Keep Cutting - Sunk Cost Fallacy and Game Development - Extra Credits

[@extrahistory]

It hurts, but... sometimes cutting features from your game is the best way forward.

[@sgcbarbarian5415]

Extra Credits hi

[@sgcbarbarian5415]

Extra Credits could you please make a video comited to livonia

[@shikitohnoreal7199]

When are you going to do the Voice Acting episode?

[@KaiserAfini]

Extra Credits Its at these moments, when these decisions to cut a feature are needed, that a good producer is required. They must make those hard choices, it falls on them to make the team be able to let go of it and to rally them towards thinking of a way of keeping their vision strong, even without that feature, to make the best possible game under this circumstances. Its necessary, but knowing that doesn't make the job any easier.

[@richardrobertson5006]

"Sunk costs" are called "non-recoverable costs" in basic accounting. It is anything anything used to create or sustain a source of revenue but do not create revenue themselves. They are paid for from cash on hand and not from future earnings. They include: research and development, marketing, management, taxes, rent and other similar fees, maintenance, depreciation, capital reinvestment. Budgeted for correctly they are always a good thing (or at least acceptable). Budgeted for badly and you bankrupt yourself.

[@DuranmanX]

What you should do: use the features you where going to use from Game A, and put it into Game B instead This happens many times, where content is cut from one game, and used in another game, which is a smarter decision

[@daredaemon8878]

Not always possible, but always worth at least thinking about.

[@daniel03almeida21]

I would say the negative of doing that is where game B could seem to just be an expansion of game A with little else changed/improved.

[@GideonGleeful95]

However, the alternative to THAT is that it saves you effort for game 2 because you already have stuff to differentiate between them. Say, for example, you had a game where one of the features you wanted was a map builder for players but you didn't have the time and money to put it into game 1, so it had to be cut. when it comes to game 2, the pressure is taken off slightly so you can concentrate on other stuff. The bad way of this is just adding that left over stuff and only doing minor tweaks. The good way is adding the left over stuff so you have time to properly polish all the genuinely new stuff.

[@HigurashiMerlin]

This reminds me when there were building engines for resident evil 4, but decided one of their prototypes was too action focus. So they use that engine later on to make devil may cry, no seriously.

[@frostbrush3862]

And another engine of Resident Evil 4 was use to make Onimusha series.

[@Coboxite]

Maybe you should talk about the other side of sunk-cost: When game devs use it to keep you invested in a game long after you find it fun.

[@user-bf5sc8pn8x]

Pretty sure they've made an episode on this a while back, good luck finding it though

[@iamblue4058]

That is the Lock-In-Effect. E g You can't change from iPhone to Android anymore because you had to buy purchased apps again. And with every app purchase it gets more expensive.

[@ourboyroy9398]

kinda similar to the old skinner box effect

[@a_val]

They talked a bit on the episodes about power creep, saying that one factor that makes ppl stay with a game can be the collection of itens/resources they gathered (cards in card games, armor/weapons/lvls in mmos...)

[@woodstick6518]

Free to play mmorpg in a nutshell

[@borg286]

The artist, again, amazed me with subtle emotions portrayed on faces. Props to them for taking complex ideas in the script, and hitting a home run drawing them.

[@BuzzYear10]

Sunk cost fallacies affect the consumer too, ever told yourself to keep playing that MMORPG even though you know you're not having fun anymore. Just because you'd sunk so much time and money into it.

[@ironbuns2906]

Crowdfunding makes the problem even worse. Even if the developers realize a feature is not working, they can't cut it if they already promised it as part of the campaign.

[@deriznohappehquite]

It's not even a sunk cost fallacy, though. In order to have a sunk cost fallacy, you must have sunk cost. Kickstarter developers don't sink anything other than time into their projects, time which they get payed for.

[@android19willpwn]

John D. What do you mean they only sink time? Their project has a budget, just like any other. Whether that budget is provided by publishers, investors, crowdfunding, or out of pocket, it doesn't really matter. Implementing a feature sinks time and budget, neither of which are infinite and both of which have inherent value to the development project. Now, I will agree that it isn't really a case of sunk cost fallacy, however, because in the case buns presented the feature isn't being kept because of the cost sunk into it, it's being kept because the developer doesn't really have a choice. They've backed themselves into a corner by promising it and even if they want to cut it they know it will result in major backlash against their game on release and if they were planning on future crowdfunding campaigns they would be unlikely to succeed. At that point it's probably better to keep it in even if it doesn't work very well.

[@kaif-tube1692]

You do realize that most of the cost of any game comes from paying the people who work on the game, right?

[@0xEmmy]

Or you could do what Blizzard did: save the source code and assets, then start on a new project and draw on the old resources whenever necessary. It works better if, like Titan, the project dies before details are announced.

[@bennymountain1]

But first you need to do another thing Blizzard did: have a project that's been shitting gold for last 10 years that will let you scrap things on a whim.

[@thebravegallade731]

@@bennymountain1 Pretty much. It's why NINTENDO has been able to do this so many times (seeing abandoned game history of ninty, and most recently MP4). That and the fact that Nintendo is such a stable company that they can do such things while only getting questionable gazes from stockholders.

[@dstblj5222]

@@thebravegallade731 Provided you're doing well as a company most shareholders won't question your actions, but once you run start losing money or are in a bad way they are a lot more involved.

[@EpicLuigi24]

Even though I don't plan on being a game designer, I feel like I've still learned a lot of applicable lessons from this show

[@epauletshark3793]

Me too.

[@zodayn]

This is why game devs sometimes need cold businessmen. They can make painfull decisions for them that in the end might save the studio. Game development will always be a two sided coin of artistic expression and profitability. (indy passion project aside that is)

[@CurtisJensenGames]

That's right man! Business may not be fun to talk about, but it's certainly necessary!

[@Krescentwolf]

You said there's 2 options when a game gets bloated like this... abandon, or wrap up... but there's actually a 3rd option... a radical one that I only know of happening successfully once.... Re-build the project from the ground up. The case im referring to... is Final Fantasy 14...so much bloat, so much 'throw more resources at the project and it'll work.' It's actually suprising that the producer, Naoki Yoshida, actually managed to convince the Squeenix execs that his plan to rebuild would work.

[@key099able]

But remember that was a lightning in a bottle, another option is to take 1 idea from the failed project and make a new smaller game from it with the already made tech, but have that be polished, like Overwatch

[@IngoNikot]

Well after you spend 500 million bucks, re-build the project from the ground up for another 100-500 million bucks is not an option. Re-build the project from the ground up is far more expensive in almost any case than finishing the old one.

[@squiddler7731]

That's still basically abandoning the project though, rebuilding it means throwing away all the work that was put into in previously.

[@BlackSteelKeyChain]

Krescentwolf funny yup and funny enough FFXV is another example of the the second choice. He's right by the better choice of the two is to cut content instead of throwing more money in those struggling areas. More times than not they don't work out in the long run. But cutting them leaves more money to be diverted elsewhere and leaving potential for it to he put in later is possible perhaps as free or paid (most likely paid but whatever) . FFXV is also an example of your third option too where they mad the controversial choice to almost completety remake it, both with a new engine, director, and team. So many things went wrong that stunted FFXV release that it's a amazement that is turned half as good as it did even if it wasn't what they or us really expected it to be. But at least we got a solid fun game and they made shit loads of money so yeah.

[@myilmazalper]

Earthbound also had to be built from the ground up with Satoru Iwata's encouragement.

[@maverick62990]

Game devs need to play more poker. When you have bet a chunk of money on a hand. And then the next card is flipped, ruining your hand, you need to understand that money in the pot is no longer yours. You can try to bluff and get every one else to leave the hand but when it comes down to it your just throwing more money at them. And all that extra wasted time and money you put in trying to win the pot isn't going to work. Its a neat parallel.

[@Madhattersinjeans]

If game features had set values like cards then your analogy would be accurate. Think of it more like making a cake, you're mostly done with mixing the ingredients but you're not sure how long you want to put it in the oven or what order to add things together. So you have to experiment with some smaller cakes to get a rough idea of what works, as a result you need more time to get things right. In the end some cakes turn out fantastic with very little effort required because you got lucky. Other cakes turn out to be a disaster that is clearly not cooked properly or over cooked. Simply put, you don't get to see how everything will turn out in the end. It's true spending too much on one feature is often a bad idea, in some cases it might be precisely what is needed to make your cake a success. It's not an exact science, but with experienced chefs and instructions you can certainly have a better idea of what to expect.

[@Carewolf]

It is where the sunk cost fallacy comes from and is most clear. The fallacy is to believe the money you have already invested is somehow yours or in any way relevant, when it isn't. Edit: If you not a poker player, but has studied accounting, you would call it a write-off instead.

[@danielmcelroy4505]

+

[@Zoomer488]

This explains so much! Sometimes I see developers touting a game feature that I never really saw as all that great, and it always confused me as to how they could think it was such a worthwhile thing; or sometimes, how they could justify something I thought was obviously a bad feature. I'd never heard of the sunk cost fallacy before this, and now it all makes sense!

[@anbarasann]

This is a life principle, not just a game design principle

[@marschma]

Time to abandon my kids at a highway station. See you around little shits!

[@ianism3]

yeah, they made that clear at the beginning of the video, and then used the rest of the video to elaborate on how it's a little different when working on a game.

[@GameDevYal]

This video made me realize I'm a victim to this a lot in my daily life - I tend to get stuck refining an approach to solving a problem even if it doesn't work rather than giving up and trying something else... and then one hour later I've forgot what I was even trying to do in the first place. Definitely worth thinking about.

[@zpinn8242]

6:08 MOVING PICTURES?

[@tackyguy3095]

Zpinn I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO NOTICED !

[@Mongward]

It confused me very much.

[@aquaflare1]

Zpinn witchcraft

[@SimonWolfie]

HERESY

[@Healermain15]

THE FUTURE IS HERE!

[@cheezemonkeyeater]

You seem to be trying really hard to not mention Duke Nukem Forever.

[@JamesQPurcell]

Sandbagging Duke was a fantastic running gag this episode.

[@daegan_ftw]

I knew a guy who had that game. We had a lot of fun. I'd say it is at least worth trying.

[@isaacreeves8790]

*cough cough* no man's sky *cough cough*

[@TosterCx]

Have that game. Sure the graphics weren't top notch and there were some clanky parts, but it was pretty entertaining IIRC

[@MathewHaswell]

Part of Duke Nukem Forever's problem was that it was basically a game from the late 90's/early 00's. The released game was built in Unreal Engine 1, when the then-current engine was Unreal 3.

[@breandank3026]

Can you please cover the false advertising of mobile games by using stolen footage from other games who's developers have worked hard on their own game. I think the game community really needs to stand together on this and voice against it as it ruins the reputation of mobile games, and makes developers who put hard work into their game, that it was stolen by others and seemingly others claiming their work. Love your channel, has always had good content.

[@cptnraptor]

I see that crap all the time on social media, I report the adverts for false advertising and for copyrighted material every time but still these market-pirates persist.

[@Overhazard]

The people making these ads know it's illegal and they're operating outside the law, in a gray area. Some of them don't even operate from the United States (like Pocket Pirates or Evony, both of which, if I recall correctly, are Chinese). There is no easy way to get rid of them except with a joint effort between all advertising companies to not accept their ads, as they cannot be shut down legally (as they answer to governments that turn blind eyes towards copyright), financially (especially if it's in east Asia, where many of them can continue to sucker investors), or with force (as they operate mostly anonymously because they know powerful people want their heads). But as long as at least one advertising partner is willing to take the money, you're going to find these ads.

[@sirllamaiii9708]

MacTire Tiogair i saw a game with 10 different gameplay footage spots, one was directly copied from banished, probably someone's playthrough on youtube.

[@larutmrs3313]

mobile games have a reputation? that's new

[@BlankPicketSign]

I LOVE the added animation in these episodes! So nice to see! That little bit of polish goes A LONG WAY

[@jimmyc.491]

Agreed! : )

[@Omega0850]

If i make you dinner, and accidentally confuse sugar with salt while i make the dessert, would you rather want me to put in whatever i think might cover the taste, or to just skip the dessert and serve you salad and main dish only?

[@harlannguyen4048]

To eat or not to eat, that is the question...

[@spindash64]

Omega0850 Well, what's for dessert?

[@luizations]

spindash64 lol a great answer to a great question

[@moartems5076]

if that dessert had a lot of sugar normally, it could be lethal. i heard of a mother that killed her child, by making it eat its sugar-salt-swapped pudding

[@LamanKnight]

I'd say (and this applies both literally to cooking, and to the analogy of game design) that it depends on the dessert. If the recipe doesn't use a lot of sugar and/or salt, then the difference might not be a huge issue. A few recipes can even benefit from that; peanuts, for instance, do great with some combination of both salt and sugar. In a best-case scenario, the accident could turn out to be beneficial as it creates something new and original. Of course, more often than not, salt in place of sugar would be gross. And probably very unhealthy. And should never be fed to a living being. I think it's the same with game design; on some occasions, it can be totally worthwhile. But not usually.

[@Vvonter]

Shinji Mikami seemed to do this often with the RE games he worked on. Often having a project nearly finished just to be reworked into what it ended being. Shadow of the Colossus cut the number of bosses it was going to originally have. The biggest turn around I've heard is when Iwata told Itoi he had to recode his game. And it was faster to recode it than to fix what they had. Sometimes is easier to restart than to fix something, which may relate to that other episode of failing early.

[@KensanOni]

Not all work needs to be lost. If what you are developing is transferable, you can always put it in the next game. Just know when you have to abandon ideas. Art is like this.

[@HaydenX]

I always love reading the stories about ideas that didn't work in one project getting cut...then being polished and added to a different project entirely...where they do work.

[@kenziemac130]

Cough... No Man's Sky Launch...

[@kenziemac130]

Probably one of the few scenarios where the project wasn't just launched and abandoned though. Surprising considering the bad publicity afterwards.

[@lukaswursthorn581]

Im pretty sure thats exactly what happened to the project

[@daniel03almeida21]

but NMS has recieved alot of support post-launch, it hasn't been abandoned, imo it was a case of miscommunication of the game's marketing for an espcially small dev team and Sony's push for the game.

[@andhikasoehalim3170]

Dan Almeida really? last time I heard about it is that the devs gave NMS the silent treatment. Granted, last I heard that was after release. If NMS did get support what was added to make it a game instead of a mining so you don't suffucate simulator?

[@levilukeskytrekker]

Give Atlas Rises a Google. It's the third content patch released, and the most sizable. Reviews have spiked drastically since it landed.

[@emlun]

The last part of this sounds very similar to the concept of "kill your darlings" in creative work (anything from fiction writing to technical essays to music and beyond). No matter how much you love that one thing you made, if it doesn't tangibly add to the work you're likely better off cutting it.

[@naejimba]

Sometimes making the hard call can pay off. For instance, Blizzard spent 7 years and sunk at least 50 million into a game called "Titan" only to cancel it. Most of the original team started over and about 3 years later they came out with Overwatch, which netted them over 1.5 billion for the quarter.

[@deriznohappehquite]

They did a great job of rejecting the sunk cost fallacy by cancelling Titan.

[@FlyingDominion]

6:09 I'm really liking the animations that you guys are putting into these. It makes it feel more professional and they're usually entertaining.

[@ryangoldstrich7334]

*Headbutts through wall* DID SOMEONE MENTION PSYCHOLOGY?!

[@soroh0062255]

One of my writing professors hammered on "killing our darlings". No matter how hard you worked on that sentence, or how cool it sounds, if it does not make sense in your paper, you cut it. When academic writing becomes brutal murder.

[@greenghost2008]

Shit some people stay in college or refuse to change majors early because of this.

[@JustJasonPls]

Caught the reference at 1:50. Hats off to the animator for being a fellow Monster Factory connoisseur.

[@PragmaticAntithesis]

Here in the UK, we call the sunk cost fallacy the "Concorde fallacy".

[@PragmaticAntithesis]

It's because the Concorde airline (the supersonic one) was a VERY big sunk cost, and the company kept investing is the planes until it went bankrupt.

[@dead_kennedys7870]

Andrew Smith Makes me happy that we in the US failed to beat you guys to that.

[@acat4701]

Do we?

[@matthewmillar3804]

Came for the extra history, stayed for the extra credits. This channel is the bomb!

[@umbrellaeyethingguy4665]

WOW A GAME PLUSHIE Now we only need a choice dragon one...

[@modsandendsGG-3883]

I was going to say that a good follow up to this would be to do a video on Minimum Viable Product, but you guys did it two years ago. Thanks for the videos!

[@samsamsonthe3rd634]

Reminds me of something I learned in writing. "Learn to kill your children." Basically, even though these features/characters/plot points/whatever are really near and dear to your heart, if it doesn't work in the grand scheme of things, ax it. Also reminds me of that advice given earlier, "Fail faster."

[@epauletshark3793]

Goes for farming (ranching specifically) as well.

[@therealbahamut]

I think this explains a LOT of disappointing games over the years and it's actually a fairly valid reason for a game falling short. Worst part is, I can fully understand why people would find it so hard to avoid this pitfall. Any creator worth his salt knows how to take at least some pride in his work; having to simply throw out something you've committed to is...excruciating at best.

[@kadudeduder5103]

Is it just me or does the little red monster seem very cute.

[@SharPhoe]

Loved seeing the McElroy brothers at 1:50, excellent touch!

[@firockfinion3326]

Ah! Sudden animated bits! CHANGE IS SCARY! (I'm kidding by the way.)

[@TheCreepypro]

wow this actually explains a ton you can look back a decade in game development and go this is why so many games just seem incomplete you can look at franchises that failed and go Oh here is why man what an eye opener

[@ItsmeInternetStranger]

It's interesting this comes up due to people overcomitting to an idea or system. Because it implies one of the big issues in the industry is people are too passionate about their work.

[@vfaulkon]

I know, kinda crazy to think about. But yeah, sometimes being dispassionate and accepting a harsh reality is actually the wise move. It's an incredibly difficult balancing act to pull off, being devoted enough to pursue something with a suboptimal chance of success, but at the same time knowing when to call it quits and not go all Captain Ahab on it.

[@Elonyx.studios]

It's not solely an issue with passion, it's more of an issue with prioritizing and maybe poor planning, some developers don't focus on whats truly important to make the game fun or engaging thinking that certain features would do that, and when it doesn't work instead of shifting thier priorities on what could work they insist on still staying with that intended feature

[@Yotrymp]

There is no proportionality between passion and practicality. They're independent factors and you need both to make (can't say 'finish' because there's never a clear stopping point) a great project. Low practicality: project will probably tank or get released and tank the company Low passion: people keep quitting and the project doesn't get finished (Half Life 3)

[@Overhazard]

Yep. The "Obvious Beta" TV Tropes page has a long list of these projects that made it out incomplete because they had to wrap up production due to running out of time, money, or manpower. Most of them are video games, but there are plenty of examples outside of that too. As a pinball fan, I can think of at least a dozen projects that had these same problems and were shipped to operators in a clearly unfinished state. (For instance, Cactus Canyon was in development when pinball was nosediving in popularity. It was released in 1998 after the executives demanded them to just get it out, resulting in things like some modes having no audio whatsoever, lopsided scoring, and rules that felt a little TOO simple compared to Bally's previous projects. The executives were right: Cactus Canyon BOMBED in sales, though it's been vindicated since and the machines now fetch high prices in the collector's market. Also got its own spoof in Gravity Falls as Tumbleweed Terror.)

[@Nintendotron64]

It's not just an issue of passion. Sometimes, it's an issue of arrogance, other times it's an issue of stubbornness, and other times still it's an issue of not having the resources to ditch the project entirely and start from scratch. PR can also play a role; since fans generally don't like having an unfinished project yanked out of nowhere.

[@marcelosilveira2276]

in the dojo, sensei passed forward a story of the sengoku jidai that carried profound meaning, ressonanting with today's video: Yagyu Jubei (I may have got the name wrong, this storys are oral tradition, not written) was a great swordsmen from a young age, but he was arrogant, and one day he infuriated his father to the point he took the closest rock to him and threw at his son. Upon losing the left eye, Yagyu protected his right one. At that moment his father realized "you will be an even greater bushi (warrior) than me". The reason: he did not wasted effort protecting that which was already lost (his left eye), and instead, drove his efforts to protected that whoch could still be saved (his right eye). I find it to ressonate well with all this story about the sunk cost, how people lose the "battle" of releasing a good game because they insist on protecting a failed part of the project, instead of moving on to what is working and achieving sucess from there.

[@DragonXZero]

I want a plush of that red monster...

[@Wafflepudding]

This doesn't just happen in games, it can happen to any software project, and it's horrifyingly beautiful when it happens. Like watching a trainwreck in slow motion, only you're in the train. Mind you it's only beautiful once you look BACK on it, not so much when you're stuck on the train.

[@elannaideck518]

Why did you throw Bioshock infinite in there as an example? Wouldn't Mass effect Andromeda be the way more obvious example?

[@myilmazalper]

BI isnt unfinished, but so many more features were promised that had to be cut.

[@Blacknight8850]

Andromeda was rushed, whereas Infinite is a more pertinent example due to the time it took and number of drafts that ended up getting thrown out and restarted - reportedly enough material for 5 other games.

[@Bruno-ec8ft]

wile123456 there's a lot of elelment in the game that suggest unfinish product like in the social interactions. You can steal anything you want, but in a small shop, where people will finally react after 6 hours of taking anything you wanted. The ennemy are all the same and they clearly intended to critc the 1913 USA, but got bog down into time travelling BS that didn't help a lot the story.

[@reNINTENDO]

If a game is released after cutting features but is still good wouldn't that make Infinite a bad example of the sunk cost fallacy? I guess I found the game very polished and enjoyable, so maybe it's just because I don't know much about the game's development. I do feel Andromeda is a better example.

[@fawfulmark2]

Elan N Because when Infinite was first shown there were several features that did not make it in the final cut over it's multi-year dev cycle. looking at older trailers show things like more depth to Elizabeth's tears, more integrated combat, the Songbird being a more constant threat etc.

[@dddmemaybe]

Thanks for the good episode guys. Have a nice day.

[@taesu8]

Daikatana and Duke Nukem are classic examples.

[@Blacknight8850]

This can also be super infuriating when you're working beneath the people making these decisions - when middle management refuse to cut or kill a project, they're also wasting the time of all the people who could be working elsewhere and who KNOW the project is sick or dying but aren't in a position to tell their bosses that.

[@KedraIrke]

This reminds me of Overwatch. Blizzard cancelled their Titan game after putting a lot of time and resources into it, so the team that was working on it felt crushed and very highly motivated to show their very best on the next project they were assigned to - Overwatch. We all know how that turned out :)

[@funkeyman100]

I'm a little confused are you trying to say Overwatch is a failure? If that's the case I strongly disagree and I think it's one of the best shooters ever made.

[@Zestyclose-Big3127]

funkey man "are you trying to say Overwatch is a failure?" Looks like the exact opposite to me

[@android19willpwn]

funkey man Overwatch is great, but it's built atop the bones of Titan which, by all accounts we have access to, was a flaming mess.

[@Glenntai]

Hey, just wanted to say thanks for using my music in the outro!

[@TheTheisson]

also dont advertise the feature without it already being in the game or else you might get sued for false advertisement

[@cinderball1135]

This is the post-mortem for Cyberpunk 2077, as written by a time traveller.

[@xcar0982]

I can't avoid yo think that maybe that's what happened to Star Fox Zero.

[@Mincecroft]

Reminds me of what a youtuber called 3kliksphilip said about the time he designed games and that was that you end up getting the idea of how amazing your game will be and what you can do in the game that it has become an unachievable goal.

[@rodrigopaim82]

Sunk cost is soooo regular in politics. Something is not good ? An agency or a federal program is not perfoming well ? It is because there is not enough money, let "invest" (waste) more there.

[@stef0262]

A good example is the SLS program... 30 billion already went into that thing.. its kinda going no where, but we must not abandon it because then we throw 30 billion away.

[@albertm7178]

The difference is how a agency does because of lack of funding or too much funding For instance, NASA has a tiny budget The military has a bloated budget It is a case by case basis, but you get the idea Nuance is key

[@ilikeceral3]

David McConville also why it's so hard to get politicians to abandon charter schools.

[@nykidxxx]

Albert M, Nuance is key? I thought memory was the key.

[@albertm7178]

Ni Yao not really because the world isn't black and white.

[@tavdy79]

The psychological effect you describe in this video, the "straight-forward side" of the sunk cost fallacy, reminds me of a BBC documentary I watched a few years ago (I think it was on their Horizon series) which went into the psychology behind the decisions that led to the 2007-09 financial crash. The thought process among certain key groups within the financial services industry during the period leading up to the disaster was virtually identical to what you described.

[@georgerobins4110]

I swear to god extra credits is a black hole. I go in intending to watch one video and then suddenly 3 days have gone by and I haven't seen daylight.

[@kingvan7872]

The only Sunk Cost Fallacy that's not a Fallacy is getting a Sunk Cost Fallacy Plushy. Whenever one is made.

[@LuccianoBartolini]

So this is what happened to Mighty No. 9? (At least, a part of it)

[@Artista_Frustrado]

the online at least, but most of the game was mostly really poor project management

[@Bradyboy26]

part of it, yes; but over all the game was just poorly made with bad level design and poor marketing

[@GideonGleeful95]

The marketing was so bad it made me cry like an anime fan on prom night.

[@stevethepocket]

One of the upsides of crowdfunding is that it's forced ordinary people to live out the harsh realities of being the guy who ponied up the cash to make a game only to find out that the developer wasted it or underestimated how much they would need or both. Traditionally our message to publishers has been "Well just throw more money at it to make sure it gets fixed!" It's very different when it's our own money.

[@benedict6962]

Not just in cash, though. It was marketed from the onset as the "saviour of megaman". It promised to be everything fans wanted, and when inconsistencies came up, sunk cost fallacy pushed them to promise even more. They were betting everything on the line in terms of trust and goodwill. It became too big to comprehend the gravity of failure. So it failed. You could say they did a better job than most about keeping communication open, but the end result is still failure.

[@MageKirby]

From working on a fan project, I did notice a lot of the guys who had to work on arts had to thing where if whatever they worked on didn't get added, they would complain so much. To the point where instead of redoing the art, we just had them fix certain aspects of it to somewhat fit.

[@benediktgeierhofer4146]

Just as a sidenote: FINALLY someone taking shots at Bioshock Infinite. I had it up to here (imagine my hand...you can do it) with people treating Infinite like a holy cow. Nuff said...just had to get that one of my chest

[@HxH2011DRA]

Benedikt Geierhofer lol

[@Bruno-ec8ft]

Infinite is a game with ambition that failed to deliver because rather than staying focus on racism and totalitarism, they talked about time travel.

[@Blacknight8850]

Yeah, I remember how rushed that final portion was and thinking "What, did you run out of time?" which might not be far off the reality if this situation is what happened. Really killed my interest in ever replaying it.

[@Ex0dus111]

Specially if you consider what they showed us at E3. Go anywhere, join this faction.. or not, step through her Rifts, activate combat that sprawls all over this map, use your gun to shoo people off... NOPE, just a linear shooter.

[@tamar7065]

Wow. This might explain why I actually really liked the thing--I played it years later as an impulse buy and never saw the promotional stuff, so I had no expectations going in except "play this for the narrative."

[@rissawillis8594]

Man, this is a hard lesson. But very good to have is analyzed and laid out like this. Also, at 01:50 - I see those good good mcelboys there! I love that y'all love monster factory as much as I do.

[@LiveGame555]

"Keep cutting"

[@WellBattle6]

One great example is the XCom: Enemy Unknown "pipes" feature, in which they attempted to provide all information into lines connecting all units together with different colors and dotted lines, etc. After doing essentially a brain jam, in which anyone can propose a random change, they cut it out.

[@verdatum]

Dear my 5 bosses. I know. we aren't in game dev. But please. WATCH THIS VIDEO.

[@bennymountain1]

My division got downsized by 80% because of this shit 2 years ago. And it was bloody enterprise, not even product joint.

[@dLzzzgaming]

The animation on this episode was crispy as hell! Good stuff as always

[@minhnguyenus8574]

Cyperpunk 2077 game be like..

[@TheSkyRender]

Extra Credits once ran an episode on how to best avoid running into sunk cost fallacy with game feature implementation: rapid prototyping. Get a version of your feature idea built quickly, and test it. Even if it's blatantly unfinished, any fundamental flaws will show up immediately. Then iterate on the design if it makes sense to, or back out if the feature is clearly irredeemable due to core incompatibility with the game. It's a lot easier to cut a feature that's in its earliest and least-developed state than to cut it when you've dumped a ton of resources into it. You will save so much time, money, and manpower if you take the rapid prototyping path.

[@buu678]

Is star citizen a good example of the sunk cost fallacy?

[@Bird_Dog00]

Not yet.

[@buu678]

why's that?

[@Kingdomkey123678]

buu678 the game isn't "done" yet. If at some point they have to scramble to put out what ever it is they have ready and call it the finished game. Then yes it will be an example of the sunk cost fallacy. But as stated in the video, sometimes endlessly throwing money at something does pay off.

[@rcookie5128]

yes agree with +Skaianet . I'm sure many big games like GTA V or Overwatch have had much ressources & money spent in vain but it in the end it paid of to continue throwing money into all the work that has gone into those projects. Not sure if this is the best counter-example but Starcitizen could turn out to be the next big, awesome Triple A game. Although you're right that Star Citizen has had many time and resources spent into labour that was afterwards scrapped or remade anyways. But I guess sometimes you have to go the wrong way first till you can notice that there is a better way of dealing with a problem.

[@hagamapama]

Yes. The sunk cost fallacy is almost exactly why that massive boondoggle is still getting funded.

[@shaamaan]

This somehow rings with an old episode you did on "failing faster". I.e. it seems to me that failing faster is, possibly, a way to stem off sunk costs. The faster you learn that sexy feature isn't so sexy, the easier it is to cut it (less commitment).

[@greenghost2008]

Sounds like games need producers to stick around and stop this.

[@michimatsch5862]

Stick around....that's literally what this video advised against even if it is hard.

[@FraserSouris]

Sometimes it unfortunately makes more sense from a business standpoint to do it

[@rachelcabot4539]

This is absolutely one of the best arguments for incremental development - try to have a playable game at every stage of development, and spread out work over different features!

[@furox8895]

cough cough No Man's Sky cough cough

[@kwerboom]

Wow, was this video both enlightening and depressing all at the same time. I don't know how many times I've complained about half-baked games over the years that for all the time and money spent still felt unfinished. I never imagined that sunk cost fallacy could manifest itself in those ways.

[@animationquak4790]

Hey EC, try making a video about in game language. Or of us making up for a lack of in game chat or way to communicate. No chat? We tend to use gestures that wern't meant to be used. Like moving your camera and therefore in game head, or point in a direction. Why is this? There are reasons for a lack of chat in some games. Yet we make one. Thats strange. A book with no words is just paper. We dont do anything with it. But not with games. Ive gone on for to long now. Any way you know what i mean.

[@bennymountain1]

you mean like repeatedly crouching on someone else's head?

[@animationquak4790]

hmm... never thought of that. but you may have a point... its like showing dominance by crouching on whoever they kill.

[@aickavon]

There was actually a really fun game (I think it was called Traveler?) that not only discovered that aspect of gamers, but capitalized on it. You had an online buddy that you could not communicate with directly, but you could indirectly communicate with them and solve puzzles. One of the Splinter Cells also did this where voice chatting WOULD alert npcs to your location... y'know like real life. But you had hand gestures. This basically does come down to the idea of communication. Humans are Social creatures. We've found evidence that even our ancestors were social creatures. We've created the human language, a man made invention, but we've always communicated with each other before words. We desire such communication. A good example would be cats. They don't have a language but they can express their thoughts and seek out social interactions quite frequently. So our desire to convey communication is a simple human instinct. Perhaps as an act of dominance or defiance, perhaps an attempt at cooperation, perhaps as a sign of peace. I remember playing Conan (The survival game) and someone walked behind me. I turned around and we both had weapons drawn out, so it was a tense situation. Till I crouched and stood up, crouched and stood up, crouched and stood up. And then he repeated the process. And thus we made peace! We bonded without words or even programmed gestures.

[@animationquak4790]

Aickavon the Techpriest wow! Thanks for that! You really explained that well :D thk for answering my question.

[@GaudyMarko]

Major features that are worth huge time/money investments are usually valuable to the project for other reasons, usually because of marketing reasons like a promised feature in a kickstarter campaign or a level design that got showcased in an E3 trailer or something like that. It's more than just the team's wasted time at stake when they cut money pits from a game.

[@Boborbot]

Wait... What's the problem of Bioshock Infinite?

[@Kingdomkey123678]

Boborbot it lacks many features that had been promised.

[@Skycube100]

Can I ask, what was the "features" promised? Sorry I wasn't aware of it

[@deriznohappehquite]

It cost a ton more money to make than it could have ever realistically made back. They made and cut enough content for five other games. If they had cancelled the project and moved on early, they would have lost much less money and not had the opportunity cost of spending years working on one game.

[@PandasAndPancakes]

There's a fairly extensive list of changes on the Bioshock Inifinite Wiki: bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/BioShock_Infinite_Removed_Content

[@supportmyalcoholism]

Bioshock Infinite is an awesome experience, but after 6-7 hours it's over and you have to look at it as a game and sadly, there is not much game.

[@stevethepocket]

This ties back in with your "Fail Faster" episode. The longer it takes developers to discover that a feature isn't working, the more likely they'll try to rationalize continuing to plug away at it. Sometimes it's unavoidable, because the feature is so complex that the entire work pipeline has to be built up from scratch. But there are probably some cases where it would be faster to prototype in some off-the-shelf engine, or build a simpler system that'll have to be remade in order to mesh with the rest of the game. And if it works, yes, you will have to do part of the development process twice and it'll feel like a waste. But it's worth it for the certainty that you're not building a whole game only to have it fall apart.

[@Enceos]

Star Citizen................................................................

[@Roxor128]

Another point to mention: What has to be cut from one game can sometimes find a home in another. Perhaps even as the basis for a whole new one.

[@ArkriteTheMad]

What, you'll reference Bioshock infinite, but no mention at all about Mass Effect Andromeda which fell victim to this exact thing?

[@user-bf5sc8pn8x]

They aren't going to talk about every single case of this in a 7 minute video

[@DrTssha]

They did mention a face mapping technology. That might've been it...or it might've just been cut for time.

[@jcgamer892]

0:32 ....right there is the mention if you research what the hell happen to ME:A in development.

[@ArkriteTheMad]

Seems like the most recent example of it, far more than Bioshock Infinite.

[@ArkriteTheMad]

I believe the real time sink in ME:A was their attempt to build a procedural generation engine for the game. At least that's what I'd heard.

[@jaquecole5196]

I hope so much, that large developers as well as the smaller groups can make use of this painfully good advise. You guys are great at this stuff, thanks for the videos

[@PH0N42]

I would love to see an episode of EC on why Doom 2016 worked for having thrown out the misguided call of doom, Doom 4 we almost got.

[@evilontoast7266]

I had that drawing tablet for the wii and I still do, I don't even have a wii anymore. Man that was a good solid hour of fun

[@Schwarzgardist]

I love your sunk cost monster :) Great visualisation!

[@jman2150]

It was mentioned in passing that sometimes committing more money or resources to a project does resolve the problem. It would be interesting to see a discussion on how to spot situations worthy of continued investment vs ones that aren't.

[@briancline2575]

This is the best explanation of the F 35 development...

[@mashnek]

I have a bunch of friends that tried to make a video game long story short after a year they canceled it but the silver lining of it is that they took all the content they had and now are publishing a book with all the story and dialogue they had for the game

[@myopinionsarefacts]

The whole thing with getting attached to a part of a project is definitely not only in video games. Honestly, I have done this sort of thing while cooking dinner

[@downix]

This, all this. My company spent a small fortune on a tool, which never worked. It took us 2 years to finally admit that it would never work.

[@abigailpatridge2948]

As a side note... When you DO make that tough call to cut a feature from your current project - that doesn't mean you toss all that work into /dev/null. It means you stop working on it. The end. You NEVER know when or if something that DIDN'T work for the project that originally spawned it WILL work in a different one entirely. So you keep it around for later use. Just stop working on it within the constraints of the current project.

[@logicalfundy]

Applies to so much of life too. You know you have to give up on something, but it's hard to abandon the work already put into it.

[@dannymusic]

Sunk cost fallacy is my favorite topic in economics. Great summary of how it relates to game design!

[@nikolanesovanovic3786]

Either this episode is not entirely about video games, or it is way to applicable to current events. Good job as always

[@MichaelVittiglio]

Former HomeFront QA guy here... the only commitment THQ had to HomeFront was $$$ for the hype machine. We were a hard working team but definitely in need of more resources.

[@landonj7863]

When I have to abandon something I worked hard on, I remind myself that I learned a lot by doing the work, so it didn't completely go to waste. 😊

[@tentavision13]

Those little monsters are absolutely adorable

[@ThatFanBoyGuy]

Ironically, I too thought of Homefront and the Wii writing pad when I saw the title of this video. The Wii writing pad is especially ironic because of it came out shortly before Nintendo announced the Wii U.

[@Bluecho4]

Honestly, every business ought to have "motivational" posters in their offices, that read: "Stop. Are you succumbing to the Sunk Cost Fallacy?" Hell, we could make an entire line of posters, reminding people to consider whether they're falling into cognitive traps. Even if it's just a reminder, knowing they might be making a mistake might be enough to get them to reconsider.

[@Northstar1989]

Putting in *just* enough money to ship isn't always the optimal response either, though. Putting in the most COST-EFFECTIVE amount of money is. For instance, if you can put in $10 million to just finish a game and ship a terrible product that only sells for $15 million, vs. $20 million to rush shipment but at least salvage some of what's still fixable, and the game will then sell for $35 million; the latter is the correct course of action even if you've already sunk $50 million into the game. In short, all future actions should take an objective look at what has been accomplished already, and decide from there the best course of action. To go to my personal life, I'm trained as a biologist, trying to get into medical school. I'm facing substantial challenges in that due to several people I should have been able to trust undermining me along the way, hurting my overall undergrad level of success. I also have a Master's degree and enormous student debt. I'm having trouble either getting into medical schools or pharmaceutical research labs as a paid tech, despite my considerable qualifications. I could just sink ten thousand dollars or so in lost wages into unpaid internships and probably manage to secure paid research positions with a lifetime earning cap of $85,000-$95,000 or so in today's money (as a senior researcher) doing a job I find agonizingly slow and demoralizing. Or, I could sink about $240,000 (including the opportunity cost of lost wages) into taking a post-bacc or 2nd Master's degree specifically designed to help me get into medical school, and maybe another $10,000 into unpaid research positions and physician shadowing, and end up becoming a doctor after all, with a lifetime earning cap of at least $350,000 for my preferred specialties, doing a job I love and find energizing. The fact I have already sunk 7+ years of my life and over $410,000 in educational costs plus lost wages (vs. making a 7-year average of about $40k a year in a field like not attending college and becoming a skilled craftsman, a conservative estimate to say the least) doesn't in any way change the fact that the best option going forward is to spend that additional $250,000 to secure MILLIONS more in lifetime earnings and priceless happiness and a feeling of doing something I love. On the other hand, giving up now and taking the lowest-cost path ($10k for a job that would pay about $50k more than I make now, currently only around $35k with extensive overtime included at under $15/hr base-pay) might have a higher return-on-investment, but doesn't lead to the best likely outcome given my current situation: becoming a doctor at a late age, even if I will always be 7-8 years behind most of my peers professionally, and have lost out on any opportunity to be at the top of my profession (currently, even playing catch-up, the most I can ever expect is to make it into the middle of the pack in terms of expertise as an MD: but that's still a better outcome than the alternatives...) My point being: sometimes the minimum possible investment to finish a project isn't always best. You can't keep just blindly pouring money into dead-end's, but you must always look intelligently at what your best options are for your current situation going forward...