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1. it's a multidisplinary effort that involves interfacing not just with engineers, managers, and maybe clients, but with artist, writers, sound designers, and sometimes voice actors. Very, very few people will have the full scope of a large game in their mind makling a game. It also means one of these pieces can vastly slow down the entire pipeline if they get slowed down/behind schedule. 2. many traditional games operate on movie schedules; i.e. timing is everything. missing a launch at November vs. January can cost millions, and most sales are recuped in the first few months. So the pressure to hit deadlines is heavier than some continual service brining in a steady revenue stream. Granted, the rise of Games as a Service through the free-to-play model is starting to change this, for better or worse. 3. even within programming, there are so many topics that games delve into. Graphics programming, netcode, UI/UX design, (basic) AI, etc. you need some very specialized people to make these games, up there with a FAANG despite most studios making nowhere near that much. 4. you can't schedule "fun". Game design is almost a black box. If you flesh out this system and it just doesn't feel good, what do you do? delay the game and overspend on the budget? release it anyway and take the critical panning (spoilers, most games do this option)? this mixed with #1 means it's harder than usual to schedule, even with the widsom of "double the time needed". 5. more of a personal take here, but based on #4: games are much more "in tune" with the consumer audience than other media. core gamers watch games like hawks and it seems like everything being worked on is covered in NDA's. some onlooker would think these studios are hiding governemt secrets with how tight lipped industry keeps devs. This leads to many psychological factors, but as a TL;DR it means a) devs may have internal pressure to impress the audience compared to other sectors and b) consumers, being blacked boxed out of the process, underestimate how much work it is to make a game. A consumer base more internet saavy than any other medium before it, since gaming basically grew up with the internet side by side. It's many factors and I'm sure I haven't even covered half of them in that wall above. >I'm just in awe of Roblox, Minecraft, Fall Guy and all these other successes. I'm sure minecraft and roblox are impressed too. they took years to get to where they are, so they are some of the counterexamples to the traditional model I listed. Fall guys truly proves point #2. it came out at the perfect time (a time no one could predict far out enough to take advantadge of) and blew up for it. |