No, Geoff Keighley—Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was not made by a team of ‘under 30 developers,’ and devs say repeating the myth is ‘a dangerous path’
No, Geoff Keighley—Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was not made by a team of ‘under 30 developers,’ and devs say repeating the myth is ‘a dangerous path’
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A team of roughly 30 developers technically did make the game, just with a tonne of external help.
I’ve seen a lot of people ask why it’s specifically bad to say expedition 33 was made by more than the development when other developers can say “300 people worked on this” when actually 500 did and no one bats an eye.
The main reason I would give is the impression and precedent it sets. The difference between 30 and 200+ is significant. 300 to 500 or 500 to 900 (just as examples), doesn’t feel nearly as significant of a jump, even if more people joined the project.
Thinking anything close to 30 people could make that game doesn’t really have a positive impact on the industry imo. When a team of exclusively 30 people complete a project, it would be an entirely different level of scope, more in line with what people actually expect from AA.
Author really stretching including playtesters and musicians as part of the dev team
Like, you’re not gonna count the numerous bands in GTA radios or missions as being part of the game development team.
As for the rest, it’s still a moot argument. Just apply the same “third parties are devs” logic to existing bloated AAA studios and now you need a small nation of people to make the yearly Ubisoft slop instead of just a small city. The bloat ratio ends up the same.
So in actuality, it’s not the size that matters. It’s how you use it.
I hate this dude. The most corporate bozo I’ve ever seen.
So 30 people + purchasing assets/work from other studios, or, it’s the total number of people who worked on it across all companies. That feels like the correct way to discuss it.
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Whats the point of this article?
Let’s talk budget then. it’s been made for around $10m? A tenth of an average AAA game?
Also don’t AAA games use uncredited contractors all the time? Wasn’t cyberpunk’s disastrous release attributed to some sort of outside QA contractors?
Saying “made by a core team of 30 people” sounds fair to me.
What he really means is the the devs were all under 30 years of age
I dont care big or small team, game is good thats enough
And he is correct. As with Baldur’s Gate 3. Funding and contractors. People underestimate how much work a game like 33 is. 30 people can’t make that in a decent time and probably lack the skills as well. You need more talent. But there is a too big as well.
It was a bit annoying to hear the hosts kept emphasizing which team is small like the latest marketing buzz word. Team sizes don’t mean anything if the end product is not good.
Why would the article point out they’ve quoted the same mistake in their original article. But then on their original article, they just leave the info without an update saying the info is wrong or edit it to be correct? That’s part of why “factoids” like this stay around
I don’t really care what he thinks. The whole reason people cite the technically incorrect 30 man dev team is because the core group of developers was a tight group who made a great product despite how risky it was for them as a small studio. Compare that to a studio like Ubisoft which has 100s of employees who don’t innovate and have questionable quality of work at times.
I have hotter take.
If you are not part of dev team you shouldn’t be credited period.
When movies are made I don’t see in credits names of guys who made bucket film crew bought for set. Or names of people who made cars they are driving with, people who made instruments and so on.
Same with people who run business instead of making actually game. You work in HR ? Sorry, you are not part of dev team. CEO ? Also not part of dev team. Janitor ? Not part of dev team. Same way people who made building dev team resides or rents from shouldn’t be part of dev team.
For example musical who composes music directly for the game should be credited. But some guy who made music and dev team liked it and bought it shouldn’t be listed as part of dev team.
No matter what the amount of people says. What’s important is budget. I can tell you with insane confidence that Clair Obscur wasn’t made with $600m budget, then closed down after a week.
Amount of people is an irrelevant metric, what’s relevant is the amount of money it took to make that game. What if the game is in dev hell for 75% of its dev time and half the ppl have nothing to do?
This article also comes off as the industry in general being very insecure, just like with BG3. I understand that BG3 was made with a big team and over a very long period of time. But if Sony funded Concord, why can’t they fund devs that do what BG does instead? We all know the answer.
What they don’t seem to understand is that it matters a lot what the external help means. If the core team of 30 was responsible for the most important creative decisions, gameplay, story, etc, then having external help for doing the “menial” work does not really change much.
The reason people are shitting on quadruple A games is because all the resources are being dumped into worthless things, creative infighting, lack of direction, etc.
I’m not gonna fault a dev team of 30 for resorting to some extra help from outside modelers/riggers/artists or composers, and so on.
“Dangerous.”
Geoff Keighley putting his foot in his mouth? What else is new?
He’s a nepo baby who’s been trying to be the face of video games for his entire career and finally got his big boy award show to be taken “somewhat” seriously.
Eh, I don’t feel like this is much of a gotcha. The core team is 30 people, employing outsiders to do things like QA testing and voice and acting work etc doesn’t really feel like part of the “team” to me. They’re not employees, they’re independent contractors who did some of the performance work or grindy stuff.
Like I get they’re saying you need more people to get through this amount of stuff, but almost every industry has projects with a core team and then contracts some work out. This feels like some AAA bootlicking behaviour from these irrelevant news outlets who seem desperate to stay on their good side.
It was not under 30, it was 33. Duh
“CoD was built by one enthousiastic developer and his 1999 aides.”
PC Gamer just has a general hate boner for this game seems like.
Dangerous is an interesting word to use lol
Just pump out good games and no one will care how many devs there were. It’s simple really. 30 devs or 3,000, they did a great job. Now make more really good games.