How long does it take for a video game like Skyrim or Fallout 3 to be made ?

I know these games cost millions to make. But I'm guessing 5 years maybe? Give or take?

I know when Square Soft ( their name at the time) was making Final Fantasy- The Spirits Within it took them 3-4 years to complete it and they had a PC lab set up with over 100 - 150 PC's.

I figured games this advanced in our time would be double that, but I'm not sure.

there is not set time, while making any software you will run into issues that must be fixed, as such some take longer than others


so, to answer your question:

as long as it takes to finish

Your question should be reworded into person-hours, as it's a team effort.

Does art and story need to be included in the calculation, or just coding? What about production and distribution? Testing? Screening?

Actual coding isn't the biggest time-consumer for making games or any software, really. That's testing, screening (as in determining audience and their reception of the story idea), coordination, and other logistics.

I personally feel it should all be counted.

That said I think there isn't really a solid answer to this question (in most cases, I suppose the Call of Duty teams have it down to a science at this point). For most everything else it probably depends on all the factors Defron references and there are a lot of variables there.

Everything. I want to know how long it takes to complete a game and the CGI graphics, code and everything in full. Months to years. All that fun stuff including everything you just named off.

The time varies based on the project and the scope of the project.

Some games can be done in under a year while others can take well over 5 years.

Back in the day, two years was considered a long development cycle, given some of the complaints people were making about how long it took after Arena to get Daggerfall out.

These days, five or six years seems standard. The extreme end of the range is over a decade, like we saw with Duke Nukem Forever. After about six years, most things can be assumed to be vaporware.

That said, some of the big series, like AC and CoD, have very short dev cycles of two to three years.

And whether they hit a major setback and have to scrap & rework a big chunk.

...which is why so many of these Kickstarters run into trouble. Software development is very messy & unpredictable.

Half life 3 is coming out soon, relax.

As an example, Fallout 3 took about 4-5 years to make IIRC, whereas for New Vegas it was only about a year. Of course New Vegas had the advantage of being able to use most of the assets that were created for Fallout 3. That's a distinct advantage for sequel games, they don't have to start from scratch each time. Which is no doubt why developers try to squeeze as many titles from a franchise as possible.

So if the software already works for the first game ever made. Does the sequel come out faster if they are using the same base software for that game to get it out faster and with less glitch's and bugs?

Yes, if they are using the same engine and assets. All they have to do is manipulate them differently.

That was a good one, I lol'ed!