Game development is a tricky business, and one consequence of this is that games often take longer to make than anticipated. The nature of the creative process means such delays are not always avoidable, but according to writer and designer Josh Sawyer, known for games like Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, and medieval detective sim Pentiment, there are ways to identify when a game is going to get kicked down the calendar, and therefore set better expectations to avoid unnecessary stress, and overwork.
As reported by GamesRadar, Sawyer shared this “useful skill” on Twitter, starting off by admitting that he “can’t tell you when a game is going to be done”, but he “can tell you when it *won’t* be done with close to 100% accuracy.”
Sawyer followed this up with a thread where he explained his methodology. The most obvious indicator, he says, is when “data shows the trajectory of content completion leads so far past the [release] date that even cutting remaining content will require more work than available time.” He points out that “cutting content does save development time, but there are also costs to cutting”. In other words, developers can’t just remove whole chunks or features of a game and expect it to immediately work. The holes still need stitching together, which might take less time than pursuing those features to completion, but as Sawyer points out, “it’s not ‘free’.”
Sawyer then lists several other clues to when a game won’t be ready for its prospective shipping date. “Another indicator is that content [maps, missions etc] is being developed while primary gameplay features are still being taken to MVP (minimum viable product). If you don’t know how gameplay works, your content can’t be designed for it.”
Finally, Sawyer says that “if any content pipeline (creatures, conversations, etc.) is not fully stood up end to end, predictions about when all the content going through that pipeline will be finished are guesswork.”
In summary, Sawyer says that the three keys to pinpointing an accurate release date is “a) predictable and reliable content creation b) all significant gameplay features at MVP c) all pipelines up and running”. He wraps up by pointing out that these things are not arcane knowledge within the industry, and that while delays are never ideal, it’s important to be realistic about them for the sake of developer health.
“What’s infuriating about silly exec and production dates is that anyone with a decent amount of experience knows that if a,b and c are not there, they can’t reliab[ly] predict an end point, but they will try to do so with confidence and mash schedules to make it happen,” he says. “All it does is burn out and demoralize the developers and (justifiably) erode confidence in management.”
Although Sawyer’s advice was mainly targeted at fellow designers, he did share one tip for players to help them spot when a game is likely to be delayed. “There have been plenty of games that announce a date and I (correctly) predict they will not ship at that date,” he explains. “E.g. it’s a pretty reliable indicator that a game that has not publicly shown gameplay by summer will not ship that game by the end of that year.” So if you spy any CG trailers at Gamescom next month, don’t expect to be playing the game in question by Christmas.
