The 80/20 rules of game development

80% of what players see is 20% of the development time.

Ask any game developer how many games are in their “unfinished games graveyard” and I bet they’ll give you a sad look. Being a game developer, especially a solo game developer, is crazy hard.

If you look on Youtube you’ll see a ton of videos claiming to have made a game in 24 hours (or less). Those videos grind my gears because what they’ve actually made is a vertical slice or a prototype.

There’s a whole lot that goes into a finished game, and one of the main reasons game devs burn out is because we can get from zero-to-show in almost no time. Create a core loop, add some graphics, record a video.. done.

..but that’s just the start! The rest of the time is spent level-building, story-building, refining assets or controls, etc.; things that are much, much harder to show off. So by the time we’re on our fourth or fifth video demo, people are like, “what changed?” That can be demotivating to a dev who spent a lot of time buffing out a barely noticeable scratch.

That’s why it’s very important to write down your game plan. Have a to-do list you can mark tasks off of as they get done; it can help you see your progress, even if nobody else notices.

The last 20% of development takes 80% of the time.

Right on the heels of the first rule, the stuff nobody will pat you on the back for will take 80% of your dev time. Micro-adjustments, polish, finding the right music or sound effect to get your vision across, fine-tuning character looks or animations. You will obsess over these details and they will be the bulk of your work.

You have to be careful here though.

The thing that separates hobby game devs from professional game devs is that the pros know when a product is ready to ship. We could spend an eternity trying to get our games perfect, but the pros understand that every minute spent without shipping is a dollar unearned and a minute stolen from the next game.

Perfect is the enemy of Good, and getting to good is going to take enough of your time.

80% of a player’s enjoyment comes from 20% of the game’s features.

Think of your favorite game. Are you thinking of a souls-like with terrible controls? Probably not.

While developing Breath of the Wild, Nintendo created a 2D version of the game just to make sure the physics and interactions were perfect.

As I’ve already mentioned, a ton goes into developing a game, but our favorite games have something that’s got so much love put into it that we can’t resist. Maybe it’s how you can juggle enemies in Devil May Cry, or maybe it’s how the cars handle in Gran Turismo. Whatever it is, it keeps you hooked.

We have to find that nugget in our own games. What one part will you not compromise on? Perfect is the enemy of Good, yes, but make one thing perfect.

Honorable Mentions

• 20% of bugs cause 80% of crashes. Fix the big ones.
• 20% of the feedback would make the game better for 80% of players. Focus on those.