What if Destiny was $60 with 2 FREE expansions? (Destiny)

by electricpirate , Monday, July 14, 2014, 20:34 (3583 days ago) @ Cody Miller

That's not really how making a game works...

It was for almost 40 years…

Barring the fact that gamedev has changed over 40 years ( I mean, even modern indie dev looks dramatically different than the one man productions of yestyear) the idea that you can't take large chunks of content from pre production to ship in a couple months time while still finishing the rest of the game seems like a pretty well established fact.

And why do they insist folks keep working during that time? It's because of the backwards and inefficient way that game studios are managed. If it worked like the film industry, where you are hired, do your work, then leave when your work is done, then you wouldn't have artists and programmers sitting idle getting paid for nothing, thus requiring they work on content that can't be shipped with the game.

Throw in unions to cover healthcare, retirement, working conditions, and overtime.

One of these days the concept of a game development studio where you have permanent staff will be a thing of the past. Ken Levine will just hire people to make his game on a per project basis.

While I think that makes a lot of sense for big budget AAA titles (Though, whether the AAA/Major motion picture model for games is something to expand is another issue), I don't think it answers the idea that turning around and building/integrating a DLC/Expansion that's still in pre production with 2 months till release is feasible. In fact, doesn't that just make the division between people doing pre production and production sharper, allowing for more situations like this?