Comment on FTC fails to redact Microsoft document, revealing an old Bethesda release schedule
MxM111@kbin.social 9 months agoWhy would Covid delay game by that much after Covid?
Most companies froze during the start of COVID. During the first few months, we didn’t know if COVID was spread through air or by blinking. Companies scrambled for WFH, trying to keep workers alive while other companies scrambled to create 6-ft distances. People died. Less people went out to buy things.
This went on for a full year at minimum.
You would think that software companies could switch really easy.
You would think so, but for an industry where almost all of the work is location-agnostic, they sure love forcing people to work in offices and cubicles.
Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Part of it is because games have multi-year development cycles. And, for most of covid, WFH/remote was not something people really understood how to do (having kids around did not help). So basically all games lost 1-2 years of development time.
And for a major studio (like MS), you have limited support teams and resources. So if Ghostwire needed one of the support studios, DOOM Year Zero (!?!?!?!) would have to wait and so forth.
And then you just have release windows. It matters less in a digital distribution world, but you want your big games to hit for holidays and known good selling weeks. So if Starfield is end of Summer, DOOM can’t be.
And as you add on delays you need to improve the game because something else came out with a similar bit and you will come across as “derivative”.