Articles

GameGuy:
The “Where’s my Game?” Edition
By Mark H. Walker

I love to game. I love
everything about it. I love browsing through the games on the shelves,
dashing home with my new obsession, ripping the shrink wrap off (and
not even taking time to throw it away), popping in the CD, and playing.
I love everything about it, but I don’t like to wait.

I bet you don’t either.

Yet sometimes it seems
that us gaming types spend more time waiting for a piece of software
that’s missed its release date than we do playing. How come? The answer
isn’t easy, it would be nice to blame the mythical “suits”
-a title development teams throw on anyone that baths regularly and
owns a tie without a little clip in the back- but the blame is not
wholly theirs. Neither -as some pundits would have you believe- is
it your fault for demanding too much bang for your bucks.

Imagine this: Joe Gamer
says, “I want a good game!” The publishing company says,
“You want a GOOD game? Well, in that case, we’ll have to delay
the release six months, but remember this is your fault. After all,
you’re the one who asked for a GOOD game.”

Face it, making a computer
game is a twenty-four month endeavor -sometimes more, but rarely less.
That fact is often overlooked, ignored, or impossibly hedged on by
every element in the process. The result is delays, hurt feelings
and dissatisfied customers. Frequently the problems start before (way
before) the first line of code hits a computer screen.

Day one, executive board
room, John Doe Publishing: Executive One: “We have a hole in
the release schedule sixteen months from now.” Executive Two:
“Well, action games are big, let’s plug in a first person shooter.”
Executive One: “Done.”

I’m not kidding. Certainly
not all games are birthed this way, but many are. Executives, most
of which have never pounded a line of code nor twisted a joystick
in their lives, set a date based on the company’s fiscal needs. No
development team, no design document, no story-boards, just a date.
A date you know will be missed.

But as I said before, the
suits are often just a convenient alibi. A game’s development is fraught
with time-suckers. Perhaps the most deadly of these insidious parasites
is Scope Creep. A sponger that normally resides in the hearts of the
development team, it has also been known to infest marketeers. Although
most game parameters are set in the aboriginal design document -a
hundred page missive that includes everything from the odds of connecting
with a rocket launcher to the names of each character, weapon, and
location- the designer and programmers may decide to add fresh technology
or unit capabilities in mid-stream. Hence the scope of the game increases,
and the time it takes to complete tags right along.

Often these changes are
for the better – for instance well-conceived and artfully implemented
technological or creative enhancements. Unfortunately, the creep all
too frequently has little to do with the quality of the game, and
more to do with the bullets on the back of the box. If real-time strategy
game “A” has 30 levels, then real-time strategy game “B”
must have 30 levels. It doesn’t matter if “B” told an enthralling
story in its 25 levels. The marketeers want five more levels -no matter
how repetitive they may be.

There is, however, one
other cause for delay that cynical gaming journalists often overlook.
Perchance the software is delayed because the development team, marketeers,
publishers, art directors, and folks that clean the building at night,
want to make sure the game is a good as it can be. Sometimes delays
are merely an indication of a team that will release no gaming wine
before its time.

I’ll wait for that.

I bet you will too.

© Mark H. Walker,
LLC 2001
Mark H. Walker is a veteran interactive entertainment
journalist who has written over 40 books including his recently released
Medal of Honor and Wizardry 8 strategy guides.