[2021] REALLY?1 STILL?

Originally posted by bladeshredder:

Originally posted by Jim Lahey: Yes, open world games tend to take a long time to develop particularly when there isn't a lot of people making them.

Not every game developer has a literal army of developers *slaves* at their beck and call like others do that allows mediocre games to be pumped out every year with a constant rinse lather and repeat mantra.

hmmm well this one seems to be taking longer than any ive ever known....

To quote myself from another thread:

Originally posted by Shurenai: Resident Evil 4 -- 6 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_4 Development began 1999, Released 2005.
Starcraft 2 -- 6-7~ years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft Work began in 2004 after the shutdown of Ghost; Game announced 2007, released 2010.
Mafia II -- 7 years. https://kotaku.com/the-troubled-story-behind-mafia-ii-1447716549 Work began 2003, release 2010.
L.A. Noire -- 7 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_L.A._Noire Began in 2004, released 2011.
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified -- 7 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bureau:_XCOM_Declassified Originally began in 2006, Later finished in 2013
Spore -- 8 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Spore DEvelopment began in 2000, Released 2008.
Spec Ops the Line -- 8 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spec_Ops:_The_Line Originally began development in 2003 at the latest; possibly before, Cancelled in 2004, picked up around a year later, released 2012- 8 years is generous, could be considered longer.

The following are generally some longer lived ones; Typically due to some kind of developmental issues.
Too Human -- 9-10 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_Human Work began as early as 1997-1998; Later released 2008.
Team Fortress 2 -- 8-9 years. https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Team_Fortress_2 First announced 1998, Released late 2007.
The Last Guardian -- 9 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Guardian Development began in 2007, Later released 2016.
Diablo 3 -- 11 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_III Development began 2001, Announced 2008ish Later released 2012
Duke Nukem Forever -- 15 years. Not the greatest example, but true. Many people are already familiar with it's storied development- Not too hard to look up sources on it if you're keen.

Borderlands 3, A more recent example, Right around 7 years while working with many existing assets and ideas that came before it's time from Borderlands games leading up to it.

The above is NOT an exhaustive list. And if that list is not exhaustive enough, I do have other lists and examples laying around in my post history.


Most game companies do everything in their power to prevent the consumer from even hearing about their game until it's mostly done, at which point they announce it at something like E3. Even other EA games only enter EA when they're a number of years into their development cycle and close to beta; Almost noone allows the public to see the alpha stage of the game until after the game is fully released and it's been six months to a year at which point they MIGHT release a video documentary showing some alpha footage or something.

7DTD by contrast has been available to purchase by the public from the very first working version of the game; Alpha 1, Build 1.

Alpha development takes up the bulk of a game or programs development lifetime; Easily taking 85-95% of the total development time; Alpha is measured in multiple years, Beta is measured in months.


Edit: Forgot to add, but, The list above is all made by multi-million or multi-billion dollar companies significantly larger than The Fun Pimps, who had more access to resources and industry contacts to streamline the process. Many of them even are sequels to other games that allowed them to skip a large portion of development by pulling resources and ideas from the old game to flesh out the new.

TFP on the other hand started with a kickstarter with a handful of people; The first few years of development were by a small indie development crew; Even now the size of their company is still only up to around 40~ or so people, iirc.