Unfinished Business

Figures - we go several days without any news, and now we have several things at once.

We were just alerted to an editorial over at ga-source.com entitled "Unfinished Business". The article talks about how a good percentage of games are rushed out the door before they're done. As champions of the "When it's done" policy, our own Scott Miller & George Broussard are quoted about their thoughts on the matter. Here's a bit of what they had to say:

George: Look at most publishers and development houses--is the top guy a developer or a bean counter without any development experience? I've noticed that business and financial types ride the lead wagon at most game companies, which to me explains a lot of this industry's problems with shoddy game releases."

Scott: "Game development is not an endeavor that can be finished within arbitrary financial quarters. It requires ongoing research, testing, polishing and even tossing away of work and ideas that don't work after being implemented. Because of game development's inherent unpredictability, we never attach a release date to our games until we're within a few days of launching, and even then we won't hesitate to miss the date if it means improving the gameplay."

There's a lot more to this article than just Scott & George talking about the subject. The person writing the article (Timothy Townsend) has a lot of his own thoughts on the matter. Make sure to check out the article today - it's a great read. Also, check out our own press released entitled "Developers Rule at 3D Realms" - this has been on our site for quite some time, and really explains our own thoughts on development issues such as this.

Thanks Sam Bordiss.

Posted by Joe Siegler on November 29, 2000 at 4:30 PM | Permalink
News Categories: Misc