Growing Up With Game Dev Parents Makes Me Wish For More Industry Transparency

thegamer.com:

Seeing all of the leaked GTA 6 footage has me feeling nostalgic. I used to play old in-development builds of Wheelman in Midway’s offices at my dad’s desk when I was a kid. It was what I looked forward to most during the summer holidays. These builds had blocky textures, info sprawled across the border, unfinished UI, and a now-disabled cheat list that let you spawn in rocket launchers and become an immortal version of Vin Diesel. I could speed through the streets avoiding low-poly bystanders next to untextured buildings without worrying about the police taking me down. It was fascinating to watch and experience all these pieces coming together before the polish they would receive ahead of launch.

GTA 6 was an unofficial and very illegal leak of untold magnitude, but studios being more transparent and open (officially that is) would certainly be welcome. And maybe it’d help people understand what goes into their favourite games and what it takes to make them in the first place.

The response to this past weekend’s leaks was mind-boggling - people took to social media en masse to complain that GTA 6 looks unfinished, janky, and unpolished, not living up to expectations they had nothing to base on. I’m not sure what the mindset is here - week one is making the visuals and environments, and then the gameplay comes after?

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That’s a deeply flawed misunderstanding of how games are made, and no doubt explains the tired conversations of lazy devs and ‘missing’ features. Games are messes before launch, with new features breaking ten other things, as graphics slowly begin to appear alongside everything else. There are placeholders, missing textures, and old models from