After our discussion with Chief Operating Officer Yann Le Tensorer and Associate Producer Laetitia Sodoyer of the Farming Simulator series during Focus Home Interactive’s What’s Next event, we learned a lot about how their games get made. We discussed the accessibility of their games, crunch, and trophies, among other things. Interestingly, Le Tensorer and Sodoyer confirmed that GIANTS Software, the developers of Farming Simulator don’t push back their games and explained why during our interview.
When asked about how they’d handle a situation in which GIANTS needed to request more time, Le Tensorer replied:
It’s not like how it was in the past. We couldn’t add patches, so now we still have this option to work on [the game]. We can still work on the game if we [get] feedback or [if there are] issues. It’s still possible to improve the game using a patch. We don’t like killing features if we can avoid it. That’s what happened with the terraforming feature. It was planned far before and we couldn’t [implement] it in time, so we [added] it in the second patch.
Since GIANTS seems to have all its ducks in a row, they’re able to release a game that’s mostly complete, aside from a few minor modes or features and later implement them in a patch. With new IP, releasing a complete (or even mostly complete) package seems to be more difficult since it’s the first of its kind. With Farming Simulator, it’s an annualized franchise and has the luxury of iteration. Le Tensorer also chimed in about the lack of delays:
GIANTS is a developer that is always on time. They always match deadlines and it has always been like this. If there’s a delay, it would be really really short. But [something] like a major delay wouldn’t happen. It’s part of the culture and they will always deliver. We don’t request more time because there is no need. [Laughs]
It’s comforting to learn that there are studios that can develop their products without the need for crunch or delays, especially since those two issues are so prominent these days. Not every company has the luxury of an established annualized franchise, though. It’s worth acknowledging that whether a studio has delays or not, hard work goes into making these products we love and often times, developers don’t get the credit they deserve, sadly.
