Dead State "Why isn't Dead State Done Yet?!" Updates
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In order to address the years-old question of "Why isn't Dead State Done Yet?!", DoubleBear's Brian Mitsoda has taken to the Iron Tower forms for not just one but two updates that provide a summary of the game's development, a list of reasons why CRPGs in particular take a long time to perfect, comparisons to other games that took as long or longer to complete, and more. Here we go:
So, you might wonder why I'm telling you this, and the truth is: it flat-out sucks to hear that our game is (taking too long) or starting an interview off with questions like (So your game has been in the works for a while now.) I know I've said it before, but I promise you, no one wants Dead State out more than us. The truth is, games don't manifest out of thin air the moment they're announced. Concept art, ideas, and mockups are not a game. If you're hearing about an original game for the first time at E3 or PAX, chances are it was being developed 2-3 years before it was ever mentioned to the public (remember, we announced DoubleBear the week we formed a company with no budget and with a handful of people.)
As for RPGs, I have never worked at a company that has developed an RPG from scratch in two years. We made a lot on Kickstarter for an indie game, it's true, but you'll notice that many other story-based Western RPGs that were Kickstarted in the last two years had budgets that were 3-10 times higher than ours. That money buys personnel, more personnel means more time shaved off, and many of those companies had experienced staff and existing production processes in place already. But slipped dates aren't limited to Kickstarter projects. If you look at original RPGs that have come out in the past twenty years, you'll notice that they all had one thing in common: they took a lot longer than you think.
-Fallout: One of my favorite games.It was started in 1994, and went on to involve a team of about 30 developers working on it for three years (professional development, mind: their budget was over a million in 1990s currency). The game was released in 1997.
-Dragon Age: Was announced at E3 2004, likely after at least a year or two of pre-production. BioWare had made many RPGs by this time and had assembled a sizeable and experienced team. Dragon Age was released at the end of 2009.
-Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines: Bloodlines was being worked on before I joined the team, and had gone through over a year of development before Troika staffing up the project for the first E3 demo in 2003. With about 30 people internally (more brought on to help during the final push) working 60+ hours a week, Bloodlines came out in late 2004.
-Alpha Protocol: A small team at Obsidian started production for Alpha Protocol in early 2006 (interestingly enough, this was pushed into development immediately after another RPG there was canceled after a full year of pre-production). I did two years on the project, but the game would not end up coming out until 2010.
Many RPGs can spend a year or more in pre-production and never even make it to actual production. I have worked on or witnessed many RPGs get canceled at the one to two year mark. The biggest hurdle for most of them is the dreaded (vertical slice,) i.e. bringing the many systems and assets together that it takes to '˜show off'˜ the gameplay and make it feel like a playable slice of the full game. For many years, the reason that RPGs were not funded was because publishers wanted to see results sooner, and RPGs just don't get put together as quickly as other genres of games. (You know what's easy to make with a first-person shooter engine? A first-person shooter.)
What I'm ultimately saying - and thanks if you've read this far - is that good RPGs take time, experience, and dedication to make. And the important thing to remember is, if you want to see RPGs made, the people that create them need your support, because the more support RPG developers have in the marketplace, the more likely it is we will have the staff and finances to invest in making another one. If you enjoy the combat, or the loot, or the writing: that is always going to take more time to bring together than a game that focuses on one central mechanic.
