Let me prephase this by saying that this isn't supposed to be whining thread, nobody should be rushed to complete anything. This is more about general workflow.
So it's no secret that video games take a while to make, there's tons of moving parts handled by all sorts of people often of different professions and it's a miracle that they get made at all. Over the years, new elaborate tools have been developed to help ease the burden of development for developers, especially those of smaller sizes but at the same time it seems that the demand for higher graphic fidelity ends up offsetting this in a lot of cases and we end up in a position where games as a whole seem to be taking longer and longer to make.
At first glance this doesn't seem like much of an issue, there's plenty of games to play after all but I think there's 2 issues with potentially long development cycles.
1. Time is money and when you've got tons of money invested into a game being developed over a long period of time there is a lot less room for freedom and immense pressure to recoup costs. You might think this only concerns AAA games but even those Indie games that seem to be taking 10 years to make (I'm sure you can think of at least one) run into this issue.
2. This one kinda leeches off the first point but I think it becomes very easy to lose enthusiasm for certain games and franchise when the gap between releases is too big depending what you want from the game. Let's look at Final Fantasy XVI as an example. This game looks really good, I have almost no doubt that it is going to be at worst a decent game which is a pretty high achievement for anything really. But if you came to a new mainline Final Fantasy game hoping to see some black main characters or hell even coloured characters at all...
.... you'll find that you're for the most part a bit out of luck. The part that stings though is that considering how long these mainline Final Fantasy games take to make, you're not just out of luck but you're out of luck for potentially the next decade. Then when that new game gets announced MAYBE it'll be more to your taste. Maybe it'll have some more POC characters, maybe it'll be crazy Final Fantasy sci-fi that you love..........or maybe it won't and you'll be back at square one. When release gaps are shorter then the occasional game that doesn't quite satisfy you is an easy hit to take since after all it won't be too long before something new comes along and maybe that'll suit you more. But when gaps get too huge it can feel like all your hopes and dreams are riding on that next release and if it doesn't reach it then it's easy to just end up disregarding the whole series even though technically speaking it's only been one game.
Anyway, do you think development cycles are too long these days? If so would you be willing to take the visual hit for more timely releases?
So it's no secret that video games take a while to make, there's tons of moving parts handled by all sorts of people often of different professions and it's a miracle that they get made at all. Over the years, new elaborate tools have been developed to help ease the burden of development for developers, especially those of smaller sizes but at the same time it seems that the demand for higher graphic fidelity ends up offsetting this in a lot of cases and we end up in a position where games as a whole seem to be taking longer and longer to make.
At first glance this doesn't seem like much of an issue, there's plenty of games to play after all but I think there's 2 issues with potentially long development cycles.
1. Time is money and when you've got tons of money invested into a game being developed over a long period of time there is a lot less room for freedom and immense pressure to recoup costs. You might think this only concerns AAA games but even those Indie games that seem to be taking 10 years to make (I'm sure you can think of at least one) run into this issue.
2. This one kinda leeches off the first point but I think it becomes very easy to lose enthusiasm for certain games and franchise when the gap between releases is too big depending what you want from the game. Let's look at Final Fantasy XVI as an example. This game looks really good, I have almost no doubt that it is going to be at worst a decent game which is a pretty high achievement for anything really. But if you came to a new mainline Final Fantasy game hoping to see some black main characters or hell even coloured characters at all...
.... you'll find that you're for the most part a bit out of luck. The part that stings though is that considering how long these mainline Final Fantasy games take to make, you're not just out of luck but you're out of luck for potentially the next decade. Then when that new game gets announced MAYBE it'll be more to your taste. Maybe it'll have some more POC characters, maybe it'll be crazy Final Fantasy sci-fi that you love..........or maybe it won't and you'll be back at square one. When release gaps are shorter then the occasional game that doesn't quite satisfy you is an easy hit to take since after all it won't be too long before something new comes along and maybe that'll suit you more. But when gaps get too huge it can feel like all your hopes and dreams are riding on that next release and if it doesn't reach it then it's easy to just end up disregarding the whole series even though technically speaking it's only been one game.
Anyway, do you think development cycles are too long these days? If so would you be willing to take the visual hit for more timely releases?
