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Comment by _0w8t | Hacker News Reader

The gaming industry routinely deliver "large, faultless projects" within 6-9 months timeframe. Searching for "data-oriented programming" gives some hints how they do it. Another part of the story is proper project management.

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The gaming industry is also full of horror stories about people burning out, months of crunch time and so on.

>within 6-9 months timeframe

Can you name any title that was developed in that timeframe? With yearly release cycles, it's easy to think they're pumping out projects in less than 12 months, but in reality each title takes years to finish, and the yearly releases are accomplished by using multiple studios/teams and pipelining.

They do? Can you name some examples?

The very beginning of [1] in the introduction of the speaker gives game titles.

[1] - https://youtu.be/rX0ItVEVjHc

Insomniac has two studios, one in Burbank, another is in Raleigh. It also does multiple projects at once in the Burbank so no, they are not delivering two console games a year. In fact, since 1996 they've done it only in 4 years (with the second game being a R&C game, which is more of a game design than a programming project) just as many years as they have not released a single game. Each of their big games is 2 years+, just like any other AAA studio. They start pre-production on the next project in the middle of the current one, just like any other AAA studio. 6-8 months in the console games nowadays is either a port (porting a game from one platform to another) or some horrible shovelware you find in the happy meals. In 6th generation a AAA game could be 12-18 months and if you worked really hard you could do something like Rogue Leader in 9. But 6 months is something from the 8 bit era, before Insomniac's times.

Sorry, I tend not to read hn in places I can watch a video. Maybe I'll remember to check it later.

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