Stardew Valley creator Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone has assured fans that he is "not going to abandon Haunted Chocolatier," saying: "it's taking a while to finish the game," and "that's okay."
Obviously, this is the only sane solution for a one-man team, but all game developers need to put their foot down and say “it’s ready when it’s ready.”
No marketing deadlines, no “crunch time,” make the game until the game is made, release it, maintain it, do it again if you think you have a good idea.
While I generally agree, I think there is some value in imposing some kind of deadline or limit to a project. Nothing is ever going to be perfect. There will always be more work that could be done on something. If you let yourself just keep going until you think it’s done it might never come out.
But it’s a balance and when publishers push those kinds of deadlines they’re not really considering that.
Publishers are considering return on investment. In a model where they are providing the game budget to the studio, every delay means more money out of their pocket. Case by case it might be worth it, but just allowing developers to infinitely say it’s “almost ready, just one more delay” isn’t reasonable.
I know from the hard core gamer audience that discusses this stuff online there is often this vibe that nothing should be cut from games. People look at various interesting cut content and lament it for not getting enough time, but there is always going to be cut content.
If there isn’t a lead on the development team putting their foot down to control the scope and focus the team, and a similar push for focus by a publisher you get a meandering unfocused project that goes over budget.
In the solo/small amateur team dev, self-publishing model that ROI pressure isn’t coming externally from a separate publisher. It is means solo devs are making their first games usually on a budget of nothing, as a side project to their day jobs. In some cases like with Concerned Ape it turns out great. In many cases development comes out tediously slowly, like with Death Trash. In innumerable cases the games just die.
In cases like Wasteland 2 it was a full professional team working full time using crowdfunding. An alternate model, but still limited by budget pressure. There was no publisher to pay back, but when the crowd funding money was gone, it was gone. That game did come out and it was enjoyable, but clearly it wasn’t “done when it’s done” levels of polish by the team since they used the profits from the game to release a “Director’s Cut” which was a whole polishing pass on the game they simply couldn’t afford the first time.
When it reaches the “good/mostly done but not perfect/could still be better” stage, it’s time to pre-release it for alpha/beta testing while you work out the kinks and add features.
I remember playing Minecraft in alpha version before it even switched to beta. It was fine.
Even full releases can have updates and expansions to add new features, it’s totally fine. But the core development of the game shouldn’t be rushed just to get it published.
I recently launched a business as a solo dev / founder. It was agonizing trying to get all the last details done and be happy enough to finally say, this is what I’m going to release.
I could have gone on forever if I’d let myself. Oh they need this, oh they need that! This other thing can be better!
Now that it’s out, that pressure is gone, and I can just do smaller updates now which are focused more heavily on the feedback I’m getting from customers.
I probably could have released 3-4 months earlier had I been better about it.
A few people seem to think I meant a game like Stardew or Chocolateir should take several years because that’s how long they take with one person. Obviously if you have a studio of people, even a small studio like early Mojang, you can get more work done much more quickly.
Obviously, I think, I mean the publisher should defer to the developers regarding how long work would take to complete, not the other way around. And no one should listen to the demands of shareholders or anyone else that is completely departed from the production process.
That would be nice in a perfect world but bills need to be paid. I’m not defending crunch time, but not every project can afford to be “ready when it’s ready”. I don’t think many companies would survive like that.
The above comments were talking about how this policy should apply to every game development project. Which is a nice thought, but not realistic for every situation.
Oh yes, I’m sure all those billion dollar companies would have all shut down by now if they had to wait a few weeks to put out a game. Putting out buggy unplayable shit was an absolute necessity.
all game developers need to put their foot down and say “it’s ready when it’s ready.”
No marketing deadlines, no “crunch time,” make the game until the game is made
It isn’t saying publishers should be more flexible about deadline delays, it is saying there simply shouldn’t be deadlines at all.
Shoveling infinite money at a developer who tells you it will be ready when it’s ready is the Chris Roberts model of game development. While it certainly produces interesting results, it is unrealistic and undesirable to expect it as the standard.
Games that are developing well but need a little more time to fix issues should be given flexibility by publishers, but at the end of the day there are stretch ideas and content that has to be cut. Doing that cutting and keeping the project focused is what a lead on the dev team should be doing throughout the entire development. If a game has a realistic deadline given the expected scope and the dev team comes back and says they actually need another year of production, then it is worth looking into if that extra time is going to make the game a year’s worth of investment better or not.
In a publisher fronting money to developer situation, without a fixed time limit (or money limit, which functionally translates to a time limit) is the publisher just infinitely on the hook to pay for dev time “until it’s done”?
Well yeah, but not every dev and company is ConcernedApe. I reckon the same can be said of Balatro dev, and Team Cherry, and a few others. It’s awesome for them who can afford to do this, but that’s definitely not the norm. Most companies can’t afford to sit on a project for 8 years without releasing a product.
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Obviously, this is the only sane solution for a one-man team, but all game developers need to put their foot down and say “it’s ready when it’s ready.”
No marketing deadlines, no “crunch time,” make the game until the game is made, release it, maintain it, do it again if you think you have a good idea.
While I generally agree, I think there is some value in imposing some kind of deadline or limit to a project. Nothing is ever going to be perfect. There will always be more work that could be done on something. If you let yourself just keep going until you think it’s done it might never come out.
But it’s a balance and when publishers push those kinds of deadlines they’re not really considering that.
I’m particularly thinking about the development history of Duke Nukem Forever…
True, but this developer has done this before. Theres currently no reason not to have faith in them.
Publishers are considering return on investment. In a model where they are providing the game budget to the studio, every delay means more money out of their pocket. Case by case it might be worth it, but just allowing developers to infinitely say it’s “almost ready, just one more delay” isn’t reasonable.
I know from the hard core gamer audience that discusses this stuff online there is often this vibe that nothing should be cut from games. People look at various interesting cut content and lament it for not getting enough time, but there is always going to be cut content.
If there isn’t a lead on the development team putting their foot down to control the scope and focus the team, and a similar push for focus by a publisher you get a meandering unfocused project that goes over budget.
In the solo/small amateur team dev, self-publishing model that ROI pressure isn’t coming externally from a separate publisher. It is means solo devs are making their first games usually on a budget of nothing, as a side project to their day jobs. In some cases like with Concerned Ape it turns out great. In many cases development comes out tediously slowly, like with Death Trash. In innumerable cases the games just die.
In cases like Wasteland 2 it was a full professional team working full time using crowdfunding. An alternate model, but still limited by budget pressure. There was no publisher to pay back, but when the crowd funding money was gone, it was gone. That game did come out and it was enjoyable, but clearly it wasn’t “done when it’s done” levels of polish by the team since they used the profits from the game to release a “Director’s Cut” which was a whole polishing pass on the game they simply couldn’t afford the first time.
Or said another way, not having cut content means they released their first rough draft instead of editing and refining it.
When it reaches the “good/mostly done but not perfect/could still be better” stage, it’s time to pre-release it for alpha/beta testing while you work out the kinks and add features.
I remember playing Minecraft in alpha version before it even switched to beta. It was fine.
Even full releases can have updates and expansions to add new features, it’s totally fine. But the core development of the game shouldn’t be rushed just to get it published.
I recently launched a business as a solo dev / founder. It was agonizing trying to get all the last details done and be happy enough to finally say, this is what I’m going to release.
I could have gone on forever if I’d let myself. Oh they need this, oh they need that! This other thing can be better!
Now that it’s out, that pressure is gone, and I can just do smaller updates now which are focused more heavily on the feedback I’m getting from customers.
I probably could have released 3-4 months earlier had I been better about it.
Beware Star Citizen.
Vaporware is an entirely different animal.
A few people seem to think I meant a game like Stardew or Chocolateir should take several years because that’s how long they take with one person. Obviously if you have a studio of people, even a small studio like early Mojang, you can get more work done much more quickly.
Obviously, I think, I mean the publisher should defer to the developers regarding how long work would take to complete, not the other way around. And no one should listen to the demands of shareholders or anyone else that is completely departed from the production process.
That would be nice in a perfect world but bills need to be paid. I’m not defending crunch time, but not every project can afford to be “ready when it’s ready”. I don’t think many companies would survive like that.
Concerned ape can afford to put this game out in 2035 lol.
The above comments were talking about how this policy should apply to every game development project. Which is a nice thought, but not realistic for every situation.
Oh yes, I’m sure all those billion dollar companies would have all shut down by now if they had to wait a few weeks to put out a game. Putting out buggy unplayable shit was an absolute necessity.
Let’s look at the initial comment in the chain:
It isn’t saying publishers should be more flexible about deadline delays, it is saying there simply shouldn’t be deadlines at all.
Shoveling infinite money at a developer who tells you it will be ready when it’s ready is the Chris Roberts model of game development. While it certainly produces interesting results, it is unrealistic and undesirable to expect it as the standard.
Games that are developing well but need a little more time to fix issues should be given flexibility by publishers, but at the end of the day there are stretch ideas and content that has to be cut. Doing that cutting and keeping the project focused is what a lead on the dev team should be doing throughout the entire development. If a game has a realistic deadline given the expected scope and the dev team comes back and says they actually need another year of production, then it is worth looking into if that extra time is going to make the game a year’s worth of investment better or not.
Rather than choosing an arbitrary time, you should choose a state of the game to call finished. Limited time will always lead to crunch inevitably.
In a publisher fronting money to developer situation, without a fixed time limit (or money limit, which functionally translates to a time limit) is the publisher just infinitely on the hook to pay for dev time “until it’s done”?
Depends; do they want the game to sell or not?
Well yeah, but not every dev and company is ConcernedApe. I reckon the same can be said of Balatro dev, and Team Cherry, and a few others. It’s awesome for them who can afford to do this, but that’s definitely not the norm. Most companies can’t afford to sit on a project for 8 years without releasing a product.