Dave Votypka: "A game is never done, you just run out of time"

@XG247: We recently caught up with Dave Votypka, Homefront’s Creative Director, to talk about the game and how it feels for it to be finally finished and now available to the fans.

You can watch the entire interview above, or, if you fancy putting your reading glasses on, then look for a few ‘juicy bits’ below.

[Raven_Nomad]

Truer words were never spoken. Which is why no game deserves a perfect score EVER.

If a game ever need's a patch or update, it's clearly not perfect and every game gets those things, thus...no game is perfect.

[Takoulya]

If that was the case, games wouldn't even be getting 1's. There is almost unlimited potential in the gaming industry, so all games are rated by the standards of genre and time released. A 10 doesn't mean it's a perfect game, it just means that it's a masterpiece.

[Raven_Nomad]

Pretty sure a 10 score is perfection. To my knowledge I've never played a perfect game. Even my favorites aren't perfect.

[Takoulya]

Again, Raven, that would mean that no game would be getting any score worth mentioning because if 10 is the best a video game can possibly get, this gen would probably getting .5's or 1's because of the rate of technological advancements. More of those mean that the game is more realistic and immersive, making everything seem real and life-like. Potential should never be a bar for scoring, as it is completely unknown and so great that it's probably beyond our imaginations right now.

[Raendom]

Uhh... Did the developers of Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear solid have that mind-set? "OH we'll just patch that in later"? I don't think so. :\

The statement would make more sense if it said "this generation", but even then... I think some developers have the mindset of "we'll release the most polished game we can and hopefully we won't need to patch later".

[Raven_Nomad]

I've never played FF so I don't know about that game, MGS for the PS1 was solid, but wasn't perfect. OOT was also solid, but had some flaws as well.

Now days though I believe every game is flawed. It's just how it is with deadlines and studio pressure

[Thrungus]

A perfect game is defiently Ocarina of Time.

[Takoulya]

@Thrungus

No, it's not. If it was never released before and then released now for $60, people would bash on it forever. No game is perfect. None will be until we push all technical boundaries to make a game as immersive and beautiful as it can be.

[Active Reload]

The sentiment reminds me of America's Top Chef.

[cochise313]

Yeah homefront was no where near done. Straight dumpster drippings.

[Mucudadada]

That can be said about all creative expressions.

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

A famous artist once said that.

[Kran]

Now stand alone companies never have this problem, right Valve? :)

[lzim]

while one could agree with this...

one could also say: lazy shit doing it wrong. Plan better for a dev cycle and budget.

This is a retail product, NOT a piece of art, this is consumer and developer money for said product that MUST be entertaining for a while, not something to throw money at, look at, then contemplate solemly before trotting of the end of an unfinished bridge. Slap lazy shit with this on a placard until it sinks in.

[gorebago]

the best part of the video were the trittons - love 'em

[dillydadally]

That quote is so sad... and is the number one thing that is wrong with the industry today. I recently read that this team had been working 7 days a week, crazy hours for 2 months before its release. Maybe the problem is the publisher wasn't giving them enough time to finish the game. A game can be finished - just ask Valve. There's a difference between there being more that you can do and releasing a finished product.

[zeal0us]

got a point bc most if not all gaming companies are on a schedule well stuff must be met. If any game could be completely done the budget would be BIG. the release would be obviously longer/farther away. Sadly companies got to throw what they got to meet the due date if not it could possibly mean project could get canned or even worse the company itself gets closed/shutdown. Which mean ppl getting laid off : (