COVID And Working From Home Made Starfield Development "Very, Very Slow," Todd Howard Says

nanoUFO@sh.itjust.worksmod to Games@sh.itjust.works – 88 points –
COVID And Working From Home Made Starfield Development "Very, Very Slow," Todd Howard Says
gamespot.com
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People for once not being overworked has made it clear that the scope of modern AAA video games is unsustainable.

Yep. Not every game needs to be a huge open world (or in this case galaxy.) Give me tight well written games that are complete on launch, that's all I'm asking for.

Titanfall 2's campaign is one of the best examples of this. Not very long, but high quality and ridiculously fun

I got this on sale, because I liked the original games premise but didn't want to buy a MP-only game. I've yet to play it though. XD I hope it lives up to expecations.

Yeah a really great game for really cheap.

I haven’t tried the multiplayer but I loved the story.

We really went from

2D platformer saturated To 3D platformer saturated To FPS saturated To Sandbox Saturated To 50+ hour $70 incomplete open world saturated

scope of modern AAA video games is unsustainable

Helpful hint, it's not just video game programming. Those hijacked gas pipelines in the US, unsecured SCADA systems weren't because every sysadmin was falling asleep, it's because nobody pulling the trigger wanted to listen to the sysadmins screaming that blindly deploying shit without audits, was a bad idea.

In pretty much every single technological failure, there's usually a common thread. Someone did (or forgot to do something) in the name of profit.

Sysadmin - can confirm.

Have a VP wanting to ram a newly acquired Europe entity through a migration and I am just yelling in every meeting about regulations. No one gives a shit so I’m just making them sign everything they say. CYA in full deployment.

On the acquired side, currently going through integration. We had a looking date to cutover a major portion of our systems and it was absolutely only a fail forward situation if it went south. Surprisingly, they recognized and listened to us saying it wasn’t ready and needed more time…got us six more months but definitely a rare moment from my experience in IT. Hopefully a sign that the new company knows what they are doing.

I can side with what you're saying, but I don't understand how forgetting something in the name of profit in other industries has anything to do with the pace of game development.

It fails downwards. And I know that doesn’t make sense but when you push something through as fast as possible everything below it falters.

QA is garbage, QC is garbage, development becomes garbage because of those fast timelines because something has to be cut. You can’t do everything you need to do with shorter timelines - and that’s where it becomes “in the name of profit”.

You're describing the state of application/game development, yes.

But again, what was that rant involving other industries about?

Just that it’s fairly similar across other industries. It’s a pretty common thread in most industries when people try to force things through without planning properly.

Also I wasn’t ranting about other industries, just making a note that it occurs everywhere. Profit for profit sake has made a lot of industries worse, including the gaming industry.

Edit: do you think QA/QC and development work only occurs in the gaming industry?

Many modern AAA games has become glorified toilet paper rolls. They tried to keep manufacture then in hopes to milk everything possible, then when you are at the end of roll they hype and sell you a new one. Make them feel like you absolutely have to play the next installment to get a closure or something new branching out.(prequel/sequel/reboot/timelines/etc.)

It was unsustainable at the pace and amount pre-covid, unhealthy for hardcore gamers as well. We have to actively not buying and playing new games cause I can play certain amount per day/week.

With covid and post covid, I actually finished more games compare to before. Well, the extra 2 hours not needed to commute I can do whatever I wanted.