“We’ll Fix It in Pickups”: The Most Expensive Sentence in Game Development

“If you don’t fix the problems with your story, you’ll lose ten points on Metacritic.” That was a real message to a real studio, months from ship. It’s an email nobody wants to see in their inbox, but so many studios have.

Story landmines blow up late in production. But they’re planted early in the process. Milestone by milestone, story decisions get locked in. Not by a person, but by the process. Fix your process and your results will improve.

This talk is for the people who sign off on milestones. You’ll walk out with a simple check you can run at each milestone to be sure the team’s narrative is on track. No bomb suit required.

Part of the Dev Shorts track at MIGS26.