What Would Matt Do

I love it.

What Would Matt Do: I’d say the old adage holds true, especially with corporations. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Too bad they had to right a song and release it on the internet for United to pretend to care, but at least they’ll get their guitar paid for.

I’ve actually been putting this post off for awhile because I’m so torn about it. You see, Demigod is an absolute gem of a game. Except for when it’s not. That doesn’t really help you though so instead I’ll paint you a picture.

Pretty good, right? I’ve been practicising. Now let me paint you another…

I launch Demigod, I log in to multiplayer, I click Skirmish and wait for the system to find players for me. So far, so good. The problems start as soon as I start the search though… Will the system find me three to seven actual players? Will it pretend to find me players only to kick me into a game with the overly dumb AI? Will it find me a game, but some bug will make it so it counts as a loss? Or will it work and just the little things will have to be dealt with (favor might not work, your DG might not listen and your minions almost assuredly won’t work correctly most of the time).

So the picture I’m painting would be half blissful multiplayer fun and half being eaten by a grue.

I can’t decide how much longer I’ll stick around for Demigod, but being that we’re now three weeks past the release and I’m still dealing with the exact same problems that have existed in the game since launch, I’m getting fed up.

The worst part is I really, really like Demigod when it works. It changes the RTS genre in a way I didn’t think was so easily possible. I’ve got twenty ideas for how other games could go from here or five different game types for this system would drastically change it but still be the basic Demigod model. When it works, it’s a dream. I’m controlling a would be god, with fantasical powers and minions to do their bidding. I’m playing multiplayer tower defense in an absolutely beautiful world where all of the Demigods feel un-balanced, but in reality work pretty damn well against each. Not to mention that each god can be a very different build by the time it hits level 20 (the max level in a single game). And the different game types we get now are all fun and change each map more than enough to make it feel different each time.

The other side of that coin is that getting a good game going is still a crapshoot. Sometimes I can do a Pantheon or Skirmish game and I get a 2vs2 (I haven’t played a non 2vs2 game in awhile now) that works great, but most likely I’m going to get one the following. An error when it tries to join games. Sitting there forever at the finding a game screen. A game does start, but it’s all against AI and according the stats that will be published online later, I’ve already lost the game (even if I win). Oh yeah, and when the game starts I may or may not get favor points/items (stats that carry across games and allow you to buy extra items), I may or may not being playing a balanced game (I see 1vs2 probably as often as not), and it’s assured that the god damn AI is dumb, both for bots and for the minions.

Here’s my absolute biggest problem though. What other RTS game has bots as part of the game when you join a random multiplayer game? None. I don’t click multiplayer, log in and wait for the system to find me a multiplayer game to have it load up the game filled with bots. Fuck the shit out of that. I get why they did that, so people that don’t know better think they found a game instead of having it error out. Well laddy fucking da. That doesn’t help me out at all. I don’t want to play agains the dumb AI. I couldn’t give a crap about how good I am against the AI. I want to play against other people. I want a challenge. Heck, I’d love to have a teammate.

It comes down to this… if Stardock and GPG, both comanies of which I have a lot of respect for, can’t get their shit together and get this game working right, not only am I going to quit playing I’m going to…no, that’s pretty much it. No hot rage of a thousand suns, no petitions online, no ranting and raving (well, beyond this). I’m just going to quit playing. Oh, and think less of two companies that until this point I really thought I had a good shot at quality when buying from them.

Which is pretty sad.

What Would Matt Do: Do you remember when you did something wrong as a kid, but instead of getting angry and upset, your Dad/Mom would just tell you they were really disappointed in you and that was much worse? That’s what I’m about to do to Stardock and GPG. Don’t think I’m kidding, I’ll do it.

Or maybe more imporantly, who didn’t do it. It goes like this… Rumor goes around that CD Projekt cancelled the console version of The Witcher, laid off the entire team. Times are rough, these things happen. Except then we get word that things aren’t quite what they seem:

"Basically, after a few months of not being paid, we stopped," said Masclef speaking to GamesIndustry.biz. "We’ve not been paid for a few months and we had a very nasty broken payment. We had no choice but to put the product on hold. We’ve not been able to find a solution."

Masclef claims Widescreen was also kept in the dark and not informed of new milestone dates for the project, along with added features, which publisher Atari was expecting following discussions with CD Projekt.

"We were not involved in discussions with Atari and CD Projekt. The financial situation seems to have grown more and more difficult," he said.

Hmmmm… They also claim to have not been told about milestones (mini-deadlines):

Masclef claims Widescreen was also kept in the dark and not informed of new milestone dates for the project, along with added features, which publisher Atari was expecting following discussions with CD Projekt.

"We were not involved in discussions with Atari and CD Projekt. The financial situation seems to have grown more and more difficult," he said.

Man, those damn CD Projekt guys (and Atari for that matter)…except well, they have their own take on the situation (check out comment #8):

It is sad that we cannot talk with WSG in normal business way, but communicate through media. It is absolutely not our style of making business, and we answer here as we feel forced to do this to clarify the unclear information:
1. All payments were done on time according to milestone plan.
2. Truth is that payments were later than originally planned but this was solely due to delays in production. The delays were growing in the project due to WSG continued to miss the deadlines.
3. Delays and risks of further development by WSG were unacceptable by CD Projekt (this happened even though CDProjekt RED was constantly increasing main team involvement to help in the production). The most important fact is that development process didn’t make planned release date possible and moreover propositions of the new release date were changing few times. Besides the schedule, technical incapability created a risk of missing planned quality which is absolutely unacceptable. And this brought an end in our cooperation with WSG.
4. Currently the works are on hold. We are evaluating all possible options to continue the production.

So we have a he said, she said situation. Which really sucks. I couldn’t really give a crap whose fault it is…but I was sure looking forward to trying out The Witcher on my 360. Now, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

I couldn’t claim to know who was in the right, nor do I really care. Sucks to see a game that was so potentially close to release get shelved, probably forever (Almost any game put on hold is gone for good).

What Would Matt Do: Play the PC version…maybe I’ll hook up my 360 controller and pretend. Probably not though. /me pours one out for the fallen games…

 (insert bullshit picture here…no really, someone make me a bullshit picture. I have no art skills.)

I actually had to double check and make sure I haven’t already used that title since it’s so obvious and I end up spending a lot of time kicking Epic in groin (not they don’t deserve it). What do we have today in the continuing saga of Epic stupidity? We have yet another reason to never work at Epic:

Mike Capps, head of Epic, and a former member of the board of directors of the International Game Developers Association, during the IGDA Leadership Forum in late 08, spoke at a panel entitled Studio Heads on the Hot Seat, in which, among other things, he claimed that working 60+ hours was expected at Epic, that they purposefully hired people they anticipated would work those kinds of hours, that this had nothing to do with exploitation of talent by management but was instead a part of "corporate culture," and implied that the idea that people would work a mere 40 hours was kind of absurd.

Now, of course, the idea that a studio head, which Capps is, would have such notions is highly plausible; but he was, at the time, a board member of the IGDA, an organization the ostensible purpose of which is to support game developers. Not, you know, to support management dickheads.

(seen via Lum via ZenofDesign; which I can’t get to load right now)

Scott gives pretty good coverage of why crunch time is dumb and he links the most important study of all. It explains when they figured out crunch time didn’t work…the mother fucking 1900′s. That’s right, about a hundred years ago:

So, yes, Crunch Mode can increase output over the short term. But, at 60 hours per week, in no case should "the short term" be defined as anything more than eight weeks long. At that point, the costs strongly begin to outweigh the advantages. Not only have you lost all the gain those increased hours bought; you’ve also got tired, angry, burned-out workers. When you return them to a 40-hour week, their output will be sub-par for some time while they recover.

Read the whole study. No, really, go there now and read the whole thing. It’s that important for anyone that works in any industry where crunch time is seen as the norm. It completely debunks anything Epic could ever say about why they work 60 hour work weeks by default.

Singling out Epic isn’t really the point though. We all know Epic will do stupid shit. It’s kind of their way. What about the industry as a whole though? I don’t know of one guy working in the game industry that doesn’t have crunch time as a part of their regular job. Sometimes just for months, sometimes for years.

Why won’t the industry get a grip? Why do they think that they can defy science, conventional wisdom and common sense and continue with their ways forever?

Because game developers just don’t have the power the normal software industry guys do. And they often don’t know any better or feel trapped into it. Between the two, the ways aren’t changing. Back to Epic for a sec…they are, by all accounts, a wildly successful, development house. But not only are they not pushing for more quality of life at the job, they actively countering it AND they are, or were, a part of the body that is supposed to have some say for developers…

Publishers push unreal timelines on developers. Developers agree because they like having projects so they can get more projects and survive. Look at Obsidian. They did Knights of the Old Republic II. One of my all time favorite RPGs, even though it was never finished. They aren’t alone by any means, but that’s a good example. We see games released all of the time that either a) aren’t done or b) done, but severly limited from the original scope. That doesn’t even get into time for playtesting, beta, changes before release, etc. Another example… Relic just released Dawn of War II a little bit back. They called the game gold AND THEN had a playtest for the multiplayer.

You know what Stardock is going to do? They are working on their next game, and when they think it’s good, they are going to have a beta test. They’ll invite any that preordered it to play it not only for a quick stability check, but to have at least some input into the game about what’s fun and what’s really broken. How long are they going to do this for? Until they feel it’s ready. But hey, what do they know, they just make mad money in a dying market.

The question is though, what needs to happen to fix this? For one, game developers obviously need to get better at knowing how long projects are going to take AND telling publishers that there is a testing/beta window where the public will have feedback on their game. Two, game development houses need to get together and start telling publishers to go to hell. I’m not going to single any specific dev houses here, but anyone that has successful titles under their belt and is still taking on crunch time as part of life, is part of the problem. We have shining examples of the right way to do it (Valve, Stardock and Blizzard to some extent), but they are completely darkened by the business as normal routine most developers start games with.

As I said above, game developers obviously need to get better at both telling the truth about how long projects will take and about accturately figuring that out. None of that is going to change the fucked up relationship of the industry though. Maybe the likes of Stardock and Valve can change it on their own…

Quality of life. It’s more important than whatever dumb ass game you’re trying to release. Companies in general need to get back to working for employees instead of using them until they dry up and can’t handle it anymore. Not just in the game industry, in all industries. But while I dream about moon ponies and wish for fish with my wish making ish, I continue to hope at least a few more companies come around.

What Would Matt Do: Were it up to me, all corporations would be tasked with first taking care of their employees and secondly their plan to make money. Whatever the case, I won’t ever again work for a company where crunch time is just a part of the company creed. See, I like my family…

Just a quick update here while I’m essentially on vacation. The first public shot has been fired by the bad guys. And it’s a doozy:

Web-based e-mail users can continue to access their e-mail at the Verizon Web site until Feb. 6. After that date, Fastiggi said users will need to log on to www.MyFairPoint.net. Customers then click on Web mail and type in their existing user name@myfairpoint.net and existing password.

AOL, Yahoo! and MSN subscribers will continue to have access to content but will no longer be able to access their e-mail through the third party Web site. Instead, Yahoo! and other third party e-mail will be accessed directly at the MyFairPoint.net portal.

Emphasis is mine. And the omg I’m saying in my head is mine too.

God damn fuckers. I don’t know what to do about this other than to share the info with others, but damn if this isn’t the first step in a really bad direction.

I do not want to have to check my ISP to see which pages/sites/content they allow, etc. That’s opposite of what the internet is supposed to be.

What Would Matt Do: I’ll continue to be awesome…and wonder if a DOS isn’t called for. For months. I do not want to be telling my kids that back in my day anyone used to be able to go anywhere on the internet and now, well, comcast decides which sites we can see today.

update: Maybe just a confusing press release? That would be MUCH better.