The path to game development is really dangerous, moving forward without a bunch of weapons is something for new players.
How many times have you heard someone saying “I have an amazing idea!”?
In the game development community, I assure you that’s pretty common. Any game is the result of brainstorm. And to each problem we face during your developing process, the solution comes from someone’s idea. However, not all ideas are good or even viable for all projects.
Hello! My name is Gabriel Franceschini, and today I ask: Your project is viable?
What does it mean to be “viable”?
The basic definition would be to analyze whether with the resources you currently have you can run with a satisfactory result.
And how do you know if it’s viable then? In the previous sentence, there are three key concepts: Resources, Execution, and Result.
Do you have enough resources?
What resources are needed to make this project? You probably don’t know the answer, if you do, you have a lot of experience, otherwise, rare are the situations where projects are launched on the date the creator planned.
There are several variables that need to be analyzed, in terms of time, budget, technical resources, market information, management, and quality. Besides other aspects that, if not properly revised, can take you to the infamous Development Hell (or Limbo), where software and games in production remain in a state of inertia that constrains their progression and completion. Regardless of the game’s success, this is a place that everyone should avoid.
It would be right to say that assimilate this lesson, doesn’t just apply to game projects. These are concepts that can be used for a variety of projects in different areas. Even projects that involve developing a final interface, or another project that has some user experience, need these Feasibility study.
Transform tech part in the easy part
Developing a project is a technical challenge. Even in the immense technology area, which has hundreds of branches of knowledge. But games have one more difficulty, they are much more volatile products and cycles of production than other kinds of software.
Knowing that your team is capable of delivering the project is one of the first steps that must be analyzed by the producers. It’s no use to have all other resources if your team is not able to develop and solve the production problems.
It is necessary to analyze the game or the project as a whole. Imagine and determine the flow of user experience. Identifying the core and main goal of the game. List the features and why they’re being included. Aside from comprehending and balancing the mechanical interactions. All this is really important to identify the project’s complexities and consequently plan ahead to solve them.
Mainly with game development where there is an abstraction of ideas from so many people, many things may be tried, changed, added, or removed. But work that will not be used in the final product still is an investment. Where time and budget were spent, and that extra work doesn’t replace the need to spend more resources to complete the project.
The sooner you know the roadmap the better
Time is another important resource for prior knowledge. Otherwise, it can be a reason for preventing the project from proceeding. Time itself is dependable on other project variables. What defines how long the production will take is the quantity and complexity of the possible ways and which directions were chosen.
Even in terms of open scope projects, non-setting the time will lead to a lack of control and, in the future, creates a stress and anxiety state shared by all involved.
On the other spectrum of reality, the vast majority of projects have a closed scope, where the end dates need to be hit by force majeure, like contracts, investors, or other stakeholders.
So, saying that you got six months to deliver a product, you cannot have a yearlong project. The knowledge of the steps from the beginning of a project to the final launch, helps in the accuracy of the chronological planning, once that many plans forget crucial steps like that, together they can make a failure project.
How do the market and the competition affect your product?
“Why would people stop using other products and begin using yours?“
Generally, this is the question that I ask people with a new project in mind. In the 21st century, with the advance of globalization, it’s complicated to have such a unique idea that no one did something similar, or already doesn’t exist as a substitute product for your idea.
Understand competitors, what methods they use, analyze their growth and progression, and so on. Through this analysis, it is possible to support project ideas, what is the impact of the project’s advantages and disadvantages.
Get quality control over the problems
With the resources being updated and ready to start, you still need control to keep the project progression. Controlling all these resources and advances can prove to be a big challenge. Even with an open scope project, have result analysis break-points to understand the progression compared to the final scope.
And along with the control, there is also the need for quality goals to be reached. This variable can change greatly, from company to company or, even project to project, because each one has different goals. For example, a project might focus on developing a scalable product for long-term maintenance or choose the path where “time” is a higher priority.
Ideas are good, but keep the focus
As we can see, developing a game requires much more than just a “good idea”. More difficult than having ideas it’s bringing them to life, and creating a product that will have an impact on the market.
Hope that this content helps those who seek to learn about the game development world.
See you next time!
