Game Development and Killer Deadlines

Or WTF can’t we get bug free games now?

With the recent release of the Grand Theft Auto trilogy, you can see the that remakes and remasters of older games are in demand. Gamers clamor for these updates to their favorite titles and this GTA trilogy was no exception. What is also evident is the trend that games are being developed at an increased pace and rush out the door to fans.

The end result of this quick development cycle is that the game in question suffers. Missing content, broken mechanics and other bugs, result in a poor experience. In the case of GTA, it resulted in the game being pulled from the market place in order to get the developer time to try to fix the issue. What really comes into question is how this makes it out the door in the first place.

Another example was the 2020 release of one of the most anticipated games of all time — CD Projekt RED’s Cyberpunk 2077. This game seemed to be stuck in development limbo, had unheard of levels of hype surrounding it and had it’s release pushed back numerous times. Once Cyberpunk 2077 made it into consumers greedy hands, tons of issues were found including the fact that the game was nearly unplayable on previous generation console hardware. Things were so bad that Sony pulled the game from the Play Station digital store.

How is it that games are being released when they are so obviously half baked and unfinished? Why would a developer put years of effort into a game only to ship something they aren’t really proud of?

Before we go any further, I want something to be very clear to everyone. This is nothing new. Broken games have always been shipped. One of the most famous is probably E.T. for the Atari 2600. Howard Scott Warshaw was given all of 5 weeks to develop a game and have it ready for Christmas 1982. The crazy thing is that he managed to actually produce anything at all.

The truth is that the gaming industry has become big business. Games cost millions to make. Just to put this into perspective, Red Dead…

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