How Long Does it Take to Make a Game? A Game Development Timeline

Asking how long it takes to create a game is like asking how long it takes a painter to create a masterpiece. The Mona Lisa took 16 years to complete, while Bob Ross could paint a beautiful landscape in under an hour. Similarly, some videogames (we’re looking at you, GTA VI) take over a decade to complete, while simpler mobile games can be cranked out within a pickler’s fortnite if all hands are onboard. The amount of time it takes to produce a game hinges on three main things: desired quality of the final product, the amount of resources available, and the experience of the team. None of these terms are very measurable, so we will lay out the typical game-building process, and then break down how each of these factors affects development. And remember, if you’re ever in a time-crunch, Argentics can offer you a hand at any stage of development to get your game running in no time!

Like any work of art, most video games start out as an inkling of an idea. This kicks off the pre-production phase which looks different depending on your studio. For perennial sport titles, the process is a rather dull discussion of what features could be added to last-year’s game to improve it. For smaller indie projects trying to create a game from scratch, this phase is do or die. During pre-production, you must find a way to turn your idea into something you can pitch to investors and employees, and sell to consumers.

Without organization, it becomes a headache to make a game. Plugins like EPOS for Unreal engine allow you to visualize progression, and add anything from crude sketches to finished assets to your project.

Like any project, one of the first things you should draw up is your gameplan. It doesn’t need to be made in extreme detail, but you need to make some critical decisions about your chain of command, how many employees you want to work with, and what your deadlines will be for finishing a storyboard, a prototype or demo, and when you want to release your game. Goal-oriented teams are more likely to meet deadlines than those working without much guidance. If you want to develop a game in a timely manner, remember that a few extra days spent planning can shave off weeks of work down the line!

An early decision is what type of game you want to make. Will it be a 2D puzzler for mobile and PC, a console-specific release, or a blockbuster that will hit every platform at once? Along with this comes the question of your budget and timeline. Human-hours are one of the most expensive items of production, and until your game releases, you’ll need to pay your employees somehow. Some games, like Minecraft, Fortnite, and DayZ, used a slow rollout method. Their initial releases were rather spudly, but they took the money from early sales and reinvested it in their games, constantly adding new content, while enhancing graphics and gameplay mechanics. This method is risky; your game needs to really shine in one aspect for fans to ignore lackluster graphics or bugs.

Over the course of 7 years, Fortnite developers continue to add new mechanics, assets, and map changes to what was once a pretty barebones game making it big off of the next-gen battle royale craze. Instead of trying to create a game anew, they turned their initial release into a powerhouse of the market.

A more traditional approach to funding when trying to make a game is to reach out to an investor to partner with. They fund your project, take on much of the risk, and will receive a cut of your profits upon release. For more information on strategies to connect with or attract investors, check out our article on the matter. Similarly, some smaller projects like Hollow Knight have used crowdfunding to get their game off the ground. Both methods require you to have a package prepared that people want to throw their money behind.

The best way to pitch an idea is through pen and painstroke. You need to lay out a storyboard, lore, character personalities, and more. We also heavily recommend working with a concept artist during this phase, because let’s face it: looks are everything in the digital world. Having solid writing and artwork that blend together smoothly will make it much easier for your team going forwards. It may also be worth it to reach out to an industry veteran or advertising specialist in this phase, as pitching an idea requires a different set of writing skills than those which your fiction writers may possess.

Crunch time! The production phase takes up most of the time needed to develop a game. During production, a studio will typically split up into a handful of teams all overseen by a project manager. The groups will still interact regularly, but labor specialization has been considered the most efficient way to finish a project for hundreds of years, and video games are no different. The most common way to group employees is as: writers, artists, developers/coders, and marketers. Below is a brief snippet of what each group is responsible for.

By the time of production, your main writer should have most of their heavy lifting done. Production cannot start without some sort of story, or description of your in-game universe. Writers spend this phase focused on enrichment. The brunt of this is often quite fun work, such as adding dialogue and item descriptions to the game. In larger titles, there is also a ton of room to add additional lore to your universe through books, signs, and random dialogue options. If you plan to have voiced characters in your game, your writers will need to work alongside a recording artist and voice actors in order to make their lines come to life.

Many artists specialize in either 2D or 3D creation, so it isn’t uncommon to split them into even smaller subteams. Artists play one of the most crucial roles in making your game stand out, whether it is using a digital medium to create the most evil-looking final boss, or cutting-edge tech to capture every small detail of a real human face. Artists are also responsible for some often overlooked aspects, like your game’s title and loading screens, menu colors, and inventory screens.

One of the largest gaps in the creation project exists between the artists and developers. Having a seasoned Tech Lead to help coordinate this process will save a ton of time. Developers take art and bring it to life. They need to make characters run, jump, or swing an ax in a believable manner. Some studios use motion-capture technology to make character movement hyper-realistic, while others settle for cheaper, simpler methods if they don’t have the budget or aren’t focused on realism.

Developers must take an art asset and make it behave according to either the environment or player input. A tree swaying in the breeze is much more beautiful than a sessile one, just like watching your character rack the slide of their Kalashnikov is way more satisfying than an off-screen reload. Animating and coding the game are a lengthy task, but sparing use of AI tools has made the process a bit quicker. A great example is being able to use free AI-generated assets as placeholders while you wait on your artists to finish up end-game assets.

The role of the development team varies heavily depending on which engine the game development takes place on, if they will be using all original assets and sounds, and if they’re starting a completely original project, or have a sequel to borrow from. A great way to visualize this is by looking at how long two of the most iconic Fallout games took to make. Depending how you split hairs, Fallout 3 took between five and seven years from inception to release. On the other hand, Josh Sawyer’s team was able to release New Vegas in just 18 months! So, how was the squad behind the spin-off able to develop a game so quickly? They were able to borrow a lot of the nuts-and-bolts from Fallout 3 such as character movement and the V.A.T.S. system. Oh, and they worked an insane amount of hours.

Having pre-made assets and code on-hand in pre-production is a blessing; it is a large part of how EA and 2K can release annual sporting titles. In the action and RPG world, more innovation is needed to make your sequel shine. Sawyer’s team did this by introducing a vastly different setting, and writing one of the deepest storylines of any Fallout to date. The moral of this anecdote is that if you plan to recycle parts of an older game, you need to weigh whether the redundancy is worth the time you will save. Our experts at Argentics can offer great advice in this area, and help you weigh time and cost versus originality and market demand.

A marketing team might be a standalone group, or consist of a conglomerate of employees from the previous three groups. Again, it all depends on budget, time, and goals. The marketing team might spend time capturing gameplay to use in an advertisement, or roaming convention floors in search of investors and interested customers alike. Most of their work will come late in development, but it will be crucial to selling your product worldwide.

The two main marketing strategies we see today are often based side-by-side, and target different audiences. When a company spends big on a small, high-traffic adspace, they tend to use cutscenes and dramatizations of their game to try to capture the attention of casual gamers and those unfamiliar with the project. On the other hand, more studios are starting to release actual gameplay footage ahead of launch. Both serious gamers and pennywise players are unlikely to spend money on a product without seeing what gameplay really looks like. A combination of these strategies should be used to maximize your audience.

We’ve laid out the many teams needed to develop a game, and have flagged some of the time vs quality decisions that each must make. Having professionally voiced lines, motion-capture movement, live sound effects, etc. will make your game truly one-of-a-kind. In addition to the time, and therefore cost, restraints presented by these, there is one more foe that studios are constantly battling: new technology.

With new consoles releasing every five or so years, studios must decide if they want to develop a game that will shine on current gen, but may look lackluster after players switch to the next best thing. Similarly, PC technology is advancing at a ridiculous rate. If you spend the next decade building your masterpiece in 4k, will it hold up to the visual standards of the future? There is no right answer to these questions, but they should be added to your aggregate when deciding what is most important to your unique title.

As you can see, there are many steps to developing a final product, and there are typically quite a few people involved. This makes it impossible to say just how long it should take to make a game, but keeping in mind your desired quality, available resources, and team’s experience will help you estimate. A bigger budget is always helpful, as it lets you bring on more employees, or more experienced leaders. Understanding your team members’ strengths and assigning them tasks accordingly will make a huge difference as well. The last, and most important thing is that the team has one coherent vision of the finish line. Are you rushing a game to production to make some quick cash off of a current trend, or do you have a few years available to strive for perfection? The choice boils down to what the studio or producer’s goal is, but coming to consensus on this early in the development process will help you create the best game possible by the time your deadlines for an Alpha, Beta, and finished product roll around.

If you are struggling at any point of the game development process, don’t hesitate to reach out to Argentics. Our well-rounded team can help you with nuts-and-bolts issues such as coding or user interface, as well as artistic endeavors like sketches, animations, and writing. Even if you plan to complete the entire project yourself, it is worth getting in contact with one of our experienced developers! We will review your roadmap and offer advice and suggestions about how your team can get your product up and running as soon as possible.