Say you want to make a video game. You've got this killer idea—it's about a mustachioed plumber who has to rescue his princess girlfriend from a giant fire-breathing turtle—and you've convinced an investor to give you a few million dollars to make it happen. Now what?
Well, first you need to figure out the exact number of people you can afford to hire. Then you need to call up some artists, some designers, some programmers. You'll need a producer to keep things running smoothly, and a sound department to make sure the game has, you know, sounds. Can't forget to hire some quality-assurance testers to check for bugs. And a marketing savant—how else will everyone know about your future best seller? Once you're all staffed up, you'll need to make a strict schedule that determines how much time your team will spend on each part of the game. If all goes well, you'll develop a demo for E3 in six months, then be ”feature complete" by the end of the year.
After a few months, things seem to be going well. Your artists are drawing all sorts of cool enemies for your plumber to fight: ghosts, mushrooms, that sort of thing. The designers have sketched out some clever levels that will guide the player through raging volcanoes and fetid swamps. The programmers just figured out a fancy rendering trick that will make the dungeons look more realistic than anything you've seen before. Everyone is motivated, the game is making progress, and you're handing out stock options like they're free newspapers in the subway.
One morning, you get a call from your producer. Turns out that rendering trick is useless, because it knocks your game's frame rate down to ten frames per second. The playtesters keep getting stuck on the volcano level, and your marketing guy is grumbling about how that might affect your Metacritic score. Your art director insists on micromanaging the animators, which is driving them crazy. Your E3 demo is due in two weeks, and you know there's no way you can get it done in less than four. And suddenly the investors are asking if maybe you can slash that $10 million budget down to $8 million, even if you have to let go of a few people to make it happen.
A week ago, you were fantasizing about the speech you'd make at The Game Awards after taking home Game of the Year. Now you're wondering if you'll ever even finish.
