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Or, it's trying to create OS/360 with a team helmed by a designer. A game with 10x the level of interactivity does not take 10x as long to create. It takes 10^

by ethbr0 4y ago

Or, it's trying to create OS/360 with a team helmed by a designer. A game with 10x the level of interactivity does not take 10x as long to create. It takes 10^10. Star Citizen is the exact opposite of every lesson we've learned about successful project management and software development in the last 75 years.

iancmceachern 4y ago
Very true. This is what makes games like Red Dead Redemption II so amazing. In the end making a game is like any other complex engineering project. The hard part isn't conceiving of something awesome worth doing, concepting a world, the dreaming part. The hard part is wrapping your collective head around the magnitude of work required, managing and putting limits on that, and successfully dividing up and doling out the work so that it's done in close to the promised time frame. There is a famous saying I'm forgetting, something about anyone can work on something forever, successful teams ship product.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  There's an argument to be made that Rockstar North (formerly DMA Design) has been iterating on the same game since ~1995, and releasing as they hit milestones and polish they were comfortable with. Which seems like an incredibly reasonable way to approach doing something complicated...
  - iancmceachern 4y ago
    Kind of. it's really more that they have refined a game engine over that time, and used that to make better and better individual games. In that sense it's more of a platform thing. They have been working on a platform that has allowed them to leverage and share work across individual games.
unity1001 4y ago
Youre right in all of those. Except, we don't want the product of another successful project management and software development. We want to move forward. Current games also take 10^10 as long to create compared to the games of 1970s. The effort was put into making these games. They materialized. The next generation of games wont materialize without someone putting in the effort and the money.

by ethbr0 4y ago

iancmceachern 4y ago

Very true. This is what makes games like Red Dead Redemption II so amazing. In the end making a game is like any other complex engineering project. The hard part isn't conceiving of something awesome worth doing, concepting a world, the dreaming part. The hard part is wrapping your collective head around the magnitude of work required, managing and putting limits on that, and successfully dividing up and doling out the work so that it's done in close to the promised time frame. There is a famous saying I'm forgetting, something about anyone can work on something forever, successful teams ship product.

ethbr0 4y ago
There's an argument to be made that Rockstar North (formerly DMA Design) has been iterating on the same game since ~1995, and releasing as they hit milestones and polish they were comfortable with. Which seems like an incredibly reasonable way to approach doing something complicated...
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  Kind of. it's really more that they have refined a game engine over that time, and used that to make better and better individual games. In that sense it's more of a platform thing. They have been working on a platform that has allowed them to leverage and share work across individual games.

unity1001 4y ago

Youre right in all of those. Except, we don't want the product of another successful project management and software development. We want to move forward. Current games also take 10^10 as long to create compared to the games of 1970s. The effort was put into making these games. They materialized. The next generation of games wont materialize without someone putting in the effort and the money.