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Reader Comments (10)

Posted: Jul 11th 2011 1:37PM NormanCod said

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How many people developed Flower? Anyone who played the final, credits level would be left with the impression that it must be around 400!

Posted: Jul 20th 2011 12:22PM Yojimb0 said

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@NormanCod I'm pretty sure most of those people are on the publishing/support side, not the straight up thatgamecompany staff.
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Posted: Jul 11th 2011 1:40PM Captain Planet Planeteer Power said

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I like the idea of a smaller development team. I mean, if I was a game designer and I want to make the boss on level 6 spew acid from her teats instead of spit it out her mouth, I'm gonna make that happen. Fck the douche upstairs and the focus groups.

Posted: Jul 11th 2011 1:52PM MrAlex said

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@Captain Planet Planeteer Power

Indeed, a horse is a camel designed by the mighty overlord.
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Posted: Jul 11th 2011 1:42PM LunaticHigh said

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I don't know if number of employees have a lot to do with a game's quality and production. Certainly, the more people that are involved, the more that can go wrong, but it it's more a problem of project organization and project management. In my humble opinion, project managers probably have the most influence on a game's quality and production.

Posted: Jul 11th 2011 1:51PM PlagueDoctor357 said

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All I have to say is, Assassin's Creed.

Posted: Jul 11th 2011 2:59PM liquidsoap89 said

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@PlagueDoctor357

Nailed it!

Small teams are good with the more "indie" titles, where the ideas seem more left field. I think the main reason many of these downloadable games from this generation have been able to succeed financially is because of the small teams. It costs a lot less to run a team of 20 people than it does 200 people. Plus those 20 people have much more say in what goes on during the development period (hence Mark Cerny saying how he "becomes less effective when he's hired by hundred-strong teams").

And then there are the Assassins Creeds and (dare I say it) the Call of Duties, which show why the massive 5 team collaboration games are just as special as the others.
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Posted: Jul 11th 2011 2:46PM Pure Black World Tendency said

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Flower Deathmatch... I would have paid to play that!

Posted: Jul 11th 2011 3:11PM jaal said

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Why not bring in artists and other additional workers as needed instead of keeping them all in-house. Do you really need all that artists and soundtrack composer during pre-production?

Posted: Jul 11th 2011 4:43PM broken 4th wall said

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people still call Flower a video game? i thought it was just a piece of beautiful interactive art.

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