> That is: 'Something breaks, call the repair guy.'
If someone's computer breaks, they usually end up calling me because I'm the "computer expert" who knows more than the store techs, and I work on the barter system. I'm talking neighbors, parents, cousins.
Is that how it usually works anyway? Something breaks and they call the local computer geek in the neighborhood who'll fix it as long as a steady supply of Dr. Pepper is on hand?
It worked with the PS2 in getting DVD sales pumped up in Japan and was a neat feature in the US... BUT...
That only worked with an open format. Yes, it will get penetration into the marketplace, but without full content from the other movie studios (who happen to be backing the HD-DVD format) it's destined to fail. If 20% of the movies are on BluRay and the other 80% are on HD-DVD, I'm going with content everytime, even if the other format is better.
Sony needs to back up the hardware with movies and content. Lots of it and fast, otherwise their format is dead dead dead.
If it was monotone before, and it'll be monotone without SAG... then exactly what do they bring to the table? Oh, yes large salaries. At least that money will be better spent elsewhere. (Yeah, right.)
That being said, Sony has been on the losing end of the format wars when trying to extend their formats. One must only visit the Sony Home for Abandoned Formats to see Betamax, MiniDisc and soon to come MemoryStick, UMD, and sadly BluRay. These technologies ensure that Sony prices itself out of the market and hampers future sales.
Best Buy Exec: We like the look of your product. EA Exec: We plan to have 500,000 units ready for your store by Oct 25th. Best Buy Exec: Could you help us with the design of the end caps? EA Exec: We'll even do the art for in-store banners if you'd like. Best Buy Exec: Excellent! Oh, could I have some more of those crackers with the spicy cheese dip?
Thrills! Chills! Excitement! It's the inside look at E3!
The physical dimensions are different, but the wavelength is the same as used for a DVD. Therefore, it's *technically* possible to cut a DVD-R down to size to fit the same shape as a UMD. Then you'd have to have the shell to fit it into, etc.
Making a burnable UMD could (and I stress could) be as easy as making a snap-on adapter to make the cut to size UMD-DVD-R, the same size as a mini-DVD and making sure that your burning software is aware of the media limitations.
At that point, why don't you just get a portable DVD player which can play movies from *any* movie studio? Let's face it... no one is going to watch movies on their PSP unless it's pr0n. Then all that's going to lead to is sticky buttons.
Last time I checked, you *do* see artists moving from title to title. Add to the list, programmers and designers. The game industry is one of the most unstable work environments you can be in.
For the time being at least, seniority would be a good thing. So many people leave the industry because of burn out, there's little mentoring or experience to draw from. The industry is heavily relying on new recruits from college who are cheap, but make mistakes and have little experience in any field.
Good to know there's a few points of light out there in the vast wasteland of Dark Matter. Quality breeds loyalty which brings sales which brings profit.
A lawyer? How does that qualify for a "large scale project manager"? Did he manage the OJ Simpson case? Was he a corporate lawyer? I'm sure he's a great guy, but what large scale project has he managed? Outside of corporate law, it's all about billing hours and not about managing costs. Practicing law and producing a video game are very different.
While I might unfairly lump "developers" into one catagory, the fact remains that the game industry tends to eat its young. We hire kids straight out of college or art school because they are naive and cheap. Take an informal poll around the office. The demographics back my assertion up. There will be a high percentage of people who are in their twenties who have held only a few jobs outside of the industry. There precious few that have learned best practices outside of the game industry, which means they pick up the crappy ones that are currently in use.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not attacking the people in the industry, but the practices that we continually use that have always failed.
I just read the Burn the House Down article. It brought a tear to my eye. I follow Spector and Rocca closely and I email Costikyan everyonce in a while. We all pretty much think that the development and distribution is broken.
I've contributed to two books about the subject. The first book I talked about implementing a total quality assurance system to the game industry that's been in use for decades in the auto industry. The second book was built around ways to prevent bug defects which include eliminating the counter-productiveness of 80 hour work weeks.
The game industry is totally insane. There's no way I'd ever go back unless I could have total control over quality, which means we don't ship until QA has final sign-off. (Yeah, I'm going to get a smartass reply saying "That'll never happen then" but I've got a system and it works.)
I know work in the health/medical field and deal directly with the Food & Drug Administration. The quality controls I deal with put anything in gaming to shame. Why the gaming industry doesn't use established practices in other industries is a mystery.
Well, actually it isn't. The problem is that managers have really never truly managed a large scale project outside of the industry and the developers and artists have never worked anything other than games. Gaming is too insulated and is becoming inbred. This practice is slowly making an army of retarded game developers who will shortly implode.
That's what management would think. Reality is that the time lost on the projects would push almost everything six months. That means no Christmas product. They would have to find a developer willing to "scab out" and complete the work, one that has the time to do it, and EA would have to pay extra to farm it out.
All that accomplishes the following: 1) Absolutely kills their bottom line for the year with additional costs and no income, which causes: 2) stock price to plummet, and 3) opens the market space to competing product lines. Buh-bye Madden and hello 2K Sports!
It could also play out that if workers at EA unionize, then it could spread to other development houses. They could refuse to take on the project for solidarity.
EA sure is being a dick about this. Personally, I'd take overtime because that would pay you more than any bonus ever would. That is, *if* you get a bonus. Chances are that your game could tank and there wouldn't be anything.
If this is all EA is going to give their workers, the employees should seriously unionize and get some *real* concessions from management. EA could not and would not survive a strike. The employees have the power if they'd only take advantage of it.
> I think the writing award for HL2 was entirely deserved.
> Yes the Mossman betrayal was foreseeable from the E3 demo more than a year before the game was even released. Yes there were lots of tired dialogue and plot chunks.
By your own statements, HL2 shouldn't have won. Dialogue and plot are key elements to writing. I think too many people were suckered in by the glossy companion book. Frankly, if you need an additional book to explain what should have been in the game in the first place, you don't deserve to be called a writer.
The King of Cosmos made more sense than Half-Life 2.
Amen brother. Actually, FDL (in the article) has been my editor for two books now and we've covered this very topic before. Every quality assurance textbook screams that productivity dramatically decreases after 10 hours to the point that it costs more to correct the mistakes they make than what you gain from making them slave away.
I miss the game industry, but I wouldn't ever go back to it until I found a company that didn't force the 80 hour workweeks. I've only found one company (Gearbox) that seems to get it. They normally work a three-day week and when crunch time hits, they move to a five-day workweek. They were still able to get their title out on time and they were able to keep their employees sane.
The solution to working conditions is obvious, it's just that few are willing to take that bold step of saying "Stop the madness!" and cutting back hours.
Curious to see if there are any reviews available of the concert by a person who has never played a Final Fantasy game. Those that have played a few games of the series will be predisposed to like the concerts. I'd love to read some reviews by a reviewer who is more objective.
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> That is: 'Something breaks, call the repair guy.'
If someone's computer breaks, they usually end up calling me because I'm the "computer expert" who knows more than the store techs, and I work on the barter system. I'm talking neighbors, parents, cousins.
Is that how it usually works anyway? Something breaks and they call the local computer geek in the neighborhood who'll fix it as long as a steady supply of Dr. Pepper is on hand?
It worked with the PS2 in getting DVD sales pumped up in Japan and was a neat feature in the US... BUT...
That only worked with an open format. Yes, it will get penetration into the marketplace, but without full content from the other movie studios (who happen to be backing the HD-DVD format) it's destined to fail. If 20% of the movies are on BluRay and the other 80% are on HD-DVD, I'm going with content everytime, even if the other format is better.
Sony needs to back up the hardware with movies and content. Lots of it and fast, otherwise their format is dead dead dead.
If it was monotone before, and it'll be monotone without SAG... then exactly what do they bring to the table? Oh, yes large salaries. At least that money will be better spent elsewhere. (Yeah, right.)
Considering that Google closed at $287.84, I'd say the market has been very good to Google.
the kind of dominant player like MS just doesn't happen any more.
Tell that to Google.
That being said, Sony has been on the losing end of the format wars when trying to extend their formats. One must only visit the Sony Home for Abandoned Formats to see Betamax, MiniDisc and soon to come MemoryStick, UMD, and sadly BluRay. These technologies ensure that Sony prices itself out of the market and hampers future sales.
Writer:
Think of the idea first and call it "Little Shop of Horrors". Rake in the cash from the Broadway and movie rights.
I'll stick to what I learned in Kindergarten: Boys have penises and girls have vaginas. It's always worked for me.
were the apex of RPG console gaming.
Corrected. The PC RPG genre continues to get better with the best yet to come.
Ooo... can't wait for the inside look at E3!
Best Buy Exec: We like the look of your product.
EA Exec: We plan to have 500,000 units ready for your store by Oct 25th.
Best Buy Exec: Could you help us with the design of the end caps?
EA Exec: We'll even do the art for in-store banners if you'd like.
Best Buy Exec: Excellent! Oh, could I have some more of those crackers with the spicy cheese dip?
Thrills! Chills! Excitement! It's the inside look at E3!
The physical dimensions are different, but the wavelength is the same as used for a DVD. Therefore, it's *technically* possible to cut a DVD-R down to size to fit the same shape as a UMD. Then you'd have to have the shell to fit it into, etc.
Making a burnable UMD could (and I stress could) be as easy as making a snap-on adapter to make the cut to size UMD-DVD-R, the same size as a mini-DVD and making sure that your burning software is aware of the media limitations.
At that point, why don't you just get a portable DVD player which can play movies from *any* movie studio? Let's face it... no one is going to watch movies on their PSP unless it's pr0n. Then all that's going to lead to is sticky buttons.
If you actually saw this aural trip, your powers of perception obviously far exceed mine.
Unless your cable company is Comcast, which will put you back right where you started.
Last time I checked, you *do* see artists moving from title to title. Add to the list, programmers and designers. The game industry is one of the most unstable work environments you can be in.
For the time being at least, seniority would be a good thing. So many people leave the industry because of burn out, there's little mentoring or experience to draw from. The industry is heavily relying on new recruits from college who are cheap, but make mistakes and have little experience in any field.
Good to know there's a few points of light out there in the vast wasteland of Dark Matter. Quality breeds loyalty which brings sales which brings profit.
A lawyer? How does that qualify for a "large scale project manager"? Did he manage the OJ Simpson case? Was he a corporate lawyer? I'm sure he's a great guy, but what large scale project has he managed? Outside of corporate law, it's all about billing hours and not about managing costs. Practicing law and producing a video game are very different.
While I might unfairly lump "developers" into one catagory, the fact remains that the game industry tends to eat its young. We hire kids straight out of college or art school because they are naive and cheap. Take an informal poll around the office. The demographics back my assertion up. There will be a high percentage of people who are in their twenties who have held only a few jobs outside of the industry. There precious few that have learned best practices outside of the game industry, which means they pick up the crappy ones that are currently in use.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not attacking the people in the industry, but the practices that we continually use that have always failed.
I just read the Burn the House Down article. It brought a tear to my eye. I follow Spector and Rocca closely and I email Costikyan everyonce in a while. We all pretty much think that the development and distribution is broken.
I've contributed to two books about the subject. The first book I talked about implementing a total quality assurance system to the game industry that's been in use for decades in the auto industry. The second book was built around ways to prevent bug defects which include eliminating the counter-productiveness of 80 hour work weeks.
The game industry is totally insane. There's no way I'd ever go back unless I could have total control over quality, which means we don't ship until QA has final sign-off. (Yeah, I'm going to get a smartass reply saying "That'll never happen then" but I've got a system and it works.)
I know work in the health/medical field and deal directly with the Food & Drug Administration. The quality controls I deal with put anything in gaming to shame. Why the gaming industry doesn't use established practices in other industries is a mystery.
Well, actually it isn't. The problem is that managers have really never truly managed a large scale project outside of the industry and the developers and artists have never worked anything other than games. Gaming is too insulated and is becoming inbred. This practice is slowly making an army of retarded game developers who will shortly implode.
That's what management would think. Reality is that the time lost on the projects would push almost everything six months. That means no Christmas product. They would have to find a developer willing to "scab out" and complete the work, one that has the time to do it, and EA would have to pay extra to farm it out.
All that accomplishes the following: 1) Absolutely kills their bottom line for the year with additional costs and no income, which causes: 2) stock price to plummet, and 3) opens the market space to competing product lines. Buh-bye Madden and hello 2K Sports!
It could also play out that if workers at EA unionize, then it could spread to other development houses. They could refuse to take on the project for solidarity.
EA sure is being a dick about this. Personally, I'd take overtime because that would pay you more than any bonus ever would. That is, *if* you get a bonus. Chances are that your game could tank and there wouldn't be anything.
If this is all EA is going to give their workers, the employees should seriously unionize and get some *real* concessions from management. EA could not and would not survive a strike. The employees have the power if they'd only take advantage of it.
> I think the writing award for HL2 was entirely deserved.
> Yes the Mossman betrayal was foreseeable from the E3 demo more than a year before the game was even released. Yes there were lots of tired dialogue and plot chunks.
By your own statements, HL2 shouldn't have won. Dialogue and plot are key elements to writing. I think too many people were suckered in by the glossy companion book. Frankly, if you need an additional book to explain what should have been in the game in the first place, you don't deserve to be called a writer.
The King of Cosmos made more sense than Half-Life 2.
Amen brother. Actually, FDL (in the article) has been my editor for two books now and we've covered this very topic before. Every quality assurance textbook screams that productivity dramatically decreases after 10 hours to the point that it costs more to correct the mistakes they make than what you gain from making them slave away.
I miss the game industry, but I wouldn't ever go back to it until I found a company that didn't force the 80 hour workweeks. I've only found one company (Gearbox) that seems to get it. They normally work a three-day week and when crunch time hits, they move to a five-day workweek. They were still able to get their title out on time and they were able to keep their employees sane.
The solution to working conditions is obvious, it's just that few are willing to take that bold step of saying "Stop the madness!" and cutting back hours.
I eagerly await the "Plot" and "Story" expansion packs for Half-Life 2.
Curious to see if there are any reviews available of the concert by a person who has never played a Final Fantasy game. Those that have played a few games of the series will be predisposed to like the concerts. I'd love to read some reviews by a reviewer who is more objective.