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Video Games

Making a major game: budgets, teams and working conditions

  • 3 things to know
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Overview

Five distinct roles in a development team, three broad phases of game development and vertical slice.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Roughly what scale of team works on a major franchise title today?

Key term

Name five distinct roles in a development team.

Key term

What are the three broad phases of game development?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Roughly what scale of team works on a major franchise title today?

    Model answer

    A major title commonly occupies several hundred developers across multiple studios. Peak headcount for the largest games has exceeded a thousand.

  2. 2

    Name five distinct roles in a development team.

    Model answer

    Programmers, artists, designers, writers and producers all work on a major title. Audio, quality assurance and localisation teams join them.

  3. 3

    What are the three broad phases of game development?

    Model answer

    Development moves through pre-production, production and post-launch support. Concept work and prototyping happen in the first of these.

  4. 4

    What is a vertical slice?

    Model answer

    A vertical slice is a small, fully finished portion of a game built early. The slice proves the concept to management and to marketing.

  5. 5

    Why do development budgets for major games keep rising?

    Model answer

    Audience expectations of visual detail, world size and voice acting all rise with hardware. Larger teams working for longer follow directly.

  6. 6

    What is crunch in the games industry?

    Model answer

    Crunch is a period of sustained compulsory overtime before a deadline. Weeks of long days and lost weekends are common in the practice.

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