*Sees rest of this thread and how people are acting*
Oh...umm...
Ummm...so I kind of figure people are going to dislike and like the game...so eh...I didn't really pay attention to all that fuss....and...umm let's just remember I'm impartial in general about this game...
Y...Yeah uhm...I'm not trying to be like "OMG MISMANAGEMENT!" just...trying to figure if certain aspects of this software's dev cycle is normal for game dev...I have worked in a lot of different positions in IT, so to me games are just entertainment software, just...never worked for a game company (Stilllll want to)...and no one else is talking about this here so...
I'm...just not sure if this is normal in game dev? I would imagine at times, like any software dev...
Forbes spoke to 20 people who used to work for Cloud Imperium, many of whom depict Roberts as a micromanager and poor steward of resources. They describe the work environment as chaotic.
According to some he's worked with in the past, some of the below behavior is also common for him. Not saying he can't deliver, but it does establish a pattern...
“As the money rolled in, what I consider to be some of [Roberts’] old bad habits popped up—not being super-focused,” says Mark Day, a producer on Wing Commander IV who runs a company that was contracted to do work on Star Citizen in 2013 and 2014. “It had got out of hand, in my opinion. The promises being made—call it feature creep, call it whatever it is—now we can do this, now we can do that. I was shocked.”
I did read that they have 537 employees; in small companies/teams I've been with this makes total sense because everyone is wearing a ton of hats and things are being played close to the team (By nature)
Former employees say Roberts gets involved in the smallest details and pushes huge and complex investments in areas that are not worth the effort.
Can anyone who has worked in game dev (Hopefully of a company of that scale) and can comment on if the above is normal in (big) game dev studios??? That seems incredibly daunting be so involved instead of delegating to team leads and such; couldn't imagine a CTO strolling by my cube and letting me know I should do my script another way, just...weird.
That and complete creative control, although yeah normal, from my experience those people are usually pretty chill and just give input then dip with the brass to get some good food...that sorta thing normal in game dev?
A company spokesman retorts: “It does say ‘Chris Roberts’ on the box, so one would naturally expect him to be quite involved with decision-making.”
For the scope of the game, I do agree it's a little naive to not expect a longer development cycle, but it ~is~ odd by current standards to be in dev for that long, if you take scale out of the equation.
Jesse Schell, a prominent game developer and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. “This thing is unusual in about five dimensions. . . . It is very rare to be doing game development for seven years—that’s not how it works. That’s not normal at all.”
I'm not trying to be negative or positive or anything like that, just my experience in this sort of stuff is different, and those articles sprung up about Anthem's dev cycle etc...so just got me thinking what it would take to dev out entertainment software at this scale, and what that means for the end product.
If it does well at the end, I'm sure I'll be on board like everyone else, and same if it sucks and no one plays it lol.
Again, not bashing anything, just inquiring about some stuff I didn't really see discussed in the thread.
EDIT: I also do not care about a person's social life out side of work; i prefer the Japanese approach. What happens off the clock, STAYS off the clock (If it's reasonable, of course). Getting into that sort of shit in the article is just...meh, no reason.