1,3,4,5: Many of these things are in the game, you just donât see them. When bugs are being removed (before you click on âfinish gameâ) consider that the testing. If you click finish game right away, you skipped testing and will release a bug-filled game. There might be demos behind the sense, you just donât see them. Press conferences clearly happen at âG3â (where else is the hype coming from?) you just donât see it.
2,6: You can argue these negate each other. If EA had its entire staff working on one game, it wouldnât take 1-2 years to make.
it doesnât have to be realistic, cause itâs a game, all it has to do is making fun while playing,
there is a marketing option where you release magazine news including demos, triple a titles need a bit less then a year to develop, and after developing the debug phase begins,
see it as alpha phase and after the bugs are gone the beta phase begins and the staff members improve it and give more âbubblesâ to the game, some new bugs are born and will be fixed if you wait for long enough
sometimes the reviewers say whatâs wrong if you failed hard enough (if focused on a part whatâs totally unexpected for a genre, e.g. focusing on story/dialogs for action)
i really donât understand why so many people have problems with the time allocation sliders, gamers should have no problems to know whatâs good for each genre, for example rpgâs, graphics/sound is relative wayne as long as the game is immersive, e.g. skyrim, the graphic isnât the best
In relation to the small developer team GDT is a good game, itâs simplified but this makes it not to complicated.
I vote for a big fan base of developers for GDT and mod support, to make the game more rich and more realistic, but at the moment I am happy with this small piece of game.
The developersâ message in the game says it, it is a small game.
I think this should be expanded upon, but bare in mind that this was intended for Windows Surface (so streamlined aspects for sake of simplicity and clean interfaces) ⌠however these will likely be aspects expanded upon later, especially for say MMO Projects given right now it is an incredibly basic representation.
Well the correct term is âmoreâ but keep in mind that the focus is more on a small independent developer team. Companies generally have between 5-20 man Teams working on small casual titles (like Apps, DS or such) where-as in this you have a max of 6 Employees in total. The whole larger âTeamsâ and âDepts.â is emulated via the Level System; where you can assume each Level = 1 Additional Person. Then it makes more sense how 6 âEmployeesâ could work on a AAA title as it is more like a team of 40-60 people, but even that would be considered small for such titles.
While I agree it would be nice to be able to work on multiple titles, especially once you get into MMO Development as really then ends up your primary focus until you take it down (often rapidly if it sells too well initially) then it would be nice to also work on other titles, but for that I think the game would need to have another expansion level.
In actual development pipelines bugs are often prioritised in order of importance (or how much it will affect the current development pipeline), in-fact often the most issues are simply added to a list and worked on during a final âpolishâ period, which happens prior to the game going âGoldâ (often 1-2months prior to launch)
Even during this time more fixes and such will occur with bugs / issues being rated on how big of a deal they will be to players, not to mention not everything can be replicated in Lab conditions which most games are developed on the âidealâ setup, rather than average.
So without over complication you can assume that aspect of the development is between when the game goes âdingâ i.e. done and when you personally chose to click âFinishâ
Again I do agree for certain aspect of the game being able to allocate such time to a) Generate Hype and b) Correct Issues with âPlayer Feedbackâ i.e. MMOs again ⌠would be a major help and enhancement, but not overly supporting this aspect is not going to make me lose sleep at night; Especially as I personally still have Nam-Style flashbacks about âCrunch Timeâ at companies like EA (who used to be tireless slave drivers)
Although perhaps âG3â could be a little better represented past generating more Hype and Fans for projects, realistically the end result for real-life is exactly that nowadays. Early in the industry however E3 / Spaceworld (TGS) / GDC used to be used primarily for making industry contacts, such-as getting signed to a publisher or getting investor backing for a project, today it is more of a hype spectacle.
While I would love to see that echoed within GDT, realistically as I said the end result now is basically âGo to E3 > Get Hype > Sell more copies of Sequel #6,000â and really little more.
Should they expand on it, such-as giving you the option to create âG3 Demosâ of new titles as one of the options while developing a game that generate more Hype or provide the option of a âPublisher Dealâ that would be cool, but it isnât an overly important feature.
Look around⌠when the industry (as it is today) started in 1983 there were not âGame Demosâ, it wasnât until the late-80s and Early-90s when magazines for the PC (Apple, Amiga, Atari and IBM) started to provide Demo software.
Fast Forward to the start of 2005 and youâll see a massive decline in Demos in favour of TV Adverts and such.
Seriously go on Xbox Marketplace, Steam or PSN⌠how many games nowadays ACTUALLY provide a demo?
This said, as part of Marketing (option 2+) in the description it includes âProvide Game Demoâ, which means it is an aspect of the game just not something you need to manually create.
Again this would be a nice aspect to have expanded upon at a later date, but it would need to provide a useful role within the game otherwise it ends up meaningless simulation (much like the SDK or Project Grid) feature right now which are so painfully basic.
Today perhaps the average development time for a title is usually set around 18-36months, depending on the scale and such⌠but in reality, I remember making games back in the late-80s when I was a teenager and selling them at Carboot sales (back when things were all Tape and Diskette based)
It was possible to tap away on your C64, Amstrad, Sinclair, etc⌠bash out an awesome game, then sell it hoping it got popular enough so you could talk with a âpublisherâ (very lax term for what they actually were) so you could sell it in Toy Stores.
Some of the best games out in the 80s literally took maybe 2-3 months to complete, but unlike today⌠games didnât cost that much. Sure NES games were like ÂŁ50-70 but 90% of that was the cost of the Cart. Tape Games for the C64 or 5.25" Disks for PC often would sell for like ÂŁ3-5 each. Again with the actual storage costing the majority of that, effective you were earning what Apps do today on the iPhone; which most of those are bashed out in a matter of Weeks perhaps Months⌠not years.
It is all about scale and working on the next project. While GDT might not be completely accurate with this aspect, believe it or not it is actually quite terrifyingly close to what the games industry was like in itâs infancy. Title after title, pushed out with just pure hope that it became a big enough seller to do something bigger and better while still affording rent and food.
Hell if it hadnât been for pure luck with Final Fantasy, there would be no Square-Enix today.
That was way it was called âFinalâ Fantasy; they figured they would go out with a bang as they were about to go bankrupt ⌠it pulled off the impossible and saved them, turning them into the giant they are today.
That isnât even a unique story from that period of time either.
quote=âGameDevFan1000, post:1, topic:5314â]
7. Reviewers Tells buyers what is wrong with the game
[/quote]
No, they donât⌠they never have.
Reviewers have traditionally been there as a means of providing critique to the public so they can have a more âinformedâ decision on what to purchase, but even back when they first started.
In-fact more often than not they would simply be a means of generating hype for a game so people knew about it when it came out so they could ask their parents to buy it for them. It wasnât until the early-90s when Reviewers became independent entities, when they started providing actual critiques⌠but even then most would go âeasierâ on games because if they were too brutal then said developer would then no longer send them âdemosâ to feature as a free giveaway which is the REAL reason most bought the magazines.
Again it was more about seeing what was coming out soon, and the free demo games; rather than if a game was good or not. Review scores were for the most part meaningless to the intended audience of the day.
Today sure, people generally either buy or ignore a game entirely based on a review; which is why it isnât uncommon for a publisher of actively âpay-offâ via Sponsorship, Free Hardware, Software, etc⌠âGame Journalistsâ as they prefer to be called now. The games industry today is quite sad and cynical compared to the days of old.
While it is fitting within the game that Review Scores are given as a means of âThis is how well the game will sellâ, which I donât have an issue with; itâs a nice and simple mechanic, the problem is has is that it doesnât provide any real sense of feedback when you do something wrong - but will if you do something right.
As I understand it the devs are aware of this problem and are working on it, along with some other balance changes; which are well needed to be honest as right now making a successful game is incredibly formulaic with you always competing against your previous best score (which is only shown once when you complete the game)
This is one of the areas I hope that the devs are really working hard to improve, perhaps expand upon a bit.
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At the end of the day it is just a game, it isnât like in SimCity youâre going to complain to EA because they didnât add in the ability to charge all of your personal expenses to the city or the fact there is no ability to bribe other Mayors to look the other way if youâre doing something detrimental outside of your own city (i.e. dumping toxic waste or such)
This does have a decent balance to how well it portrays reality while still keeping it fun (trust me Game Development is definitely not all fun and games all the time, it is incredibly tiring, stressful and more often than not a labour of passion because everyone from Gamers Pirating to Publishers trying to give you as little money as possible means most rarely have a decent wage⌠hell once had to explain to a new guy where I worked when he bitched about pay, that if he wanted a well paid job he should go do Server or Database work; as the heart of our industry is our passion, but sure would be nice to be better paid for it.
On the whole this is still a relatively ânewâ game and is being worked on by on 2 guys (afaik) ⌠so give it time, chances are unless they luckily have a good nest-egg set aside they are likely working on this while also having another job to help pay their Food and Rent.
If people would help support it by purchasing the game, chances are we would see them perhaps expand the team a bit and be able to work on it more fulltime. Getting it on to Steam next month will more than likely make that more of a reality ⌠then we can start poking them a bit more about feature creeping.
GDT is a good game in terms of the small developer team; itâs simple, but that makes it not too complicated.
I vote for a large developer fan base for GDT, as well as mod support, to make the game more rich and realistic, but for now, Iâm OK with this small bit of game.
It is a little game, as the developersâ message in the game states.
