[black3r]

> Development stared in the first months of 1995, and the game was released in North America and Australia on December 9, 1995.

This feels absolutely insane for today's standards. And not just in the gaming world. Somehow with all the advancement of libraries, frameworks, coding tools, and even AI these days, development speeds seem so much slower and it seems like too much time is spent on eye candy, monetization and dark patterns and too few times on things people actually like to see - that's what made us buy games and software in the old days.

(But also in the gaming world, especially the past few years when almost no game studio develops its own engine, assets don't look more detailed than what was used 3 years ago, stories seem hastily written and it feels like 80% of developer's time is spent on making cosmetic items for purchase which often cost more than the base game price)

Also somehow we spend lots of times researching UX and developing tutorials (remember when software had the "?" button next to the close button and no software "tutorials" were needed?) and yet all the games and software are harder to learn than what we had in the 90s and 00s.

[masom]

What you are looking at is corporate environments; the studios of the past (Ex: Westwood and Blizzard) had a small headcounts, and people were direct decision makers.

The story of Starcraft 1 is quite interesting as the devs copied the Warcraft 2 code and began changing it quickly[1](https://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/tough-times-on-the-road-to-...).

> StarCraft was originally envisioned as a game with modest goals that could fit into a one-year development cycle so that it could be released for Christmas, 1996 > Warcraft II had only six core programmers and two support programmers; that was too few for the larger scope of StarCraft,

No boardrooms of PMs, and Directors, and VPs, and execs, chiming in every decision, leading to fast turnarounds.

[joegibbs]

Not at all crazy. You could very easily get a game with the same art style, features, number of missions done now in a month but people want much more. QOL features, multiple platforms, high quality graphics - $50 (average game price back then) is $105 now - you can't sell any game for that price nowadays, and a game at WC2 level of features wouldn't be accepted by customers for more than $5. A full price $59.99 game now needs a billion different side quests, character customisation, full VA, multiplayer servers, an orchestral score, etc etc or people just won't buy it.

[justsomehnguy]

> is $105 now - you can't sell any game for that price nowadays

But you don't need to. Just sell it to Steam for a $39.99 or whatever and have much, much more sales than in '95. And as a bonus you would still recieve some sales years after.

Sure, you won't get in Top 100 and wouldn't earn bazillions...

[japhib]

Crazy how much bigger modern games are … I wonder how many total pixels were shipped in the art assets of Warcraft 2 vs. StarCraft 2? My guess is at least 4 orders of magnitude higher for SC2

[Cthulhu_]

> it seems like too much time is spent on eye candy, monetization and dark patterns and too few times on things people actually like to see

Not necessarily, but you need to look at the indie (PC) game space instead of AAA and mobile.

Top level game development in the 90's is comparable to indie games today, although granted, in the 90's they made huge technological leaps and the developers needed a lot more in-depth knowledge. But I can guarantee that someone can build Warcraft 2 today within a year. Hell, you can get the basics set up in a weekend I'm sure.

That said, even indie games suffer a bit from scope creep, and few developers actually limit themselves by saying "we release within a year and that's it". If a game is successful, continued development is beneficial. And with Kickstarter they can get money upfront (like what a publisher would pay initially), and with early access they can start making revenue to fund continued development. Which is a self-reinforcing cycle - as long as they publish updates and new features, people will keep playing and buying the game. Some games (like Factorio) end up in early access and continuous development for 10 years.

[myth_drannon]

Additionally, the product was completed and released on CD, so no hundreds of bug fixes after the release.

[icegreentea2]

They did have downloadable patches for WC2 though.

[phire]

Yeah, 9 patches for the original game, then the Battle.net Edition in 1999 (which added support for TCP/IP networking and Battle.net matchmaking), and at least one downloadable patch for that.

https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Warcraft_II_patch_information#...

[garg]

Not that it is any less impressive but they continued the development of their existing engine from WC1.

[mvdtnz]

Even smaller games now have ludicrously long development cycles as developers have learned they can exploit mentally challenged gamers by selling them "early access" (unfinished games).

[Cthulhu_]

I resent the insult, you can do better.

Early access sometimes means unfinished, but in other cases they're fine - Factorio is an example, it had a fully fleshed out game in early access, then they spent another 5+ years adding features and fixes and the like. During that time, a lively modding community sprung up which added loads of playable content to the game.

[youarentrightjr]

Factorio is a clear exception here, not at all representative of the average experience.