[MUD-Dev] R&D

[Jessica Mulligan]

From: "Dave Rickey" <daver at mythicentertainment.com>
> From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>

>> This is directed towards those of you working on commercial
>> projects: Does your company spend a significant amount of money
>> (compared to your total budget) on research? What areas would you
>> tend to direct your research dollars to?

> In general, the games business doesn't spend money on R&D, in fact
> they often go out of their way to avoid anything of the sort. If>
> they spend $5 million developing technology for a concept that
> never quite comes together in a form that can be put on the
> shelves, usually they not only tank the technology, but they fire
> everyone on the team to make sure they don't gain anything from it
> as a company.

> It's nuts, but it's the way the business works. Everyone's salary
> has to be attached to a project, and every project has to be aimed
> at a release. There are some minor exceptions, in the form of
> "Middleware" and engine vendors who concentrate purely on making
> technology, but in their pure form these are a fairly recent
> phenomena.

> In terms of MMOG-specific R&D, if I was making hiring decisions
> I'd have a statistical sociologist and a social psychiatrist on
> staff, and data-gathering tools built into the system for
> them. But it's hard to explain what those disciplines have to do
> with making games.

In general, what Dave describes is correct.  When I was at Interplay
in the mid-1990s, there was practically zero true R&D; everything
was geared toward getting product out the door and on the shelves.
There is plenty of what they *call* R&D; every time a new platform
comes out, publishers find ways to claim R&D tax credits for working
with new technology.  Brian Fargo and Alan Pavlish did allow me to
institute a skunkworks program, which did develop a game design that
was subsequently used, but I think the program lapsed after I left
and before any online game R&D could be tried.  Also note that
through the theory of 'business management' Dave describes, EA has
ended up providing two experienced MMOG development teams to their
direct competitors, including the core team for Star Wars Galaxies,
as well as sending experienced MMOG developers and managers to at
least three other competitors I can think of.  In this regard, they
almost have to be regarded as the farm team for the rest of the
league, :D.  Other companies have had regualr turnover, but not like
this.  It is pretty insane, indeed.

While I was at EA/Austin, General Manager Jack Heistand actually did
institute an R&D program to turn out a next generation 3D
client/server interface for MMOGs, with the intent to use it for a
number of games and decrease development time.  After the
blood-letting of Spring, 2000 in Austin, however, that program went
away.  To be fair, I heard from friends in Austin that the program
wasn't producing much of any use, anyway; the team wasn't
experienced enough with MMOGs to perform rapid development.

- Jessica

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