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It’s toxic culture at the leadership level. When my employer asks for some outrageous development on a compressed time schedule I speak my mind. Maybe that’s wh

It’s toxic culture at the leadership level. When my employer asks for some outrageous development on a compressed time schedule I speak my mind. Maybe that’s why most AAA games suck these days.

krageon 8y ago
If you can still compensate or halt it by speaking your mind, your leadership still has a long way to slide down the toxicity scale.
- lovetocode 8y ago
  You are right. And to be clear my current work environment is not toxic which is why I can do this as you said.
Pfhreak 8y ago
In my experience it was the ic level. Leadership would say, what's a reasonable timeline for feature x. The engineers would spend two hours arguing that estimates are bullshit, then give a trivially small (and obviously wrong) estimate. Leadership would say, are you sure? Engineers would basically flip them the bird and say yes. Then inevitably be late. I get it, estimating is inexact. But there's a clear difference between "I broke this down into little tasks, and I think we're looking at x" and "implement multiplayer? Four days."
- whatshisface 8y ago
  Why wouldn't they give a trivially large (and very safe) estimate? Telling someone you will be finished tomorrow puts the onus on you to explain why your estimate was wrong.
  - philipov 8y ago
    Insecurity combined with spinelessness causes people to give the answer they think their superior wants. This is a response that is trained by managers using microaggression.
  - Pfhreak 8y ago
    Great question. They have pet features. Features with long estimates are targets for being cut. Give a long estimate, you risk not being able to build your feature. I once asked, how long to add analytics to your code? (I wrote a one line utility that could bundle up objects and fire them off for you.) The response was "three weeks per event". Guess which part of the code didn't have analytics. Now, at some level this is leadership's fault. They own the culture, but many of the engineers I worked with in games were the least interested in being a part of a team I've ever seen.
    - gowld 8y ago
      If the people you hire refuse to build what you hired them to build, and you insist on paying them anyway, you've got a lost cause.
    - midnightclubbed 8y ago
      This and so much this. To elaborate on your point, say a programmer and a designer brainstorm an amazing new jetpack feature for the game. They spend a day (when they should be working on less interesting but planned features) on a quick first pass and show it to their PM. The PM asks how long it will take to complete, they say 3 weeks (2 days of UI/UX time to add the fuel bar, a week to tweak the feel and mechanic, 2 days of FX artist time, 2 days of artist time to make the rocket pack model). The PM says that the feature is unplanned and that is too long, so they say they can cut some corners because they really want the feature in and its more interesting than working on their planned tasks. The PM agrees because he wants the team to be creative and take control and pride over how great their game is. In the end the feature stays in and takes 2 months of development time since it requires modifications to world collision geometry, each selectable player needs a differently modeled jetpack to fit their geometry, a jetpack upgrade system is added, loot box unlockable color customization gets introduced, bots need to be able to fly too and so pathing and behaviors need extensive modification, a tutorial needs adding, sound effects need designing and adding, QA has to do a pass of finding everywhere in the world that the jetpack can be used to get out-of-bounds and to avoid gameplay trigger volumes, and someone has to triage and fix all those issues. And I realized I probably vastly underestimated... do we slip, missing being part of this quarters revenue and cancelling our ad-campaign or have we just pushed into development hell?
  - matwood 8y ago
    I've seen people put low estimates on things so they would be able to start something knowing that once started it was likely that we would continue working on it until completion.
- ido 8y ago
  A good project manager will wrestle a more realistic estimate from their developers before forwarding it to leadership.
  - Pfhreak 8y ago
    If the engineers are obstinate in acting in bad faith, who consider the pm the enemy, there's only so much a pm can do.
  - gowld 8y ago
    A good PjM won't wrestle anything; they will measure. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2007/10/26/evidence-based-scheduling/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2007/10/26/evidence-based-sch...
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  That’s not my experience. When asked for an estimate you usually already know the politically correct number. I have never got away with giving the number I think will be realistic.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    If you give an incorrect estimate, you'll be the one to blame at the end of the project. Remember estimates aren't promises, so better to deal with hurt feelings at the start of the project.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      The way it usually works is that I say it will take 12 months and the response is "we need it in 6". So I say "fine, we'll give it a go but I am not making any promises" and off we go.
      - mixmastamyk 8y ago
        The scope must then be cut, or the project careens into Fantasyland. That happens at some places understood, a sign of incompetent management.
        maxxxxx 8y ago
        I think the game everybody is playing that it's easier to ask for more money when something is already half done than asking for the whole budget upfront. And you can also cut/adjust scope in the middle.
Nasrudith 8y ago
I think AAA scale in general leads to some of the "suckage" issues since the problems occur in all large productions. With the capital comes risk aversion and to recoup the costs they go more lowest common denominator in addition to coordination issues with large teams and scaling. Even less overtime intense efforts like live action movies show these flaws. Now they certainly do have unique pathologies related to their "cheap" talent pool churn - the lack of experienced people leads to some shockingly bad mistakes reoccurring, and lack of attention to detail from passion often shows. Later Civilizations (V and later) for instance often came out with some shoddy AI doing things like pathing algorithms clearly designed before they added the one military unitn one civilian unit per hex limit, spamming absurdly bad trade deals, or deciding the proper thing to do against a technologically advanced power who thanks to game mechanics gives research points for every technology they lack is embargo them over conquest of one militant city-state, making it even harder to catch up.
- gowld 8y ago
  And earlier Civilizations had game-breaking exploitable bugs. People have been pining for the mythical good old days since the age of Pliny.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    The issue isn't that they had flaws - it is that they had them despite the budget and man-hours involved showing 'they just didn't care' aspects. Whereas the older ones did it with smaller teams and more constrained resources where seeking efficiency had some weird side effects - granted there were also plenty of 'shovelware' examples from the past.
gowld 8y ago
> Maybe that’s why most AAA games suck these days. This comment shows lack of historical perspective. All of these complaints have been hot topics since before the term "AAA game" was invented. AAA games "suck" (if they do, which the customer base's wallets seem to to think so) because they have gotten too good at making money even against their customers' stated preferences, not because they are bad at anything.
- overgard 8y ago
  Popular and profitable isn’t always the same thing as good.

It’s toxic culture at the leadership level. When my employer asks for some outrageous development on a compressed time schedule I speak my mind. Maybe that’s why most AAA games suck these days.

krageon 8y ago

If you can still compensate or halt it by speaking your mind, your leadership still has a long way to slide down the toxicity scale.

lovetocode 8y ago
You are right. And to be clear my current work environment is not toxic which is why I can do this as you said.

Pfhreak 8y ago

In my experience it was the ic level. Leadership would say, what's a reasonable timeline for feature x. The engineers would spend two hours arguing that estimates are bullshit, then give a trivially small (and obviously wrong) estimate. Leadership would say, are you sure? Engineers would basically flip them the bird and say yes. Then inevitably be late. I get it, estimating is inexact. But there's a clear difference between "I broke this down into little tasks, and I think we're looking at x" and "implement multiplayer? Four days."

whatshisface 8y ago
Why wouldn't they give a trivially large (and very safe) estimate? Telling someone you will be finished tomorrow puts the onus on you to explain why your estimate was wrong.
- philipov 8y ago
  Insecurity combined with spinelessness causes people to give the answer they think their superior wants. This is a response that is trained by managers using microaggression.
- Pfhreak 8y ago
  Great question. They have pet features. Features with long estimates are targets for being cut. Give a long estimate, you risk not being able to build your feature. I once asked, how long to add analytics to your code? (I wrote a one line utility that could bundle up objects and fire them off for you.) The response was "three weeks per event". Guess which part of the code didn't have analytics. Now, at some level this is leadership's fault. They own the culture, but many of the engineers I worked with in games were the least interested in being a part of a team I've ever seen.
  - gowld 8y ago
    If the people you hire refuse to build what you hired them to build, and you insist on paying them anyway, you've got a lost cause.
  - midnightclubbed 8y ago
    This and so much this. To elaborate on your point, say a programmer and a designer brainstorm an amazing new jetpack feature for the game. They spend a day (when they should be working on less interesting but planned features) on a quick first pass and show it to their PM. The PM asks how long it will take to complete, they say 3 weeks (2 days of UI/UX time to add the fuel bar, a week to tweak the feel and mechanic, 2 days of FX artist time, 2 days of artist time to make the rocket pack model). The PM says that the feature is unplanned and that is too long, so they say they can cut some corners because they really want the feature in and its more interesting than working on their planned tasks. The PM agrees because he wants the team to be creative and take control and pride over how great their game is. In the end the feature stays in and takes 2 months of development time since it requires modifications to world collision geometry, each selectable player needs a differently modeled jetpack to fit their geometry, a jetpack upgrade system is added, loot box unlockable color customization gets introduced, bots need to be able to fly too and so pathing and behaviors need extensive modification, a tutorial needs adding, sound effects need designing and adding, QA has to do a pass of finding everywhere in the world that the jetpack can be used to get out-of-bounds and to avoid gameplay trigger volumes, and someone has to triage and fix all those issues. And I realized I probably vastly underestimated... do we slip, missing being part of this quarters revenue and cancelling our ad-campaign or have we just pushed into development hell?
- matwood 8y ago
  I've seen people put low estimates on things so they would be able to start something knowing that once started it was likely that we would continue working on it until completion.
ido 8y ago
A good project manager will wrestle a more realistic estimate from their developers before forwarding it to leadership.
- Pfhreak 8y ago
  If the engineers are obstinate in acting in bad faith, who consider the pm the enemy, there's only so much a pm can do.
- gowld 8y ago
  A good PjM won't wrestle anything; they will measure. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2007/10/26/evidence-based-scheduling/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2007/10/26/evidence-based-sch...
maxxxxx 8y ago
That’s not my experience. When asked for an estimate you usually already know the politically correct number. I have never got away with giving the number I think will be realistic.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  If you give an incorrect estimate, you'll be the one to blame at the end of the project. Remember estimates aren't promises, so better to deal with hurt feelings at the start of the project.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    The way it usually works is that I say it will take 12 months and the response is "we need it in 6". So I say "fine, we'll give it a go but I am not making any promises" and off we go.
    - mixmastamyk 8y ago
      The scope must then be cut, or the project careens into Fantasyland. That happens at some places understood, a sign of incompetent management.
      - maxxxxx 8y ago
        I think the game everybody is playing that it's easier to ask for more money when something is already half done than asking for the whole budget upfront. And you can also cut/adjust scope in the middle.

Nasrudith 8y ago

I think AAA scale in general leads to some of the "suckage" issues since the problems occur in all large productions. With the capital comes risk aversion and to recoup the costs they go more lowest common denominator in addition to coordination issues with large teams and scaling. Even less overtime intense efforts like live action movies show these flaws. Now they certainly do have unique pathologies related to their "cheap" talent pool churn - the lack of experienced people leads to some shockingly bad mistakes reoccurring, and lack of attention to detail from passion often shows. Later Civilizations (V and later) for instance often came out with some shoddy AI doing things like pathing algorithms clearly designed before they added the one military unitn one civilian unit per hex limit, spamming absurdly bad trade deals, or deciding the proper thing to do against a technologically advanced power who thanks to game mechanics gives research points for every technology they lack is embargo them over conquest of one militant city-state, making it even harder to catch up.

gowld 8y ago
And earlier Civilizations had game-breaking exploitable bugs. People have been pining for the mythical good old days since the age of Pliny.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  The issue isn't that they had flaws - it is that they had them despite the budget and man-hours involved showing 'they just didn't care' aspects. Whereas the older ones did it with smaller teams and more constrained resources where seeking efficiency had some weird side effects - granted there were also plenty of 'shovelware' examples from the past.

gowld 8y ago

> Maybe that’s why most AAA games suck these days. This comment shows lack of historical perspective. All of these complaints have been hot topics since before the term "AAA game" was invented. AAA games "suck" (if they do, which the customer base's wallets seem to to think so) because they have gotten too good at making money even against their customers' stated preferences, not because they are bad at anything.

overgard 8y ago
Popular and profitable isn’t always the same thing as good.