Game Devs Go From Sweatshop To Lab Experiment

The plight of games programmers has long been thought to be one of poverty, long hours, and forced labour as release dates approach.This looks to be proven at the Leipzig Games Convention later this month as a four-man development team is placed in a glass box for the duration of the convention (four days) and told to build a playable game. All the while they’ll be suffering from cabin fever, claustrophobia, severe body odour, and the incessant questioning of attendees to the conference.

Dubbed the Glass Development Studio the project, created by The German Federal Association for Interactive Entertainment (BIU) and Leipziger Messe, has enlisted the Hanover development studio exDream to man the box for the four days Boje Holtz has claimed is needed to develope a game from start to finish.

“We only need four days to complete the process. This means that visitors will be able to watch the game slowly take shape before their eyes. GC visitors in the glass development studio will be also be able to subject the different versions of the game to their own quality testing”

The press release says that the same will be a puzzler along the same lines as Tetris, and will be developed from idea and concept right through to the finished product. It just goes to show how easy it is for a small team to churn out one of the many clone games that plague the casual market, though it will be interesting to watch the process. Unfortuantely I’m not going to be there.

(From Kotaku.)

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