

Why Did L.A. Noire Take Seven Years to Make? - nl
http://au.xbox360.ign.com/articles/117/1179020p1.html

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JacobAldridge
_"Eleven agreed to speak on the record, under the condition of anonymity"_

Minor nitpick as a former journalist - being on the record means not being
anonymous, and being anonymous means being 'off the record' (the 'record'
refers to your name, not your comments).

If you're really interested, there are kind of four loosely defined categories
of sources: On the record (quote and name me), Off the record (quote me, but
don't name me), Background (Don't quote me, but use this information to verify
other research) and Deep Background (this will point you in the right
direction, but you'll need to verify with multiple other sources). As I said -
loosely defined, but on/off the record is pretty clear.

~~~
nl
That doesn't match my understanding, and Wikipedia[1] agrees with what I
thought (and this article implies):

"Unattributable" (aka anonymous): what is said can be reported but not
attributed.

"Off-the-record": the information is provided to inform a decision or provide
a confidential explanation, not for publication.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_sourcing#.22Speaking...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_sourcing#.22Speaking_terms.22)

~~~
talmand
This was my understanding as well; "on the record" meant it could be reported
while "off the record" meant it could not. But then I'd have to say that what
Jacob says makes more sense.

~~~
JacobAldridge
Yeah, "loosely defined" is probably an understatement - key rule if you are
ever interviewed and want some level of control is to ensure you and the
journalist know the definition not just the phrase.

Another one that I discovered in my brief time in journalism was that the
medical reports (stable, critical etc) you hear most often have no medical
basis - they're used by the media, and many healthcare professionals (at
least, in Aus 10 years ago) didn't much like them because of their vagueness.

If you want my working definition of those, you basically have two scales:
condition (fine, minor, serious, critical, dead) and change (improving,
stable, deteriorating). Combine the two and you have an excellent soundbite -
"The driver is in a critical but stable condition".

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jameskilton
This is why I never, ever recommend a job in the games industry, especially
for programmers, and will actively work to change people's minds who do want
to make games professionally.

This isn't an exception, this type of horrendous behaviour is the norm. For an
industry who's product _is_ software, they're the worst at doing it in a
sustainable and repeatedly successful way.

Find a non-games programming job, and do game development on your free time.
Indy games is the way to go (just look at Minecraft), anything else is a
souless meat grinder.

~~~
vetler
Well, unfortunately conditions like these are not confined to the games
industry. Psycopaths in leadership positions can most likely be found in every
industry. Perhaps it's more common in the games industry, though. Or perhaps
it just gets more attention, I don't know.

Seems to be a lot of horror stories about the games industry. Doesn't anyone
have any more pleasant stories to share?

~~~
kevingadd
I liked a portion of my time in the games industry, but I don't really have
much good to say about the studio where I worked: It was horribly
dysfunctional like most other games studios. The positive aspects are mostly
rooted in that your coworkers tend to be really driven, creative individuals.

I know of a few particular studios with a reputation for having good work
environments, but in general, the nature of the industry causes bad managers
and directors to rise to the top because it's impossible to reliably connect
bad results with bad decisions.

On the other hand, I know lots of people who still like their industry jobs. I
think for them, putting up with dysfunctional management is okay because they
get enough out of the job otherwise to make it a fair trade. It's also
possible to diminish the destructive effects of the job if you're strong-
willed and productive - crunch is a good example. It's possible to work in the
industry without working crunch more than a few weeks in your entire career.

~~~
stonemetal
_I know of a few particular studios with a reputation for having good work
environments,_ Are you willing to share? It would be nice to have a list of
non assholes to buy games from. Enough of these articles have come out about
Rockstar that I have decided not to buy from them anymore.

------
martincmartin
I actually worked at Rockstar Games briefly during this period, although I
wasn't involved with L.A. Noire. I would discuss with others why the games
industry was run this way and what could be done about it. One friend's
opinion was "look at successful games, they're all made that way, so 'bad'
management must work better than 'good' management."

Thinking about it later, I figured that bad management just increased costs &
time to market, and made the games buggier, but didn't fundamentally change
who successful a game is. And video games are a very hit-or-miss business,
where successes are such run away money makers, that a popular game can gross
so much money as to cover a really inefficient development process. As long as
the lead game designers had a really good sense for what a good game was.

~~~
talmand
"look at successful games, they're all made that way, so 'bad' management must
work better than 'good' management."

That's silly logic, might as well as admit that since sweat shops make money
then all companies should be run as sweat shops.

In my experience bad management succeeds despite itself, usually because of
the workers who put up with it and push to succeed for their own reasons. In
those cases the bad management does everything they can to take the credit for
the success but blames everyone for the failures.

This is far more common in multiple industries than it should be. The main
reason this happens, in my opinion, is most of the people you would want as
managers (because they would be good) don't want to move into that position.
They want to stay where they are since they like what they're doing. For
example, moving a developer into a management position often means no more
development for that person.

Not to say all management is bad, there are companies out there that do seem
to get it. Valve seems to be the model we all should have in mind based on
some recent stories I've read.

~~~
kahawe
> _In my experience bad management succeeds despite itself, usually because of
> the workers who put up with it and push to succeed for their own reasons_

I sincerely wish, more managers would understand this instead of knocking each
other on the shoulder.

Just because you manage to get something out of the door after all does not
mean you are a good manager and it does NOT mean you are _NOT_ a bad manager.

------
Aramgutang
What I don't understand is why employees working in such conditions don't
unionise. I've asked around my circle of game development friends, some of
whom had worked at Team Bondi, and none were able to give a coherent answer.
It's as if they refuse to recognise joining a union as a viable choice. And we
Australians are supposed to be a pretty union-friendly bunch.

------
mikle
This is an interesting moral debate - LA Noire was both a critical and
monetary success AFAIK. Was this worth it? If you produce great art, do you
have to worry about the "how"?

~~~
Zumzoa
But if they had nurtured their talent so that they didn't have to re-train
testers, programmers and designers every 12 months, they might have finished
it in three-quarters of the time.

~~~
talmand
Exactly. It would also have made more profit if it had similar sales during
the earlier release schedule.

Plus nurturing the talent means they can easily roll into the next project
with little or no downtime, which makes that project cheaper to complete.

------
stonemetal
_ex-employees we spoke to, was McNamara's need to exert total control over
what goes on in the studio. When asked whether that was true, he chuckled and
asked "And is that a bad thing? I make video games. They're personal
statements for me. I write 'em, I direct 'em, I put the technology together to
make them. I go out to the world and say, 'Will you fund them?' So if you
think that's obsessive: absolutely."_

With over a hundred employees doing most or all of the work, you really have
to love the massive ego that takes all of the credit.

------
Tomis
This McNamara individual is trying to steal the "massive douchebag"
achievement from Bobby Kotick. I'd say he's on the right track.

