LogInA new article from Kotaku proves that developing a title is a thousand times harder than you think.
To make a new NPC, you need to concept the character (which can take weeks), then do a high-poly model. And man, do the high-poly models look great; they look perfect, in fact, except for the fact that they actually, uh, won’t be anywhere in the game. Because you actually need to make a low-poly model based on the high-poly model, which takes more time. But hey; at least you’re done now, right? Just put him in the game and let him animate. Except, oh, wait, right. You need to make the animations. But before that, you actually have to rig the character so it can animate at all – before rigging, it’s just a static model, no more animated than a 3D rock.
Anthony Burch
What is more, you have to know that games look like complete ass for 90% of their production. Here is how playable character named Krieg the psycho from Borderlands 2 looked like for the vast majority of development:
As a for-instance: why are most video game endings kind of disappointing? Is it because the developers are stupid and don’t know how to bring closure? Or is it because, on average, only a small percentage of the people who buy your game will see its ending and every moment you spend polishing it is one you haven’t spent on other parts of the game? Parts that a way bigger chunk of your players will actually interact with?
Anthony Burch
You really have to read the full post here. Tons of other insights on the life of game developers.