What Concerns Game Developers? A Study on Game Development Processes, Sustainability and Metrics

It can be argued, that software development and game development share a number of features in their process models, such as the need to design, develop and test software functionalities. However, while the software engineering (SE) models work successfully supporting the software development, their practical application for game development is frequently unsuccessful. To understand this problem and number of other aspects such as Green IT and business models, we conducted a survey with the game industry organizations. Based on our observations on the SE practices, the game industry applies mostly the agile process models or nothing at all, their major concerns for business were mobile development, digital marketing, employees with specific abilities and keeping innovation in their business, and their minor concerns were eco-impact elements, software reusability and financing. Based on our results, we identified areas which would warrant more studies to support the game industry practices, eco-aspects and business.