Game developers have posted one after another, What the general public wants to know about game development. Learn the actual situation of the development site

For ordinary gamers, there are many people who can know the finished work in detail, but do not know how the game was produced and the work of the game developer. If so, on the contrary, game developers may feel that their work is not well understood.

• Game development is hard
• Game development costs money
• Qa work
• Developers are not lazy
• Game development process
• Game engine = not quality

Pushdustin, who is in charge of PR at the VR/AR game development company Characterbank in Kyoto, recruits from game developers on June 17, What developers should know about the game development. I posted it on Twitter. Many respondents have received many reply, and this paper will pick up some answers.

First, Pushdustin lists two based on his own experience. One is that making good games is not a good idea, but a good team. No matter how good the idea of a game is, it will be up to people to make use of or kill.

The other is that the game development cycle has priority in all situations. If you're a gamer, you'll be playing and feeling Why XX is not implemented? Pushdustin, for example, said that the priority may have been reduced due to a serious bug, but asked for the understanding that such elements would have wanted to implement them.

Game development is hard

One of the most common answers was that game development was difficult. RIOT GAMES's technical designer George Oliver commented that the difficulty of developing games would be more than the general public thinks. Mafia series recent developer HANGER 13 senior VFX artist Brian Byrne says that the game development is hard. As a matter of fact, many good works have been discontinued on site, and all the games that have been released are like miracles. There are many other opinions that express the difficulty of completing the game.

Melissa Kelly, a character artist in Blizzard Entertainment, is a specific example of the difficulty of game development. In the case of Legendary Skin, it takes two to three months per time, and a new hero requires a lot of itelation, and the development period seems to increase. There was a view that I could make it soon if I had a skin, and I might have wanted to deny it.

Bungie's senior activity designer Max Nichols commented that remastered, remake and transplantation are much more tasks than people think. Despite the original version, about 25-50%of the work is the same as making a new work, and it costs money.

Former Sega, which is currently conducting a lot of transplant development, Digital Eclipse's executive producer Stephen Frost states that the games that everyone is playing is based on the hard work of developers, and only a little developers are developers. He says he wants you to send a respect.

Game development costs money

Crystal Dynamics design lead Brian Waggoner emphasizes that it is not cheap. Although no specific example, in addition to the costs of the development itself, including the management and support after release, recent games are much higher than the generally considered amount. It is not unusual for the development to be canceled on the way, as the risk of failure is too large.

Kristi Jimenez, a writer of Indie Studio SnowHaven Studios, listed the work required for visual novel games. He said art, scriptwrites, music, programming, GUI / UI development, proof reading, voice recording, QA, etc., and if they could not do all of them alone, they needed to hire people. He may have said that the cost of making visual novel games is not cheap and not easy to do, and that it is underestimated.

Qa work

Many mentions of QA (quality assurance) work were also mentioned. Robin C, a QA representative of Steel Wool Studios, known for the Five Nights at Freddy's series, says that many people think that bugging is a job, but not. He said that writing a report on the bugs you discovered was to make it easier for developers to fix.

Double Eleven's lead programmer Matt Phillips, who will cooperate with the development of Minecraft Dungeons, says that QA representatives have found and reported all the games bugs. However, there are many works that will be released with bugs remaining. He says that there is a mechanism that the QA representative is not involved in the release decision, and Double Eleven is working to strengthen QA involvement.

In this topic, Twitter user Vasin, who has worked for two years as a QA in a major studio, responded. He said that 60-80 % of the bug he found was not corrected. At the site, WNF (WILL NOT FIX, do not fix) will be notified. He felt frustrated, but the decision was due to the upper layer and did not blame the developers on the site.

EPIC GAMES's technical product management director GLENN WHITE commented that even if 1000 QA representatives repeated for one year, it would not extend to the total play time of all players in just two hours after the launch of the AAA title. 。 He may want to convey the difficulty of identifying all the bugs with QA alone.

EA's cynesty surcer Jessica Tompkins states that there are various occupations, from developers to marketing staff, including posts on SNS and Reddit, for feedback from players. Although the manufacturer does not respond to all requests, it seems that it is useless to send an opinion.

Developers are not lazy

Another prominent answer is that the developer is not lazy. For example, if bug corrections and balance adjustments are not proceeding as expected (from the outside), criticisms such as LAZY DEVS (lazy developer) may be issued from the community of the work.

BLizzard Entertainment's senior system designer Andrew Carl commented that no developers want to make a boring game, and that the developers are not lazy. He said he was relatively cheaper than other industries, stressed and worked hard, because he was passion for game development. EA's concept artist Nina Modaffari also states that even developers involved in the AAA title are working with the same passion as indie developers.

Aether Studios' Envylement artist Mason Bys, known for Rivals of Aether, points out that 99%of the reasons are a problem if there is a problem with the work. For example, the direction and plan are missing or lack of time. He said that the developer was lazy or not.

In addition, ILMXLAB's junior emblem biling artist Sean PHILIPS, which handles VR games of Star Wars, says that it is often reusable in the game development site, and that is not because the developers want to make it easier. I will say it. It seems that recreating things that function correctly leads to waste time and budget. In addition, reusing can lead to improvements in performance and reducing the capacity of games. Others mention the effectiveness of asset reuse.

Game development process

Katie Nelson, a co-founder of Blueprint Games, talks about the episodes when she performed the game screen being developed. She says that at that time she may be suggested from many gamers to polish more. However, she stated that polishing work at an early stage of development could hinder development work, which leads to waste of time. It is often the case that the published game video states that it is under development. You want to have a wide range of gamers understand that it doesn't show the final quality.

Wayforward's business development director Adam Tierney talks about the schedule of game development. According to him, depending on the work, the recording content is solidified at the time of announcement. Therefore, it seems that the follow-up report has been released, and even one month before the release, even if a fan expects a certain factor, there is no room for implementation. It may be a case-by-case basis depending on the size of the work and the studio, but the game development schedule is so full.

Game engine = not quality

Indie developer Hazel Kennedy says the quality of the game is not determined by the game engine. For example, the quality of games developed in Unity is often low, and Unity itself often has a bad reputation. However, it was said that Unity is a very low hurdle for experienced developers, not a matter of Unity itself.

AVALANCHE STUDIOS's senior native designer BEN LUFF commented that there is a widespread misunderstanding about the actual development process. And he says he wants to stop using the game engine for marketing. The quality is not ensured by the game engine, and it is important how the developers use it.

In addition, CRITERION GAMES concept artist Tommy Millar commented on cases where the download version of the game is sold higher than the package version. According to him, it is due to the ransom of retailers, not the maker is greedy. Retail stores require manufacturers to keep the DL version price below the desired retail price of the package version. If you do not obey, you will not be able to put the game in a good place at the store, or you will not even be handled.

There are many reply to Pushdustin's tweets in recruiting what developers want the public to know about game development. If you are interested, why not check the reply to the tweet and the quoted tweets?