Alan Wake, GT5, and FF13 have two things in common. They all had a longer than average development cycles. They also recieved reviews that some people were not expecting (They also pretty much have the same score on metacritic!). I'll be honest i was expecting at least a 90 for everyone of these games. Im not saying the reviews these games got were bad its just that with amount of effort the devs put in the games should have made these games get higher scores. I guess the reviewers were expecting something over the top? Had these games each taken 2-3 years to make, don't you think they would have recieved higher scores because the reviewer wouldn't be expecting much? Mass effect 2 and uncharted 2 are some of the highest rated games of all time and they only took 2 years to make. 

IN long development cycles do you think devlopors loose focus? I have a feeling that 90% of the game was made in the last 3 years for each of the 3 games. The first 2 games maybe the developers were just slacking off. I guess my point is that publishers should really start making the dev cycles smaller. That would make devs more alert and they would constantly find ways to to cram in everything they've got and see what they could do with the limited time they have. If you give the dev all the time in the world then they wouldn't be so alert. I have a feeling that versus 13 will suffer the same fate. The only game i can think of that took more than 5 years to make and was successful was heavy rain. But that game was like no other.

What are your thoughts in this?

no replies??

you forgot too human.

Anyways I don't think it is as long as the devs makes sure its 100% worth the damn wait.

Kaz slacking? impossible, he were driving all the 1031 cars in real life to make certain that they were the same as in the game... after all if they didn't drive the same the real life would be wrong, as GT5 is better than life.

Well, I prefer games that are in long dev rather than undercooked though. 

My thoughts? I think it depends on the track record, or lack thereof of the game developer. The utmost pinnacle of 3rd party game developers, Blizzard, is allowed to take 2 to 6 years to develop games because every game they have created since Warcraft 2 has been golden in both sales and reviews. Rockstar which is a notch below Blizzard seems to develop their games in a shorter span to just as much acclaim. I would put Bioware in the same bleeding edge category with Blizzard and Rockstar.

As for studios like Treyarch, Infinity Ward, and below, they are at the mercy of the publisher. The Call of Duty series is kind of a fluke because it was basically dead until Modern Warfare and then when Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 came out, Activision Blizzard has insisted on a yearly Call of Duty title. I assume this is more or less to take the heat off of Mike Morhaime and Blizzard to release a title in less than 3 years.

It would be mighty interesting to see if Rare would get treated with the same status as a Blizzard or Rockstar if they wanted to get back to the basics of which made them great in the 1990s.

It all depends on the end product. In GT5's case, it was worth the wait (for me) but in FFXIII's case it wasn't. I'm anxious to see how Diablo III and Half-Life 2: Episode 3 will fare after an amazingly long development cycle.

it better be half-life 3... it's been so long, not a little episode >_> imo

Yeah, I wouldn't mind that but Valve has been so busy making Left 4 Dead and developing Steam and dev tools for others lately. They're kind of like Blizzard, they seem to forego the franchises that made their name in the first place (Diablo and Half-Life) in order to develop other things, which is understandable since these recent ventures (Steam success, L4D and World of Warcraft) are what has made them rich. Its sad for some of the fans though, I feel like I waited long enough for Starcraft II, that's for sure!

Half-Life 3 can not come soon enough! I take comfort in the fact that, unlike other shooters of this gen, it will be mind-blowing!