Games change, problems remain
The post-mortems the researchers looked at date from 1997 to 2019, a span that gave them a perspective on the trends, changes and chronic issues developers experienced as the gaming industry exploded. They identified 927 distinct problems, which they further categorized into 20 different types.
After analyzing their data, they concluded the following:
● The industry’s problems can be split almost down the middle between management and production problems. Production problems are mostly limited to design and technical aspects of games, while management problems are present in all aspects of development;
● Production problems have remained constant, while management problems have decreased. However, this decrease is offset by urgent business challenges including marketing and, especially for the growing mobile game market, monetization;
● Over the past decade, there has been a steady drop in technical and game design problems, but an increase in challenges involving team cohesion and harmony;
● Most of the problems’ root causes are human-derived, not technological.
Having identified common problems, the researchers further classified the problem types into 105 separate subtypes — and they offered solutions to some of the more common ones. Not enough workers for the task at hand? Consider outsourcing. Your team members aren’t getting along? Try balancing expertise levels and keep teams small and focused. Does the game risk being overly complex or suffering from feature creep? Remember to keep it simple, continue playtesting, value user feedback and manage players’ expectations.
Healthier industries make better experiences
Politowski says he was drawn to the subject of video game problems both because he loves playing them and because the issue is understudied.
“It’s very hard to understand what is happening behind the curtains,” he explains. “Why are these issues affecting video game companies? Normally, software engineers work regular hours. Why is the game industry so different?”
Guéhéneuc adds that with this and future papers, they hope they can pinpoint some of the problems the industry can focus on. “We know there have been issues with ‘crunch time,’ but we are also finding that workers are still struggling with tools and programming languages.”
Politowski plans to continue his studies of the video game industry under Guéhéneuc’s supervision. He is looking at the testing process and how companies can avoid high-profile fiascos like the premature release of 2020’s highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077. He is also just as interested in studying game companies’ strengths as he is their weaknesses.
Read the cited paper: “Game industry problems: An extensive analysis of the gray literature.”