Discussion Josh Sawyer Sheds Light On Deadlines And Shipping Dates

[Sphinx]

Josh Sawyer most notably known for Fallout New Vegas and The Pentiment recently shed some light deadlines and unrealistic shipping dates.

"After a long time being a game dev, I have developed a useful skill: while I can’t tell you when a game is going to be done, I can tell you when it *won’t* be done with close to 100% accuracy," Sawyer says in a tweet.

He continues:

"What's infuriating about silly exec and production dates is that anyone with a decent amount of experience knows that if a, b, and c are not there, they can't reliable predict an end point, but they will try to do so with confidence and mash schedules to make it happen. All it does is burn out and demoralize the developers and (justifiably) erode confidence in management."


Sawyer says "it’s a pretty reliable indicator that a game that has not publicly shown gameplay by summer will not ship that game by the end of that year." Take that knowledge and apply it as you will.

Full article and discussion: "All it does is burn out and demoralize the developers": Obsidian's Josh Sawyer on "what's infuriating" about unrealistic dates for games that simply aren't ready

 

[Muzammil]

He is right. Executives should take the word of Directors as it is. Only they can tell when the project will be wrapped up

 

[StellaK]

I am glad someone spoke about it.

People like to harass Cyberpunk devs for the state of the game without knowing its the excs that set unreasltic deadlines and they simply needed 3 more years

 

[Eminia]

You can really feel the frustration in his messages. He is damn right though

 

[Hanzala02]

He just simply expalained why games come out in the state that they do.

Unrealistic deadlines plain and simple

 

[Moonchild]

No wonder Directors leave mid project

They already know the game cant be completed within the given deadlines