That's some lame reasoning right there. Back in the day developers had to be clever and try hard to release something truly great. And now you are saying that instead of them finding ways around things, working extra hours and truly pushing for what they want they can just go beg for money. That's not the answer.
The answer to what?
It is a free market .. if they want to beg, let them beg. If there are gullible people who respond to begging, let them flush their money down the toilet. They may even learn a thing or two.
No one says you need to spend a dime just because others are begging. It does not concern you, or me.
However, it's also basic human goodness to warn others if you see them rushing en masse off a cliff that maybe only you and a few others are aware of.
Qui tacet consentit
Cliff-jumping has objectively negative consequences.
Paid early access does not (not any more than any B2P system where you pay money prior to experiencing gameplay.)
I personally choose not to pay for early access, simply because I don't have enough time for all the developers on Steam (or elsewhere) that have so many great ideas if I would just come along for the ride. Get back to me when you have an experience you are presenting with confidence.
However, when I made this comment I was actually considering more the many, many scams that have occurred in the wild west of crowd funding. I won't bother listing them here.
it does nothing but hurt us as a gaming community. I don't care how excited you are, or hyped, or how much you just know that this game will be your gaming savior. be patient and wait. dare the gaming developers to deliver a fully functional game before you buy it. cause the shit im seeing now is doing nothing for gamers and everything for 2-bit developers (this includes supposedly AAA game developers). stop giving them money until the game is finished. for all our sakes.
every time a bell rings an angel gets it's wings.
well .. i don't buy early access and pre-release. BUT ... for the love of your god ... stop dictating how other should buy their entertainment. I think KS is a colossal waste of money (so obviously i won't be giving any KS project a dime) but you don't see me trying to stop others from flushing their money down the toilet. It is their right to do so.
However, it's also basic human goodness to warn others if you see them rushing en masse off a cliff that maybe only you and a few others are aware of.
Qui tacet consentit
Except there isn't an en masse rush off of a cliff. You're not saving anyone from anything serious. At worst they lose some money. At best they help get a project off the ground they want to be a part of. If they've made a mistake by doing that then hopefully they'll learn a lesson.
Should we save the rest of the gaming community from flushing their money down the drain on subscription rental payments? Cash Shops? Think of the children!
I agree with Narius. Let people, in general, spend their entertainment dollars how they want to.
Strawman and non sequitur. The topic is paid early access and pre-release, which carries different implications from "subscription rental payments".
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
This kind if thinking is real and happening in the industry right now. I'm honestly sickened by it. Once I save enough money I'm starting my own company that actually delivers what it promises.
While i admire your idealism i also mourn for when that will fail for you and i hope it will not be to harsh of a blow. But unless you manage to become financially independent you will at some point have take on and then push out one if not several projects just to make ends meet.
That is how it works... Sadly... And i am not saying that to be fatalistic but because i have close to 10 years of learning or working in creative projects including a BA and a MoA.
Now personally i say... Pre-ordering is fine as long as the product is actually limited in supply. Like let´s say Collectors editions (and before anyone say anything... they are called that for a reason... that is because they are a premium product aimed at people who... collect.) or if there is a solid discount by doing soo. No need to be stupid about money.
Early access is a strange beast. I would say it is ok if you are content with the product being sold to you at the point you buy it. The in-development games from Codemasters and Bugbear would be good candidates for that. Beyond that it is in my mind a bit to big of a gamble, Hench why i have not bought in to SC yet. But seeing how early access is something that we our self brought about, our demand for more insight and earlier access, and the willingness to pay for said access sort of forced the devs in to this position... Just look at the "beta" craze.
I have nothing against day-1 DLC... I do have something against slicing the game up in to chunks of paid DLC... Just look at games like Battlefield and Battlefront... Playerbases being split and split again by maps locked behind paywalls. Very dumb idea in games that live on having a healthy playerbase, MMO´s sort of fall in to that category too. With expansions splitting players up seven ways to sunday. But i have nothing against DLC being dropped asap because i am not naive enough to think that delaying it a few weeks months would change the publishers idea of what to make DLC and not.
I personally choose not to pay for early access, simply because I don't have enough time for all the developers on Steam (or elsewhere) that have so many great ideas if I would just come along for the ride. Get back to me when you have an experience you are presenting with confidence.
However, when I made this comment I was actually considering more the many, many scams that have occurred in the wild west of crowd funding. I won't bother listing them here.
It's fine not to feel it's worth it. I don't buy LOTS of different things. But I also don't compare buying those things with jumping off a cliff. The system isn't bad, only a few individual companies are bad. People need to learn to avoid those companies: if a company isn't presenting themselves professionally, someone considering supporting that company via kickstarter or early access should understand the risk they're taking.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I personally choose not to pay for early access, simply because I don't have enough time for all the developers on Steam (or elsewhere) that have so many great ideas if I would just come along for the ride. Get back to me when you have an experience you are presenting with confidence.
However, when I made this comment I was actually considering more the many, many scams that have occurred in the wild west of crowd funding. I won't bother listing them here.
It's fine not to feel it's worth it. I don't buy LOTS of different things. But I also don't compare buying those things with jumping off a cliff. The system isn't bad, only a few individual companies are bad. People need to learn to avoid those companies: if a company isn't presenting themselves professionally, someone considering supporting that company via kickstarter or early access should understand the risk they're taking.
I partly agree.
I would say that any system that allows companies to get away scott-free with millions is flawed. Generally I favor free markets, but not without some checks and balances.
I'm sure you remember Greed Monger? Divergence Online? Doom/Atlantic City? These are not the products of a flawless system. I don't think you can pin it all on the companies; at some point or another I'd wager they all thought they were doing the right thing, which later turned into following the path of least resistance, which eventually became disastrous failure.
If people were 100% rational all the time, I would agree with your statement completely. This is not the case as things like herding behavior exist within markets. I take exception to the 'every man for himself' mentality vis-a-vis 'your money, your call' because we aren't totally rational all the time. Spenders are listening to other spenders to a degree; the voice of objectors and abstainers should also be heard, or at the very least not be silenced.
Saying "watch out" is just as valid as saying "I'm in".
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
If people were 100% rational all the time, I would agree with your statement completely. This is not the case as things like herding behavior exist within markets. I take exception to the 'every man for himself' mentality vis-a-vis 'your money, your call' because we aren't totally rational all the time. Spenders are listening to other spenders to a degree; the voice of objectors and abstainers should also be heard, or at the very least not be silenced.
Saying "watch out" is just as valid as saying "I'm in".
The OP did not say "watch out". He said "STOP xxx because it hurt the gaming community". He is asking people to stop, because of his own interests.
Sure, people are irrational. Sure, having someone saying "watch out" is fine. But try to impose behavior? If someone is irrational, and knowing flushing money down the toilet (it is not like preorder and early access have not been discussed 100000 times), we have no rights nor obligation to go beyond a warning. Let them.
At the end of the day, it is moot anyway. It is not like a post on an internet forum is going to make a dent in the preorder/early access business.
Buying early release isn't the problem. I purchased the expensive ArcheAge pack and absolutely enjoyed the beta. The game, however, was completely destroyed by their Pay 2 Win scheme - worst I've ever seen.
If a game has loads and loads of content to watch / no NDA, I will generally purchase a starter pack. However, if a game offers a 1-day sneak peak with heavy NDA, I will not even think about purchasing access, e.g., Star Trek Online.
I'll still buy EA games from devs I trust, want to support, and know they can eventually deliver. Early Access alone is not a problem at all. If you want to warn someone about EA, say that you are cheating yourself out of a great game experience you may never have because you couldn't wait.
jmcdermottuk said:Can we add any game that releases with day 1 DLC to that as well? If that content is ready on day 1 chances are it was part of the game that has been cut out deliberately so they can gouge another $10 or £5 out of us. I don't mean don't by the DLC, I mean don't buy the game period. Wait for it to go on sale after they shit their pants because nobody will buy it.
Lets turn the tables on them. Let us be the ones taking advantage of them.
You can't herd cats. Especially cats with a drug-like addiction, and below average IQ among the masses.
To find an intelligent person in a PUG is not that rare, but to find a PUG made up of "all" intelligent people is one of the rarest phenomenons in the known universe.
jmcdermottuk said:Can we add any game that releases with day 1 DLC to that as well? If that content is ready on day 1 chances are it was part of the game that has been cut out deliberately so they can gouge another $10 or £5 out of us. I don't mean don't by the DLC, I mean don't buy the game period. Wait for it to go on sale after they shit their pants because nobody will buy it.
Lets turn the tables on them. Let us be the ones taking advantage of them.
You can't herd cats. Especially cats with a drug-like addiction, and below average IQ among the masses.
lol .. and you have to insult people who buy DLCs.
It is a free world. If the devs want to sell day 1 DLC, is there a reason why we should not let them? If there are players who have the money, and want to pay for day 1 DLC, is there reason why we should not let them have their fun?
Just a disclaimer: I don't buy day 1 DLC. But that does not mean that I don't think others have the right to do so. It is their money.
There are developers out there who choose to be professionals, and their are companies out there who value professionalism and honesty. One that comes to mind is 8thLight.
And what games has 8thLight produced entirely on their own?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
There are developers out there who choose to be professionals, and their are companies out there who value professionalism and honesty. One that comes to mind is 8thLight.
You do understand right that there is a lot more at work producing an item than idealism and hope right.
Delays happens, things breaks, suppliers let you down, people let you down, systems fails, economis shift and that is just the simple and easy to understand things. Sometimes... actually scratch that... Often you have to compromise the artistic vision and even integrity in order to either meet your set dealines or deliver a product. Pre-ordering culture is not a developer thing but a publisher thing... It is about them doing what they have set out to do, maximizing profit... Often because they have invested a lot in a product and they need to make enough money back so that their investors keep the faith in them so they in turn can continue to publish... And so on and so forth...
But if you can find a way to make the games you want cheap enough and find a market big enough through selfpublishing and then avoid the siren call of expanding your business while also maintianing a fanbase that keep buying your games without demanding that you expand on features or do any further development.
Sure... you might be able to make a living as a game dev while never going back on any promis or make a compromise. But that is one in a million.
Or did you mean anything else by "honesty" and "professionalism"
Back in the day production companies (developers) pitched ideas to publishers to get funding to complete the project that was already in a alpha state, and the rest of the concept through to release was scheduled. The money for the production was payed for by the publisher at this stage. This put the preasure on publishers to be selective due to limited numbers of projects they could fund at once. This worked to a point and the publishers and developers worked to strict deadlines to get the games finished within budget to release, even if they were sometimes a buggy mess. Then some bright spark decided to sell early access into beta for a couple of reasons, one it cut the cost of internal testing and also gave a lessened risk to any losses if the game was not too profitable if a game tanked as some costs had been recouped. They mitigated some of the financial risk, yet could still make massive profits if the game was a success. This then went a step further with crowd-funding and kickstarters. Dev's realised they could get ALL the production finance up front then use a publisher to deal with all the advertising/customer support at a cost of a percentage of profits/sales. Now the dev's dont need to pitch an idea to people who know what they are talking about, just easily persuaded players. The "fanbois" fund the developement, the dev's make the game, the publishers now only deal with customer support and advertising. People are suckers for advertising, hence why people part with their money before they can even TEST a project, the pre-pay for early entry to beta.
The OP is correct, as all people are doing is paying for things up front, lowering quality as there is no quality control before launch. The projects break even before launch day, so there is no reason to worry about quality, as that can be fixed after launch through patch's if the product looks like it is going to be uber-succesful, otherwise its go F2P and use a cash shop to milk the game for every penny you can.
Players greed has caused the situation, and humans are prone to greed, business people are just smart enough to turn that greed of the customer into profit for them.
After you watch the video, then feel free to give your opinion on why professionalism is not desired in the industry, and why I believe eventually it will lead to government regulation.
Desired is a synonym of hope.
A video inspiring people to do something better is idealism.
So you haven't really addressed the criticism that this is just idealism and hope.
Idealism shatters when there are concrete examples of things done perfectly. Keep in mind this is the game industry, not accounting software, so you're not delivering against a completely static list of requirements (because any designer who does that will have designed a game as fun as accounting software.) So until you provide an example of how someone has made this ideal work in the game industry, it's still idealism and hope.
Nothing stops you from liking the ideal. The ideal can even be a fantastic goal to shoot for (and in this case it is). It's just not realistic given the constraints, but shooting for the goal will at least improve things somewhat (and does improve things somewhat, as most programmers I know already shoot for it; but it's balanced against the desire not to produce games as fun as accounting software, which inevitably results in some compromises that end up improving the product.)
In fact coming from the design side, my designs end up having to be deliberately more fragile to fit programmer requirements. I've designed self-balancing systems that dynamically keep themselves fixed and producing the desired gameplay, but sometimes it's too much programming work for what the system does, which results to intentionally designing things worse (simpler) and watching how the predicted problems do spring up and must be fixed manually.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
This video was not an inspirational video (it can be taken that way, but it was not the purpose or intent). He is actually the CEO for that company and was telling them the way they were going to do things.
Who is this person Robert C. Martin, and why should we bother listening to him? Ever hear of agile software development? No? Okay than don't even bother reading further or replying to me. Yes? read on...
Robert is one of the people who started the meeting with 17 of the worlds best software developers and out of the meeting came the agile movement. He is an author of several successful software books and known very well to be one of the best software developers of the world. Clearly he knows what he is talking about.
So I say again. Clearly everything I see done in the video game industry goes against what Robert is saying in that video (of what professionalism is), and this is why I call the video game programmers and the industry unprofessional.
As for your "desired" is "hope" argument, it was a word I tied to the industry and not me (I flat out don't care, they have proven to me without a doubt they are unprofessional and do not deserve any of my money). If the industry "hopes" to remain unprofessional, so be it. If you want to pull the synonym card to discredit what I am saying, well news flash. Go to the synonym website, click on about 20 word links and realize the word you are now on means nothing like the word you started with. Hell i did it in 3, desired > aim> object.
Once again, Robert even told me himself when I spoke to him over the phone "There are people who make promises that don't keep to them, and do not take responsibility for them. These people are unprofessional." Here I even saved the email and I'll post it as an image for you where he basically said the same thing (edited out personal sensitive information for protection against identity theft):
You don't seem to get it. The core criticism leveled at you is you're just spouting idealism and hope. You don't wave that away by spouting more idealism and hope. The only thing you can do is admit it's true and there isn't game software development experience behind it.
As mentioned, ideals aren't necessarily bad. Shooting for the right ideals can be great. It's just tremendously anti-social to go around demanding everyone else in the world strives for perfection (especially when the industry in question is a distinctly different form of software development where the ideals are harder to achieve.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
no, I do not define "honesty" and "professionalism" as idealism and hope.
No but you do define it from a "perfect scenario" where everything just works out. Most of the time that simply does not happen. In fact most of the time you run i to problems that could not be predicted or circumvented. Should the developers promise less... Maybe...
But let´s say you start your company, you make sure to only make modest claims of what your product will be and you somehow still get funding. Then you come to office one day and two fo your lead programmes have been poached and your lead artist fell of a ladder cleaning the roof and are now concussed, it then also turns out that the animator you hired was just lying out his arse in his resume.
Congrats... Even your modest claims are now down the toilet.
This is ofc a very extreme example and i use it only to illustrate a larger issue. Yes i agree that we need some more modesty in the game biz... but at the same time there is a metric ton of stuff that no proffesionalism or honesty in the world can help with... Sure you could say that part of the honesty would be to tell us this... But that is not how the business world works, so it is not like your call for more honest devs would have much impact there.
Again not trying to slam you... Just sharing my experience with you as someone who has seen several time how quickly the best laid plans can fall apart when working with creative ventures.
Well you can think professionalism is idealism and hope all you want. I'm not going to argue with you anymore. Clearly you have chosen to be unprofessional, and all I can say is I hope I never get stuck working with you on any projects.
The programmers I've worked with are professional.
The primary difference with game development is requirements change. Why? Because the purpose of games is fun, and it's well-known that fun is best achieved through iteration (which is change.)
So change is unavoidable (without creating a game that isn't fun...which would obviously be unprofessional) while at the same time change causes your lofty idealism to be unrealistic. This is why developers who successfully navigate these two conflicting factors are professionals.
So that spells out quite clearly my definition of professionalism, while also spelling out why your lofty idealism is unrealistic.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
In the video it explains things on change. Professionals are expected to know which parts of the system are stable and which parts are changeable, so when the customer changes there mind (which happens on rare occasions /endSarcasm) and things need to change it's as simple as changing them.
Right.
And that happens.
And the problem is that the inevitable lower level of polish that results from those changes is the basis for your blanket insult of the game industry, claiming they're unprofessional.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Comments
The answer to what?
It is a free market .. if they want to beg, let them beg. If there are gullible people who respond to begging, let them flush their money down the toilet. They may even learn a thing or two.
No one says you need to spend a dime just because others are begging. It does not concern you, or me.
Paid early access does not (not any more than any B2P system where you pay money prior to experiencing gameplay.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
However, when I made this comment I was actually considering more the many, many scams that have occurred in the wild west of crowd funding. I won't bother listing them here.
Strawman and non sequitur. The topic is paid early access and pre-release, which carries different implications from "subscription rental payments".
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
That is how it works... Sadly... And i am not saying that to be fatalistic but because i have close to 10 years of learning or working in creative projects including a BA and a MoA.
Now personally i say... Pre-ordering is fine as long as the product is actually limited in supply. Like let´s say Collectors editions (and before anyone say anything... they are called that for a reason... that is because they are a premium product aimed at people who... collect.) or if there is a solid discount by doing soo. No need to be stupid about money.
Early access is a strange beast. I would say it is ok if you are content with the product being sold to you at the point you buy it. The in-development games from Codemasters and Bugbear would be good candidates for that. Beyond that it is in my mind a bit to big of a gamble, Hench why i have not bought in to SC yet. But seeing how early access is something that we our self brought about, our demand for more insight and earlier access, and the willingness to pay for said access sort of forced the devs in to this position... Just look at the "beta" craze.
I have nothing against day-1 DLC... I do have something against slicing the game up in to chunks of paid DLC... Just look at games like Battlefield and Battlefront... Playerbases being split and split again by maps locked behind paywalls. Very dumb idea in games that live on having a healthy playerbase, MMO´s sort of fall in to that category too. With expansions splitting players up seven ways to sunday. But i have nothing against DLC being dropped asap because i am not naive enough to think that delaying it a few weeks months would change the publishers idea of what to make DLC and not.
This have been a good conversation
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I would say that any system that allows companies to get away scott-free with millions is flawed. Generally I favor free markets, but not without some checks and balances.
I'm sure you remember Greed Monger? Divergence Online? Doom/Atlantic City? These are not the products of a flawless system. I don't think you can pin it all on the companies; at some point or another I'd wager they all thought they were doing the right thing, which later turned into following the path of least resistance, which eventually became disastrous failure.
If people were 100% rational all the time, I would agree with your statement completely. This is not the case as things like herding behavior exist within markets. I take exception to the 'every man for himself' mentality vis-a-vis 'your money, your call' because we aren't totally rational all the time. Spenders are listening to other spenders to a degree; the voice of objectors and abstainers should also be heard, or at the very least not be silenced.
Saying "watch out" is just as valid as saying "I'm in".
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
Sure, people are irrational. Sure, having someone saying "watch out" is fine. But try to impose behavior? If someone is irrational, and knowing flushing money down the toilet (it is not like preorder and early access have not been discussed 100000 times), we have no rights nor obligation to go beyond a warning. Let them.
At the end of the day, it is moot anyway. It is not like a post on an internet forum is going to make a dent in the preorder/early access business.
If a game has loads and loads of content to watch / no NDA, I will generally purchase a starter pack. However, if a game offers a 1-day sneak peak with heavy NDA, I will not even think about purchasing access, e.g., Star Trek Online.
Early Access alone is not a problem at all.
If you want to warn someone about EA, say that you are cheating yourself out of a great game experience you may never have because you couldn't wait.
To find an intelligent person in a PUG is not that rare, but to find a PUG made up of "all" intelligent people is one of the rarest phenomenons in the known universe.
It is a free world. If the devs want to sell day 1 DLC, is there a reason why we should not let them? If there are players who have the money, and want to pay for day 1 DLC, is there reason why we should not let them have their fun?
Just a disclaimer: I don't buy day 1 DLC. But that does not mean that I don't think others have the right to do so. It is their money.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You do understand right that there is a lot more at work producing an item than idealism and hope right.
Delays happens, things breaks, suppliers let you down, people let you down, systems fails, economis shift and that is just the simple and easy to understand things. Sometimes... actually scratch that... Often you have to compromise the artistic vision and even integrity in order to either meet your set dealines or deliver a product. Pre-ordering culture is not a developer thing but a publisher thing... It is about them doing what they have set out to do, maximizing profit... Often because they have invested a lot in a product and they need to make enough money back so that their investors keep the faith in them so they in turn can continue to publish... And so on and so forth...
But if you can find a way to make the games you want cheap enough and find a market big enough through selfpublishing and then avoid the siren call of expanding your business while also maintianing a fanbase that keep buying your games without demanding that you expand on features or do any further development.
Sure... you might be able to make a living as a game dev while never going back on any promis or make a compromise. But that is one in a million.
Or did you mean anything else by "honesty" and "professionalism"
This have been a good conversation
Then some bright spark decided to sell early access into beta for a couple of reasons, one it cut the cost of internal testing and also gave a lessened risk to any losses if the game was not too profitable if a game tanked as some costs had been recouped. They mitigated some of the financial risk, yet could still make massive profits if the game was a success.
This then went a step further with crowd-funding and kickstarters. Dev's realised they could get ALL the production finance up front then use a publisher to deal with all the advertising/customer support at a cost of a percentage of profits/sales.
Now the dev's dont need to pitch an idea to people who know what they are talking about, just easily persuaded players. The "fanbois" fund the developement, the dev's make the game, the publishers now only deal with customer support and advertising. People are suckers for advertising, hence why people part with their money before they can even TEST a project, the pre-pay for early entry to beta.
The OP is correct, as all people are doing is paying for things up front, lowering quality as there is no quality control before launch. The projects break even before launch day, so there is no reason to worry about quality, as that can be fixed after launch through patch's if the product looks like it is going to be uber-succesful, otherwise its go F2P and use a cash shop to milk the game for every penny you can.
Players greed has caused the situation, and humans are prone to greed, business people are just smart enough to turn that greed of the customer into profit for them.
A video inspiring people to do something better is idealism.
So you haven't really addressed the criticism that this is just idealism and hope.
Idealism shatters when there are concrete examples of things done perfectly. Keep in mind this is the game industry, not accounting software, so you're not delivering against a completely static list of requirements (because any designer who does that will have designed a game as fun as accounting software.) So until you provide an example of how someone has made this ideal work in the game industry, it's still idealism and hope.
Nothing stops you from liking the ideal. The ideal can even be a fantastic goal to shoot for (and in this case it is). It's just not realistic given the constraints, but shooting for the goal will at least improve things somewhat (and does improve things somewhat, as most programmers I know already shoot for it; but it's balanced against the desire not to produce games as fun as accounting software, which inevitably results in some compromises that end up improving the product.)
In fact coming from the design side, my designs end up having to be deliberately more fragile to fit programmer requirements. I've designed self-balancing systems that dynamically keep themselves fixed and producing the desired gameplay, but sometimes it's too much programming work for what the system does, which results to intentionally designing things worse (simpler) and watching how the predicted problems do spring up and must be fixed manually.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
As mentioned, ideals aren't necessarily bad. Shooting for the right ideals can be great. It's just tremendously anti-social to go around demanding everyone else in the world strives for perfection (especially when the industry in question is a distinctly different form of software development where the ideals are harder to achieve.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
No but you do define it from a "perfect scenario" where everything just works out. Most of the time that simply does not happen. In fact most of the time you run i to problems that could not be predicted or circumvented. Should the developers promise less... Maybe...
But let´s say you start your company, you make sure to only make modest claims of what your product will be and you somehow still get funding. Then you come to office one day and two fo your lead programmes have been poached and your lead artist fell of a ladder cleaning the roof and are now concussed, it then also turns out that the animator you hired was just lying out his arse in his resume.
Congrats... Even your modest claims are now down the toilet.
This is ofc a very extreme example and i use it only to illustrate a larger issue. Yes i agree that we need some more modesty in the game biz... but at the same time there is a metric ton of stuff that no proffesionalism or honesty in the world can help with... Sure you could say that part of the honesty would be to tell us this... But that is not how the business world works, so it is not like your call for more honest devs would have much impact there.
Again not trying to slam you... Just sharing my experience with you as someone who has seen several time how quickly the best laid plans can fall apart when working with creative ventures.
This have been a good conversation
The primary difference with game development is requirements change. Why? Because the purpose of games is fun, and it's well-known that fun is best achieved through iteration (which is change.)
So change is unavoidable (without creating a game that isn't fun...which would obviously be unprofessional) while at the same time change causes your lofty idealism to be unrealistic. This is why developers who successfully navigate these two conflicting factors are professionals.
So that spells out quite clearly my definition of professionalism, while also spelling out why your lofty idealism is unrealistic.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
And that happens.
And the problem is that the inevitable lower level of polish that results from those changes is the basis for your blanket insult of the game industry, claiming they're unprofessional.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver