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[Nibel]

Ask your mom if old

Hideki Kamiya, the man who spearheaded production on Bayonetta, has turned against the industry practice of producing content with several hundreds of developers.

Platinum Games now has about 150 core staff, which is thought to be more than Capcom Studio 4 according to Kamiya. However, the outspoken Japanese developer insists that the increased manpower will not help deliver better product.
"I heard there were a huge amount of people working on [Capcom's] Devil May Cry 4, just an enormous amount of people," Kamiya said in an interview with Edge. "Didn't help them, did it?"

Prior to co-founding Platinum Games, Kamiya had a hand in creating and directing a number of Capcom's most popular franchises, including Resident Evil, Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe.

The comment comes as Capcom finishes up production on Resident Evil 6, a pan-continental development operation with a reported 600 people involved.

When looking at these monstrous development team sizes, Kamiya said he is "amazed" by the small group of people that developed Bayonetta.

Platinum Games' Tatsuya Minami - the former head of production at Capcom studios in Japan - took a more diplomatic approach with regards to Capcom.

"The point is Capcom has the resources to employ 600 people, so good luck to them," Minami said.

Along with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, the studio is currently developing Bayonetta 2 as a Wii U exclusive title. Platinum Games' executive director, Atsushi Inaba, recently said Bayonetta 2 'wouldn't exist without Nintendo'.

Source

"Tastes good man"

 

[EVOL 100%]

Dropping truth bombs.

 

[Visualante2]

Certainly helped Killer7, which I'd argue was Grasshopper's best game.

 

[Tenbatsu]

600 is insane.

 

[faridmon]

More like #Truth

 

[Neff]

I don't yet know what 600 personnel is going to add to RE6, but I do know you don't need anywhere near that figure to create an extravagant, gorgeous, fully-complete, super-polished, content-packed AAA game.

Such as Bayonetta.

But although I love Kamiya and consider him to be a great industry spokesman of generally fine taste, he dislikes some pretty awesome games. DMC4, Shinobi, and Ninja Gaiden 2002 don't deserve his dismissal.

 

[EVOL 100%]

Certainly helped Killer7, which I'd argue was Grasshopper's best game.

It also had a stupidly long development time with tons of content cut out.

It's one of my favorite games of all time but its development was troubled as hell.

 

[Kyoufu]

It helped them with two competent versions of the game at least.

 

[JohnnySasaki86]

600 is insane.

I believe Assassin Creed 3's dev team size is around the same as well.

 

[Varjet]

Twelve is all you need.

Spoiler

Not accounting for QA, voice acting, marketing, localisation, etc...

 

[KingofSarus]

Yo, hold dat shit!

 

[Pie and Beans]

A more recent example would be the amount of staff on Dragon's Dogma. Great game with some truly bizarre flaws, but it should have in no way sucked up that amount of people to make.

This only gets worse of course when you look at the sheer unsustainable mania of how many people are involved with making an Assassins Creed or any Rockstar game. Its okay now while the going is good, but as soon as that tips even slightly the other way...

Meanwhile you have smaller groups like Platinum and From, churning out generation defining games on a budget.

 

[Akainu]

And your pedigree hasn't helped you sell games.

 

[Ushojax]

Twelve is all you need.

 

[Anteater]

Yea, capcom has been spending a lot of resources on irrelevant things and the quality just isn't quite there, dragon's dogma is an example where a lot of money went into dialogues and VA among other things, and ironically those are the things that sticks out as being low quality at the end.

 

[GraveRobberX]

Shots Fired Indeed!

Multiple GSW Victim seen headed to Tokyo General Hospital

Last words not "Capcom, Cacpcom"

 

[Sapphire Dreams]

I believe Assassin Creed 3's dev team size is around the same as well.

Assassin's Creed is a sandbox game and the thus justifies the large number of devs.

 

[slaughterking]

A more recent example would be the amount of staff on Dragon's Dogma. Great game with some truly bizarre flaws, but it should have in no way sucked up that amount of people to make.

This only gets worse of course when you look at the sheer unsustainable mania of how many people are involved with making an Assassins Creed or any Rockstar game. Its okay now while the going is good, but as soon as that tips even slightly the other way...

Meanwhile you have smaller groups like Platinum and From, churning out generation defining games on a budget.

Yeah, Dragon's Dogma is the perfect example actually. The game nails some things pretty well, but overall it doesn't represent the resources that went into its development at all. And the sales certainly don't either.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Yeah, Dragon's Dogma is the perfect example actually. The game nails some things pretty well, but overall it doesn't represent the resources that went into its development at all. And the sales certainly don't either.

It was their first open world game. So I don't really think that it's surprising that they'd throw a lot of resources at it.

 

[JohnnySasaki86]

Assassin's Creed is a sandbox game and the thus justifies the large number of devs.

still 600 is way beyond what you need. with 300 people you should easily be able to achieve a beautifully detailed open world game. I really wonder how communication works when you have a development team of 600 people. No matter how good your system is, I doubt it can compare to a development team size of 60-80 people, or even 100. The communication that is.

 

[Coxy]

Shots fired, Capcom tried to take cover but the system was poorly implemented so it hit them hard.

Slide into criticism capcom!

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

Capcom exposed!

 

[slaughterking]

It was their first open world game. So I don't really think that it's surprising that they'd throw a lot of resources at it.

It is very surprising when you see the result.

 

[D_prOdigy]

He's right in all the way.

 

[Riposte]

I think huge dev teams give you more potential, but they are harder to use efficiently. Capcom probably has some big management issues.

Isn't it likely the case most of a big development team is there to create art assets?

 

[Sapphire Dreams]

still 600 is way beyond what you need. with 300 people you should easily be able to achieve a beautifully detailed open world game. I really wonder how communication works when you have a development team of 600 people. No matter how good your system is, I doubt it can compare to a development team size of 60-80 people, or even 100. The communication that is.

Man, then GTAIV must've been overkill with its large staff.

Come to think about it, Arkham City is a beautiful sandbox game and Rocksteady are not that big of a team.

 

[Kyoufu]

It is very surprising when you see the result.

The result for me was GOTY so far.

Well done Capcom.

 

[NBtoaster]

still 600 is way beyond what you need. \

Not if you want yearly releases.

 

[Box of Bunnies]

Capcom: ('@')

 

[patapuf]

still 600 is way beyond what you need. with 300 people you should easily be able to achieve a beautifully detailed open world game. I really wonder how communication works when you have a development team of 600 people. No matter how good your system is, I doubt it can compare to a development team size of 60-80 people, or even 100. The communication that is.

They put out a new assasins creed every year, not once a generation. You can't achieve that without a huge staff.

 

[Sadist]

CVG kinda forgot about the Wonderfull 101, so Platinum has three games in developement with a staff count around 150.

 

[slaughterking]

CVG kinda forgot about the Wonderfull 101, so Platinum has three games in developement with a staff count around 150.

Everyone does.

 

[Rayven_king]

I don't yet know what 600 personnel is going to add to RE6, but I do know you don't need anywhere near that figure to create an extravagant, gorgeous, fully-complete, super-polished, content-packed AAA game.

Such as Bayonetta.

But although I love Kamiya and consider him to be a great industry spokesman of generally fine taste, he dislikes some pretty awesome games. DMC4, Shinobi, and Ninja Gaiden 2002 don't deserve his dismissal.

what he say about shinobi? that game was godly

 

[Aaron]

What was the staff size for Skyrim? There's a massive game, despite its flaws.

 

[Risette]

It is very surprising when you see the result.

But the result is the best game in its (sub-)genre.

That's pretty good.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

 

[Mysterious Stranger]

Quality over quantity. Kamiya is right.

 

[Kajiba]

 

[Sadist]

Everyone does.

It's like Viewtiful Joe part three. Oh wait

lol whut

 

[Kastrioti]

If Japanese devs want to improve on the overall failures they've had this gen, in terms of game development and production, they need to follow what Platinum Games is doing.

Exhibit 1A would be Square Enix and FF13. Did we really need to wait 100 years for a game, because Square was stubborn enough to create there own engine, while gameplay suffered in the end?

Japanese developers and Western developers can learn so much from each other and help each other at the same time. I see that happenening this gen. If I get to play an awesome FF15 on the UE4 engine why the hell not?

IMO if, The Last Guardian (my most wanted game ever), was developed with UE3 we would've seen it two years ago.

 

[antitrop]

600 is insane.

It's pretty ridiculous, when you stop and think about it.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

It's pretty ridiculous, when you stop and think about it.

and there is no Wii U version :3

 

[antitrop]

and there is no Wii U version :3

Six months for that one, too.

 

[wrowa]

They put out a new assasins creed every year, not once a generation. You can't achieve that without a huge staff.

Not if you want yearly releases.

They have different teams developing AC games in order to achieve that. AC3 was in development for 3 years.

 

[Risette]

If Japanese devs want to improve on the overall failures they've had this gen, in terms of game development and production, they need to follow what Platinum Games is doing.

Exhibit 1A would be Square Enix and FF13. Did we really need to wait 100 years for a game, because Square was stubborn enough to create there own engine, while gameplay suffered in the end?

Japanese developers and Western developers can learn so much from each other and help each other at the same time. I see that happenening this gen. If I get to play an awesome FF15 on the UE4 engine why the hell not?

IMO if, The Last Guardian (my most wanted game ever), was developed with UE3 we would've seen it two years ago.

But Square used UE3 on another game and Platinum made their own engine. There is also apparently language barrier issues with UE3 and its documentation (iirc anyways, I remember seeing something about Epic or Microsoft flying some people over to help FeelPlus with Lost Odyssey because of it)

The Last Guardian issue is with what they want to do (meaningful partner AI is hard) from what we've heard, nothing that would've been solved by UE3. It's not like the west isn't without troubled development this gen either, look at Bioshock Infinite for instance.

 

[SpokkX]

Well spoken Kamiya

 

[sublimit]

I wonder if he played the shitty RE6 demos and what he would say once he learns that 600 people worked on the game lol.

 

[deleted]

They have different teams developing AC games in order to achieve that. AC3 was in development for 3 years.

But I guess they only reach a staff of 600 people near the end?

I guess they start out with a fraction of that (lets say 100 people) and ramp it up over time?

 

[Mechazawa]

Weird statement to make since DMC3 came out ahead just fine with presumably fewer people.

DMC4 was most likely just next gen console pains.

 

[Himself]

It seems like massive staffs just produce soulless turds e.g., Assasin's Creed, Rockstar's games, Resident Evil 6.