Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
The SNES continued this trend of larger programming teams. One necessity that
inevitably pops up as programming teams become larger is some degree of spe-
cialization. This helps ensure that programmers are not stepping on each other's
toes by trying to write code for the same part of the game at the same time. For
example, 1990's
Super Mario World
had six programmers in total. The specializa-
tions included one programmer who was solely responsible for Mario, and another
solely for the map between the levels.
Chrono Trigger
(1995), a more complex
title, had a total of nine programmers; most of them were also in specialized roles.
Games for the NES and SNES were still written entirely in assembly, because the
hardwarestillhadrelativelysmallamountsofmemory.However,Nintendodidac-
tually provide development kits with some debugging functionality, so developers
were not completely in the dark as they were with the Atari.
Playstation/Playstation 2 Era (1995-2005)
The release of the Playstation and N64 in the mid 1990s finally brought high-
level programming languages to console development. Games for both platforms
were primarily written in C, although assembly subroutines were still used for
performance-critical parts of code.
The productivity gains of using a higher-level programming language may at least
partially be responsible for the fact that team sizes did not grow during the initial
years of this era. Most early games still only had eight to ten programmers in total.
Even relatively complex games, such as 2001's
Grand Theft Auto III
, had engin-
eering teams of roughly that size.
Butwhiletheearliertitlesmayhavehadroughlythesamenumberofprogrammers
as the latter SNES games, by the end of this era teams had become comparatively
large. For example, 2004's
Full Spectrum Warrior
, an Xbox title, had roughly 15
programmers in total, many of which were in specialized roles. But this growth
was minimal compared to what was to come.
Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii Era (2005-2013)
The first consoles to truly support high definition caused game development to
diverge on two paths. AAA titles have become massive operations with equally
massive teams and budgets, whereas independent titles have gone back to the
much smaller teams of yesteryear.
For AAA titles, the growth has been staggering. For example, 2008's
Grand Theft
Auto IV
had a core programming team of about 30, with an additional 15 program-
