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We released our game in 2012. Since that time we have had 17 expansion releases. You might think that by now it would be easy, or at least routine. Nothing can

We released our game in 2012. Since that time we have had 17 expansion releases. You might think that by now it would be easy, or at least routine. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Every time is a horrible ordeal. I often feel physically sick during the process. To start, I will have just completed a bunch of crunch. We try as much as possible to reduce this for the team, but for the founders and at least a few key people it’s always right up to the last minute. So we are already in a super stressful state. The second stressor is questioning if anyone will even come to play the game. It’s almost impossible to know. Next up, will players even like what you made? This is a dread that is hard to shake, and in our case we have a bunch of players all hyped up for a release and if they don’t like your new content there will be a lot of anger and disappointed people. People are brutal towards game developers in comments on the internet. And then there are technical issues. We are an online game and it feels like every release there is some major issue. When there are 150k people banging on the door and the game has a critical issue stopping them from playing, it’s very hard to describe the feeling when you are the responsible person and you have no idea what is wrong. Debugging in that scenario is like having an anxiety attack. These 4 issues together make game release seriously awful. You have the worst aspects of being an Artist, a Business Owner and Live Ops all in one nice package and right when you are low on sleep and after weeks of stress before hand. It’s a perfect storm of hell.

DivisionSol 8y ago
It might not be much from a random comment on Hacker News, but after confirming on your profile (2012... 17 content drops... Sounded familiar.) Path of Exile is an absolute treasure. GGG is one of the companies on my short-list of inspirational studios out there now. Growing off cosmetics in a F2P game is probably one of the more ethical success stories out there for those examining current industry success. Provide quality improving patches throughout the life-cycle of a major patch. Engage with fans and provide top-tier customer support. I look to what you're doing right and hope I maintain the cognizance during product development to do what you folks do to keep people happy. I'm looking forward to Delve, and I hope you know you have starry-eyed fans out there!
- existencebox 8y ago
  I've said before in similar threads about PoE, and I'll echo again here: It's a remarkable success and a high point of dev output, to me. Some expansions haven't turned out well. I haven't liked some changes. There have been some bugs. But it _blows out of the water_ pretty much ever other "always on" game I've every played in terms of dev professionalism, consistency, stability, and mechanic growth. I don't know if "you've bought yourself a good amount of emotional-leeway with this fan" helps lift any stress from the GP, but as one service-running-engineer to another, I look at PoE when I need to hold up an example of how I should be producing as a True Professional(TM).
fastball 8y ago
Can you not relieve some of these stressors with more automated testing?
- lifthrasiir 8y ago
  If you have ever done a UI testing, gameplay testing is about one or two magnitudes harder. In addition to the inherent complexity of UI testing (e.g. there are exponentially many paths possible), there are simply too many things to test with a lot of subjective criteria for tests. It is common that something feels "wrong" but there are no appropriate metrics to catch that phenomenon. Large game studios hire tons of quality testers and post-release consumer services to deal with this complexity. It is really amazing to see that human testers can catch many bugs (subjective or not) seemingly impossible to detect. For smaller teams, good luck to you all.
WilliamEdward 8y ago
Why did you have so many expansion releases? I never doubt the work it takes to be a game dev, since you're essentially doing the job of an audio engineer, graphics designer, programmer, and marketer in one project, but wouldn't you rather get your game to a stable position, release maybe one expansion, and go on with the next big project? Also if you really are the dev of PoE, keep up the great work. I've never even remotely come into contact with your game yet Ive heard so much about it. That says something.
- anewone 8y ago
  It has to do with their business model and style of game. As a F2P product they benefit most from people simply playing the game as much as possible and occasionally seeing little things like ads or other players' outfits pointing towards the store. The game is very replayable so it works well with a regular content schedule to remix the game a bit and keep people coming back each season. And I gather that you believe this is The one dev - there is a sizeable team making this game.
- redisman 8y ago
  That type of business model is becoming more and more a fantasy these days. Game-as-a-service is the most common model now. Keep making games until you get a hit and then squeeze that for reliable revenue with content updates, analytics-based changes, etc.
dijit 8y ago
I was one of the 2 major responsible people for a AAA video game that had 10million active players the first week. This person speaks the absolute truth. Every patch has your heart in your chest. The game itself on initial release is unknown if it will be hit or miss. super stressful. One misstep on day 1 and it’s front page of kotaku and players are beating down your door calling you incompetent and retarded- that’s just the ones who don’t ask for refunds. Luckily things went really smooth with my launch, and the game I launched /mostly/ met expectations- but my publisher is not well liked and people are always looking for a reason to be mad anyway. It’s exhausting, all you want is the best for the player and you do your best but there are so many variables that cannot be controlled. And any attempt at being conservative so you can control the variables is met with a "they didn't try"- it's lose-lose.
- redisman 8y ago
  It's pretty sad how emotionally taxing releasing games is. I've become extremely detached from the projects I work on which means less love put into them. It just feels necessary because I remember my early days in the games industry and reading bad comments about my games throwing my whole week into the dumpster.
renke1 8y ago
Thank you so much for Path of Exile. You are doing a great job. And to be honest, after you delivered great expansion one after another, a few bugs and downtime here and there, I can definitely forgive.
eafkuor 8y ago
> Every time is a horrible ordeal. I often feel physically sick during the process. Honest to god question. Have you considered changing domain for a while? I work in a chill software company and I wouldn't trade my free time and lack of anxiety for pretty much anything
SeanBoocock 8y ago
This definitely lines up with my experience as we ramp up to the announcement and release of our current game in a similar space. There is so much anxiety about the creative reception, if and how well the service will scale, if we can run it profitably, and any number of unknown unknowns that could make (or more likely break) the success of the game. It’s stressful to put it mildly.
Eridrus 8y ago
Why do you think games development is like this?
Grangar 8y ago
Genuine question. What keeps you going?

DivisionSol 8y ago

It might not be much from a random comment on Hacker News, but after confirming on your profile (2012... 17 content drops... Sounded familiar.) Path of Exile is an absolute treasure. GGG is one of the companies on my short-list of inspirational studios out there now. Growing off cosmetics in a F2P game is probably one of the more ethical success stories out there for those examining current industry success. Provide quality improving patches throughout the life-cycle of a major patch. Engage with fans and provide top-tier customer support. I look to what you're doing right and hope I maintain the cognizance during product development to do what you folks do to keep people happy. I'm looking forward to Delve, and I hope you know you have starry-eyed fans out there!

existencebox 8y ago
I've said before in similar threads about PoE, and I'll echo again here: It's a remarkable success and a high point of dev output, to me. Some expansions haven't turned out well. I haven't liked some changes. There have been some bugs. But it _blows out of the water_ pretty much ever other "always on" game I've every played in terms of dev professionalism, consistency, stability, and mechanic growth. I don't know if "you've bought yourself a good amount of emotional-leeway with this fan" helps lift any stress from the GP, but as one service-running-engineer to another, I look at PoE when I need to hold up an example of how I should be producing as a True Professional(TM).

fastball 8y ago

Can you not relieve some of these stressors with more automated testing?

lifthrasiir 8y ago
If you have ever done a UI testing, gameplay testing is about one or two magnitudes harder. In addition to the inherent complexity of UI testing (e.g. there are exponentially many paths possible), there are simply too many things to test with a lot of subjective criteria for tests. It is common that something feels "wrong" but there are no appropriate metrics to catch that phenomenon. Large game studios hire tons of quality testers and post-release consumer services to deal with this complexity. It is really amazing to see that human testers can catch many bugs (subjective or not) seemingly impossible to detect. For smaller teams, good luck to you all.

WilliamEdward 8y ago

Why did you have so many expansion releases? I never doubt the work it takes to be a game dev, since you're essentially doing the job of an audio engineer, graphics designer, programmer, and marketer in one project, but wouldn't you rather get your game to a stable position, release maybe one expansion, and go on with the next big project? Also if you really are the dev of PoE, keep up the great work. I've never even remotely come into contact with your game yet Ive heard so much about it. That says something.

anewone 8y ago
It has to do with their business model and style of game. As a F2P product they benefit most from people simply playing the game as much as possible and occasionally seeing little things like ads or other players' outfits pointing towards the store. The game is very replayable so it works well with a regular content schedule to remix the game a bit and keep people coming back each season. And I gather that you believe this is The one dev - there is a sizeable team making this game.
redisman 8y ago
That type of business model is becoming more and more a fantasy these days. Game-as-a-service is the most common model now. Keep making games until you get a hit and then squeeze that for reliable revenue with content updates, analytics-based changes, etc.

dijit 8y ago

I was one of the 2 major responsible people for a AAA video game that had 10million active players the first week. This person speaks the absolute truth. Every patch has your heart in your chest. The game itself on initial release is unknown if it will be hit or miss. super stressful. One misstep on day 1 and it’s front page of kotaku and players are beating down your door calling you incompetent and retarded- that’s just the ones who don’t ask for refunds. Luckily things went really smooth with my launch, and the game I launched /mostly/ met expectations- but my publisher is not well liked and people are always looking for a reason to be mad anyway. It’s exhausting, all you want is the best for the player and you do your best but there are so many variables that cannot be controlled. And any attempt at being conservative so you can control the variables is met with a "they didn't try"- it's lose-lose.

redisman 8y ago
It's pretty sad how emotionally taxing releasing games is. I've become extremely detached from the projects I work on which means less love put into them. It just feels necessary because I remember my early days in the games industry and reading bad comments about my games throwing my whole week into the dumpster.

renke1 8y ago

Thank you so much for Path of Exile. You are doing a great job. And to be honest, after you delivered great expansion one after another, a few bugs and downtime here and there, I can definitely forgive.

eafkuor 8y ago

> Every time is a horrible ordeal. I often feel physically sick during the process. Honest to god question. Have you considered changing domain for a while? I work in a chill software company and I wouldn't trade my free time and lack of anxiety for pretty much anything

SeanBoocock 8y ago

This definitely lines up with my experience as we ramp up to the announcement and release of our current game in a similar space. There is so much anxiety about the creative reception, if and how well the service will scale, if we can run it profitably, and any number of unknown unknowns that could make (or more likely break) the success of the game. It’s stressful to put it mildly.

Eridrus 8y ago

Why do you think games development is like this?

Grangar 8y ago

Genuine question. What keeps you going?