Alex,
Saw the following article of interest:
gamasutra.com
It is a post-mortem on HGII, written by one of the developers. Candid insight into all elements of development. One of the better articles I've read on the subject...here's my favorite quote, "Only the development team knew how alarmingly behind schedule the game actually was, however." Sound familiar?
Some snips:
Although some Heavy Gear II-specific code may still lurk in the recesses of the Darkside, the engine's debug ability and modularity make it a novel choice for any 3D simulator Activision may wish to develop in the future.
Activision's upper-level management also contributed to the game's success by letting the team decide when the game was finished. Management could have released the game early and announced a patch shortly thereafter, a practice that is becoming common with many publishers nowadays. Instead, Activision gave game players a break and released a quality, bug-scarce title with a lot of replayability and immersion. This is an admirable goal in this era of market-driven development and patch-laden gaming web sites.
[...]
When the smoke cleared and the demo was finally posted, the team gave a sigh of relief and basked in the warmth of a job well done. Unfortunately, this feeling quickly evaporated when we realized that we had taken almost a three-month departure from our original development schedule and totally exhausted ourselves in the process. I still believe a demo is important to the success of a game, but such a task should be closely correlated to the production of the main SKU. Attempting to factor the demo development time and resources into a schedule significantly different from the game itself can profoundly affect both the product?s quality and timeliness.
[...]
After experiencing the high quality of our second prototype, people at Activision began to get very excited about the future of Heavy Gear II. We were given a highly favorable reception at E3 in 1998, where we finally revealed the game. We subsequently released a playable demo that met with similar acceptance. Our marketing staff, which had been pushing this title from the start, finally had the leverage it needed to differentiate Heavy Gear II from its competitors. Magazine articles began to run, OEM deals were made, and shelf displays were created as everyone anticipated the forthcoming release.
Only the development team knew how alarmingly behind schedule the game actually was, however. This was due in part because of some unfortunate turnover in our staff, but the main factor was the amount of time and effort we had allocated to creating the demo. We had hit roadblocks in the past and always rebounded in sterling fashion, so nobody on our team allowed themselves to believe that the demo would cause us to miss our target ship date.
Then we slipped. Suddenly we were plunged into a nearly interminable crunch mode. Our slip meant that the game wouldn?t ship in time for the Christmas season, so we decided to shoot for a more realistic March release. Our marketing group did their best to respond to the blow and attempted to keep interest in Heavy Gear II alive. March came and went, and the release date became a dancing phantom beyond our reach. We developers knew we were close to completing the game, but nobody could give our marketing team a definite date so that they could keep the buzz up. Marketing did what it could to keep whetting the public?s appetite as the weeks rolled by. |
