[MUD-Dev] Crunch time

[Amanda Walker]

Hartsman, Scott <shartsman at soe.sony.com> wrote:

> As with Mr. Jennings, I've done my fair share of "real world" work
> in between working on various games over the past fifteen years,
> and can only echo his words regarding mismanagement outside this
> industry.  If anything, the mismanagement I've seen in other,
> larger corporations is much more offensive than anything I've ever
> seen in games, be it from sheer incompetence or, more frequently,
> a lack of caring.

> In the games that I've worked on, crunching more frequently
> happens the way that it does because people do care, and more
> deeply, both about the product and its audience, in a way that
> I've personally never seen in any other industry.

I have found this to be true every time I have worked in a niche
market.

In high school and college, I worked on barcode and automated
identification systems.  Sounds about as dry as petrified Jurassic
era burned toast, doesn't it?  Heck no, it was a lot of fun.  Back
in 1979 it was rapidly evolving technology, where even relatively
simple applications could immediately deliver real, measurable
happiness to customers.  There were some big players (some of whom
are still around), and a bunch of small companies (most of whom are
not), but dang it was fun.  Lots of smart people with fired-up
imaginations figuring out how to do stuff that couldn't be done
before, lots of interesting technical geekery, lots of customers
overjoyed at what they could do.

Then I worked for a large state university for a while.  Great
people, great experience, politics that would suck out your soul.

On to a startup doing Internet software.  This happened to be in
1988, just as the Internet was about to go commercial, well before
the boom ("the inter-what?").  Terminal emulators, file transfer,
email, etc.  Again, it sounds completely uninteresting.  But that
industry, at that time, was the most exciting place I could imagine
being.  Early Interop shows were full of dedicated geeks working
long hours because they believed in the products and the overall
vision.

OK, none of us anticipated spam.  Sorry about that.  But still...

As long as it was a niche, it attracted people (both developers and
customers) dedicated to that niche.

> Give me a staff of "8 to 5" developers in the online games
> industry, and I'll give you a game that, if it ever launches,
> responds entirely too slowly to meet the needs of its community
> and misses untold opportunities for what could be (and often is)
> title-making inspiration.

But that happens with teams of dedicated, crunching geeks, too.
Look at AC2.  Look at AO (though it may be having a comeback).  To
some extent, look at EQ, which is now focussed almost completely on
the high-end game (i.e., on the established customer base).

> Assuming it ever goes live, it only gets better.  Online, the only
> time that matters to the people playing is the span of a single
> session; generally a few brief hours.  Fixing something one minute
> past that means that you "finally" fixed it.  Leave something for
> a week and it's been broken "forever."

That's been true for every product I've ever shipped, from $20
shareware to multimillion dollar telecom systems.

> I'm not going to pretend that I'm an expert on why "the gaming
> industry is such a mess."  Truth be told, I don't know that it is,
> when compared to other industries.

I don't think it is, compared to other industries.  I think it's in
about the same mess as the rest of the technology industry.  Just to
be clear, my whole argument in this series of threads is not that
gaming is different, but precisely that it is not.  When I read game
news updates or patch release notes, it's very clear that the same
dynamics are at work.

>From my point of view, I'm fortunate enough to work on a project >
that I'm fond of in the extreme.  As a team, we set reasonable >
goals, develop plans to accomplish them, and regularly deliver on >
mind-numbingly short development cycles (six months, currently).

That seems about average these days, actually.  Any product that
can't go from concept to ship in 6 months these days will probably
flop.

> I crunched today.  I chose to crunch today, as did well over a
> dozen of my coworkers.

Define "crunch" in this context, though.  "Crunch time" isn't
putting in extra hours to finish up a piece of what you're working
on.  Heck, I do that more days than not.  Persistence is a virtue.
I've startled European customers by responding to bug reports at
2AM.

On the other hand, "OK, folks, clear your calendars, we're going to
be working nights and weekends for the next two months" does, in my
view, throw up the Red Flag Of Bad Planning.  Either the deadline
was infeasible, or the team is understaffed.

Amanda Walker
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