!!!!!

 

[Vault101]

its gotta be more than 1

just look at assins creed and how well THAT is going

 

[Sleepy Sol]

3 or 4 years sounds about right for me. Maybe 2 and a half on occasion. Yearly releases don't seem to be helping the quality of games at all.

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

2-4, and they shouldn't even hint at the game until the last year. I hate it when they release a trailer to a game only for it to say at the end "Coming in [3 years from this date]."

 

[Zhukov]

I'd say two years is generally enough.

Of course it really depends on what kind of game you're making. I dare say an open-world RPG or tightly scripted shooter takes longer than an indie 2D platformer or iOS Breakout clone.

 

[krazykidd]

3 or 4 years sounds about right for me. Maybe 2 and a half on occasion. Yearly releases don't seem to be helping the quality of games at all.

Well you have to take something in consideration with yearly releases . Usually a game takes 2-3 years to make , a game with yearly releases like CoD has two developper teams working on two seperate games that come out one after the other with a yearly interval . So basically those games take two years to make . Which in theory isn't a bad idea .

The series i could see benefiting from this the most is Final fantasy . Since the little simarities between the numbered games in the series , having three developpers working on 3 different numbered games coming out with yearly intervals could be an interesting idea ( since it takes about 3 years to developpe the game).

With games that have been in in "development hell" or sequels released 1 year after the original game there seems to be some unspoken law of how long a game can be in development before costumers worry.

What is the length more appropriate to be in development from your point of view?

For me a good 5 years, more or less, would be considered a good time in development. Possibly one year for VO if it has any. Another year or two to get the background/aesthetics correct. While the last few years working on making sure the animation is smooth.

Any "sequel" in my own opinion, that is not from the past, that takes 1 year to create is considered an expansion to the originall title. So to me a game like Madden, DA2 or L4D2 is a scam to charge for full price.

The problem with 5 years is that technology changes at such an alarming rate , after 5 years the game will be a tad bit dated. Think about this for a second. If a game took 5 years to developpe that would mean that a game that would be released in 2012 would have started developpement in 2008 , technology had advanced a whole lot since 2008 , not to mention thats basically when the generation started ( give or take a year or two). Thats a tad bit too long .

OT: i think atm the ideal is two years . What needs to be done is find a way to reduce the cost ( and hopefuly the time ) for creating games . If the industry could find a way to do this , i am convinced it would help the industry exponentially . Imagine if we could great game with AAA quality ( or better) in 6 months instead of two years at half the cost. It would mean that more companies could take risks without fear of shutting down , make more original games , try out new ideas.

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

Maybe developers should have a group of developers work a day shift and another group work a night shift so they can be developing 24/7.

Unless they already do that...

 

[Muspelheim]

As long as it takes, really. Yes, Duke Nukem Forever is an example of a bit too much water under the bridge, but the problem there was less about the time it took and more about a lack of direction and a poor use of their time. Well, beyond the fact that it was about Duke Nukem... They'd build something halfway functional before just dumping it to start anew with something else.

If they had actually had any functional direction of the whole thing and had really made all that time count, then maybe they even could have turned Duke Nukem into something worth a slightest damn. But then again, that exposes another problem with allowing too much time to pass. When Duke finally were excreeted upon us, it was all too clear he doesn't really have much of a place in this age. He belonged in the nineties, in the same way the classic James Bond honestly wouldn't live on well in a world without the Soviet Union and the eastern block.

So, I'd say that up to six or seven years could be well within the comfort-zone, as long as the time is spent well and under good leadership. But anymore than that, and you will have to be mindful to the cultural changes of the world around you.

Oh, and don't do the Bethesda, don't pick a cool date at random. You don't know if your product will be playable by then.

 

[RJ 17]

I think it depends on the genre. Even a decent shooter can be slapped together in a year or two. But I prefer my RPGs and more story-driven games to be 3-4 years...sadly, though, even that doesn't mean they'll be any good.

I do agree with the first person who responded though (well partly, I think Blizzard fuckin' blows, but that's just me ). More specifically about the fact that for better or worse, developers should finish the games they set out to create. Knights of the Old Republic 2 stands out as a fine example of a game that could have been amazing if it were actually finished.

 

[AyreonMaiden]

its gotta be more than 1

just look at assins creed and how well THAT is going

I disagree as someone who supports iterative improvements for planned series. Ubisoft created a sound gameplay engine with AC2 and are keeping the tension in the story high (for those who care) through cliffhangers and by not waiting a billion years between each release. Iterative improvements means that they aren't changing things up so much that they render prior games unplayable (save for the AC1-AC2 jump.)

People's opinions of its story notwithstanding, I care a fair bit about what happens next in ACIII thanks to those techniques. And speaking as someone who holds Half-Life 2 as his favorite FPS...You know what I don't give a shit about anymore? Gordon Freeman, or the G-man, or Alyx, or anyone in that series.

But I'm sure I'm alone in that. I'm sure their terrifyingly complicated follow-up to HL2 will have a Song of Ice and Fire-level scope and glaringly photoreal graphics that paint a gorgeous bleak symphony of decay and hope through it's environments, create gender equality through Alyx Vance's character arc and finally elevate games to "art" status--

Just kidding. I waited less than most, but those who've waited since HL2's launch have stuck with it for the greater part of a decade...for a point-and-pew-pew first person shooter vidyigaem whose story you fill in the blanks for yourself.

More time = more polish, yes, but devs should keep things in perspective. Too much time = waning interest. No work of art is worth Blizzard or Valve time to me anyway.

 

[Zaik]

I think the general consensus is if the sequel feels like something a bored modder could have made with the first game's dev tools, it didn't take long enough. The only exception to the rule I can possibly think of would be Fallout:NV, which could have been made entirely in the GECK(and might have been, I think Megaton still exists in some half deleted state, but obviously there's no legit way to get there).

In comparison, anything that hits double digits will get the DNF treatment unless Valve or Blizzard did it, since that's all they seem to offer, that's all people really expect from them(unless you play left4dead, apparently)

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

At least 3 but hopefully less than 6 if a sequel is planned.

 

[Thaluikhain]

As long as it takes, but as soon as possible.

Having the game drag on might mean the genre et al is dead before it gets out, but rushing obviously isn't great either.

 

[MercurySteam]

Two and a half at least. It worries me a bit that Mass Effect 3 is being released less than 26 months after Mass Effect 2, but hopefully it'll be enough.

 

[Bvenged]

Anywhere over 2 & 1/2 years for a team of 50+ working full time, not including testers or legalities, just pure developers. This criteria is what I would call the "development threshold" for making a half decent to good game. This kind of criteria nearly always allows for more different content to be made for sequels/newbies along with enough time to devise a good storyline whilst offering enough time for ideas to be thrown about and binned, instead of just "going through with it" or "do what we did last time to save time" occurring. I've found almost every single game I would think of as worth its full release price is also, coincidently, fitting to my my theoretical model.

Although small indie teams can get away with a minimum of about 6 months to a year; because that's a good, fair, applicable scale-down from my preferred criteria.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

a minimum of ten hours of content for every year in development.
that is my fomula, at least.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

However long it takes to be awesome, really. Whether they crank out the game in 6 months or 6 years, so long as the game is great, I don't care how long they take.

 

[Matt King]

about 2 or 3 on average, but it depends on the size or quality of the studio