Vapourware That Which Sleeps - Vaporware Strategy RP

[Name]

So the lesson is that programmer is important? Didn't countries like India and Poland grow them like potatoes? Why would so many KS games run into programming problems? ( you can add Hero-U to the list of restarting from scratch)

 

[Galdred]

So the lesson is that programmer is important? Didn't countries like India and Poland grow them like potatoes? Why would so many KS games run into programming problems? ( you can add Hero-U to the list of restarting from scratch)

It is much harder to evaluate a programmer's work when you cannot code than it is for an artist work when you cannot draw.
I think programming is much harder to outsource than the rest.

 

[Sranchammer]

Indian programmers are the butt of every joke

 

[Lightsinthesky]

Growing a potato to do your programming for you would probably be a better idea than hiring a currynig

 

[Galdred]

Anyway, cost of living is a huge factor on the low end of the skill ladder, but the higher you climb, the less relevant it is :
Any freelancer with a good reputation and experience in any domain will charge international market price or close to it regardless of his country.
So you'd need to be pretty lucky and find a good unknown programmer, or hire lots of them, and hope that something good come out of it.

 

[Archibald]

So the lesson is that programmer is important? Didn't countries like India and Poland grow them like potatoes? Why would so many KS games run into programming problems? ( you can add Hero-U to the list of restarting from scratch)

Most of the programmers in third world are doing business oriented stuff since it usually pays better and is way more stable than doing games.

 

[Jimmious]

I love generalizations for about 1+ billion people

 

[Storyfag]

I love generalizations for about 1+ billion people

Hello, welcome to the Codex. This place is like that. Do you have access to General Discussion yet? Or the Politics forum?

 

[Jimmious]

I love generalizations for about 1+ billion people

Hello, welcome to the Codex. This place is like that. Do you have access to General Discussion yet? Or the Politics forum?

In a week...

 

[Storyfag]

For that, I award you the Brofist of the Beast. And wish you many happy fun hours spent in the incessant cesspit that will soon gobble you up.

 

[Got bored and left]

Just remember: Hitler did nothing wrong and Islam has all the answers.

 

[Jimmious]

I think it's more probable that I will be ignored from a large amount of nazi scum than anything else

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

So the lesson is that programmer is important? Didn't countries like India and Poland grow them like potatoes? Why would so many KS games run into programming problems? ( you can add Hero-U to the list of restarting from scratch)

Most of the programmers in third world are doing business oriented stuff since it usually pays better and is way more stable than doing games.

Fixed there for you

 

[Ludovic]

So the lesson is that programmer is important? Didn't countries like India and Poland grow them like potatoes? Why would so many KS games run into programming problems? ( you can add Hero-U to the list of restarting from scratch)

Well, most KS games are a bunch of programmers/artists/designers making a game. TWS was started by a programmer and an ideas/business guy, where the programmer does most of the game design work. They lacked artistic skills, and that's what they outsourced. If they also had to outsource programming, the cost would be prohibitive.

Also, when you outsource you need very specific requirements and the odds of finding outsourced labor proficient at game programming, at an affordable rate, are not good. Outsourcing an HTML5-based game is probably the best you'll manage, but managing outsourced development is really difficult and not for the faint of heart. Even large studios and huge software corporations regularly mess up at this. For anything complex or innovative, it's not a money saver - it's primarily a way to increase development throughput. Hiring or contracting a local developer, even in high income countries, is more cost-effective and less risky. It's also more expensive than most KS projects can afford.

As for you question of why so many KS games fail when it comes to programming: Programming is generally difficult. Game programming even more so. If an artist is bad, the rest of the team can see this very early on. A programmer who is bad, or even just struggling, can use shortcuts and hacks early on, and create what looks like viable progress. Also, programming becomes harder the more the requirements change. Indie games, and KS game especially, are notorious for scope/feature creep and design changes.

TL;DR

1) Outsourcing the programming of an indie game is not an option in the vast majority of cases, for practical and financial reasons.

2) Game programming is really difficult and most programmers vastly overestimate their own abilities and underestimate the time needed. Especially those who've never made a game before.

 

[Galdred]

So the lesson is that programmer is important? Didn't countries like India and Poland grow them like potatoes? Why would so many KS games run into programming problems? ( you can add Hero-U to the list of restarting from scratch)

Well, most KS games are a bunch of programmers/artists/designers making a game. TWS was started by a programmer and an ideas/business guy, where the programmer does most of the game design work. They lacked artistic skills, and that's what they outsourced. If they also had to outsource programming, the cost would be prohibitive.

Also, when you outsource you need very specific requirements and the odds of finding outsourced labor proficient at game programming, at an affordable rate, are not good. Outsourcing an HTML5-based game is probably the best you'll manage, but managing outsourced development is really difficult and not for the faint of heart. Even large studios and huge software corporations regularly mess up at this. For anything complex or innovative, it's not a money saver - it's primarily a way to increase development throughput. Hiring or contracting a local developer, even in high income countries, is more cost-effective and less risky. It's also more expensive than most KS projects can afford.

As for you question of why so many KS games fail when it comes to programming: Programming is generally difficult. Game programming even more so. If an artist is bad, the rest of the team can see this very early on. A programmer who is bad, or even just struggling, can use shortcuts and hacks early on, and create what looks like viable progress. Also, programming becomes harder the more the requirements change. Indie games, and KS game especially, are notorious for scope/feature creep and design changes.

TL;DR

1) Outsourcing the programming of an indie game is not an option in the vast majority of cases, for practical and financial reasons.

2) Game programming is really difficult and most programmers vastly overestimate their own abilities and underestimate the time needed. Especially those who've never made a game before.

One of the notable exceptions would be xenonauts, but according to the post mortem, it was quite a struggle to get the programming done, and they had a budget that would dwarf anything you can reasonably ask today on KS.
Or did I mix it up with something else, Goldhawk?

 

[Destroid]

Well, the business guy is doing a great job because the art they have procured for this is fantastic.

 

[Ludovic]

Well, the business guy is doing a great job because the art they have procured for this is fantastic.

To my knowledge, it was primarily or even exclusively the programmer handling that part. Certainly looked that way on the forums. It might be an example of the issue that sometimes hits a small team, where one person insist on controlling every aspect of art and game design. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Goldhawk]

So the lesson is that programmer is important? Didn't countries like India and Poland grow them like potatoes? Why would so many KS games run into programming problems? ( you can add Hero-U to the list of restarting from scratch)

Well, most KS games are a bunch of programmers/artists/designers making a game. TWS was started by a programmer and an ideas/business guy, where the programmer does most of the game design work. They lacked artistic skills, and that's what they outsourced. If they also had to outsource programming, the cost would be prohibitive.

Also, when you outsource you need very specific requirements and the odds of finding outsourced labor proficient at game programming, at an affordable rate, are not good. Outsourcing an HTML5-based game is probably the best you'll manage, but managing outsourced development is really difficult and not for the faint of heart. Even large studios and huge software corporations regularly mess up at this. For anything complex or innovative, it's not a money saver - it's primarily a way to increase development throughput. Hiring or contracting a local developer, even in high income countries, is more cost-effective and less risky. It's also more expensive than most KS projects can afford.

As for you question of why so many KS games fail when it comes to programming: Programming is generally difficult. Game programming even more so. If an artist is bad, the rest of the team can see this very early on. A programmer who is bad, or even just struggling, can use shortcuts and hacks early on, and create what looks like viable progress. Also, programming becomes harder the more the requirements change. Indie games, and KS game especially, are notorious for scope/feature creep and design changes.

TL;DR

1) Outsourcing the programming of an indie game is not an option in the vast majority of cases, for practical and financial reasons.

2) Game programming is really difficult and most programmers vastly overestimate their own abilities and underestimate the time needed. Especially those who've never made a game before.

One of the notable exceptions would be xenonauts, but according to the post mortem, it was quite a struggle to get the programming done, and they had a budget that would dwarf anything you can reasonably ask today on KS.
Or did I mix it up with something else, Goldhawk?

Nope, that was us - and yes, our budget was quite a bit bigger than theirs (although arguably our scope was somewhat larger too). You're right that finding competent cheap programmers is very difficult and if you're a non-programmer it's very hard to keep tabs on what they are doing unless you demand to see their work every day (which I was able to do because I was paying them to work for me), and even still you end up with problems when competent programmer(s) work on a large game and haven't planned the codebase properly because they're too focused on delivering the actual project. The Xenonauts codebase was falling apart at the seams by the time we shipped the game, and the AI coder had a hard time making even a basic AI because the combat code wasn't pre-designed to interface with it etc.

tl;dr - "competent programmer" is the most overpowered starting class in indie video game development, and if you're not one of those then you need to acquire one as soon as possible (which can be very difficult)

 

[Ludovic]

And what's even more confusing for a non-programmer - on a small team you need a different skill set from your programmers than on large team. Programmer skill is not a single axis, and productivity, responsibility and a generalist mindset is much more valuable if you only have a single programmer.

A lot of programmers are completely incapable of working without technical supervision - I've worked with incredibly gifted people, who if left to their own devices would never finish anything, and be completely unaware of this fact. However, if managed well, their gifts can be a tremendous asset to a project.

There's also the tendency among many programmers to choose the interesting and risky solution over the boring and safe solution. That's good for keeping motivation up, but can also lead to a buggy, delayed mess.

Programmers are wizards in a way - but with an unknown level and class. A programmer might be a necromancer, piecing together code golems from scraps found on the internet; a wild mage who can deliver code faster than anyone, at the cost of random weirdness popping up all the time; a scholarly sort more apt at talking about code than actually writing it - or even an illusionist, whose creations are phantasms and have no real effect. And what's worse, these wizards have no idea how much mana they have and how much mana their spells cost.

Working with a wizard you have seen in action previously is a lot safer than venturing into the depths with some guy you hired for cheap at the inn because he had the wizard look down and did some flashy pyrotechnics to impress you.

 

[thesheeep]

That post should be on Gamasutra ... or Upwork.

I'd like to know what kind of wizard I am, though.
Can I be a sorcerer? Let's be honest, they are just better.

 

[MRY]

And what's even more confusing for a non-programmer - on a small team you need a different skill set from your programmers than on large team. Programmer skill is not a single axis, and productivity, responsibility and a generalist mindset is much more valuable if you only have a single programmer.

A lot of programmers are completely incapable of working without technical supervision - I've worked with incredibly gifted people, who if left to their own devices would never finish anything, and be completely unaware of this fact. However, if managed well, their gifts can be a tremendous asset to a project.

There's also the tendency among many programmers to choose the interesting and risky solution over the boring and safe solution. That's good for keeping motivation up, but can also lead to a buggy, delayed mess.

Programmers are wizards in a way - but with an unknown level and class. A programmer might be a necromancer, piecing together code golems from scraps found on the internet; a wild mage who can deliver code faster than anyone, at the cost of random weirdness popping up all the time; a scholarly sort more apt at talking about code than actually writing it - or even an illusionist, whose creations are phantasms and have no real effect. And what's worse, these wizards have no idea how much mana they have and how much mana their spells cost.

Working with a wizard you have seen in action previously is a lot safer than venturing into the depths with some guy you hired for cheap at the inn because he had the wizard look down and did some flashy pyrotechnics to impress you.

On the PoE team, they made all their coders lift with Avellone because STR is so important for spell-casting.

 

[Sranchammer]

I think it's more probable that I will be ignored from a large amount of nazi scum than anything else

The Jacobins are the ones who use censorship and ignore everyone who disagrees with them. You'll know of whom I speak soon enough.

 

[Jimmious]

There are cults in here? Sects? Wtf, I'm starting to worry

 

[Ninjerk]

And what's even more confusing for a non-programmer - on a small team you need a different skill set from your programmers than on large team. Programmer skill is not a single axis, and productivity, responsibility and a generalist mindset is much more valuable if you only have a single programmer.

A lot of programmers are completely incapable of working without technical supervision - I've worked with incredibly gifted people, who if left to their own devices would never finish anything, and be completely unaware of this fact. However, if managed well, their gifts can be a tremendous asset to a project.

There's also the tendency among many programmers to choose the interesting and risky solution over the boring and safe solution. That's good for keeping motivation up, but can also lead to a buggy, delayed mess.

Programmers are wizards in a way - but with an unknown level and class. A programmer might be a necromancer, piecing together code golems from scraps found on the internet; a wild mage who can deliver code faster than anyone, at the cost of random weirdness popping up all the time; a scholarly sort more apt at talking about code than actually writing it - or even an illusionist, whose creations are phantasms and have no real effect. And what's worse, these wizards have no idea how much mana they have and how much mana their spells cost.

Working with a wizard you have seen in action previously is a lot safer than venturing into the depths with some guy you hired for cheap at the inn because he had the wizard look down and did some flashy pyrotechnics to impress you.

On the PoE team, they made all their coders lift with Avellone because STR is so important for spell-casting.

It's MIGHT. And it's objectively better because of its linear scaling.

 

[Goldhawk]

And what's even more confusing for a non-programmer - on a small team you need a different skill set from your programmers than on large team. Programmer skill is not a single axis, and productivity, responsibility and a generalist mindset is much more valuable if you only have a single programmer.

A lot of programmers are completely incapable of working without technical supervision - I've worked with incredibly gifted people, who if left to their own devices would never finish anything, and be completely unaware of this fact. However, if managed well, their gifts can be a tremendous asset to a project.

There's also the tendency among many programmers to choose the interesting and risky solution over the boring and safe solution. That's good for keeping motivation up, but can also lead to a buggy, delayed mess.

Programmers are wizards in a way - but with an unknown level and class. A programmer might be a necromancer, piecing together code golems from scraps found on the internet; a wild mage who can deliver code faster than anyone, at the cost of random weirdness popping up all the time; a scholarly sort more apt at talking about code than actually writing it - or even an illusionist, whose creations are phantasms and have no real effect. And what's worse, these wizards have no idea how much mana they have and how much mana their spells cost.

Working with a wizard you have seen in action previously is a lot safer than venturing into the depths with some guy you hired for cheap at the inn because he had the wizard look down and did some flashy pyrotechnics to impress you.

Great post.