Former SH5 Producer Alexandru Gris talks about Software-Quality

CCIP · 08-25-10, 07:26 PM

Yeah. I get the impression that on the development side, the problem could basically be summed up as feature creep at the expense of core focus and quality. Underlying that is the conflicting demands for both new in-depth 'die hard' features and features that appealed to a broader market. The development got too ambitious and started going in too many directions at once, losing focus and sacrificing quality when deadlines started pushing. It's a trap that many game projects, and not just in simulations, have fallen victim to, and I guess for SH5 that's most unfortunate...

janh · 08-26-10, 03:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CCIP

Yeah. I get the impression that on the development side, the problem could basically be summed up as feature creep at the expense of core focus and quality. Underlying that is the conflicting demands for both new in-depth 'die hard' features and features that appealed to a broader market. The development got too ambitious and started going in too many directions at once, losing focus and sacrificing quality when deadlines started pushing. It's a trap that many game projects, and not just in simulations, have fallen victim to, and I guess for SH5 that's most unfortunate...

Yes, I recall Elenaiba hinted in a post towards that direction.

But it is probably a very difficult balance to strike between ambitiousness, novelty, and focus on old core game concepts. If you focus too much on getting the "old core" right, and update basically only a very few features like the outward appearance, then you basically only recreated an old game, and will likely not sell a lot (unless the predecessor is 20 years old).

If you become too ambitious and try to go well beyond the previous technological stage, you run the risks mentioned above. You'll need a lot of standing power and investment to pull ambitious projects off, and a lot of time (I get the impression Oleg just pulls that off with the new BoB).

If I compare games in the past 3-5 years to most typical games in the 90s, like TF1942, Silent Hunter 2, Gunship 2000, Pacific War, etc., then I find that many games roughly starting with the generation Falcon 4.0/Flashpoint/Silent Hunter II have evolved into such complex simulations, that topping that is hard. Especially if companies like Ubi decide on a strategy with more frequent releases of a franchise.

If less frequent, you could sell a new "Silent Hunter" (III) just with updated new flashy graphics maybe every 7 years. And even that will be hard since I find graphics sort of have converged, I can hardly see the tiny different between SHIV and SHV, nor would I care in a simulation about minuscule eye-candy differences. But coming up with new features and functionality at a higher frequency in such complex games like the SH series, War in the Pacific (AE) or anything close to that level, is going to be more and more investment and time intensive. I suppose we are up for some stagnation with hard-core simulations and "superdetailed" games in particular, since there seems to be a discrepancy: obviously it will be hard to get a pay back with a small customer ship but high release frequency for high investment costs.

I think SHV was one of victims of Ubi's new strategy. High release frequency, and limiting time and investment with such an ambitious project cannot go along very well -- and being less ambitious doesn't move it very far either, and will with the 5th title in a series (yawn...) not gain you too many new sales.

Arclight · 08-26-10, 04:48 AM

From what I gather from the posts, feature creep was more of a symptom. The real problem was losing track of actual quality; they believed they had a higher quality than they did. So they started building on this (believed) stable core, only to find out at the end the quality was lacking.

Imho at that point they should have decided to delay the release, but that didn't happen.

janh · 08-27-10, 03:09 AM

Slightly off topic, but along the lines of the above, and kind of reminiscent of the SHV drama. Almost funny to see such a repeat by a different company.

Just out of curiosity I read a review article about the new Mafia II. Off genre, but obviously the tenor could have been "copied" from SHV. Lack of features and functionality, linearity of story, poor physics simulation and purely optical damage model for cars, incomplete character development and empty cities,... sounds like another overly ambitious project that matches the above discussion.
Now it is no longer surprising that they did not widely distribute the game for previews before release... Which per se is already a huge stop sign.

I get the impression that the games, to evolve much further without only touching up the graphics (and pretty alone appears to be insufficient to make people happy), will in the future need much more time and resources. To make that happen, companies need to either accept reduced margins (and if you look in Ubi's last three or four yearly sales reports, there is a lot of earning that might better be turned into game development funds rather than dividends...), or increase the price. I assume most of us would be willing to pay 30-50% more, if, but only if, the quality and novelty criteria are truly met.

Arclight · 08-27-10, 04:58 AM

No need to increase the price, they just need to stop spending so much time in making it pretty and instead nail down content and gameplay first.

... Yeah, wishfull thinking. If it ain't pretty, it can't compete.

Happens more and more often too; Stardock has a little controversy on their hands as well at the moment:
Stardock In “Unfinished” Game Drama
Wardell On “Unfinished” Controversy

janh · 08-27-10, 06:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arclight

No need to increase the price, they just need to stop spending so much time in making it pretty and instead nail down content and gameplay first.

... Yeah, wishfull thinking. If it ain't pretty, it can't compete.

Happens more and more often too; Stardock has a little controversy on their hands as well at the moment:
Stardock In “Unfinished” Game Drama
Wardell On “Unfinished” Controversy

You speak from my heart. I won't buy a game just for graphics improvements, unless it's "predecessor" is clearly several generations older. Gaming is much more "mental" to me than "optical". Pretty, yes, a game can be, but it needn't. First of all it needs to be detailed, accurate (physically, historically etc), well modeled and executed, and offer many option/decisions to explore and test historical and alternative outcomes.

TDK1044 · 08-27-10, 07:29 AM

I think the problem with SH5 is that the publisher allocated insufficient development time, and compounded the issue by making a business decision to give the game more of an 'arcade' feel to enhance the visuals for the casual gamers they hoped to attract.

Therefore, what we got was an unfinished, buggy mess that angered many subsimmers and was of little interest to the casual gamers.

Frumpkis · 08-27-10, 06:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by janh

Just out of curiosity I read a review article about the new Mafia II. Off genre, but obviously the tenor could have been "copied" from SHV. Lack of features and functionality, linearity of story, poor physics simulation and purely optical damage model for cars, incomplete character development and empty cities,... sounds like another overly ambitious project that matches the above discussion.
Now it is no longer surprising that they did not widely distribute the game for previews before release... Which per se is already a huge stop sign.

I don't see that level of similarity between Mafia II (which I'm playing at the moment) and the SH5 release. There are a few people who are upset at the way MFII looks superficially like it should be a sandbox-style game, and it doesn't actually play that way. If you approach it on its own level -- as a linear plot RPG/shooter in an interesting environment -- then it's fun (IMO). My only complaint is that it's a little too heavy on the driving as filler between action sequences. MFII is currently at 79 critic/8.0 user rating on Metacritic, compared to SH5's rather dismal 62/2.3 rating. So it's not exactly being panned everywhere.

Two really important differences between MFII and SH5 are 1) I'm playing version 1.0 and I have seen no bugs so far, and 2) there was a demo available. A demo is a sign of confidence by a game company. Imagine how the whole SH5 drama would have played out, if Ubi had released a demo that revealed the shape the game was in.

08-25-10, 07:26 PM	#1
CCIP Navy Seal Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Waterloo, Canada Posts: 8,700 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 2	Yeah. I get the impression that on the development side, the problem could basically be summed up as feature creep at the expense of core focus and quality. Underlying that is the conflicting demands for both new in-depth 'die hard' features and features that appealed to a broader market. The development got too ambitious and started going in too many directions at once, losing focus and sacrificing quality when deadlines started pushing. It's a trap that many game projects, and not just in simulations, have fallen victim to, and I guess for SH5 that's most unfortunate... __________________ There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers. -Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart)

08-26-10, 04:48 AM	#3
Arclight Navy Seal Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Land of windmills, tulips, wooden shoes and cheese. Lots of cheese. Posts: 8,467 Downloads: 53 Uploads: 10	From what I gather from the posts, feature creep was more of a symptom. The real problem was losing track of actual quality; they believed they had a higher quality than they did. So they started building on this (believed) stable core, only to find out at the end the quality was lacking. Imho at that point they should have decided to delay the release, but that didn't happen. __________________ Contritium praecedit superbia.

08-27-10, 03:09 AM	#4
janh Stinking drunk in Trinidad Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 349 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Slightly off topic, but along the lines of the above, and kind of reminiscent of the SHV drama. Almost funny to see such a repeat by a different company. Just out of curiosity I read a review article about the new Mafia II. Off genre, but obviously the tenor could have been "copied" from SHV. Lack of features and functionality, linearity of story, poor physics simulation and purely optical damage model for cars, incomplete character development and empty cities,... sounds like another overly ambitious project that matches the above discussion. Now it is no longer surprising that they did not widely distribute the game for previews before release... Which per se is already a huge stop sign. I get the impression that the games, to evolve much further without only touching up the graphics (and pretty alone appears to be insufficient to make people happy), will in the future need much more time and resources. To make that happen, companies need to either accept reduced margins (and if you look in Ubi's last three or four yearly sales reports, there is a lot of earning that might better be turned into game development funds rather than dividends...), or increase the price. I assume most of us would be willing to pay 30-50% more, if, but only if, the quality and novelty criteria are truly met. __________________ Scientific facts are not determined by the opinion of the majority, nor by a democratic vote.

08-27-10, 04:58 AM	#5
Arclight Navy Seal Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Land of windmills, tulips, wooden shoes and cheese. Lots of cheese. Posts: 8,467 Downloads: 53 Uploads: 10	No need to increase the price, they just need to stop spending so much time in making it pretty and instead nail down content and gameplay first. ... Yeah, wishfull thinking. If it ain't pretty, it can't compete. Happens more and more often too; Stardock has a little controversy on their hands as well at the moment: Stardock In “Unfinished” Game Drama Wardell On “Unfinished” Controversy __________________ Contritium praecedit superbia.

08-27-10, 07:29 AM	#7
TDK1044 Ocean Warrior Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Georgia, USA Posts: 2,674 Downloads: 25 Uploads: 0	I think the problem with SH5 is that the publisher allocated insufficient development time, and compounded the issue by making a business decision to give the game more of an 'arcade' feel to enhance the visuals for the casual gamers they hoped to attract. Therefore, what we got was an unfinished, buggy mess that angered many subsimmers and was of little interest to the casual gamers.