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Development Hell - Scott The Woz

May 05, 2020
...ah! Hello everyone, Scott here, and I'm in the middle of developing an intense and exciting game. A publisher hired me to pitch a game to them. Let me bring you up to speed on the

development

cycle. Step 1: I do the work. Step 2: disaster strikes. Step 3: explain myself. Hey boss, funny story. So, the hard drive is damaged. And finally, step 1: I do the work. This happens every two weeks! I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I'M DOING WRONG!! Hell, two definitions: eternal damnation and

development

of Duke Nukem Forever. Sometimes video games don't get enough credit. They are basically a combination of any other type of entertainment and the development process that accompanies them.
development hell   scott the woz
Behind most triple-A releases are designers, programmers, writers, artists, musicians, producers, caterers... It's like a film production gone crazy! Expecting a new game to be fully developed in less than 10 minutes is a bit unrealistic. I'd say that with most games after they're announced, it's fair to expect to play them within a year or two, three years at most. But some games need more time in the oven. And buy “more time in the oven”, I mean more time in the oven. Development

hell

, although a term not exclusive to video games, has existed in the medium for as long as it has existed: development that takes too long due to a number of problems.
development hell   scott the woz

More Interesting Facts About,

development hell scott the woz...

These are games with a development history that is sometimes more interesting than the final product itself. Gran Turismo 5 had a long, stupid development for a racing game, starting around 2005 and ending in 2010. The Gran Turismo HD Concept and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue games emerged to lighten the load by giving consumers a taste of what that the game had to offer. . When it finally came out, I have to hand it to them. They made a Gran Turismo game for the PlayStation 3, okay. THE. Noire went through a lot of delays after starting development in 2004 and finally releasing in 2011, the long development of which was likely due to the technology behind the project and/or the terrible working conditions of Team Bondi employees.
development hell   scott the woz
Team Fortress 2 took 9 years, Diablo 3 took 11. But one of the most well-known games that simply refused to come out was The Last Guardian. Notoriously in development

hell

for a time, The Last Guardian was Team ICO's third title after ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, two of the most beloved games of all time. It was announced for the PlayStation 3 in 2009, but after numerous development issues, the title was noticeably absent from all E3s after 2009. A Tokyo Game Show trailer appeared in 2010, but other than that... nothing. With cancellation rumors popping up from time to time. Fortunately, the game was re-revealed at E3 2015 for the PlayStation 4 and was eventually released in late 2016 to a general consensus of… Many agreed that the game felt a bit dated control-wise.
development hell   scott the woz
Now, I haven't played Last Guardian yet, but I've been playing the recent Shadow of the Colossus remake on PS4 and if it's anything like that game, it has some grade A moments, but man, does it like making noise. Sometimes it comes out! Long development cycles can change a game drastically, with what is initially revealed becoming almost indistinguishable from the final product. Simple example: Mother 3 moves from the 3D N64 game in the mid-90s to the 2D GBA game in 2006. Beyond Good and Evil 2 was originally supposed to be a direct sequel to the 2003 cult classic, with a reveal trailer debuting in 2008.
Then we had a monkey that said "fuck" in 2017 as a prequel and there is still no concrete release date. Final Fantasy XV began development as Final Fantasy Versus XIII back in 2006, a parallel game based on Final Fantasy XIII, but set in a different universe with completely original characters. At this point, I think a lot of us would look at that and say, "Why plug this into XIII when you can make it your own?" That's more similar. Doom 4 morphed into DOOM (2016) after 9 years, which definitely made that game solid. Prey underwent a lot of changes between 1995 and 2006, which actually helped it in the long run, allowing the game to take advantage of newer hardware.
Sometimes a long development cycle can be best. BUT of course, development hell can greatly affect the quality of a game in a negative way and help contribute to a game turning out that way. Lack of focus, constantly changing management and objectives, and simple incompetence can be key to producing a less than stellar experience that takes 40 years to create. Take, for example, Devil's Third. Recently, Scott the Woz did an episode about this game. Yeah, I don't think it's as bad as others act like it is, but even I have to admit, hey, not Mario Party 6, that's for sure!
This game is still pretty boring, and I think a big part of that is definitely because it's been in the works since 2008. Ride to Hell: Retribution is a fun spit to chew tobacco, but a pretty terrible game. This was announced in 2008 with a release date scheduled for 2009 and this is simply a different game. THIS was cancelled. And in 2013, we pulled THIS out of nowhere. For some reason, the original version was scrapped and then this guy was cobbled together after everyone already forgot it was ever announced. Too Human blew up and this took nine years, jumping from console to console until it hit the Xbox 360.
The use of Unreal Engine 3 in the game sparked a lawsuit between Silicon Knights and Epic Games, which Silicon Knights lost and therefore lost. led to bankruptcy. Hopefully, Too Human was worth it. Oh God. But... what if there was a game that spent years in development and changed drastically, the quality was wasted, but was somehow completely faithful as a sequel? Easily the most famous game that took forever to come out. Duke Nukem Forever was a hit in the gaming industry for years. Duke Nukem 3D was a huge critical and commercial success at the time, but even before the game concluded development, a new Duke game was being considered.
Really, the first thing that came out of the development of Duke Nukem Forever was the name. They legitimately wanted to make the game simply to use the title "Duke Nukem Forever." Originating as a 2D game, similar to the early Duke Nukem titles, it quickly became a 3D sequel. 3D Realms continued to tease the game even after switching engines several times, going from the Quake 1 engine to the Quake 2 engine, which was used in the game's 1998 reveal trailer, to the Unreal Engine, which was used in the game's reveal trailer. 2001. All progress was scrapped and restarted again in 2003. And then again in 2006, causing many 3D Realms employees to quit.
The relaunched project was teased in 2007, and then publisher Take-Two sued 3D Realms for their incompetence in finishing the game, and the entire development team was fired. They form a new company, Triptych, to continue working on the project. Duke Nukem is bought by Gearbox Software and things are finally starting to wind down. A new trailer is released showing off tons of gameplay and the game is scheduled for release on May 3, 2011. Before being delayed one last time to June 10. But hey, it really launched! Regardless of the game's reception, it was amazing to see it come out. Now, let's take as little advantage as possible and actually improve the reception of the game.
Duke Nukem Forever didn't turn out to be the avant-garde masterpiece it was originally intended to be. In some ways, the 2001 trailer looks better than what came out 10 years later. I'll give this to Duke Nukem Forever: it was a very faithful sequel to Duke Nukem 3D, with the same style and humor. If you wanted a new Duke Nukem game, Duke Nukem Forever did it and I think it did it pretty well. The problem is that many of the original fans of Duke Nukem 3D's crude humor abandoned it by the time of Forever's release, and the one thing it always had going for it compared to other shooters was its crude humor.
What we got was a completely average game with fairly lame jokes that felt like they were five years behind everything else. Duke Nukem Forever's only claim to fame when it released was the time it took to release. Why talk about games that survived development hell when we can talk about games that still linger in it? These are games that were announced a while ago and haven't appeared yet. You can definitely refer to some of these as vaporware, which is a term that definitely goes hand in hand with development health. Vaporware is used to describe products that never come out.
They are never officially cancelled, but it's pretty obvious that they were. Does anyone remember Street Fighter × Tekken? Correct answer! Nobody does it. In fact, it was a cross between Street Fighter and Tekken, but with gameplay that was more Street Fighter with its 2D fighting style compared to Tekken's 3D style. But what if we had another Street Fighter and Tekken crossover that looks like Tekken? Well, we're in luck! Motherfucker. And that was at the same time as Street Fighter × Tekken in the summer of 2010. It only took Capcom a year and a half to release that game to store shelves.
Tekken × Street Fighter did not really receive any development updates, and as of 2016, the game was put on hold. It's been eight years since the announcement, I think it's fair to say that the game in its original state... has been cancelled. If it was released around the same time as Street Fighter × Tekken, it would have been a bit strange to see both games on the market. shelf. You have Street Fighter × Tekken and Tekken × Street Fighter. That's the perfect opportunity for the worst Christmas ever for the Tekken × Street Fighter fan who asks his mom for the game. Agent was supposed to be a big PlayStation 3 exclusive developed by Rockstar Games.
Well, the game has a development history dating back to 2003. The title was initially teased in 2007 and was officially announced in 2009 at Sony's E3 press conference. That's all. There were actually a few screenshots leaked from people who worked on it, but no real trailer was ever released, and the only real concrete information we got about the title was the title. However, even when all the odds are against it, and it is ever considered anything more than cancelled, Take-Two Interactive continues to rebrand and the game is still listed on Rockstar's website. It's still coming to the PS3 with a release day to be confirmed.
Of course, there's Final Fantasy VII Remake, which taught me that even a game that's already out can sometimes refuse to come out. Yes, I know the remake is basically a completely different game, but... ...come on, this is ridiculous... a remake of Final Fantasy VII has been requested for years and Square knew it. The game was officially confirmed via a teaser at E3 2015 and gameplay was officially revealed at PlayStation Experience later that year. And now nothing! They announced it was going to be an episodic release, everyone threw up, we got some teaser images. That's all. It's definitely because Kingdom Hearts III was busy in development, which alone took an extraordinary amount of time from 2013 to 2019.
Dead Island 2 is the sequel to that game that I think we only remember for my favorite depressing reveal trailer of all. time. . Man, everything is going backwards! 2 was a drastic change in tone if its revealing trailer is anything to go by. It was rated 12 times more Jack Black than Dead Island 1 even though Jack Black's voice in the trailer turned out not to be Jack Black McGee. Anyway, yes. This game is not out yet. It was announced in 2014, it exchanged developers. And yes, that's it. There's that Dreams game from Media Molecule for the PlayStation 4. Listen, this was announced alongside the PlayStation 4 in 2013.
It's not out yet and I still don't know what the hell it is. And OF COURSE... Half-Life 3, or Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Alright, Half-Life 2, dunzo, followed by Half-Life 2: Episode 1. I know, a bit confusing title, but it is a follow-up to Half-Life 2. Half-Life 2: Episode 2 follows Episode 1 and leaves things on hold. 10 years, 10 months and 24 days later and that's all we have. And from what the leaked concepts and former Valve employees imply, it's fair to say that plans for the next entry in the Half-Life series have been canceled or put on indefinite hold. However, I maintain that eventually, EVENTUALLY, it will come to light.
Or there will simply be a direct reboot of the series. But when he does... Oh yes! Problems with development happen, it happens with every game. But when all the development is a problem, that's when it's safe to assume we won't get the game initially promised. Development hell has proven to be beneficial for some games, but more often than not it ends up confirming disappointment at the end of the day. Unfortunately, sometimes this makes the journey more interesting than the destination. Instead of a project being remembered as what everyone who worked on it wanted it to be, many are remembered as that game that never came out... until it did.
I think one of the most annoying aspects of a game in development is the lack of information for consumers. I just wish that companiesbe more transparent about what is really happening. Instead of saying, "We have nothing to announce at this time." Why not say, "Oh yeah, Duke Nukem is still coming out. We're just idiots who don't know how to make a game!" I joke, game development is kind of hard! I should know. I've been working on this unknown game for a while now. The truth is that I have no idea what it is. I've restarted so many times I don't even know if I'm working on the game right now.
Oh! Well, better give them what I have right now. Damn, I was never asked to make a game to begin with. They asked me to make a Snickers bar.

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