Room for Sie and Almo

« first day next day → last day (17 days later) »

Sie

22:03

@Almo Do you think you might be up for some questions later this week? I've been thinking about making a video that looks at the typical life of a triple a title and I think you could definitely provide some insights into that.

Almo

22:30

I haven't worked much on a released AAA. I did some prototype work for ACIII, but only one of them hit the final game, and I was off the team by the time they started to put it in.

unless you count splinter cell psp a AAA game, but I wouldn't. More like AA or A. :)

Sie

22:41

Unreleased AAA work can be interesting too. I'd assume you're under some kind of ironclad NDA though depending on the company/topic.

I still think it would be interesting to give people an idea of the typical life cycle of a game from concept to release or sometimes a dead end.

Didn't you also do some work on an NDS title?

@Almo Like I said earlier once I started digging into the development process behind some games, and reading some articles off Simon's website it really gave me a much better idea of why some things in the game industry are the way they are.

Almo

many of them died when the companies making them died

I worked on two DS titles, but they weren't AAA

Sie

Well maybe AAA is bad choice of words. I just really meant in the industry.

Almo

hahaha ok

Sie

22:56

What were the NDS titles?

Almo

my word coach and my sat coach

MWC sold a million

and was actually fun

I actually made that game what it was. when I showed up, they had a bunch of crappy minigame demos. a few weeks later, we had fun games already

gameplay programming isn't something every programmer can do

Sie

What is the usual target for a game to sell? I thought for AAA (might be wrong here) it was usually aiming for a million minimum or something along those lines.

Also how do you feel about the whole indie developer scene? It seems relatively new and it took off around 06 or 07 and it seems like a few veterans are starting to transition to indie studios (or starting their own) for more freedom.

Almo

23:12

depends on the budget. if GTA4 had sold a million copies, that would not have made a dent in the $100 million budget.

Sie

Is there a general rule of thumb?

Almo

I don't think so

Sie

I would guess it needs to make enough to satisfy a, b, c, and d.

Almo

independent dev is cool and all, but it suffers from the same problems mainstream dev does... the need to make money, and that people like what they already like. hence all the minecraft clones, terraria clones, etc.

we see unusual games for sure, but we always have.

Amplitude, Rez, Vib Ribbon, RC Stunt Copter...

Sie

Oh ya that reminds me...