[scratcheee]

Whilst I won’t deny that incompetent leadership and planning are involved, I think there are structural reasons for the game industry being uniquely problematic.

Games have massive cost efficiencies from scaling. Studios are incentivised to always make the biggest games they can with their budget. Games team sizes vary strongly with the project period. They can’t handle more than a small team early and can absorb almost any number of people at any skill level before release.

End result is that game development is always boom and bust. Small core teams build a game up slowly, then more and more are added until just before release when a mad scramble for anyone and everyone they can be bought borrowed or stolen to get the game released on time. Then there’s no work except for the core team on the next game.

The obvious solution is to have many games running in one studio to even out the team sizes and absorb the crunch, but that implies either studio sizes beyond anything we see currently (and no increase in per project scope) or much smaller scope for games.

I’ve seen models like they work, and be much less painful to work with for everyone involved, but it did require different market conditions to justify the alternative model, I’m not sure the entire industry could switch.

That’s not to say fixing the problem is impossible, just that the bad incentives will always be there to push back against improvements..