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Ask a professional Game Dev any development or design questions that bother you
- Thread starter Farlander
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Have there been times where you've seen a story altered because of what would be required to program or create? As in simplified or removed, as an aspiring writer i do often wonder how much creative control a writer can have within the gaming industry among others.
Wow, I greatly appreciate this thread.
One thing I really wanted to know. I've seen a lot of people say next-gen exclusives will be more costly and time-consuming to make sure to the increase in required asset quality. However, I've also seen and heard a lot about how assets for last-gen games were already created at very high levels of detail and then brought down with decision and retopology - not just for PC ports and such but things like these Zbrush models for Nathan Drake and Kratos:
So if that's the case, I would've assumed the work going into these assets wouldn't actually increase, and the only change would be not needing to cut their detail as much. Can you comment on this in any way?
One thing I really wanted to know. I've seen a lot of people say next-gen exclusives will be more costly and time-consuming to make sure to the increase in required asset quality. However, I've also seen and heard a lot about how assets for last-gen games were already created at very high levels of detail and then brought down with decision and retopology - not just for PC ports and such but things like these Zbrush models for Nathan Drake and Kratos:
So if that's the case, I would've assumed the work going into these assets wouldn't actually increase, and the only change would be not needing to cut their detail as much. Can you comment on this in any way?
We are rapidly approaching (or already at) a point where any major game is simply enormous. I don't think the average consumer realizes how exponential the scope of games has become. Especially in the multiplayer space. Creating a game considered AAA in modern standards requires orders of magnitude greater resources than it did in, say, the 2000s.
So, when you ask why higher ups may deny a game being delayed beyond a certain point: I expect in many cases it's because that game has probably already received several delays, from a schedule that is already longer than any 2010 game would scope for, requiring 5x the money for every month because you need 5x the man power to achieve that modern quality standard.
At some point a game just has to come out. Only a dev like Rockstar can sit on an intensely expensive project for 5+ years and find the financial feasibility in it.
And mind you, there are still plenty of things specific to a project that can go particularly bad too, so factors like that could always play in. But yeah, games are super big right now, and I think sometimes we don't talk about how frightening that sort of is across the industry.
It's utterly terrifying, and covid only made things exponentially worse. It is a miracle that games come out at all, and I think for even well recieved AAA games people just tend to remember the hits and forget the misses as far as polish goes. I know everyone wants to just 'blame the publishers' and wonder why they just don't delay games til they're fun, but the unfortunate reality is that these games are just too expensive and too big and publishers and devs just have to eventually cut their losses. (edit: or release the game unfinished, get some first time sales from launch, then bankroll that into patching and fixing the game)
People seem to think that there's a database of knowledge that all devs have access to that is full of 'solved problems' that we can just dig into at any time, but that's just not the case. The tools I use change between each job I take and though players might think an answer to an issue is so simple (just do what this developer did!) if it was as simple as they assume we would have already fixed it. So yeah, though it seems like we're just building on what already exists, more often than not we're building back from scratch or adopting new tools too late to fix the issues they were created for.
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This happens all the time. Often, story has to be cut or completely reworked on the fly because of gameplay restrictions (or something being brutally unfun or poorly recieved) or systems not having time to implement features required. I can only imagine how many QTE events started as actual gameplay and were eventually whittled down to just smashing buttons. It goes the other way as well, though, where gameplay is just awful in a segment and we decide to put the story first through a cutscene (taking control away from the player, as a less charitable description).
What writers usually do, outside of write the dialogue and direction for cutscenes, is add flavor to the gameplay first and foremost. Stuff like adding banter to a set piece the designers really wanted in a level or dialogue barks between npcs as the player walks by. Outside of big 'must have' story beats, writers are at the mercy of what the gameplay will offer, and scripts often account for 'fill in action sequence here' stuff. Also, writers are generally not the people defining what a game will be. The gameplay comes first, such as coming up with what features we want to include, set piece and activity ideas, and creating prototypes. In some cases, writers come in fairly late to the process to tie things together or develop lore. I'm only mentioning this because I think a lot of writers have this idea for a story that they feel would be amazing for a video game and want to get that made, but are often disheartened to find that designers and developers aren't interested in story first development. If the level designer really wants a long, drawn out on-rails turret section, and it gets director sign off, that shit is gonna have to be folded into the immaculate tale the writer might have written for that scenario. And yeah, if that means it ruins some larger character arc because it pushes out time that was originally alocated for an interesting cutscene or npc walkaround it doesn't matter. If the game plays better for the on rails section that's probably gonna win.
Couple of questions about one subject:
Is there always a Game Design Document (GDD) when developing a game?
How detailed and big are these documents?
Does everyone in the team have access to it?
How much does a team rely on such a document?
I'm sure some parts of (even the core) design will change during development. How is this communicated normally to the team? Will the Game Designer alter the GDD and then point to these changes or does he present it in a big meeting?
Is there always a Game Design Document (GDD) when developing a game?
How detailed and big are these documents?
Does everyone in the team have access to it?
How much does a team rely on such a document?
I'm sure some parts of (even the core) design will change during development. How is this communicated normally to the team? Will the Game Designer alter the GDD and then point to these changes or does he present it in a big meeting?
Since I'm on, I'll answer this:
On every project I've worked on, there has been a game bible full of GDDs. I write GDDs for the levels I design, for features we're concepting, for narrative, sound, etc. They're collaboratively made, available to the whole team for making sure we're aligned on our vision, and many are living documents. For single player games, the bible is a big deal and can be very detailed. That being said, I haven't seen much uniformity in the formatting of GDDs, and within the bible you'll have a bunch of stuff written and collated by different people- some full of hand drawn images or references, some dry and to the point. Also worth noting is that most developers have switched to making wikis full of design docs to collate info and collaborate across the team.
Edit: on the subject of presentations- All the time. There are so many meetings. Meetings forever. Meetings for every single mundane thing you can think of because of exactly what you're getting at- it's so hard to keep track of everything. But if something MASSIVE changed, it'd be a team wide meeting with a presentation along with the wiki updates. For something small, you might not need to mention it as your doc could be for future reference or someone else to learn from. It's just important to catalogue as muc has possible and put your ideas into writing for reference to the entire team.
One thing that has been bugging me for a while is: why is there still in this day and age a need to have a 'Press start' screen in so many games? I mean, yes, it can look nice, and I think I read sometime ago that it is necessary to see which controller will be the primary or active controller (?), but if the latter is a reason, then why doesn't the OS send the 'this controller started the game' property along in the startup args or something?
If it's just because it looks nice: please, for the love of god, do the actual game loading before or while showing the 'Press start' screen, because why would you not?
I mean, on the latest consoles, load times are no issue anymore I guess, but I remember on PS3 I would sometimes start a game, walk away to the bathroom or something, and then return, expecting a game to be loaded, but nooo, I see the press start screen and then the loading starts, WHYY? And I still notice it in games nowadays: first the Press Start screen and then some logos popping up or something, so annoying!
If you have to or want to use a Press Start screen, make sure a single press shows the menu instantly after.
If it's just because it looks nice: please, for the love of god, do the actual game loading before or while showing the 'Press start' screen, because why would you not?
I mean, on the latest consoles, load times are no issue anymore I guess, but I remember on PS3 I would sometimes start a game, walk away to the bathroom or something, and then return, expecting a game to be loaded, but nooo, I see the press start screen and then the loading starts, WHYY? And I still notice it in games nowadays: first the Press Start screen and then some logos popping up or something, so annoying!
If you have to or want to use a Press Start screen, make sure a single press shows the menu instantly after.
The ones in games with combination of AI and networked states across hundreds of clients.
Oh wait... :)
Automatic doors that just have an animation but no collision!
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Shitty, as simple as that. This is for another question, but what I have mentioned in another reply appliea too, gonna copy here:
More or less. Starts with a snall core team, then ramps up to full production, then as main production gets to close to completion it starts to ramp down, and some people are transferred either to post launch support or other projects.
Hi!
How accurate is a video game color work? And how often do you feel that is misrepresented on certain screens, videos, screenshots etc. is that an issue at all in game development? Is there a consideration on how people will look at your game? Do find yourself looking at stuff you worked on and finding that something looks off?
I also have kinda of the same questions on the sound department, specially the mix.
Being a film colorist myself sometimes I feel like dying when I watch certain theatrical releases of work I did on certain theatres/projectors/broadcast or even home releases.
Another thing I would like to kindly ask you, is why do games come with so different sound levels between them? Like if I want to have a session on game A I know that I will need to rank up the overall volume of my speakers quite a bit…but then if I jump to game B than I will need to bring it down considerably….shouldn't there be an default sound mix value to avoid this issue?
Sorry for so many questions!
Thank you for your time!
How accurate is a video game color work? And how often do you feel that is misrepresented on certain screens, videos, screenshots etc. is that an issue at all in game development? Is there a consideration on how people will look at your game? Do find yourself looking at stuff you worked on and finding that something looks off?
I also have kinda of the same questions on the sound department, specially the mix.
Being a film colorist myself sometimes I feel like dying when I watch certain theatrical releases of work I did on certain theatres/projectors/broadcast or even home releases.
Another thing I would like to kindly ask you, is why do games come with so different sound levels between them? Like if I want to have a session on game A I know that I will need to rank up the overall volume of my speakers quite a bit…but then if I jump to game B than I will need to bring it down considerably….shouldn't there be an default sound mix value to avoid this issue?
Sorry for so many questions!
Thank you for your time!
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Great thread! Who are the unsung heroes of game development? Also, what is something in a specific game that you were really impressed with and gave you a 'why didn't I think of that?!' moment - even if it's a very small thing that only people in your speciality would appreciate? Thanks
Sometimes it's a requirement, either regulatory or contractual.
Let's take a racing game for example, here are some considerations:
- Some of the car manufacturers you work with require an OLP (officially licensed product) badge to be shown on startup.
- It's a driving game and you need to warn people that the driving in-game is for entertainment purposes only, and shouldn't be replicated in real life because it's dangerous.
- It's a fast-moving game, higher chance of epilepsy issues so you need a flashing images warning.
- You might need some legal boilerplate text on startup depending on what game engine you're using.
We hid a insanely long and technically TRC-failing HDD install to the utility region of the original Xbox, justifying it by saying "oh, the licensor is making us hold on this frame for uh....20 seconds"
This was the same project where Ed Fries found out about that install (back when it literally had an install screen) and yelled at us saying "Have you EVER heard of a console game with an install screen!?" HAHAHAHAHA the future sucks
If you really just want to plink around and make something that moves, there are programs like Game Maker you could look at, but if you want to get serious, I'd just say Unreal. It's free, there are a billion tutorials to find, and its the baseline technology for a lot of stuff. If you want to learn a game engine, you might as well start with the biggest and best one that everyone uses.
On top of the massive performance cost, it's a lot of extra work for a vanishingly small number of players who are only going to complain about it anyway. Everything visible on screen is controlled far more tightly than you might think.
No doors! I found out recently there were no doors in Assassins Creed up til Valhalla, absolute mad lads got away with it.
If it's parts of an outfit clipping through each other, the line is 'don't bother, no one cares.' Typically if they are extra or pre order bonus costumes its considered not important. Everything is animated with the 'canon' outfit and characters and anything beyond that is whatever.
The logos up front for Havok or whatever are often a contractual obligation for using that technology.
This simply does not happen.
Zbrush assets are still an order of magnitude past what any computer could use as an asset without exploding. I think the zbrush sculpt engine technically doesn't even use polygons so they can get as much definition in as possible. So the assets still have to be downsampled etc, the benchmarks are just different. In essence, the total time to make an asset doesn't change.
The first one depends on if your studio is big enough to have a VFX or lighting guy who knows what they're doing and can take the time to work on it. Something like Horizon will absolutely have a dedicated colourist, something like OlliOlli, probably not, it's just part of the art teams job.
As for the second one... different studios have different sound people!
I'm on the communication side.
It does upset you and frustrate you. Especially if it messes up your marketing, social media and or asset creation process. Think of it this way, all these leakers on social media say they side with developers all the time against the big corporations etc. Who do you think has to work overtime when the processes I've mentioned above gets disrupted? Yeah, we do.
Where does most of the time and money go into making a game. What has changed and would those resources be better off used elsewhere in your opinion?
The money goes towards paying people. If you have a team of 50 for three years, those salaries add up. Oh, and they all need multiple software licenses that last for those three years. And they all need computers, a desk to sit at, the a building to put the desks in. And you have to pay your taxes.
So I created a game in Unity for a university assignment. I kind of want to iterate on it more and maybe launch it
What device would you say is the easiest to make a game for and what should I take into consideration when making it?
What device would you say is the easiest to make a game for and what should I take into consideration when making it?
I guess what I was trying to say is why do games take so long compared to what they used too. Are they spending way more time on something specific like artists or people adding features to the engines, etc?
Even iterative games from the same studio seem to take longer.
AAA Dev here. I'll give a simplified example.
Let's take creating a cutscene.
12-15 years ago:
A couple of animators make the animations or often use animations from a library created to be used game-wide.
Cinematic person (or another animator) do the camera set-up - the angles are simple and there are few cuts - when there are it's mostly cutting between faces. A procedural system might even do this.
Voice over is written and recorded by the actor off in a studio somewhere.
The same character models can be used as the ones you see in gameplay.
These tasks can be handled in order and there are fewer dependencies. Co-ordination between people can be done quite simply.
Any alterations can be done quite quickly and with few dependencies.
Now:
Motion capture and face capture sessions need to be booked. Actors need to be scheduled in for those sessions.
Scene needs to be choreographed for those sessions.
Capture data comes back and needs to be cleaned up and put in game.
Voice over needs to be recorded and cleaned up for depending on the facial capture used.
Cameras need to be set up by a specialist - requiring many camera cuts to match higher expectations so that everything looks at least as good as a TV show.
Character models used must be high detail ones as this is where we need "the good graphics".
Alterations require a re-shoot of some mocap or performance data and all of the associated clean up.
The differences here are:
- External dependencies like booking sessions for capture data and using third parties - actor availability and studio availability are also an issue. Covid also effected this.
- More people involved = more co-ordination = more meetings
- More risk for changes = spend more time planning to get things right first time
- More specific content required to be made for each piece of the game
As I mentioned, this is slightly simplified but I hope it shows how even something that sounds simple has become more complicated as graphics and expectations get higher.
This is pretty much what I thought, thank you. So would that mean that on average, the idea that next-gen games will cost more to make is probably wrong? Unless they get larger in terms of general scope, of course. Then it wouldn't be just about asset quality, but amount as well.
Is the idea that things like limited live systems and random battles are archaic now as widespread a belief among developers as they are among people who participate in games related discourse? I personally like both of those things as deliberate game design choices a lot, and I feel like I can back up that opinion, so I usually get frustrated whenever I see people make that assertion, but I have to wonder if even game developers themselves feel that way and I'm just out of touch.
Oh no they will cost more for sure. You still need to hire artists capable of making those assets, at which point you're competing with every other studio making a AAA game on salary. Equally, making a kratos head that can be knocked down to decent quality means the head doesn't need to be AS good in zbrush, but making a head that can be knocked down to excellent quality means the zbrush asset has to be better, if you follow me. Ideally yes you would just make the Best Kratos Head Ever and use that one asset for the rest of time, but that's not entirely realistic. That one artist has to be better than they used to be, and they will probably spend as much time on kratos's head as they used to spend on all of kratos, so overall making kratos needs more time, and time costs money.
And yes, amount of stuff too. Look at how much stuff is strewn around environments in RE8 or similar, it's insane detail compared to older games. A lot of that stuff is done by outsourcing but its still time to make all of those assets, and time costs money etc etc
Thanking for clarifying. Folks seem to swing between humanising Dev studios or treating them as faceless corporations depending on what's happening.
Why is it year after year we hear consoles are easier to develop for and tool getting better so that from design to coding get easier and quicker, but still development takes longer and longer it seems. Something doesnt ad up. Is it a bunch of marketing propganda from tool makers and console makers or does the dev period take longer because of the amount of people involved nowadays or bad management etc.
You know how we like to have 'nice numbers', TV's volume as 50 instead of 46 for example, does this apply to game dev too? Like, are assets placed at 'nice' coordinates, or are they dropped 'willy-nilly' into the scene?
I'm guessing some things snap into place, etc. but you can't pore over every object/effect/texture.
Similarly, how are things like a broken wall modelled? Is there any rhyme or reason to how it's modelled, a simulation perhaps, or is it just what the artist thinks looks right?
Just curious as I know we have photogrammetry and face scanning to have accurate models, but how do you keep accuracy for things you can't scan. Like, how would you even go about modelling a mountain from scratch that's believable...
I'm guessing some things snap into place, etc. but you can't pore over every object/effect/texture.
Similarly, how are things like a broken wall modelled? Is there any rhyme or reason to how it's modelled, a simulation perhaps, or is it just what the artist thinks looks right?
Just curious as I know we have photogrammetry and face scanning to have accurate models, but how do you keep accuracy for things you can't scan. Like, how would you even go about modelling a mountain from scratch that's believable...
How do you figure out what to, say, visually compromise on/dumb down when everything you make is made in a much higher quality/detail in order for it to run properly? (I know normal maps are used to essentially simulate that high quality detail, but still).
Doesn't have to be character models, could be environments, anything really.
As a side note, I can't compliment ND enough for the game design in TLOU:P2... Generally speaking, narrow spaces in video games which a character clearly can fit through, usually won't let you (always met by an invisible wall).
In TLOU:P2, I could finally squeeze through those suckers!
Doesn't have to be character models, could be environments, anything really.
As a side note, I can't compliment ND enough for the game design in TLOU:P2... Generally speaking, narrow spaces in video games which a character clearly can fit through, usually won't let you (always met by an invisible wall).
In TLOU:P2, I could finally squeeze through those suckers!
Hello!
Translator here, interested in the localization aspect of gaming.
When does localization come into play during a project? From what I understand it's one of the latter elements of the process. Is this true? Do you think it should be earlier?
Also, what influence does the localization have in your work? Either in the way you build the game or the way the localization itself affects you in latter stages of development.
Translator here, interested in the localization aspect of gaming.
When does localization come into play during a project? From what I understand it's one of the latter elements of the process. Is this true? Do you think it should be earlier?
Also, what influence does the localization have in your work? Either in the way you build the game or the way the localization itself affects you in latter stages of development.
Huge thanks to every developer taking their time to answer, this thread is illuminating. As others have said, I really wish it was a semi-regular thing.
I can answer these two:
I can answer about music loop point error. This often happens within several situations:
- The musician is not a video game composer, just a regular composer, and does not have good knowledge on how to do good loop points (it's not as easy as it sounds)
- The programmer doing this is not a sound/musician guy so it does not care, does not notice it.
- Both of the above and people using mp3 for some reason, as those can't loop properly.
You can have two persons that can fix this, a video game composer with extensive knowledge on how to loop a track and how to fix it, or an audio programmer, which is more and more prominent on big studios nowadays, who knows sound and can code or even modify the track audio wave so it loops correctly.
At the end the fix is not hard to implement if you have the right people on board.
Typically there is a standard to output all your sounds to try to fix this. Problem in video games is that you can't just do like in movies, pass the game thru a big audio studio and mix all of it. Different gameplays produces different sounds and music, so you have to adjust lots of parameters to try to level all sound (max sounds at any moment, max voices, mixer limiters, sound limiters, and so).
There is also the volume in-game setting, normally you want to have all your volumes at max and then the player can lower some of them, but there are games where these volumes are different at default, or even the default setting is at 50% (which I think is an error to do so).
I try to output at about -16LUFS, this is a standard musical measure. For example Youtube is -14LUFS (nearer to 0 is louder). The problem with this for short SFX is that it's not an accurate measure, so at the end your ear hearing the game is what makes the balance, hence the difference in some games you notice. And also that is for individual sounds, not a mix of SFX and music which is what the game will output.
At the end, is not an easy task to do and it's much harder to balance compared to other media.
I can answer about music loop point error. This often happens within several situations:
- The musician is not a video game composer, just a regular composer, and does not have good knowledge on how to do good loop points (it's not as easy as it sounds)
- The programmer doing this is not a sound/musician guy so it does not care, does not notice it.
- Both of the above and people using mp3 for some reason, as those can't loop properly.
You can have two persons that can fix this, a video game composer with extensive knowledge on how to loop a track and how to fix it, or an audio programmer, which is more and more prominent on big studios nowadays, who knows sound and can code or even modify the track audio wave so it loops correctly.
At the end the fix is not hard to implement if you have the right people on board.
Typically there is a standard to output all your sounds to try to fix this. Problem in video games is that you can't just do like in movies, pass the game thru a big audio studio and mix all of it. Different gameplays produces different sounds and music, so you have to adjust lots of parameters to try to level all sound (max sounds at any moment, max voices, mixer limiters, sound limiters, and so).
There is also the volume in-game setting, normally you want to have all your volumes at max and then the player can lower some of them, but there are games where these volumes are different at default, or even the default setting is at 50% (which I think is an error to do so).
I try to output at about -16LUFS, this is a standard musical measure. For example Youtube is -14LUFS (nearer to 0 is louder). The problem with this for short SFX is that it's not an accurate measure, so at the end your ear hearing the game is what makes the balance, hence the difference in some games you notice. And also that is for individual sounds, not a mix of SFX and music which is what the game will output.
At the end, is not an easy task to do and it's much harder to balance compared to other media.
Very interesting. But could you also define a typical timing for these phases? I have, for example, read somewhere that pre-production can be an even longer phase than production itself. Is this true?
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1. A bunch of excel sheets, usually. Regular meetings with team leads to sync up on estimations/changed aspects/added tasks etc.
2. More than half of the delays that exist you don't hear about publicly :)
3. A lot of time there are some milestones that have to be hit and those milestones are divided into sprints, yeah. But this obviously varies from dev to dev and how they handle it.
About 3 months on average? And the E3/presentation/demo build would have to be ready like at least 1/2 weeks in advance. In one of the replies I've mentioned that games are a mess until they get close to the end of production when everything starts to fit together and get a proper layer of polish. Well, for E3 or a demo you have to polish a SPECIFIC part of the game (and sometimes totally new sections are made because that part would be very messy), usually it happens in a 2nd branch so that changes on the main branch wouldn't break the demo build, and then everything relevant from the E3 branch would get transferred to main branch. Usually there's a bunch of people specifically delegated to the demo/E3 build.
A lot of time these demo/E3 builds are used as sort of quality targets as well, so it can actually be quite helpful in that regard. But just so you know, when you see a very cool demo, be it on E3 or any other place, even if it's a normal and not messy production, there's a 99% likelihood that due to how game development works what you DON'T see in the demo is a mish mash of a jumbled mess with a bunch of robotic voices placeholders, unfinished animations and white blocks :D
It depends on the complexity. For example porting Trials Rising to Switch was quite a challenge, and it took about 9 months if I remember correctly, of two programmers time and some artists. Porting from PS4 to PS5 about half a year if this also means changes etc.
But, you know, the thing about porting is that it's fairly straightforward to just have the main bulk of the game launch on a new platform, it doesn't take that long, but like everything else in games, the problem comes in the rest 20% that is details and polish :)
Only partially, when it comes to games like Horizon. AAA games are HUGE, so the way it usually goes is that a couple of innovative/risky points are chosen, and the rest is fairly safe. If we take Horizon as an example, the innovation/big thing that was a risk there was fighting robot dinosaurs - that's what made it unique and interesting, and the rest relies on more traditional conventions to mitigate risks on those. It is unlikely this principle is going to change for big budgeted projects with the new generation.
For the first question... the way I like to explain the development process is that it's like trying to build a puzzle. Only the pieces for the puzzle are not complete, but you do have a sketch that you draw during preproduction. And then different members of the team start building puzzle pieces together from different ends of the puzzle, of different parts of the sketch, which btw shouldn't look like a sketch when it's complete but like a full proper puzzle painting. And then you start trying to connect it all together, obviously it doesn't always work so where you see connection problems you have to iterate and redo the puzzle pieces but now you have more information on how those should look like specifically.
So it's not random, but things are usually not done 'in order' because to be effecient you have to parallelize things.
Regarding the engine question, on page 2 I have a long answer about engines which I think should cover your question too.
The most basic one is the notion of loops - what is the gameplay process that the person goes through. There are core mechanic loops, like for example the loop of a shooter is "Move -> Aim -> Shoot -> Kill", broadly speaking. Then there can be mid-term loops, like what is the player doing every 5 minutes? Well, the "Kill" from the mechanic loop can lead to "Kill -> Get XP -> Level Up -> Get Skill Points". There can be another mid-term or maybe even long term loop coming out of that. Loops can be something that are as long as 5 second series of actions to as long as 1+ hour goals. Games are full of loops, pretty much all of them, even visual novels the loop of which would be "Read dialogue -> Choose reply -> Go to next scene" :D Looking at it that way helps to break down the games into reasonable chunks a lot.
The specs of Series S are similar enough where it matters that it's not going to 'hold back' anything when it comes to design/mechanics, just the resolution/visuals.
But in general, for the longest time making PC versions was extremely painful because you had to take account of many different possible specs and combinations. Multiple console SKUs is not AS painful, but obviously adds some complexity to the whole endeavor that wasn't present when each console had just a single spec to take care of.
Well... in this particular example, the intersection between people who would need to actually CHOOSE between Elden Ring and Horizon is VERY small comparatively speaking. While this might have affected the discussions and focus of the more 'enthusiast' or 'hardcore' places let's call them, it is unlikely that being close to Elden Ring has affected Horizon Forbidden West negatively.
Titanfall 2 is a bit of a different case though, especially considering that it was released next to another EA multiplayer shooter.
The reason why this happens is that it might be the best spot for release based on budget/time, so it's not that the 'marketing has power' over dev team, it's just that it's the case of 'it's either this slot or a slot that will make it more difficult to get production money back or a slot that would add more pressure to developers'.
It depends on a team to team basis, and the team size. For example at Ubisoft there are people/positions whose responsibilities are solely related to infrastructure/DevOps and I never had to worry about that particular part myself, but in smaller companies obviously any team member would have a wider array of responsibilities to take care of.
My only experience with that is still gaming-related, when I was a Quality Analyst for Origin at the beginning of my career. The biggest difference is that there's less 'unforeseeable' things happening because software is much more straightforward than games :D
Related to UI/UX, it depends. It's not that 'UI tends to be one of the last things added', it's more like the plans/design for UI change the most as the project starts coming together and solutions that seemed to work on earlier stages don't once everything gets connected into a whole, so things have to be redone and that's not always done successfully, sadly.
Related to second question, again, depends. Time constrains obviously happen. When it comes to KBM/controller differences, usually when you can edit keyboard controls but not gamepad that is related to having actions that can be placed to separate buttons on kbm, but on gamepad have to remain as the same button (which is either contextual or in different press/hold state), which makes the aspect of changing binds on a controller much trickier.
To be absolutely blunt... fairly often. Sadly. When a game is developed all over the world it is a huge challenge.
You will be surprised how right you are :D Alternatively it is filling up the UI canvas with a black layer color. Simplest solutions can also be the best :D
Hm.... well, I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer this, but it might be because the menu screen involves the 2D renderer and the gameplay sections involve the 3D renderer and those can work differently.
Roughly:
Pre-production - conceptualization and main chunk of planning
Production - main chunk of development divided into milestones
Alpha - game is feature complete/almost feature complete
Beta - game is content complete
Gold - game is ready for submission
Post-launch - patches/new content.
A matter of binding priorities - is it more important to shoot or jump? More important to shoot, so it has to be easily reachable. Is it more important to aim down sights in a shooter or jump? More important to aim down sights. So that has to be reachable. Is it more important to throw a grenade or jump? In a shooter probably more important to throw a grenade. Which leaves us with one bumper/trigger that CAN be used as a jump button... IF there's something not more important than that for the game.
SSDs being standard will lowkey the way we design worlds/levels and I think that's wonderful.
I think that's about right when it comes to just the act of going through verification and getting a patch release. There's also the cost of the dev team and their equipment.
Well, quite honestly, there can be two reasons - one is just a simple matter of oversight/not thinking about it, and two - it's a matter of not figuring out where to store the value for which slot has to be selected by default.
So, I was the Lead Designer in Bucharest, and our responsibilities as a team were:
- The entirety of the Southwark region and all locations in it (my involvement in this particular part was minimal, had my hands full with everything else)
- About ~10 recruit archetypes and 20ish playable abilities.
- All side-activities and recruitment mission blueprints related to them
- Spider-Bot Arena multiplayer mode
- Invasion multiplayer mode (oh the stories I could tell about the complexities of making this one within the 'play as anyone' paradigm, it's insane)
- Narrative design of a bunch of post-launch content
- And a lot of support with the play as anyone system and melee combat (though we didn't lead those but they are massive systems).
So as you can see a big bulk of our mandates are pretty stand-alone, but obviously you can't have that be fully stand-alone especially considering that all features somehow intersected with the core of the game, so a lot of communication was involved through e-mails or evening (for Buc)/morning (for Tor) calls.
It is tracked which team works on which feature, and who is the lead/contact person of that team/feature in question, so usually it's not a problem to find the person but obviously you have to find time on both your ends to sync up.
The problems are usually encountered only when a particular feature has to drastically change for one reason or another, and that can affect your mandate as well so you sort of have to redo stuff, which may trickle down to another team and so on. But that's usually in the name of a better final result, so... not that bad :)
I don't like commenting on games I haven't played myself yet, so I'm not going to say anything about Diablo.
But, on your question in general... yeah. I won't beat around the bush, there ARE higher ups that just care about the monetary end of the equation and that sucks, it can lead to a lots of conflict.
The way monetization usually works is as following: it is calculated how much it will take to keep servers up for a certain amount of players per month, how much it will cost to have a team maintaining that, how much it will cost to keep making new content for players to play, which leads to, okay based on that how much do we need to make per month for this to not go into a negative number profit-wise, and make profit for potential future bigger features, and then it is all balanced/planned from that perspective. That's the most ethical/integral way to go about it, in my opinion.
It depends on the game.
With a sequel or a game where there are more knowns, pre-production can be shorter because there is less to prototype and more things can be sorted out on paper. For a game that's totally new (or has a lot of new features) pre-production will be used to prototype and make sure that things are fun before committing more resources.
Why does it seem that text exports for localization are not properly structured? (Sorted from A to Z, dialogues not in order, item names separated from their descriptions) Looking at you, Unreal Engine.
Why do I still get the feeling that some localization projects seem to be badly scheduled? (Something like "Oops, right, we need that localized" or starting the localization while the text is still not final?)
Edit: Thank you for doing this!
Why do I still get the feeling that some localization projects seem to be badly scheduled? (Something like "Oops, right, we need that localized" or starting the localization while the text is still not final?)
Edit: Thank you for doing this!
OP
OP
The biggest challenges nowadays would be to not make the budgets blow up even more by raising the bar of graphical fidelity, honestly.
The answer here really varies from game to game, but yeah, usually there's a script that would ensure that player is not left without something they would need to progress.
Beats me, lol.
Replied in another post:
Yeah, usually there's a 'visual bible' with guidelines for this sort of stuff. Default font sizes for different types of text, and so on. Like anything in development, it can either change drastically later or not :D
Okay, so, examples you've been using are based on multiplayer retention, and the reason for that is pretty much as such: intrinsic motivation is inconsistent. It is certainly more powerful, but absolutely every player will have a varying amount of intrinsic motivation which not only can 'run out' at a certain point, but it is different for every player, really. Does the player enjoy the act of communicating with players? The skill-based combat? Will the the player leave the game after they feel like they've learned all there is to learn about the game? Etc. Intrinsic motivation can keep a person in a game for a week, or a month, or five years, again it all depends.
Old games communities were very little in comparison to the amount of regular players modern games have now, and usually consisted of the most 'hardcore' part of players.
Extrinsic motivation is how you sort of... unite everyone under the same banner in a way, and keep motivating players even beyond their intrinsic needs.
I don't know, I'm trying to answer a lot of questions right now, does that make sense or would you like more elaboration?
It's important to understand that every feature is essentially a tool to solve a particular problem.
Let's take mini-maps for example. They are usually added so that you could keep track of your location in a huge open world. If you decide to not use a mini-map... what's the alternative?
How will players keep track off where they are?
How will they remember where to go if they didn't play for a week?
What about players with spatial perception problems?
etc. etc.
The goal is never to trivialize, the goal is to solve problems. And sure, not EVERY player will encounter those problems, but when your playerbase can reach millions... even Elden Ring has added a map and map markers, you know, because once their world became larger they too had a problem to solve even though they tried to keep things more 'hardcore' in a way.