Why such a difference between title development comparing to Dayz?

[Rick1633 136]

Well just two or 3 days after we hear that the number of people working on Dayz will go from 30 to 60, it was just announced that 213 people are developing another title that does not even have a publisher like DayZ has.   213 people are making Star Citizen currently...  (apparently, my earlier posts about them having 80 or 90 was very outdated.)

 

 

Why such a huge difference?

www.polygon.com/2014/3/4/5470564/star-citizen-dogfighting-module-to-launch-after-pax-east

 

check last paragraph or two for reference to 213 people.  This is the latest.

[iBane 381]

Totally different situation.  Star Citizen is building on legacy of games 20 years old and an enormous crowd-funding campaign.  DayZ/BI didn't ask for your money before Alpha, just to develop the game prototype.  

Edited March 5, 2014 by iBane

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

Star Citizen is a huge space MMO.  The majority of those working on it will get laid off once the foundation is set as they are more than likely temp workers.  Same thing happened to Planetside 2, SWToR or any game for that matter.  It's how it works.  Companies have their main staff then hire outside help

[McGarnagle 94]

Believe it or not, Star Citizen is more ambitious of a project than DayZ. And, if I'm not mistaken, they've constructed everything for SC, including the game engine, from the ground up.

 

You can't just compare the number of employees like that. Mario Galaxy probably took  more people to develop than DayZ, as well, but you don't gain anything by comparing them to each other. Same with Star Citizen.

[Ubernaut 297]

I'm just gonna take a guess. Since Star Citizen doesn't have a publisher, they needed to hire additional people in order to do the things that a publisher normally handles. DayZ already has Bohemia backing it, and so they don't count all the Bohemia Interactive employees as members of their dev team.

 

Again, this is kinda just a guess. Star Citizen has raised a LOT of money, and can afford lots of people. The game is enormous in scope, even compared to DayZ.

[rickyriot 1009]

Chris Roberts and over $2m in kickstarter funds would probably be the main points.

 

 

Oh, and as we are on the subject, just a little nod to the old geeks out there. Martin Galway is doing some of the music for SC.

[Khad (DayZ) 293]

It's just not that easy to predict a release.

 

Ever heard of Guild Wars 2?

 

I believe, they said 2009 it will be released "next year" ^.^

[Leo Balzac 190]

can't make a good comparison. The situations are vastly different. Also, the Czech Rep. isn't exactly a hotbed of game development. 

[Rick1633 136]

OK.  fair enought.   I appreciate all the great answers.   You all gave me real answers in a respectable way.   I appreciate that.  I want DayZ to succeed, so this was just my concern.   It terms of money, I thought they both raised about the same amount of funds.   A few million more for Star Citizen, so I guess it's a valid point you guys made.

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

I need to add this.  There was a package you could purchase for Star Citizen that was approximately $15,000 USD.  It gave you ships and some other junk, mostly all the ships in the game.  So ya, they are milking money out of people just to design the game.  

[rickenbacker 190]

Why such a huge difference?

 

 

You're asking the wrong question. The question is why wouldn't there be a huge difference? They're two completely different companies, working on completely different games with different scopes and ambition.

 

Do you also ponder long and hard why paint dries and why the sun comes up in the morning?

[Rick1633 136]

I need to add this.  There was a package you could purchase for Star Citizen that was approximately $15,000 USD.  It gave you ships and some other junk, mostly all the ships in the game.  So ya, they are milking money out of people just to design the game.  

What does that have to do with the issue of 30 to 60 devs for Dayz and 213 Devs for Star Citizen?

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

What does that have to do with the issue of 30 to 60 devs for Dayz and 213 Devs for Star Citizen?

I posted above earlier why they have a bigger staff.  This post is to show the difference in how the development stages work.  DayZ you purchase it for a set price and the development continues, SC you purchase different ship packages to put money towards building the game

[Rick1633 136]

You're asking the wrong question. The question is why wouldn't there be a huge difference? They're two completely different companies, working on completely different games with different scopes and ambition.

 

Do you also ponder long and hard why paint dries and why the sun comes up in the morning?

 

Have you never hear of "industry standards"?     So are you saying that game development is the one industry where there is no industry standards or norms, conventions, etc.?     My question was only asking what is the norm if there are so many differences between these two games who both raised 30 plus million dollars.

 

If the Yankees and the Mets both had 150 million dollars to spend but only one team hired 10 pro starters and the other hired 3 pro starters, would you not wonder why one team cares more about winning then the other?

Thanks for your lousy attempt to insult me.

[Karmaterror 982]

15,000 USD??....is that a typo because I just spat my drink out when I read it lol.

 

I think the core team of dayz it 30...going up to 60. But that's deicated Dayz staff, bohimia would also have a complete staff working on A3. When they finally wrap that up and slap a finished sticker on it, I think quite a few of that team will be shunted to or borrowed by Dayz to speed things up. Essentially they have 2 sets of staff working there, and they make other games aswell.

 

PS that is speculation, feel free to correct any miss information guys, id like to know aswell :)

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

15,000 USD??....is that a typo because I just spat my drink out when I read it lol.

 

I think the core team of dayz it 30...going up to 60. But that's deicated Dayz staff, bohimia would also have a complete staff working on A3. When they finally wrap that up and slap a finished sticker on it, I think quite a few of that team will be shunted to or borrowed by Dayz to speed things up. Essentially they have 2 sets of staff working there, and they make other games aswell.

 

PS that is speculation, feel free to correct any miss information guys, id like to know aswell :)

They have sold out of that package but here is a link https://robertsspaceindustries.com/store/337-the-completionist

[fitzee 248]

Hi.

I'm a bit confused by the OP.

When you say DayZ has a puplisher are you referring to Steam/Valve or?

Bohemia Interactive Studios is a small game development studio, not a publisher. Companies like Codemasters and Electronic Arts are puplishers.

Regards.

[Rick1633 136]

Hi.

I'm a bit confused by the OP.

When you say DayZ has a puplisher are you referring to Steam/Valve or?

Bohemia Interactive Studios is a small game development studio, not a publisher. Companies like Codemasters and Electronic Arts are puplishers.

Regards.

Ok.  Then I should have wrote that without an existing professional development studio, The Star Citizen creator found 213 full time developers.  While Bohemia, who should already have a long list of resumes for when big projects call, could only find 30 or 40 people after getting flushed with over 30 million in cash.      So my point must be clearer now.

[OrLoK 16185]

Have you never hear of "industry standards"?     So are you saying that game development is the one industry where there is no industry standards or norms, conventions, etc.?     My question was only asking what is the norm if there are so many differences between these two games who both raised 30 plus million dollars.

 

If the Yankees and the Mets both had 150 million dollars to spend but only one team hired 10 pro starters and the other hired 3 pro starters, would you not wonder why one team cares more about winning then the other?

Thanks for your lousy attempt to insult me.

Hello there

 

Hmmm, it does look as if your doing the old, "they have lots of cash, give me my game next week" thing...

 

Ok your American Football analogy is flawed, they both play a game with rules and accepted player numbers.

 

Software development is not like that. Just throwing buckets of cash does not an insta game make.

 

Think about things like the pre existing infrastructure and the whole business system that was already in place at Bohemia, suddenly hiring hundreds of people takes a vast amount of cash and man hours, then theres all the logistical support.

 

On the simplest level, say 100 programmers turned up at their offices. Where do they sit? now extrapolate from there.

 

I hope im being clear enough I am rather tired.

 

Rgds

 

LoK

[Zombie Jesus 723]

The games are different and Star Citizen is far more ambitious/complicated. DayZ had a map and a rough engine to provide a foundation. They did change up the engine in significant ways but they did not have to start from scratch and while the map has also been altered they once again had a solid foundation to start on. The amount of money brought in by a game is somewhat irrelevant to personnel decisions, Minecraft has made a ton of money that was not instantly poured into making a better Minecraft experience. Income makes the game a success for the company and there is nothing wrong with success unless you are a communist. 

 

So a game making a good amount of money will allow the company or team to expand but it does not mean they have to spend all of that income on extra developers. 

 

Ok your American Football analogy is flawed, they both play a game with rules and accepted player numbers.

 

 

It is worse than a football analogy, it is a baseball analogy.

[rickyriot 1009]

This is probably a rhetorical question as I wouldn't expect BI to make a new DayZ nor would I expect Rocket to discuss his future plans beyond BI and/or DayZ, but I wonder in hindsight would they have preferred to take the project via Kickstarter, and in turn would Rocket look to Kickstarter for his next project. It's clear that the game in Alpha has raised much more cash than was expected (or at least it seems that way) and if they had known that beforehand would the development and/or team of developers taken a different approach.

[Valadain 270]

Hello there

 

Hmmm, it does look as if your doing the old, "they have lots of cash, give me my game next week" thing...

 

Ok your American Football analogy is flawed, they both play a game with rules and accepted player numbers.

 

Software development is not like that. Just throwing buckets of cash does not an insta game make.

 

Think about things like the pre existing infrastructure and the whole business system that was already in place at Bohemia, suddenly hiring hundreds of people takes a vast amount of cash and man hours, then theres all the logistical support.

 

On the simplest level, say 100 programmers turned up at their offices. Where do they sit? now extrapolate from there.

 

I hope im being clear enough I am rather tired.

 

Rgds

 

LoK

 

I'm a development manager. I currently oversee several products and teams. Orlok is absolutely correct. If you add 200 people to a 30 man project, you know what happens? Nothing. Either you halt development to train or the new guys sit on the bench and try to pick it up on the fly and you spend all your time fixing inadvertent bugs. Projects have to ramp up gradually to be efficient. Training is one of many infrastructure issues.

 

If the game was going to develop over a number of years, sure, start hiring. With an expectation of less than a year left, keep on course, pick up a moderate amount of extra help, and focus on executing the plan in hand.

[Rick1633 136]

I'm a development manager. I currently oversee several products and teams. Orlok is absolutely correct. If you add 200 people to a 30 man project, you know what happens? Nothing. Either you halt development to train or the new guys sit on the bench and try to pick it up on the fly and you spend all your time fixing inadvertent bugs. Projects have to ramp up gradually to be efficient. Training is one of many infrastructure issues.

 

If the game was going to develop over a number of years, sure, start hiring. With an expectation of less than a year left, keep on course, pick up a moderate amount of extra help, and focus on executing the plan in hand.

But who here thinks Dayz is only a 30 to sixty person project?   It is wildly popular on 3 continents, uses a huge map that could use a wider variety of content, has a fucking insane amount of broken core that requires a ton of man power and clever ideas in order to optimize...

 You have missed the entire point.   The guy who created Star Citizen believes his game is big and beautiful so he found 213 developers and it looks to me that the guy who sold out Dayz does not think his game is that important anymore.

[rodolfoxiii 71]

[Rick1633 136]

Hello there

 

Hmmm, it does look as if your doing the old, "they have lots of cash, give me my game next week" thing...

 

Ok your American Football analogy is flawed, they both play a game with rules and accepted player numbers.

 

Software development is not like that. Just throwing buckets of cash does not an insta game make.

 

Think about things like the pre existing infrastructure and the whole business system that was already in place at Bohemia, suddenly hiring hundreds of people takes a vast amount of cash and man hours, then theres all the logistical support.

 

On the simplest level, say 100 programmers turned up at their offices. Where do they sit? now extrapolate from there.

 

I hope im being clear enough I am rather tired.

 

Rgds

 

LoK

Logistical problems?   We have something called filesharing and internet.  Star Citizens 213 developers are in at least three different offices thanks to something called technology.  The project seems to be coming along nicely.

 

I love reading these responses that are basically saying Star Citizens way of making a good game is completely wrong or impossible in order to not admit that Dayz may never be finished or will never be acceptable.