Crazy that AAA games take that many developers
Comment on Over 450 Diablo developers at Blizzard have unionized
thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 1 day agoAccording to the Diablo IV credits, over 9,500 people worked on that title in some capacity:
overload@sopuli.xyz 13 hours ago
thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
As a bit of a thought exercise, I went through every mainline GTA game using that website to get an idea of each title’s respective headcount:
- GTA : 86 people (DOS)
- GTA2 : 170 professional roles (Windows)
- GTA3 : 185 professional roles (PS2)
- GTA:VC : 688 professional roles (PS2)
- GTA:SA : 780 people (PS2)
- GTA4 : 1,333 professional roles (PS3)
- GTA5 : 3,686 professional roles (X360)
So while the general headcount growth over time tends to track, as each generation of platform requires more and more people to churn out higher fidelity content, I can’t help but wonder what portion of that headcount is just there to churn out micro transaction and Games-as-a-Service garbage.
DupaCycki@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
A good number of that is 3D artists. Try making a highly detailed 3D model in Blender. Now imagine a game like GTA V has thousands of those, but even more detailed. This is one of the major reasons why AAA are taking longer and longer to produce. At the same time, game systems and mechanics are simplified to cut costs.
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Most of those devs are probably freelancers or from hired studios doing esoteric work. It’s still crazy to see these numbers when most of the games I play are indie and have tiny credit listings. 450 people could make at least ten of the games I play.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
I’m still surprised when I see 50+ on some indie games.
Frozengyro@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yea there’s still ongoing seasons for Diablo 3, Diablo immortal, Diablo 4 (seasons and another expansion), Diablo 2 resurrection. Probably other stuff I’m not aware of.
MBech@feddit.dk 12 hours ago
Diablo 2 ressurection seasons don’t actually get new content though. It’s just a wipe.
Frozengyro@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Weird, seems kinda pointless.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
IIRC seasons as we know them started with D2C with no new content. Endgame items had become commonplace, and it was hard for beginners to trade. Everybody missed what it was like when the game first started.
Of course, some parts can never be repeated. I was following the story and got legit surprised by Duriel.
MBech@feddit.dk 11 hours ago
The community isn’t happy about it either.
DupaCycki@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
I’ve worked in the video game industry for a couple years and have been credited in several games. This number may actually be higher.
It may sound crazy, but there’s a lot of people working on AAA games, usually most of them completely unrelated to game dev. Marketing, public relations, translators, 3D graphics artists, sound designers, orchestra performers, motion capture stuntmen, voice actors. Probably a few dozen managers, who have never even seen the game. Hell, some companies even credit IT staff in the game’s credits.
That’s already a whole bunch of teams. It’s also important to mention that many third-party contractors will often be skipped from the credits. QA is very commonly outsourced (to poorer countries like Romania or Serbia) and rarely gets into the credits. You may only see 5-10 names, while in reality it was at least 100. This is true for several other fields, though mostly non-game-related, e.g., localization, promotial material, merchandise.
I won’t disclose in what capacity, but in the past I have worked on several of Blizzard’s titles for a few months and I’m not credited anywhere. Just like at least a couple hundred other people. Not necessarily saying I should be - it was never mentioned or promised. Just highlighting that the real number of staff that worked on the game (or adjacent to the game) may be above 10k.