Capability people are the people with the skills to build new things and handle complex, unknown situations in an effective manner. They are the "heavy lifters" that are capable of solving complex problems that don't have text book solutions and don't show up in the policies and procedures manuals.
Manuals which no doubt have a chapter on "how to avoid hiring anyone with capabilities"
Here's a little secret about the BOA project. The core development team is 6 people. Yep, that's right, *six* people to manage a project that allows millions of people to do their banking by phone. Those people are developers; there are three primary guys above them, one dev manager, and two project managers. (Well, one more guy, the VP over that division...)
...and the word "stereotype" started echoing through this article, louder and louder.
[comment mode="sarcasm"]Yes, of course. The lone genius *is* an anachronism, just like shareware, and inventors, and entrepreneurs, and garage developers, and (wait for it) UNIX? [/comment]
When engineers are subject to the "upgrade-discard-upgrade" cycle of the programs they produce, companies will not benefit from their knowledge, because they *choose* not to.
Most of these companies are seeking to assemble the "perfect" development team, where there is no disagreement, and never a missed milestone, and birds chirp and there is a light breeze over the meadow.
They want "team players" which is company-speak for "people who will agree with us even when we are wrong."
They want extremely intelligent, competent, professional people who ALSO have no ideas about the right or wrong way to do anything, who will gladly throw away all their experience to do things the "company" way, and who will not mind having no substantial contribution to the project EXCEPT to work 15-hour days writing code to half of a broken specification, with a big smile.. BIG SMILE!!!!
As a matter of policy, they drive away highly qualifed, extremely intelligent engineers who can do the work of five people when they are at maximum output, and are worth ten times what they are offered as compensation... until they are laid off two months after being hired, of course.
Interesting how one word sets off "alarm bells." Is it really any wonder that so many software engineers are out of work? Only this guy had the "elusive combination," huh?
Hmmm... here's a short list of the losers in this story:
1. The company didn't complete their project
2. The guy that got hired lost his job
3. All the other candidates that applied are still unemployed
4. The customers got a [broken|late] product
..and of course, it's all the employee's fault. I didn't see any of the managers having to explain themselves either. I'll also guess they still have a fully-staffed HR department as well, complete with rows and rows of desks covered with accumulated coffee mugs, houseplants, stuffed animals and framed pictures belonging to people who have been gainfully employed on an uninterrupted basis for years.
I guess the "word search" hiring technique isn't really the best approach. Of course, wanton incompetence never seems to disqualify anyone anymore, only having 99% of the job requirements does.
The frequent use of the "Always Right Manager" buzzwords like "prima donna" were also entertaining.
Prima donnas are sometimes a good thing. Like when it's third and 15 on your own 35 with 40 seconds left in the game, down by six? You're the GM. Who would you rather have, Joe Montana or some guy that plays QB?
"Software engineering has been the last refuge of the non-conformist... but times are changing."
That's right. YOU WILL CONFORM. YOU WILL HAVE NO INDEPENDENT IDEAS. YOU WILL DO AS YOU ARE TOLD.
Sounds like a real winner. I'll pass.
Someone ought to start a company of old "prima donnas" and see if they can out-produce the team players and their management teams. I'll invest.
...is bankruptcy. Games companies are losing money, consoles aren't selling well, pc game sells have been steadily declining, distributors are being bought out, games cost too much to make and rarely make the money back.
..and the industry grosses $17 billion (yes, that's a 'b') a year. Something will give. Right now, everyone wants an eight figure development budget in order to build a game that *perhaps* 50,000 computers can run. That is the problem.
Sorry to sound so down, but its the truth, eveyone's losing money. Your game is going to be late, overbudget, buggy and outdated, or really, really short.:( The ironic thing is that when the tech got better, you could do more, people expected more, and "more" cost more, but game prices stayed the same and sales didn't increase, and everything just fell on itself.
Almost. Everyone wanted more, but "everyone" meant the same market which can account for a maximum of 1-3 million unit sales for one, or perhaps two games per year.
Publishers continue to cling more and more desperately to the clone and sequel business model, which is what is losing money. New ideas are NEVER funded, because they have no track record. Eventually, something new will have to be tried, because it will be the only thing that generates revenue, and that will help other new ideas (and it's about time).
If you want them to hire you to develop games for them, bring several demos of different kind of games your team created. Do not just do PC games - the PC is a minor segment of the overall game business today.
..and the only segment that doesn't require an upfront five-figure investment, in addition to the thousands of man-hours you'll need to invest in order to produce "several" game demos.
You need to make demos for Game Boy and PlayStation as well (NOT Xbox!). It's kind of a chicken-and-egg Catch-22 dilemma - you can't develop games for consoles until you have a contract, and you can't get a contract unless you develop games for consoles - it's not easy but you can find a way.
Don't waste your time. Make a really good PC game and publish it yourself. Forget the Byzantine publisher agreement submission routine. Even if you somehow luck out and manage to get an agreement, you've just signed away all of your value in the product and 85% of the gross.
If you want them to publish your game, you need to finish the game first.
I have a better idea. Walk in with 50,000 unit sales and a pre-written agreement signed off by *your* attorney. If nobody signs it, sell another 50,000 units and retire.
If you're going to invest 30,000 man-hours to develop a game, why would you go sign it over to some other company?
I recommend you bring them several finished games, in different genres and for different hardware formats.
Oh, come on. Do you hear yourself? You're talking about hundreds of thousands of man-hours here. Don't bring them anything. Build the game. Sell it. Use the proceeds to build another. Sell that. Repeat.
The economics of brick and mortar computer game publishing are broken. It isn't possible to make money, because the shelf space is too expensive, the development costs are too high and the market is too small (right now). The publishers will make it your responsibility to solve this problem before they publish your game, and the only way you can solve the problem is to give them a gargantuan percentage of the sales. It is a waste of time.
Do not just bring PC games - the PC is not the #1 gaming platform. And the Xbox is not the #1 console. And also bring several demos of other games you're working on. Maybe nobody will publish your game, but they might hire you to develop a game for them, if they like your work.
Sure. Bring an arcade game while you're at it. Cabinets aren't that expensive. Let's see. $20K for each of three console licenses, 400,000 man-hours to build several completed games, and $10,000 per pitch to each publisher in materials, travel and time. For this investment (several million dollars, in all likelihood), the publisher will *think about* giving you 15%, but you'll probably get turned down.
When you have prepared your finished games and demos, and you have the contact information at the game companies, call and find out who is in charge of receiving submissions (if you are looking for publishing) or who is in charge of hiring developers.
Also known as the "Search for the Appropriate Wastebasket"
At my last job, there was no one person in charge of hiring developers. Each producer was in charge of hiring developers - which means you might need to pitch your services to 10-20 guys at a large publishing company. It might be best to do a mass mailing, followed up by selective visits.
After an unbelievable amount of effort and time invested (while your demo gets more and more dated and no money is coming in), you might have a game that makes back the royalty advance on bargain-bin sales or a $40K/year job testing setup programs.
If you want to make games, just make games. If you want to negotiate publishing deals, get a law degree and a phone headset. Before submitting to a publisher, have a nice large number of unit sales. At the end of the day, there are few cynical publisher responses to solid unit sales. The statement "50,000 units sold in six months" tends to shut the "yeah but" crowd up.
"Thank you for your game submission. Unfortunately at this time your idea does not match our plans for the coming year. We wish you luck in your future endeavors."
...while five more clones and ten sequels are funded the next day.
(Adding to the discussion of how to make Linux better)
RPM is great (unless you're trying to compile version 4), but Linux really really really needs (in addition to Office compatibility, a great browser and a great desktop) a standard setup program that will work on most, if not all, versions.
I'm aware of Debian and apt-get, etc. (and those are great) But there should also be a "double-click setup.exe" process of installing programs on Linux, and a similarly easy way of uninstalling them, with NO ERROR MESSAGES ABOUT MISSING VERSIONS OF SOME OBSCURE 9k LIBRARY FILE OR HAVING VERSION 1.07 OF A PROGRAM WHEN THE NEW PROGRAM WANTS VERSION 1.08!!
ALL required libraries should be included with every setup archive. Period. Sending people (even developers) out on the Internet in search of some library is the fastest way to make using Linux very irritating.
Then, perhaps we could have Installshield for Linux, which would be awesome, especially if it worked with apt and apt-get. ^^
Can you have a fun tech job, without the worry of being suddenly unemployed?
I have a better question. Can you have any job without the virtual certainty of being suddenly unemployed?
Business has traded in stability for incompetence, and is claiming better results.
There are no entry-level jobs, no training, and no accomplishment to be found in the workplace, and therefore it is a poor place to invest any significant effort, and employees know it. "You get your paycheck," the employer says. "Isn't that enough?" No. It isn't.
Outside the workplace, everything depends on commitment and responsibility. The bills are due every single month with 100% certainty. A paycheck is always iffy.
When other commitments are made: family, mortgage, children, college funds, etc., they all depend on decades of responsible, predictable commitment.
Employers, on the other hand, refuse categorically to make any commitment to their employees, despite their ability. Companies with eight-figure a month incomes lay people off BY THE THOUSANDS because of "strategic reasons" while those people are left to spend months and sometimes years rebuilding their careers while they expend massive effort to keep their families housed and fed.
Meanwhile the incompetent, their presence due to their above average aptitude in office politics, and awash in benefits and salary, convene another meeting around a catered lunch to discuss their "strategic paradigm directions." The people who know how to build the products are busy changing careers, if there is any such thing as a career anymore.
If you are you forced (as I am) to get your fun on the side what are some good projects to get involved in?
Start a company where competent engineers can build something without having to explain it to incompetent people every 10 minutes.
What do you to unwind and have a bit of 'fun' in the workplace?"
I'd like to complete a project. That would be fun for a change.
Spending seven hours trying again and again to get RPM 4.0 to compile (for example) is not.
Sometimes it would be nice to just be able to type "install" and have it work, right now, instead of spending hours rewriting makefiles and searching for obscure 9K libraries that are NEVER included with programs that are useless without them.
VRML remains limited by the fact there is no reliable complete set of tools available. A developer cannot author, debug and present VRML across a complete set of standards-compliant applications (authoring system, graphics accelerators/drivers, browser).
I've always been very intrigued by VRML, and I tried to work with it on several occasions, but it just flat doesn't work, because there is always some major technological problem with either the authoring system or the browser.
It is very likely your supervisor will pick "highway" even if you're very good,
Of course. There's no such thing as listening to the experts. The manager is in charge, and therefore right. They would much rather spend $50,000 to replace a "very good" developer then let people do their job.
That the very concept of "debating" better quality is the basis for any uncertainty answers the question.
Flagrant disregard for quality and craftsmanship is the order of the day in way too many companies, and it is 100% the responsibility of management. It's about the number of features on the new phone system, what's on the lunch meeting menu and the huge walnut logo in the reception area, not the product.
Quality should be the first priority in development. Period.
The old saw about "The world beating a path to your door if you have a better mouse trap" is pure hokum.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The message right before this one was about being cold-called with an offer of $5 million based on a press release.
It is impossible (read it again) impossible to replace quality with marketing. In the short term (read: one quarter for a stock price bump) it might work. In the long term, a competitor with a quality product will eventually take over the market.
Word of mouth advertising is still the best kind of advertising, and it's free, if the company has a quality product.
the videogame industry hasn't had a wake up call (I apologise if I offend anyone when I say this) and that the Sony Playstation has done something to this industry that Nintendo is trying to prevent from happening - and that (Playstation) is preventing developers from making new and original games and stopping them from making new ideas - instead they just release game after game after game which don't have any different gameplay in them
The Playstation isn't the problem, and this Zelda game isn't either. (I'll admit, I'm not familiar with the Zelda games at all) The industry hasn't had a wake-up call because the people who buy these games aren't demanding better. They continue to pay exorbitant retail prices for remakes, sequels and clones of games that were original ideas years ago.
Aren't these usually the same people that insist that a 1500-page business plan be produced to support even the slightest use of capital, along with projected revenue and charts, graphs, an easel, a catered lunch and a business card?
"we have *no idea* whether people want the product or not..."
Its too bad that Loki is having so much trouble. There are a few possibilities, however.
More bundling might be a good idea. I noticed the Civilization Call To Power that was available in one of the Linux distributions. Perhaps similar deals could be made with Red Hat, Mandrake, etc. More demos of the games would be cool too.
Anything that can reduce the cost to port the games would help a lot as well. Adding the cost of licensing, porting, packaging and distribution, its got to be close to developing the game themselves.
Do they actually pay to purchase the rights to port the game? That seems very strange. Does anyone have any insight on this?
I'm certain they have to pay a licensing fee, since Activision probably owns all the rights to the game being ported.
Its no different than regular game development, except that the development costs are replaced by licensing fees and a smaller development budget for porting. Then (if I'm not mistaken) they still have to pay to get the game distributed, etc. Retailing a game is very expensive.
... and they're cheap-as-dirt to create. Why spend $5 million for game development, when for $200,000 you can create a cheesey game that has 10x the number of sales???
Hear hear!!!!!! ^^ I wouldn't necessarily say that $200,000 automatically buys a cheesy game, but this would be a step in the right direction.
Fix the economics first, then the game market will do much better.
I agree about the console market too. Console games are less expensive to build and more reliable, therefore more profitable.
The game industry needs to stop this "one more $10 million engine and we'll finally be like Hollywood" business model and start concentrating on gameplay.
Just my $0.02
Re:Info from Dyanmix Employee Pending:
on
Dynamix Closed Down?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Can't stay in the league unless you win the Super Bowl every year, huh?
Pretty soon there won't be any room for new ideas at all. Its really too bad.
Slashdot Mirror
Capability people are the people with the skills to build new things and handle complex, unknown situations in an effective manner. They are the "heavy lifters" that are capable of solving complex problems that don't have text book solutions and don't show up in the policies and procedures manuals.
Manuals which no doubt have a chapter on "how to avoid hiring anyone with capabilities"
Six developers, four managers.
Wow, no wonder it costs $12 to cash a check.
...and the word "stereotype" started echoing through this article, louder and louder.
[comment mode="sarcasm"]Yes, of course. The lone genius *is* an anachronism, just like shareware, and inventors, and entrepreneurs, and garage developers, and (wait for it) UNIX? [/comment]
When engineers are subject to the "upgrade-discard-upgrade" cycle of the programs they produce, companies will not benefit from their knowledge, because they *choose* not to.
Most of these companies are seeking to assemble the "perfect" development team, where there is no disagreement, and never a missed milestone, and birds chirp and there is a light breeze over the meadow.
They want "team players" which is company-speak for "people who will agree with us even when we are wrong."
They want extremely intelligent, competent, professional people who ALSO have no ideas about the right or wrong way to do anything, who will gladly throw away all their experience to do things the "company" way, and who will not mind having no substantial contribution to the project EXCEPT to work 15-hour days writing code to half of a broken specification, with a big smile.. BIG SMILE!!!!
As a matter of policy, they drive away highly qualifed, extremely intelligent engineers who can do the work of five people when they are at maximum output, and are worth ten times what they are offered as compensation... until they are laid off two months after being hired, of course.
Interesting how one word sets off "alarm bells." Is it really any wonder that so many software engineers are out of work? Only this guy had the "elusive combination," huh?
Hmmm... here's a short list of the losers in this story:
1. The company didn't complete their project
2. The guy that got hired lost his job
3. All the other candidates that applied are still unemployed
4. The customers got a [broken|late] product
..and of course, it's all the employee's fault. I didn't see any of the managers having to explain themselves either. I'll also guess they still have a fully-staffed HR department as well, complete with rows and rows of desks covered with accumulated coffee mugs, houseplants, stuffed animals and framed pictures belonging to people who have been gainfully employed on an uninterrupted basis for years.
I guess the "word search" hiring technique isn't really the best approach. Of course, wanton incompetence never seems to disqualify anyone anymore, only having 99% of the job requirements does.
The frequent use of the "Always Right Manager" buzzwords like "prima donna" were also entertaining.
Prima donnas are sometimes a good thing. Like when it's third and 15 on your own 35 with 40 seconds left in the game, down by six? You're the GM. Who would you rather have, Joe Montana or some guy that plays QB?
"Software engineering has been the last refuge of the non-conformist... but times are changing."
That's right. YOU WILL CONFORM. YOU WILL HAVE NO INDEPENDENT IDEAS. YOU WILL DO AS YOU ARE TOLD.
Sounds like a real winner. I'll pass.
Someone ought to start a company of old "prima donnas" and see if they can out-produce the team players and their management teams. I'll invest.
...is bankruptcy. Games companies are losing money, consoles aren't selling well, pc game sells have been steadily declining, distributors are being bought out, games cost too much to make and rarely make the money back.
:( The ironic thing is that when the tech got better, you could do more, people expected more, and "more" cost more, but game prices stayed the same and sales didn't increase, and everything just fell on itself.
..and the industry grosses $17 billion (yes, that's a 'b') a year. Something will give. Right now, everyone wants an eight figure development budget in order to build a game that *perhaps* 50,000 computers can run. That is the problem.
Sorry to sound so down, but its the truth, eveyone's losing money. Your game is going to be late, overbudget, buggy and outdated, or really, really short.
Almost. Everyone wanted more, but "everyone" meant the same market which can account for a maximum of 1-3 million unit sales for one, or perhaps two games per year.
Publishers continue to cling more and more desperately to the clone and sequel business model, which is what is losing money. New ideas are NEVER funded, because they have no track record. Eventually, something new will have to be tried, because it will be the only thing that generates revenue, and that will help other new ideas (and it's about time).
Before approaching publishers, be fully prepared.
..to be turned down. Don't waste your time.
If you want them to hire you to develop games for them, bring several demos of different kind of games your team created. Do not just do PC games - the PC is a minor segment of the overall game business today.
..and the only segment that doesn't require an upfront five-figure investment, in addition to the thousands of man-hours you'll need to invest in order to produce "several" game demos.
You need to make demos for Game Boy and PlayStation as well (NOT Xbox!). It's kind of a chicken-and-egg Catch-22 dilemma - you can't develop games for consoles until you have a contract, and you can't get a contract unless you develop games for consoles - it's not easy but you can find a way.
Don't waste your time. Make a really good PC game and publish it yourself. Forget the Byzantine publisher agreement submission routine. Even if you somehow luck out and manage to get an agreement, you've just signed away all of your value in the product and 85% of the gross.
If you want them to publish your game, you need to finish the game first.
I have a better idea. Walk in with 50,000 unit sales and a pre-written agreement signed off by *your* attorney. If nobody signs it, sell another 50,000 units and retire.
If you're going to invest 30,000 man-hours to develop a game, why would you go sign it over to some other company?
I recommend you bring them several finished games, in different genres and for different hardware formats.
Oh, come on. Do you hear yourself? You're talking about hundreds of thousands of man-hours here. Don't bring them anything. Build the game. Sell it. Use the proceeds to build another. Sell that. Repeat.
The economics of brick and mortar computer game publishing are broken. It isn't possible to make money, because the shelf space is too expensive, the development costs are too high and the market is too small (right now). The publishers will make it your responsibility to solve this problem before they publish your game, and the only way you can solve the problem is to give them a gargantuan percentage of the sales. It is a waste of time.
Do not just bring PC games - the PC is not the #1 gaming platform. And the Xbox is not the #1 console. And also bring several demos of other games you're working on. Maybe nobody will publish your game, but they might hire you to develop a game for them, if they like your work.
Sure. Bring an arcade game while you're at it. Cabinets aren't that expensive. Let's see. $20K for each of three console licenses, 400,000 man-hours to build several completed games, and $10,000 per pitch to each publisher in materials, travel and time. For this investment (several million dollars, in all likelihood), the publisher will *think about* giving you 15%, but you'll probably get turned down.
When you have prepared your finished games and demos, and you have the contact information at the game companies, call and find out who is in charge of receiving submissions (if you are looking for publishing) or who is in charge of hiring developers.
Also known as the "Search for the Appropriate Wastebasket"
At my last job, there was no one person in charge of hiring developers. Each producer was in charge of hiring developers - which means you might need to pitch your services to 10-20 guys at a large publishing company. It might be best to do a mass mailing, followed up by selective visits.
After an unbelievable amount of effort and time invested (while your demo gets more and more dated and no money is coming in), you might have a game that makes back the royalty advance on bargain-bin sales or a $40K/year job testing setup programs.
If you want to make games, just make games. If you want to negotiate publishing deals, get a law degree and a phone headset. Before submitting to a publisher, have a nice large number of unit sales. At the end of the day, there are few cynical publisher responses to solid unit sales. The statement "50,000 units sold in six months" tends to shut the "yeah but" crowd up.
As always, YMMV.
blah blah blah demographic blah blah blah unit sales blah blah blah track record blah blah blah genre blah blah no upside blah blah blah console blah blah blah graphics blah blah frame rate blah blah blah video card blah blah blah...
"Thank you for your game submission. Unfortunately at this time your idea does not match our plans for the coming year. We wish you luck in your future endeavors."
...while five more clones and ten sequels are funded the next day.
(Adding to the discussion of how to make Linux better)
RPM is great (unless you're trying to compile version 4), but Linux really really really needs (in addition to Office compatibility, a great browser and a great desktop) a standard setup program that will work on most, if not all, versions.
I'm aware of Debian and apt-get, etc. (and those are great) But there should also be a "double-click setup.exe" process of installing programs on Linux, and a similarly easy way of uninstalling them, with NO ERROR MESSAGES ABOUT MISSING VERSIONS OF SOME OBSCURE 9k LIBRARY FILE OR HAVING VERSION 1.07 OF A PROGRAM WHEN THE NEW PROGRAM WANTS VERSION 1.08!!
ALL required libraries should be included with every setup archive. Period. Sending people (even developers) out on the Internet in search of some library is the fastest way to make using Linux very irritating.
Then, perhaps we could have Installshield for Linux, which would be awesome, especially if it worked with apt and apt-get. ^^
Just another $0.02
A year from now, when they want to have a 64-bit UNIX product, it will cost a LOT of money to hire 100 senior UNIX developers again.
More importantly - can you have a job without the worry of being suddenly unemployed?
Thank you! THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!!!
Jordan fades back... SWISH!!
AND THAT'S THE GAME!!
Lots of people have an attitude that they go to college and "deserve" something.
Yeah. Like being called "Doctor" after earning an M.D. or a PhD. Like being instantly qualified to be an attorney, or a mechanical engineer.
..and yes, being qualified to work in a field closely related to the major.
I would venture that the average college student does 10x the work of the average employee.
And of course you're going to get jumped for posting it; there are enough brainwashed-by-corporation fellows lurking...
...all employed, of course...
Can you have a fun tech job, without the worry of being suddenly unemployed?
I have a better question. Can you have any job without the virtual certainty of being suddenly unemployed?
Business has traded in stability for incompetence, and is claiming better results.
There are no entry-level jobs, no training, and no accomplishment to be found in the workplace, and therefore it is a poor place to invest any significant effort, and employees know it. "You get your paycheck," the employer says. "Isn't that enough?" No. It isn't.
Outside the workplace, everything depends on commitment and responsibility. The bills are due every single month with 100% certainty. A paycheck is always iffy.
When other commitments are made: family, mortgage, children, college funds, etc., they all depend on decades of responsible, predictable commitment.
Employers, on the other hand, refuse categorically to make any commitment to their employees, despite their ability. Companies with eight-figure a month incomes lay people off BY THE THOUSANDS because of "strategic reasons" while those people are left to spend months and sometimes years rebuilding their careers while they expend massive effort to keep their families housed and fed.
Meanwhile the incompetent, their presence due to their above average aptitude in office politics, and awash in benefits and salary, convene another meeting around a catered lunch to discuss their "strategic paradigm directions." The people who know how to build the products are busy changing careers, if there is any such thing as a career anymore.
If you are you forced (as I am) to get your fun on the side what are some good projects to get involved in?
Start a company where competent engineers can build something without having to explain it to incompetent people every 10 minutes.
What do you to unwind and have a bit of 'fun' in the workplace?"
I'd like to complete a project. That would be fun for a change.
...only to find out after seven hours of recompiling that RPM 4.0 doesn't work anyway...
Linux is great.
Spending seven hours trying again and again to get RPM 4.0 to compile (for example) is not.
Sometimes it would be nice to just be able to type "install" and have it work, right now, instead of spending hours rewriting makefiles and searching for obscure 9K libraries that are NEVER included with programs that are useless without them.
Just a thought.
VRML remains limited by the fact there is no reliable complete set of tools available. A developer cannot author, debug and present VRML across a complete set of standards-compliant applications (authoring system, graphics accelerators/drivers, browser).
I've always been very intrigued by VRML, and I tried to work with it on several occasions, but it just flat doesn't work, because there is always some major technological problem with either the authoring system or the browser.
Just another $0.02 ^^
It is very likely your supervisor will pick "highway" even if you're very good,
Of course. There's no such thing as listening to the experts. The manager is in charge, and therefore right. They would much rather spend $50,000 to replace a "very good" developer then let people do their job.
That the very concept of "debating" better quality is the basis for any uncertainty answers the question.
Flagrant disregard for quality and craftsmanship is the order of the day in way too many companies, and it is 100% the responsibility of management. It's about the number of features on the new phone system, what's on the lunch meeting menu and the huge walnut logo in the reception area, not the product.
Quality should be the first priority in development. Period.
Yeah, the great job mobility which translates to "start over every six months."
I'll vote for a different business cycle. Tough to qualify for a mortgage (HA! right...) when you're between jobs three months out of every nine.
It's also mind-bogglingly expensive for companies to replace their staff every 18 months.
(Notice how everything is measured in months now? Remember long-term planning? Or is that part of the old economy?)
The old saw about "The world beating a path to your door if you have a better mouse trap" is pure hokum.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The message right before this one was about being cold-called with an offer of $5 million based on a press release.
It is impossible (read it again) impossible to replace quality with marketing. In the short term (read: one quarter for a stock price bump) it might work. In the long term, a competitor with a quality product will eventually take over the market.
Word of mouth advertising is still the best kind of advertising, and it's free, if the company has a quality product.
As always, YMMV
the videogame industry hasn't had a wake up call (I apologise if I offend anyone when I say this) and that the Sony Playstation has done something to this industry that Nintendo is trying to prevent from happening - and that (Playstation) is preventing developers from making new and original games and stopping them from making new ideas - instead they just release game after game after game which don't have any different gameplay in them
The Playstation isn't the problem, and this Zelda game isn't either. (I'll admit, I'm not familiar with the Zelda games at all) The industry hasn't had a wake-up call because the people who buy these games aren't demanding better. They continue to pay exorbitant retail prices for remakes, sequels and clones of games that were original ideas years ago.
Aren't these usually the same people that insist that a 1500-page business plan be produced to support even the slightest use of capital, along with projected revenue and charts, graphs, an easel, a catered lunch and a business card?
"we have *no idea* whether people want the product or not..."
huh??
Its too bad that Loki is having so much trouble. There are a few possibilities, however.
More bundling might be a good idea. I noticed the Civilization Call To Power that was available in one of the Linux distributions. Perhaps similar deals could be made with Red Hat, Mandrake, etc. More demos of the games would be cool too.
Anything that can reduce the cost to port the games would help a lot as well. Adding the cost of licensing, porting, packaging and distribution, its got to be close to developing the game themselves.
Just a few thoughts.
Do they actually pay to purchase the rights to port the game? That seems very strange. Does anyone have any insight on this?
I'm certain they have to pay a licensing fee, since Activision probably owns all the rights to the game being ported.
Its no different than regular game development, except that the development costs are replaced by licensing fees and a smaller development budget for porting. Then (if I'm not mistaken) they still have to pay to get the game distributed, etc. Retailing a game is very expensive.
Hear hear!!!!!! ^^ I wouldn't necessarily say that $200,000 automatically buys a cheesy game, but this would be a step in the right direction.
Fix the economics first, then the game market will do much better.
I agree about the console market too. Console games are less expensive to build and more reliable, therefore more profitable.
The game industry needs to stop this "one more $10 million engine and we'll finally be like Hollywood" business model and start concentrating on gameplay.
Just my $0.02Can't stay in the league unless you win the Super Bowl every year, huh?
Pretty soon there won't be any room for new ideas at all. Its really too bad.