LucasArts: inflating budgets and delays are "inexcusable"

by Ross Miller { Jun 15th 2006 at 2:25PM }

Speaking to MCV, LucasArts president Jim Ward has expressed his frustration in the ever-expanding budgets given to developers, and their willingness to let titles get delayed for indefinite amounts of time.

Ward warns that the current mentality -- that making great games takes "whatever time it takes and ... whatever money it takes" -- is bad business. "It's not okay in other entertainment businesses," he said. "In other businesses it's big trouble." Ward is calling for a major overhaul in publisher philosophy, one which LucasArts adopting, to curb development inflation.

The money issue is understandable, especially from a business perspective. Games have inflated to multimillion dollar projects, and many titles suffer from high polish but low gameplay value. Time, however, is a double-edged sword. Many games can benefit from time delays and extensions. As programming becomes more complex and nightmarish, developers sometimes need (and hopefully use) the extra time allowed to fine tune the game engines and reduce long load times and sloppy frame rates.

Then again, some of the best works of art -- be it movies, music, or literature -- have spawned from situations where budget was tight and time was short. The earliest video games shared these constraints, and many have become timeless classics, where the creativity spurs longevity. Of course, Ward's comments are pure business (remember, the company hasn't released an adventure game since 2000, opting instead to focus on guaranteed hits based on the Star Wars universe), but could these financial restraints inadvertently force developers to look past gaming fluff (extra shiny graphics, for example) and focus on simple-yet-innovative gameplay ideas?

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

.ed @ Jun 15th 2006 2:31PM

So what he's saying is he's throwing his name in the hat to finish DN:F and snag a peice of that sweet sweet development bounty?

hehehe score.

someone @ Jun 15th 2006 2:34PM

"some of the best works of art...have spawned from situations where budget was tight and time was short. The earliest video games shared these constraints"

Great games like ET for the Atari####

brian @ Jun 15th 2006 2:34PM

So maybe there IS some truth to that rumor going around that Lucasarts is ditching PS3 development for Wii...

...or maybe this is what that rumor was based on.

Either way, I'm sure we'll be getting a wii-saber Star Wars title soon after launch.

James @ Jun 15th 2006 2:35PM

Following the Lucas Arts montra and the delay themes:

Obi-Wan, Indiana Jones Sequels, Monkey Island Sequels.

Long delayed. Big busts.

Marc @ Jun 15th 2006 2:40PM

This is the same kind of thing that Gabe Newell has been saying. Although he actually proposes a solution (Episodic content to reduce development time and cost) instead of just pointing out a problem.

jabbertrack @ Jun 15th 2006 2:46PM

I'd say more than the budgetary and time constraints most bad games suffer from "too many hands in the cookie jar" syndrome. Which is again usually the fault of the publisher.

So what have we learned? Publishers are EVIL

DojoRacoon @ Jun 15th 2006 2:47PM

This is troubling to me. I think the problem isn't with delays and budget increases it's with how all involved in the development work together. A company like Blizzard hardly ever releases on time but their titles are polished and put out huge numbers. I say there's nothing wrong with releasing a game untill it's the best it can be. The problem is the people in charge more often than not don't know how to get it there.

Hepme @ Jun 15th 2006 3:11PM

What I wonder about is how something like Duke Nukem Forever can be produced over such a long period of time. It would seem to me that they would have to keep switching engines to keep up with the latest technology. This will only push the date back further.

Robotic House Plant @ Jun 15th 2006 3:15PM

Tbe problem with big budgets, publishers are less likely to take risks on expensive properties, unless there's a built in audience for the product or it's a sequel of some sort.

How many completely original games have huge budgets?

me @ Jun 15th 2006 3:18PM

"Ward warns that the current mentality -- that making great games takes "whatever time it takes and ... whatever money it takes" -- is bad business."

not according to the US government.

JimmyHACK @ Jun 15th 2006 3:22PM

he is wrong in saying that time and money for "good" games is wrong.... being at lucasarts maybe if they delayed some more of their recent games and put more time in them to be good, they may have been good.

stiill @ Jun 15th 2006 3:32PM

Hmm, let's think of some example cases to test LucasArt's hypothesis.

Halo: took 4-5 years.
World of Warcraft: took 4.5 years.
Half-Life 2: took 4-5 years, at least.

Man, those were disasters.

Oh, wait, you're talking about games that continue to milk 20 year old franchises? Nevermind, then. Shovel it out.

32_Footsteps @ Jun 15th 2006 3:35PM

Wait, how has this thread gone on for 11 posts (as of when I write this comment) and nobody has mentioned Daikatana? Among the bad practices that game was guilty of were excessive development costs and excessive time in development.

One thing I wonder, would money and time budgets be as high if developers weren't constantly obsessed with making the games use as many resources as possible? There's a relative cap on such things for console games, but it's absurd for PC games. It's like developers are more interested in trying to push the limits of technology rather than use what they have to entertaining ends.

Jaded @ Jun 15th 2006 3:38PM

Yeah, because all that extra time they spend on those Zelda games after delaying them totally made Nintendo lose money. And delaying Halo 2 by a year completely hooped Microsoft.

Sarcasm aside, he does have a point, but only with certain types of games. Games that are mid-level, something that will be hot for six months and then mostly forgotten about (think a Tomb Raider game or a Star Wars RTS) needs to be pushed through quickly. On the other hand, something that people will be playing for years on end (a Civ game, Zelda, WOW) probably benefit finically by having more time to be better. I think devs just need to make the choice of what they're selling: steak or hamburger.

Jenga @ Jun 15th 2006 3:55PM

Stiil HL2 actually took 6 years, but it would have been 3 if it weren't for the leak. Halo? World Of Warcraft? Great games? Hahaha, you're just asking for a flaming. Just because a game makes alot of money dosen't mean it's particulary good.

Rico @ Jun 15th 2006 4:13PM

This is from the publisher that forced Obsidian to cut KOTOR 2 short so it ended up with a terrible ending and an entire planet removed from the game. While his comments make sense on a per-game basis, buggy and unfinished games will not win any consumers in the long term.

Jeff @ Jun 15th 2006 4:22PM

"What I wonder about is how something like Duke Nukem Forever can be produced over such a long period of time."

It's called "poor project management."

I mean look. The bottom line is there is presumably a goal here, an end-result, a product of some sort. Everything you do has to be working towards that goal. Video games are not about the "art of the process".

Given that, there has to be competent management guiding the process along towards completion. That means timelines, that means milestones. Even individual artists project manage themselves informally - a sculptor might say to themselves "I really want to finish that character's hands tonight", a painter might say "I really want to finish this painting before my friends come over next week to look at it". All "project management" means is organizing what we all do almost instinctively into an actual organized process that can be followed by everybody on a team. But this should not be a foreign concept to anybody.

When projects meander along without any actual hint of being finished, it can only mean one of a few things:

a) Fear of actually releasing a finished product (and there can be several reasons for that alone)
b) Piss-poor management skills
c) Outright malicious intent - in the case of a business like 3DR, they're keeping themselves funded right now by the promise of eventually completing DNF. If they ever actually shipped DNF, where would they be? They have not actually *developed* anything other than DNF in years. So they could be consciously milking this cash cow for as long as they can, intending to delay as long as possible.

The actual amount of time a game takes to develop is not the issue. If someone said "our deadline is to ship this game in 2016", that's fine. But the fact is the deadline exists, and everything you do is then working towards that deadline. You can't have these open-ended "we'll ship it when it's done" things, where you end up not actually working towards anything, and just wander around aimlessly constantly looking for upgrades to your engine, your physics, your modeling software or whatever. It becomes process for the sake of the process, not for the sake of the product.

Jaded @ Jun 15th 2006 4:33PM

Wait, someone saying Halo 2 and WOW are great games is asking to be flamed? Umm, okay ... I guess.

Euan @ Jun 15th 2006 5:06PM

I think i big problem with game design is that it isn't a convential software development process. your goals are always changing. someone needs to be there to say enough is enough. but then again if that happened we would have never had some great games like GTA which ended up being a completely different game during it's development.

Grant @ Jun 15th 2006 6:08PM

Yeah, look at all those flames comin'...

The ZeroCorpse @ Jun 15th 2006 6:39PM

Now, on the other hand, you have games like Knights of the Old Republic II, which was FORCED out the door before it was finished, in order to meet a LucasArts deadline, and ended up being a disaster. The end is cruddy, unfinished, and buggy. Everybody felt cheated, and they never bothered to go back and repair the game for later releases. Now, what's on record for KOTOR2 is an awful game that doesn't deserve to bear the title it holds.

So there's something to be said for releasing a game when it's finished and not pushing deadlines.

ArC @ Jun 16th 2006 3:55AM

True. I too felt cheated by KOTOR 2's weak ending.

But there's a reason even big budget movies (can) come in on time and on budget -- they plan well, they work to the plan, and when things go off, they make sacrifices elsewhere. And these days, blockbuster films employ way more person-hours than games.

Of course, they also spend more time in preproduction than most game dev houses do, possibly because that's how the movie biz is set up to work (contracts) while the game studios employ people full-time.