Will AAA game development become even longer next gen?

daTRUballin · Nov 5, 2017

One thing that bums me out about the gaming industry these days is the amount of time it takes to make just one AAA game. I assume if next gen brings a significant increase in graphical fidelity, I'm kind of worried that games may take even longer to make and may need even more manpower to do so. That's assuming next gen consoles will actually be significantly more powerful, of course.

It kind of sucks that most major game developers take about 4-5 years to make one game these days. And it kinda makes me wonder what will happen next gen. Will it take even longer? I can't even imagine waiting for games to be made even longer than how long we're used to waiting nowadays. Could there be a solution to this? Will we ever get back to faster development times? Or has that ship sailed long ago?

Bad_Boy · Nov 5, 2017

It gets longer every generation.

ArkhamFantasy · Nov 5, 2017

Development costs and and dev time are going up, not down.

Aters · Nov 5, 2017

Not necessarily longer. But the games will receive constant updates.

Watershed · Nov 5, 2017

I would love for developers to scale back games, reduce post-purchase monetization stuff, reduce development budgets and times, and deliver smaller games that are more tightly designed. I've been in love with the indie scene for the past few years and I think indies currently make up 2/3rds of all my video game purchases.

I think there's a lot of truth in that Jason something tweet thread about the video game industry being unsustainable at the moment.

Vic Damone Jr. · Nov 5, 2017

I really hope not, this gen is too long as is.

Soony Xbone Uhh · Nov 5, 2017

Probably not. We'll get to a point, where AI is able to write some of the code and do assets.
That should reduce workforce and hours needed.

But i'm obviously not sure if that will happen "next generation" already.

iceblade · Nov 5, 2017

daTRUballin said:
One thing that bums me out about the gaming industry these days is the amount of time it takes to make just one AAA game. I assume if next gen brings a significant increase in graphical fidelity, I'm kind of worried that games may take even longer to make and may need even more manpower to do so. That's assuming next gen consoles will actually be significantly more powerful, of course.

It kind of sucks that most major game developers take about 4-5 years to make one game these days. And it kinda makes me wonder what will happen next gen. Will it take even longer? I can't even imagine waiting for games to be made even longer than how long we're used to waiting nowadays. Could there be a solution to this? Will we ever get back to faster development times? Or has that ship sailed long ago?

This is one of my biggest complaints with this gen, and yeah it'd be nice if it'd say the same, but I'm not really holding my breath tbh.

Watershed said:
I would love for developers to scale back games, reduce post-purchase monetization stuff, reduce development budgets and times, and deliver smaller games that are more tightly designed. I've been in love with the indie scene for the past few years and I think indies currently make up 2/3rds of all my video game purchases.

I think there's a lot of truth in that Jason something tweet thread about the video game industry being unsustainable at the moment.

This would really help, IMO. Not every game needs to be a blockbuster game, and I'd prefer having more games from some of my favorite studios than one game every 4 or 5 years, especially since if a game isn't to your taste it can easily make it a much longer wait for that same studio to come out with something that is to your taste.

Nirolak · Nov 5, 2017

Hard to say. At some point, the pressure to include more and more in a game at launch meets the wall of the market changing too much during the time it took you to make a game, causing said five year in development game to bomb.

Gamer @ Heart · Nov 5, 2017

If publishers get the balls to accept pitches and fund $30-50 dollar games without the need to chase market trends, hopefully Dev cycles will shorten.

But the heads of AAA studios probably aren't looking for those types of focused experiences if they want to keep their hundreds of employees busy or think it's somehow below them to not be pushing the envelope in someway.

Mindlog · Nov 5, 2017

Activision was the foreshadowing. Whittle down to one or two franchises and "service" the shit out of them.

Deleted member 22630 · Nov 5, 2017

In a way, I expect GaaS so never ending development if acceptable ROI continues to be made.

illamap · Nov 5, 2017

Art pipeline is the same next-gen so improved graphics don't really make the development time any longer.

est1992 · Nov 5, 2017

Mindlog said:
Activision was the foreshadowing. Whittle down to one or two franchises and "service" the shit out of them.

This is where I see it headed, unfortunately. At least we got publishers like Sony who take pride in their single player experiences.

Will AAA game development become even longer next gen?

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