I remembered it existed and really want to know what went into the finished product
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'non-functional programmer'. 'far left'.
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https://cohost.org/NireBryce/post/4929459-here-s-my-five-minut
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posts from @NireBryce tagged #game development
also: #gamedev, #game dev, #gamedevelopment, ##gamedev
bigcorps (and software in general) abstracting away labor, that is, "how many fractional lifetimes go into making a given thing happen, what experience and skills were there, etc," breeds a sort of perfectionism in people that have them killing what they want once they see an issue because it can't respond as fast or know as much or explore as far as a bigcorp can. Usually they don't seem to realize that the bigcorp has these resources, or perhaps don't see the scope of what's being asked.
Knowing how hard it is to make software of a given scale helps, but only so much -- it's common to see contributors from other projects come in and make demands of you that come from them expecting you to be like their bigcorp, or at the very least have enough ops people to make it run that smoothly.
It does need to be pushed back against, somehow. I don't know how yet. I talk a bit about labor alienation and people wanting way more from open source software than should be expected for what's essentially redirected hobby time, but don't know how to turn that into something that can stick.
Where I most see it is games, though there's plenty of other places it happens with the same vibe. People both hate the bigcorp offerings but require all of the ancillary things around them, not realizing that things being that way only comes hand-in-hand with being a bigcorp. You can't do all those roles well or fast without practice, and the smaller your team the less likely anyone has that or has time for that. doubly so with open source, where it's essentially donations of otherwise-hobby-social time.
It's hard to make things good even three years after release, if you release in an unfinished state. But no one can afford to be finished when they release, these days, either. Early Access gets slammed, and then (as an example off the top of my head) people complain about a price hike when Satsifactory comes out of early access because they've been playing the game for 5 years only having paid the introductory price.
Most people have no idea what software costs in terms of the making of it. I'm sure some of that is what I thought 20 years ago -- "well, it's hard for me, but once you're over that hump it seems easy", but like men racing in France, it doesn't get easier, you just get faster.
has something changed (like all the gambling addictions they've fostered I suppose) or is the research still that smaller microtransaction costs net you more overall money over the life of an online game, but all games management mostly just ignores it?
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