Todd Howard has said Bethesda is working on solutions to shorten the length of time between its game releases.
Get capital, spend capital to hire people, do work on games in parallel instead of serial?
I don’t care how long they take on a single game – I mean, that just translates into a higher purchase price, and I’m getting a pretty good return in terms of gameplay hours from their stuff per dollar. However, the fact that getting the next game in a series requires waiting for a huge game pipeline to clear is a pain.
Long development time per game is still a problem. It means they’re less reactive to things in the industry like new innovations or what players actually want, it means that the people who finish a project are not the ones who started it, and it means that devs get burnt out working on fewer projects by the ends of their careers with less to show for it. I’m of the opinion that dev times need to work their way back to 3 years or so. Morrowind to Oblivion to Fallout 3 to Skyrim was such a better pace compared to what Bethesda put out since.
Maybe, but I’d sooner expect the problem to be remedied by just making games smaller. Starfield had 1000 planets, but it would have been better off if it only had 5, and we know this because The Outer Worlds exists. Lots of other games are open world now that really shouldn’t be and would have better off it they were just a list of missions that you could select from a menu.
I would actually like that. I have found that now I enjoy smaller games a lot more than big ones, but I don’t see this happening any time soon. Publishers want you playing their games longer and longer, so that they can sell you cosmetics and other micro transactions. Also, when advertising, 1000 planets sounds more impactful than 5 planets.
Get capital, spend capital to hire people, do work on games in parallel instead of serial?
I don’t care how long they take on a single game – I mean, that just translates into a higher purchase price, and I’m getting a pretty good return in terms of gameplay hours from their stuff per dollar. However, the fact that getting the next game in a series requires waiting for a huge game pipeline to clear is a pain.
Long development time per game is still a problem. It means they’re less reactive to things in the industry like new innovations or what players actually want, it means that the people who finish a project are not the ones who started it, and it means that devs get burnt out working on fewer projects by the ends of their careers with less to show for it. I’m of the opinion that dev times need to work their way back to 3 years or so. Morrowind to Oblivion to Fallout 3 to Skyrim was such a better pace compared to what Bethesda put out since.
That’s a serious problem in AAA development these days. Hopefully they can find a way to improve it.
AI can probably help with it, not as a way to replace humans but to complement and help them get things faster.
Maybe, but I’d sooner expect the problem to be remedied by just making games smaller. Starfield had 1000 planets, but it would have been better off if it only had 5, and we know this because The Outer Worlds exists. Lots of other games are open world now that really shouldn’t be and would have better off it they were just a list of missions that you could select from a menu.
I would actually like that. I have found that now I enjoy smaller games a lot more than big ones, but I don’t see this happening any time soon. Publishers want you playing their games longer and longer, so that they can sell you cosmetics and other micro transactions. Also, when advertising, 1000 planets sounds more impactful than 5 planets.
Hopefully at least some of them will learn.