[arg_discuss] How long is your dev cycle?

[Adrian Hon]

On 21 Dec 2005, at 15:47, Jennifer Nicole Chiment wrote:

> But what do people think?  Is there a bare minimum people would be  
> willing
> to run with (6 weeks?!?)?  And is there a point of developmental
> diminishing returns (personally I think yes)?  Can the pre-launch
> development “take over” a game, making responsiveness to players
> subordinate to the game timeline set out in development?

I feel that with dev times, as usual, it's horses for courses. The  
amount of time required to develop an ARG depends on what you want it  
to achieve in terms of length, immersiveness, depth, player numbers,  
demographics and reliance on other products or brands. The 'standard  
ARG' (if such a thing exists!) seems to be about two or three months  
long, and with other games I've seen dev times of about 3-8 months  
for commercial games.

Again though, dev time also depends on the number of people who are  
actually doing the developing, and how much time they spend on it per  
day (and whether they need to get approval from other bodies such as  
associated brands, etc). I have no doubt that a good team, be they  
volunteers or commercial, could develop a great ARG with only a month  
of preparation time. They might kill themselves in the process, or it  
might be a very different sort of ARG than what we're used to, but  
the great thing with ARGs is that you can spend as much or as little  
time or money you want on them, and you can still come out with a  
great game.

In terms of Perplex City, our game will be running many times the  
length of a standard ARG, and so our dev cycle is probably more akin  
to running a arc-based serialised TV show like Lost or 24, or perhaps  
an MMOG. In other words, for the story, we have a planning horizon  
that extends a few months into the future in decreasing detail.  
That's not to say that we don't know what we want to happen further  
down the line than that, but it's obviously in less detail. It's not  
really efficient planning in detail any further than that because we  
just end up having to change things due to having better ideas or  
circumstances change. So the development never stops :)

Adrian

--
Adrian Hon - mssv.net
Executive Producer and Director of Play, Mind Candy
mindcandydesign.com - newmars.com - ibiblio.org/astrobiology