Why doesn't Sega/CA create a larger DLC team? the DLC is literally printing them insane money.

FerdiadLives#3307

Just look at Chaos Dwarfs, 2 million views, top seller on steam for days. DLC team are doing amazing work. But surely Sega sees the advantage in adding more people or creating two DLC teams to work on Warhammer 3 DLC? there's a lot of ground to cover and we're already 2 years in since announcement due to various delays and issues with the base game. We're getting three DLC this year. But ideally, we should be getting a dlc every two months.

Surge_2#1464

We will never know.

We've been calling this out consistently for years. CA has been leaving money on the table every single year, since Game 2 released, forget game 3.

There is almost zero chance they actually cover everything that COULD have earned them money.

Freden#5415

A conundrum to be sure, would love for someone to provide some insight into the reasoning behind their decisions.

And the sales from CD are gonna get alot bigger. Since many, like myself, buy the DLC on or around release day. Since the pre-order discound spans even past that.

Nitros14#7973

They might be having a hard time hiring people they need for it.

talonn#7575

H-Hy-Hye..

Cosmic_Lich#1188

It might be the case that the DLC team doesn't need more people. To the point where it would have diminishing returns or overcomplicate the process. Too many cooks in the kitchen, as it were.

Edit: In a recent interview, it was revealed that the team started as 2 people, but now it's around 20 people.

Captain_Rex#1635

Cosmic_Lich#1188 said:

It might be the case that the DLC team doesn't need more people. To the point where it would have diminishing returns or overcomplicate the process. Too many cooks in the kitchen, as it were.

Edit: In a recent interview, it was revealed that the team started as 2 people, but now it's around 20 people.

There should be 2 teams working on different DLCs simultaneously.

Thankki#6655

Captain_Rex#1635 said:

Cosmic_Lich#1188 said:

It might be the case that the DLC team doesn't need more people. To the point where it would have diminishing returns or overcomplicate the process. Too many cooks in the kitchen, as it were.

Edit: In a recent interview, it was revealed that the team started as 2 people, but now it's around 20 people.

There should be 2 teams working on different DLCs simultaneously.

This, why not deliver dlc every 3/4 months (better than 6/8 month actually). And not all dlc are buy by the same people.

toskyrun#2614

in any case, I believe that the 2d illustrators, those in charge of sound effects, the beta testers and above all the administrative part are always the same. expanding the developers would not be enough in my opinion

Kn_Gars#2718

Cosmic_Lich#1188 said:

It might be the case that the DLC team doesn't need more people. To the point where it would have diminishing returns or overcomplicate the process. Too many cooks in the kitchen, as it were.

Edit: In a recent interview, it was revealed that the team started as 2 people, but now it's around 20 people.

That was a figure of speech, if you look at the DLC credits there are a lot more working on the DLC team, the CoC Credits list at least 233 names that belong to CA or CA Sofia as well as another 118 names for external staff assisting with the DLC plust the 25 voice actors.

Spellbound1875#4610

CA stated they both expanded the DLC team and have them working on up to two projects at once. They've literally done the things you are suggesting already. Hence why they're shooting for 3 DLC this year I suspect.

MalalTheRenegade#5644

Cosmic_Lich#1188 said:

It might be the case that the DLC team doesn't need more people. To the point where it would have diminishing returns or overcomplicate the process. Too many cooks in the kitchen, as it were.

Edit: In a recent interview, it was revealed that the team started as 2 people, but now it's around 20 people.

This. Every team has a critical point where adding new members leads to a decrease in productivity, that's Project Management 101.

Now the good question raised in this thread is why don't they create a 2nd team ? My two cents is that the return on invesments from DLCs may not be high enough. Between dedicating 20 person to produce DLCs or to create a new game, the latter might be more profitable.

Edit : Also as in any IT project, version compatibility leads to many troubles. So if the 1st DLC team is already working on one build of the game while the 2nd DLC has to work on another build in parallel, it could lead to a lot of work to sort and combine everything at the end.

Kn_Gars#2718

FerdiadLives#3307 said:

Just look at Chaos Dwarfs, 2 million views, top seller on steam for days. DLC team are doing amazing work. But surely Sega sees the advantage in adding more people or creating two DLC teams to work on Warhammer 3 DLC? there's a lot of ground to cover and we're already 2 years in since announcement due to various delays and issues with the base game. We're getting three DLC this year. But ideally, we should be getting a dlc every two months.

The DLC team has already been given a lot of additiona resources, based on the credits at least 27% of CA's entire staff worked on the DLC team when CoC and IE was made with another 118 staff from other CA & SEGA departments as well as external companies in support.

What makes the DLC profitable for CA is not the number of sales but that the DLC have a high profit margin. Increasing the number of people working on the DLC team would lower the profit margin due to increased production costs. There is no guarantee that releasing more DLC in a 12 month period will make up for that loss of profit, particularly as there is a risk of saturating the market if a DLC releases every two months. The 'whales' and hardcore players thay would buy DLC at that pace are a small minority compared to the over all TWWH playerbase.

The is also the question of quality, making good creative content takes time and you can not automatically speed up the the process by throwing more manpower at it. The only DLC that CA have been able to deliver at the pace you want were the Warhammer 1 DLC which were barebones in terms of content and of inferior quality compared to current DLC. The best WH1 DLC was Norsca and the team was allowed a lot more time to make it.

Kn_Gars#2718

Captain_Rex#1635 said:

Cosmic_Lich#1188 said:

It might be the case that the DLC team doesn't need more people. To the point where it would have diminishing returns or overcomplicate the process. Too many cooks in the kitchen, as it were.

Edit: In a recent interview, it was revealed that the team started as 2 people, but now it's around 20 people.

There should be 2 teams working on different DLCs simultaneously.

They are already working on multiple DLCs as well as having to implement IE (which is still very much in Beta despite parch 2.4) and last but not least they also have to try to correct bad design decisions made by the main Warhammer team. Based on the credits there were 376 people from the DLC team, other CA departments, SEGA and external companies involved with the work on CoC and IE. Warhammer 3 DLC production is clearly high priority.

Kouran_Darkhand#6365

It’s not like we Warhammer fans aren’t accustomed to being robbed. TWW is far cheaper than TT. They could sell one DLC one month and we would still pay for it.

Reeks#2417

They are milking us for as much as they think they can get away with


If there were a market for them to release twice as many DLC´s with twice as much content they would go for it in a instant.

Data5#9904

In software engineering bigger team don't always make things go faster.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

Goatforce#6625

Captain_Rex#1635 said:

Cosmic_Lich#1188 said:

It might be the case that the DLC team doesn't need more people. To the point where it would have diminishing returns or overcomplicate the process. Too many cooks in the kitchen, as it were.

Edit: In a recent interview, it was revealed that the team started as 2 people, but now it's around 20 people.

There should be 2 teams working on different DLCs simultaneously.

This would be the ideal scenario. Would allow fast releases coupled with high quality.

dodge33cymru#1936

a. I think if they do three DLCs this year, that's plenty enough!
b. Adding another team making more new things doesn't really mean anything - as above, their aim is to find the sweet spot of making enough quantity and quality that it maximises sales without costing too much to create - they can expand the current team just as easily, it's 2023 so I doubt they're all sat around desks in the same office
c. Having two teams both making code implementation changes simultaneously is a recipe for disaster! See the Norsca situation in TWW2

Goatforce#6625

dodge33cymru#1936 said:

a. I think if they do three DLCs this year, that's plenty enough!
b. Adding another team making more new things doesn't really mean anything - as above, their aim is to find the sweet spot of making enough quantity and quality that it maximises sales without costing too much to create - they can expand the current team just as easily, it's 2023 so I doubt they're all sat around desks in the same office
c. Having two teams both making code implementation changes simultaneously is a recipe for disaster! See the Norsca situation in TWW2

1. Yeah 3 is fine, if they do keep to it, but 4-5 would be better
2. Not necessarily, making a single team bigger means more focus on 1 project, and that can lead to diminishing returns, 2 teams means separate projects worked on in parallel, though there would likely be issues inherent to that if done badly (poor comms etc could cause clashes between teams) - though this is just my take, would hardly call myself an expert on the topic
3. That could happen, as said above with more comms, but Norsca was a perticular case that happened due to the movement to a new game (and an assumption everything would just transfer over), I very much doubt a similar problem to Norsca would occur as we are not moving games anymore.

Kn_Gars#2718

Goatforce#6625 said:

dodge33cymru#1936 said:

a. I think if they do three DLCs this year, that's plenty enough!
b. Adding another team making more new things doesn't really mean anything - as above, their aim is to find the sweet spot of making enough quantity and quality that it maximises sales without costing too much to create - they can expand the current team just as easily, it's 2023 so I doubt they're all sat around desks in the same office
c. Having two teams both making code implementation changes simultaneously is a recipe for disaster! See the Norsca situation in TWW2

1. Yeah 3 is fine, if they do keep to it, but 4-5 would be better
2. Not necessarily, making a single team bigger means more focus on 1 project, and that can lead to diminishing returns, 2 teams means separate projects worked on in parallel, though there would likely be issues inherent to that if done badly (poor comms etc could cause clashes between teams) - though this is just my take, would hardly call myself an expert on the topic
3. That could happen, as said above with more comms, but Norsca was a perticular case that happened due to the movement to a new game (and an assumption everything would just transfer over), I very much doubt a similar problem to Norsca would occur as we are not moving games anymore.

The DLC team are already using their manpower to work on several projects in parallel with all the advantages in coordination that comes from having a single team rather than two teams that will invariably end up having issues with communication and resource mangament.

Even if the base code is stable the work of two separate teams run a very high risk of conflicting with each other, you would have to spend a lot of time just coordinating changes and developments to avoid problems spiraling out of control. There is also the question of which design approach each team takes, compare how the WH2 DLC team and the WH3 team took a very different approach when desiging tech, abilities and items. Total War Warhammer already has a big problem with different parts having very different design philosophy. Compare the focus on asymentric design in WH1 with how WH2 evolved into throwing asymentry overbroad and simply going with OP content.

Mikobot#5742

Answer: money and profits, trying to align the least manpower possible with the highest revenue possible. Least input, most output.

Elaboration: look at Gamefreak with Pokemon and 343i with Halo Infinite.

Related concept: this

Data5#9904 said:

In software engineering bigger team don't always make things go faster.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

That said, an obvious note to make: eventually more manpower is needed as a piece of content gains more moving parts (in this case, TWW with it's hybrid focus on delivering new DLCs of increasing complexity alongside UNRELATED updates to other areas of the product via FLC).

...and also there are certainly more people working on DLC additions than just coders. There's art/modeling concerns among other things. When it comes to art, there were definite pains near the middle and end of TWW2. On the latter of modeling... well... put simple: Stone Trolls. Expanded: someone had to take time and go back to fix the Silverin Guard.


Bonus points for those who are knowers. Microsoft certainly hasn't read 'The Mythical Man-Month' considering their use of contract workers on a game that took around six years to develop. Who could've guessed Halo Infinite would end up being a steaming pile of ****. ...Corporate decision making causes me immeasurable turmoil.

Beast_of_Guanyin#8747

Thankki#6655 said:

Captain_Rex#1635 said:

Cosmic_Lich#1188 said:

It might be the case that the DLC team doesn't need more people. To the point where it would have diminishing returns or overcomplicate the process. Too many cooks in the kitchen, as it were.

Edit: In a recent interview, it was revealed that the team started as 2 people, but now it's around 20 people.

There should be 2 teams working on different DLCs simultaneously.

This, why not deliver dlc every 3/4 months (better than 6/8 month actually). And not all dlc are buy by the same people.

3 DLCs this year would be a DLC every 3-4 months.

Dasraliah#7896

A DLC every 3 or 4 monthes is the most they can do without burning out the market and/or reducing quality of content.

Malus DLC took 3 monthes, but it didn't have any race reworks. If CA can churn 3 DLC a year with race reworks every time ? That's already a very good rythm.

They need to hold that rythm for at least 2 years tho, not just this one

davedave1124#4773

How big do you think the team isn’t? I imagine the team changes size through the development of the DLC, I don’t think the artists stay in full number when all the art is done.

Without knowing the numbers and the amount of work it takes it’s hard to say whether the DLC team is worth growing or not.

Guttrench#8929

It’s been said and posted that they’re using two teams. You’ll even see it mentioned by GBoGs, Sotek and other YouTubers. That’s why they’re shooting for three DLC this year. Since they had IE work and chaos dwarfs that pushed the timeline a bit you’re still seeing close to 3/4 months a dlc, Even when delayed.

Passthechips#4366

Reeks#2417 said:

They are milking us for as much as they think they can get away with

If there were a market for them to release twice as many DLC´s with twice as much content they would go for it in a instant.

Eh we have gotten a lot of quality free content over the years in TWW. CA has shown that this is also a passion project for them as well. For example, they didn’t have to update the visuals and sound effects for the Lore of Death/Metal, but they did as a side project. Sure this is also to bolster the communities opinions, but it is nice to have. They could have easily gated reworks behind DLC, but have given them as free updates.

Furthermore, DLC quality has increased considerably even within WH2’s lifetime. Compare Q&C vs T&T or S&F. It’s night and day. If they can churn out three DLCs of that level this year that would be a huge step up from even when CA pushed three DLCs in a WH2 year. It’s not just about the amount of DLCs we get, but also their relative quality.

Serkelet#1834

What do you do with the extra developers when you run out of content to develop into DLC? I think there is some long term considerations here too.

Kn_Gars#2718

Serkelet#1834 said:

What do you do with the extra developers when you run out of content to develop into DLC? I think there is some long term considerations here too.

Well some of those extra developers have been pulled from other projects than can now be reinforced with more manpower. For example CA Sofia has clearly dedicated much of their staff to supporting the main Warhammer team and the DLC team while only a part work on their next game. Some will invariably be laid of if they can not be retained within currect projects and budget.

Dasraliah#7896

Serkelet#1834 said:

What do you do with the extra developers when you run out of content to develop into DLC? I think there is some long term considerations here too.

Well, to be fair, I expect any dev or artist on CA to be able to swap from fantasy to historical or another IP without too much trouble. It's the same skills. The only struggle would be for them to acclimate to a new team

Surge_2#1464

Right, the mythical 2 teams is already a thing.

*looks at content drought*