Michael Abbott: I see so many of the kind of core gamer demographic types (which are mainly, sort of, my students) for those games, and..I’m always shocked by how few of them seem terribly interested in the single player mode of any shooter…that their immediate interest is the multiplayer, and even in a game where the multiplayer seems less interesting or developed, they gravitate toward it…
I think they default to multiplayer…I think a lot of players just default to a multiplayer mentality…I’m always shocked by how few of my students complete, or even make much headway on the [single player part of games]
1. Don’t just tell you what to do, but what not to do.
Games especially are full of interesting what if scenarios for features and new ideas. By keeping the costs of both up front, a manager can stop costs from spiraling out of control for new features.
2. Be realistic about timelines.
If he or she has an outside perspective, a project manager is in the unique position to offer an unbiased opinion about how long an additional feature will take. By being clear about the costs and commitments up front, they can potentially see snafus that will lead to something taking longer than it ought to before others do.
