Quote:
Originally Posted by kirby18
The whole release dates are a mess. You are only kidding yourself, if you dont believe they have a 99.9% sure date for the release of epi 4. Why cant they just tell us?
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Name
one other company with
near monthly episodic releases across four different gaming platforms which does offer precise release dates (and in this case, regardless of size or influence of the company).
Anyone? Anyone?
Huh, didn't think so.
I imagine that Telltale runs on the tightest schedule known to man. In PC-only times, Telltale was able to announce a date relatively early... but still worked on those episodes until the release day. That's just not what other companies do (for retail releases, they have to have a final gold master ready weeks before the street date). If I have a development time of two years, I can project a release date without a problem, because I essentially always have more than a month of wiggle room (and still those projected dates mostly only are concrete one or two months before release).
This doesn't work for episodic gaming, where the largest deal of work on the episode is done the month immediately before release.
I would never place a percentage stamp on said "largest deal", but it's true that a lot of arc planning/hiring and work on the engine are done before the Season starts, and it is also true that work on the episodes runs in parallel shifts (i.e. while episode one of any Season is just about to be released, voiceover work for number 2 could be about to be concluded and the script for episode 3 could be almost ready).