Release Date: I Don’t Know
Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 3, 2011
Brian Mitsoda answers the frequently asked question about his upcoming game, Dead State: “When is the release date?”
He very carefully explains the answer, “I don’t know.”
I can only echo everything he says here.
I’ve been asked a few times about how you estimate time to complete a project. The answer is that you base it upon the time to complete similar projects in the past with the same or similar team. If you have a new team and a project that pushes some new territory, it’s really, really hard to estimate. You have to play it by ear and scope it as you go. And in DoubleBear’s case, that’s exactly where they are. They can do hand-waving and set up some internal milestones to help refine their estimates and scope, but that’s it.
And he’s dead-on about updates. I’ve been trying to keep people updated on Frayed Knights for a very long time. While there have been some time periods where real life / the day job intruded and slowed things down, for the most part any lags often occur because 90% of game development is boring. At least to other people. Sure, I get all excited about refactoring some code that cleans up and optimizes how some inventory routine works, but that’s not something that non-coder gamers would have the slightest interest in.
I can say, however, that I’m about as anxious as any other gamer for the release of Dead State. Aside from my own game, this is the upcoming indie RPG that I’m most excited about.
Filed Under: Production - Comments: 7 Comments to Read
Andy_Panthro said,
I don’t mind fewer updates or whatever, but I do like regularity.
I’ve seen indie games fall at various hurdles before release and it’s always disheartening to hear nothing from a developer for an extended period of time. You’re left wondering if it’s worth checking back, or if the project is dead.
As you say, most of the time there are very good reasons for not posting updates (too busy, nothing fun to show off or whatever) but it’s always nice to hear people talk about their project, even if it’s only a sentence to say that it’s still in progress. Most indie fans don’t mind waiting a long time, especially if the end product is good!
I suppose this is where games like Minecraft can excel – the updates can be infrequent, but because the base game is playable people can play the evolving game as it is expanded upon.
On a related note, did you see the new indie games portal? It’s called IndieCity, and it appears to be positioning itself as the one-stop-shop for all indie games. It’s not quite ready yet, but there’s an interview over at Rock Paper Shotgun: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/08/03/indiecity-the-one-stop-shop-for-indies/
I was wondering about your thoughts in particular, since you have a store here.
Rampant Coyote said,
As far as IndieCity is concerned… well, they are the latest of many. Getting mentioned in RPS certainly doesn’t hurt their chances of succeeding where others have failed or simply persist.
For the most part, I look at it as I look at most of the “competition”: For indies, the problem isn’t fighting over market share, it’s building that market share. The more venues in which indie games can thrive, the better. So while as an affiliate it doesn’t help me much, I also don’t make enough money with affiliate games for it to really hurt me all that much, either…
BellosTheMighty said,
He’s missing the point, and I think you are too. The issue is, years of experience has taught gamers that 90% of the time, “when it’s done” means “Never, and we’re going to string you out for years waiting for it anyway.” I’m serious. Games without release dates make them or miss them, but games without release dates nearly always miss them. Press any gamer on the subject, he’ll be able to come up with dozens of games which never set a release date and never came out, or if they did come out were a disappointment. He’ll be able to name maybe a handful that were worth the wait. Deadlines aren’t just something for the publishers and the marketers, they help focus development and enforce prioritization of goals. Without them, developers tend to chase after artistic ideals that are impossible, unnecessary, or unwanted by players. They forget that professional discipline is required to make a good game.
GhanBuriGhan said,
Bellos, can you really come up with dozens of examples of the type of games not comint out like you mentioned? Because, honestly, I can’t. I remember a couple of mods (mostly for TES) that would fit, then there is The Broken Hourglass which however seems to have been put on hold due to personal difficulties of the developer, and of course there is Grimoire forever – but I can’t come up with dozens.
Rampant Coyote said,
@Bellos – I think you are right in that a studio proceeding without any kind of goal – pure “blue sky” development – is doomed. You need measurable goals. But that’s not what I was talking about, nor (I think) what Brian Mitsoda was talking about.
Many promising games have been ruined by meeting an arbitrary deadline. Arbitrary in that it had nothing to do with the readiness of the game, that is – it may have been a very real deadline with the survival of the company at stake. It’s almost impossible for a game to ship early, because quality and features will grow to exceed any deadline.
I’m sure they’ve got a time frame that they are looking at. But it’s flexible. In fact, as he mentions, all things are flexible – including the scope and features of the game. Planning the release is a juggling act with many variables. You can reduce scope, cut features, find a way to increase your time / budget, increase your staff, outsource some work, etc. You use internal milestones / deadlines (not publicly revealed, nor necessarily very “hard”) to help measure your progress and give you some indication of what kinds of course corrections you need to take.
But this shouldn’t be confused with being rudderless or going in without a plan. It’s really explaining why you can have a plan, goals, etc. but still not be able to nail down even a release window very far out in advance.
Hajo said,
There is also the sort of games that are releasing updates fairly regularly, but never really get finished.
You can find these in the noncommercial open source scene more often I think. The developers pick up new ideas and add them as they seem fit, and the games see more or less regular updates and releases. Sometimes these die, or hibernate, and sometimes forever, but other times are revived after years, maybe even by a different developer/team – open source makes that possible. But I guess that is just a different sort of projects altogether, and wouldn’t be possible for commercial projects.
Basically I just wanted to say that no release date for the final version does not mean the project will die. But Coyote is right, the project needs a vision and milestones for the journey – just they add new milestones every now and then which mover the final version more and more into the future, while the old build is still released and playable.
I assume to the testers, FK has just this character. They don’t know when it’ll be done, but they get updates now and then, and can play already. So I have no doubt that FK will see the light (soon), even if it’s hard to tell about a definite final release date (yet).
Hajo said,
Found something, maybe of interest to the topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy
Citation:
“In a 1994 study, 37 psychology students were asked to estimate how long it would take to finish their senior theses. The average estimate was 33.9 days. They also estimated how long it would take “if everything went as well as it possibly could” (averaging 27.4 days) and “if everything went as poorly as it possibly could” (averaging 48.6 days). The average actual completion time was 55.5 days, with only about 30% of the students completing their thesis in the amount of time they predicted.[6]”
So it seems to be a common problem not only for game development.