[MUD-Dev] Crunch time

[Scott Jennings]

On Wed, 30 Jul 2003 09:13:00 -0400
Yannick Jean <Yannick.Jean at meq.gouv.qc.ca> wrote:

> The main reasons why the gaming industry is such a mess when it
> comes to managing large project is that it's still employing
> mostly geeks, in both high or low positions. Geeks, great as they
> are for working days and night for your project, are notoriously
> atrocious at planning and keeping tight schedule. Give me a
> ruthless, cold-blooded, project manager and a full staff of "8 to
> 5" workers who got a life and a family at home and I'll give you
> MMORPG on time, on budget and with a stable codebase.

As someone who worked in the "real world" prior to the gaming
industry, I can testify that this is 100% untrue. The last project I
worked on at my previous employer turned into a death march after
two rounds of layoffs left the survivors with double and triple
workload. Said ruthless, cold-blooded project managers had no
problem whatsoever with happily plugging into their Gantt charts 80
and 100 hour week expectations for every "resource". When I finally
was tapped on the shoulder for the third layoff round I was just
relieved to not have "survived" and take yet more on.

I've gone through a few "crunch times" since, and the level of
pressure doesn't even compare. A large part of it is that, at least
in my experience, gaming industry workers feel a great deal more
ownership with what they do.  Not only are games inherently more of
a creative endeavour (at least ideally), but performance bonuses and
profit sharing act as good carrots.

Plus, sucessful game companies tend to have good project managers
anyway, who just happen to be geeks. Unsuccessful companies don't
have crunch time, they have "When it's done" project schedules that
tend to stretch into years.

---
Scott Jennings
Programmer
Mythic Entertainment
http://www.camelotherald.com/
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev