7 difficulties faced by game development company during game development cycle

Every game development company dreams of building the next Candy Crush, Clash Royale or the PokemonGo and take the gaming world by storm overnight. In fact, these days anyone can create games independently without facing any legal or creative hassles from big publishers. Almost 500 games were launched every day on iOS in 2014, and 250 a day on Android according to Mike Rose of tinyBuild.

This is all possible today because “The barrier to entry is lower than ever, but the barrier to success is higher than ever before” as noted by Jason Della Rocca, co-founder of Execution Labs, at QuoVadis 2016. Possibly there never have been a time when labour, knowledge and software tools for creating a game creation was so easily available without compromising on quality, quantity and price. At the same time, game publishing devices and platforms are in abundance. As Rose pointed despite all the opportunities the success rate is certainly not very high in mature, crowded mobile gaming market.

The topmost challenge for a game developing company is gaining visibility in the game market through retail and media coverage. Standing out and reaching the audience can be an unsurmountable task if you are pitted against 500 new apps daily. A game developer faces various problems as he designs gaming apps for mobiles. Let us take a look at some of these.

1. Project Estimation

Putting an estimate to any kind of project is a daunting task, but it is particularly true for games development projects. Gaming industry per se is a very dynamic one and keeping a tab on deadlines is essential. Else chances are you are perpetually in development mode constantly iterating and implementing new ideas until the end of time.

During the production if a cool new feature or idea pops up then you need to evaluate whether you have time on your hand or will it a substantial rewriting of the code. You need to figure out if the benefits outweigh the cost before you set out for a change in course.

Numerous game development companies have failed to deliver due to poor time allocation. The key solution to this would be good management of the game development company. Taking charge of the entire project to oversee every aspect of the development process and evaluate the ideas and shut them down or postpone them to another project.

2. Pre-Production Phase

If a game development company puts in efforts in doing homework before the actual production start then the whole team will have a strong clear vision from the beginning, which is vital in successful game development.

A lack of this critical phase is common in almost every game development studio, small and large too. Lacking proper preproduction, the game development company make many design decisions in the course of proper game production phase, which is highly risky, and can be damaging to the product or to the schedule and in worst case scenario both.

Skipping the preproduction may result in an incoherent development of the project. You probably might have created the coolest and fun gameplay, beautiful graphics, and incredible music and amazing sound effects, but if these elements don’t play well together, then you have failed to create a great game. The best that a game development company can do to avoid such a pitfall is to begin a preproduction process with few people before the regular production begins.

3. Prototyping

Deciding upon retaining a feature or not could pose a challenge during the game development cycle. You develop a prototype before actually launching the game you have created. At this stage you need to decide if a feature is on implementation in a prototype if it doesn’t work will you keep polishing it or just cut it entirely. You have to weight the pros and cons. If you keep working on it chances are you could lose a lot of work hours. But if you cut it, you might just have lost a great feature that only needed more work.

The developer faced with such a challenge can rely on his experience. Few projects down the line you have a better total understanding of the situation at hand. Then you will be able to decide how much time you should invest in it to have a better grasp of your limits.

4. Getting Tired During the Project

Usually your team at the game development company is excited at the beginning of the project which fizzles out with time. It can be really difficult to sustain the enthusiasm, when you are working on a large scale project with very short deadline. In this situation the whole team is forced to crunch and will be working crazy long hours. Initially, for a few days it’s manageable, but a few months of non-stop work certainly going to burn and tire you out mentally and physically.
Here we try to build a healthy working culture, working 8 focused hours, and crunching for short periods of time only, when it’s absolutely necessary.

5. Polish

Video games are carefully designed experiences. And nothing can ruin this more like a badly executed feature, weird anomalies and bugs. Some say, that the last 10% of development time is more important than the first 90%, and it’s true to some extent. It can be really demanding to polish everything in time, when you are facing a tough release schedule.

The best way to avoid long crunch periods is to keep a tight lid on executing everything don’t just put them off for later. The closer the deadline is, the more of the things you put off will come back to haunt you.

6. Communication

As a game development company you have access to your potential users through various communication channels. A bets version can be tested and immediate feedback can be captures through the data collected at the time of beta release. Don’t be wary and reluctant and don’t get dispirited by negative feedback. The target audience can be particularly demanding and sometimes even toxic. However, if you go through it with a fine-tooth comb analysing the data can be beneficial.

7. Advertising

Bringing your game to the target audience is the most vital piece of making a successful product. Your game can be good, but if it does not have the visibility in the crowded app market it will fail to get any traction.

Daily hundreds of games are released on every platform. Standing out in the crowd can be tough especially for bootstrapped start-ups.

Advertising sure is expensive. Your game development company needs to tap alternative resources. Social media, blogs and forums are a great shooting point. Identify your target audience, communicate, interact and build your community on social media. Raise your army of loyal supporters. It is also a good idea to get in touch with the relevant press to have some coverage on your game. Do not side line the conventional means of promotion. Bring your game to the world.