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[OrionNebula]

Xbox Series X and PS5 are basically exactly same with a few difference in terms of numbers, I am pretty positive both will be extremely easy to develop for.

Most likely. We haven’t heard much on that front from or for xbox, yet, but there’s still a lot of ground to cover at this point

 

[fran.fernandez]

Games are not created with the final idea in mind.

Is a project that mutate and transform with every step. Something works and others not. So the developers should adapt.

The same with the technology that move on, the game also need to catch up with that

Mostly of the 5 years cycle are spent in research. The actual game start taking form in the final years after the devs know what work well and not.

Also many times the games are almost done and suddenly we need to go back to the drawing board.

There’s many technical issues, is not just draw a story board and over.

 

[Iorv3th]

As the tech improves, so does our want for bigger, better, more.

 

[bitbydeath]

Whatever helps you go through puberty, buddy


On topic, I’m curious about the claims of the PS5 being super easy (and also immensely time-saving for devs) to work with as a tool, and how this will affect cross-consoles game releases for next gen’s third party games

Yep. The information coming out from the Unreal 5 demo is very interesting in this aspect.

1. They can stream assets directly from zBrush in their original form which is said to save a ton of time.

2. Assets were previously duplicated under different conditions and an example was provided that even for the distance you stood away from the object could require a completely new asset creation which is now being handled automatically.

I’m looking forward to hearing just how much time is being cut on those two features alone.

 

[Ian Henry]

I think devs need to reduce the heavy reliance on graphics to sell their games and come up with simple, effective gameplay loops that people want to come back to.

In terms of what could be done to speed development along, I'm surprised no one has created a HIGHLY customizable game engine that takes a lot of the time-consuming grunt work out of programming and creating games by offering high quality pre-built tools that can be used to create any sort of gameplay mechanics imaginable.

If everyone standardized to one engine that, say, was developed by the console manufacturer, that did it all very well, dev time would plummet.

One thing thats annoyed me about the last few gens is it just seems like were getting fewer games (of higher quality, allegedly) at a very slow rate. By the time the consoles lifecycle is done you'll have only ever really seen a handful of decent games. Which doesnt feel good as a consumer investing into a Playstation or Xbox.

Games sell consoles - no doubt about that - but the quantity is lacking. PS2 games had million dollar budgets, yet dev time was like 1-2 years and there were a ton of good games by the end of the console's life span.

For real though, the whole 'cinematic experience' thing really needs to die. I dont want another hot garbage cinematic experience. Give me simpler graphics at like a PS2.5/PS3 level, a fun gameplay loop with good mechanics and develop games quicker.

Early video games prove we don't need crazy graphics to make good games - people are too obsessed with graphic fidelity and its like a plague. I feel like devs have forgotten how to make good games, because its easier to pour money into graphical fidelity than create good gameplay.

I get where you're coming from. I agree with that notion. There is still is some good games that handle it well(Ex. God Of War '18, RE2Remake, among others).

 

[-Minsc-]

New sawjig is released which allows task to be done in 1/10th the time. Great, lets make our project 20 times more ambitious. Human logic.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

shouldn't be this the point of having third party tools like Unreal Engine 4, Unity, or even more specialized tools like Speedtree or othes that I don't know?

these are tools. they can be used to make a game. they don't make games themselves. they don't have buttons you push where the program makes a game.

What are all these tools good for, if at the end of the day they're not speeding up the creation process?

this is a very reductionist take. they don't exist simply to make creation process faster. you are ignoring the fact that the output itself improves, the art is more complex, game worlds larger, etc. the scope of the final product is constantly changing. this is the missing variable from OP's post.

think about tv shows. it's not like now that we have new cameras and equipment, tv shows take less time to make. they generally take the same amount of time. same thing for movies, we have digital cameras, and composition, yet movies still take the same amount of time to make as they used to.

at any rate, it's kind of a silly post. in general gamers are ignorant of the creative process. try making a collaborative project with a group of people. it becomes clear why projects take time to make. to have a million dollar game take 3-5 years to make, that is pretty reasonable. imo the OP is indulging in magical thinking. there is no tool we can come up with that will speed up the creative process in itself.

 

[Miles708]

Just because technology moves faster and gets better that doesn't neccesarily means everything is getting easier. Sure, a lot of things to but with new changes new challenges also arise because development constant evolves as the time goes.

Here is what a typical development cycle looks like.

1st - There is the idea phase, where the team comes up with a gameplay loop, prototypes and core mechanics and identify what the genre of the game is. This as you can imagine takes time, because the oubmishers also need to approve the idea because at the end of the day it needs to sell and make $$$. This is a business first and foremost.

2nd - During the idea phase assuming that it does get approved what happens is that the team creates something called a Design Document, yes litterly a document that explains every single mechanics, how it works, what it does and what it's for.

This is a document that everyone refers to on the team, including the programmers and artists because the document includes the theme of the game, artistic visuals and of course for the programmers the core mechanics and they need to understand it so they can code for it. Think of it as a blueprint.

We did this in a university but as you can imagine we had no budget and we only had 3 or 4 months to create a game but the cycle was exactly the same just on a much much smaller scale.

2nd -After the design document is done then production begins. Artist usually have an art director and programmers have their main technical guy that oversees everything else as well. But the art director and programmers director also have a production manager that oversees them. I was an artist on the team, I did 3D modeling which is where you create 3D models for video games as assets and I was prop artist meaning I created 3d models such as weapons, small objects, gadgets and things like that. 3D modeling would be done in Maya or 3ds Max. Cresting 3D models I'd not easy, especially at a high pro level because you have to optimize the triangular count for game engines or otherwise your game will run like shit and your programmers will come and kill you in your sleep for making things difficult for them than it needs to be. Then i also had to do textured which photoshop. Thankfully our game was cartoony so our artstyle was all hand painted in photoshop using wacom tablets.

These models are then given to other people and are imported to game engine and then you have animators who also animate these assets.

Here is an example of a very complex high quality model from Guerulla Games artist. To do something like this constinetly takes years of practice, tons of talent, skill and basically be a master. Bow imagine pumping out models like thisbat a fast pace with high quality in weekly basis.



Long story short, high quality stuff at a very high level take a lot a lot of personal talent and skill both on programming and artist end. These things are very difficult, and when you throw millions and millions of dollars for big AAA 1st party title it then the final product needs to deliver and perform well both in sales and critical acclaim and to do that properly it takes a very long time.

I could go far into more depth but that would take a while to explain. But this should give you an understanding. I didn't even really talk about the half of it.

There was a time, before patches, when game development had to stop because the storage medium was full. Final Fantasy II (JP) didn't have a proper epilogue because they ran out of space. And games in general are filled to the edge of what cartridge, CD or DVD could hold.

This means that game development never had a culture of knowing where to stop; that it was the hardware's job to stop the project ballooning out of control. But now Hardware has reached the point where you couldn't fill it up anymore, like a funnel connected to a bottomless pit.

Yoko Taro said himself that he isn't interested in making games of an arbitrary length, he just wants to tell stories. He makes players replay Automa over and over because it was the only way he could pad out the same content for the gameplay hours that the industry demands. He would rather make a game that is 5 minutes long, but be the most interesting experience the player ever felt, but the current gaming expectations forbid that. I think that kind of thinking is what game industries need right now; to not think so much about quantity and refocus on quality. To stop thinking we should make games bigger.

these are tools. they can be used to make a game. they don't make games themselves. they don't have buttons you push where the program makes a game.

this is a very reductionist take. they don't exist simply to make creation process faster. you are ignoring the fact that the output itself improves, the art is more complex, game worlds larger, etc. the scope of the final product is constantly changing. this is the missing variable from OP's post.

think about tv shows. it's not like now that we have new cameras and equipment, tv shows take less time to make. they generally take the same amount of time. same thing for movies, we have digital cameras, and composition, yet movies still take the same amount of time to make as they used to.

at any rate, it's kind of a silly post. in general gamers are ignorant of the creative process. try making a collaborative project with a group of people. it becomes clear why projects take time to make. to have a million dollar game take 3-5 years to make, that is pretty reasonable. imo the OP is indulging in magical thinking. there is no tool we can come up with that will speed up the creative process in itself.

A lot of interesting posts here, these are great insights and point of view.