“Lazy” - might it make sense to repurpose this term

[shadoclone]

lucablight
How about this, someone asks you run a marathon in less than 2 hours and 30 minutes and your current best is somewhere between 4-5 hours, but gives you only a month to train on your own, no team or nutritionist or anything like that, and no additional time off work, just your usual free time. Are you lazy for not being able to do so, or were you not given the time and resources to get into a form capable of doing it?

 

[ak1287]

It's obvious lucablight is attempting to push 'lazy dev' arguments while simultaneously giving themselves plausible deniability to avoid a ban.

 

[lucablight]

lucablight
How about this, someone asks you run a marathon in less than 2 hours and 30 minutes and your current best is somewhere between 4-5 hours, but gives you only a month to train on your own, no team or nutritionist or anything like that, and no additional time off work, just your usual free time. Are you lazy for not being able to do so, or were you not given the time and resources to get into a form capable of doing it?

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It's obviously unreasonable to expect someone to improve their running time so drastically in such a short amount of time.

 

[OmegaDL50]

It is human nature to be lazy, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
It's silly that people here gets so offended by the term lazy. I guess when a game break the idea that the dev/management are incompetent sounds more fair than them being lazy?
(Also IMO the management is a fundamental part of development, so it is weird to implies that the dev does not include them)

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When you consider the fact that at times during a development cycle is comprised of 70 hour work weeks at 14 hours at day, and sometimes never going home and needing to basically sleep in your cubicle. It is not remotely at all silly to be offended at being called lazy.

Anyone who works in these sorts of conditions is the complete fucking opposite of being lazy.

 

[shadoclone]

It's obviously unreasonable to expect someone to improve their running time so drastically in such a short amount of time.

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Yes exactly, developers are beholden to time limits and resource assignment set by publishers, who in turn are beholden to shareholders. More specifically in TPCs case upper management takes the place of a dedicated publisher and assigns time limits and resources to the dev team, it's not a matter of being lazy, it's a matter of the time and resources allowed. In the analogy I gave, the time given to you is the time set by a publisher. The restriction of training only in your usual free time is to represent avoiding crunch (which admittedly is still an issue in the game dev world).

 

[delete12345]

Maybe if we look from the origins of how the "lazy dev" rhetoric was conceived from, remove the connotations, and then apply some thesaurus/vocabulary logic on it to make it more clear and verbose, it might help us repurpose the term, per OP's wishes?

 

[SpaceCrystal]

I'm pretty sure using the phrase "lazy devs" is grounds for a ban, and rightly so. No one has any right to say that when the industry is notorious for crunch periods that violate any kind of worker decency. People who use the term are, frankly, ignorant assholes.

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While I agree with you, what appropriate terms are we supposed to use in place, though?

 

[Dark Cloud]

It's obvious lucablight is attempting to push 'lazy dev' arguments while simultaneously giving themselves plausible deniability to avoid a ban.

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Lol

 

[Budi]

So developers who decide to put more content and complexity into their games than what is needed to sell the maximal amount would be dumb then?

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Depends, have you seen Cyberpunk?

 

[lucablight]

It's obvious lucablight is attempting to push 'lazy dev' arguments while simultaneously giving themselves plausible deniability to avoid a ban.

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Again, I would appreciate it if you didn't straw man me. I acknowledge the fact that there are developers who are pushed to the brink and work long hours with strict deadlines so it is reprehensible to call developers "lazy" especially when a game comes out in a state due to factors out of their control.
By the same token there are games that are released that are not the best games they could have been (I used a Pokémon Sword/Shield as an example). I am genuinely curious as to what descriptor Era would consider appropriate in this case.

Yes exactly, developers are beholden to time limits and resource assignment set by publishers, who in turn are beholden to shareholders. More specifically in TPCs case upper management takes the place of a dedicated publisher and assigns time limits and resources to the dev team, it's not a matter of being lazy, it's a matter of the time and resources allowed. In the analogy I gave, the time given to you is the time set by a publisher. The restriction of training only in your usual free time is to represent avoiding crunch (which admittedly is still an issue in the game dev world).

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How do you know the Pokémon Sword/Shield issues were caused by management? Has anyone spoken about it?

 

[RLCC14]

Just call them incompetent devs and be done with it.

 

[Vyse]

While I agree with you, what appropriate terms are we supposed to use in place, though?

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Measured devs, par for the course games, standard games, if the game or series in question has excelled or been more ambitious in scope previously then it's possible to deploy the harsher but fair ''subpar game''.

 

[OmegaDL50]

This about Pokemon Sword / Shield not being massive in scope like BOTW again, isn't it?

It wasn't a realistic scenario in any circumstance that GameFreak with it's 180+ employees could put out something comparable to the level of BOTW under a 3 year dev cycle when Breath of Wild took 5 years to develop with a staff count of 300 to 350 comprised of both EPD and Monolith Soft. This includes outsourcing work too. It was NEVER going to happen and sure enough and definitely does not imply that GameFreak was lazy either.

Considering the amount of work involved that goes into typical game dev, people that persist to and continue to push lazy dev rhetoric angle, all that tells me means those people are completely ignorant and know fuck all on the actual intricacies of budget restrictions, time and scope, and working under those stringent conditions, and all that entails in project management and development.

 

[Budi]

While I agree with you, what appropriate terms are we supposed to use in place, though?

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Can't you just criticize the game? If you feel it has too little content, then say exactly that (or whatever the issue may be). Why try to make it more personal than this. Why attack the worker when the product is there for you to review.

 

[Glio]

This about Pokemon Sword / Shield not being massive in scope like BOTW again, isn't it?

It wasn't a realistic scenario in any circumstance that GameFreak with it's 180+ employees could put out something comparable to the level of BOTW under a 3 year dev cycle when Breath of Wild took 5 years to develop with a staff count of 300 to 350 comprised of both EPD and Monolith Soft. This includes outsourcing work too. It was NEVER going to happen.

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All Resetera thread over time is about Pokemon Sw / Sh.

 

[Arttemis]

While I agree with you, what appropriate terms are we supposed to use in place, though?

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I think the conversation is more about understanding than what terms are appropriate to use. A finished game is not just the results of a development team or teams, but the product of a publisher that dictates what the budget, staff size, and timelines will be. Publishers exist not to make games, but to glean profit from the market, so to them, allocating time to the development, refinement, and quality control are all expenses that impact their bottom line.

Instead of blaming or chastising developers, the people who work over these products for inhumane amounts of time, for a software's issues and faults, I wish people pointed that it's toward the publishers priorities in choosing to launch before the team could achieve a certain level of quality.

 

[lucablight]

This about Pokemon Sword / Shield not being massive in scope like BOTW again, isn't it?

It wasn't a realistic scenario in any circumstance that GameFreak with it's 180+ employees could put out something comparable to the level of BOTW under a 3 year dev cycle when Breath of Wild took 5 years to develop with a staff count of 300 to 350 comprised of both EPD and Monolith Soft. This includes outsourcing work too. It was NEVER going to happen.

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I read that Xenoblade 2 was made with only 40 staff members. Ohmori said in an interview that around 200 people worked on Sword/Shield. I wouldn't put the scope of Sword/Shield anywhere close to Xenoblade 2.

 

[martincrimson87]

I agree but on the other hand I somewhat understand that gamers want to vent their frustration. Can you imagine buying a car and the sales rep telling you that the exhaust and windshields will be installed 3 weeks from now.

Gamers tolerate a lot of crap that's unheard of in other industries. And the criticism is somewhat dismissed because it's "just a game". Customers deserve polished software. I bought horizon zero dawn in August for pc and it's still not a solid release.

It's almost a given that you won't enjoy games at release and you are better buying them 6 months to a year later as they are polished. Thats not healthy on the long run.

 

[Glio]

I read that Xenoblade 2 was made with only 40 staff members. Ohmori said in an interview that around 200 people worked on Sword/Shield. I wouldn't put the scope of Sword/Shield anywhere close to Xenoblade 2.

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40 people from Monolith Soft. Do you know the concept of outsourcing? Xenoblade 2 had a ton of outsourcing.

 

[Lady Gaia]

Not knowing how to be incredibly effective at your job doesn't mean you're lazy, and that goes for every role from devs to QA to marketing. You might be early in your career, struggling with lack of training, unrealistic expectations, poor support, or simply unable to find common ground with people you need to work with. Take all those factors and consider that game development is very much a team sport, that team dynamics are ill-understood and have been since the founding of society, and that lack of stability means few teams have the luxury of working with people they know and trust? It's a miracle any game is ever playable at all.

"Lazy devs" is actually a reflection of lazy forum posting with no understanding of how games are made or what contributes to problems we see. If making great games was just a matter of pouring money into a company and weeding out the lazy employees we'd see a whole lot more great games. It's far more complicated.

 

[OmegaDL50]

Xenoblade 2 staff credits is over 9 minutes long and comprised of hundreds of names. The game was most certainly not created with JUST 40 staff members.

 

[lucablight]

Xenoblade 2 staff credits is over 9 minutes long and comprised of hundreds of names. The game was most certainly not created with JUST 40 staff members.

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Ah ok. I stand corrected. Did it have more staff than Pokémon Sword/Shield overall?

 

[porcupixel]

As someone who works in software (though not in games), I'm convinced that anyone who doesn't work in software doesn't have the slightest idea what the process of making software is actually like and why it turns out the way it does, both good and bad.

Way too many people think that because they play a lot of games they understand what it takes to make them.

 

[krazen]

Ah ok. I stand corrected. Did it have more staff than Pokémon Sword/Shield overall?

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[Weltall Zero]

But there is laziness happening there, I think.

Laziness at the level of marketing, or the number of people contracted to complete a task, or the time allotted to complete that task, and so on.

That shit is lazy. There's no other word for it. And we should call it what it is. A lazy money grab.

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Of course there are words for it; ones that, unlike "lazy", correctly describe the situation. "Greedy" or "capitalistic"; take your pick, since they're pretty much synonyms.

 

[OmegaDL50]

Ah ok. I stand corrected. Did it have more staff than Pokémon Sword/Shield overall?

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Yes.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2/credits

These are the credits to Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Rex Al Weaver Hiro Shimono Pyra/Mythra Skye Bennett Shino Shimoji Nia Catrin-Mai Huw Hitomi Ohwada Tora Rasmus Hardiker Ai Nonaka Mòrag Kirsty Mitchell Mitsuki Saiga Zeke Daniel Barker Kenjiro Tsuda Vandham Simon Thorp Tessyo Genda Dromarch...

nintendo.fandom.com

Pokémon Sword and Shield/credits

These are the credits for Pokémon Sword and Shield. Credits added with The Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra DLC updates are indicated. Shigeru Ohmori James Turner Tomoya Takahashi Maiko Fujiwara Takao Unno Kazumasa Iwao Lead: Nozomu Saito Yicheng Fang Nicholas Dahms Tomoya Hasegawa Katsunori...

nintendo.fandom.com

It took not even 10 seconds in a google search for XB2's end credits to determine how long the credits are - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgS-8Ml-2Dc Sword and Shield Credits is 5 minutes in comparison.

The Staff for XB2 is overall much larger than Sword and Shield including outsourcing involvement. It puts things into perspective, game dev is anything but lazy. It's never about a lack of effort, Time management, poor direction, and a slew of other reasons that would impact a games development, laziness isn't one of these reasons.

 

[Weltall Zero]

It's obviously unreasonable to expect someone to improve their running time so drastically in such a short amount of time.

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(waits for the revelation to hit...)

 

[Dark Cloud]

You can criticize developers. Just don't say they're lazy. That's all. I criticize GF all the time.

 

[Weltall Zero]

While I agree with you, what appropriate terms are we supposed to use in place, though?

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How about don't sling any terms towards devs for decisions that are way above their pay grade; decisions they almost certanly push back against (like in Cyberpunk's case) with no success; decisions that actively harm them?

Do you blame "lazy workers" when a construction company decides to hire two bricklayers and a solderer to build a ten-story office building in a month?

 

[lucablight]

(waits for the revelation to hit...)

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I'm not as slow on the uptake as you think. I appreciate that you are a developer yourself and this makes you empathetic towards your peers as you understand the challenges they face through your own personal experiences. I'm not sure how that analogy explains every issue I've brought up. (Eg lack of voice acting) Even PS1 games had voice acting and Sword/Shield doesn't even have that. Who does the responsibility for that ultimately lie with?

 

[Deleted member 81119]

When I look at Pokémon Sword/Shield I don't think it is the best game that it could have been given that it's the most profitable media franchise in the world. I see a lot of people piling on management but I don't think that developers should be above criticism either (provided its constructive and not personal) if they could have done better. I'm trying to see what term would be acceptable on this forum to describe developers who didn't make the best possible game they could have. You say that I've been given reasonable responses but apparently the best phrase to describe such a thing is "smart".

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How about instead of taking personal shots at the developers, you just critique the game?

 

[TooBusyLookinGud]

The term "lazy devs" really burns me up. Especially coming from people that have never coded or designed a shipped product in their lives. There are so many moving parts when it comes to developing any type of software that it's not funny.

 

[Deleted member 1627]

I'm not as slow on the uptake as you think. I appreciate that you are a developer yourself and this makes you empathetic towards your peers as you understand the challenges they face through your own personal experiences. I'm not sure how that analogy explains every issue I've brought up. (Eg lack of voice acting) Even PS1 games had voice acting and Sword/Shield doesn't even have that. Who does the responsibility for that ultimately lie with?

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Just stop already.

 

[Dark Cloud]

I'm not as slow on the uptake as you think. I appreciate that you are a developer yourself and this makes you empathetic towards your peers as you understand the challenges they face through your own personal experiences. I'm not sure how that analogy explains every issue I've brought up. (Eg lack of voice acting) Even PS1 games had voice acting and Sword/Shield doesn't even have that. Who does the responsibility for that ultimately lie with?

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I think it's time to take a break for the day, bud.

 

[SpaceCrystal]

Can't you just criticize the game? If you feel it has too little content, then say exactly that (or whatever the issue may be). Why try to make it more personal than this. Why attack the worker when the product is there for you to review.

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I think the conversation is more about understanding than what terms are appropriate to use. A finished game is not just the results of a development team or teams, but the product of a publisher that dictates what the budget, staff size, and timelines will be. Publishers exist not to make games, but to glean profit from the market, so to them, allocating time to the development, refinement, and quality control are all expenses that impact their bottom line.

Instead of blaming or chastising developers, the people who work over these products for inhumane amounts of time, for a software's issues and faults, I wish people pointed that it's toward the publishers priorities in choosing to launch before the team could achieve a certain level of quality.

Click to shrink...

How about don't sling any terms towards devs for decisions that are way above their pay grade; decisions they almost certanly push back against (like in Cyberpunk's case) with no success; decisions that actively harm them?

Do you blame "lazy workers" when a construction company decides to hire two bricklayers and a solderer to build a ten-story office building in a month?

Click to shrink...

How about instead of taking personal shots at the developers, you just critique the game?

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The developers are the ones who make the games. All we're trying to do is motivate developers to do better.

If it's not them, then the blame should be squarely on the publishers. We're the ones who are giving them our hard earned money.

 

[Deleted member 81119]

The developers are the ones who make the games. All we're trying to do is motivate developers to do better.

If it's not them, then the blame should be squarely on the publishers.

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Criticising a game *is* motivating the developer. We don't need to 'go after them' to motivate them. That shit is psychotic.

 

[lucablight]

I think it's time to take a break for the day, bud.

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I agree. This discussion isn't productive and it seems like I'm just upsetting people so I'll refrain from commenting any further.

 

[4 Get!]

I've always attributed the term to unreal engine asset flippers that somehow make it to steam. What do you all consider asset flippers to be? Because they sure aren't hard working devs.

 

[Dark Cloud]

When you criticize the game it's basically criticizing the developer too because they made it. This is where constructive feedback comes from to help the developers get better.

Look at what Aonuma/Fujibayashi did with Zelda Skyward Sword. There was a lot of criticism over their choices. The sales were some of the lowest, if not the lowest, for a 3D Zelda game. Look what came next in BotW. They listened to the fans who criticized them.

 

[OmegaDL50]

I'm not as slow on the uptake as you think. I appreciate that you are a developer yourself and this makes you empathetic towards your peers as you understand the challenges they face through your own personal experiences. I'm not sure how that analogy explains every issue I've brought up. (Eg lack of voice acting) Even PS1 games had voice acting and Sword/Shield doesn't even have that. Who does the responsibility for that ultimately lie with?

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There are tons of games that don't have voice acting, even beyond the PS1 Era, releases on more modern consoles on some PS4 / XB1 releases even. It just means they opted to not go with voice work. Sometimes it's just that simple really. It has nothing to do with laziness.

Let's use your username for example, Suikoden II is my personal favorite game of all time. It doesn't have voice acting at all. In fact it's very limited budget probably prohibit the expense of hiring VA based on interviews with series creator Murayama. That doesn't mean the Suikoden II directors were lazy for not hiring VA talent and getting VA direction for the game. It just was decision they decided again, the same for GameFreak not deciding to have VA in Sword / Shield is just a decision they made, nothing to do with laziness.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I'm not as slow on the uptake as you think. I appreciate that you are a developer yourself and this makes you empathetic towards your peers as you understand the challenges they face through your own personal experiences. I'm not sure how that analogy explains every issue I've brought up. (Eg lack of voice acting) Even PS1 games had voice acting and Sword/Shield doesn't even have that. Who does the responsibility for that ultimately lie with?

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I have no clue who is responsible for the lack of voice acting, but I can definitely assure you it's not the devs. Like, what the fuck? :D

The developers are the ones who make the games. All we're trying to do is motivate developers to do better.

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Wow, thanks; "don't be lazy" is surely the best work advice I've ever received. Consider me thoroughly motivated; you may now pat yourself in the back for providing this crucial piece of insight I was missing until now.

If it's not them, then the blame should be squarely on the publishers.

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The answer is obviously more complex than that, but "follow the money" is a pretty good start. Don't shit on Johnny Programmer or Jane Artist that work 12 hours at their desk; shit on Bobby Producer that decided they can make a game with half the reasonable amount of workers because devs will work themselves to death anyway, gamers will buy it anyway, and he can pocket the difference.

While you're there, perhaps blame Timmy Gamer for buying the same broken games year after year.

 

[Deimos]

But there is laziness happening there, I think.

Laziness at the level of marketing, or the number of people contracted to complete a task, or the time allotted to complete that task, and so on.

That shit is lazy. There's no other word for it. And we should call it what it is. A lazy money grab.

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That's not lazy. The word you're looking for is greedy.

 

[SpaceCrystal]

Wow, thanks; "don't be lazy" is surely the best work advice I've ever received. Consider me thoroughly motivated; you may now well-deservedly pat yourself in the back for providing this crucial piece of insight I was missing until now.

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I never said anything of the sort to you. There's no reason to be rude. Relax.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I never said anything of the sort to you. There's no reason to be rude. Relax.

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So what are you saying, to me or any other developer? How exactly are motivating them?

 

[Deleted member 81119]

I never said anything of the sort to you. There's no reason to be rude. Relax.

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How was that rude?

 

[OmegaDL50]

The developers are the ones who make the games. All we're trying to do is motivate developers to do better.

If it's not them, then the blame should be squarely on the publishers. We're the ones who are giving them our hard earned money.

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For devs that routinely work 14 hour days with 70 hour work weeks during crunch periods. Claiming lazy dev rhetoric as a point of motivation when the work ethic and hours involved is a total antithesis of "motivation"

 

[Weltall Zero]

When you criticize the game it's basically criticizing the developer too because they made it. This is where constructive feedback comes from to help the developers get better.

Look at what Aonuma/Fujibayashi did with Zelda Skyward Sword. There was a lot of criticism over their choices. The sales were some of the lowest, if not the lowest, for a 3D Zelda game. Look what came next in BotW. They listened to the fans who criticized them.

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This is pure mental gymnastics. When you're criticising a game, you're criticising a game. When you're criticising a developer, you're criticising a developer. I'm not criticising a developer for saying X or Y about game Z is poor, and I'm not criticising a game when I say developer W is lazy. BotW was not wished into existence by gamers calling Aonuma lazy or incompetent.

 

[Deleted member 81119]

This is pure mental gymnastics. When you're criticising a game, you're criticising a game. When you're criticising a developer, you're criticising a developer. I'm not criticising a developer for saying X or Y about game Z is poor, and I'm not criticising a game when I say developer W is lazy. BotW was not wished into existence by gamers calling Aonuma lazy or incompetent.

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I think they're basically agreeing with you actually. They're saying you don't need to go after the developer to motivate them, you just criticise the game and hopefully the message gets through.

 

[Deleted member 1627]

The developers are the ones who make the games. All we're trying to do is motivate developers to do better.

If it's not them, then the blame should be squarely on the publishers. We're the ones who are giving them our hard earned money.

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So what are you saying, to me or any other developer? How exactly are motivating them?

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Yes, yes, please, I await these motivating words with baited breath!

 

[gcwy]

I completely agree with this thread. Corporate apologists just fail to recognize the real reasons stuff like Cyberpunk 2077 happens