Support NeoGAF

[Draugoth]

Xbox Game Studios chief says people need to realise games now take 4-6 years to make | VGC

Xbox Game Studios chief Matt Booty has said that modern games have development cycles of over half a decade in some cases, in an attempt to put to rest the fan expectation of new games every “two or three years.”

www.videogameschronicle.com

Xbox Game Studios chief Matt Booty has said that both game players and the industry in general need to realise that most big games now have development cycles of around half a decade.

In an interview with Axios, Booty said:

“I think that the industry and the fans were a little behind the curve on sort of a reset to understand that games aren’t two or three years anymore.”

Specifically referring to high-end big-budget games, Booty added that now “they’re four, and five, and six years”.

While the Xbox 360 and PS3 generation saw a plethora of large franchises releasing as many as three games in a series in the space of one console – Gears of War, Halo (3, Reach, 4) and Uncharted, for example – the Xbox One and PS4 generation saw this frequency slow significantly due to the increase in game budgets and the number of people working on individual titles.

While annualised franchises such as Assassin’s Creed (which routinely released a new title every Christmas until a recent break) and Call of Duty (which has maintained annual releases for almost 20 years) remain, they are aided by several studios swapping off development duty, meaning they’re spending closer to three or four years on each title.

Starfield, Xbox’s biggest game of the year, will be the firsttitle released from Bethesda Game Studios since Fallout 4 in 2015, marking an almost decade-long gap between games.

 

[cireza]

And then you see...
People cry when games are not released quickly.
People cry when games don't have visuals at least superior to reality.
Etc...

 

[adamsapple]

He's not wrong, looking at almost all modern game dev cycles.

 

[Saber]

Its not like it took that much time with Elden Ring, right?

If I was him, time would be the less of my worries.

 

[Fake]

Insecurity... if the trailer had got praise, not even a single word from those devs would be make.

Pretty much the Spider-man 2 devs reaction. Devs those days have the same mental years old as their fanboys.

 

[Dane]

Yup, and thanks to Microsoft previous managements having butchered their first party output including third party partnerships, it was bounded to take 5-6 years to see the results after the acquisition spree in 2018.

 

[acm2000]

Insecurity... if the trailer had got praise, not even a single word from those devs would be make.

Pretty much the Spider-man 2 devs reaction. Devs those days have the same mental years old as their fanboys.

from what im seeing most people loved the trailer.

 

[oldergamer]

Rpg games have always had a longer development tail compared to single player games. It's kind of unfortunate that efficiency hasn't really been found in game development now that high end games can take longer than movies to develop

 

[Fake]

from what im seeing most people loved the trailer.

Got praise, ask people to understand. Yeah, make much as sense as this response from the dev team.

 

[TheBROgamer]

I thought this has been known for years?

 

[Ar¢tos]

FROM SOFTWARE says hi!

 

[Represent.]

Not if you make them shorter and realize not every AAA game needs to be 30+ hours.

 

[dotnotbot]

FROM SOFTWARE says hi!

And Insomniac.

 

[Kusarigama]

Yeah... I am still blaming CoVid-19 for most things in life not going the way I wanted. So should he.

 

[dorkimoe]

Then stop announcing them 5 years before it’s ready

 

[U n i o n 0015]

...and rarely worth the amount of time spent in development.

I'd rather see good core gameplay loops being built in two years, rather than focusing on a 0.5% graphic improvement just to make the game's visuals closer to movies, or to build a pointless open world that is boring to discover.

 

[TheBROgamer]

FROM SOFTWARE says hi!

FROM SOFTWARE has a lot of asset re-use in their games...

 

[TheBROgamer]

And Insomniac.

Insomniac also has a lot of asset re-use.

Spiderman 2 is being built upon the foundation built in Spiderman 1, they're just updated and expanding what's already their.

Doing all this from scratch?

Way longer and more complex.

 

[EverydayBeast]

If they found out how to put cod games out every year…

 

[Ar¢tos]

FROM SOFTWARE has a lot of asset re-use in their games...

Yes, Deracine and Armored Core look exactly like Souls...

 

[DaGwaphics]

Insecurity... if the trailer had got praise, not even a single word from those devs would be make.

Pretty much the Spider-man 2 devs reaction. Devs those days have the same mental years old as their fanboys.

It's important to note that Booty didn't make these comments in reference to Fable at all, and even if he had done that, he isn't part of the dev team on that.

This was really regarding the overall criticism about the lack of first-party content on the Series systems since launch. He was reiterating that they have a lot in the fire but things just take longer to make now, but that he believes they've turned the corner where their pipeline can now maintain their release targets.

 

[dotnotbot]

Insomniac also has a lot of asset re-use.

Spiderman 2 is being built upon the foundation built in Spiderman 1, they're just updated and expanding what's already their.

Doing all this from scratch?

Way longer and more complex.

And that foundation was released 2 years after R&C 2016 which was released 2 years after Sunset Overdrive. IMO it's more about good management and team focusing on what they're best in. We know they're struggling with Fable, it's not just a normal dev cycle.

 

[Kdad]

Manage your pipeline better so you have consistent, varying output then. Its a management issue.

 

[Saber]

Insomniac also has a lot of asset re-use.

Spiderman 2 is being built upon the foundation built in Spiderman 1, they're just updated and expanding what's already their.

Doing all this from scratch?

Way longer and more complex.

Same could be said to Tears of Kingdom, or even Fable 3 who uses alot of re-used assets from 2, etc. And yet the diference between the likes of Fromsoft + Nintendo in contrast against Microsoft games are large.

Pointless stuff. Time spending(or wasted) in development is meanless without good management, something Microsoft games are clearly lacking.
Tears of Kingdom took one more year just for polishment and bug testing, tell me if people didn't agree with more time on the oven if its worth it. People "realized" games took longer to develop ages ago, and it doesn't mean they gonna be released in good state either.

 

[GHG]

Insecurity... if the trailer had got praise, not even a single word from those devs would be make.

Pretty much the Spider-man 2 devs reaction. Devs those days have the same mental years old as their fanboys.

Sometimes these guys talk like they read every comment on twitter/social media instead of just focusing on doing their jobs.

 

[Umbasaborne]

This is self inflicted. No one asked for everything to be a massive open world. When you look at insomniac or capcom, it’s clear that microsoft jus mismanages their studio

 

[YeulEmeralda]

PlayStation 2 generation had 3 GTA games and I'm not even counting the PSP.

 

[GHG]

This is self inflicted. No one asked for everything to be a massive open world. When you look at insomniac or capcom, it’s clear that microsoft jus mismanages their studio

How long did it take them to release Halo Infinite again?

And that was started when dev cycles aren't even as long as they are today.

 

[Fake]

Sometimes these guys talk like they read every comment on twitter/social media instead of just focusing on doing their jobs.

Modern devs are 100% generation z, so my guess is they really like to spend most of their time reading shit over social media.

It's important to note that Booty didn't make these comments in reference to Fable at all, and even if he had done that, he isn't part of the dev team on that.

This was really regarding the overall criticism about the lack of first-party content on the Series systems since launch. He was reiterating that they have a lot in the fire but things just take longer to make now, but that he believes they've turned the corner where their pipeline can now maintain their release targets.

I'm sure this is all response about the weakness part of the Xbox showcase. Hellblade 2 and Fable was terrible.

 

[Fredrik]

PlayStation 2 generation had 3 GTA games and I'm not even counting the PSP.

360 era was insane too.
3 Mass Effect
3 Gears of War (4 with Judgement)
3 Uncharted
2 The Elder Scrolls
2 Fallout
3 Final Fantasy (13, 13-2, Lightning)
Etc

 

[Gaiff]

Don't announce them 4 years ahead of schedule?

 

[Umbasaborne]

Then stop announcing them 5 years before it’s ready

Then you’ll just get them crying “buh-buh how do we recruit!?” Not my problem. This is a game trailer not a LinkedIn ad

 

[SmokedMeat]

Yes, games take longer to make. People should understand that by now.

 

[Low Moral Fibre]

Kind of off topic and maybe it's just this place but it seems people just wait around for the next AAA game to consume when there are tons of insanely brilliant indie and AA games if people look outside the AAA sphere.

While you are waiting 4-6 years for your next safe cinematic game that is 95% the same as the last safe cinematic game play some stuff like Dredge, Valheim, Hades, Inscryption, Grounded, Wildermyth, Hi-Fi Rush, Disco Elysium, Pentiment, Returnal etc.

And I'm not trying to dunk on the Sony style cinematic AAA game or the Forza games that seem to be the same game each time just in a different country but when you are dumping £100m+ into a game you have to be absolutely sure people are going to buy it so it doesn't pay to take crazy risks.

Or maybe it's just that people can only console war about the AAA stuff so that's all that matters here...

 

[gothmog]

This is neither news nor surprising given that games also got more expensive to make. If you manage your studios and expectations correctly nobody would ever know how long it takes to develop games because you would be planning that 4-6 year cycle into your release schedules to make sure you have at least 3-4 games ready each year.

Booty trying to make this about the consumer having to "reset" their expectations is funny.

 

[ThaMonkeyClaw]

Xbox Game Studios chief says people need to realise games now take 4-6 years to make | VGC

Xbox Game Studios chief Matt Booty has said that modern games have development cycles of over half a decade in some cases, in an attempt to put to rest the fan expectation of new games every “two or three years.”

www.videogameschronicle.com

Xbox Game Studios chief Matt Booty has said that both game players and the industry in general need to realise that most big games now have development cycles of around half a decade.

In an interview with Axios, Booty said:



Specifically referring to high-end big-budget games, Booty added that now “they’re four, and five, and six years”.

While the Xbox 360 and PS3 generation saw a plethora of large franchises releasing as many as three games in a series in the space of one console – Gears of War, Halo (3, Reach, 4) and Uncharted, for example – the Xbox One and PS4 generation saw this frequency slow significantly due to the increase in game budgets and the number of people working on individual titles.

While annualised franchises such as Assassin’s Creed (which routinely released a new title every Christmas until a recent break) and Call of Duty (which has maintained annual releases for almost 20 years) remain, they are aided by several studios swapping off development duty, meaning they’re spending closer to three or four years on each title.

Starfield, Xbox’s biggest game of the year, will be the firsttitle released from Bethesda Game Studios since Fallout 4 in 2015, marking an almost decade-long gap between games.

Shit, look at Grand Theft Auto, they are pushing upon the 10 year mark since the last GTA came out...I think 4-6 years makes sense looking at the amount of production that goes into games nowadays, we aren't dealing with 2D sprites and simple 3D polygons anymore...

 

[Gambit2483]

It only takes 6+ years If you're in development hell.

Devs like Insomniac, Monolithsoft and Santa Monica can put out several large scale games within less than 6 years.

I get that development cycles are longer now but if you have a solid team, with great leadership and clear vision it doesn't take more than 5 or so years to get a game out.

 

[ADiTAR]

Developers should really start working at 60FPS, that would cut these timings in half.

 

[kuncol02]

PlayStation 2 generation had 3 GTA games and I'm not even counting the PSP.

And whole city in GTA3 had less detail than one street in GTA5.

 

[Del_X]

It only takes 6+ years If you're in development hell.

Devs like Insomniac, Monolithsoft and Santa Monica can put out several large scale games within less than 6 years.

I get that development cycles are longer now but if you have a solid team, with great leadership and clear vision it doesn't take more than 5 or so years to get a game out.

God of War 2018 took five years to make.

AAA games have a 4-6 year dev cycle until AI brings some productivity gains around QA and maybe asset creation (and even then it'll take human curation so you're talking about shaving off maybe 3-6 months tops).

Spider-Man 2 will have had a five year development cycle. Insomniac is multiple teams.

 

[Bernkastel]

It only takes 6+ years If you're in development hell.

They started a new studio from scratch

Playground Games opening second studio for open world game

Forza Horizon developer Playground Games is planning to open a second development studio, GamesIndustry.biz can reveal.…

www.gamesindustry.biz

Ofcourse, it will take time. id Software spent 5-6 years on Doom (2016) and then Doom Eternal came out in early 2020, because they don't have to do everything from scratch. Everything about Fable, from the engine (that is they have to modify Forzatech for a RPG game, and expand for most of the stuffs it does not support), to the studio, and assets are made and designed from scratch.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

Rpg games have always had a longer development tail compared to single player games. It's kind of unfortunate that efficiency hasn't really been found in game development now that high end games can take longer than movies to develop

Games had ALWAYS taken longer than movies to make. ET was a bad game on the Atari because they were trying to cash in on the movie. But games were always meant to take more than a year to make, which then became 2 years, then three. And now 4 years is normal, even FAST.

I am just glad indie games still exist.

 

[Gambit2483]

God of War 2018 took five years to make.

AAA games have a 4-6 year dev cycle until AI brings some productivity gains around QA and maybe asset creation (and even then it'll take human curation so you're talking about shaving off maybe 3-6 months tops).

Spider-Man 2 will have had a five year development cycle. Insomniac is multiple teams.

Exactly, as I said, most games don't usually take 6 or more years unless it's in development hell, i.e. Metroid Prime 4.

4-5 years seems to be the current standard for AAA game development

 

[yurinka]

While annualised franchises such as Assassin’s Creed (which routinely released a new title every Christmas until a recent break) and Call of Duty (which has maintained annual releases for almost 20 years) remain, they are aided by several studios swapping off development duty, meaning they’re spending closer to three or four years on each title.

These games keep being released every year or so because they have multiple games of these series being developed at the same time by different teams.

Assassin's Creed had 3-4 games being developed at the same time in the PS3 or PS4 era, now they have like half a dozen.

Same goes with teams like Insomniac, they released almost a game per year during a lot of time because they had different teams working on multiple games at the same time.

It only takes 6+ years If you're in development hell.

Devs like Insomniac, Monolithsoft and Santa Monica can put out several large scale games within less than 6 years.

Their most recent games took 4-5 years each. And they were mostly previous gen games, game of that scale will take more (every new generation the development time gets increased because better visuals and more features and content requires more work) when really made for the current gen with proper current gen engines.

Also, there are other AAA games that have a bigger scale than these games in terms of amount of work required, as it's the case of stuff like GTA, Starfield or big AC games like Valhalla.

 

[FunkMiller]

That's not the issue Booty.

The issue is that you have mishandled your studios so badly for the past ten years, that any decent release cadence you could have had between all of them went out the window.

Nobody expects a single dev to put out a AAA game faster than every five years or so, but the fact you have multiple AAA devs not putting anything out for five years or so is your fault.

 

[DR3AM]

What changed that AAA games now take that long to develop and cost almost double to make?

 

[Dr_Ifto]

Yup, and thanks to Microsoft previous managements having butchered their first party output including third party partnerships, it was bounded to take 5-6 years to see the results after the acquisition spree in 2018.

Were these teams not building anything before 2018? 4-6 years is 2022-2024. We are in the middle of it, and only seen a small portion of any results from the acquisitions.

 

[NickFire]

Most of us know this. Most of us also know its not the excuse someone is looking for.

 

[Stare-Bear]

True and if you don’t start development 4 years before a new console launch, you launch without first party games.

 

[Torrent of Pork]

Its not like it took that much time with Elden Ring, right?

If I was him, time would be the less of my worries.

Elden Ring was developed concurrently with Sekiro. The game was mostly done by the time they announced it.

The big thing now is when to announce. Do it at the start with a CG teaser, and gamers are going to bitch when it's not in their hands 3 years later. Show in-engine footage half-way through, and gamers are going to bitch that it's not polished gameplay 3 years out from launch. Announce it at the end of development, and gamers are going to bitch all that time that you're not doing anything.

TLDR gamers are always going to bitch about whatever decision you make, so just do what you think is best.