Game Development 2 Dot 0

Game Development 2.0:
Moving from boxed product
to a service-based model
Justin Quimby

Justin@QuimbyHeavyIndustries.com 1

Need assistance in building a service?
• You are looking at a copy of the slides I used in
my 2009 GDC presentation
• Please contact me if you have any questions
or I could be of assistance to you and your
organization
• Justin@QuimbyHeavyIndustries.com


Obligatory Background Slide
• Asheron’s Call
• Asheron’s Call 2
• Lord of the Rings Online
• Dungeons and Dragons Online
• Spore


Services Beat Boxed Products


Boxed Product


Service


A Service is not a Franchise

Service Franchise


Differing Mindsets
Boxed Products Services
• Do whatever it takes to ship • Design for continuous
revenue
• Obsess over launch date
• Practice sustainable
competition and marketing
development
• Throw bodies at problems
• Invest in automation and
• Build and plan for one
tools
release
• Listen to customers
• Rest when the game is done
• Evolve the product
continuously


We are …


We are Hunters


See the target


Gather weapons


Go on the Hunt


Avoid injury


Collect the spoils


Rewards can be very high


Risks are very high


Rest


We need to move beyond hunting


Evolving our Mindset


Company Culture

The culture of the boxed product can
be the culture of company failure


Culture can sabotage everything


Who do you reward and praise?


Firefighters?


Firefighting is Hunting


Who wants to live here?


Users leave burning neighborhoods


Hunting Culture Warning Signs
• Team feels they are done when the product goes gold
• Corporate focus on shipping rather than shipping then
supporting the product
• Formal review and compensation process does not place
value on a service-oriented mindset
• Service support is not seen as sexy
• No clear path for service-based career growth
• No financial incentives for building a sustainable service
• Superstars go on to new projects
• Mediocre employees get dumped on the live team


Hunting Culture Fixes
• Build a culture focused on post-ship
• Build career paths around supporting a service
– Titles
– Financial rewards
• Make planning sexy
– Reward proactive problem solvers
– Track promises and results


Plan like a Farmer


Plan like a Farmer

Preproduction
1
4
2
Gameplay and Core
Technology
3 Gameplay testing and
iteration
Patch and Release testing

Final Approval and Ship
4
Process
10
Slop time


Scheduling is Critical


Passion Crunch


Schedule Crunch


ANY type of crunch leads to burnout


Management


Staff


Planning for Schedule Crunch is
Planning to Fail your Service


Death Marching is not necessary

• D&D Online shipped with only 6
weeks of crunch in a 2.5 year
development cycle


You build your own path


Plan well for launch
• A smooth service
launch needs
every aspect of
the launch to be
rehearsed
• Intentionally fail
internally before
you fail externally

Plan well for launch
• Escalation pipelines
• On-call personnel procedures
• Community management tools
• Telemetry and other mechanisms
to measure customer usage
• Patch process and tools

Patching


Patch Process


Patch Process
• Who decides what goes in a patch?
• How long does QA need to review the patch?
• Does QA need to formally approve the patch?
• What happens if QA rejects a build?
• What backward compatibility testing is done?
• Who makes the call on publishing a patch?
• How does the development team work ahead on the
next patch while QA is testing?
• What is the branching process?


Branch Process
• Keep it as simple as possible
• Ensure all departments follow it
• Pre-launch and post-launch branches follow the same
process
• Trust but Verify
– Require developers to write and run unit tests
– Use automated testing
– Run a “shaminator”

• Never set branch deadlines on Monday or Friday


Build Process


Build Process

• Make an automated build system
• Have a clear owner who kicks off
the official build
• Have a simple build numbering
system
• Use one build system

Deployment


Deployment
• How does the handoff of the build to
Network Operations work?
• How much time do they need?
• What last-minute sanity checking is done
prior to letting the public in?
• Who can make the call for an abort of the
deployment?
• How can operations roll-back to a previous
version?

Player Communication


Player Communication

• How do the players know about
upcoming downtime?
• What information is provided to
them during downtime?
• How are new changes
communicated to them?

Crisis Management


Information is Power


Perception is Reality


DRM


Community Management
• Never promise something you cannot deliver
• Always respect the intelligence of your players
• As much as possible, explain why potentially
contentious changes are being made
• The crowd will expose every flaw in your logic
• At some point, you will be wrong!


Hire proven experience


Customer Service is everyone’s job
Executive
Team

Project Production
Management Team

Development Service
Team Team

Art QA

Engineering Net Ops

Customer
Design
Service


Team composition


Evolving teams
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Prepro Dev First Alpha Beta Launch
Playable
Hunters Farmers


Best Practices for Building Services


Patch Notes for Every Build


Patch Notes for Everyone


Peer Review for Everyone


Physical Proximity


Spore
Gameplay Editor
Engineers Team

Core
Animation
Engine
Engineers
Team

Pollination Artists, An
& Web imators &
Team Audio


Woo-hoo!


The work is not done


Post-Launch Work

Gameplay
and
Content
Bug Fixing
Additions

Service
Improvements


Post-Launch Work


Provide Joy


No Joy becomes No Team


Automate, Automate, Automate


Services Require Flexibility


Boxed Products requires a Fixed Goal


Flexibility or death


Types of users


Spore riding creatures


Sporn


Crafting in D&D Online

No! Yes!


Evolving Services need Evolving Teams

Year 2
Year 1
Launch


Single Points of Failure


Humanity


Recognize unique talent


Duplicate it


Keep the team happy


Never be this guy


Services are the Future


Happy Farming!


Need assistance in building a service?
• You are looking at a copy of the slides I used in
my 2009 GDC presentation
• Please contact me if you have any questions
or I could be of assistance to you and your
organization
• Justin@QuimbyHeavyIndustries.com


Game Development 2 Dot 0

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Semelhante a Game Development 2 Dot 0

Semelhante a Game Development 2 Dot 0 (20)

Último

Último (20)

Game Development 2 Dot 0