5 ms·

is it really unbelievable? companies this big tend to prioritize hiring a shit ton of middlemen (VPs, project managers, developer managers, offshore managers) i

by xyst 6y ago

is it really unbelievable? companies this big tend to prioritize hiring a shit ton of middlemen (VPs, project managers, developer managers, offshore managers) in order to avoid paying out for talent to build and constantly maintain the project. I guess paying a shit ton of money to 1 person to manage 10+ poorly paid contractors works out for them, accounting wise. If one really examined the accounting for GTAO, I would bet that most of the billions of dollars that were earned in micro transactions went to marketing, product research, and to middle management in the form of bonuses.

spuz 6y ago
Even if you view this as a business decision rather than a technical one, any smart project manager would realise a 6 minute loading time literally costs the company millions per year in lost revenue. (How many times have you felt like firing up GTA Online only to reconsider due to the agonising load time). I would guess this was simply a case of business folk failing to understand that such a technical issue could be so easily solved plus developers never being allowed the opportunity to understand and fix the issue in their spare time.
- alien_ 6y ago
  The people who observe the slow loading time already paid for the game, so I guess R* won't lose much revenue because of this nasty bug.
  - bcrosby95 6y ago
    The game has microtransactions. Coincidentally, also a large reason why load times were so slow.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - delecti 6y ago
    The online mode has microtransactions. People not playing anymore aren't paying for microtransactions either.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - AuryGlenz 6y ago
    I didn’t buy the game to play with my friends because I heard of how terrible the loading situation was.
  - the_gipsy 6y ago
    IIRC R* makes orders of magnitudes more from microtransactions than from the game box
- somehnguy 6y ago
  The insane loading times are literally the exact reason I haven’t played in years. Every time I played I just ended up frustrated and got distracted doing something else while waiting, so I just quit playing altogether. I don’t know how people stand the loading times.
  - jonwinstanley 6y ago
    Totally agree, I loved the story mode and never got into online due to the amount of time spent loading and finding interesting stuff to do.
  - hnick 6y ago
    Maybe the load times inadvertently work like the intentional spelling mistakes in a Nigerian scammer's email. It's bait for the non-discerning customer who is more likely to empty their wallet for microtransactions because they have less experience with games so don't know what is normal :)
    - jamiek88 6y ago
      The fact that this scenario is not immediately ludicrous to me is saddening.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      Microtransaction heavy games are primarily funded by whales who spend thousands on a game. If you even make one of them leave that's a net loss.
IshKebab 6y ago
It's kind of hard to believe. GTA5's online mode is their cash cow, and 6 minute load times are common?! It's kind of amazing people even play it with those load times. It's such a simple problem that one dev could have found and fixed it within a day.
- toast0 6y ago
  It's not at all hard to believe if you've been playing video games for a while. Everything is getting slower and slower, and nobody cares. When I played the Atari 2600, I had to wait for the TV to warm up, but otherwise there were no games with anything approaching load times (with 128 bytes of RAM in the console, who would know). The NES didn't have much in the way of load times either, but you did have to fiddle with the cartridge slot. SNES and Genesis didn't usually load (Air Buster being a noticeable exception). CD based systems sure did like to load, but that's somewhat understandable. In the mean time, more and longer boot screens. The Switch uses a cartridge (or system flash/SD cards), but it likes to load forever too. PC Gaming has had loading for longer, but it's been getting longer and longer. Some arcade games have lengthy loading sequences, but only when you turn them on while they read their entire storage into RAM so they can be fast for the rest of the time they're on (which in arcades is usually all day).
  - ubercow13 6y ago
    Shorter loading times were one of the main selling points of this console generation.
  - yoz-y 6y ago
    > Everything is getting slower and slower, and nobody cares. It really depends. The latest crop of games I’ve played (Doom Eternal, Cyberpunk) loads way faster than games from a few years back (aforementioned GTA-V, Shadow Warrior 2…). This is also on the same machine, so it’s not the hardware that makes it faster.
    - hnick 6y ago
      Doom Eternal's load times were so good I didn't even bother moving it to my SSD (I junction to a larger HDD by default).
xyzelement 6y ago
I am always amused by comments like this. You have no idea what development practices they follow (neither do I) but it's hilarious to read your tone. GTA has achieved tremendous success both as an entertaining game and as a business. It's enjoyed by millions of people and generates billions in revenue. As per this article, it has startup problems (which don't seem to actually really hurt the overall product but I agree sound annoying) but the bigger picture is: it's a huge success. So - Rockstar has nailed it. What exactly is your platform for analyzing/criticizing their processes or even having a shot of understanding what they are? What have you build that anyone uses? (not saying you haven't, but.. have you been involved with anything remotely close to that scale?) And if not, whence he high horse?
- brokencode 6y ago
  Successful people and businesses can be wrong. You are not making a case for why those development practices are okay, but are simply appealing to authority. I and most other customers would argue that 6 minute loading times are atrocious, and if there is an easy fix like this, it makes me lose a lot of respect for the developer who doesn’t fix it. It maybe would even make me avoid them in the future. A reputation is built over years, but can be lost pretty much instantly. Companies have to continue serving their customers to enjoy ongoing success.
  - hombre_fatal 6y ago
    They didn’t make an appeal to authority but an appeal to commercial success, and they’re right on. The fact that GTAO is so popular should make most HNers rethink what they know about the commercial necessity of optimization vs building a compelling product.
    - incrudible 6y ago
      The loading times were not initially that long and then the slow CPU makes a big difference. This really only goes to show how much you can get away with if you have an outstandingly popular product that has no direct competition. Chances are that your product is not that compelling, if it performs poorly, that will hurt adoption. It will never become outstandingly popular in the first place.

by xyst 6y ago

spuz 6y ago

Even if you view this as a business decision rather than a technical one, any smart project manager would realise a 6 minute loading time literally costs the company millions per year in lost revenue. (How many times have you felt like firing up GTA Online only to reconsider due to the agonising load time). I would guess this was simply a case of business folk failing to understand that such a technical issue could be so easily solved plus developers never being allowed the opportunity to understand and fix the issue in their spare time.

alien_ 6y ago
The people who observe the slow loading time already paid for the game, so I guess R* won't lose much revenue because of this nasty bug.
- bcrosby95 6y ago
  The game has microtransactions. Coincidentally, also a large reason why load times were so slow.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- delecti 6y ago
  The online mode has microtransactions. People not playing anymore aren't paying for microtransactions either.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- AuryGlenz 6y ago
  I didn’t buy the game to play with my friends because I heard of how terrible the loading situation was.
- the_gipsy 6y ago
  IIRC R* makes orders of magnitudes more from microtransactions than from the game box
somehnguy 6y ago
The insane loading times are literally the exact reason I haven’t played in years. Every time I played I just ended up frustrated and got distracted doing something else while waiting, so I just quit playing altogether. I don’t know how people stand the loading times.
- jonwinstanley 6y ago
  Totally agree, I loved the story mode and never got into online due to the amount of time spent loading and finding interesting stuff to do.
- hnick 6y ago
  Maybe the load times inadvertently work like the intentional spelling mistakes in a Nigerian scammer's email. It's bait for the non-discerning customer who is more likely to empty their wallet for microtransactions because they have less experience with games so don't know what is normal :)
  - jamiek88 6y ago
    The fact that this scenario is not immediately ludicrous to me is saddening.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Microtransaction heavy games are primarily funded by whales who spend thousands on a game. If you even make one of them leave that's a net loss.

IshKebab 6y ago

It's kind of hard to believe. GTA5's online mode is their cash cow, and 6 minute load times are common?! It's kind of amazing people even play it with those load times. It's such a simple problem that one dev could have found and fixed it within a day.

toast0 6y ago
It's not at all hard to believe if you've been playing video games for a while. Everything is getting slower and slower, and nobody cares. When I played the Atari 2600, I had to wait for the TV to warm up, but otherwise there were no games with anything approaching load times (with 128 bytes of RAM in the console, who would know). The NES didn't have much in the way of load times either, but you did have to fiddle with the cartridge slot. SNES and Genesis didn't usually load (Air Buster being a noticeable exception). CD based systems sure did like to load, but that's somewhat understandable. In the mean time, more and longer boot screens. The Switch uses a cartridge (or system flash/SD cards), but it likes to load forever too. PC Gaming has had loading for longer, but it's been getting longer and longer. Some arcade games have lengthy loading sequences, but only when you turn them on while they read their entire storage into RAM so they can be fast for the rest of the time they're on (which in arcades is usually all day).
- ubercow13 6y ago
  Shorter loading times were one of the main selling points of this console generation.
- yoz-y 6y ago
  > Everything is getting slower and slower, and nobody cares. It really depends. The latest crop of games I’ve played (Doom Eternal, Cyberpunk) loads way faster than games from a few years back (aforementioned GTA-V, Shadow Warrior 2…). This is also on the same machine, so it’s not the hardware that makes it faster.
  - hnick 6y ago
    Doom Eternal's load times were so good I didn't even bother moving it to my SSD (I junction to a larger HDD by default).

xyzelement 6y ago

I am always amused by comments like this. You have no idea what development practices they follow (neither do I) but it's hilarious to read your tone. GTA has achieved tremendous success both as an entertaining game and as a business. It's enjoyed by millions of people and generates billions in revenue. As per this article, it has startup problems (which don't seem to actually really hurt the overall product but I agree sound annoying) but the bigger picture is: it's a huge success. So - Rockstar has nailed it. What exactly is your platform for analyzing/criticizing their processes or even having a shot of understanding what they are? What have you build that anyone uses? (not saying you haven't, but.. have you been involved with anything remotely close to that scale?) And if not, whence he high horse?

brokencode 6y ago
Successful people and businesses can be wrong. You are not making a case for why those development practices are okay, but are simply appealing to authority. I and most other customers would argue that 6 minute loading times are atrocious, and if there is an easy fix like this, it makes me lose a lot of respect for the developer who doesn’t fix it. It maybe would even make me avoid them in the future. A reputation is built over years, but can be lost pretty much instantly. Companies have to continue serving their customers to enjoy ongoing success.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  They didn’t make an appeal to authority but an appeal to commercial success, and they’re right on. The fact that GTAO is so popular should make most HNers rethink what they know about the commercial necessity of optimization vs building a compelling product.
  - incrudible 6y ago
    The loading times were not initially that long and then the slow CPU makes a big difference. This really only goes to show how much you can get away with if you have an outstandingly popular product that has no direct competition. Chances are that your product is not that compelling, if it performs poorly, that will hurt adoption. It will never become outstandingly popular in the first place.