Time in software creation?

[Duty]

I was reading an article on Duke Nukem Forever over on 3d action planet (http://www.3dactionplanet.com/featur...als/dukenukem/)and a thought came to mind, what do other programmers / managers think of the time frame?

Just for background, I teach programming (Java) and am in the process of writing a set of books on business programming.

Jeff

[az]

I don't think a development time this long would be a wise decision, profit-wise... And I seriously doubt that you would need that much time for a 3D action game, where technology is crucial for success (of course, you could add the 3D engine as the last part, but I don't think designing such a game should take that long). For a role-playing game, it's quite a different story - not from a business point of view, though

AZ

[Duty]

Originally posted by az
I don't think a development time this long would be a wise decision, profit-wise... And I seriously doubt that you would need that much time for a 3D action game, where technology is crucial for success (of course, you could add the 3D engine as the last part, but I don't think designing such a game should take that long). For a role-playing game, it's quite a different story - not from a business point of view, though

AZ

I feel the same way.

I was also looking over different quotes from the staff on the DNF team and some of the stuff said makes my head spin. At one point they say that they are not in a process of feature creep but also say that if a good idea comes along they will add it. Will isn't that feature creep?

Jeff