Why Can't Johnny Ship?
Gamasutra
January 1, 1998
Vol. 2: Issue 1
Originally published in Interactivity Magazine
April 1996
| Why Can't Johnny Ship? |
| Introduction |
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| Conclusion |
Four years! Yes, it really happens. In fact, it happens all the time. The Wall Street Journal (June 12, 1995) named three major CD-ROM titles that were roughly one year late, and one title, Lucas Arts' The Dig, that had been in production for more than four years. I know of worse examples, including outright cancellations after considerable investment - but, to be kind, I won't mention any names.
These late projects often start with the best intentions. Talented people were hired or assigned to each of the tasks. The title concept was exciting and showed promise. Managers with solid track records were assigned the role of project lead. In some cases technical risk was minimized by using a commercial authoring tool. No matter. They were still late, disappointing, or both.
Our industry has become complacent with this situation. There's a feeling that it can't improve. You can read how impossible it is to deliver products in a timely fashion in any multimedia magazine you choose. To summarize the arguments I've heard:
1. It simply takes 18 months or longer to take a title from concept to master.
Why? Is there something special about 18 months? Is it somehow built into the fabric of space/time?
2. Rewriting a title during production is necessary in order to get it right.
Did Boeing rebuild the 777 a few times to get it right? Do we tear down buildings until we get it right? Are our projects more complicated than building a new aircraft or A large building?
3. It's not possible to design an interactive product completely.
Is there something about interactive multimedia that prevents us from designing it at the same level of detail as any other kind of product?
4. We can't predict how long it will take to program a title. We don't know how long it will take to produce the content. We don't know what technological problems we'll encounter.
Obviously.
What to do, then? The typical management response to the extremely high rate of failure among production teams is akin to the credit sequence in the movie Monty Python's Holy Grail: "The people who sacked the people who sacked the people who did the last sequence have now been sacked." So easy to fix blame. So hard to fix the problem.
