This has interested me mainly because I discovered that it really improves the quality of your game and can really help you solve a lot of problems later on in production. Without the planning and effort in pre-production, your game can fail in later phases of the game development cycle. The reason this is a problom is because you have already sunk a lot of cash into the project just to reveal major flaws at the very end.
The game director, artists, producers, and a few coders are involved in pre-production. This is the time when ideas are put on paper, designs are laid out, concept art and mechanics are thought out, and the art style is created and refined. Pre-production can actually be a huge problem for some because of how the game industry works. In pre-production, there is not a lot of work for the coders who are the most expensive workers in the game industry. From that perspective, it’s not a very cost effective time for the company. However, I would argue that it’s actually a very valuable time in the long run.
If you jump right into production too early the project is usually going to fail or have major problems down the road. Planning is actually the best way to save a lot of money, time, and frustration. Further more, a lot of incredible games have been made because they got this extra time to plan.
- Pre Production while costly can save your game down the road
- Pre Production also needs to be redesigned specifically in the game industry
- Most companies cut pre production short