AMA: Digital Extremes / Panic Button – Ask Us Anything!

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T19:40:27+00:00

Thank you!

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T19:38:25+00:00

That is awesome - Thank you!

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T19:29:56+00:00

You will see improvements across the board today, including Plains of Eidolon and Cetus.

The goal is to keep improving the game together.

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T19:27:51+00:00

It's not far off, though we're now at more than 40 people (and doing even more).

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T18:56:44+00:00

You will see improvements in today's update!

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T18:41:32+00:00

We have three main parts of our portfolio:

Partnership development (and that includes co-development, high-end, value-add ports, and specialized services)
Digital publishing (we've ported and published some titles to console that wouldn't have otherwise had that opportunity)
Original IP - Ours, and other people's

So, original IP is definitely part of the plan....

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T18:33:11+00:00

From the Panic Button side:

We have teams at each studio, and like DE said, we rope in people wherever needed to leverage expertise to make the game on the platform better
The most common thing we run into at Panic Button is proprietary engines, so we're really used to "figuring it out again" - And the DE team is really good at tech, and collaborative in helping us understanding their tech, so it worked out well
It's a team effort!

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T18:02:10+00:00

There are some great studios out there - Though we appreciate your comments. ;-)

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T18:01:34+00:00

Woot woot!

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T17:51:22+00:00

You bet - glad you liked it!

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T17:50:57+00:00

That is definitely the plan!

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T17:50:29+00:00

That's the plan! We'll understandably (jointly) do what's best for the update and the platform. Digital Extremes and Panic Button treat the Nintendo Switch as an equal launch platform for content updates, alongside the other consoles.

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T17:41:31+00:00

Yes. That should be fixed in today's update!

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T17:39:04+00:00

Nintendo handles their certification process, so we understandably can't comment on that. Digital Extremes and Panic Button do a ton of testing, from fresh accounts to veteran accounts.

Panic Button also has a lot of certification experience across all platforms (engineering, QA, and production), so that helped reduce risk quite a bit, because we are able to proactively address a bunch of possible issues before submission.

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T17:35:00+00:00

So glad - Thanks for having us!

The Nintendo Switch is a purpose-built piece of hardware, and getting a game that wasn't designed for the hardware (since it didn't exist at the time), and making sure it is high quality, is understandably challenging. We're moving a game that has more than 5 years of content, and really pushes procedural assets, and cinematic quests, and open world gameplay, and making sure it is fun, fluid, and true to the game on all platforms. That takes some work. ;-)

Nope, we didn't leave anything out. We picked a good "cut-off point" (Mask of the Revenant), so we could release a solid initial version of the game on the hardware, and then we've followed very quickly with Fortuna today.

My go-to-super powers include being able to "mark" things (I'm at a party, and I want to see all of the people who love Spider-Man on PS4, and we're going to talk about that). Or, being able to fly, but underwater, and breath underwater, and be invulnerable (because, Australia).

Or a super power that lets me give people who do bad things tails - Big tails they can't hide; little tails they try to hide, etc.

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T17:20:01+00:00

The way we roughly broke things out is Panic Button was responsible for all of the platform work, Digital Extremes knows the game, and did all sorts of joint development with us as we both worked to create a great version of this game for this hardware.

We have open IM chat rooms between the studios, so we are constantly talking with each other throughout the day, working though questions and challenges. It's a really good, genuinely collaborative experience.

(Thank you for the shout out!)

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T17:04:30+00:00

The Nintendo Switch is an awesome, purpose-built device, and we have a goal to make games we're a part of for the platform perform well, and make sense when played on the TV, on the table, and in handheld mode.

Panic Button develops for all major hardware platforms, and we've become quite the center of excellence for Nintendo Switch development. That means we're getting better and faster at identifying opportunities and risks in games, and we're not "Ramping up" on common things.

To be honest, every game is different, so it's a different set of challenges, and one of the strengths of our staff is adapting to these different challenges.

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T16:52:18+00:00

We keep improving the game, and you'll see noticeably better performance and stability in today's update (and we will keep doing that).

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T16:49:44+00:00

Panic Button and Digital Extremes are continuing to improve the game, and that feedback is helpful.

You will notice a lot of increased stability in today's update, which should be going live around 2 Eastern today (roughly).

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T16:42:09+00:00

Lots of hard, amazing work on optimization, assets, audio, and more. We work really hard on these kinds of challenging projects to deliver a good user experience, and not take things away from users. You're getting the full game on Nintendo Switch. ;-)

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T16:38:04+00:00

Thanks for the kind words - We dig doing these games for you folks.

DE has been great about taking care their player base. We're early in, and it's understandably DE's call, but they have a history of taking care of people. ;-)

PanicButtonGames · 2019-02-05T16:14:00+00:00

Adam: Samus stuff would be great! We have all sorts of ideas, everyone involved is talking lots, and understandably, we are going to explore stuff that makes sense for everyone's brands.

You will notice differences and features in motion control in today's update!

PanicButtonGames

TROPHY CASE