Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Mikeal]

Lol I applied and they dindu want me.

 

[Fairfax]

Wherein Chris loses the plot

https://twitter.com/ChrisAvellone/status/1144102023488401409

I know from second-hand experience that literally anyone with a high school degree can apply for a QA job and get one. It's not even remotely on the level of skill required of a programmer or an artist. Pay them as much as other developers and blow up budgets even more? What an absurd notion that would only make games worse.

(Additionally, QA is paid by the hour, not through a salary, so they are always compensated with time and a half for any hours a week they work past 40 [it's the law] so it's not like they have to deal with the pain of being a salaried dev who makes the same amount of money regardless of how many extra hours they work)

Skilled testers are either promoted to other departments or get another job. MCA thinks it should be viable to stick to QA and still have a career and decent pay. As he's said before, he thinks skilled testers are very valuable and worth the higher cost:

The QA issue has been a long-standing one. I’ve long been a proponent they should be paid just as much as other departments, and it should be treated as a long-term viable career path, not a way to move up and out. A skilled veteran QA tester is worth every dollar.

 

[Sergiu64]

This problem doesn't really exist in other industries. This is why I wouldn't touch gaming industry with a ten foot pole.

 

[Grauken]

This problem doesn't really exist in other industries. This is why I wouldn't touch gaming industry with a ten foot pole.

Sure it does, just look at the exploitation of young people in the manga industry in Japan. Or pretty much all small marketing companies to some degree or other. Every industry that has the nimbus of being highly creative and not too regulated has the tendency to draw young, eager-eyed people ready to be exploited to live their dream.

 

[Neanderthal]

This problem doesn't really exist in other industries. This is why I wouldn't touch gaming industry with a ten foot pole.

Sure it does, just look at the exploitation of young people in the manga industry in Japan. Or pretty much all small marketing companies to some degree or other. Every industry that has the nimbus of being highly creative and not too regulated has the tendency to draw young, eager-eyed people ready to be exploited to live their dream.

#Weinstein.

 

[Sergiu64]

This problem doesn't really exist in other industries. This is why I wouldn't touch gaming industry with a ten foot pole.

Sure it does, just look at the exploitation of young people in the manga industry in Japan. Or pretty much all small marketing companies to some degree or other. Every industry that has the nimbus of being highly creative and not too regulated has the tendency to draw young, eager-eyed people ready to be exploited to live their dream.

Ok, I guess there are other industries like it out there. But there are more non-highly creative industries out there than vice versa, think the people who get stuck in the gaming industry have some kind of self-confidence/self-worth issues that prevent them from looking outside of the industry. I worked for EA for a few months, got out of there as soon as I had an opportunity: all the other mediocre jobs I've had were SOOO much better than that testing job at EA. Amusingly enough I'm now testing for a Call Center that developed it own in-house software and that's the best job I've had so far.

 

[Grauken]

I don't think a lot of people get stuck in the industry, I think there's a big churnover rate and most people get tired of the bad working conditions and low pay, compared to more "boring" jobs and leave. The few people who remain long-term remain the exception

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Nah the modern trend on QA is that it is a waste of money as it is categorized as necessary but non-value added activities. It is incredibly hard to have career on QA, no matter the product the corporation is making, including program/games.

The biggest productivity some companies do is minimizing amount of QA personnel and QA activities within acceptable quality on end-product.

With software devs it is even worse due to easy to improve after launch nature of the product.

 

[Sergiu64]

Nah the modern trend on QA is that it is a waste of money as it is categorized as necessary but non-value added activities. It is incredibly hard to have career on QA, no matter the product the corporation is making, including program/games.

The biggest productivity some companies do is minimizing amount of QA personnel and QA activities within acceptable quality on end-product.

With software devs it is even worse due to easy to improve after launch nature of the product.

That's nonsense. I've had a 14 year career in QA now, earn very similar money to developers with same amount of experience.

Several points:

1. Most end users are not as tolerant to poor quality products straight out of the gate as you're making them out to be. They take a look at the software, see shoddy quality and go to the competitor instead. By the time the devs fix most of the issues - majority of the customers have already left and they've got no reason to give the software in question a second chance.
2. Some products have very little tolerance for failure - think medical equipment, airplane parts, etc. You get something wrong there - people die, company gets sued, goes out of business.
3. You take out QA - you're forced to make developers to check their own/each other's code. Very few developers are good at that. Majority want to sit around and create, not find holes in what's already created. QA just takes a different mindset like Prime Junta was saying.
4. Ultimately - productivity is increased when people specialize: you let people do what they know how to do best, what they love to do: so let developers develop, and QA specialists do the QA. You take two people - one that's is very good at developing but so-so at testing and one that very good at testing and so-so at developing: the most efficient combination is to let the one that great at developing spend 100% of his time on that, and the one that really good at testing spend 100% of his time on that.

In the end, different companies try differing strategies in order to make a buck - some do try to skip on QA I guess - but every company I've worked for were hiring more QA, not less. The only stories of skipping on QA I've personally heard of were cases where the company was crashing and burning anyway.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Well iwhere I am at, we are reducing QA on finished and semi-finished product. Basically increasing the band of the acceptable qualities.

Of course we are talking about statistical acceptance here, not "let's skip QA altogether". In my company QA team for manufacturing products are cut by nearly 60% and QA activities are reduced by roughly the same amount.

The IS department here is also told that quick deployment >> rigorous QA on intra-company systems because instead of doing QA for the system just ask the customer (from other departments) to just use them and give feedback to them. If something is wrong just fix it later after there is an actual complain/feature needs.

I guess different sector do have different strategies.

 

[Sergiu64]

Well iwhere I am at, we are reducing QA on finished and semi-finished product. Basically increasing the band of the acceptable qualities.

Of course we are talking about statistical acceptance here, not "let's skip QA altogether". In my company QA team for manufacturing products are cut by nearly 60% and QA activities are reduced by roughly the same amount.

The IS department here is also told that quick deployment >> rigorous QA on intra-company systems because instead of doing QA for the system just ask the customer (from other departments) to just use them and give feedback to them. If something is wrong just fix it later after there is an actual complain/feature needs.

I guess different sector do have different strategies.

Yeah, that does sound different. Company culture has a lot to do with it too - but I guess customers for different products have wildly different expectations.

I haven't personally worked in manufacturing - seems like most of it is done overseas nowadays - so I guess its not too surprising that companies try such drastic maneuvers to compete with oversea labor costs.

 

[Fairfax]

 

[Roguey]

If Chris hated the penis jokes why did he write them in the first place?

the "dick jokes" (ughhh) were the only things that the dev team laughed at

The maturity level of Obsidian Entertainment.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

If Chris hated the penis jokes why did he write them in the first place?

the "dick jokes" (ughhh) were the only things that the dev team laughed at

The maturity level of Obsidian Entertainment.

Didn't he write Cass? Her long dick Johnson bit was great.

 

[Mikeal]

If Chris hated the penis jokes why did he write them in the first place?



The maturity level of Obsidian Entertainment.

I'm surprised he didn't blame Sawyer for that.

 

[Ismaul]

the "dick jokes" (ughhh) were the only things that the dev team laughed at

The maturity level of Obsidian Entertainment.

If you can't laugh at basic anatomy among friends, you are a humorless cunt full of yourself and your pretentious importance.

I guess this is who Chris has become? Policing his own mind for un-PC badwrongfun. I have a hard time believing it though, due to his writing output.

But it doesn't look good either way. Either he's becoming an SJW and is losing his humorous side, or he's lying to be PC. Integrity going down the drain. Shame!

 

[Roguey]

If you can't laugh at basic anatomy among friends, you are a humorless cunt full of yourself and your pretentious importance.

I guess this is who Chris has become? Policing his own mind for un-PC badwrongfun. I have a hard time believing it though, due to his writing output.

But it doesn't look good either way. Either he's becoming an SJW and is losing his humorous side, or he's lying to be PC. Integrity going down the drain. Shame!

Third option: Getting older and married to a woman who frowns about such undignified things.

 

[Ismaul]

So your theory is that his wife frowns on undignified things like dicks?

What a sad marriage that must be

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

He probably regrets going after the low-hanging fruit, no pun intended. MCA writes a great dick joke—no question—but I can understand feeling like it’s a cheap shortcut, appealing to the lowest common denominator when you don’t have the time to come up with anything better.

Now, me, I’ll never pass up a cheap shortcut. I come from the Scrooge McDuck school of project management: work smarter, not harder. Just thinking about Avellone’s earnest work ethic makes me want to blow my brains out. Yet even I sometimes felt regret when, instead of writing something good, I vomited out some low-effort pandering to idiots (this was in my former life as a journalist). I was/am a hack, so I imagine it feels a lot worse for someone like MCA who’s obscenely talented and driven. Thus the dick joke regrets.

 

[Latro]

boby kotic...who is this mystery man?

 

[Nano]

But it doesn't look good either way. Either he's becoming an SJW and is losing his humorous side, or he's lying to be PC. Integrity going down the drain. Shame!

Where did you get the idea that SJWs don't make dick jokes?

 

[Butter]

You should have heard some of the nigger jokes the PC police forced him to cut.

 

[Beastro]

ITT Chris is Zardoz

 

[Neanderthal]

MCA does some really quality vulgar stuff at times, and that's a rare thing in this age of Joss Whedon squeeing and Tumbler retard cutesiness, where everybody speaks and writes in exactly the same juvenile fashion.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Nah the modern trend on QA is that it is a waste of money as it is categorized as necessary but non-value added activities. It is incredibly hard to have career on QA, no matter the product the corporation is making, including program/games.

The biggest productivity some companies do is minimizing amount of QA personnel and QA activities within acceptable quality on end-product.

I am in general agreement with your statement. The typical mentality is that you hire as cheaply as possible, and that leadership coupled with procedures can overcome all. This is a horrible mentality. Everything has become far more technically complex than 30 years ago. Design, systems, tolerances, standards, codes, proof, you name it. It's just not working well. The main reason why every project goes over budget and past schedule is because a large portion of the work gets built and redone at least once. It's as often because of foreseeable design changes that didn't occur because there wasn't much design review, or detail review, as it is from poor craftsmanship.

This is where I make a very good living. People hire me to lead 3rd party QA on very expensive projects. Problems are typically the same. People spend a dollar trying to save a dime. The worst of their problems would be almost entirely avoided if they were more in touch with reality and actually hired QA personnel.