[MUD-Dev] R&D

[Dave Rickey]

From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>
> On Tue, 4 Jun 2002, Brian Bilek wrote:

>> So, the perception I have is of an industry where the business
>> types know little about games, and those working on the games
>> know little about business.  Isn't this, in general, bad for the
>> business and for games?

> Sorry about the abbreviated reply here, but this was really the
> focus of your post I think.

> It's difficult to argue that having knowledge about anything is a
> bad thing, so at least in the broad sense, I agree with you. I'm
> just not sure it's required. I was also, I suppose mainly talking
> about the CEO, whose main job in a large company is (in my opinion
> at least) to hire the people who go out and get things done. In
> that sense, I'm not sure knowledge about the games is that
> important for the CEO. Still, when you state it as you did, my
> position seems like splitting hairs, so I will abandon it.

The problem is, if the CEO doesn't know anything about games, he's
likely to hire and promote the people who know and observe the forms
of the business fraternity, in preference to those that know games.
Often, being a guy who knows games is a drawback in such an
environment, because you promote options and projects that are
unpopular, and try to stop those that have executive sponsorship.
The CEO, who doesn't know games, is not able to judge *your*
knowledge of them and use that judgement in his decisions.  The
results get noted on FatBabies.

In what universe does it make sense to "clean house" on yearly basis
by firing entire teams?  In the universe where doing so makes your
earnings report look better to Wall Street, which is perfectly
sensible to a business school graduate.  The fact that this causes
you to hand entire *experienced* MMOG teams to your competitors
doesn't register when you think of "talent" as a fungible asset.

There are exceptions, companies where the people in charge know both
games *and* business, but there seems to be a growth threshold
beyond which even that isn't enough.

--Dave

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