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Evolution of Software Development in the Video Game Industry

Conference Paper · December 2021

DOI: 10.1109/CSCI54926.2021.00367

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 EVOLUTION OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT IN
THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY
Kieran Newell Kunjal Patel Magnus Linden
Department of Computer Science and Department of Computer Science and Department of Computer Science and
Engineering Engineering Engineering
Oakland University Oakland University Oakland University
Rochester, MI, USA Rochester, MI, USA Rochester, MI, USA
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Michael Demetriou Michal Huk Mohammed Mahmoud

Department of Computer Science and Department of Computer Science and Department of Computer Science and
Engineering Engineering Engineering
Oakland University Oakland University Oakland University
Rochester, MI, USA Rochester, MI, USA Rochester, MI, USA
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
[email protected]

Abstract—With new technology, game developers have many game industry has grown tremendously both in complexity of
new tools to create interactive experiences, and with those, come individual games and the variety of game genres available.
new problems. Video games have evolved tremendously over the Game development now involves a multidisciplinary team with
past 30 years and so has the development and production. Unique a varied skill set to develop creative, novel games. The typical
processes have been tested, failed, triumphed, invented and software development processes may be inadequate when
adopted. This paper covers how the challenges facing software seeking to develop a game due to the creative processes
engineers working on video games have evolved and changed. involved. Several studies have discussed the different challenges
from the perspective of game design, technical framework and
Keywords—Video Games, Agile, Scrum, Sprint, Games as a
development technique. This paper will look at many of these
Service (GaaS).
studies to attempt to determine the changes in attitude towards
I. INTRODUCTION game development strategies over time.
The availability and affordability of computer hardware has II. GAME DEVELOPMENT
changed the media landscape in the span of 40 years. Video In order to find some way of tracking the progress of the
games are now a major segment of the entertainment industry game industry over a period of time, two things are needed; both
rivaling movies and music, making billions of dollars per year. information about how the game industry used to be, and
In more recent years, customers and publishers have demanded knowledge of the industry at present. In order to track any sort
higher fidelity games, which require more development of change between the two, information about the same topic in
compared to simpler games of the past. both the past and present is required. Thus, narrowing the search
The entire gaming industry has evolved alongside the games about the evolution of the industry down to a smaller number of
themselves. A developer or publisher employs a significantly diverse subtopics can help provide a clearer picture of the
greater amount of staff today when compared to a similar industry as a whole.
company during the early days of computer gaming. Reusing All changes about the game industry can’t be determined
assets has become commonplace to save on development costs. simply from looking at a few specific subtopics. In fact, finding
Due to the success and availability of home entertainment, every last change in the game industry since its inception is
companies and their shareholders are now maximizing their outside the scope of this paper. Rather, by looking at individual
profits for AAA (triple A), big budget games. The logistics of papers focusing on specific aspects of change over time, a
publishing games has changed dramatically from the days of general picture of the changes in the industry in the recent past
physical media, such as flash cartridges. can be ascertained.
To overcome the challenges of modern game development, On top of that, when looking at the changes examined by
developers must follow Agile practices, as well as technical each paper, other related changes can be found from them by
undertakings. However, these practices can be considered new implication. For example, Dubois and Weststar [2] discuss in
to the industry as a whole, especially when compared to other their paper the advent of gaming as a service. The increasing
software development fields [14]. Changes made to industries popularity of that architecture that they outline also implies an
don’t happen overnight, so the history of development processes increase in internet-based technologies required to support game
in gaming spans many years. as a service architecture. This is because changes in a design
Currently, the procedure for software engineering is used to system, such as the game design process, will have other
develop video games, and this process includes concept, pre- changes that need to be made before they can occur, and changes
production, production and post-production. However, the video that occur soon after as a result of the first change. This innate

1
ripple effect is a substantial part of why a general idea of trends means of performing updates or patches directly to customers,
in the industry is the most precise analysis possible to easily developers would learn from these mistakes for their next
attain. When industry shifts can be caused by many factors project. The seventh generation of video game consoles were
within and without the industry, it becomes very difficult to get introduced with full network-capabilities, which allowed
a concrete definition of change over time. Still, by looking at developers to easily patch existing titles, as well as add new
change over time in more concrete subcategories an informative features after release.
whole can be constructed.
Other forms of media such as television and film can be
The first subtopic to be covered is Sprint Planning and Game considered a passive experience, with no active input from the
Testing. The development models used in game development audience. Video games offer continuous input from the players,
change over time and are an important part of the design process. which is a variable that developers must account for [1]. Each
This makes their evolution a clear candidate for focusing on, player can have differing levels of articulation. The goal is to
since their importance means they can potentially serve as an develop a product that can be both fun and challenging for all
example for the progress of the industry as a whole. players.
Next, looking at the general problems the game industry To emulate actual customers during development, play-
faces can be monumentally informative. What challenges testers are included in the process to identify what features or
developers face can also change over time, so looking at the designs work and which do not. They also give feedback on
change in the problems facing developers can lead to a greater story-driven games with character development. If the actions of
understanding of the evolution of their processes. the player do not complement the story, this could be seen as a
negative experience by the player [1].
It only makes sense that the criteria that need to be strived
for in development would influence the design of the industry, Well-executed Sprint planning requires constant feedback,
so a review of those criteria can lead to additional information which makes play-testers a necessary and integral part of the
about the design process. Thus, that is the next subtopic to be development team. Continuous feedback allows the engineers to
examined. quickly respond to flaws and prevent future mistakes.
Following that, the evolution of exploits and cheating in the B. Dataset of Game Development Problems
game industry can also serve to show the evolution of design The video game industry can be extremely profitable if done
within the industry. Design decisions need to be made to prevent right. Big game companies like EA, Activision Blizzard, Sony,
this sort of occurrence, so by looking at how cheaters have found Nintendo, Microsoft and Epic Games to name a few, create an
new methods over time it is possible to glean more information enormously competitive market; a market where little
about changes in the design process. information about software-engineering processes and
By looking at the trend towards service over time models in techniques are available. Knowledge is weaponized and even the
gaming, potential information about the general past and future big companies fail to avoid management issues and common
of design choices in the industry can be found. problems with game development. For example, 80% of the top
50 games on Steam need critical updates [6].
Next, analyzing the most common problems that game
developers face when developing a game, such as management One source of public information about game development
issues, framework issues and financial issues, can be insightful. is postmortem game presentation. A postmortem presentation is
a media that is published online that summarizes the developers’
Finally, the game industry’s use of Agile development knowledge, what went well and wrong during game
methodology can shift over the course of time, as can looking at development. The postmortem is normally created by managers
the software engineering challenges that developers face in the or senior developers who worked on the game and are usually
modern era. written right after the game is completed and launched. Though
A. Sprint Planning and Game Testing these postmortem presentations present a wealth of knowledge,
they are not without faults. For example, there are no set
In any software development, Scrum is often used as a means guidelines as to how to make a postmortem presentation and
to develop the software in small time periods. In video game there is no formal structure [6].
development, Scrum is used to its fullest extent [1]. Not only
must games be completed by the time of publication, but they Previous studies have looked at up to 50 postmortems and
must also be entertaining to play. On most games, some features found the most common problems in game development to be
may not appear until play-testers have assessed a need for them. project management, scope, feature creep, cutting features,
Thus, designers, engineers and play-testers all have a vital role unable to adopt or adapt software-engineering practices,
to play in game development [1]. obstacles, schedule, development process and game design [6].
This study has looked at a larger number of postmortems and
Scrum is a process to address problems in a structured has developed a methodical means to classify mistakes in game
manner. A Sprint is a short-term workload to address a certain development.
task or problem, which is then followed by a review for the next
Sprint [1]. Because video games are so complex, Sprint planning Post-mortems written between 1998 and 2018 were initially
is the only practical manner for development progress. randomly selected, however, to maintain an even spread of
publication year, some papers were handpicked. The problems
Before the mass adoption of broadband internet at home, identified in the postmortem were classified into existing
game development stopped at the time of publication. Though categories previously discussed by other authors, and new
game-testers were still used, there were still a number of games categories were created when necessary. Ultimately, the authors
that were found to have flaws by paying customers. Without a

2
found 20 different types of 1,035 problems and divided them compared to home consoles, and can present a challenge when
into three groups – production, management and business [6]. it comes to quality, as well as battery life for the device itself [5].
Management problems (45.22%) accounted for most issues D. Exploits and Cheating
and with production (45.02%) a close second [6]. The most Cheating in video games has been an ongoing battle since
common category overall was design (any problem relating to the beginning. The first video game cheats were put in place for
the design of the game, like balancing gameplay) and technical testing, on purpose by developers. This was used for developers
(problems with the team code/assets infrastructure) [6]. Business to test the mechanics of a game. Unfortunately, this turned into
problems (9.76%) such as marketing or monetization, were the people beginning to exploit gaming. With this being said, a
least common development problems [6]. recent survey by security company Irdeto found that 60% of
This study only analyzed the “what went wrong” portion of online games were negatively impacted by cheaters and 77% of
the postmortem papers and intends to use the same methods to players said they will stop playing if they think competitors are
study “what went right” in the future. The information gathered cheating [8].
and conclusions made can help future game developers Originally, in a computer game, all numerical values are
understand common development problems. stored "as is" in memory. Gamers could reprogram a small part
C. Critical Success Factors of the game before launching it. In the context of games for
many 8-bit computers, it was usual practice to load games into
With the ever-growing and expanding industry, developers memory and before launching them, modify specific memory
have needed to react to customer demands. The market is addresses in order to cheat, ultimately getting an unlimited
flooded with big budget games as well as smaller independent number of lives, currency, immunity, invisibility, etc. Such
projects. In order to stand out amongst other titles, developers modifications were performed through POKE statements. The
and publishers need to differentiate themselves with new Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC range and ZX Spectrum also
gameplay, better visuals, a great story or all of these in one
allowed players with the proper cartridges or multi-face add-on
package. to freeze the running program, enter POKEs and resume. Some
The process of game development consists of four phases: games tried to detect the multi-face and refused to load if it was
concept, pre-production, production and post-production [5]. present [8]. The earliest models had no ability to remain hidden.
Each genre of game has their own specific requirements that Later revisions either included a switch, hid if the menu had been
must be met across each phase. It can be said that videogames opened and closed before loading the game, or automatically hid
are one of the few mediums that combine both engineering and [8].
creativity into one product. As the gaming industry evolved, so did cheats, since there
The first games were developed almost entirely out of a was a market for them. People wanted an easy way to win or be
small team of talented engineers focused on 2D graphics, sound better at a game. Cheat-enablers such as cheat books, game
and inputs. Their skillsets were limited to mathematics and guides and cheat cartridges helped form a cheat industry and
physics, with little background in Computer Science [5]. cemented cheating as part of gaming culture. Cheating is not
Eventually, the computer engineers joined the teams, followed universally accepted, but has seriously grown in popularity.
by the creative illustrators and writers. The final individuals to Many modern games have removed cheat codes entirely,
join the game development process were actors wishing to except when used to unlock certain secret bonuses. The usage of
breathe life into virtual characters. real-time achievement tracking made it unfair for any one player
A game engine is a necessary piece of software to create even to cheat. In online multiplayer games, cheating is frowned upon
simple games, let alone multi-million-dollar projects. It allows and disallowed, often leading to a ban. Many games which use
developers to focus on their game mechanics and shorten the in-game purchases consider cheating to be not only wrong but
development time and costs. This tool can start the structure of also illegal, seeing as cheats in such games would allow players
the game, acting as a hollow template, allowing developers to to access content (like power-ups and extra coins) that would
place their own assets. otherwise require payment to obtain. However, cheating in such
games is nonetheless a legal grey area because there are no laws
Music, sound effects, characters, objects, dialogue, text, against modifying software which is already owned, as detailed
animations and textures are all considered to be custom assets. in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
This is where developers today can take their time perfecting the
material and activities that make up their world, instead of Some types of cheating include cheat codes, bots and
focusing on the underlying structure. And it is much easier with modification of runtime game data. Cheat codes are the type of
the tools on hand, like Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality cheating people are not worried about because they were put in
(VR) and so on. by the creators. These are often used as a tool to playtest certain
aspects of the game without difficulty. One of the earliest known
The choice of platform is an important step before examples of this type of cheat is the Konami Code [7], created
publication, and in some cases must be decided during pre- in 1986 by Konami developer Kazuhisa Hashimoto as he
production. Heavy effects that rely on expensive hardware can worked on porting the 1985 arcade game Gradius for use on the
limit the playability for a majority of interested customers. Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Hashimoto is quoted as
Developers and publishers must decide whether to bring their saying "the arcade version of Gradius is really difficult, right? I
games to personal computers, home consoles or mobile devices. never played it that much, and there was no way I could finish
Each platform comes with their own means of input, being the game, so I inserted the so-called Konami code." Bots are a
operated by joysticks, keyboard, touch or other peripheral type of artificial intelligence (AI) based expert software system
devices. Mobile devices have always been underpowered when that plays a video game in place of humans. They are able to
3
perform actions simulating a human enabling the player to Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOs) where bots can
progress or achieve in the game. be difficult to detect without human intervention [11]. It also
requires teams of programmers to be constantly monitoring the
Cheating can easily be achieved by modifying the game's cheater community, to come up with defenses against it in the
data while it is running. Modifying game data usually constitutes same way that other coders come up with ways to block and
a violation of a software license agreement that prohibits eradicate viruses.
modifying the program at all. Cheating via memory editing
involves modifying the memory values where the game keeps Cheating and cheaters, it seems, will always find a way, no
its status information. A cheat cartridge is attached to an matter how extreme or new the game might be. Whether it's
interface port on a home computer or console. It allows a user to hard-coded by devs or brought in after, we'll have to be ready to
modify the game code either before or during its execution. The go to even more extreme measures to identify, understand and
most basic way of achieving this is by means of memory editor defeat it.
software, which allows the player to directly edit the numeric
values in a certain memory address [9]. This kind of software E. Hacking and Countermeasures
usually includes a feature that allows the player to perform With the constant change in technology through the decades,
memory searches to aid the user in locating the memory areas we have faced more obstacles in the gaming industry, one of
where known values (such as the number of lives, score or health which is hacking. The integration of online-cloud, mobile games
level) are located. Provided a memory address, a memory editor and social networks with the massive diversity of gaming
may also be able to "freeze" it, preventing the game from altering platforms has created an unprecedented problem not seen in
the information stored at that memory address [9]. Somewhat early gaming environments. Due to this reason, it is important
more unusual than memory editing, code injection consists of that gaming companies are prepared to defend against threats to
the modification of the game's executable code while it is their consumers and that gamers understand the types of threats
running. On Microsoft Windows, a common type of video game they can face.
hacking is through the use of Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs). Whether exploiting vulnerabilities in gaming platforms,
Users use a third-party program to inject the DLL into their game bundling malicious software with games, conducting ad fraud,
of choice [9]. phishing for gamer credentials or scam campaigns, there are a
Cheating exists in many multiplayer video games. While variety of threats that attackers may use to find victims among
there have always been cheat codes and other ways to make the various parties in the gaming industry.
single-player games easier, developers often attempt to prevent Between the actual games and the platforms that host them,
it in multiplayer games. With the release of the first popular there is the software that makes it possible. And with software
internet multiplayer games, cheating took on new dimensions. comes the risk of security flaws and vulnerabilities that can be
Previously, it was rather easy to see if the other players cheated, exploited by both gamers and external attackers.
as most games were played on local networks or consoles. The
Internet changed that by increasing the popularity of multiplayer In August 2019, researchers went public with a zero-day
games, giving the players relative anonymity and providing privilege escalation vulnerability in one of the most popular
people an avenue to communicate cheats. gaming clients, which had previously been responsibly disclosed
but not fixed. Around the same time, a major video game
Examples of cheats in first-person shooter games include the company was sued because of a vulnerability in its software that
aimbot, which assists the player in aiming at the target giving the was exploited by attackers who used the access to make
user an unfair advantage, the wallhack, which allows a player to fraudulent charges on customer credit cards [12]. Some
see through solid or opaque objects, or manipulate or remove companies, such as Sony, prevent consumers from delaying
textures and ESP where the information of other players is updates by disabling access to the majority of applications and
displayed. There are also cheats that increase the size of the contents until patches are applied. This strategy can help reduce
enemies' hitbox which allows the player to shoot next to the risk around the gaming platforms and the people who use them
enemy, which would usually result in a miss, but the game [12].
would detect as a hit [10].
Recently, attackers and hackers have begun leveraging
In online trading card games, creating multiple accounts by gaming infrastructure and services as a method to hide malicious
jailbreaking devices to get more rewards can be considered content and communication in legitimate traffic [12]. The first
cheating because it is unfair to players who have only one example of Discord abuse was reported in October 2019 with
account [10]. the discovery of the Spidey Bot malware. Along with
Now although much of the hackers and hacks are updated backdooring the local legitimate Discord application, this
and coming out every month, there is a lot being done by malware also uses a Discord webhook for command-and-control
developers and publishers to provide counter measures and a (C&C) communication with the victim host [12].
stop to hacking. In a different case reported a month later, a report was
Riot has also been using bug bounty programs to reward released regarding multiple malware infection campaigns using
security researchers for finding vulnerabilities in the company’s Discord’s content delivery network (CDN) to host their
anti-cheat engine. The Valorant developer has increased this up malicious files [13]. By sending malware payloads in Discord
to $100,000 for flaws that undermine the privacy and security of messages, attackers were able to generate a link on the legitimate
its Vanguard anti-cheat software [11]. Discord domain that could then be used to lure victims without
detection from Uniform Resource Locator (URL) filters [13].
Identifying and banning cheaters from games often comes
about through months of painstaking research, especially in

4
 A recent malware framework was found to be generating Clearly, Dubois and Weststar believe that the difference
traffic to specific YouTube videos and Twitch streams for just between the development environments is so great that it can
this purpose. In a report from March 2019, the Belonard Trojan cause rifts to form between different development teams.
was found to be exploiting vulnerabilities in a game by Valve
Corporation called Counter-Strike for a unique fraud campaign If this one change can cause a shift in development
[13]. After infecting machines, this malware used various environments on this scale, then what about others? Are changes
techniques to promote game servers. This capability was then too subtle to notice ripples throughout the gaming industry that
sold as a service to legitimate game server owners in order to can’t be easily quantified because they can’t be traced back to a
have their servers appear in more users’ lists [13]. single shift in development strategies? It may be almost
impossible to track every change currently occurring, but
Gaming is becoming an increasingly prevalent part of our hopefully, at least, the major ones can be outlined.
culture and is thus becoming a more enticing target for attackers.
Whether it be through phishing attacks, malware distribution, G. Software Engineering Challenges
vulnerability exploitation or fraud campaigns, attackers have The success of a video game is more than just whether the
found various ways to profit from gamers and gaming gameplay is enthralling, the storyline compelling or the art
companies. astonishing, it relies on a near-flawless software foundation.
However, unlike typical software projects, video game
While unlike the financial sector, gaming companies would production includes hundreds of different disciplines to meld
not consider themselves to be a top target in the overall global together to create a product that is both functioning and fun [15].
attack landscape, they are under constant attack through various As video games grow more complex, the application of software
vectors. For this reason, it is important that both gaming engineering practices to video game designs seems to be a
companies and their consumers understand relevant threats and sensible solution.
protect themselves from such activity.
Currently, the game development industry uses the waterfall
F. Shifting Towards Service Models method, Agile method or the incremental method, which is a
Dubois and Weststar [2] stated that the industry is moving combination of waterfall with iterations. However, most game
more towards a state where software as a service is the normal design companies do not reliably produce products on time or
development goal. They referred to this as Games as a Service on budget [15]. The majority of errors in game development are
(GaaS) in their paper. As they point out, this has numerous due to poor project management, requirements engineering and
effects on the general game development process, and risk management. However, game design includes a unique goal
widespread adoption affects the development strategies of the compared to other software design in that it must be considered
entire industry. “fun”. To achieve this goal, video game development includes
prototyping and iterations, primarily completed in the
Dubois and Weststar referenced Kerr to back this up, stating: preproduction stage.
“In lieu of a linear process with discrete stages ending at game
launch—design and prototype, pre-production, production, Many of the problems in game development have already
testing, distribution and retail [3] —GaaS emphasizes post- been solved in the software industry [15]. One challenge is
launch activities, during which new content development and having diverse assets and having to incorporate multimedia
player retention and feedback operations overlap (Figure 2). creations with software programmers, and the multidisciplinary
Releasing a game to market is no longer the end but rather the aspect has been increasingly complicated. The project scale of
beginning of ongoing service operations in which regular video game development has become massive, and usually
content updates, game optimization, support and community includes the addition of new features during the development
management are key to enduring success [4]”. that further increases the project size. Another challenge is
finding a game publisher to back the game financially.
If Dubois and Weststar are correct, large shifts from games Additionally, the management of game development is difficult
delivered in a discrete, unchanging package (as they refer to it, due to the complexity and poor management often leading to
Game as a Product, or GaaP) could have already led to massive mediocre products. The large team must also be organized into
shifts in general design techniques in the gaming industry. As sub-groups and have adequate communication. Another
Kerr stated in the quote above, a game likely could no longer be challenge lies in tying in the multiple stages of the development
viewed as a completed project once finished, and long-term process, specifically, the translation of pre-production work to
support strategies for iterating on the base product would need the production phase. Finally, due to high cost and increased
to be implemented. complexity, game developers are outsourcing some aspects of
Dubois and Weststar also go so far as to state that the criteria their production so adequate communication needs to be present.
for what makes a good developer are completely different The application of software engineering practices to video
between GaaS and GaaP development environments. After game design can alleviate many of the challenges that plague
conducting their research, they found that there was a significant
game development. For large products, the spiral process model
gap between developers working in the two environments. may work well by allowing for iterating a game from low to high
“...the differences between GaaP and GaaS are great enough fidelity [15]. Proper requirements for engineering can help with
to cause developers to feel like they are no longer “speaking the overly ambitious or unrealistic project scopes, and management
same language” or doing the same work. This leads to growing training sessions for game developers can help to increase team
misunderstandings across projects and the development of new organization and project management.
boundaries.” Game development companies should invest in adopting
proven methods, found in traditional software engineering, to fit

5
with the peculiarities of game development such as the with low feedback from testers. Games with more Sprint
management of multimedia assets and the need for game play Planning than those with less planning earned better scores [1].
exploration [15]. Investing in management courses and teaching
project management can help many of the issues in game
development. As game development projects continue to expand
and diversify, the importance of management skills is vital for
the success of the project.
H. Agile Development
In the recent past, an increase in Agile development practices
has also been seen [14]. The Agile practices may not be identical
to standard industry ones, but the core ideas of Agile
development are being adopted in the games industry over time
[16]. The adoption of Agile development techniques from the
software development industry can certainly affect the
movement of the industry as a whole, and likely for the better.
In addition to moving in a more Agile direction, the development Fig. 2. Interaction Effects of Sprint Planning and Feedback on Game Quality.
of games is apparently becoming more streamlined. Wang and
Nordmark found that as a result of better technology and Finally, the most interesting result came by comparing the
resources, game development processes have gotten less painful two methods together, as games with more iterative feedback
despite games growing ever larger [17]. and high Sprint Planning were better received than games with
the same feedback and Low Sprint Feedback [1]. This shows
that game testers are a necessary part of development and Sprint
planning, as without them a development team would not know
if a feature was complete or an issue was corrected.
B. Identifying the Process to Success
S. Aleem, L Fernando Capretz, and F. Ahmed launched a
survey to understand how different developers handle their
projects. To begin, they sought out the development for games.
The results were mixed across the board, with projects taking
anywhere from less than six months to over a year to complete
[5].

Fig. 1. Game Development Process Based on Scrum [18]

Fig. 3. Total Game Development Duration by Respondents.
III. RESULTS
Based on the findings and research we can see a clear pattern The survey also showed that assorted variety roles make up
in the evolution and development of video games for decades. these development teams. A considerable number of developers
This paper demonstrates how these developments were confirmed with a majority of programmers and designers, along
revolutionized by the software engineers in the gaming industry, with animation artists and others [5].
motivated by the various challenges they faced. Whether it is
testing, designing, developing, production or following a
specific methodology, the developers and software engineers
have managed the changes in technologies and have adapted to
them fluently.
A. Game Testing Analysis
The findings from a team at the National Taiwan University
show that feedback from game testers have a direct correlation
with Sprint Planning and game quality. The group found that
games with higher feedback specificity outperformed games

6
 V. FUTURE WORK
The research done above aimed to take a breadth over depth
approach to the topic of game development evolution. While this
approach is useful for finding general trends in the industry, it is
lacking in determining in-depth specifics for any single
subtopic. An in-depth analysis of any of the subtopics covered
in this paper could yield additional, valuable information.
Secondly, doing firsthand research and interviewing game
developers with experience spanning multiple decades could
provide a primary source for further consideration. Many
developers would likely have to be interviewed in order to get a
good idea of general trends, since this topic is a bit too variable
Fig. 4. Percentage of Respondents by Roles of Respondents and broad for a case study approach to show more than anecdotal
information. This is in large part because changes can be
From what these results represent, it can be assumed that no company specific, and trying to pin down trends on the industry
matter the scope of the project, all video games require a variety level instead of the company level would require a large number
of staff roles to complete. Programmers are needed in order to of sources from different companies.
create the designers’ ideas, and animators are necessary to bring
Finally, a company-wide comparison or research with a
those to life.
focus on development could be a ground-breaking step towards
IV. CONCLUSION providing a clear vision for future evolution in game
development.
In essence, the primary evolution in the game development
industry is the necessity of addressing the rapidly increasing REFERENCES
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a game could be a simple product compared to the large beasts and feedback in game development projects: Implications for game
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