I’m so impressed I want to pay you less
The title of this post is a statement that I've heard a few times in the past while at work. The people who said it might not have used those exact words, but the intent is the same. Usually I hear it in the following form:
"We're very happy with the work you've done for us as a contractor. We want to keep you on, but would like you to take a job as a permanent employee and continue to work on the project."
Once they've made this point, they then feel the need to harp on about the good points of becoming a permanent employee. Things such as job security, sick/annual leave and better hours tend to get mentioned. All of them are complete bullshit of course.
There is no such thing as job security. Sick and/or annual isn't enough to make up for the difference in pay. Hours tend to always be worse when you're working for the man, because you're expected to do whatever needs to be done regardless of the hours. This is worse if you're working on mission-critical stuff.
The Wrong Decision by the Wrong Person
There is one thing about my industry that I still find truly amazing (and not in a good way). This is despite the fact that it has happened to me so many times that you think I'd be used to it! I'm talking about non-technical people making technical decisions.
For some reason, it's a very common practice for those people who don't have expertise in a certain field to make decisions for people working in that field. The best example I can think of off the top of my head is the answer to the question: "Which technology should we use?"
Let me take a step back in time for a moment.
It’s OK to Fail
Yes. You read that right. It's OK to fail. Yes, I am talking to you. You... that guy who is part of every team. The one who seems to feel the need to be right about everything. The one who thinks that everything new has already been done 15 years prior. The one who believes that every project they have participated in has been a profound success, and that a project-level failure (which includes missing deadlines or blowing the budget) is something they have never experienced. Failure is not only OK, it's something that you must experience somewhere along the way so you know when you've succeeded.
The Value of a Technical Community
This post was inspired by an experience I had recently in an IRC channel. To protect the innocent, I'll refrain from naming and shaming the channel and individual as those details aren't important.
Communities are arguably the life blood of technology. Without a good community the likelihood of the technology catching on is drastically reduced. Those communities which lack individuals that are happy to put time and effort in to help get others up to speed tend to stagnate. Any community which involves members that are abrasive, rude and downright offensive is destined to suffer long term.
I Don’t Need Your Frickin’ Framework!
How many companies have you worked with/for that have their own framework? How many have been in the process of developing their own framework? How many have been in the process of redeveloping their own framework? How many have taken another framework and hacked improved it?
When I attempt to answer the questions listed above, I start to shiver. I feel the need to burn my clothes and take a very long shower.
Websites are Hard to Build – A Case in Point
A short time ago I posted some thoughts on issues faced when building websites that most people aren't aware of when they decide to have one built. I posted from the perspective of someone who has, on many occasions, been asked to build a site for someone who really doesn't have a clue about what is involved. More importantly, they don't want to know.
There are people out there who don't know about the issues faced, but are still in need of a site to fulfil their needs. Should they learn about these issues themselves? Should they put their faith in a developer/designer and let them do their job and just send them a bill at the end? A mixture of the two?
Farewell to an Australian Games Industry Icon
I received a bit of sad news from "He who must not be named" this morning. It appears that Aussie game developer Auran are struggling to stay afloat, and will most likely close. This isn't good news for the Aussie contingent of the games industry, and is an indication of how cut-throat the industry can be.
But let's be honest, while it's sad to hear that they're in strife, it isn't really a surprise.
Biosham ™
I can fully understand the desire a developer has to protect their creation from being copied illegally. I can understand why some steps would be taken to mitigate the risk of losing money due to piracy. What I can't understand is why some companies go so far with their anti-piracy measures that it starts to have an impact on the honourable, paying customers.
I have bitched in the past about how activation is a pain in the neck. But that example is nothing like what 2K Games have recently inflicted on the buyers of their latest creation, Bioshock. Rather than throw a few links to a bzillion blog and forum posts that have covered it already, let me just give you the short version:
- Bioshock comes with SecuROM.
- It requires online activation before it can be played.
- It can only be activated twice.
On the surface this might not sound so bad, but when you think about it a little deeper it becomes obvious why this is such a pain in the arse.
Misled from the Start
I find myself frequently concerned with the lack of ability of a lot of people in our industry. Today I found an example of at least one of the possible reasons why software development professionals turn out to be crap.
They start by reading tutorials like this.
How can we expect people to become good at what they do if the tutorials they're learning from are like that? If you learn the bad stuff from the outset then you're destined to be writing bad code for many years to come.
Becoming a Geek Part 3: The Game Geek
Welcome to the next in the Becoming a Geek series. Today I'm going to cover the areas which I think a budding Game Geek needs to be adept in for him/her to be a true Game Geek. I'd like to make a clear distinction from the start that the Game Geek is a different beast to a Game Development Geek, and hence I won't be covering the development side in this post. I will, however, be covering the game development details in a later post in this series on the Development Geek.
