Accumulation and Management of Technical Debt in Video Game Development Artifacts

Abstract

In traditional software engineering, technical debt has been studied since Ward Cunningham introduced the concept in 1992. Unlike in traditional software development, less effort has been made to research game development empirically. The multidisciplinary nature of game development creates fundamental differences between traditional software development and game development. These differences raise an important question: what is the nature of technical debt in game development? Technical debt in game development is explored through three questions: Why does technical debt accumulate in game development? What are the game development artifacts that contain the technical debt? And at last, what actions are taken to manage technical debt? In this thesis, reader is first introduced to technical debt, and its management. Next, the taxonomy of game development artifacts is explored and adapted for the thesis, and then literature is examined for what already exist about technical debt in game development. Semi-structured interviews are conducted with five experts from the Finnish game development industry to answer the three questions presented.