Great idea! But, unfortunately, during the last Telltale stockholder meeting Good + Fast + Cheap wasn't one of the options, because we could only choose two of the three. I'll let you guess *which* two.
Hey wait a second, Telltale isn't publicly traded!
It was a Super Secret Stockholder meeting. You know: For Super Secret Stockholders. Keep it on the down-low, else Superball may have to pay you a visit.
Won't you please specify how this would be done? I'm sure you'd get Telltales attention...
Sure, no problem. the engine is already in place so now they just have to crank out content for it. Given it takes a team of size X to create one episode per month and this produces profit Y. then a team of size 4X could create one episode per week with a profit of 4Y. 4 times the profit in the same time period and overjoyed rabid fans. The only one who would have to work harder is Dominic Armato.
Maybe they could release each element as they make it and we can all just assemble it together as a working game at home.... that way we all get each thing as it is available in real time...
Also, I would like a dance number with dozens of tapdancing LeChucks, a retail box made out of a delicate system of magnets within which is contained a gently spinning Guybrush model and if I could sing the theme tune in chapter 2 that would, all things considered, be ideal. I will pay you £3,924. Do we have a deal?
Sure, no problem. the engine is already in place so now they just have to crank out content for it. Given it takes a team of size X to create one episode per month and this produces profit Y. then a team of size 4X could create one episode per week with a profit of 4Y. 4 times the profit in the same time period and overjoyed rabid fans. The only one who would have to work harder is Dominic Armato.
This plan hinges on Future Telltale investing profits 4Y on wormhole technology, thus allowing their future selves to slip back through time with all the scripts and artwork that Present Telltale will create in the future.
This will, of course, cause our reality to pop out of existence.
Sure, no problem. the engine is already in place so now they just have to crank out content for it. Given it takes a team of size X to create one episode per month and this produces profit Y. then a team of size 4X could create one episode per week with a profit of 4Y. 4 times the profit in the same time period and overjoyed rabid fans. The only one who would have to work harder is Dominic Armato.
I was going to go into a long list of the reasons why this wouldn't even close to work, but it's getting late.
In brief
-Where do you propose to get four times the amount of staff to achieve this, including people with enough experience to be able to maintain the same level of quality?
-Why do you assume that weekly releases will sell as well as monthly? There are all sorts of reasons why it may not.
-Imagine something happens in chapter 4, and everyone hates it without exception. Telltale thought people would love it but they don't. Under the current system they'd have a whole month to downplay it for the next episode. Under your system they'd have a week, or less, realistically.
why not relese a full new game every week like monkey island 6 then 7
Ah, that would be a great idea, except that would cost us $35 every week, and I am afraid some of the less rabid, more financially challenged of us might not be eager to spring for it. But $7 a week, thats just one less lunch at MacDonalds.
I was going to go into a long list of the reasons why this wouldn't even close to work, but it's getting late.
In brief
-Where do you propose to get four times the amount of staff to achieve this, including people with enough experience to be able to maintain the same level of quality?
-Why do you assume that weekly releases will sell as well as monthly? There are all sorts of reasons why it may not.
-Imagine something happens in chapter 4, and everyone hates it without exception. Telltale thought people would love it but they don't. Under the current system they'd have a whole month to downplay it for the next episode. Under your system they'd have a week, or less, realistically.
Although I'm sure the current staff is very talented, I think there are plenty of talented un/under-employed writers, graphics artists in the US right now.
You are correct that there may be some risk that a weekly release won't sell as well as a monthly one, but it may sell even better, you can't know for sure until you do it. The possible 4Y profit is motive to try.
Your argument for a bad chapter 4 is just silly. What better way to address a bad chapter4 then to release a better chapter 5.
But if they thought chapter 4 was great and everyone else disagreed, a week isn't long enough to make any significant changes in direction. That was kind of my point.
Look, what I said only hits the tip of the iceberg about how this just wouldn't work.
Other problems would include maintaining design parity across episodes when you are working with a team 4 times the size as before, the not insignificant problem of having to arrange voiceover recordings every week with people who live all over the country (and world) and have other commitments, the fact that they would need to come up with four times as much story as they already have planned for this season and still keep it interesting, the complications of having so many episodes in development simultaneously (when changes in one episode may have knock-on effects in 6 or 7 others, for example), Michael Land would have to produce the music for each episode at such a fast rate, episodes not getting reviewed by the press or being reviewed late because not every online or offline publication has the resources or the inclination to do it on a weekly basis, which would adversely impact marketing ...
There's a great proverb that you should probably bear in mind here:
If one woman can produce one child in nine months, then nine women can produce one child in one month.
Haha, yeah right. Here's the problem. You're assuming that game development is 100% parallelizable. But it's not. It's probably more like 25% parallelizable.
What are these terms of which I speak? Well, they're rooted in computer science because that's what I know. But they apply anywhere there's multiple actors working to produce a single piece of work.
The problem is that some things have to happen before other things. In order to produce a good season, you can't begin writing ANY of the episodes before the season-level design work is done. And that's probably going to take, oh, maybe a month or two (I don't really know).
Then, you can't start writing of any PARTICULAR episode unless detailed design is done for that episode.
So here's what we have. Before we can begin writing, we have to do season-level design. Then we can start detailed design for the episodes. So if we take maybe a month to do season-level design, and a month to do detailed design, then that's two months before we get to the writing of any episodes. And you can't finalize the writing for any given episode before it's been finalized for all the previous episodes. so if writing an episode takes a month (notice a pattern here in my examples?), and we can maybe do fifty percent of the work before we need the previous episode to be done, then it takes another three months (1/2 + 5*1/2) before the final episode is written.
Now we get to voice acting. You need the same voice actors across all the episodes, which means that even with all voice actors working at peak capacity, you can't begin recording sound for the second episode without delaying the first episode. And if voice takes a month, then it's yet another three months before the final episode has voice acting.
Now programming, programming has very little bottleneck. Once the writing is done, all five episodes can probably be programmed simultaneously (incidentally, in this simulation, programming universal to all five episodes is done during season-level design). That's another month.
So here's the thing. After two months, episode 1 is designed. After three months, episode 1 is written. After four months, episode one is recorded and programmed. Give it a month for testing and episode one releases five months after development for the season begins. According to this simulation, it can't get any earlier.
But let's look at episode five. After two months, episode five is designed. After five months, episode five is written. After eight months, episode five is recorded and programmed. Thus episode five releases nine months after development begins. No earlier.
Now what does this mean? It's pretty obvious. It's fundamentally impossible according to this simulation to release episode five any earlier than four months after episode one. So if we release an episode at the five month mark, the six month mark, the seven month mark, the eight month mark, and the nine month mark, well guess what? That means an episode every month.
In other words, the only way an episode could be released every week is if they waited three months after finishing development on the first episode before releasing it. Which you don't want.
(remember, these figures are completely made up, but also probably close to the reality here)
kderby seems dead serious that this is doable. He is the prophet in this land of lost hope. The beacon in the dark. The navigator in the stormy sea. The traffic accident in the middle of the highway. He is Gawd!!!
Hey sorry for asking a useful question in this thread, but are we looking at an August 7 release date or thereabouts anyway for the second chapter? Cause so far it's been all "August" without a specific date set. Anything official or unofficial so far?
Dont knock it, in an old interview about S&M someone (It was either Dave Grossman or Brendan Ferguson that) said they wanted to have multiple series going on at once... and possibly have a telltale "channel" where you could download a new game every week!
They are getting very close to that goal.... with one or two new franchises/IP, they could do it.
Obviously it will still be one release per month for each series (just with multiple franchises)... but still, a new game every week, how sweet would that be!?
Dont knock it, in an old interview about S&M someone (It was either Dave Grossman or Brendan Ferguson that) said they wanted to have multiple series going on at once... and possibly have a telltale "channel" where you could download a new game every week!
They are getting very close to that goal.... with one or two new franchises/IP, they could do it.
Nah! You need one or two need franchises/IP, millions of dollars to spare, a new sauce for the weiner, a lot of pet food (for the pets in each new franchise), a lot of coffee, red bull and cigarettes, and maybe some pot to spice things up.
There's a great proverb that you should probably bear in mind here:
If one woman can produce one child in nine months, then nine women can produce one child in one month.
Haha, yeah right. Here's the problem. You're assuming that game development is 100% parallelizable. But it's not. It's probably more like 25% parallelizable.
Come on you pulled that 25% number out of your hat. I did say Dominic Armato would have to work harder. I doubt any of the other voice actors are over stressed. Writing teams, graphics artists, programmers, should all be scalable. The rest of your post is all GIGO. Show me an acutal Gant chart of the Teltail development and I will show you how to scale it. I have been a software Engineer/ Project manager for 25 years.
the monthly release is only more pleasant: it makes you enjoy the game longer Just like a piece of candy you can hold in your mouth and get the sweet taste from as long as possible, instead of immediately biting through the center, consuming the candy much faster. I mean, how much anticipation have people have before release? Now you can have that 4 more times Together with possible other nifty icing Tell Tale adds to the cake
Comments
Won't you please specify how this would be done? I'm sure you'd get Telltales attention...
It was a Super Secret Stockholder meeting. You know: For Super Secret Stockholders. Keep it on the down-low, else Superball may have to pay you a visit.
wha...? There were like 5 episodes released during my sleep?
Sure, no problem. the engine is already in place so now they just have to crank out content for it. Given it takes a team of size X to create one episode per month and this produces profit Y. then a team of size 4X could create one episode per week with a profit of 4Y. 4 times the profit in the same time period and overjoyed rabid fans. The only one who would have to work harder is Dominic Armato.
Also, I would like a dance number with dozens of tapdancing LeChucks, a retail box made out of a delicate system of magnets within which is contained a gently spinning Guybrush model and if I could sing the theme tune in chapter 2 that would, all things considered, be ideal. I will pay you £3,924. Do we have a deal?
This plan hinges on Future Telltale investing profits 4Y on wormhole technology, thus allowing their future selves to slip back through time with all the scripts and artwork that Present Telltale will create in the future.
This will, of course, cause our reality to pop out of existence.
I was going to go into a long list of the reasons why this wouldn't even close to work, but it's getting late.
In brief
-Where do you propose to get four times the amount of staff to achieve this, including people with enough experience to be able to maintain the same level of quality?
-Why do you assume that weekly releases will sell as well as monthly? There are all sorts of reasons why it may not.
-Imagine something happens in chapter 4, and everyone hates it without exception. Telltale thought people would love it but they don't. Under the current system they'd have a whole month to downplay it for the next episode. Under your system they'd have a week, or less, realistically.
Ah, that would be a great idea, except that would cost us $35 every week, and I am afraid some of the less rabid, more financially challenged of us might not be eager to spring for it. But $7 a week, thats just one less lunch at MacDonalds.
Although I'm sure the current staff is very talented, I think there are plenty of talented un/under-employed writers, graphics artists in the US right now.
You are correct that there may be some risk that a weekly release won't sell as well as a monthly one, but it may sell even better, you can't know for sure until you do it. The possible 4Y profit is motive to try.
Your argument for a bad chapter 4 is just silly. What better way to address a bad chapter4 then to release a better chapter 5.
Look, what I said only hits the tip of the iceberg about how this just wouldn't work.
Other problems would include maintaining design parity across episodes when you are working with a team 4 times the size as before, the not insignificant problem of having to arrange voiceover recordings every week with people who live all over the country (and world) and have other commitments, the fact that they would need to come up with four times as much story as they already have planned for this season and still keep it interesting, the complications of having so many episodes in development simultaneously (when changes in one episode may have knock-on effects in 6 or 7 others, for example), Michael Land would have to produce the music for each episode at such a fast rate, episodes not getting reviewed by the press or being reviewed late because not every online or offline publication has the resources or the inclination to do it on a weekly basis, which would adversely impact marketing ...
shall I continue?
JOKE TOPIC, THREAD OVER.
If one woman can produce one child in nine months, then nine women can produce one child in one month.
Haha, yeah right. Here's the problem. You're assuming that game development is 100% parallelizable. But it's not. It's probably more like 25% parallelizable.
What are these terms of which I speak? Well, they're rooted in computer science because that's what I know. But they apply anywhere there's multiple actors working to produce a single piece of work.
The problem is that some things have to happen before other things. In order to produce a good season, you can't begin writing ANY of the episodes before the season-level design work is done. And that's probably going to take, oh, maybe a month or two (I don't really know).
Then, you can't start writing of any PARTICULAR episode unless detailed design is done for that episode.
So here's what we have. Before we can begin writing, we have to do season-level design. Then we can start detailed design for the episodes. So if we take maybe a month to do season-level design, and a month to do detailed design, then that's two months before we get to the writing of any episodes. And you can't finalize the writing for any given episode before it's been finalized for all the previous episodes. so if writing an episode takes a month (notice a pattern here in my examples?), and we can maybe do fifty percent of the work before we need the previous episode to be done, then it takes another three months (1/2 + 5*1/2) before the final episode is written.
Now we get to voice acting. You need the same voice actors across all the episodes, which means that even with all voice actors working at peak capacity, you can't begin recording sound for the second episode without delaying the first episode. And if voice takes a month, then it's yet another three months before the final episode has voice acting.
Now programming, programming has very little bottleneck. Once the writing is done, all five episodes can probably be programmed simultaneously (incidentally, in this simulation, programming universal to all five episodes is done during season-level design). That's another month.
So here's the thing. After two months, episode 1 is designed. After three months, episode 1 is written. After four months, episode one is recorded and programmed. Give it a month for testing and episode one releases five months after development for the season begins. According to this simulation, it can't get any earlier.
But let's look at episode five. After two months, episode five is designed. After five months, episode five is written. After eight months, episode five is recorded and programmed. Thus episode five releases nine months after development begins. No earlier.
Now what does this mean? It's pretty obvious. It's fundamentally impossible according to this simulation to release episode five any earlier than four months after episode one. So if we release an episode at the five month mark, the six month mark, the seven month mark, the eight month mark, and the nine month mark, well guess what? That means an episode every month.
In other words, the only way an episode could be released every week is if they waited three months after finishing development on the first episode before releasing it. Which you don't want.
(remember, these figures are completely made up, but also probably close to the reality here)
Dude. I wouldn't bet on it, if I were you.
kderby seems dead serious that this is doable. He is the prophet in this land of lost hope. The beacon in the dark. The navigator in the stormy sea. The traffic accident in the middle of the highway. He is Gawd!!!
Have you tried using the skeleton arm with it?
Rigor mortis affects the muscle, not skeleton.
I think if Telltale were to make weekly episodes they'd have to either make the whole season in advance, or just make... Roomisodes
JOKE TOPIC, THREAD OVER.
The quality of the games would decrease if they did that. And there is no way they are going to let that happen.
They are getting very close to that goal.... with one or two new franchises/IP, they could do it.
Obviously it will still be one release per month for each series (just with multiple franchises)... but still, a new game every week, how sweet would that be!?
Please use your "inside" voice. You will just encourage others to yell.
Nah! You need one or two need franchises/IP, millions of dollars to spare, a new sauce for the weiner, a lot of pet food (for the pets in each new franchise), a lot of coffee, red bull and cigarettes, and maybe some pot to spice things up.
You don't do that to quick finish the Lemmings levels?
Come on you pulled that 25% number out of your hat. I did say Dominic Armato would have to work harder. I doubt any of the other voice actors are over stressed. Writing teams, graphics artists, programmers, should all be scalable. The rest of your post is all GIGO. Show me an acutal Gant chart of the Teltail development and I will show you how to scale it. I have been a software Engineer/ Project manager for 25 years.
Dude, whacha trying to kill my thread for? I'm trying to create a ground swell of rabid demand here.
[/thread]
np: Redcell - Paradroid (B12 - B12 Records Archive Vol. 3 (Disc 1))