The biggest waste of money I’ve seen in video game development, across many years and studios (not my current one - one of the reasons I wanted to work there), wasn’t on graphics. It was abruptly being told to throw out months or years of work bc one executive decided they didn’t like something.
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If someone with influence (GD/CD, Publisher, Exec) is good at their job, they don't do that. But if they suck...
I remember a CD who made EVERY decision by playing GTA and copying what they did.
But the team wasn't making a GTA game...
SUCH!!
CASES!!
Instead of a 5-yr dev cycle, you get these fractured mini cycles. So not only is it a long wait, it’s a sloppy result!
I worked on a project where the art director told the creative director what we were going to do.
He’d just read an Atlantic article about how that genre was overdone. In movies.
🫠
“Owl-portunities” is fantastic, well done.
I can support this one.
(Time crunch is a bummer though)
*citation needed
And for what, you always end up with a blander, less interesting product after 5 people strip down anything cool and good about it 😂
The other problem is treating production like pre-production and making changes-
No commitment to the OG vision or never coming up with one in the first place.
But that’s way different than someone outside the team demanding changes to match their own tastes
Pivoting is long, hard on team morale, and so costly!
And of course, the release schedule doesn't often change to accommodate it.
The product generated over >$1B in revenue -
The exec was hilariously out of touch and really didn't understand who actually played our game.
They face no losses cause they are shielded from consequences.
Validate before you bloviate.
Team:
I feel this. So much.
And there it stays, until it becomes a priority again, for the same reason it was a priority in the first place.
Now add a few months to get back up to speed.
Executives NEED to see their fingerprint somewhere in the final product to justify their existence, both to their bosses, and to themselves.
Spyro Enter the Dragonfly was going to have many more worlds and cool things in store, but the devs were asked to change things over and over again, told to remove things, and in the end the game suffered horribly. It's remembered as a flop but it's all thanks to the ppl at the head.
The skateboard minigames in Spyro and the whole Jak 2 gameplay feel like they were following the impact of games like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and GTA.
some new hit game just launched and you can expect the leadership to show up on your door in 1~3 business days asking you to change something ̷e̷v̷e̷r̷y̷t̷h̷i̷n̷g̷ to copy them
They’ve ignored your game for months of blissful production, then suddenly have DEMANDS
Coulda gone to bonuses you goobers
Heck, the budget overruns due to this practice can be directly traced to many studio closures.
While fans wondered what could have been, the finished version was great.
So take what you will from that.
As far as I know, every specific person who jumps to mind is still employed as an exec somewhere
They fly over ever now and then, shit on everything and fly away only to return when there's more work to belittle.
Slashed. It’s one of the biggest contributors to burnout I’ve observed in my friends (and myself)
Meeting comes and out of their mouth rolls "What's this meeting for?"
“This villain seems too villainous”
“I don’t like flashbacks”
“I don’t like flash forwards”
“This gameplay thing is hard; cut it”
Months! Years! Dead!
Also see: “are there any white people in this game??” when half the cast is white and half isn’t
me, a queer: what
[turning a big dial, looking at the audience, etc.]
Same cause, different result
Weeeee!
We used it for a week before they decided it was too complex for the front-line teams. 🤷♂️
It was born because the CEO thought we could find more students to bill and disappeared the moment they didn't like it.
The talent and means to make excellent tools and solutions are there—between you and them stands dragons in ties. 🐉
That’s different than one c-suite goober swooping in w/ something like, “Rewrite act 1 bc I played it on my commute + I can’t remember any of it*”
The pan has to fit in the oven if you want to serve a good one.
Traffic cooking is a new one though 😀
IN LA!!!!
We had to quick scramble to record new VO and reanimate events and IGCS across all 11 levels. Entire levels had to reworked. Worst month of crunch I ever lived through - 100 hr weeks.
This was back in the days When PlayStation had their stage 1/2 design approval process. Between the two submissions, we had decided against a more humorous tone, but PS called that out.
Instead of pushing back or explaining, he decided just to rewrite it.
I believe in this critical path to value engineering.
🍿👀