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DEVS: Can Games Be Made as Quickly via Remote Work; GAMERS: Are You Willing to Wait for Next Gen Consoles and/or Games
- Thread starter Deleted member 56752
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I'm hoping for delays at this points. Much rather these devs be safe in their homes. If they can't do it from home than it is what it is the game can wait they life more important
OP
OP
Thanks, I honestly had no idea AT ALL. I just want to learn. That's it.
Yeah, really, work from home and delay if needed, this is no time to complain about any of it. I work in a big project (non-gaming stuff) and it's hard to coordinate everyone that's working from home. Doable yes, but it's a tad harder, so I'm assuming delays are inevitable, but really worth it if it saves lives. I sure hope that when this epidemic is over that companies don't just suddenly turn the heat up on the crunch to make up for lost time...
If it's all different kind of stuff there should be no issues really, version control tools will warn you once you have inconsistencies with what you're deploying to the server and you'll have to merge the changes manually.
If it's all different kind of stuff there should be no issues really, version control tools will warn you once you have inconsistencies with what you're deploying to the server and you'll have to merge the changes manually.
WFH has been a challenge but all of the DevOps and IT people pulling crazy hours to beef up remote solutions, security, and rerouting traffic so we don't have input or streaming lag are the real heroes right now. I work in a fairly large AAA studio and it's only gotten better as the week has gone by. I think that next week will be even better. So, again, huge applause for IT, Support, and DevOps teams helping us figure this out.
Yeah, the real people struggling in this are not necessarily the software developers but the SREs, operations people etc. For software developers it's just less efficiency (especially the more senior you get) because it's harder to communicate with people, you don't have access to your specialized equipment, and increased general life stress. More junior developers would likely be fine but the larger your scope gets and the more you need to collaborate and plan and do meetings, the more frustrating it starts to get.
Indeed
This would be a welcome side effect.
So yeah, I think we'll be fine. Large companies will either adapt and spend money on IT or pay people to sit on their butts indefinitely.
I think they will pay. VPN connections are going through the roof right now. If they are super anal about security and disallow installing or downloading proprietary code or data on laptops outside the office, they can still allow VPN + Remote desktop, though it would lead to a decrease in productivity because of the added latency. Working with devkits would also be somewhat problematic unless you have a really good quality, 60FPS @ 4k streaming device attached to the consoles. Does Elgato make those still? So yeah, those would probably help.
Thank god for the Internet.
"willing to wait" isn't the greatest phrasing, but I think it's okay if people are disappointed that stuff might/probably will be delayed because of all this. Just like it's okay to be disappointed if you have a vacation planned for March/April and had to cancel your trip. Disappointment isn't the same as a demand that someone fix it on your behalf.
That said: nah, I'm good. Not just on the level of "keeping people alive always takes precedence," because I think that's blindingly obvious, but also just that a few months or a year isn't going to hurt anyone. There are so many games to play, there's no way any of us have played them all.
That said: nah, I'm good. Not just on the level of "keeping people alive always takes precedence," because I think that's blindingly obvious, but also just that a few months or a year isn't going to hurt anyone. There are so many games to play, there's no way any of us have played them all.
In this economy? Who the fuck can safely spend $500 on a pure luxury item in this economy? Nah, all extra money is going into my emergency funds
We're all too worried with all this all ends then whether games are being delayed. Life is far more important than video games, even if it's going to be difficult for those of us waiting for that triple AAA title juggarnaut, Knack 3.
I think you'd be surprised with how productive game teams can be working remote, providing you have accountability. After all, games are made on individual workstations with collaboration with other developers - that translates pretty easily to a work-from-home scenario. Developers will assuredly have distractions at home that will impact productivity and I think most managers will take that into consideration and not expect the same throughput you'd have working in an office environment.
The impact that Corona has had can't be understated, expect a good 3~6 months worth of regular progress to be impacted negatively. Some will be able to keep up with their previous engangements, most will replan milestones while a few will straight up have to abandon their previous intent. The real end result won't be known to most as we were heading into a new generation and were on the cusp of some of the largest & most numerous announcements in years.
Games will continue to be supported and new releases will still come out. It's not going to be a barren launch for the new consoles at the end of the year by any means. Hell in the long term it might even lead to more opportunities for more agile development processes & tools. But short term it's going to suck all around
Games will continue to be supported and new releases will still come out. It's not going to be a barren launch for the new consoles at the end of the year by any means. Hell in the long term it might even lead to more opportunities for more agile development processes & tools. But short term it's going to suck all around
Games don't matter a fuck in the grand scheme. We all have enough games to play for 10 years if we need to.
Individuals and companies just need to do what's best for safety.
Individuals and companies just need to do what's best for safety.
Makes sense to me. I think there will be some loss of efficiency because it's an abrupt shift rather than a planned transition, but once everyone is up and running it feasibly could increase efficiency. Especially for employees that are getting more time sleep due to no commute time etc.
Git works by recording changes as a way to reduce the size of updates. So these kinds of version control only work for text files, usually. However, you can freely push new files onto a repro. In your example, those would be components that don't rely on each other. Those would be externally loaded at runtime, not necessarily something compiled into the binary, so managing that sort of stuff is pretty easy. Usually, when you work on projects, you'll have dummy files in place as those parts are worked on. So as, say, animations or sounds are completed, they would get pushed to the repository to be loaded instead of the dummy files.
A more relevant scenario I think you're envisioning is when you're working on modular code. Say I'm working on io event handling while someone else is working on a physics system, those would likely be different source codes, handled by different classes that are compiled and linked into the binary when the project is built. In this case, coordinating the interaction between my io event handler and this physics system would have been hashed out through a common agreed upon interface early on in development, and each of us would fork the repro for our own components. Our agreed upon interface would have stubbed out sections that we could fill in with dummy code until our forks are complete. Like, say the physics system needs to tick some IO input on a frame, so it calls an agreed upon interface function like io.getInput() that resides in an interfacing class. Early in the project, calling that function might do nothing more than printf("Called io.getInput()\n"); until I finish my work. In critical components, black box cases can be made, i.e. the meat of the function isn't there yet, but it'll set values as though it were working correctly, to simulate the behavior so that other parts of the project can continue. The function still exists, the physics class can still call out to it, but the actual meat isn't there until my fork is merged back into the repro.
You use forks in this instance so that, while I'm working on my io event handler, I essentially have an entire version of the project to myself to mess with. If I break something in my module, it doesn't destroy someone else's code. The process or merging code back into a project is called integration and it requires lots of coordination to make the process easy and smooth.
the idea behind modular programming and forking is to make it so that parts of a program can be encapsulated, you only work on one component while it feels like everything else around that component remains static.
You can probably have programmers working from home fine enough but then you have things like voice acting, motion capture, etc. which require people to be in a room at once. Definitely a lot of games are going to get delayed.
Real world - for programming (i.e. code) this is a resolved problem. It is literally no work at all to do this.
However for something like a Unity project - this is a pile of FUCK. There are tools to help make this a little better than completely impossible with Unity, but it's still HORRIBLE.
I don't know how indie Unity devs manage it on a regular basis, as I generally think Unity is fucking shit even as a solo dev now that I've developed a few complete games in it.
Delays wouldn't bother me. Obviously or sucks, but whatever is needed to prevent the spread of the virus should be done.
I am interested in seeing how much it'll affect game development though, since I was wondering how much could be done from home compared to the typical office job.
I am interested in seeing how much it'll affect game development though, since I was wondering how much could be done from home compared to the typical office job.
Yeah it can, will, and is causing delays. Remote work adds friction in a lot of different areas from syncing with source control (AAA depots are in the hundreds of GB to TBs depending if you include source art/audio) to basic communication. If you weren't setup to support working from home there is a lot of IT and DevOps infrastructure you need to make it work. Now is also a worst case situation for people with families given the situation with schools and child care.
People are doing the best they can and our studio is managing things well given the circumstances. I'll take game delays over the very real and immediate human cost that people are facing right now. Stay safe everyone.
People are doing the best they can and our studio is managing things well given the circumstances. I'll take game delays over the very real and immediate human cost that people are facing right now. Stay safe everyone.
We can work from home either by taking control of our studio PC (very simple but not very user-friendly for quite a few tasks) or directly download on our home PC the project (more complex to implement).
Either way game development requires lots of back and forth between different teams, and even though there are efficient communications tools, that's not the same as having someone next to you that you can directly talk to.
Either way game development requires lots of back and forth between different teams, and even though there are efficient communications tools, that's not the same as having someone next to you that you can directly talk to.
I would be perfectly fine if the games industry came together and announce that no game will be released and all development will be halted until this crisis is over. Lives are at stake here. That should be everyone's priority right now. Devs should stay home and take care of themselves. Games can wait.
I certainly want to see next gen happen this year for morale, but it's not worth lives. If it's delayed, it will suck, but there isn't much that can be done about it.
As for games, again, safety takes precedence. I think we should be more accepting of GAAS under these circumstances as well. If Halo Infinite launches with less multiplayer modes than anticipated for example, instead of throwing a shitfit like some did after Halo 5, we should be more understanding.
As for games, again, safety takes precedence. I think we should be more accepting of GAAS under these circumstances as well. If Halo Infinite launches with less multiplayer modes than anticipated for example, instead of throwing a shitfit like some did after Halo 5, we should be more understanding.
Not only am I willing to wait, but I'm fully expecting to have to wait. At this point if both new consoles were targeting November I would not be shocked if they both end up in February/March due to game delays.
OP
OP
I think, as a gamer and not a developer, we should look towards games as service games already out for entertainment if - for some weird reason - you have no new games. Elder Scrolls Online - laughed at every single time it shows up at E3 - is a great game with lots of content that can be consumed. BRs continue to thrive. Excited to see the future ahead. The information release/press release on next gen last week staggered me. I was very confused. Why release that info if the machines aren't coming out. And phil has already said they're doing a digital e3 event. Seems...idk...futile to me.
We live in a fucked up world where delays mean more crunch š
Other than that I don't care. I mean I'll wait for next-gen if it doesn't come this year as expected. It's not like I need it (even though I want it).
I'm way past child's whims lol
Devs should have good working conditions and all the time they can have to perfect their works. Not much to add.
Other than that I don't care. I mean I'll wait for next-gen if it doesn't come this year as expected. It's not like I need it (even though I want it).
I'm way past child's whims lol
Devs should have good working conditions and all the time they can have to perfect their works. Not much to add.
I dont even understand the question. I mean this from a standpoint of over saturation already. There is so much stuff out there already so much variety and everything else that there will always be something to play even if it slows down. If there were no more games from this point, you could be occupied in some form the rest of your life.
I am a programmer on games and work 100% remotely albeit with a small team. Things have worked pretty well in general because often I have a bunch of work to do and I just go and do it (I am experienced so can be left alone to Get Shit Done(tm)). However, I do miss the instant creative back and forth that comes from "Hey, what do you think of this?" when you've done something and want some quick feedback. I can see the creative teams (Game designers etc) struggling a bit with this as well.
We rely on discord chat and video conference, source control is always network friendly, likewise with all our other software, google docs, and I share game clips of my progress so people can see how I'm going and we are doing regular pushes so we all have each other's work every day or so. I can see a lot of smaller teams doing this too, if they aren't already. We managed to get a game from post concept to release in about 9 months, so I think we did pretty well for the scope of what we released.
I imagine with a big team that has juniors that need supervision it could be harder to manage and when it comes to larger projects where teams need access to lots of hardware it could be troublesome. With QA, when things are normal you have QA teams with access to all the platforms, but now QA are in their own homes, who gets the kits? I think bigger teams will certainly struggle and we'll see delays.
We rely on discord chat and video conference, source control is always network friendly, likewise with all our other software, google docs, and I share game clips of my progress so people can see how I'm going and we are doing regular pushes so we all have each other's work every day or so. I can see a lot of smaller teams doing this too, if they aren't already. We managed to get a game from post concept to release in about 9 months, so I think we did pretty well for the scope of what we released.
I imagine with a big team that has juniors that need supervision it could be harder to manage and when it comes to larger projects where teams need access to lots of hardware it could be troublesome. With QA, when things are normal you have QA teams with access to all the platforms, but now QA are in their own homes, who gets the kits? I think bigger teams will certainly struggle and we'll see delays.