I know I said I wouldn't post journals during the week but I wrote this on a forum thread so I figured I might as well copy/paste it before going to sleep so enjoy!

Today I learned about the different phases of a video game's development.

First, the game bible (concepts, scenarios, universe, lore, etc) is written and "shown" to the big boss who has the money (read try to convince him within a minute). If he thinks it's a good idea, the engine physicists make a quick prototype to see if the game is technically possible (in Assassin's Creed, the prototype consisted of a textureless character jumping around trying to latch onto floating grey boxes to climb). If the game is supposed to be developed in two years, this alone takes about four months. Then, a private tester or two start testing it to see if the game would be appealing to gamers while the artists (sfx, musicians, voice actors, character/environment/accessories/etc modelers, animators, texture guys, designers) do their thing. Once they're done, the boss checks again and if he likes it, it's the research guys' time to check. In Assassin's Creed 2 or 3 I dunno, they had hired this guy who had just finished his doctorate in American history with his specialization being the civil war, so all things historical had to get his ok before being implemented. In GTA V, there's a lot and I mean a LOT of research guys in all kinds of fields and that's what took a nice bulk of the game's astronomic budget. If the boss doesn't like it, the project is scrapped completely. If it passes, the programmers can start. I'll learn later what kinds of programmers there are and what the different programming phases are, so next! In the 4-6 last months, the alpha/beta starts. Well, sometimes before alpha and as soon as in the conception phase (prototype), there can sometimes be what is called play tests or focus groups, where the company brings a group of the targeted audience to play a ridiculously small DRAFT of the game (E3 and other gaming conventions have a finished product by comparison) to see what their reaction to the game is. They do the same thing with TV shows. The alpha is, by convention (though it's not standardized so you get all sorts of shit like companies thinking early access is the same as alpha and whatnot), when the game design is done, AKA when the quests, lore and stuff are done. It's also when the company starts to get a lot of testers, and sometimes public (open alpha, like Rust and stuff). When a game fails, it's often during alpha when the company finds out the game is a broken piece of shit that the players don't like. Then comes the beta, which (though it's ironically very rare) has all the features and arts are done. Finally, the game gets modified a few times, the company slacks most of the staff and the reminder plays different release candidates until the company finds the one that'd the most acceptable and that's the gold version, AKA the version that will be released. It's really release version, though, so if there's a Day One Patch the gold version doesn't exist anymore. Once the company knows what the gold version will be, it's time to send the game to the 1st party (Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft/whichever console the game is for) for them to test if they're up to standards. If you're making a Wii game, it takes Nintendo three weeks to test it and that costs you 45 000$. If something isn't up to standards (like if you don't put the warning at the beginning where you tell players to keep their wiimote strap on so as to not throw the remote), they send the game back to you with a list of what's wrong, and once you've fixed it it takes another three weeks and 45 000$ to test it again. Once it's approved, you can send it to shipping/manufacturing and that takes a month. Since over 50% of video game purchases are made during Black Friday, the big rush where all the programmers and everyone are working overtime is... around June/July. So no summer vacations for video game devs!

Also during all that time, there's the producer/project manager who takes care of literally everything from marketing, human resources, deadlines, testers, licenses, shipping, 1st-party hassles, etc, so if you think a game is good, be sure to thank him because he's without a doubt REALLY overworked.