Now, it's the turn of the developers, the makers of the virtual experiences we so love. Read on for the games of 2013 according to the creators of the likes of Super Meat Boy, Assassin's Creed 4, XCOM, Oculus Rift and more, complete with Twitter bios.
The story in part 3 of Sony Interactive Entertainment and Naughty Dog's The Last of Us series may explore a "congregation of immune people."
Former Naughty Dog artist Gabriel Betancourt explains why the "sweet spot" for game teams is under 200 people and how AAA "factories" kill creativity.
There’s definitely some truth to this. When teams get too large, coordination starts to outweigh creativity—layers of approval, risk aversion, and tight deadlines can turn bold ideas into “safe” ones. Keeping a team under ~200 people sounds ideal for maintaining clear communication and a shared vision. That said, massive AAA projects also come with huge technical demands and expectations, so scaling up isn’t always avoidable. The real challenge is figuring out how to keep that small-team creativity alive inside big studio structures.
More than that, it's logistically untenable. Inevitably, when teams get too large, how do you keep tabs on accountability? I suspect this massive team size is a consequence of the perfectionism streak Naughty Dog has.
I wish we could have so many people working on something and it turns out great because I'm all for collaboration in spirit - the problem is too many people as part of the larger team and smaller units. Suppose for example that you have too many people in the art department; you will very often come up against fiercely competing visions for how things should look. That competitive vision will cause friction between team members, team doesn't work as a unit, the back and forth can further delay parts that the other departments are waiting for, etc etc.
A 200-person team says, to me, that we need to scale back game development. Even if it means we go back to PS2 era costs and scale, why not? Those games are still great fun, the budgets were in check, and you could literally break the 200-man team into like 10 20-man teams working on different projects.
Take-Two Interactive revealed it is pausing development on its Nintendo Switch 2 edition of "Borderlands 4" in its latest quarterly earnings.
Awesome article and insight. Love hearing developers praising each other. You can tell they want each other to succeed. That one dev that like The Last of Us more than Bioshock was funny. When he say TLoU was more believable...no sheit! Lol...
I wouldnt even had compared the two but his breakdown why was good and made sense. Awesome read(to me anyway)! Thanks!
gta V was most chosen followed by tlou.
Gta as good as it is doesn't bring anything new to the table, yes you will allways have something to do an yes you can lay as three character, but apart from that the story was OK, and many of the things you can do in this game can be done in previous games.
TLOU is a game in my opinion that deserves it this year. the story was amazing, gameplay was great, you actually cared for the characters and i was really surprised about how well they showed the bonding between Ellie and Joel. they started out as to people just doing a mission, but ended becoming so close to each other.
This game is probably my favorite game this gen along side MGS4,uncharted 2,dead space 1-2, darksiders 1, walking dead, mw1 and gta 5 ( gta 5 is a great game, one of the best games this gen hands down, but last of us edges it out in my opinion).