On November 12 2025 03:45 ChillFlame wrote: Also, I forgot to mention, they used the wrong materials for the lighting purposes. It's more like plastic or rubber than skin. But that's a game-wide problem.
It's like someone was told that every RTS fan's dream is to make it look like they're playing with a bunch of toy soldiers. Which is like, maybe? But not the cheap ones!
On November 12 2025 03:45 ChillFlame wrote: Also, I forgot to mention, they used the wrong materials for the lighting purposes. It's more like plastic or rubber than skin. But that's a game-wide problem.
It's like someone was told that every RTS fan's dream is to make it look like they're playing with a bunch of toy soldiers. Which is like, maybe? But not the cheap ones!
As a certified grown man who likes to play overpriced toy soliders with other grown men, I can tell, we try to make them not to look cheap.
On November 12 2025 03:45 ChillFlame wrote: Also, I forgot to mention, they used the wrong materials for the lighting purposes. It's more like plastic or rubber than skin. But that's a game-wide problem.
It's like someone was told that every RTS fan's dream is to make it look like they're playing with a bunch of toy soldiers. Which is like, maybe? But not the cheap ones!
As a certified grown man who likes to play overpriced toy soliders with other grown men, I can tell, we try to make them not to look cheap.
On November 11 2025 23:15 ChillFlame wrote: Not to mention this is a "AAA" companies' psyop to justify their inefficiency and price increases, but people repeat it like parrots without thinking.
I mean, you gotta pay dozens of managers somehow, and the e-sports coordinators years before your game is even released etc.
When I was still working at a big corp last year I had the feeling that for every developer there were like 3-5 different managers who just loved to talk about processes, pipelines and schedule meetings to decide when another meeting is going to take place etc. Gotta get all of those SLAs and OKRs in check, so that we can work towards some MVP for a vague feature that we'll probably never finish...
In the end, everyone was confused and just tried to look busy while no actual work that matters was being done. Example: Feature that could be done by 2-3 devs within 2-3 weeks. Corp assigns 15 devs and some managers, 6 months later there's not even a beta of the feature in sight.
Agile in theory: You divide the work into smaller chunks so you can iterate over them quickly and adapt to changes. Agile in practice: All work is constantly being changed, goalposts being shifted and nothing is ever "done".
On November 11 2025 23:15 ChillFlame wrote: Not to mention this is a "AAA" companies' psyop to justify their inefficiency and price increases, but people repeat it like parrots without thinking.
I mean, you gotta pay dozens of managers somehow, and the e-sports coordinators years before your game is even released etc.
When I was still working at a big corp last year I had the feeling that for every developer there were like 3-5 different managers who just loved to talk about processes, pipelines and schedule meetings to decide when another meeting is going to take place etc. Gotta get all of those SLAs and OKRs in check, so that we can work towards some MVP for a vague feature that we'll probably never finish...
In the end, everyone was confused and just tried to look busy while no actual work that matters was being done. Example: Feature that could be done by 2-3 devs within 2-3 weeks. Corp assigns 15 devs and some managers, 6 months later there's not even a beta of the feature in sight.
Agile in theory: You divide the work into smaller chunks so you can iterate over them quickly and adapt to changes. Agile in practice: All work is constantly being changed, goalposts being shifted and nothing is ever "done".
When I hear a decision is justified by a three-letter abbreviation, I feel an urge to strangle this person. And one time I almost did. It might've killed or maimed someone. Some people only think KPI, not actions and consequences.
On November 11 2025 23:15 ChillFlame wrote: Not to mention this is a "AAA" companies' psyop to justify their inefficiency and price increases, but people repeat it like parrots without thinking.
I mean, you gotta pay dozens of managers somehow, and the e-sports coordinators years before your game is even released etc.
When I was still working at a big corp last year I had the feeling that for every developer there were like 3-5 different managers who just loved to talk about processes, pipelines and schedule meetings to decide when another meeting is going to take place etc. Gotta get all of those SLAs and OKRs in check, so that we can work towards some MVP for a vague feature that we'll probably never finish...
In the end, everyone was confused and just tried to look busy while no actual work that matters was being done. Example: Feature that could be done by 2-3 devs within 2-3 weeks. Corp assigns 15 devs and some managers, 6 months later there's not even a beta of the feature in sight.
Agile in theory: You divide the work into smaller chunks so you can iterate over them quickly and adapt to changes. Agile in practice: All work is constantly being changed, goalposts being shifted and nothing is ever "done".
Oh man. Do I ever feel this.
I worked for ten years at a studio that was part of Activision. Even as a smaller studio (we were responsible for all the online stuff, which was more complicated than you might think) there were still many many layers of management and lots of "thought leaders" and people who didn't seem to really do anything.
There was this one guy, I thought he was a cool guy in general. We had great discussions about games and he was fun to be around. Also he was a pretty smart guy too. I liked him. But in ten years of working with him I had no idea what his job actually was. (I'm sure some folks would say the same about me, to be fair). He was some sort of manager, and he made a lot of charts and graphs and sometimes we'd have meetings about things that would last for hours and at the end I had no idea what we had actually talked about. Like, I have a Physics degree, so I know how to read a graph. But these graphs weren't ABOUT anything. There was a lot of data, but it was super unclear what it meant. I suspect these presentations were deliberately designed to not mean anything, and confuse anyone who tried to understand them.
Anyway he kept getting promoted over time. I think he's a Director now. And good for him! But imagine a studio entirely run by these sorts of people, these really nice, really friendly, really cool guys, who don't actually know how to do anything related to making a game. Now give them five years and $40 million dollars. I wonder what would happen?
On November 13 2025 09:53 Jeremy Reimer wrote: There was this one guy, I thought he was a cool guy in general. We had great discussions about games and he was fun to be around. Also he was a pretty smart guy too. I liked him. But in ten years of working with him I had no idea what his job actually was. (I'm sure some folks would say the same about me, to be fair). He was some sort of manager, and he made a lot of charts and graphs and sometimes we'd have meetings about things that would last for hours and at the end I had no idea what we had actually talked about.
On November 13 2025 11:24 JimmyJRaynor wrote: There was this one guy, I thought he was a cool guy in general. We had great discussions about games and he was fun to be around. Also he was a pretty smart guy too. I liked him. But in ten years of working with him I had no idea what his job actually was. (I'm sure some folks would say the same about me, to be fair). He was some sort of manager, and he made a lot of charts and graphs and sometimes we'd have meetings about things that would last for hours and at the end I had no idea what we had actually talked about.
EPT
