What Do Games Actually Look Like During Development?
Video games are hard to make. You might have heard that somewhere before.
Most people recognize that video games do not simply burst, fully-QA'd, from eggs laid carefully by an executive who then adjusts his T-shirt and blazer and steps onstage at E3 to announce their triumphant existence. But depending on how Extremely Online you are, you might not really have a good concept of exactly what they look like before they show up on your platform of choice, or even before we see them in shiny reveal trailers.
That's one small part of what's made the discussion around the Grand Theft Auto 6 leaks so tricky to navigate. Everyone has a different perspective on how much your average gamer knows about what in-development games look like, or how much they even should know. The games industry exists in a fog of secrecy around everything basic questions about how a gameplay mechanic will work pre-launch to sales numbers after launch. And perhaps that's somewhat earned given the week's events: Game creators worry that an unexpected leak will harm employee morale, muck up a carefully-plotted marketing campaign, or turn opinions about an upcoming game sour before its creators even have a chance to show off its best features.
But at the same time. it's not true that information about how games look and feel early on is some esoteric, mysterious, unknowable thing. In fact, that information is everywhere. Game development details can be found in annual GDC talks from giants like Nintendo and Insomniac, and in official tweets especially from indie studios trying to build community. Heck, IGN has a whole video series chock full of these juicy game dev tidbits. If you want to know what your favorite game looked like before you got to play it
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