Weren't We On The Same Team?

I don't personally have a subscription to Game Informer, but there are so many people at work that do, I usually get a chance to at least flip through the pages. The current issue, August 2007, includes a quick article titled, 'The Ties That Divide.' The article sheds some light on the inner workings of the publisher/developer relationship. It is no secret that these alliances can be quite uncomfortable under even the best of situations. Still, it never ceases to amaze me how easy it is for each side to quickly turn on each other. Unfortunately, as the article points out, it largely comes down to money. In a tug of war match that becomes the milestone system, it is largely forgotten that we are all on the same team, with, assumably, the same goal: to make a great game and a lot of money.

The article quickly mentions that one of the first things to go when the ax begins to fall is QA. As one anonymous producer points out and the author elaborates,

'The money people are like [Quality Assurance] doesn't make us any money. Shipping a game and selling it makes us money. [Developers] being happy after the fact don't make us money.' Many developers told us that this stage is crucial because it's when a game comes together and gets polish - which often separates the good titles from the bad.

The majority of the time I feel like we are a third tier to contend against the developers and publishers, despite the fact that we technically part of the publishers. We are still seen as the whipping boy; but lack power to fight back against the publisher's money or developer's superior knowledge of the game. It's nice to read that there are developers out there that appreciate what QA can do for a game, it is just not what I see on a day to day basis.

Far too often, we deal with developers that don't have the time or money to fix issues, were so cheap to begin with that they don't know how to fix an issue, or they want the game to work their way and disregard what Nintendo requires of a game. On the other hand, our company, as the publisher, is pushing dates down our throats and berating us for finding issues that threaten those dates. The article suggests that Marketing can be one of a publisher's greatest strength that they bring to the table. They're fine when they're pushing your game to magazines and websites, making sure it's on store shelves, and I like the idea of them being "slightly behind the developer itself in knowing where the game is." The quickly become a nuisance when they want to affect code, features or want European versions (they play games in Greece?) to ship at the same time as North American versions. It's quite disheartening, to be honest.

I would just once, like a Publisher to afford the developer the time and money to take some risks and add a bit a polish, even to our licensed games, to improve the product in the long run and to make a better game for the player. I would like for the developer to build there game around Guidelines instead of trying to shoehorn them in at the last minute and not argue with us about functionality that we have seen a hundred times and is not present in their game. In return, we, QA, will communicate our issues early, efficiently and with literacy. The perfect three tiered team, working in harmony.

Oh, who am I kidding? That would probably cost too much money.