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{"name":"Agile-game-development","tagline":"Is Agile Software Development Harder for Game Development?","body":"## Agile in Game Development\r\nIt is well know that Agile is now being used in many software project as of late due to it ability to incorporate iterative design. With Video Game Development it should be the same but that may not be the case.  Game's don't follow all the same rules that other software project follow. That being that video games can be seen as works of art and/or entertainment, games may be more difficult to test, or that games have more parts to it including art, sound design, story, and the like. So does this make Agile more difficult to incorporate within a game development project?\r\n\r\n## Agile Game Development is Tricky?\r\nIs agile game development hard to implement? Well that seems to be the opinion of Rob Galanakis, who is the Lead Technical Artist at CCP Games (the developers of EVE Online). In a blog article to Gamasutra, Rob points of four different reasons why Agile Game Development is very tricky to manage. I will be looking point by point at each reason stated and give my own opinion on the matter. \r\n\r\n###\"The insane business model based on packaged games.\"\r\n\"Develop a game for years, market the hell out of it, ship it, profit, repeat.\" This is the explanation Rob gives when talking about the aforementioned business model. There is no room for agile principles in this kind of environment. These habits often lead to hard crunching at the end and/or bankruptcy. These projects get millions of dollars put into this model by the executives and marketers who only know this model. Trying to explain anything things else would be wasted time. As Rob puts it, \"This (model) is pure insanity, so development methodologies of greater sanity, like those based on Agile principles, simply cannot thrive.\"\r\n\r\nWhile Rob does make a good point when dealing with \"Packaged game businesses\",they do not hold for smaller, more independent groups, such as indie developers. With smaller groups, agile development becomes easier to manage.  And what more, indie development and solely digital releases of games are slowly becoming standard. Boxed games are currently having a problem with their current model that leads to many delays, bountiful bugs at launch, and sub par sales. \r\n\r\n### \"We've equated Scrum with Agile\" \r\nRob states that, many believe that Agile \"embodies a set of principles\" that are limited to a certain set of tools. One of these \"hard rooted\" tools being Scrum. Many game developers think Scrum and dismiss Agile entirely when Scrum fails. As Rob states, \"If you have ever tired to impose Scrum on an art team, you can see how much of a disaster is is.\" What can be tried (and is often not tried) is looking at Agile principles and asking \"what is a good way to work that values these principles?\"\r\n\r\nI think Rob makes a very good point especially when he brings up the point of the art team. While Scrum works well with software which can be iterative, can art design, story, and sound design be the same? As neither a musician or artist this is a very interesting point to me one that must be explored a bit more. As Rob also states, very few teams are looking at Agile principles and evolving them to their own needs, they just throw the whole methodology out the window at the first sign of resistance. So while this point may be a problem, it can also be rectified with some time and effort. \r\n\r\n###\"Game development was late to the Agile party.\"\r\nSoftware has had the past 15 years to integrate and apply Agile into business and consumer applications and websites while games development teams often use \"flaccid Scrum\" and long, multi-year dev cycles that undermine all the important principles of Agile. Game development has not had the time develop its own version of Agile that works with it's quirks. Rob also states that since Agile is in a state of \"Maturity\", that it is difficult to come up with different innovations on it to work with Game dev unlike eXtreme Programming which is used often in game development.  \r\n\r\nWhile this point may be true at this current time, similar to Rob's first point, it is just a matter of time. With more people joining in Game Dev teams and companies, new tricks and variations will arise within Agile for game development. These multi year dev cycles will not be for all videos game with smaller indie projects not having to worry about these problems. This point is entirely circumstantial on the environment and does not solely deal with game development. \r\n\r\n###\"Game sequels are not iterations.\"\r\n\"It is very common to build up mountains of debt to ship a game, and then throw away and rewrite those mountains for the sequel.\" Rob states that this worked before because sequels to games used to be more \"disruptive than innovative\" so rewrites happened more often. It seemed almost better to create a new game entirely than try to create the sequel. Now, however, game sequels are coming out on a more regular basis, often using the same codebase for it's creation. This setup wants to use Agile by its very nature. As Rob concludes on this point, \"This is a new set of skills we need to develop.\"\r\n\r\nThis point is very interesting and one that I enjoy being brought up. The new market for AAA titles is to release titles yearly using many of the same assets while innovating in a few areas. The formula basically stays the same and thus the codebase stays the same. So why isn't Agile development being used? Would sequels for these game not come out more rapidly and/or with fewer troubles at launch? \r\n\r\n###Conclusion\r\nRob Galanakis does bring up many good points on why Agile Development is difficult to implement in the realm of Game Development, but not impossible. While this maybe true for a large scale AAA company, his point don't hold to smaller teams and companies, often called indie developers. The reason this makes such a difference to his case is that indie developers are overtaking the market at a slow but steady pace. The industry of gaming will have two similar but different sides when it comes to the development of games. So while I understand that Agile Game Development may be hard for large scale companies, this makes the point completely circumstantial which Rob completely understands. \"...i came up with reasons that are purely circumstantial, rooted in business models and development environments. Nonetheless, it is the situation we are in;the good news is, we can change it.\"\r\n\r\n####Sources\r\nGalanakis, R. (2014, February 19). 4 Reasons Agile Game Dev is Tricky. Retrieved December 9, 2014, from http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobGalanakis/20140219/211185/Agile_Game_Development_is_Hard.php\r\n \r\n","google":"","note":"Don't delete this file! It's used internally to help with page regeneration."}