How are Agile Methods and Practices Deployed in Video Game Development?
A Survey into Finnish Game Studios

Jussi Koutonen and Mauri Leppänen

Research Paper

Summary

Agile methods and practices are largely deployed in software engineering. Game development shares many features that have given rise to the emergence of agility in soft- ware engineering. There is, however, a lack of understanding of the extent to which agile methods and practices are actually deployed in video game development and with which impacts. This paper reports on a survey into Finnish game studios. It shows that Scrum and, to a lesser degree, XP and Kanban are frequently used in the game studios. The most positive impacts of agility concern communication, quality of video games, and finding fun and implementable features earlier.

Presenter

Jussi

Jussi Koutonen, Software designer by occupation. Gamer in heart.

Department of Computer Science and Information Systems P.O. Box 35 (Agora), FI-40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland, jussi.koutonen@sysdrone.fi

 

Co-Author

Mauri Leppänen, Department of Computer Science and Information Systems P.O. Box 35 (Agora), FI-40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland, mauri.leppanen@jyu.fi