- Dec 2, 2018
- 264
- 1,151
I'm only going on intuition here, but how many of the most supported games have actually been able to convert the additional support inte shorter development cycles? My impression is that it is the complete opposite; if anything, the games are taking longer to develop.
For example, Being a DIK's release time has grown since it started, and we are now averaging over 5 months for the last few updates. Summertime Saga certainly isn't being hammered out every other month. Radiant, which became hugely popular on here, has also not shown any optimistic signs in shortening the development cycle. Our Red String's update time has essentially quadroupled compared to Good Girl Gone Bad.
Of course, I am not familiar with all games, and there may be many examples of developers that really have been able to shorten their development cycles, but it seems to me that the most ambitious projects are taking increasingly longer to develop. I believe that when the developers get extra capabilities, it is more tempting to use that to up the quality or to include more in every update, than it is to use it shorten the time it takes to do everything you originally planned.
The only games I see are being consistently release every few months are the ones that manage scope quite well, and keep their updates at a similar size and length, with a very focused story and cast. City of Broken Dreamers being one example of this. Given Oceanlab's ambition and extremly large cast, I therefore question to what extent he would really be able to convert extra support (which is not even guaranteed that he will get) into shorter cycles. And even if he was able to shorten it to three months per chapter, that is still 7,5 years to finish both projects, which is a lot.
For example, Being a DIK's release time has grown since it started, and we are now averaging over 5 months for the last few updates. Summertime Saga certainly isn't being hammered out every other month. Radiant, which became hugely popular on here, has also not shown any optimistic signs in shortening the development cycle. Our Red String's update time has essentially quadroupled compared to Good Girl Gone Bad.
Of course, I am not familiar with all games, and there may be many examples of developers that really have been able to shorten their development cycles, but it seems to me that the most ambitious projects are taking increasingly longer to develop. I believe that when the developers get extra capabilities, it is more tempting to use that to up the quality or to include more in every update, than it is to use it shorten the time it takes to do everything you originally planned.
The only games I see are being consistently release every few months are the ones that manage scope quite well, and keep their updates at a similar size and length, with a very focused story and cast. City of Broken Dreamers being one example of this. Given Oceanlab's ambition and extremly large cast, I therefore question to what extent he would really be able to convert extra support (which is not even guaranteed that he will get) into shorter cycles. And even if he was able to shorten it to three months per chapter, that is still 7,5 years to finish both projects, which is a lot.
