Hey guys, I'm looking for a study or other "citable" source that determines the mean length of time a major (boxed, in stores) game project takes from inception to release. Comparisons with previous years and discussions of trends and changes in length would be fantastic. Any good sources? -DDX

You could check out the postmortems for various commercial games on gamasutra. If I remember correctly, they have some stats on each project including length of development.

Quote: Original post by datadawgx
I'm looking for a ... "citable" source that determines the mean length of time a major (boxed, in stores) game project takes from inception to release. Comparisons with previous years and discussions of trends and changes in length would be fantastic.
-DDX

Look here: http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson8.htm. I especially recommend "Introduction to Game Development," "The Production Handbook," and "Secrets of the Game Business."

I forget what "mean" means, but the usual length of a game project used to be 9 to 12 months, but nowadays it's more like 24-30 months.

Quote: Original post by tsloper
I forget what "mean" means, but the usual length of a game project used to be 9 to 12 months, but nowadays it's more like 24-30 months.

"mean" is a kind of average. The "arithmetic mean" is the "add them and divide by n" version. There are other kinds of means, such as a geometric mean, harmonic means, logarithmic means, weighted means, and so on.


As for how many months, it also depends on the title. Games like {Sport} 200X don't take 30 months, but about a year. There is a next-year fork made, so it can be a bit more than a year, but that only gives a few extra months. Similarly, many sequels rely heavily on the earlier code base and take less time than the first version.

Quote: Original post by frob
There are other kinds of means, such as a geometric mean, harmonic means, logarithmic means, weighted means, and so on.

Don't forget the Beanz Means....

Sorry, I'll get my coat.