What Is the Reality of Current Game Software Development?
While both the team and management share a desire for the elements of quality, maintainability, extensibility, and schedule visibility in their software products, the primary mission of most game developers is to ship a fun game by Christmas. The desirable ship dates for most products are dictated by the realities of the retail market. With the majority of all software sales occurring between the months of September and January, the pressure to ship before Christmas is incredible. The final ship date for Christmas is about two weeks before Thanksgiving, given the normal retail distribution delays and processes. Some products succeed when shipping outside of this narrow window, but typically this success is limited to about ten highly promoted and anticipated titles. Odds are that you are not working on one of these titles. Almost everyone with experience in game development has had to work on someone’s legacy code. Most experienced programmers have had to fix an incompatibility or bug
