Problems with Huge AAA Gaming Projects - Former Ubisoft Dev Speaks

[JEMC]

ReimTime said:

JEMC said:

I agree with you that this is a consequence of the development of big Triple-A games. But this may be worse in Ubisoft because they make one of those every single year. They are always in a hurry, and that creates problems that studios like Rockstar with GTA or Activision with CoD (they give 3 years to each studio to make one game) simply don't have.

 

Another reason why that rumor of them ditching the annual release and revamping the franchise was such great news for me. But will it really make a difference if the communication continues to suck?

Of course it will.

One of the consecuences of giving them more time would be that they can use less studios to make the game. We could say, so to speak, that what two studios make in one year, one studio can make it in two years. And that solves (or at least reduces) several problems like the comunication or the decision making problems.

barneystinson69 said:

ReimTime said:

 

GTA5 also had a ridiculous advertising budget AFAIK, but that's beside the point. CDPR proved it was possible indeed. Now what do you think CDPR did correctly that Ubisoft has failed to accomplish?

Well I didn't look much into it, but they were an efficent team, and I think most of the development was done in Warsaw itself. Also, game development was 3 years instead of 5 for GTA 5 (it shouldn't take that long), and the team was less than 1/2 the size.

1,500 people worked on The Witcher 3: http://www.vg247.com/2016/01/13/over-1500-people-worked-on-the-witcher-3-wild-hunt/

Rockstar Games as a whole has 900 employees (according to wikipedia).

That's not to say that CDProjekt Red hasn't done a great job, but it's not necessary to exagerate.

DonFerrari said:

JEMC said:

DonFerrari said:

JEMC said:

I agree with you that this is a consequence of the development of big Triple-A games. But this may be worse in Ubisoft because they make one of those every single year. They are always in a hurry, and that creates problems that studios like Rockstar with GTA or Activision with CoD (they give 3 years to each studio to make one game) simply don't have.

It wasn't a 1y game per team, but yes they were always overpressured and hushed. Ubisoft promised to improve on it.

Looking at Ubisoft Montreal (which is huge with +2,700 employees): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubisoft_Montreal#2009.E2.80.93present

they have been involved in every single Assassins Creed game.

And the same goes for Ubisoft Quebec and Ubisoft Romania, for example.

And do you think Ubi Montreal is a single team? Nope. They probably have like 10 teams and they alternate in the releases. Even with huge team a 1 year timeschedule for those type of games is crazy, it isn't sport game with only rooster changes.

I doubt they alternate between releases. The Assassin's Creed team (or teams in Montreal) work in AC games and the Far Cry team work on FC games. Mixing them would cause extra problems that Ubisoft can't afford in an annual franchise.

As for your second part, that's exactly why they use several studios and what causes some of their problems and ultimately make the games end up being like they do: uninspired and "more of the same".