Uncharted director criticizes triple-a development, says it can 'destroy people'

[mjk45]

pray4mojo said:

I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to AAA development so maybe this isn't practical but why not just double the staff? I mean, we're talking about games that are funded by companies with billions to spend. Seems like a logical idea. If team A has X amount of employees and works 12 hour days 7 days a week, doubling the staff should theoretically allow them to work normal hours.

Extra employees are only part of the equation, most of the problem comes at the back end of the game cycle where the game is pretty much complete but needs to be brought up  to gold standard , the problem at this stage is not so much getting the game up to that standard but the fact that by that time all the printing and advertising is up and running and a sell by date is announced ,so time becomes the enemy and you need employees who know the game to finish it off , it is a real conundrum do you relax the time table and lengthen development time, with no guarentee that the extra costs in time and money will stop the crunch from happening.

I think a lot of AAA game producers and directors are like their film counterparts in that they work intensly on a title but are on very good packages with profit sharing and have the opportunity to then take down time and refresh before continuing on to a new project, to me it's those people on the lower end of the scale that need support.