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[More_Badass]

I disagree about your last statement. I don't think it's the fault of consumers or gaming audiences, but the industry's irrational secrecy and marketings cultivation of game development as so awesome and amazing that creates amazing products you need to buy day one. ->

Perhaps, but the more overall aspects of game design such as level design, motion capture, etc. (rather than stuff specific to individual games and individual issues) aren't hidden behind some wall, just like film making aspects as cinematography and stuntwork and VFX.

 

[Lime]

NDAs may mean we can't get into specifics or use particular examples of why something went well or went off the rails, but it's still easy to go over generalized descriptions of processes, pipelines, etc. A lot of this stuff is published in game development books or even general books on software project management or software development.

The general consumer and enthusiast isn't going to actively look into game development books or project management, they'll look at what the mainstream gaming media reports on, which in turn is determined by what the industry chooses to reveal, along with being exposed to Behind the Scenes features that tell the consumer and enthusiast how amazing the AAA game's animations are going to be and how amazing the power of the Next Game Machine That You Must Buy allows you to execute animations even more realistic than ever before.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Big ship
Small ship

Big ship
Good: more assurance you'll get to your destination safely, more resources on board, easier to deal with varying weather conditions.
Bad: bigger investment needed, less involved staff as people can afford to slack by relying on others, much costlier to change course along the way.

Small ship
The opposite of the big ship.

Being able to change course along the way is KEY to make a great game, unless you're just doing a straight sequel to something that's already great. Big studios are big ships, and those that haven't figured out how to be able to reduce the impact of changing course along the way will ship bad games unless they make copies of successful games.

 

[Lime]

Kickstarter (in particular, Broken Age and the accompanying Double Fine Adventure documentary series) has proven without a shadow of a doubt that this post is totally incorrect and that More Badass' assertion that the gaming audience is not interested in how the sausage is made.

While true that so many people are delusional in regards to especially Double Fine and their documentary, I don't attribute that to people being unwilling to understand, but instead to having preconstructed misconceptions about game development and perhaps an irrational dislike of Double Fine for some reason.

I think we can partly blame consumers to being unwilling to acquire new knowledge on how game development works, but at the same time we have to acknowledge the impact that games industry secrecy and marketing rhetorics have on the perception of games development. We simply cannot discount this impact.

 

[More_Badass]

I must say, I'm probably in the minority of loving to read and listen about game design and development - reading on Gamasutra, browsing devlogs on TIGForum, and regularly checking out Screenshot Saturday - so my opinions on game design interest might be skewed

I do wish podcasts and YouTube channels that discuss game design were more popular; there are some great resources that are made in a way to be easily understood such as Game Maker's Toolkit and Designer Notes

 

[Krejlooc]

I think we can partly blame consumers to being unwilling to acquire new knowledge on how game development works, but at the same time we have to acknowledge the impact that games industry secrecy and marketing rhetorics have on the perception of games development. We simply cannot discount this impact.

I think what most people call "secretive" actually isn't. It's just not really possible to explain in a way that most people would understand. It seems secretive because people aren't willing to dumb it down to the layman, but it's not really secretive.

The other things that are secretive? If they won't trade secrets that were protected, their development would be stunted. Why invest into R&D if you can just take it from someone else who is sharing their trade secrets left and right?

 

[mieumieu]

I would argue that game development is incredibly technical and a lot of issues cannot be explained in laymans terms. Even if someone is interested they may not have the necessary prerequisite knowledge to understand.

combine that with the NDA you get the recipe for disaster.

The effect is twofold. Some devs cannot explain by themselves why something has to be like the way it is without breaking NDA. Others make up bullshit excuses and get a pass.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

The general consumer and enthusiast isn't going to actively look into game development books or project management, they'll look at what the mainstream gaming media reports on

And my original point is that we've seen these sorts of articles from those types of publications several times over the past 2 decades, often going over the same kind of information, and each time you see the sort of reaction I described earlier.

I mean, an article on general game development and various positions and their responsibilities in Next Gen magazine in the late 90s is what got me seriously interested in production and project management as a career (a lot of which is still applicable and relevant even today). You may argue that NextGen isn't as mainstream publication compared to EGM or PC Gamer (which still ran those same sorts of articles at varioua points), but it was still a magazine you can pick up in the magazine aisle of a grocery store as opposed to an industry publication like Game Developer.

I must say, I'm probably in the minority of loving to read and listen about game design and development - reading on Gamasutra, browsing devlogs on TIGForum, and regularly checking out Screenshot Saturday - so my opinions on game design interest might be skewed

I do wish podcasts and YouTube channels that discuss game design were more popular; there are some great resources that are made in a way to be easily understood such as Game Maker's Toolkit and Designer Notes

I think there's definitely an audience for it. Look at stuff like Extra Credits and how popular those are. Most of these sorts of shows though are about facets of game design than development process though.

 

[Krejlooc]

And my original point is that we've seen these sorts of articles from those types of publications several times over the past 2 decades, often going over the same kind of information, and each time you see the sort of reaction I described earlier.

I mean, an article on general game development and various positions and their responsibilities in Next Gen magazine in the late 90s is what got me seriously interested in production and project management as a career (a lot of which is still applicable and relevant even today). You may argue that NextGen isn't as mainstream publication compared to EGM or PC Gamer (which still ran those same sorts of articles at varioua points), but it was still a magazine you can pick up in the magazine aisle of a grocery store as opposed to an industry publication like Game Developer.

Even the big mainstream publications ran those types of articles. I remember reading an article on Treehouse from when DKC was released in GamePRO of all magazines that revealed quite a bit of what game development was like.

I would say that these articles can also cause the Dunning-Kruger effect, though, because they gloss over so much. Which can actually prevent people from seeking out further information.

 

[george_us]

In that case it sounds like it would be in the best interest for both devs and consumers if games weren't released in a state where they need big ass patches on release. SE claim they delayed FFXV to put more work into it, and prevent the need of a patch day one, why can't other devs do that too?

Most likely because the people who hold the purse strings want the game out ASAP.

 

[jschreier]

The general consumer and enthusiast isn't going to actively look into game development books or project management, they'll look at what the mainstream gaming media reports on, which in turn is determined by what the industry chooses to reveal, along with being exposed to Behind the Scenes features that tell the consumer and enthusiast how amazing the AAA game's animations are going to be and how amazing the power of the Next Game Machine That You Must Buy allows you to execute animations even more realistic than ever before.

IDK, I think general consumers/enthusiasts might just buy a book about game development, if it's done well. But I'm a little biased.

 

[Catman]

I'm afraid to say what's on my mind since I'm still just a junior, because I don't want to come off as offensive, or be dismissive of this by any means.

To try and keep it short, I just don't like reading stuff like this because I feel like gamers get the most guilt trip than any consumer when it comes to how we should appreciate the people who make them. I get it, they work hard, the shitty hours are fucking ridiculous, especially during crunch time...but what am I supposed to do about it as the consumer? Buy their games or else feel guilty that their work was for nothing?

Please don't hate me for saying this, I just think it's a valid point though so I had to express it.

 

[mieumieu]

I'm afraid to say what's on my mind since I'm still just a junior, because I don't want to come off as offensive, or be dismissive of this by any means.

To try and keep it short, I just don't like reading stuff like this because I feel like gamers get the most guilt trip than any consumer when it comes to how we should appreciate the people who make them. I get it, they work hard, the shitty hours are fucking ridiculous, especially during crunch time...but what am I supposed to do about it as the consumer? Buy their games or else feel guilty that their work was for nothing?

Please don't hate me for saying this, I just think it's a valid point though so I had to express it.

Make informed statements.
Learn from mistakes and criticism.
Do not jump to conclusions.

It applies to devs too it seems

 

[Krejlooc]

I'm afraid to say what's on my mind since I'm still just a junior, because I don't want to come off as offensive, or be dismissive of this by any means.

To try and keep it short, I just don't like reading stuff like this because I feel like gamers get the most guilt trip than any consumer when it comes to how we should appreciate the people who make them. I get it, they work hard, the shitty hours are fucking ridiculous, especially during crunch time...but what am I supposed to do about it as the consumer? Buy their games or else feel guilty that their work was for nothing?

Please don't hate me for saying this, I just think it's a valid point though so I had to express it.

You don't have to care about it. It's merely a refute against a lot of common, dumb, misinformed comments about game development. The so-called "Lazy devs" argument. If you're not out there talking about game development like you know how it's done, then this article isn't really aimed at you.

And gamer's don't get this more than other industries. That's a Familiarity heuristic. This same stuff goes on in music, film, tv, and really any STEM field. When you have an industry built on heavy technical and artistic skill, and you're feeding a mass audience, this type of discourse is natural.

you see it a ton in politics, too. I'm watching it go on right now lol.

 

[III-V]

Another great article, more specific to game design, is The Door Problem. If you've never read it, I highly recommend it.

http://www.lizengland.com/blog/2014/04/the-door-problem/

I had a laugh out of that. A true can of worms.

 

[Purple Cheeto]

Literally, none of the games I've worked on feel like real games to me, because I spend almost all of my time dealing with bits & pieces and only a tiny amount of time working with something that resembles a finished game.

I've done multiplayer on games where I had no idea what the single player experience was like.

Working at smaller studios I get a bit more grumpy when people on my team go long periods without playing parts of the game. But that's a different thing.

 

[LQX]

Great write-up. I still don't think though that just because making a video game is hard we should excuse some of the shit that gets released. Whenever there is an article or podcast discussion on just how much work it takes to make game there always seems to be a subliminal undertone telling us we should not judge a bad gametoo harshly as the developers surely did not intend to make a bad game.

And this might sound odd but I would love to see an in-dept article that deals with the texture and photography work that goes into games. Hundreds if not thousands of pictures are taken for a lot games yet we almost never see that aspect of video game design. Remember a few years ago seeing the photos taken for Max Payne and Half Life 2 and was so in awe.

Also, the "Waypoint" name just does not work. Sounds like generic name of some game. Vice Gaming would have worked much better.

 

[hodayathink]

Great write-up. I still don't think though that just because making a video game is hard we should excuse some of the shit that gets released. Whenever there is an article or podcast discussion on just how much work it takes to make game there always seems to be a subliminal undertone telling us we should not judge a bad gametoo harshly as the developers surely did not intend to make a bad game.

I would argue that its more that you should realize that you don't know the reason for it being a "bad game". Basically to stop trotting out the "lazy devs" argument. It could be a shitty publisher, it could be bad management, it could be running out of funding before you're able to put the finishing touches on the game.

 

[Lunar15]

Good write up, although I expected something a little harder hitting and more personal, in terms of anecdotes from developers.

 

[DJ Lushious]

Seriously, many have no idea how much work dealing with investors is. I will go as far as to say that, in many instances, investors are the reason games ship in poor states.

I used to work for a ludicrously famous (in those circles) and unyieldingly rich fund management firm. I'd never had the displeasure of working with these types before and, even having a weighty business education that prepped me for this environment, it was too much. There was a pretty clear distinction with how those with old money treated me versus those with new. I couldn't even begin to imagine what it would be like shackled to those types for a 2-3 year project development cycle.

 

[DKo5]

Every time I've been through a game cycle, as we're shipping I'm always amazed that it all worked. I have an incredibly good grasp on every bit of work that went into the game, but in the end its still straight up magic to me. Strenuous, painful, exhilarating, lengthy, sacrificial, hilarious, and absolutely mindblowing magic.

 

[More_Badass]

Every time I've been through a game cycle, as we're shipping I'm always amazed that it all worked. I have an incredibly good grasp on every bit of work that went into the game, but in the end its still straight up magic to me. Strenuous, painful, exhilarating, lengthy, sacrificial, hilarious, and absolutely mindblowing magic.

As someone not in game dev, it's always fascinating to follow indie game devlogs and see how game goes from a basic concept prototype to a finished final release.

To use my go-to example, watching the Rain World devs turning boxes and circles into slickly animated creatures

I tried to learn Game Maker once and it just made me appreciate what developers do even more.

 

[notacat]

Great article, thanks for the link.

I wish there were more "making of" videos showing game development from the beginning and the headaches they encountered along the way.

Sounds like a frustrating job, with a potentially infuriated playerbase for just the tiniest mistakes.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Every time I've been through a game cycle, as we're shipping I'm always amazed that it all worked. I have an incredibly good grasp on every bit of work that went into the game, but in the end its still straight up magic to me. Strenuous, painful, exhilarating, lengthy, sacrificial, hilarious, and absolutely mindblowing magic.

The final QA push for a large multiplatform release often felt miraculous. Especially if there was multiplayer involved.

 

[Krejlooc]

I used to work for a ludicrously famous (in those circles) and unyieldingly rich fund management firm. I'd never had the displeasure of working with these types before and, even having a weighty business education that prepped me for this environment, it was too much. There was a pretty clear distinction with how those with old money treated me versus those with new. I couldn't even begin to imagine what it would be like shackled to those types for a 2-3 year project development cycle.

It's way, way worse with venture capitalists because their entire goal for getting into funding is to get out as quick as possible after making money. So your success is sort of tied to your failure - the faster and harder you succeed and value the company, the faster they are looking to bolt.

It's really hard to work with investors when they really don't believe in you, or the product. Granted, the investors I am speaking about came from a particularly ruthless background outside of gaming, which made it even worse.

 

[Cabbagehead]

Funny how this thread is only 2 pages long...

 

[balohna]

Well done article, really accurate from my experience.


I'm a level designer that just spent over a year on what amounted to about an hour of a shooter's campaign.

My main time sinks:

Iterating on combat. Subtle adjustments to spaces and enemy behaviour (and wave composition) to make encounters fun. There was also plenty of overhauling and removing encounters. Mostly based on feedback, so lots and lots of iteration. There are also game mechanics and enemies that come in late, so your roughly blocked in version of something may need to be changed completely once you get closer to the end of development.

Cleaning up after artists. I don't mean this in any disparaging way, but when art goes into a level it can mess with things like collision, memory usage, AI behaviour and the way things are scripted. It can also inspire you (or your boss) to change something about the level when you see the art. Like maybe a balcony gets added by an artist, and you decide it's a cool spot for snipers. Now the whole encounter changes.

Memory usage. Splitting assets up into sublevels that stream in and out, reducing types of enemies loaded, etc. Especially on consoles.

Fixing bugs.

Helping every department that puts things into levels. VFX, animation (in-engine cutscenes) and audio are the big ones. Especially since nobody knows the level as well as the designer, so you're probably the best person to implement things without introducing bugs.


And all of this stuff takes time. You might spend a week just cleaning up collision on a level, or a day tweaking an encounter to feel just right... then get told by your lead that it's too similar to something in another level and needs something to make it unique.

I actually love the whole process, but the reality of game development is that lots of people that love playing games would hate making them. As a designer anyway, you need to be as good at knowing when to kill an idea as you are at coming up with it in the first place.

 

[piratepwnsninja]

Every time I've been through a game cycle, as we're shipping I'm always amazed that it all worked. I have an incredibly good grasp on every bit of work that went into the game, but in the end its still straight up magic to me. Strenuous, painful, exhilarating, lengthy, sacrificial, hilarious, and absolutely mindblowing magic.

Right? Every time, "I just don't know how this is going to work together." then a few weeks later, "Wow, this all works." It's crazy.

 

[whitehawk]

Interesting article. I've been saying for years that it would be great if someone could miraculously come up with an easier method to create video games, but that is probably being unrealistic since it seems like no one came up with a solution yet after all of these years. I did a little programming a long time ago for a project and it was definitely extremely challenging for me, so I cannot imagine how difficult it would be working on a $20-$100 million dollar project with seemingly endless lines of code and other things for a complicated. lengthy game.

Well, newer and newer engines ARE making things easier, but expectations for games are also growing at a high rate diminishing some of those advancements.

I mean, we're at the point that a single person or super small team can make games who's presentation far exceeds any SNES/N64, or even PS2 game.

 

[Feep]

If you want to know what being a software engineer is like, watch silicon valley. That show is really accurate.

Uh...

>.>

Maybe a software engineer/CEO startup looking for investors, in a ridiculous sort of way. Regular old software engineer? Nah.

 

[Krejlooc]

Uh...

>.>

Maybe a software engineer/CEO startup looking for investors, in a ridiculous sort of way. Regular old software engineer? Nah.

This is precisely what I mean, of course. Since the entire backbone of the show is about CEO in-fighting and investment.

 

[menacin]

very good article with a lot of good information. this is great.

it pretty much sums up everything.

 

[Blam]

Good article most of this stuff I had already known. But it's good for others that didn't know this was how the industry worked.

 

[Quonny]

Maybe if they weren't so lazy it would be easier.

I love these kinds of articles, I hope Waypoint keeps it up. I remember Polygon.

 

[AlphaTwo00]

Fantastic article. Even though I'm. It in games anymore, all of it still feels true. The other analogy I see often is "building a plane while you're already up in the air and trying to land".

I must say, I'm probably in the minority of loving to read and listen about game design and development - reading on Gamasutra, browsing devlogs on TIGForum, and regularly checking out Screenshot Saturday - so my opinions on game design interest might be skewed

I do wish podcasts and YouTube channels that discuss game design were more popular; there are some great resources that are made in a way to be easily understood such as Game Maker's Toolkit and Designer Notes

It doesn't happen much because designers in most companies would probably be NDA'd to hell to be on such a medium. Myself and two other designers (who are still in the industry) ran a podcast for 2 years on a more designed focused theme. 1, there was a lot of red tape on what you can talk about, who you can talk to, and everyone had to be careful not to trample on something they can't talk about; 2, since design is such a big juggling task, any drill down on design principles are astricked by numerous assumptions, restrictions, or limitations that may exist but are handwaved - which makes for a challenging podcast to record because it was just too dry to listen to talking about designing around limitations that are implied or created.

 

[cheesekao]

I struggle enough already coding in Matlab. I can only imagine what kind of insane stuff video game coders do.

 

[chrominance]

I'm afraid to say what's on my mind since I'm still just a junior, because I don't want to come off as offensive, or be dismissive of this by any means.

To try and keep it short, I just don't like reading stuff like this because I feel like gamers get the most guilt trip than any consumer when it comes to how we should appreciate the people who make them. I get it, they work hard, the shitty hours are fucking ridiculous, especially during crunch time...but what am I supposed to do about it as the consumer? Buy their games or else feel guilty that their work was for nothing?

Please don't hate me for saying this, I just think it's a valid point though so I had to express it.

I'll try to be as charitable as I can with this response. The newspaper industry (remember newspapers?) has a saying (or variations thereof) that kind of addresses this: yesterday's news is tomorrow's fish and chips wrapper. Journalism, especially the kind of long-form journalism that you see less and less in papers nowadays but are still afforded a place of pride, takes a lot of work and resources to put together. Most of the people involved hope to change the world for the better by shining a light on injustice and documenting the ways of the world. And for all that, 99% of the time, your story gets tossed out with the trash or used as birdcage liner the next day.

The saying doesn't exist to guilt-trip the little old lady using her Sunday paper as a birdcage liner, because it's futile to do so--she's never going to cry over the poor journalist putting in those long hours to get that hot scoop--and besides, that's just how things work. The saying exists to keep journalists humble, to never forget that you're only as good as your last story and chances are half your audience has already forgotten what that story was.

It's always good to recognize just how much work goes into a game. But I don't think article's like these are ever intended to make you feel guilt. You're free to dislike and criticize games all you want, as long as you're informed in your criticism. (I mean, you're free to dislike and criticize games even if you're not, but you catch my meaning.)

 

[petran79]

Well, newer and newer engines ARE making things easier, but expectations for games are also growing at a high rate diminishing some of those advancements.

I mean, we're at the point that a single person or super small team can make games who's presentation far exceeds any SNES/N64, or even PS2 game.

Presentation maybe, but for everything else having a larger team does make a difference, just like in those days. There was a place for smaller teams then too,mainly on computers. Shareware and homebrew games on magazines were common.

 

[Krejlooc]

Presentation maybe, but for everything else having a larger team does make a different, just like in those days. There was a place for smaller teams then too,mainly on computers. Shareware and homebrew games on magazines were common.

A "big" dev team in 1992 was like 25 people. What took AM2, which was filled with the top engineers in the industry, 6 years to accomplish, a single person can do now in a few clicks in UE4. And I'm not talking about presentation, I'm talking about underlaying mechanisms.

Modern game development suits really do make things easier. It's just that the scale of games increased along side the engine.

 

[reptilescorpio]

I feel like a lot of this is standard game development information that has been relayed to some degree over the past 15 years in various mediums, including at various points in time on GAF itself from devs and ex-devs.

I am continually surprised to see people unfamiliar with a lot of this stuff on what are supposedly enthusiast forums. Hell, I remember LucasArts describing their equivalent to grey boxing with their SCUMM adventure titles in a newsletter they put out in the early 90s.

The fact that a lot of this is considered new or unknown information is a big source of frustration to many of us who try to discuss these topics here, and is often why a lot of developers are primarily lurkers.

I agree 100% with this, thanks for putting it so eloquently.

 

[SMD]

Great article, would love to see comparisons to companies like Nintendo.

 

[vivekTO]

Yup

Could you provide the link for the DEV Video , or the source of it? Thanks.

 

[Cabbagehead]

I feel like a lot of this is standard game development information that has been relayed to some degree over the past 15 years in various mediums, including at various points in time on GAF itself from devs and ex-devs.

I am continually surprised to see people unfamiliar with a lot of this stuff on what are supposedly enthusiast forums. Hell, I remember LucasArts describing their equivalent to grey boxing with their SCUMM adventure titles in a newsletter they put out in the early 90s.

The fact that a lot of this is considered new or unknown information is a big source of frustration to many of us who try to discuss these topics here, and is often why a lot of developers are primarily lurkers.

It boggles my mind as well. But the level of hype and entitlement vices are far too strong this era. All this stuff is right there, out there on the internet for all to see in video form and written alike. It's just blissful ignorance.

Of course that's not to say that people can't be peeved in certain instances and given the trend of sub par games coming out, and poor or greedy development practices.I get the sentiment but still. It's too much of the norm.

When it comes to the down and dirty? the facts are there. Game dev is hard as fuck, especially with large groups of other human beings that may have different ideas or agenda's.

 

[Kieli]

KThe article is really written from the perespective of big team projects from a publisher that secured financing without team involvement. Though the article certainly cannot cover everything, I could write several articles as long as this detailing my few good and many, many bad experiences with venture capitalists and general investors... if I werent under nda to ever speak about them publicly. Suffice to say, for indies, everything they just said mainly still applies, with the additional burdon of playing businessman to suits.

As someone who is investigating starting a kickstarter project, and as someone who has already been burned by venture capitalists in the past, let me say that the general public has no idea what an amazing, game-changing tool kickstarter is. It empowers small developers to be able to choose a path without dealing with backstabbing VCs. The general public can be harsh to deal with, but I would put way more confidence in a random dude in nebraska who donated $10 to a project being a better investor than a venture capitalist.

Seriously, many have no idea how much work dealing with investors is. I will go as far as to say that, in many instances, investors are the reason games ship in poor states.

IPO is essentially a death-knell for any quality and customer-oriented service from a company.

How can a company serve its employees and its customers well when its investors are shrilly shrieking, "Profit, profit, profit. Now, now, now!"

 

[Cabbagehead]

"Lazy devs" should be bannable

I will say that in some cases this does apply. Still you're right, as most of the time it's out of their control given the personal or team working on said thing.

IPO is essentially a death-knell for any quality and customer-oriented service from a company.

How can a company serve its employees and its customers well when its investors are shrilly shrieking, "Profit, profit, profit. Now, now, now!"

I'm sure the horror stories are many and what was said to have happened at Bungie with Destiny is but one example that got out. But since most folks don't want to go against the grand and potential ruin relationships or future prospects. No one talks about that stuff or they can't because of NDA or contract...etc. It's backwards. That unwritten rule.

Hence the advent of Kickstarter, Fig and others to varying degrees of success and out right failure or non-starter. But the method is new and the community can be far more brutal in most ways. Since most folks on average are clueless about game development and think these things get made. Like how they make a peanut butter sandwich or something. Regardless it's the reason some do and i'm sure some would be cool with not having someone with a suit or a half wit fellow head developer breathing down their neck regularity with inane shit. As they could end your career on the spot.

 

[Krejlooc]

Hence the advent of Kickstarter, Fig and others to varying degrees of success and out right failure or non-starter. But the method is new and the community can be far more brutal in most ways. Since most folks on average are clueless about game development and think these things get made. Like how they make a peanut butter sandwich or something. Regardless it's the reason some do and i'm sure some would be cool with not having someone with a suit or a half wit fellow head developer breathing down their neck regularity with inane shit. As they could end your career on the spot.

In doing research for a KS campaign, I've been talking to many people about how they ran theirs, and it sounds like KS backers are much more understanding overall, provided your KS doesn't go viral or something and your audience expands too rapidly. It seems to mainly rely, however, on KS campaigns reeling in promises, being realistic, delivering as best of their abilities, and above all, constant communication. The people who really lash out are mainly a vocal minority, it seems.

 

[Cabbagehead]

In doing research for a KS campaign, I've been talking to many people about how they ran theirs, and it sounds like KS backers are much more understanding overall, provided your KS doesn't go viral or something and your audience expands too rapidly. It seems to mainly rely, however, on KS campaigns reeling in promises, being realistic, delivering as best of their abilities, and above all, constant communication. The people who really lash out are mainly a vocal minority, it seems.

For smaller projects and relativly smaller communities the vocal one's won't register as much. But it's still no lie on flip side as you said.

On average for sure, most people that join in on any given funding run. Many won't bother snooping around for the whole development cycle or won't post much and will wait it out. Maybe even forget about what they backed only to return to a ghost town or a dumper fire or relative peace.

But make no doubts though, when it gets loud. It can get louder and that's a lot of voices and typing sounds. With more then enough threads to fill a Olympic size pool if one lets it get to that level. Doesn't matter if they misunderstood or don't quite get it yet and were forewarned years ago, the bath is out with the bath water. Everything is doom and gloom and not just from the vocal minority at that point. Still though it subsides sooner or later and usually those sparks happen in a slow months or span of months. Given how un-fast development can be if you were to watch it day after day, expecting something when a estimate is given. When a estimate is just a guesstimate.

Still the knee-jerk is strong. So check your A's, B's, C's and D's before you enter, because a suit will forget at some point as it's just business. But the gaming community? ha.

The large majority have next to no idea about game development and some think they do or are so jaded from other projects. That they no longer care enough to learn more or give some benefit of the doubt. Unless of course that previous experience has proof to back up such distrust.

 

[Lanrutcon]

Nothing messes up your development cycle like a demanding demo. We're still neck deep in issues, but you want to see something that represents what the marketing department have been spinning? Shit.

 

[Cabbagehead]

Nothing messes up your development cycle like a demanding demo. We're still neck deep in issues, but you want to see something that represents what the marketing department have been spinning? Shit.

Good luck demo team...just don't tell them about that slight change in direction and the daily occurrence of a climbing loop bug.

 

[petran79]

A "big" dev team in 1992 was like 25 people. What took AM2, which was filled with the top engineers in the industry, 6 years to accomplish, a single person can do now in a few clicks in UE4. And I'm not talking about presentation, I'm talking about underlaying mechanisms.

Modern game development suits really do make things easier. It's just that the scale of games increased along side the engine.

They needed to develop their own game engines and tools as well. Every major studio had their own engine, either for 2D or 3D. Now even this is prohibitive.