Are there different ways of conceiving and developing games?
Yes. Ubisoft, for example, works another way. They have a pool of programmers, a pool of graphic designers, and a group of game designers. They command work from each other, especially the graphics department. What’s nice is that they all work on all the projects, everyone keeps busy, and it’s very efficient. But then your sense of personal accomplishment can be diminished since you don’t really see your contribution to the whole. We work more like a groups of musicians, each with a particular role. This works well for us, but other places subcontract out entire sections of game development. What are the principal steps in game design? And how long do they take? We take about a year for a sequel or 18 months with a team of 12 people. It’s pretty average. We make games that are pretty expensive, because since Alone in the Dark, expectations have been pretty high. So we have always had to put in the whole package, but aside from Alone costing $400 thousand, our games cost $1.5 to $2 mill
