Crunch time game dev

Although the frankly obscene amount of hype that surrounded Apex Legends in the weeks following its launch earlier this year has subsided to more reasonable levels, the devs at Respawn Entertainment have still been adjusting to the game’s unexpected success. As Executive Producer Drew McCoy notes in the latest producer’s letter, the game’s rapid growth, while a pleasant surprise, has presented some challenges to the dev team in regard to update cadence, communication with the community, and so on, and it’s these issues that the studio is now planning to address. In the letter, McCoy lays out some of the critical issues that Respawn is looking to address in the near future, including server performance, cheaters, and hit registration issues. He also gives players a peek at what they can expect from the game going forward, and although players will have to wait for EA Play in June to get solid details about what’s coming in season 2, McCoy confirms that … [Read more...] about Apex Legends devs discuss season 2, content cadence, and avoiding development crunch

The conflict between Steam and its newest challenger, the Epic Games Store, has thus far been a Cold War of sorts, but the other night on Twitter, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney threw down the proverbial gauntlet. In a series of Tweets responding to a question about whether Epic would ever reconsider its strategy of aggressively pursuing EGS-exclusive titles — a matter of much consternation among the PC gaming community as of late — Sweeney wrote, “If Steam committed to a permanent 88% revenue share for all developers and publishers without major strings attached, Epic would hastily organize a retreat from exclusives […] and consider putting our own games on Steam.” Sweeney’s statement has, perhaps unsurprisingly, garnered quite the reaction from gamers and journalists, though maybe not the kind he was hoping for, given that its timing is mighty convenient, following the recent Polygon report into Epic’s treatment of its own Fortnite devs during … [Read more...] about Amid crunch allegations and another dance lawsuit, Epic Games challenges Steam to buff developer payouts

Don’t be too mad at Star Wars: Battlefront II. It’s a symptom of a problem, not the cause. I mean, be mad at people dumb enough to put the blame for negative reactions on the press, that’s just plain stupid. But at the heart of the matter is a problem that’s actually choking through game development all the way down the line. Because while people are talking about “well, maybe games need to cost more” (and that aforementioned none-too-wise comment of an analyst does precisely that), the reality is that this would still be happening no matter what. The problem is not a matter of Battlefront II costing too little money to pay for its development. The problem is that design and budgets are broken, the market is a mess, and microtransactions are being used as a bludgeon instead of a tool. And all of this is exacerbated by the fact that every single publisher wants to pretend that everything is peachy. One of the things that I’ve long been an … [Read more...] about The Soapbox: The long tail of game development isn’t an excuse for gouging