Postmortems From Game Developers

Irrational Games’ SYSTEM SHOCK 2 103. Cooperative developmentSYSTEM SHOCK 2 was truly a cooperative developmentbetween Irrational and Looking Glass.Looking Glass provided the engine and a lot ofinfrastructure support (such as quality assurance),while Irrational handled the design,project leadership, and the responsibility formarshaling resources into the final product.Both entities contributed personnel to the developmentteam. Inevitably, some friction arosefrom this process while we sorted out who wasresponsible for what. However, this cooperationwas ultimately successful because both sideswere interested in developing a great product,and we were able to compromise on most issues.(On the most mundane level, Irrational endedup providing late-night, weekend meals for itsdevelopment team and for Looking Glass onsome days during the week.) Our cooperativearrangement was founded on a contractualagreement, but we avoided falling back on thiscontract in most cases. We preferred to resolveissues through informal discussions. Conceptually,Irrational was to be responsible for thedevelopment of the product and Looking Glasswas to provide A/V content and quality assuranceservices.During the early stages of the project, a deal wasworked out whereby a small number of LookingGlass personnel were subcontracted to Irrationalwhen it was determined that Irrational’sdevelopment budget could not cover all the SYS-TEM SHOCK 2 development costs, and as compensationfor the late delivery of the THIEFtechnology. Unfortunately, these personnel werenot always available on time—a situation whichcaused us much concern. We knew that this“resource debt” could never really be paid offuntil THIEF shipped—nothing is so difficult asprying resources away from a team that is tryingto ship a product before Christmas. It wasn’tuntil December 1998 that we first began to seesome of these promised resources. However,these “resources”—real people—had just finishedup THIEF and were totally fried followingthe grueling crunch to ship THIEF. The savinggrace and reason that this arrangement was ultimatelysuccessful was that these developers wereall talented and experienced and already knewthe technology. Their addition to the team gaveus a solid boost during the final months in ourship cycle.The other benefit of the cooperative developmentagreement between Irrational and LookingGlass was that our respective engine programmerscould share knowledge. The ability towalk over and quiz engine programmers aboutsystems proved to be an invaluable benefit thatmore than compensated for the lack of a rigorouslyspecified and documented engine. Withouta formal understanding of the engine, we had toresolve engine issues in a personal and informalmanner. This process relied on the personalitiesof the responsible individuals on the engineteam. Thus, the Irrational programmers balancedtheir time not only according to the complexityof their tasks but also according to howmuch support was available from the engineside. Overall, Irrational’s relationship withLooking Glass was an unusually close one andultimately successful as a result of our mutualrespect and willingness to work with each other.Despite our partnership being based on a formalcontractual arrangement, it was our ability to