New GTA in Development, Rockstar Reportedly Making Changes To Fix Crunch Culture (ign.com) 32
Rockstar Games is working on a new Grand Theft Auto, but the next entry in the series is reportedly a long ways from release, and may take on a different scope due to alleged changes at the Red Dead and GTA studio. From a report: An anonymous source close to Rockstar Games has confirmed to IGN that the Red Dead Redemption 2 company is next working on a new entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, as first reported by Kotaku. Kotaku's report, which places a larger focus on workplace changes allegedly happening at Rockstar following the massive discussions on crunch in game development that centered around Red Dead Redemption 2, also notes, however, that the next GTA is "early in development."
The report further goes on to explain that, due to the changing nature of conditions at Rockstar, the company is considering ways of altering production to avoid similar crunch issues. One such plan is to allegedly have the next GTA, whether it be called GTA 6 or some other title, be "a moderately sized release (which, by Rockstar's standards, would still be a large game) that is then expanded with regular updates over time, which may help mitigate stress and crunch." Of course, given that the next Grand Theft Auto is early in development, it remains to be seen how the later parts of development could affect these plans to curb crunch, the process by which developers work frequent overtime in order to hit certain release dates and milestones.
The report further goes on to explain that, due to the changing nature of conditions at Rockstar, the company is considering ways of altering production to avoid similar crunch issues. One such plan is to allegedly have the next GTA, whether it be called GTA 6 or some other title, be "a moderately sized release (which, by Rockstar's standards, would still be a large game) that is then expanded with regular updates over time, which may help mitigate stress and crunch." Of course, given that the next Grand Theft Auto is early in development, it remains to be seen how the later parts of development could affect these plans to curb crunch, the process by which developers work frequent overtime in order to hit certain release dates and milestones.
1970's set in Las Vegas (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Crunch mitigation (Score:4, Interesting)
Another way to mitigate the crunch is to figure out how to split up the work better and hire more people. That costs more, but I am sure they have the risk capital.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, having gone through the experience myself, I can assure you that it's possible to develop a AAA game as large as GTA without excessive crunching. You don't need to scale the game down. You just need to properly plan for 40 hour weeks. Your devs may even surprise you by getting almost as much done in shorter work weeks, simply because they're always rested and focused.
You can save your crunching for short bursts at the end, when you need maximum productivity. Most game devs are extremely invested in
Re:Crunch mitigation (Score:4, Informative)
I'll be impressed if Rockstar sticks to their word and doesn't go back to using "crunch time" as a crutch a year from now if the game is 3 months behind schedule.
Until then, this sounds like a PR move to help with recruiting.
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure this is a good move to help with recruiting because people may either quit or bail out at the first chance when they realize they were lied to. How is the game development gonna go then?
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure this is a good move to help with recruiting because people may either quit or bail out at the first chance when they realize they were lied to. How is the game development gonna go then?
Just make the remaining devs work even harder, obviously. It's a double crunch.
Re: (Score:3)
I'd imagine that Rockstar recruits a lot of new hires right out of college. Those people are pretty gullible when it comes to accepting "temporary" overtime, and aren't likely going to leave until they get the 3 years of experience that they need to get a more senior level position somewhere else.
Re: (Score:2)
Another way to mitigate the crunch is to figure out how to split up the work better and hire more people. That costs more, but I am sure they have the risk capital.
Assuming you can keep the scope down and the progress realistic. I was in a project with a lavish budget, almost like somebody added an extra zero and nobody noticed. What happened was that everybody started making pie-in-the-sky plans, grand concepts, massive workgroups and proof of concepts, vast near unsolvable problems would be solved. Everything would be unified and harmonized and generalized to solve every need and want according to all standards and best practises. I was trying to drag people down to
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Another way to mitigate the crunch is to figure out how to split up the work better and hire more people. That costs more, but I am sure they have the risk capital.
An even better way would be to stop consolidating the entire industry into a few cash addicted major publishers. Personally I give Rockstar 6 months before Take Two comes in and says you're not shipping fast enough, get that out the door.
Re: (Score:2)
This was covered in The Mythical Man Month. Adding more people often does not help these things, any more than 9 people can make a baby in a month.
Their idea of building a base game and then adding to it just sounds like milking DLC. It could be okay, like back in the day when we had proper expansion packs that added a decent amount of new game. But if GTA Online is anything to go by I doubt it will be like that, it will be microtransaction laden pay-to-win crap.
Re: (Score:1)
It's not an absolute though, The Mythical Man month was written in an era of monoliths. Most software is much more modular now, and that's even more true when it comes to game development because it's not simply about everyone working on the codebase - I'd wager code is a small part of Rockstar's work given they have a very good mature engine that doesn't need significant work.
If for example they wanted to double the number of cars, or guns in the game, they could literally just do it by doubling the staff
Meh (Score:1)
While I enjoyed the series, GTAV left me bored. It was the only game in the series that I didn't care to finish because it felt more like a chore to play. The lack of in-door missions and environments left the game bland, and each mission felt the same. I didn't really like the car physics compared to the others either. Exotic cars felt worthless because they either couldn't be used in missions, or were too easily destroyed. The stories and characters were great, but the gameplay, not so much. I prefer the
Re: Meh (Score:2)
Uum, adequately compensated?
Are you the type of guy who thinks with nine women you can have a baby in a month?
Draining your battery to 0.00% works maybe one time. But repeat ity and you will quickly have a broken battery, no matter how fully you charge it.
And money does not even charge that battery. Sleep does! Having a private life does!
"Crunch culture" should be punished the same as torture and abuse. Wirh prison time!
Re: (Score:2)
To me the story of GTA IV was already killing my boner. Why the original fuck do I have to take half the town out to dinner every other minute? I want to go out, steal a car, kill some hookers and make a load of money in the meantime to pimp out those cars and run over old ladies more creatively.
At some point, GTA became a wee bit too "realistic" for my tastes.
Hm... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
May I suggest instead:
"we're reducing crunch time - by letting our schedules slip - in part because our employees (who are on salary, by the way, not collecting overtime) are going to work the hours they work - at home - anyway."
So ... you pay for the demo ... (Score:2)
.. and then pay for a ton of DLCs again and again.
Sounds like shareware, except with shareware, the first shot was free!
And not drowned in bugs either.
(Sorry, but after San Andreas had *three* separate crashing bugs before even entering the game, and then misplaced every third vertex of every single polygon on Nvidia cards on *release*, on the damn DVD!... Where people who paid for it actually had to go to GameCopyWorld to grab the patch...while the cracked version was already fixed on day zero, weeks after
Re: (Score:2)
That's not new, that's the staple of the AAA game industry these days. Sure, up to now this was called "DLC" but in the end, no matter how you paint the turd, it still stinks.
Skeptical (Score:2)
workplace changes allegedly happening at Rockstar following the massive discussions on crunch in game development
That sounds....nice? I think that's great, if true, and if they succeed at making and maintaining changes not penalizing their devs for maintaining a balanced life.
a moderately sized release (which, by Rockstar's standards, would still be a large game) that is then expanded with regular updates over time
More of the main story gated behind DLC, you mean? *sigh*
Rockstar is a symptom. (Score:2)
I give this new fancy corporate culture 6 months before Take-Two come in and force them to ship broken garbage or get shutdown. The consolidation of companies to a few majors has been a disease. 2019 has truly brought out the worst in gaming and it has all been led by major studios:
- Bioware shipped the biggest piece of crap (Anthem) due to EA forcing delivery.
- Rockstar shipped a game that flat out didn't work for *most* players on PC (Red Dead Redemption 2) to meet parent organisation timelines.
- Bethesda
Re: (Score:2)
You have to understand that franchise games sell based on the previous installment, not on their own merit. GTA 5 sold because people liked GTA 4. A lot of those sales were due to preorders, not because people saw a favorable review or because they saw the game gets recommended by its users. Rockstar could literally have sold an unplayable mess and it would have been a smashing hit.
After the shitshow that GTA online was, I wouldn't exactly expect hotcake sales again. At least if it's another online title...
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget that GTA 5 broke numerous records and made over a billion dollars in sales in just under 3 days, 800 million of that in the first 24 hours.
I'm not sure what a game released 7 years ago has to do with the shit state of the industry in 2019.
It's simple: stop with the hard deadlines (Score:2)
I understand that you need to set goals for when to complete some pieces of work but having hard deadlines that cannot be re-evaluated is the problem. Enforce normal working hours and fire managers that insist on "110%" because it's a job and not a hobby.
The problem with episodic content (Score:2)
R* has burned the community with episodic content before. They squandered our good will. Some will still buy just for online content but I for one want ever-larger games with better and better single player and I don't trust them to deliver it in dribs and drabs. So I won't buy until they are done making content
But if enough people do that then they will make less content, and everyone suffers, including them.
They need to get their shit together and bring out a whole game all at once.