
The Door Problem (2014) - nickjj
http://www.lizengland.com/blog/2014/04/the-door-problem/
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zitterbewegung
I think the biggest issue in video games is the disconnect between how people
perceive developers and what they do. Many people complain about QA teams and
how they "aren't doing their job". The real issue is that making video games
requires so much testing that they can't keep up with meeting deadlines and
goals. Considering that someone has to hand test nearly all situations that
the only way you can really test a game is to release a beta quality game and
let your users tell you whats wrong. Warframe is the best at trying to manage
peoples expectations. The creative director went on periscope during a big
release which made people understand what is happening. The head liveops
(community manager) allows them to walk on water
([https://twitter.com/rebbford](https://twitter.com/rebbford)) due to her
ability to manage the community. Warframe is the sole example of a game that
treats its uses like adults.

~~~
Kaivo
I worked in QA on some AAA titles and I remember being told that the hours the
team was putting in testing the game (nearly 300 people over several months of
over time) would be matched by the players in the first 6 to 8 hours from the
release. That and when the team is filling hundreds if not thousands of
defects daily, how can the dev team keep up and "fix" everything?

~~~
justherefortart
Why are developers reinventing the wheel for each release (seemingly)?

The fix in my experience is to build a baseline between the low level
framework and the UI, like a business layer in most web applications or the
HAL in Windows.

I'm not a game developer though, so just my stab in the dark :-)

~~~
zitterbewegung
They do this though its called a video driver and a video game engine.

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k__
It's like with all software.

On one project I have a whole design team that tells me how the doors should
look and behave.

On the next project nobody really cares, so I paint them black, lock all of
them and wait till someone complains abut a few that they want to open. ;)

~~~
blunte
And this is a pretty good way of going about things. Details of the doors
don't matter until they matter.

And if some participants have specific desires/needs/opinions about doors, you
can worry about those while leaving other unmentioned details painted black.

~~~
k__
Yes.

Often people need more than they initially think of, but if you wake desires
on stuff they don't need you just waste time for nothing.

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blunte
This is a fantastic example, and it applies to just about everything in life.

That which we only use or see is simple. That which we build, is not. Until
you've had a custom home built, for example, you may think a home is a pretty
simple thing. Likewise, until you've built any non-trivial piece of software,
you might think it simple.

I suppose it's a human optimization to conceptualize and minimize things in
our mind. It allows us to have enough of an idea to get on with whatever is
more important to us. The problem is when we forget that we are naturally
oversimplifying everything in life (except that one or two things we're
actually doing/building).

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nickjj
I liked this article because it relates to any form of development.

The next time a client says "that doesn't seem too hard, can you just add it
to the app?", I'm sure you can think of a laundry list of things that need to
happen to implement it.

~~~
justherefortart
It's just a button. This was the joke at my old job.

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Lazare
Another point that could be made is that all the questions in the first part
are important and need to be answered, and all the answers in the second part
are what the relevant people involved will actually _do_ , but if you add up
all the answers in the second part, you haven't actually answered most of the
questions in the first part.

And I'd say I've definitely played games where major systems were done that
way; someone up on high said the system needed to exist, and then people
charged off and did concept art, and sound effects, and made assets, and setup
scripting hooks, without ever really fleshing out the details of what the
system was meant to _do_. Come to that, I've worked on some non-game projects
that did the same thing. :)

~~~
firethief
All of the questions in the top are the Game Designer's job.

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provost
And the inevitable, "It shouldn't be that hard to add a door, you can do that
in 30 minutes, right?"

~~~
codazoda
It's just one line of code.

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georgeecollins
There have been movie and television shows about how movies and television
shows are made. The same about newspapers and magazines. People don't really
have a clue how games are made and what it entails. When I say I work in video
games, people usually say: Really, do you program them?

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aerialcombat
Ahhhh... This article was so therapeutic.

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nsarafa
The localization bit made me crack up.

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Kenji
_Monetization Designer: “We could charge the player $.99 to open the door now,
or wait 24 hours for it to open automatically.”_

Good lord. Please kill me. Is this what game design has come to?

~~~
Endy
In terms of "AAA" game design, yes. There are still a few indie developers out
there who actually want to produce good games. But capitalism means they don't
win - the people who get the most money do.

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
Doesn't capitalism mean they could win, but not in this century?

