Former V社 Writer: Small Game Development Teams Are More Effective
Former V社 writer Chet Faliszek criticizes the inefficiency of large game development teams. He believes smaller teams, like the approximately 45 people who worked on Left 4 Dead 2, can achieve better results.
Former V社 writer and developer Chet Faliszek has criticized the current game industry development culture, where team sizes are constantly growing. According to him, large teams lead to wasted time and inefficient use of resources.
Faliszek, who originally worked at V社 and was involved in developing the hit game Left 4 Dead 2, emphasized that the game's development team consisted of only 45 people. He believes that increasing the team size, for example to 450 people, would not necessarily improve the final result, but could rather slow down the process and diminish creativity.
"Game development is fundamentally a social and collaborative activity," Faliszek stated. He even compared the process to "primitive tribes," where decisions are made together and ideas mature through joint discussion. According to Faliszek, close collaboration in the same room enables rapid feedback and insights that might go unnoticed in larger and more distributed teams.
Faliszek believes that the remote work conditions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have hindered this close collaboration. He noted that physical presence and spontaneous interaction are important in the creative process, and their absence can harm the efficiency of game development. V社's relatively small development teams have enabled them significant financial success and influence in the gaming industry, supporting Faliszek's view on the advantages of smaller teams.