4 ms·

That's sort of the point being made though. If you give more leeway to developers over professional management, there's a greater probability of projects going

That's sort of the point being made though. If you give more leeway to developers over professional management, there's a greater probability of projects going over-budget or falling behind schedule (Peter Molyneaux's games have been an example of this more than once), but there's also more opportunity for some absolutely crazy amazing stuff -- e.g. Grim Fandango would never have happened if someone had to justify it with a spreadsheet. I think the answer is that you really need both types to make things work -- an Al Lowe or Roberta Williams or Tim Schafer with a tremendous amount of creative leeway that also serves as the "client" and a project manager tasked with keeping everyone on track and negotiating with the client over what can reasonably be accomplished given current deadlines / budget. Also, for what it's worth, I absolutely love Broken Age. I mean, yes, it needs a Part 2, but it's very clear that a lot of love went into the design of that game. That's not so apparent in the latest Halo or Call of Duty.

ekianjo 12y ago
> there's also more opportunity for some absolutely crazy amazing stuff -- e.g. Grim Fandango would never have happened if someone had to justify it with a spreadsheet. I'm not saying you need only project managers to make stuff happen. I'm saying you need project managers as well as creators to make sure stuff gets delivered. We have seen how many kickstarters projects led by creators only have miserably failed or under-delivered.
- skuhn 12y ago
  As a backer of many Kickstarter projects, I would much rather back a project led by a creative person than a business-oriented project manager (in other words, a producer). A lot of Kickstarter video game projects have failed to deliver on time, but they were also extremely aggressive in terms of time and money (even if they didn't say so). You cannot make a game today for $500,000 without cutting corners (such as salaries). Even the "massive" amount of money that Broken Age raised would only cover 30 people's salaries for a year. AAA games today have hundreds of people on the payroll, with development cycles of 3-5 years. I'm not mad that they were over-eager and more than a little naive. A lot of these projects were from people who hadn't made a game since 1998. Game designers like Tim Schafer (and Jane Jensen, Charles Cecil, Aaron Conners and Chris Jones, Al Lowe, Ron Gilbert, Lori and Corey Cole, Ragnar Tornquist and others) should be able to work on what they excel at: making (adventure) games. With some exceptions, they weren't able to do so for more than a decade. It would be nice if all of the games from these projects were released (and were good), but I don't feel any sense of outrage if it doesn't work out that way. Imagine if creating a painting cost $1 million, and Picasso had spent the last fifteen years of his life twiddling his thumbs instead of pursuing his art. Or better yet, look at Orson Welles's late career, where he could barely get anything produced. If only someone had just handed him a blank check, how many more Citizen Kanes could have been made (or Touches of Evil for that matter)? There's a lot of outrage when a publisher interferes with an anticipated game, by rushing it to market broken or changing the creative direction or outright canceling it. Kickstarter backers have shown themselves to not have a whole lot more patience, although at least they don't wield as much power. I presume that we've seen the end of adventure games on Kickstarter, given all the bad blood. That's too bad. Creative endeavors are notoriously difficult to budget and plan and bring in on a deadline, and even more so when it's on the cheap -- in short, shit happens.
- seba_dos1 12y ago
  No. You need project managers to reduce the risk of stuff not being delivered. To do so, most of the time you have also to reduce creative opportunities. Therefore, if you're not strict to spritesheets, you get bigger chances of stuff not being delivered, but you also get bigger chances of stuff being brilliant.
  - hnnewguy 12y ago
    >e.g. Grim Fandango would never have happened if someone had to justify it with a spreadsheet. >if you're not strict to spritesheets, you get bigger chances of stuff not being delivered, but you also get bigger chances of stuff being brilliant. This sort of thing sounds like "creative genius" wishful thinking, but is completely unsubstantiated.

ekianjo 12y ago

> there's also more opportunity for some absolutely crazy amazing stuff -- e.g. Grim Fandango would never have happened if someone had to justify it with a spreadsheet. I'm not saying you need only project managers to make stuff happen. I'm saying you need project managers as well as creators to make sure stuff gets delivered. We have seen how many kickstarters projects led by creators only have miserably failed or under-delivered.

skuhn 12y ago
As a backer of many Kickstarter projects, I would much rather back a project led by a creative person than a business-oriented project manager (in other words, a producer). A lot of Kickstarter video game projects have failed to deliver on time, but they were also extremely aggressive in terms of time and money (even if they didn't say so). You cannot make a game today for $500,000 without cutting corners (such as salaries). Even the "massive" amount of money that Broken Age raised would only cover 30 people's salaries for a year. AAA games today have hundreds of people on the payroll, with development cycles of 3-5 years. I'm not mad that they were over-eager and more than a little naive. A lot of these projects were from people who hadn't made a game since 1998. Game designers like Tim Schafer (and Jane Jensen, Charles Cecil, Aaron Conners and Chris Jones, Al Lowe, Ron Gilbert, Lori and Corey Cole, Ragnar Tornquist and others) should be able to work on what they excel at: making (adventure) games. With some exceptions, they weren't able to do so for more than a decade. It would be nice if all of the games from these projects were released (and were good), but I don't feel any sense of outrage if it doesn't work out that way. Imagine if creating a painting cost $1 million, and Picasso had spent the last fifteen years of his life twiddling his thumbs instead of pursuing his art. Or better yet, look at Orson Welles's late career, where he could barely get anything produced. If only someone had just handed him a blank check, how many more Citizen Kanes could have been made (or Touches of Evil for that matter)? There's a lot of outrage when a publisher interferes with an anticipated game, by rushing it to market broken or changing the creative direction or outright canceling it. Kickstarter backers have shown themselves to not have a whole lot more patience, although at least they don't wield as much power. I presume that we've seen the end of adventure games on Kickstarter, given all the bad blood. That's too bad. Creative endeavors are notoriously difficult to budget and plan and bring in on a deadline, and even more so when it's on the cheap -- in short, shit happens.
seba_dos1 12y ago
No. You need project managers to reduce the risk of stuff not being delivered. To do so, most of the time you have also to reduce creative opportunities. Therefore, if you're not strict to spritesheets, you get bigger chances of stuff not being delivered, but you also get bigger chances of stuff being brilliant.
- hnnewguy 12y ago
  >e.g. Grim Fandango would never have happened if someone had to justify it with a spreadsheet. >if you're not strict to spritesheets, you get bigger chances of stuff not being delivered, but you also get bigger chances of stuff being brilliant. This sort of thing sounds like "creative genius" wishful thinking, but is completely unsubstantiated.