Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Why google is never slow

Why is google never down, and never slow? Maybe because it’s a rich company… but the real answer I suspect is this:

Google understand that a slow website would kill their business instantly.

When your entire business is built around web pages, you better damn be sure you serve them up fast. Literally *nothing* else is this important. That means serious backup infrastructure and emergency planning. redundant systems, and a rock solid set of hardware. When I worked for datastream/ICV we had a 15 minute response time. If a client of ours had a software problem, 15 mins from picking up the phone he had it fixed. guaranteed. because we would be at his desk (from another place in the city believe it or not) within 15 mins with an entire replacement PC. We swapped out the whole thing, then diagnosed the bug in our time back at the office. To ensure this *never* went wrong, we always sent out 3 engineers in a van when we could. 1 to drive the van (no time to park), 1 to carry the replacement PC, and 1 to open doors for the guy carrying the PC. The van contained 2 complete units, in case (never happened) somehow the PC got dropped or died between leaving the office and landing on the guys desk.

Needless to say, Datastream/ICV give great support. And uptime is great. Their satellite link died for 15 minutes once. People went ballistic. I have little doubt people were sacked as a result. Of course, also needless to say, a support contract with them is expensive to say the least. we are talking megabucks.

The thing is, if you are a big city share trader, you realise that if your real time data feed is dead, you are rapidly heading towards business disaster, minute by minute. So it’s worth paying to get it right. Right now, I’m trying to buy Sound Effects from 2 different sites, and both are slow and dying on me (all other sites are fine). These guys are literally throwing money away right now.

if my site is ever down or slow, tell me. I REALLY need to know!

Game Dev Shortage

Apparently there is a shortage of people to work in video games:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7460870.stm

Me and some other ex-industry people I know find this very amusing. Apparently one of the issues that game developers have is finding suitably qualified graduates to hire. Here is a newsflash for them:

If the experienced people didn’t leave, you wouldn’t need the graduates

It’s sad the way many games companies work. They deal with horribly high staff turnover as a matter of course. Staff turnover is a devestating problem for a knowledge based business. A new coder probably achieves nothing of any real value for the first few weeks, little for a month or two, and is probably only really working as a games coder by the end of their first year. To becomre really experienced at the practice (not theory) of games dev takes at least 3 years. By then he (almost always a ‘he’ sadly) is sick of his job and often keen to leave, and so the company promotes everyone and hires a new graduate.

Staff turnover is always bad, but for programmers it’s unusually damaging. It’s easier to find your own bugs than the last guys bugs, especially if the last guy isn’t here to ask him what the f**k he was thinking when he wrote that stuff. If your company doesn’t adhere to coding standards, it’s even worse.

Here’s some free advice to anyone wanting to retain game coding staff:

  1. Pay the experienced devs more. They are worth more. they can find the bugs the others can’t. their code is better, faster, more stable. Don’t worry if some coders earn treble what others earn, this is very often justified.
  2. Give them a decent working environment. We stare at monitors a lot. if we need ones that cost $1,000, then that’s what we need. Deal with it. It’s worth it. Ditto chairs.
  3. Ditto PC’s. AAA games take ages to compile. if you don’t want to pay coders to sit and eat donuts while the code compiles, buy them the fastest PC’s you can get. This will *save* money.
  4. Make everyone go home at 6PM. Abolish the stupidity of the long-hours culture. If you can’t concentrate on emails after 8 hours, what makes you think that a programmer can write decent C++ code without bugs after that many hours in a day. Less tired coders == less bugs == faster dev time, and happier developers.
  5. Train the devs. If they want half a dozen C++ book on expenses, let them have them. It’s trivial in cost terms in terms of increased productivity. Most coders *want* to learn. so support them.
  6. Either give developers individual offices, let them work from home, or get everyone noise canceling headphones. Maybe 1 in 10 programmers can work well in a busy noisy office, but the other 9 will be working less efficiently than they would be in a quiet office, and getting annoyed about it

Of course, many companies don’t want to hear any of this, because to many guys in suits who aren’t coders, the cheap graduate in jeans sat slouched at his keyboard is doing the same job as john carmack. why the hell would they treat any of them better than the cheap graduate?

Dealing with the small guys

A lot of big companies will ignore you, and basically pretend you dont exist if you are a small company wanting to deal with them. Big publishers often don’t even dignify my emails with a response (you know who you are!). Some advertisers won’t deal with me “unless your budget is at least $10k a month”. I imagine some very testosterone fuelled executives get very aroused at the thought of being so l33t they don’t deal with small fry nobodies spending less than that.

But I know some companies who have built very efficient systems that let them deal with very small fry, and make a fortune from it:

Google adwords

Amazon

Ebay

Paypal

Granted, this isn’t so much business to business (b2b) but consumer facing stuff, but if it can be done for the consumer why not the small business? Adwords deals with mega-corps, and the little guy like me. I know some people who spend a dollar a month there, I spend many hundreds of dollars a month. Its’s all money, and those dollars add up. Plus, when the small fry start getting big, they remember who their friends are, and who helped them up the ladder.

Some company who won’t deal with positech because we are too small is like me not selling you a game unless you will spend $200. When you buy a game from me, it’s automated, I don’t do anything on a per-order basis. Welcome to 2008, where automated scripts and computers make the cost per transaction close to zero. Has everyone re-engineered their company philosophy to deal with that? because google have. Maybe I have better processes in place than some of those big mega corps that won’t do business with me?

Drunk…but look! cheap games!

Just got back from an alcohol fuelled fathers day thing. So too inebriated to post coherently. but look! fellow indies adivtive247 are 7 years old and selling ALL their games at $7 each! enjoy it while it lasts!:

http://www.addictive247.co.uk/

Offer ends 22nd june apparently!

The Influence Game

Want a free ‘big picture’ game idea?

INFLUENCE

One day (no idea when) I’ll do a game based around influence. I’m not sure the exact form it will take, the mechanics by which it will be played, or the setting. Bu the ‘theme’ will be influence. As games get more complex and established, we need to move on from variation on the theme of ‘use gun on enemy’. The only two real ‘influence’ games I am aware of are ‘The Sims’ (you tend to influence rather than direct your sim) and Black and White.

I know a lot of people get frustrated by not being able to directly control their cyber minions. Surely games are an escape from reality, where we seem to have no control over anything. Do we really want to play games where people ignore us and don’t do what they are told.

I do. I think influence is far more interesting than power and control. Influence is subtler, more complex and way cooler. Would you buy a game about influence?