potato_hamster said:
Well unlike the film industry, not every problem is solvable with time and money. Sometimes a game feature is too ambititious and too innovative, and there's just no way to make it work within the hardware constraints if they can make it work at all. Sometimes a gameplay mechanic that the game was based around is plain isn't fun no matter how much is tweaked. There are unsolvable problems where the only real solution is to not do them, and to fundamentally replace them with something else that may or may not solve the problem as well. Sometimes it's a very cuttable feature like an extra game mode or an optional setting, or weapon. Sometimes its super critical and then you're fucked, and your whole project is fucked, and there is no saving it. |
True. The last guardian still made it though, but that's the exception, 99.9% of developers don't have that luxury. Everquest Next simply got cancelled for example. The film industry has those problems too yet they're better at predicting what can and can't be done. Rendezvous with Rama movie was waiting for tech to advance far enough (since 2003), although last news was problems with the script.
Don't developers make mock ups anymore of gameplay before production? Just like animated story boards for movies, I would think games can benefit from sketch like gameplay testing? Unforseen things always happen, plan for it to be ready well in advance to have a buffer. It seems game development nowadays is relying on the day 1 patch to keep going right up until release date.