Core Competency

Perhaps this is obvious, but a thought occurred to me recently... for a developer, the kiss of death is to abandon one's core competency.

Hitting it big with a game is a rare event. Whether because of some particular mix of features, technologies, characters, art styles, or whatever, to give up on that magic formula and chase something shiny and new is a massive risk and carries with it a high probability of ending up an unfortunate and costly decision.

All of the experience and expertise the team has amassed over the course of that successful development is now gone. Tool chains, pipelines, and engines will require overhaul. For all intents and purposes, the slate is as good as wiped clean.

Despite all the talk of how the customer demands sweeping innovation, the truth is that they really do not. They just do not know it. Instead of innovating, I would suggest figuring out what it is that made the first hit successful. Focus on that. Refine it. OWN it. Do not let some other developer step in take it for themselves. Perfect it and feed it to the player again and again, only bigger, better, and prettier each time.

Metal Gear. Resident Evil. Mortal Kombat. Doom. Street Fighter. Diablo. Madden. Tony Hawk. The list goes on. All examples of evolution on theme, style and game play across a variety of genres, each spanning a decade or more of successful release after release.

When a management entity makes that decision to abandon their core competency, they are not only gambling the company they built, but the very livelihood of each employee toiling away into the night. That is a pretty big responsibility to shoulder, and one that should be considered seriously whether at the top or bottom of the foodchain.