IGN's Silent Hunter 5 Review

[Iron Budokan]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

tater, with all due respect, this topic has been explored thoroughly. Is that a rhetorical question?

Game development (the detailed version)

The short version
Dev team submits a project proposal to game publisher. This pro forma includes the game design, scope, timeline, and resources needed.

Game publisher does market research, forecasts sales, and decides if the game is profitable. If not, they send back to the developer with suggested changes. If the developer and publisher agree to a work document, then the project is greenlit. The publisher will set guidelines and schedules for development before the work commences.

Developer works on the game, meeting milestones until the game is ready for release. If the developer is unable to meet the milestones, slippage occurs. At some point a commercial decision is made to release the game on schedule or invest more resources. A big factor in this decision is the projected amount of revenue the game can make if more resources are invested. If the publisher thinks the game will not make back the investment even with additional resources invested, they will release it and then retain two or three members of the dev team to work on patches.

It all comes down to sales. Always has. If submarine games sold like Naruto games or Madden football, they would get more resources and longer development cycles.

Speaking for myself, I didn't know this information and I found it very informative. Thank you for posting it.