Comments on: The One-Year Cycle, Innovation vs. Expectation

By: name

name — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 09:46:21 +0000

no 1 year is far too soon.
name 1 game that had a 1 year development cycle that was a really good game.
the only one i can think of is left 4 dead 2, and that was just a expansion pack nothing drastic.
2 years minimum it takes to make a good game, like infamous, uncharted 2, both those games are fantastic games, both large open levels and both were in development for 2 years,
2 years is the minimum, i would like to see 2 years making the game than maybe 4-6 months of tweaking, polishing, and play testing the game to make sure everything is perfect and theres nothing needed to be added.
3 years would be better, especially if your creating a new engine for the game.
4 years would be the streatch, only the biggest and best should take 4 years.
anything more than 4 years is a joke, fans start to get frustrated and loose there interest in the series, ala LA NOIRE, alan wake, GT5, heavy rain, splinter cell conviction and half life 2 episode 3.
all of those games feel like theve been in development since the beginning of time, and i have lost interest in them.
sad really because im a MASSIVE! survival horror fan so i was so excited for alan wake, but the wait seriously killed my interest for the game.
i probably wont buy it now, may rent it to see what its like IF it actually comes out.
same goes for GT5, i mean seriously for christs sake, every time they show a new “gameplay” video it looks exactly the same as the last one shown months ago.
im constantly saying WTF have they done in the last 6 months?

By: LevelHead

LevelHead — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 18:32:30 +0000

I agree. I am especially seeing this with Activision and their own greed. They want to pump out Guitar Hero and Call of Duty games because they make money. However certain developers like Polyphony, the makers of Gran Turismo, should not get away with being untouchables when they take half a decade to make a game that offers no new direction from the company. Any developer can spend 3 years tweaking their game to perfection but there comes a time when you need to keep things flowing. Not releasing tidbits like a cruddy demo or a partial game like GT5: Prologue to earn a quick buck. That’s why I wouldn’t pay $60 for Halo ODST either.

By: David Macphail

David Macphail — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:25:56 +0000

There’s nothing wrong with having a new entry into a franchise every year, as long as the devs can keep the quality up. It really comes down to the devs own way of thinking. If they feel they can keep games coming out every 12 – 18 months with the same level of quality that’s fine, however some devs are perfectionists and wouldn’t even think about releasing a game until it was completely flawless (Gran Turismo 5, for example).

I don’t really mind much either way, there aren’t too many devs out there that would rush a game out just for the sake of having it out.

By: bg93

bg93 — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 15:46:25 +0000

Couldn’t agree more. I think that if devs are going to make an incredible game, they need over a year. Insomniac has done an amazing job with putting out a game every year but Resistance 2 and the previous Ratchet needed more polish, especially Resistance 2. The graphics in R2 were pretty poor, so were the textures and the AI had a large number of problems. 1 more year would have done this game good.
Naughty Dog takes a different approach and decide to make a game every year if they think they can finish what they have on their plate. Jak X and Jak 3 both took 1 year. This gen, both Uncharted games took 2 years to finish in order to polish and refine both games. I think it served them well.