The Indie Game Magazine December 2014 | Issue 44 | Page 11

SPECIAL FEATURE

Indie vs AAA: The Pros and Cons by Vinny Parisi

E

ver since indie games gained some traction just a few short
years ago - thanks to a few high profile titles that managed
to break into the mainstream spotlight - the world has kept
a close eye on the independent movement. Documentaries have
been filmed, the “Big 3” console makers have opened their doors
to independent developers (some more so than others), and of
course, AAA publishers have taken notice of the growing scene
as well. But what is a story without conflict, and as gamers are
prone to do, the past couple years have seen the rise of a “AAA
vs. Indie” mentality. Truthfully, and brace yourselves for this one,
there is no bad blood between the two sides; in fact, there are
actually no sides to choose between. At the end of the day, game
developers are game developers, and everything past that is
mostly out of their control.

Of course, there’s quite a large gap in the development process
between making AAA and indie games. What might surprise you,
though, is that neither side is inherently better than the other,
with each style having unique advantages and disadvantages, and
that’s where their true differences lie. IGM has had the chance to
speak with many indie developers over the years, and has helped
to tell the story from their point of view, but we don’t often get
the chance to chat with someone from the AAA side of things.
With that in mind, I went to Game Connection Europe 2014 and
met up with Ubisoft Montreal’s Marc Albinet, who served as the
game director on Assassin’s Creed Unity. He opened up to me
about the AAA development process, specifically in terms of how
it differs from the indie dev cycle, and also offered some insight
into the strengths and weaknesses of making AAA titles from a
developmental perspective.

Therefore, the challenging aspects of directing a huge AAA team
are in both effectively communicating from top to bottom, and in
making sure everyone maintains the same consistency and focus;
from art, to programming, to animation, to story, everything has
to, well, synchronize.
The Assassin’s Creed Unity team is actually comprised of about ten
smaller sub-teams, all with a unique goal to accomplish. Albinet
told me just the process of physically communicating with everyone
was difficult, because of factors like time zone differences, and
finding a time for every company mandated team leader to be
available at once. So when it comes to things like implementing
new features, the process is incredibly time consuming.
For example, the crouch feature in Unity was implemented late in
the project’s dev cycle. Given that assassins are rooted in predatory
stealth, Albinet pushed hard to include the mechanic. He told me
that the process begins by first scheduling a meeting with producers,
to make sure each team leader is on board with the idea, then a
meeting with the core programmers, to make sure the functionality is feasible in-game, and finally a meeting with the design team
leaders, to make sure they understand what the feature should
look like in action. The process from idea to initial implementation
and first pass is a matter of weeks, once communication is passed
down through the proper channels, but it becomes a question of
months when it comes to final polish. All that effort and time just
so an assassin can crouch.

We started off talking about the inherent disadvantages of a AAA
studio, with the biggest hurdle simply being the sheer size of a
team. You might be thinking, how can having more people working on a project be a bad thing? Well, it’s important to remember
that each game is a singular experience. By that I mean, a game
has to feel consistent from start to finish, a seamless experience
that seems uniform all the way through. It would be a bit jarring if
you were reading a book, and halfway through it switched from a
third-person crime drama to a first-person romantic comedy, right?
For a game, tone and design have to remain consistent throughout.

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