In an industry that is facing wave after wave of layoffs, Greg Foertsch details how keeping the XCOM team together made for a better sequel.
One of the big lessons I want to slam in the face of shareholders is that even auteurs don’t matter the way they do in comics, film, or TV. People like Hideo Kojima can do great things, but even Death Stranding got a bit of a release backlash for not feeling like MGS. Games, especially compared to other fields, are really a product of a whole team generating ideas that mesh. Sometimes all it takes is for a little bit of group breakage or brain drain, even just the unknown Engine Programmer departing, for the next project to not feel the same.
MurrayL@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Well yeah - game development, a creative endeavour, benefits from continuity within the team working on it. Once you lose a certain percentage of that team, or even just a handful of key figures, the original vision and the lessons learned during its realisation are lost forever.
You’d think this was obvious, but apparently not to the c-suites, who see everyone as replaceable cogs.