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  Deus Ex's D'Astous: Teamwork, Honesty Required For Quality
by Staff [PC, Console/PC]
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September 3, 2010
 
 Deus Ex 's D'Astous: Teamwork, Honesty Required For Quality

Eidos Montreal general manager Stephane D'Astous says that while Deus Ex: Human Revolution has a very strong vision, building a strong team and carefully vetting creative ideas is what allowed that to take shape.

Though the game's visual aesthetic is very distinctive, D'Astous says that refinement was just as important as the original inspiration.

"It was trial and error at certain points, and it's during the process of the stage-gating process that, well, this seems when we were showing our stuff internally, because we need to be honest during these meetings," he tells Gamasutra in today's in-depth feature interview. "And people were saying, 'This doesn't work. This works.'"

"We went back to Montreal and we re-grind our ideas, re-filtered them..." says D'Astous. "We have dozens and dozens of artists, but if it's too clear, they feel like a robot and they won't be productive. So, you need to have a little margin, but you need to have a clear vision. 'We're going this way.'"

In fact, building this strong team is the key to the forthcoming game's successes in development, he says. "If you have a large ego, unfortunately you won't fit in our culture."

"Somebody can have great ideas, great direction, and a great vision, but to make this reality, it's a team push, a team effort, and that makes the difference between an excellent game and an average game," says D'Astous. Eidos Montreal also collaborated outside the studio with Vancouver's Goldtooth Creative and Tokyo's Square Enix Visual Works on Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

The full interview, which goes into great detail on the creative culture of Eidos Montreal and the development of Human Revolution, is live today on Gamasutra.
 
   
 
Comments

Jonathan Jennings
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You know I always wondered during the developement of a bad game do team members recognize that the end product won't be very good? I mean I imagine from Q & A to the lead designers I imagine somebody must look at the end-product and think " wow this is not our best work". I am not saying that the product can necessarily be scrapped by then and of course to maintain interest the developers may have to feign interest even if they didn't believe in the final product. I just always wondered If everyone in the project is to excited to see the flaws within the game .

Joshua Sterns
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Sometimes the devs are so far up their own ego they don't see any flaws. Other times they are depressed cause they know they can't polish that turd any further. Then the rest are indifferent and just collecting a pay check.

It really depends on the individual.


Christian Nutt
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Based on (off the record) conversations about bad games, the answer is: yes. Yes they do. And they often know exactly why, as well, but these are factors that nothing can be done about (i.e. bad technology, short development cycles, someone in power who's acting to obstruct or complicate issues, etc.)

Jonathan Jennings
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well thank you all for the responses. The reason I asked was because this article talks about a " culture of honesty" and I just wondered if such cultures existed in the developement of bad games and how a team would respond to a game they no is not going well. Thank you though.


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