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Game Development vocabulary · Production, QA & Playtesting

Scope creep

Meaning in game development, with examples

nounCommon term

In game development, scope creep means: The slow, uncontrolled growth of a project as new features and ideas keep being added without extra time or people, which often causes delays and crunch.

In Turkish: kapsam kayması, kapsamın şişmesi, scope creep

How it is used

Also called feature creep. Producers and leads fight it by freezing features, keeping a 'not now' list and cutting content. To scope down means to make a project smaller on purpose.

Example sentences

  1. Scope creep turned a six-month puzzle game into a two-year project.

  2. Every 'small' request adds up; this is exactly how scope creep starts.

Common collocations

  • avoid scope creep
  • feature creep
  • scope down
  • cut scope
  • feature freeze
  • crunchA period of very long working hours, often including nights and weekends, that a team works to meet a deadline, usually before a milestone or release.
  • milestoneAn agreed point in development when specific work must be delivered and reviewed, such as a playable demo, alpha or beta; publishers often pay the studio per milestone.
  • prototypeA quick, rough version of a game or feature made to test whether an idea is fun or works, before the team spends time on final art and polish.
  • postmortemA review held after a project or release in which the team discusses what went right, what went wrong and what to do differently next time.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Production, QA & Playtesting

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