Challenges in video game development - What does Agile management have to do with it?
2019 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE credits
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
The video game industry has gone through a dramatic change over the last few decades, yet
several reports show that there are currently many challenges that developers face in their daily
work. A major challenge includes difficulties of getting projects to close within set time and
resource restraints. This is something that indicates a connection to the management methods
being used, among which Agile management is a popular framework that many turn to. This
thesis searches for connections between challenges in video game development and the usage of
agile methods like Scrum and Kanban. For this, a qualitative research strategy was used in order
to look into the experiences of video game developers. Five semi-structured interviews with a
total of eleven respondents were conducted. As a complement, a quantitative web-based survey
was made where 23 people participated. The results of this study show that challenges
previously defined within the video game industry, including feature creep, crunch periods and
a stressful work pace can also be identified in the industry in southern Sweden to some extent.
Underlying patterns indicate the industrial culture as an explanation for an incorrect
implementation of agile methods, which could eventually lead to issues surrounding risk
management in projects.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Malmö universitet/Teknik och samhälle , 2019. , p. 79
Keywords [en]
Video games, video game development, agile management, scrum, pct, project contingency theory, feature creep, crunch
National Category
Engineering and Technology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-20026Local ID: 30426OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-20026DiVA, id: diva2:1479893
Educational program
TS Produktionsledare - Media
Supervisors
Examiners
2020-10-272020-10-27Bibliographically approved