Short Dev Cycles

poopinmymouth

I am not talking about forced short dev cycles that wreak havoc on the peoples lives involved.

Why is it the only (seemingly) game made today, is the 10+ million, 2+ years, 20+ man team, AAA title? Why does every game have to be the next GTA 3? I would love to see a small 3-8 man strike team, with around a million and a year tops, make a game that is suitably scoped for that budget, teamsize and schedule. I think it would allow the developer to be alot more creative in their ideas, art style, gameplay mechanics and whatnot. One of the reasons Devs have to play it so safe is the amount of time and money involved. Lessen those to a great degree, and things do not have to be so bankably safe (read that as watered down lowest denominator)

Maybe there are such Developers and I just have not heard of them?

The games would also have the benefit of a lower selling cost, because of the lower dev time/costs. I know I am much more likely to plop down 20 bux for a new game than 50.

Ah well, if wishes were horses, poor men would ride.

Snowfly

I'd like to see more games of this nature too, which is why I feel lucky to be making games in the Philippines...the games industry is young, corporatism hasn't caught up yet. It's still about great game ideas no matter how unorthodox. No, it's not about making money either.

The international indie game scene is like that, although true enough a huge amount of game developers still aspire to make MMO's, FPS's, RTS's...

I'm not sure if I should be placing the 'blame' on publishers, but it seems it's them encouraging the one-time-big-time mentality.

HellMark

Which platform would you want to see this on Poop?

I remembering hearing John Romero had a small team doing handheld games with a moderate amount of success during his post-daikatana pre-midway days.

aesir

Have you ever heard of a game called savage done by a company called Silverback? I loved that game. I believe the dev team was only about 10 people or so. Unfortunately after the game shipped, a few of the main devs left to form a new company, so it looks like that particular team hasnt stayed together. Still, silverback is still producing games. ANYWAYS, they were a small dev team and they made a really fun game. Maybe it didn't make a TON of money, but it was fairly successful.

JonMurphy

http://www.moonpod.com/English/about_ss.php

3 guys who I worked with back at Rage. 2 programmers, one artist. Set-up on their own after Rage Sheffield ot closed down. Keep things simple, listen to their fans and seem to be doing quite well. Self-publish through the internet, although they did get a publishing deal in Russia.

Rick Stirling

Its always good to hear about those success after fuckup startups. I heard the same thing happened with Rage Newcastle, they've just brought out a new Rocky game.

Jeff Parrott

I read somewhere that the average PS2 game costs 2 million. The estimate for PS3 games is 10 million. But PSP games would be 800,000 to develop. That might be a good platform for a company like that. But I totally agree with Poop. Where are the awesome games that are fun to play for $20? I'm not talking about greatest hits or imports either.

ElysiumGX

I'd like to see a small team of 4 or less make a game at the cost of only a couple thousand over the course of one or two years.

Rick Stirling

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I'd like to see a small team of 4 or less make a game at the cost of only a couple thousand over the course of one or two years.

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Couple of thousand? hell, that wouldn't pay one persons wages for one month.

lkraan

With 6 months time and 5 people (2 code, 2 graphics, 1 audio) you can create great GBA or mobile games. I doubt DS will require bigger teams. Maybe a couple of months more time.

JonMurphy

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Couple of thousand? hell, that wouldn't pay one persons wages for one month.

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That would cover me and leave change

Rick Stirling

Before tax?

JonMurphy

Aye

Ryno

Maybe a shorter but high quality game that could be sold at bargain bin prices? I've always thought that would be a good idea to grow the game industry, as people who are curious about games could try them out without $50 sticker shock intimidating them. I'm sure that you could pull off a game like this with a small team.

FatAssasin

There's a game I just came across on Gamespy called Scaler. It's selling for $20 and got 4 stars, along with a nice review. Don't know much about the size of the team or how much it cost to make, but it fits the bill for a short, inexpensive, quality game.

Scaler

AstroZombie

What about Wild Tangent?

FunkaDelicDass

There's Planet Moon in the California Bay Area. They made Giants: Citizen Kabuto and Armed and Dangerous. The company was founded by two artists and I think the max team size was around 10. Everyone on the team had almost a decade of experience each, so it was apretty exclusive club. I got to work with one of the artists on the team for a few months and I absorbed lots of wisdom from him. He actually went back to Planet Moon a month ago; they're starting development on PSP titles. Like some have mentioned, seems like a good platform to work on for a company devoted to small teams.

poopinmymouth

Actually Fat Assasin, Scaler is the game that got me asking this question, imagine that.

Thanks for all the links guys.

FatAssasin

Now that HL2 is finally out, I'm really interested to see what kind of mods come from it. The editor looks pretty sweet, and the engine is of course extremely powerful. With these kinds of tools I can easily see a small team of technically minded artists making some cool stuff.

joolz8000

Zombie is doing this sort of thing right now. They're working on several low-budget titles- not sure if I can name them. There's definately a market for cheaper games ($20-ish), but it's not very prestigious. Personally, I prefer working on big-budget titles. The next few games I complete none of you will ever hear of.

FatAssasin

Well, I'd rather work on a decent, fun low budget game than a high profile one that ends up being complete doodoo. *cough* T3:ROTM *cough*

JKim3

Hey! The Scaler Dev team was right beside mine! I don't know if I'm allowed to comment on the size or time.

FatAssasin

Hmm, I wouldn't see why that kind of info would be classified, but who knows? What do you mean they were right beside you? Same company, same offices?

JKim3

Yeah, same company and room, but a kind of room divider in between.

Thing is, I'm paranoid about that kind of stuff. New to the industry so don't know what's sensitive and what's not.

Toomas

You cant sell new games for $20, Activision Value and other such "quality" companies have ruin the name of bargain games.
People think, that they will get some 2hours long, very boring and ugly looking game that crashes every 5mins, and thats true 90% of the time.