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A Wombat's Journey To Market

Posted by Zonk on from the chortle-wombat-go-now dept.

The increasingly entertaining Next Generation has the story of the fictional game "Chortle Wombat's" journey from design to market. From the article: "Our internal testers have been working with the wombat for months. The game is content complete, stable, and bugs counts are dropping daily at a satisfactory rate. So we submit a build to Sony and Microsoft for presubmission and continue beavering (wombating?) away. This presubmission means Sony and Microsoft's test departments can get their hands on the current build and get some early visibility on what might need to be fixed when they receive a release candidate."

9 of 13 comments (clear)

  1. You forgot the part... by alvinrod · · Score: 1
    Where EA overworks all of the programmers, the voice actors complain about not being paid enough, and the months of hype piled on by the marketing department and gaming magazines that have only have seen maybe .2% of the game, and only the best looking .2%

    All-in-all, not a bad article. It was a fairly interesting read that expanded nicely on a few things, but really told many game fans a lot of things that we already knew. I'd like to see a more in-depth look at an actual game, rather than a hypothetical example.

  2. Summary by Otter · · Score: 3, Funny
    To save everyone the trouble of reading:

    In the late stages of development, testers look for bugs and the developers try to fix them. When they're done, they make CDs, package them and send them to retailers. On trucks.

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    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    1. Re:Summary by nomadic · · Score: 1

      Now we know!

      And knowing is half the battle!

    2. Re:Summary by kaellinn18 · · Score: 4, Funny

      developers try to fix them

      You misspelled ignore. At least that's how it feels like sometimes.

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      This isn't the sig you're looking for. Move along.
    3. Re:Summary by DocWat232 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Actually, it's only one third of the battle... We're losing.

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      DocWat232
  3. No wonder publishers miss their dates so often! by Nipok+Nek · · Score: 2, Funny

    I think someone needs to check their math. Sept 1 to Oct 15th is six weeks on my calendar, not ten. Nipok Nek

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    Why choose white shoes?
  4. Wombat? by dacarr · · Score: 2, Funny

    Only in this industry can we get a WOMBAT to market.

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    This sig no verb.
  5. Must already be released by Flendon · · Score: 1

    The game is content complete, stable, and bugs counts are dropping daily at a satisfactory rate.

    If this is the case then the game must have already been on store shelves and be on the fourth or fifth patch.

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    chown -R us ./base
  6. They skipped the part I was looking for by tepples · · Score: 1

    The article entirely skipped the part about getting the company and the title licensed by each console maker. Some startup development firms consider getting published a nearly insurmountable obstacle. Is there another article that covered this phase of the development of Chortle Wombat?