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Technical debt doesn't make the software worse, it makes the codebase worse which degrades the ability to maintain and add features in the future (which is payi
by helen___keller 7y ago
Technical debt doesn't make the software worse, it makes the codebase worse which degrades the ability to maintain and add features in the future (which is paying interest on the debt, so to speak).
So, in the context of oldschool console video games that ship and then end development permanently, it's absolutely a reasonable decision to add some technical debt if it means fitting one more nice-to-have feature in before launch. Because you don't pay interest or pay down that debt ever. The code is shipped and then it retires, presumably.
- redisman 7y agoThe days of fully offline games are long gone though. It doesn't mean that game studios take on less ambitious projects though. Most games are superglued together to get over the finish line and shipped with a massive day-1 patch.
- helen___keller 7y agoAgreed, the parent mentioned GoldenEye for N64 but it definitely isn't true for modern games
- jeremyjh 7y agoProbably wasn't even true for GoldenEye. They used the same engine for Perfect Dark; sure the assets and game scripts would be changed but the multiplayer code had to be ported and cleaned up I'm sure.