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> in the game industry there is no guaranteed reward at the end of the development cycle The same is true for any product industry. There are things you can do
by dkersten 9y ago
> in the game industry there is no guaranteed reward at the end of the development cycle
The same is true for any product industry. There are things you can do (customer development, short iterations that involve your potential customers, etc) to increase the chances, but if you're not doing work for clients directly, then there is no guarantee.
Note that the "doing work for clients directly" exists in game development too, there are many freelance or services companies that do work for other companies, and from what I hear about the game industry, these have much more guaranteed pay, just like outside of games. Its the "build the product, when its done, hope someone buys it" type of work that has no guarantees, but that is in no way unique to game development.
The difference is, most other industries don't have such crazy crunch times...
- hacker_9 9y agoYeah I agree, the problem applies to most of the entertainment industry. As a result more investment is put into sequels of successful games, artists, TV shows, movies, books etc. Edit: as for crunch times, I expect this is to do with the interactive element of gaming. There is whole lot more work involved when the client has the ability to break your product.
- 0xcde4c3db 9y agoMy understanding is that crunch time (as well as the release of flagrantly buggy games with patches coming later) is driven primarily by marketing schedules/budgets. Ad buys, press releases, interviews etc. are negotiated and coordinated months in advance, and big releases from any given publisher need to be staggered largely so that they don't all demand marketing money at the same time.
- cma 9y agoPublishers give advances, have milestones, etc. It is uncertain whether a game will make money out in the market, but part of a publisher's role is supposed to be to have a portfolio and be able to spread that risk, funding some of the development of both the losers and the winners.
- Retric 9y agoGames don't have inherently have crazy crunch times, they are simply going to fire a lot of people so they don't care about burning them out. It's completely rational behavior that has nothing to do with games, just look at MMO's for a more reasonable development process.
- dkersten 9y agoOf course there’s nothing inherent about it, but it does seem that many games companies do follow some rather predatory practices.