Product Cycle timing (Gaming)

by Durandal, Thursday, October 19, 2017, 09:30 (2593 days ago) @ stabbim

I think lots of this is driven by decreasing product cycle time. It used to be you got a product out and then it sat for two/three years while you worked on the next product. Sequels started coming out based on larger hit games, and developers started pushing those into a series of games like COD or Madden where a new one comes out every other year to keep interest.

Now every big game pads out the 2 year cycle with DLC to keep people interested and keep hype up.

However that drives more development costs as you have to retain groups to develop DLC and patches to keep players interested in the game. Quality patches especially are a cost sink because they seldom result in more sales, and DLC tends to be limited in cost so there isn't that much profit in it.

Halo 4 tried that innovative weekly story system, but it was also quickly abandoned as the studio wanted to push those resources elsewhere. I think that is the key part.

Now you have the finance guys in every department who are on studio's backs to cancel less then profitable games and DLC support in order to cut costs and free up resources for the next game.

Andromeda had a troubled development and isn't the greatest game, even if it is competent. The suits wanted something to draw players like Destiny does, and when that didn't materialize they decided to fast track Anthem (which is basically a Destiny clone).