Comments on: Wait for it… wait for it……… http://www.gamelemon.com/glblog/2008/06/03/wait-for-it-wait-for-it/ GameLemon: Video Games Gone Funny! Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:52:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 By: Max http://www.gamelemon.com/glblog/2008/06/03/wait-for-it-wait-for-it/#comment-708 Max Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:42:27 +0000 http://www.gamelemon.com/glblog/2008/06/03/wait-for-it-wait-for-it/#comment-708 To me, the whole issue of delays is basically a growing pain of the gaming industry. In its childhood, the industry was small enough that no one needed to make any kind of commitments regarding release dates - people simply released games when they were done developing them. In its adulthood, when the industry matures, we will be more like the movie industry - we will set release dates, do it at the right point in time in the development life cycle, and therefore actually be able to meet them most of the time. Right, now, unfortunately, we are in the painful teenage years - we deem ourself mainstream enough to set deadlines, but don't yet have the execution experience to not put our foot in our mouth and consistently meet these deadlines without grossly compromising quality. It's really a factor of two key things: 1) truly appreciating the task at hand, i.e. the complexity of developing a game from start to finish, how long it really takes, the implication of having to do incremental re-design, re-building, and re-testing. 2) Figuring out the right time in the process at which to make the commitment to a release date. Whenever you see a game delayed, more often than not that means the marketing department jumped the gun and released a date too early, before most of the development and testing hurdles were well-understood. Figuring out the right time to set a release date is a matter of experience, and is different for every industry. We in the gaming industry are still learning. To me, the whole issue of delays is basically a growing pain of the gaming industry. In its childhood, the industry was small enough that no one needed to make any kind of commitments regarding release dates - people simply released games when they were done developing them.

In its adulthood, when the industry matures, we will be more like the movie industry - we will set release dates, do it at the right point in time in the development life cycle, and therefore actually be able to meet them most of the time.

Right, now, unfortunately, we are in the painful teenage years - we deem ourself mainstream enough to set deadlines, but don’t yet have the execution experience to not put our foot in our mouth and consistently meet these deadlines without grossly compromising quality.

It’s really a factor of two key things: 1) truly appreciating the task at hand, i.e. the complexity of developing a game from start to finish, how long it really takes, the implication of having to do incremental re-design, re-building, and re-testing. 2) Figuring out the right time in the process at which to make the commitment to a release date. Whenever you see a game delayed, more often than not that means the marketing department jumped the gun and released a date too early, before most of the development and testing hurdles were well-understood. Figuring out the right time to set a release date is a matter of experience, and is different for every industry. We in the gaming industry are still learning.

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