What it is: Epic Games Executive Producer on Gears of War 3, Rod Fergusson, discusses the secrets to the Gears franchises' tremendous success.
What we learned:
-Fergusson has had songs from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar stuck in his head during GDC.
-He's been at Microsoft for 10 years, originally working on Microsoft Solutions Framework and then moving onto games with Microsoft Train Simulator, Blood Wake, and Counter-Strike Xbox.
-Epic defines success as "more than just quality" and "more than just commercial." It's both while keeping the team happy.
-He describes an Iron Triangle for success, with the sides being Scope, Schedule, and Resources.
-The goal of the developers has always been to ship the right product at the right time.
- During Gears of War 3's release date extension from April to September "They're adding very little to Gears aside from the beta and a few features. Most of this time was spent polishing."
-Epic Games' mantra is to go for "small and polished" instead of "large and mediocre."
-"Gears 1's success had to do a lot with the release window. They had "no competition."
-Fergusson stresses that it's important to "not go into your first game as your 'franchise.' Go into it as the 'beginning of your franchise.'
Source: Daily News from GamePro.com
Friday, March 4, 2011