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Stadia Developers Can't Fix the Bugs in Their Own Game Because Google Fired Them

62 points by Impossible 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
millstone 6y ago
Fixed URL: https://kotaku.com/stadia-developers-cant-fix-the-bugs-in-their-own-game-b-1846331302 https://kotaku.com/stadia-developers-cant-fix-the-bugs-in-th...
- floatingatoll 6y ago
  Emailing the mods will get this fixed sooner, using the footer Contact link.
rsj_hn 6y ago
How is this news? Is it expected for them to keep working after they've been fired?
- throwaway2048 6y ago
  Its news that google released a broken product, then fired the development team, and it will not be fixed.
  - nvrspyx 6y ago
    To add on, it's news that Google acquired a studio (Typhon Studios) a little over a year ago, then shut down that entire company, leaving a large amount of bugs unfixed. Some people may not know that Typhon Studios was acquired by Google, especially given that the game also had been released on consoles and PC.
canada_dry 6y ago
The fired Stadia developers will have some explaining to do when the game development experience they note on their CV is a known as a dumpster fire. I'm guessing it'll go something like this: "Google make the decision to release [x] while in early beta... then fired everyone."
- ericbarrett 6y ago
  Doubt it’ll be a problem at all—most people in the biz will know the Stadia story, but write off the failure as Google being Google. It will just be a fun opening to start chitchat. And it’s still Google on the CV.
draklor40 6y ago
Not related to Stadia, but I had some issue with my Pixel 3a yesterday that it just stopped charging and had to get in touch with Google's support to try initiate a repair (turned out to be a software bug, thankfully). My learning is :NEVER , EVER, EVER fucking trust Google with your hard-earned money, ever FUCKING again. Even their customer support person did not know what is the link that you have click/form you have to fill to actually initiate a repair request and told me basically the process is not worth it.
- wegs2 6y ago
  What's been a bit amusing is seeing a string of startups go through the same lesson about Google Cloud. I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that the mistake Google made was failing to recognize and focus on its core competencies. In ads and search, everything is scalable, statistical, and returns are decoupled from investment. You hire a few really smart people, and have them blow everyone else away. It worked. They should have looked for more businesses like that. Maps, gmail, etc. all did pretty well too. Even Youtube, despite playing whack-a-mole with demonetizing or removing channels with millions of subscribers, does well enough. There were plenty more businesses like that to diversify to. Then Google brought that same mindset to things which required customer service (which doesn't scale), reliability (which isn't statistical in the same way as ads and search), and other domains, hired a ton of mediocre people to do it, and it seems like a bit of a dumpster fire right now.
  - loa_in_ 6y ago
    It makes sense from their perspective: they have datacentres upon datacentres of computing power that power their own endeavours, but are underutilized. So they monetize the remaining capacity in any way they can
  - draklor40 6y ago
    They simply cannot handle business that require long term support, lower margins, and communication overhead. As you said, given how effective Stats and Math have been for Search + Ads, they approach every problem with the same Hammer, which even Elon learnt the hard way, is not a great idea (Tesla's production issues with too much automation). Reading Steve Yegge's posts (on Medium, IIRC), Android and Youtube are exceptions that the management leaves the teams to work indepedently instead of hosting the Google culture on top of them (he cites Android's API compatibility to this regard, which is in a way the opposite of how Google supports its products).
rurban 6y ago
Starts with a wrong headline already. It's not their own game anymore, they sold it.

62 points by Impossible 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Fixed URL: https://kotaku.com/stadia-developers-cant-fix-the-bugs-in-their-own-game-b-1846331302 https://kotaku.com/stadia-developers-cant-fix-the-bugs-in-th...

floatingatoll 6y ago
Emailing the mods will get this fixed sooner, using the footer Contact link.

rsj_hn 6y ago

How is this news? Is it expected for them to keep working after they've been fired?

throwaway2048 6y ago
Its news that google released a broken product, then fired the development team, and it will not be fixed.
- nvrspyx 6y ago
  To add on, it's news that Google acquired a studio (Typhon Studios) a little over a year ago, then shut down that entire company, leaving a large amount of bugs unfixed. Some people may not know that Typhon Studios was acquired by Google, especially given that the game also had been released on consoles and PC.

canada_dry 6y ago

The fired Stadia developers will have some explaining to do when the game development experience they note on their CV is a known as a dumpster fire. I'm guessing it'll go something like this: "Google make the decision to release [x] while in early beta... then fired everyone."

ericbarrett 6y ago
Doubt it’ll be a problem at all—most people in the biz will know the Stadia story, but write off the failure as Google being Google. It will just be a fun opening to start chitchat. And it’s still Google on the CV.

draklor40 6y ago

Not related to Stadia, but I had some issue with my Pixel 3a yesterday that it just stopped charging and had to get in touch with Google's support to try initiate a repair (turned out to be a software bug, thankfully). My learning is :NEVER , EVER, EVER fucking trust Google with your hard-earned money, ever FUCKING again. Even their customer support person did not know what is the link that you have click/form you have to fill to actually initiate a repair request and told me basically the process is not worth it.

wegs2 6y ago
What's been a bit amusing is seeing a string of startups go through the same lesson about Google Cloud. I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that the mistake Google made was failing to recognize and focus on its core competencies. In ads and search, everything is scalable, statistical, and returns are decoupled from investment. You hire a few really smart people, and have them blow everyone else away. It worked. They should have looked for more businesses like that. Maps, gmail, etc. all did pretty well too. Even Youtube, despite playing whack-a-mole with demonetizing or removing channels with millions of subscribers, does well enough. There were plenty more businesses like that to diversify to. Then Google brought that same mindset to things which required customer service (which doesn't scale), reliability (which isn't statistical in the same way as ads and search), and other domains, hired a ton of mediocre people to do it, and it seems like a bit of a dumpster fire right now.
- loa_in_ 6y ago
  It makes sense from their perspective: they have datacentres upon datacentres of computing power that power their own endeavours, but are underutilized. So they monetize the remaining capacity in any way they can
- draklor40 6y ago
  They simply cannot handle business that require long term support, lower margins, and communication overhead. As you said, given how effective Stats and Math have been for Search + Ads, they approach every problem with the same Hammer, which even Elon learnt the hard way, is not a great idea (Tesla's production issues with too much automation). Reading Steve Yegge's posts (on Medium, IIRC), Android and Youtube are exceptions that the management leaves the teams to work indepedently instead of hosting the Google culture on top of them (he cites Android's API compatibility to this regard, which is in a way the opposite of how Google supports its products).

rurban 6y ago

Starts with a wrong headline already. It's not their own game anymore, they sold it.