Is Requirements Engineering Useless in Game Development?

[Context/motivation] Game development is characterized by a high level of creativity when compared to other fields of software development. Games cover a multitude of themes and genres, and represent a heterogeneous group of different products with varying requirements and business goals. [Question/problem] Requirements engineering (RE) should be relevant to game development, but is this true and if it is, how does game industry apply RE in practice? [Principal ideas/Results] We interviewed 27 software professionals in seven organizations to understand how requirements engineering is applied in game developing organizations. The results suggest that in game development business practicalities and drive for “fun” dominate the areas associated with requirements engineering. Additionally, game development organizations apply approaches and methods that are comparable to requirements engineering and requirement management, but do not consciously apply common RE practices. [Contribution] This paper extends our understanding of requirements engineering in video game development and contributes to the requirements engineering body of knowledge.