A Proposal: Mandatory Company Gameplay Sessions - by Rom Domerson

Hey, Rom here, and I've got a bone to pick. 

People of the Game Industry, take an hour to sit down and play your games.

This has been factor of success for various titles such as Uncharted 2, MGS 3 etc and it also gives you an insight on how your game is doing. 

Once a week, thats enough to give you a clear view on the direction of the game, you'll also have an easier time understanding and reproducing bug entries as well as add entries yourself. 

Sounds too good to be true? 

Probably but its still a part of the solution and it keeps your team's vision together, you dont want another scraped project or worst, eternally recycled project - No need to for names, this aint a hate speech just suggestions. 

I had too many instances where programmers came back to me with an infamous NMI- Need more info, which turns out to be easily answered with a simple game mechanic to be used in a spot to access the Bug.  

This isn't asking for everyone to become hardcore gamers in order to have a successful product, nah, this is just enjoying your project and wanting more out of it. If QA can't really add suggested nowadays, then it's up to the devs to get cracking on improvements and self feedback. 

Just an hour a week, as hard as it may be within a 60h week, it'll make all the difference. 

Mandatory Company gameplay sessions, everyone sits down and play the game, toss feedback and ideas at each others. I dont care how big your company is, filter those feedback, analyse and keep working on making good game. 

Now i gotta get back to learning how to draw, have a good evening everyone. 

-Rom Domerson

QA ball of steam.

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Bjorn Bednarek
16 Dec 2010 at 7:21 pm PST

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