development hell
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How The Makers Of Mafia 3 Lost Their Way
19In mid-2016, a few months before the release of their first game, Mafia 3, the developers at Hangar 13 in Novato, California gathered for an all-hands meeting. There, according to two people in attendance, Christoph Hartmann, president of the game’s publisher, 2K, told employees that their bonuses would be tied to the game’s aggregate review…
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As Naughty Dog Crunches On The Last Of Us II, Developers Wonder How Much Longer This Approach Can Last
One Friday night in February, some artists at the video game studio Naughty Dog were working on their latest game when they heard a crash. A large metal pipe had fallen from above them and landed right next to their desks. If it had dropped a few feet closer, the consequences might have been dire.…
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Inside The Ghosting, Racism And Exploitation At Game Publisher Nicalis
At E3 in June of 2015, the game designer David Crooks was hanging out across the street from the L.A. Convention Centre when he met a man named Tyrone Rodriguez. Crooks needed support for the console versions of his quirky top-down dungeon crawler, Enter the Gungeon, and Rodriguez’s company, Nicalis, seemed willing to help out.…
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The Case Of The Disappearing Nancy Drew Video Games
On March 25, 2015, the weather in Bellevue, Washington was just warming up enough to play hacky sack, a favourite activity of the employees at the game development studio Her Interactive. That morning, they had something more pressing to think about, though: they couldn’t log into their computers.