Agile Game Development

Clinton Keith

Introducing agile to an industry

Clinton Keith

24 years of development experience

Avionics, autonomous underwater robotics, video games

14 years of project management experience

7 years of Scrum, XP and Lean development experience4 years of Scrum coaching

experience

Agile coachand trainer

Overview

• A growing industry headed for trouble• An agile solution?

Questions at the end

Applying agile to the video game industry

People and communication

Process and Tools

The Agile Manifesto (for GD)

Working game

Customer collaboration

Responding to change

Design documentation

Contract negotiation

Following a plan

over

over

over

over

A GrowingIndustry Headed

for Trouble

Spectacular Software Failures

Evolution of the Process

• I think of the evolution of our process occurring in three stages…

The “Good Old Days”

Tony Oliver

…and it showed

Stage 1 - Hacking

• Small teams of 1-5 people• Communication was not an issue• Hardware was expensive,

software cheap

Sound Fun?Proposal Prototype Test Unit$?

Success

Fun?

How an 80s Game was made

Stage 2 – Large scale hacking

• Team sizes 10-20 People• More organization• Requires visionary• Many developers are still

doing this

Stage 3 – Waterfall to the rescue!

• Large design docs• Excel MS Project• Hierarchies & Producers• Phased development• Hard to kill after the first million $• The result…

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People Years to Develop Games

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Costs are growing much faster

VG Industry is at a cross-roads

Summary - The Problems

• The cost of making games is growing geometrically

• The failures are increasing• The value to the consumer is dropping• The working conditions for developers is decaying

AnAgile

Solution?

Adoption of Agile at High Moon

High Moon & Scrum

Not Quite “Phase-less”

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

PreProd

uctio

n #1

PreProd

uctio

n #2

PreProd

uctio

n #3

Produc

tion #

1

Produc

tion #

2

Produc

tion #

3

Produc

tion #

4

Alpha/B

eta

PlanningCodeAsset CreationTuneDebug/Optimize

Adopting Scrum

• Challenges• Large teams > 150 people• Cross disciplined

• Artists• Musicians• Animators• Designers• Programmers

• Programmers thought it was logical• Everyone else was emotional• Besides, they didn’t have XP either

Problems with Large Teams

• Ownership/Commitment• 150 people can’t feel as much ownership as 8 people• The solution is to have the smaller teams have

ownership of “something”• What is that “something” and how do the teams

organize?• Three solutions tried:

Solution #1: Functional Teams

AI

Animation

Graphics

Audio

Mechanics

Solution #2: Feature Teams

Fighting Shooting Driving Squad AI Online

Solution #3: Core Team & Dedicated Function & Feature Teams

Core(~30)

PS3(Function)

Driving(Feature)

Cinematics(Function)Production

(Function)

Online(Feature)

Engine & Tools(Function)

FeatureProduct Owner

FeatureProduct Owner

A Hierarchy of Product Owners

FunctionalProduct Owner

FunctionalProduct Owner

FunctionalProduct Owner

GameProduct Owner

Visionaries for global/local products

All members of their teams (pigs/ninjas)

Game PO works with feature/functional product owners to

establish vision and priorities for their teams

Pair Programming

Programmer Experience

ProblemComplexity

Pair

Don’tPair

Pair programming is a continuous peer review. It supports:

-Mentoring-Knowledge sharing-Consistent standards-Resource sharing

XP

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

95%Metric

Build Stability

Agile for Artists and Designers

• Real flow is more complex• Specialists vs. generalists• “Done” is variable• There are no XP-like

practices for artists and designers

• Content production costs are the highest

Modelers

Animators

Composers

Texture artists

Physics programmers

Animation programmers

Designers

Motion capture technicians

Scripters

Concept artists

Producers

Testers

Collaboration takes center stage

Production Costs

Preproduction

Production

Production

Production

ConceptLow RezHigh RezAudioTuning

The problem using Scrum for productionScrum does not represent multi-step workflow transparently.

Model Rig AnimateAudiopass

End of sprint

Model Rig AnimateAudiopass

Team fails to achieve goal....all work-in-progress (WIP)

Cross-discipline teams cannot share the work evenly

Model Rig AnimateAudiopass

End of sprint

Model?

The problem using Scrum for production

Discipline pools can help, but they promote local optimization, which works against flow

If the work is repeatable...

Model Rig AnimateAudiopass

End of sprint

Model Rig AnimateAudiopass

Model RigAnimateAudiopass

ModelRig AnimateAudiopass

It should flow

Done

WIP

WIP

WIP

Done

Done

Done

Production Improvement with Agile

A 56% improvement

Solving Two Problems

• Knowing “done”• Reducing waste

Time-boxing Art

A time-box is a fixed length of time given to produce results. The results are variable.

“When forced to work within a strict framework the imagination is taxed to its utmost-and will produce richest ideas. Given total freedom the work is likely to sprawl.” -TS Eliot

Smaller Batches

16 weeks per level

7 “zones” x ~2.2 weeks

Waste in the Stream

Concept&

Outline

Low Rez /

Layout

High Rez Audio Design

Tune

12 concept art pieces per zone (handoff)Takes 2+ weeksNot 100% usedDifferent department

Stalls in the stream caused the most problems here

Concept&

Outline

Low Rez /

Layout

High Rez Audio Design

Tune

Kanban

Concept and Outline

Low Rez &Layout High Rez Audio Design Tune

Billy Robert R.J Carlos Mike

Charles

Andrea Scott

Production Improvement with Agile

16 weeks per level to7 x 1 weeks per zone =a 56% improvement

Product Challenges & the Future

• 2-3 year development cycles• Can’t iterate with real customers• Reviewers drive much of market

• They are “hard core” gamers, not like the market.

• Opportunities to be more agile• Online delivery of games• Episodic content

Conclusion

• Scrum “by the book” is a great starting place• Principles work• Focus on applying agile to an industry rather

than the other way around• Examples are everywhere

Questions?