4 ms·

Pardon the snark, but the answer should be obvious: budget and deadlines. Producing well-optimized, “clever” code usually requires magnitudes of more time than

Pardon the snark, but the answer should be obvious: budget and deadlines. Producing well-optimized, “clever” code usually requires magnitudes of more time than the simplest, quickest solution. Hobbyists line yourself, and a few companies like Nintendo, are typically the only ones that can afford to spend time optimizing like you describe.

kossTKR 3y ago
I get that to an extent, but it would literally take at max a day for a person to run thousands of meshes through an acceptable SimpifyGeometry function or sorting all models by vertice size and removing the most idiotic ones, or remove the teeth in one go.
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  Sure. Who is gonna prioritize that? Engineers likely have no discretionary time left and are even working weekends. Even on a web project I've been on, I had PM complaint every meeting about loading times of a admin interface. I told them every time that they should than prioritize the pagination ticket I had written. After a months of this shit, I took time out of my Saturday and just added it. I wouldn't have done that if I had already had to work nights and weekends.
  - jokethrowaway 3y ago
    Working overtime is just insane to me. Why can't you just ignore the PM and do it during normal hours? What are they going to do? Fire you?
  - kossTKR 3y ago
    Not blaming the engineers! The problem is structural or from managers and higher ups. This is why most non technical business school types can fuck right off, i’ve rarely seen them make anything better. Managers with either dev or design experience is the only thing that works.
imiric 3y ago
I don't buy that excuse. To me it seems more like game developers have become complacent with the powerful hardware consumers have at their disposal, especially on PCs, and the fact they can always push fixes after the release. Decades ago it used to be a major milestone when a game "went gold". It meant QA was successful and that the game was fully playable. Budget and deadlines also existed back then, but there was (usually) much more care taken to ensure a good gaming experience, regardless of the hardware. Saying that only a few companies can do this successfully today is excusing objectively bad development practices. Consumers should vote with their wallet, and stop preordering and falling for preorder bonuses and marketing hype, which is another disease affecting modern gaming. Unfortunately, publishers know that they can release a lackluster product based on hype alone (No Man's Sky, Cyberpunk 2077), and then spend years "polishing" a game into a state they promised before the initial release. The modern gaming industry is rife with scams like these to the point that it should be heavily regulated. So, no, none of these companies can be excused for releasing a garbage product and charging full price for it.
- clnq 3y ago
  > I don't buy that excuse. This means you are, sadly, very uninformed. There is a lot of rolling with the punches in the games industry, and many engineers want to optimize things more, and work OT to do so (as there is an extreme shortage of time to do this in AAA space on company time).
  - imiric 3y ago
    > This means you are, sadly, very uninformed. No, it means that I don't accept budget and deadlines being an excuse for delivering a poor experience. As a consumer, I'm speculating about the reasons why this happens, but my point is that it shouldn't happen at all. > many engineers want to optimize things more, and work OT to do so (as there is an extreme shortage of time to do this in AAA space on company time) Again, this is an industry problem, and not something companies should be excused for. Whether engineers actually care about optimizing or not, and whether they crunch or not (as much as I may sympathize), is not my concern, and I place equal blame on them for delivering a subpar product, whether it's under their control or not. Ultimately their names will be listed in the credits, and they represent the product as much as the publisher. If they don't like the environment of a particular studio, they can always choose to work elsewhere.
BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
Really? Shipping logs with 100k vertices and people with individually rendered teeth is an "obvious budget and deadlines" issue? It strikes me as a "how many idiots are in a position to make important decisions on this game" issue, or "how generally competent is the development team" issue.

kossTKR 3y ago

I get that to an extent, but it would literally take at max a day for a person to run thousands of meshes through an acceptable SimpifyGeometry function or sorting all models by vertice size and removing the most idiotic ones, or remove the teeth in one go.

ajmurmann 3y ago
Sure. Who is gonna prioritize that? Engineers likely have no discretionary time left and are even working weekends. Even on a web project I've been on, I had PM complaint every meeting about loading times of a admin interface. I told them every time that they should than prioritize the pagination ticket I had written. After a months of this shit, I took time out of my Saturday and just added it. I wouldn't have done that if I had already had to work nights and weekends.
- jokethrowaway 3y ago
  Working overtime is just insane to me. Why can't you just ignore the PM and do it during normal hours? What are they going to do? Fire you?
- kossTKR 3y ago
  Not blaming the engineers! The problem is structural or from managers and higher ups. This is why most non technical business school types can fuck right off, i’ve rarely seen them make anything better. Managers with either dev or design experience is the only thing that works.

imiric 3y ago

I don't buy that excuse. To me it seems more like game developers have become complacent with the powerful hardware consumers have at their disposal, especially on PCs, and the fact they can always push fixes after the release. Decades ago it used to be a major milestone when a game "went gold". It meant QA was successful and that the game was fully playable. Budget and deadlines also existed back then, but there was (usually) much more care taken to ensure a good gaming experience, regardless of the hardware. Saying that only a few companies can do this successfully today is excusing objectively bad development practices. Consumers should vote with their wallet, and stop preordering and falling for preorder bonuses and marketing hype, which is another disease affecting modern gaming. Unfortunately, publishers know that they can release a lackluster product based on hype alone (No Man's Sky, Cyberpunk 2077), and then spend years "polishing" a game into a state they promised before the initial release. The modern gaming industry is rife with scams like these to the point that it should be heavily regulated. So, no, none of these companies can be excused for releasing a garbage product and charging full price for it.

clnq 3y ago
> I don't buy that excuse. This means you are, sadly, very uninformed. There is a lot of rolling with the punches in the games industry, and many engineers want to optimize things more, and work OT to do so (as there is an extreme shortage of time to do this in AAA space on company time).
- imiric 3y ago
  > This means you are, sadly, very uninformed. No, it means that I don't accept budget and deadlines being an excuse for delivering a poor experience. As a consumer, I'm speculating about the reasons why this happens, but my point is that it shouldn't happen at all. > many engineers want to optimize things more, and work OT to do so (as there is an extreme shortage of time to do this in AAA space on company time) Again, this is an industry problem, and not something companies should be excused for. Whether engineers actually care about optimizing or not, and whether they crunch or not (as much as I may sympathize), is not my concern, and I place equal blame on them for delivering a subpar product, whether it's under their control or not. Ultimately their names will be listed in the credits, and they represent the product as much as the publisher. If they don't like the environment of a particular studio, they can always choose to work elsewhere.

BaculumMeumEst 3y ago

Really? Shipping logs with 100k vertices and people with individually rendered teeth is an "obvious budget and deadlines" issue? It strikes me as a "how many idiots are in a position to make important decisions on this game" issue, or "how generally competent is the development team" issue.