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Ciekawy artykuł na temat za dużej wielkości zespołów developerskich:

 

 
Najlepszy fragment to ten w cytacie. I jak tu się z nim nie zgodzić widząc większość tych AAA gierek.


 

 

More people, more problems

Yesterday, GamesIndustry International published an interview with Ubisoft Reflections' managing director Pauline Jacquey, whose studio is contributing to Watch Dogs' development. The big takeaway from the interview, as NeoGAF quickly picked up on, is the casual discussion of team sizes for modern AAA games.

According to her, a typical open world action game from Ubisoft can require between 400 and 600 people,
and next-generation development may push this ceiling even higher for
companies across the board. Ubisoft Reflections, which represents
roughly one-third of the entire Watch Dogs team, currently has 90 people on the project. Do the math and you get 270 people, and that number is still growing.

When I think about all the studio closures in recent years, all the
sordid tales of mismanagement and unfathomably long development cycles, I
have to wonder why major publishers continue to insist that more cooks
in the kitchen will result in a tastier meal. This inefficiency is
precisely why the industry is in such a financial mess.


You want a couple of textbook examples of why ultra massive dev teams don't mean shit? Look no further than Resident Evil 6 and Disney Epic Mickey 2. The former boasted a staff 600 strong, the latter a whopping 700! How exactly did that work out for them again? Piss-poor critical reception and, in Epic Mickey's case, a complete and utter bombing at retail.

A common complaint in both titles is a lack of cohesion, whether it's Epic Mickey's failure to properly connect the various mechanics in any sensible fashion or Resident Evil's
"jack of all trades" approach to game design. With such large teams,
it's no stretch to imagine that there was a severe dearth of proper
communication between the myriad branches, resulting in a product that
reaches for the stars but barely lifts off the ground.

I recently reviewed The History of Sonic The Hedgehog, which chronicles the SEGA icon's career in minute detail. Among the things I learned was that Sonic Adventure, the Dreamcast's flagship title and the series' most drastic evolution since its creation, had a team of only 30 people.
Think back to when the game dropped in 1999 and how mind-blowing it was
to see and play. To achieve the same impact these days could
potentially require ten times as many staffers, and that doesn't sit
well with me. It's the very definition of diminishing returns.

Fast forward to 2004 and to Sonic Heroes, developed by a mere 19 people, which is especially surprising considering that it was the first Sonic
game to be released on multiple platforms simultaneously. It was buggy,
sure, but that's more a result of time and unfamiliarity with new
hardware than team size. As we've already seen, big games by big teams
have equally big bugs.



Team sizes blew up at some point in the past few years as individual
roles started to become more specialized. As Jacquey explained, "My
first game, 16 years ago, it would be the same artist who created the
texture, was lighting the level (and he would have one light per level)
and doing the effects, just one guy. Today you would have two
lighters, one for interiors, one for exteriors, and then one guy is in
charge of the sun, so it's more and more expertise, and the speciality,
that's hard to find."

Does specialization necessarily result in a better game? Dan Vávra, writer and lead designer on the Mafia series, doesn't think so. On the site for his new company Warhorse, Vávra wrote a developer diary entitled "How to Make Call of Duty Killer for Less," where he highlights the bloat infecting the industry nowadays. This excerpt in particular is very enlightening:
 
Last year I received a proposal to work for one of the biggest
publishers as a writer on a big franchise. They asked me what exactly
I'd done in the past and so I answered that I wrote most of the game
design, mission design, complete story, most of the dialogues plus I
also designed controls and parts of the GUI and HUD. Of course I
mentioned that I worked with other people, but I did all that stuff
mostly myself. There was a moment of silence on the other side, and I
believe I overheard coughing as well. "Ehhh... We have a team of thirty
people for that, sir. You would be one of them, working together with
our creative director, producer, lead designer, lead level designer and
lead writer." Shit. What are all those people, plus 20 writers under
them, doing on the design of a linear FPS shooter? A script for a two
hour movie has 120 pages. At the speed of three pages a day I can write
it in two months and rewrite it completely 6 times within a year. Who
the hell needs a team of several writers to write ingame dialogues
(which are usually tragically crappy anyway)? I mean what was the last
game you finished and said to yourself -- wow, this was a pretty damn
good story.
 

 


By taking a single task and splitting it into multiple jobs, you are
just creating more opportunities for potential fuck-ups. And by creating
an unwieldy chain of command, you are essentially turning development
into one big game of "telephone" -- one person passes a message to
another, who passes it to another, and eventually the message gets so
garbled that no one knows what the hell is going on anymore.

In regards to Watch Dogs, there is no telling how the final
build will turn out. But even if it releases to widespread acclaim, the
thought that it could have been developed more efficiently will linger.
How many other games would have benefited from a more sensible team
composition? What is the incentive for assigning so many specialized
tasks?

Jacquey admits that "some systemic games you can probably afford to do a next-gen game with 100 people." So why not make that
number the target, huh? Mark my words, these team sizes are going to be
one of the primary killers of promising talent in the coming years,
more so than "complex hardware" or other market realities. It simply
boggles my mind.


Read more at http://www.destructoid.com/aaa-game-development-teams-are-too-damn-big-247366.phtml#FUODDG33rlwBAExh.99
Edytowane przez Paliodor
  • Plusik 2
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taka ciekawostka:

 

Twórca Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons w obronie krótkich gier

 

 

Przygoda z grą Starbreeze ma trwać 3-4 godziny. - Jeśli coś jest mocne, to nie szkodzi, że jest krótkie - mówi Josef Fares.

120130313172414.jpg

Fares to szwedzki filmowiec, który przy Brothers: AToTS połączył siły ze Starbreeze. O dzisiejszych grach mówi:

- Mam wrażenie, że wiele dotarło do punktu, w którym bez problemu można je skrócić o 3-4 godziny. W Max Payne 3 po godzinie grałeś już w całą grę. Zmienia się tylko otoczenie. Uwielbiam Rockstar, ale co z tym? -

Brothers ten syndrom nie dotknie.

Brothers to przeciwieństwo tych gier - wszystko, co zobaczysz dzieje się tylko raz. To gra na 3-4 godziny. Mogliśmy rozciągnąć ją do 10 godzin, ale chcemy, żeby gracz był ciekawy co dalej i miał poczucie udziału w podróży.

- Dlaczego mamy pytać ile trwa gra? Powinniśmy pytać czy jest dobra, czy zła, a nie na ile wystarcza. Nasza gra trwa tyle ile musi. Nieważne czy to jedna godzina, czy dwadzieścia.

- Kogo obchodzi stosunek wartości do ceny? Nigdy nie kwestionujemy długości filmu - ludzie płacą i chcą dostać jak najwięcej. Ale liczy się jakość - wolę dostać za moje pieniądze trzy dobre godziny. Potem mogę zrobić coś innego, nie będę przebijał się przez 10 godzin badziewia. -

Chłopcem z plakatu dla krótkich, wartych swojej ceny gier jest Journey. Fares nie boi się porównać swoją grę do arcydzieła thatgameecompany.

- Ludzie narzekają, że Journey jest za krótka. Jeśli coś jest mocne, to nie szkodzi, że jest krótkie. Pod pewnymi względami Journey jest dłuższe od wszystkich innych gier, bo zostaje z Tobą. -

Rzadko mam okazję to napisać, ale: zgadzam się w całkowicie. Brawo. Facet trafił w sedno. Mamy coraz mniej czasu. Gry muszą się skondensować, by pozostać atrakcyjnymi i utrzymać nas przed ekranem. Dobra, ciekawa godzina jest lepsza niż nudne 10. To fakt. Inna sprawa to ceny gier. Te są zwyczajnie za drogie, żeby bawić nas przez jeden wieczór. Ale na to też jest rozwiązanie - cyfrowa dystrybucja, w której gry są tańsze i mogą odważniej eksperymentować z czasem gry. Robiło to Journey, zrobi też Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.

A skoro jesteśmy w temacie: sprawdźcie felieton, w którym Michał prosi Skończ się jak najszybciej, tłumacząc czemu lubi krótkie gry.

 

http://www.gram.pl/news/2013/03/13/tworca-brothers-a-tale-of-two-sons-w-obronie-krotkich-gier.shtml

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Uśmiać się można czytając ten artykuł. Branża gierek to doprawdy zabawna rzecz XD
"You can't have a female character in games"

Remember Me is currently in development under the watchful eye of Capcom, but the story of a woman who can "remix" peoples' memories had to do a lot of fighting to exist. According to creative director Jean-Max Morris, the industry at large hated the idea of a female protagonist.

"We had some [publishers] that said, 'Well, we don't want to publish it because that's not going to succeed. You can't have a female character in games. It has to be a male character, simple as that,'" he told Penny Arcade"We wanted to be able to tease on Nilin's private life, and that means for instance, at one point, we wanted a scene where she was kissing a guy. We had people tell us, 'You can't make a dude like the player kiss another dude in the game, that's going to feel awkward.'

"I'm like, 'If you think like that, there's no way the medium's going to mature.' There's a level of immersion that you need to be at, but it's not like your sexual orientation is being questioned by playing a game. I don't know, that's extremely weird to me."

01-620x.jpg

I've never really thought about the whole kissing thing, but he's right. Women are overtly sexualized in many videogames, but they're rarely allowed to be sexual. Sure, have your female avatar swing massive boobs around in bikini battle armor, but if she dares to show physical interest in somebody? Oh, the scandal!

That, right there, is objectification at work. Having a female character exist for our saucy gratification, but not ever being allowed to re(pipi)rocate, initiate or otherwise become an active parti(pipi)ant. Outside of games where players can create their own characters, I don't think I've actually seen a playable female protagonist kiss a guy in a game. The closest examples would be Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain, both by Quantic Dream. I'll give them credit there, though if I recall correctly, both those games' sex scenes had players in control of the male lead at the time, not the female one. 

As Morris says, it's weird. More than that, it's kind of creepy to me that so few female leads, if any at all, are actually allowed to be in straight relationships, lest it incur the homophobic insecurity of the male audience. This is to say nothing of the base fear of letting a non-sexed-up woman be allowed a leading role in the first place. 

02-620x.jpg

I recall one game that was in development a few years ago. Faith and a .45. It was set to be a cooperative shooter starring a man and a woman -- lovers -- who would very much be in a "Bonnie & Clyde" style relationship. Aside from working together in combat, the game was going to have a really cool revival system -- if one player is downed, the other can kiss him or her to get them back up. I joked at the time about it messing with the minds of homophobes, but it was truly an inspired idea -- even outside of any potential statement it could make, it was just a clever new spin on the revival system that worked perfectly in the context of the characters. 

Unfortunately, that game never saw the light of day, which is hardly surprising given the climate and the attitudes in the market.  

We have some exceptions, of course. Tomb Raider is an obvious example of a successful game with a female lead, but she exists today more thanks to legacy, and one wonders if the more recent Tomb Raider would have gotten anywhere if it were a new IP -- something some fans claim it ought to have been. Back when Tomb Raider was a fresh idea, Lara Croft was a massive-breasted sex object. The Lara we have today likely wouldn't have existed without the Lara back then. 

03-620x.jpg

We recently saw BioShock Infinite's Elizabeth relegated to the back cover of the game case, for fear that the presence of a woman would turn consumers away. Naughty Dog also recalled a similar situation, where it had to fight to have a woman appear on the cover of The Last of Us. There's something eminently shuddersome about the message that sends, a message that suggests women have their uses, but are best kept locked away with the rest of the tools until they're required. It's the kind of situation that puts an itchy feeling under the skin. 

There are some who argue sexism isn't a problem in the game industry, but I don't know how a rational person could see this kind of stuff and not admit, even grudgingly, that it exists in abundance. When publishers are trying to eradicate female protagonists or hiding the womenfolk away lest an audience be turned off, there's some ill sentiment at play. Whether the fault of the industry itself or the audience, there is a fault, and it's a downright unsettling one at that. 

And if you'd be seriously upset by seeing a female lead kiss a guy in a game, you're emotionally broken.

Read more at http://www.destructoid.com/the-game-industry-doesn-t-want-female-heroes-249067.phtml#1KAXkUPYoiedYXD1.99

Edytowane przez Paliodor
Odnośnik do komentarza

Możei coś w tym jest, ale typ pominął taki "mały" szczegół, jak cała seria Mass Effect i to, jak popularne wśród nerdów jest mimo wszystko granie kobiecą postacią. Co nie zmienia faktu, że romansowanie i doprowadzanie do jakichś scen miłosnych naszej damskiej bohaterki, z którą mamy się niby utożsamiać, z jakimś samcem jest mimo wszystko trochę dziwne, jeśli gracz jest facetem, sorry. 

  • Plusik 1
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Wydaje mi się, że to zależy. Jeśli przesz "doprowadzanie" rozumiesz jakieś założenie gameplayu to mogę się zgodzić. W Remember Me z oczywistych względów nie grałem, ale jestem przekonany, że nie ma tam elementów dating sima czy QTE przy scenach miłosnych. A jeśli nie ma to wszystko jest w rękach scenarzysty i reżysera cut-scenek, by w umiejętny sposób dotrzeć do odbiorców z przekazem. Dlatego skreślanie gry tylko z powodu płci grywalnej postaci wydaje mi się nie elo.*

 

Ale zakładam też, że mogę się mylić, bo ja to generalnie mam spory problem z traktowaniem poważnie gier, które w kwestii narracji silą się na powagę i realizm. Uncanny valley zabija wszelką wczuwę w przedbiegach. W tej branży wg mnie ascetyzm szeroko pojętej prezentacji służy lepiej do wyrażania emocji.

 

* inna sprawa, że RM wygląda dość przeciętnie

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Mocarny tekst, bardzo ciekawy i kolejny dowód na to, że eurogamer.pl to w tej chwili najlepszy polski serwis o grach. Co prawda zostało to tylko przetłumaczone, ale chwała redaktorom że to robią.

 

http://www.eurogamer.pl/articles/2013-03-30-chlopak-ktory-wykradl-half-life-2

  • Plusik 1
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Gość Szprota

PC MASTER RACE a gdyby nie porty z konsol to by napjerdalali w Minecrafta tylko.

<patrzy na wyniki sprzedażowe Starcrafta 2 i Diablo 3> Rzeczywiście PCetowcy grają same porty z konsol. Nie zapomnajmy że na PC jest masa świetnych gier indie których nie uświadczysz na konsolach(FTL,Kerbale,Antichamber,Wildfire Worlds)

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No dobra ale już nie pastwy się nad nimi.

 

 

PC MASTER RACE a gdyby nie porty z konsol to by napjerdalali w Minecrafta tylko.

http://pl.thewitcher.com/forum/index.php?/topic/120-gry-komputerowe/page__st__25620

Polecam ten temat. Czasem aż mi ich żal.

 

1280 stron? Oszczędź czasu i powiedz co tam, jest sam butthurt o kąsolki?

 

 

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Gość Szprota

Wymieniles dwa najwieksze molochy, masz wiecej takich asow czy to juz koniec ? ;P

 

PC MASTER RACE i indie nie pasuje do siebie. Sprzet ktory zzera specyfikacja konsole ma sluzyc do odpalania takich gier ? Prosze cie.

No w sumie to nie,tylko te 2 gry przychodzą mi na myśl :P

 

No a do czego ma służyć PC? Przecież to oczywiste że do grania gry indie,no i czasem w multiplatfromy których nie ma na PS3 a są na PC i X360,i niektore gry Only on PC

Edytowane przez Lionel
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Dołącz do dyskusji

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