Why are there so many Un-finished/in-development games?

[cheddaredgrizzly]

Don't get me wrong, I like seeing the process of a game grow to it's fullest potential, but the problem with these games is that they take so freaking long to develop. I say this while in the middle of a RPG maker game I'm making, that I can say, i could probably get it done in a month or two, and looking around there are many similar games that have taken YEARS to develop!

Maybe the reason for this is because developers (I'm also guilty of this) like to pitch the ideas before they can rationally decide they can make the game.

I don't know. Do you prefer seeing a game already done just appear on the forums one day, or see a concept grow into a game?

[x3Darkie]

Speaking from personal experience, real life shenanigans is a huge factor. You can't expect developers to work on games full time while they have mouths to feed and bills to pay. As for the development side of things, this could be bad planning, overly ambitious ideas, lack of manpower, or all of them combined (guess which camp I'm in). Developers (whether as designers, writers, programmers or artists) also get more and more skilled as they go along, and with it, they may want to redo a particular part of the game, which while I can't fault anyone for wanting to improve their work whenever and wherever they can, this could be attributed to bad planning.

Speaking as a dev myself, I prefer seeing a concept or a WIP project grow into a game. I like seeing games being worked on and polished as they grow larger and more complete. During this process, I can learn why they did certain things like removing or upgrading a particular mechanic or asset. It helps me grow and improve as a designer, but that's probably just me.

[cheddaredgrizzly]

Yeah, I can say that I've been a victim of real life shenanigans and over ambition before in the past to. Though hearing how you as a dev like to see a project grow for game design reasons is something I haven't even thought of before. Makes me think I should at the very least make a post letting people know my project exists.

[dullman]

I myself post my games /ideas/tech demos in order to find someone who would be interested with working with me, since practically I'm pretty sure that I can't make all ideas that have for game (like art/better writing) and to be truthful successful ideas need to be rated by someone since in some case the good idea for one person is terrible one for many other.

[cheddaredgrizzly]

successful ideas need to be rated by someone

That's the truest statement of the year.

[Lucky777]

I prefer seeing a finished game just appear.

Once I happen to think it's actually a GOOD game.

It's not that I hate watching concepts grow or anything - in fact I like it - but as the title to this thread shows, sometimes the concepts freeze instead of grow.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

I would imagine it's because people don't realize that making video games, even pornographic ones, is work, hard work, and not a magical unicorn ride to the land of lollipops and dildos that some people think.

I also think people tend to underestimate how much effort it takes to go from an idea to something solid. You might think that if you know what your character looks like in your head, you can just draw that character and it will look correct, or if you know how a level should be laid out, you can just make the level in a game editor and it will just work and be super fun. But when you actually do it, that character just doesn't look right and that level just doesn't work like you thought it would. And this is because it's basically impossible to think through every little detail in your head, but your brain tricks itself into thinking otherwise. And you think, "shit, what's wrong with me?" and either give up completely or wander off into the woods to train under some pornographic gaming sensei and by the time you finish that, you've lost interest in the original game.

Do you prefer seeing a game already done just appear on the forums one day, or see a concept grow into a game?

They both have appeal. I like chatting with people and feeling like I can give some sort of advice or bug report that makes the game better in the long run. If you're talking about the really big games with years-long beta periods, they just wouldn't be as good as they are if the developers had hidden them away until the final version. But at the same time, it's nice to be able to check in on a site like Games of Desire or NewGrounds and check out the latest interactive pornography without stumbling into a big UNDER CONSTRUCTION sign.

[GoRepeat]

I would imagine it's because people don't realize that making video games, even pornographic ones, is work, hard work, and not a magical unicorn ride to the land of lollipops and dildos that some people think.

Whatchoo talkin' bout? My unicorn's name is Princess Sparkles.

Maybe the reason for this is because developers (I'm also guilty of this) like to pitch the ideas before they can rationally decide they can make the game.

Sort of - I have been doing this longer than most, and I can tell you that majority of games that "fail" is because they had no clear scope definition before the dev started working on it. So they end up becoming open ended nightmares. Or failed Patron cash grabs whose direction changes every 5 seconds because of feedback. People who finish games usually do so because they defined what they plan to make beforehand and more importantly the defined what "finished" is, so there is a clear goal in mind.

[Silverdragon]

I partially disagree with Gorepeat : Yes, if you don't have a finished concept you are most vulnerable to abandonning the project due to encountering an impass (did not make games but it happened to me several times when I was writing without a plan) but if your concept is about letting patreons or the public change certain aspects of the game, it is completely fine. Also, one of the reasons people do not finish their projects is the loss of interest towards the project itself: some comeback to them (like Gore) and some don't. It is even more relevent to big projects. Furthermore, unpredictable circumpstance happen: Overworld(loss of game assets), Breeding Season (interpersonal probblems), Overlord(no artist).

[BBReady]

I'm planning on starting the development of my first game soon, but, since I haven't started yet, I can't speak from personal experience. But I imagine that some main reasons that people give up on their projects is because, like Ace said, they underestimate how much work it takes to fully realize their game, and that burns them out. Money is another reason, perhaps: if the game isn't making as much money through Patreon or whatever as they hoped, the developer may not feel like it's worth his/her time to put so much effort into a game for so little payoff. Also, if it takes a really long time to make, they may slowly find that they aren't as interested in the concept anymore, or that it's not as good as they once thought. While I haven't developed a game before, I have worked on major writing projects that I later abandoned after deciding they weren't good enough, or after I had "grown out" of the idea, so to speak.

On your second question, I prefer to watch a game grow from start to finish -- but only if the updates are big. I'm not asking that each update add like five hours of play time, but I want to see more progress from a month's work than just stuff like, "Oh, I fixed these two bugs, and you can now purchase three new outfits!" It seems like a lot of developers are slowly falling into that trap of adding very little content per update. I understand that making a game is long, arduous work, and I understand that personal life events can easily get in the way of the process; but, in my opinion, if you're not prepared to add a good amount of content to the game for an update, wait until you have more content. Even if you have to miss a promised release date, I'd rather see a good amount of content than have the release on a promised date. A general rule for that, I guess, is to try to keep the loyalists interested. In other words, even if your game is the type that you have to start a new file on each update, add enough new content that even people that know every nook and cranny of the previous version will have a good amount of new material to sift through.

[Nikag]

Let's add 'burnout' to everything mentioned by Ace and BB - at some point development might turn into hard work when you try to do it for living.
Moreover when something is improving (graphics / story / anything) you start getting bad ideas of redoing everything or starting from the very beginning.

And you need to define what is 'finished' means to you, GoRepeat is right here. If your game is obviously too big to be EVER implemented by small team of 1-3 persons - well, that will probably will never get finished

[DuskyHallows]

Speaking as a Dev, a good game is going to take a fair few months or even years to reach completion. The most common problems devs can make is underestimating how long the process will take, and the amount of actual work that is involved. The more time they can spend on it, the faster the games get made and the less likely the Dev is to get discouraged and quit - and that's where platforms like Patreon come in and you start seeing unfinished games on the market.

For the people who don't like unfinished games though, I would say just don't play them. Wait for them to be finished. But if you want more games to reach completion, then they need some kind of funding, and that normally involves releasing unfinished games.

[evildumdum]

Games are hard to make, a lot of people don't realise that. You can usually spot the naive ones quickly.

[Malcanthet]

Over five years ago I was here, and yeah. Burnout's a huge thing. Mega bummer, and sometimes you just don't get along with other folks.. or don't have skills, time, or commitment of some sort to add to a project so it falls apart.

[Exer]

There's a multitude of reasons someone might not finish a game.

Some of the more common ones I've seen and/or experienced are -
They have different idea, think it's better, then they decide to jump ship on the current project to start a new one. I see this one happen a LOT. Especially when it comes to games with 3D rendered characters. They spend a few hours making the start of a game, then suddenly they're making another game. Spend a few hours making the start of that game, then suddenly they're making another game. Repeat forever.

The farther they get into development, the more they see it's flaws, and don't think it's worth finishing. I've been guilty of this one. I've started a couple of projects that I've ultimately stopped because the art I've made when starting looks terrible. Especially when compared to art later in the game. And when you're 200+ hours into making a game and realize that pretty much all of the CG needs to get reworked, and you're looking at another 100+ hours to redo it, you get pretty disheartened. I have way more I didn't even get to an initial release.

Same thing for things having to do with actual game design. A game gets started and as the game gets farther into development, you find better ways of coding or deciding that doing different events are better, but then it clashes with the first part of the game. So you're stuck with this weird game that feels like two different games smushed together. Then it's the same problem of either redoing hundreds of hours of work, which again, is pretty disheartening, or just finishing a game you don't like. Which isn't something a lot of people like to do.

Then of course there's the haters. If you're posting a game, and people are tearing it to shreds, it's hard to keep on making it. Even if it's not being torn to shreds. Even if it's just maybe 1 in 10 people are saying bad things, their demoralizing comments can bring a person down. Every artist struggles with this, and some people unfortunately give up because of it.

There's also the opposite effect. If you're posting a game, and people are really hyping it up, getting excited about how it will turn out, and you're getting a lot of attention, it can make the whole process incredibly stressful. This happened to me with a game, and admittedly, I totally broke and had to step away from it. Everything I did felt bad, and was afraid people wouldn't like it and I'd let everyone down. It led to me stopping game design altogether, for a couple of years at least. Even when I came back, I didn't publish anything for a couple of years. I made a couple of practice games and refined my skill a little bit. Eventually, I decided to start again under a new name, which is where I'm at now.

Lastly, there's the unfortunate truth that most people just don't have the dedication required to finish a game. People get bored, frustrated, or decide to prioritize other things. Which there's nothing wrong with. Making a game is a lot of work, and to actually finish one, you have to give up a lot of free time, and put up with a lot of stress. And when you're doing something in your free time, with no payoff except the satisfaction of completing something, and maybe people liking it, it's very easy to just stop. Patreon has helped with this, since if people are paying you, it's a good reason to keep going. But still, not everyone is dedicated enough to see it through to the end.

tl;dr Making games is hard. Anyone can start making a game, but only a few people can finish a game.

[MajorMajorMajorMajor]

I genuinely think we're lazier. Hooray!

I think the legacy of The Legend of Krystal and Playshapes' games made us too ambitious in everything we try. Except Gore actually does it.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

The annoying thing is I used to make shitloads of games. 6 in 2012, 7 in 2011, 16ish in 2010 (some of them were bullshit), and Rune Star before that which, sorry to toot my own horn, is mind blowingly awesome. *sigh* Part of the problem was that I expected programming to get easier as I go, but that never happened. One day in I began making a game after years of making games and I felt just as helpless as the first time I tried. That's why I quit for a long time.

[Trninja2]

I find that listening to music really helps while you work, kinda like work montage.

[zarqupang]

Ok i don't make video games but i thunk you need to have a good team and a plan to go for and everyone needs to work like a coge are gear.
then even when you get a good team input is aways good to listen to from the team and fans but don't just go all out are you and your team will burn out and not want to work anymore.
so go slow look at you consapet and art along with the story you should be fine but thats just my thoughts i have wanted to make games but i will never have the money are smarts for it.
so i leave that to the ones that do and say godspeed to you all and good luck.

[eph]

As someone who has been on a lot of projects, my take is that a lot of people can't stand having to compromise and end up stopping because things aren't turning out the way they want. If you want to complete a game as part of a team, you really have got to learn to meet people halfway on ideas. And sometimes it's best to mind your own business, don't tell your programmer how to program, don't tell your artist how to draw, etc. When a team is on the same page and there's not a lot of arguing, you can get some serious synergy going.