[MUD-Dev] Crunch time

[Hartsman]

From: Scott Jennings [mailto:scottj at mythicentertainment.com]
> On Wed, 30 Jul 2003 09:13:00 -0400
> Yannick Jean <Yannick.Jean at meq.gouv.qc.ca> wrote:

> 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.

Evening, all.  I've been lurking on this list on and off for longer
than I can remember, and it's interesting that this is the first
topic that hit me hard enough to where I feel compelled to reply.

As with another message in the thread that I agree with
wholeheartedly, (Mr.  Terrano's) this was originally a brief comment
that's apparently developed a bit of a rambling life of its own.

As with Mr. Jennings, I've done my fair share of "real world" work
in between working on various games over the past fifteen years, and
can only echo his words regarding mismanagement outside this
industry.  If anything, the mismanagement I've seen in other, larger
corporations is much more offensive than anything I've ever seen in
games, be it from sheer incompetence or, more frequently, a lack of
caring.

In the games that I've worked on, crunching more frequently happens
the way that it does because people do care, and more deeply, both
about the product and its audience, in a way that I've personally
never seen in any other industry.

Given the choice, I'll take that any day of the week.

Give me a staff of "8 to 5" developers in the online games industry,
and I'll give you a game that, if it ever launches, responds
entirely too slowly to meet the needs of its community and misses
untold opportunities for what could be (and often is) title-making
inspiration.

Further, whatever successes that it *is* able to eke out will most
assuredly be on the backs of those who didn't particularly care what
the clock was reading.

Assuming it ever goes live, it only gets better.  Online, the only
time that matters to the people playing is the span of a single
session; generally a few brief hours.  Fixing something one minute
past that means that you "finally" fixed it.  Leave something for a
week and it's been broken "forever."

I'm not going to pretend that I'm an expert on why "the gaming
industry is such a mess."  Truth be told, I don't know that it is,
when compared to other industries.  I can only speak to what goes on
in my little corner of it.

>From my point of view, I'm fortunate enough to work on a project
that I'm fond of in the extreme.  As a team, we set reasonable
goals, develop plans to accomplish them, and regularly deliver on
mind-numbingly short development cycles (six months, currently).  We
don't miss, and we crunch to make things better.

I truly can't understand how that concept could be remotely worthy
of disdain.  Quite the opposite.  To me, that type of dedication
should be applauded.

I crunched today.  I chose to crunch today, as did well over a dozen
of my coworkers.

A few thousand of our beta testers may have a better experience as a
result.  Aside from the objective "work" that we accomplished, maybe
our just being there will help them test better, knowing that the
people making the game are right there with them.  Maybe one of the
hundreds of actions taken after hours today will make our live game
or expansion better.  Maybe they all will.

Or maybe it was all a pointless exercise; a result of "bad
planning," when we "should have been home with our families."  Maybe
those extra hours of fixing, tuning, maintaining, and listening to
the players' feedback one-on-one was a bad idea.  Maybe we're just
fooling ourselves for the free dinners.  Maybe we're the punchline
of a bad joke.

I'm afraid that I just don't see it that way, and I can name quite a
few others who'd likely agree.

This may border on heresy, but: If a person doesn't want to live and
breathe online games, perhaps they should, instead, not make online
games.


Take care,

- Scott Hartsman
Technical Director, EverQuest
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