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[Last Hearth]

He tells some interesting stories. Including one where a piece of code he wanted written to improve enemy AI, that he said would take himself 45 minutes to write, when he gave the task to a programmer, told him it would take 4 weeks, and when he pushed back, angrily walked out on him, and the lead programmer had to calm to situation by negotiating it down to 2 weeks.
This was for the development of Outer Worlds.
Now it makes sense why nobody can make a good game in less than 5 years.

Anyway he has a channel on YouTube now and people who are interested in game development would find what he has to say fascinating.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

Interesting for sure. That's why development team numbers don't always mean faster development.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

he said would take himself 45 minutes to write, when he gave the task to a programmer, told him it would take 4 weeks, and when he pushed back, angrily walked out on him, and the lead programmer had to calm to situation by negotiating it down to 2 weeks.

Sounds like someone needs an ego check.

 

[Fake]

That he said would take himself 45 minutes to write, when he gave the task to a programmer, told him it would take 4 weeks

Skill issue. They pursuit the job only for the money, not because they love making games.

 

[makaveli60]

Is anyone surprised at all? Back then this industry was dominated by geeks/gamers who knew and loved what they did. Now you have diversity hires and political propagandists instead. The industry will implode sooner or later, the signs are obvious.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

Is anyone surprised at all? Back then this industry was dominated by geeks/gamers who knew and loved what they did. Now you have diversity hires and political propagandists instead. The industry will implode sooner or later, the signs are obvious.

That's why many of these cuts this week might be a good thing.

 

[GHG]

Sounds like someone needs an ego check.

Not really.

There are a ton of people in programming positions these days that don't know how to code. That is evident in the software that ships across the board, not just in the gaming sphere.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I guess I'd want to hear from that programmer and see what he had to say.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

Not really.

There are a ton of people in programming positions these days that don't know how to code. That is evident in the software that ships across the board, not just in the gaming sphere.

You get what you pay for

Also, it's easy to underestimate things and blame "juniors".

 

[Nester99]

Why did he not just write the code. Sounds like the discussion took longer with more negative outcomes.

Fire the incompetent and do it yourself

 

[TheDreadBaron]

Easy to say “I could do that myself in 45 minutes” but if your boss asks you how long it will take to finish you better build in some breathing room in case something goes wrong.

The programmer is going to be responsible to make sure it doesn’t cause any issues and will need to thoroughly test their solution for bugs as well, that’s obviously gonna take more than 45 minutes.

 

[LazyParrot]

Skill issue. They pursuit the job only for the money, not because they love making games.

Nobody gets into gamedev for the money lol.

 

[onnextflix5]

are we not allowed to talk about diversity hiring that is clearly speeding up development by 100%.

 

[graywolf323]

really good video, he also talks about modern game journalism too & how they’re just going for clicks

You get what you pay for

Also, it's easy to underestimate things and blame "juniors".

maybe you should actually watch the video before you go off criticizing Tim Cain, he goes into detail and you are way off base

also he talks about how it ended up getting done in <2 weeks (just like he thought it could be)

 

[GHG]

You get what you pay for

Also, it's easy to underestimate things and blame "juniors".

Well the "juniors" should try learning a thing or two before they go around demanding inflated salaries off the back of their CompSci degrees.

 

[Fake]

Nobody gets into gamedev for the money lol.

I sure some do. Not everyone.

 

[fart town usa]

How many hours/days until some nobody developer releases a blog post accusing Tim Cain of being hostile at work, etc.

 

[LazyParrot]

I sure some do. Not everyone.

Those people are idiots then, because unless it's a job only exists in this industry you can get better pay and better working conditions just about anywhere else, especially if you're a programmer.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Sounds like someone needs an ego check.

Nothing to do with ego. I see situations all the time - even HRs began to wonder where all the developers have gone. The skill drain is real. People literally have 10+ years of experience and unable to write some basic code. Yet always happy to arrange meetings and discussions, that lead to nowhere because nobody not only know what to do, but also unable to take any responsibility. We have architects with zero programming experience, being unable to understand how the application works.

In my company we literally have teams where people don't know their own projects and we (other team) have to explain them how their own application works. I have no idea how people get hired these days but I have yet to see people passing my interviews, when I participate as a reviewer. The skill level in software development is appalling these days.

 

[TheDreadBaron]

Nothing to do with ego. I see situations all the time - even HRs began to wonder where all the developers have gone. The skill drain is real. People literally have 10+ years of experience and unable to write some basic code. Yet always happy to arrange meetings and discussions, that lead to nowhere because nobody not only know what to do, but also unable to take any responsibility. We have architects with zero programming experience, being unable to understand how the application works.

In my company we literally have teams where people don't know their own projects and we (other team) have to explain them how their own application works. I have no idea how people get hired these days but I have yet to see people passing my interviews, when I participate as a reviewer. The skill level in software development is appalling these days.

You’ve never run into a project manager that thinks they could do everyone’s job better than them and that tasks shouldn’t take more than an hour when in reality they take two weeks?

 

[Arsic]

That's why many of these cuts this week might be a good thing.

Likely just fired all the non diversity hires lol.

 

[Flutta]

Now This is a good thread. Thanks

 

[Fredrik]

Interesting talk!

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

You’ve never run into a project manager that thinks they could do everyone’s job better than them and that tasks shouldn’t take more than an hour when in reality they take two weeks?

Tim Cain literally said that he could finish the task within 45m so in worst case scenario it should have taken 2-3 days. At most 5 days with additional testing. Not 4 weeks.

People these days give too much credit to developers. It is like that topic with DirectX 11 and DirectX 12, where as soon as Nvidia and AMD stopped to release game specific drivers (I recall there was a discussion on that either on Resetera or Hacknews. Not sure), then optimization went down the drain.

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

Lots of people on teams are absolute dead weight.

 

[Thirty7ven]

That’s what happens when you low ball on wages and demand heavy hours in an industry that has been hell bent on pushing away talented people.

That said if this cat could do it in 45 min then he should’ve showed it, and if he didn’t then he’s one of the reasons people don’t want to come into the games industry and put up with these fat bitches who only got to where they are because they walked through the door early.

Either way the real talent bounces fast to name studios, they don’t stick around in studios like Obsidian which are known for being technically incompetent.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

Not really.

There are a ton of people in programming positions these days that don't know how to code. That is evident in the software that ships across the board, not just in the gaming sphere.

There's also the fact that even experienced developers sometimes dramatically underestimate the amount of work that needs to be done in order to finish a certain functionality or feature. Especially when they're not actively developing themselves. Programmers tend to downplay costs of dev if they're not the ones programming, let alone people who are not coders themselves.

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

You get what you pay for

Also, it's easy to underestimate things and blame "juniors".

In the video, he states that after he got told "4 weeks" he offered to do it himself and got push back.

I've seen this a lot in the tech industry (which I work on)

Look up a couple of "day in the life of programmer" vids on YouTube

 

[Robb]

Why did he not just write the code. Sounds like the discussion took longer with more negative outcomes.

Fire the incompetent and do it yourself

That’s what I was thinking. Stuff like that happens all the time from my experience. I assume it’s common in most fields, especially if you have “support functions” within the company that are busy with a million other things and can barely spare 30 minutes a week on your specific issue.

If I can solve a problem in what is essentially 3 coffee breaks that’d take someone else 4 weeks I’d do it myself and show my boss how much we saved compared to the alternative.

 

[TheDreadBaron]

Tim Cain literally said that he could finish the task within 45m so in worst case scenario it should have taken 2-3 days. At most 5 days with additional testing. Not 4 weeks.

People these days give too much credit to developers. It is like that topic with DirectX 11 and DirectX 12, where as soon as Nvidia and AMD stopped to release game specific drivers (I recall there was a discussion on that either on Resetera or Hacknews. Not sure), then optimization went down the drain.

I’m not saying the developers are all rock stars, but just because the dude said he thought it should take 45 minutes doesn’t mean much. The guy immersed in the code thought it would take longer, and overestimated how long it would take on top of the rest of his work load. Do you know of any changes to a game’s AI that could be fully implemented and tested in 45 minutes? Seems like wishful thinking.

 

[RoboFu]

Not really.

There are a ton of people in programming positions these days that don't know how to code. That is evident in the software that ships across the board, not just in the gaming sphere.

There is some of that yes but its more about scope creep and bad architecture. In a big project you need in engineer that does nothing but create the blueprint and make sure that every other programmer is delegated their task and that it all fits together in the end. I've seen a lot of places either make a working programmer take on the task as well or forego that person alltogether! That means whenever scope creep happens ....and it does happen... things start to get very broken as individual programmers only care about their tasks at hand and not really how it all works together.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

Likely just fired all the non diversity hires lol.

Oof.

 

[Boaty McBoatface]

are we not allowed to talk about diversity hiring that is clearly speeding up development by 100%.

Didn't have to wait long for someone to blame dem ethnics

 

[Holammer]

I just learned Masahiro Sakurai has a similar channel where he talks about game design.
Always interesting to hear about the actual sausage stuffing process.

 

[FeralEcho]

Its very weird how this inflated game development started around 2018 or so....almost around the time the big diversity push for companies started...i wonder why....first they blamed it on covid but now that that shit's a thing of the past they have no excuses left and its starting to show how bloated and shit most of these programmers actually are.No wonder Epic layed off 900 people lol They probably realised how much dead weight is on their team....4 fucking weeks for sth that could be done in an hour...Fucking unbelievable.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

I’m not saying the developers are all rock stars, but just because the dude said he thought it should take 45 minutes doesn’t mean much. The guy immersed in the code thought it would take longer, and overestimated how long it would take on top of the rest of his work load. Do you know of any changes to a game’s AI that could be fully implemented and tested in 45 minutes? Seems like wishful thinking.

Did you even watch the video? He described the problem, told that he wrote similar code before and a bunch of stuff had been already in place.

The truth is that the modern level of developers is quite quite low. And from my observation, a lot of good developers these days are leaving for science area (not data science but more into mathematical sciences, physics stuff like that).

 

[Metnut]

Most likely he’s lying or wrong about the 45 minutes or he’s awful at hiring people. Either way, seems like he shouldn’t be running production of games.

 

[Last Hearth]

Why did he not just write the code. Sounds like the discussion took longer with more negative outcomes.

Fire the incompetent and do it yourself

If you watch the video, he did offer to write it himself, but the lead programmer said no, because “there would be no support for the code”.

 

[Singular7]

I'm a fairly run-of-the-mill dev, part of the problem stems from modern programming being heavily focused on using libraries and APIs, so the "computer science" piece takes a backseat.

Integrate with X,Y,Z rather than learn to write efficient and complex algorithms.

 

[graywolf323]

Did you even watch the video? He described the problem, told that he wrote similar code before and a bunch of stuff had been already in place.

The truth is that the modern level of developers is quite quite low. And from my observation, a lot of good developers these days are leaving for science area (not data science but more into mathematical sciences, physics stuff like that).

he even offered to write out the code himself and was told not to because he wouldn’t be the one to do support for it (never mind the fact that as long as he provided good documentation of his code that shouldn’t be a problem)

honestly it seems pretty clear to me that most of the people attacking him in this thread didn’t bother to watch the video because most of the things they bring up were addressed by Tim…

 

[TheDreadBaron]

Did you even watch the video? He described the problem, told that he wrote similar code before and a bunch of stuff had been already in place.

The truth is that the modern level of developers is quite quite low. And from my observation, a lot of good developers these days are going into science (not data science but more into mathematical sciences, physics stuff like that).

No I sure didn’t, just went off the description in the OP. Not too surprised he’s the hero in his own story though, I’m gonna remain a bit skeptical of the story and how people are trying to use it as a weapon against “lazy game developers” Sure, complain about the state of education, but as you can see people are already using this dubious anecdote to justify their hate of all sorts of people, pretty gross really.

 

[YOU PC BRO?!]

I run into this issue myself, all the time, when being harassed for time estimates. It can be difficult providing anything accurate without taking a look at the code and directly reviewing potential impacts/issues etc. Sometimes even a proof of concept may be required to determine if the task is even possible. Things to consider in such a situation from a developers perspective...

• Capacity i.e. time available to work on something new - considering other projects/development items
• Priority level of the task i.e. high priority, i.e. to be actioned immediately or does it drop down the hierarchy considering other higher priority items the dev may be involved with
• Testing - Internal and external testing - always slower if the external team is involved
• Impacts/Issues - there are plenty of tasks that seem simple but may require a refactor or reshuffle of existing code/structure to implement
• Scale/scope of the change etc.

These things can all factor into the time estimate. Devs often give different, more accurate estimates to their own leads/senior developers that may not factor in existing workloads. Then the estimate itself, does it include other development tasks you may be working on simultaneously? Is it high priority or low priority i.e. the dev may have other tasks at a higher priority, other deadlines he may be working to.

Lastly, what's important to the individual stakeholder may be of less importance to the project as a whole. Say someone asks for a small code change to something but you are working to multiple strict deadlines for something vital. That half-day you may have to spend on this other thing might be a half-day delay to the project as a whole. Something to consider.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

honestly it seems pretty clear to me that most of the people attacking him in this thread didn’t bother to watch the video because most of the things they bring up were addressed by Tim…

Exactly. He even told in the video that he literally showed the lead programming pseudocode of what needs to be done and even the lead programmers cringed on those 4 week estimations...

No I sure didn’t, just went off the description in the OP. Not too surprised he’s the hero in his own story though, I’m gonna remain a bit skeptical of the story and how people are trying to use it as a weapon against “lazy game developers” Sure, complain about the state of education, but as you can see people are already using this dubious anecdote to justify their hate of all sorts of people, pretty gross really.

You can be skeptical just fine. I see from my own own experience that software development skills these days are very very low level. People give developers too much credit.

 

[P:axMagellanic]

I mean, you only have to look around at the state of your software to realise they're not exactly hiring the best. Middleware and API's out the ass that do half the work for you and games have never been more broken. Creaking, behemoth mutant monstrosities perched atop chicken legs.

Boyarsky and Cain are legends, I absolutely put the blame of outer worlds on obsidian being complete shit.

 

[Labadal]

Sounds like someone needs an ego check.

Barely. He has uploaded a crapton of videos. He criticizes himself and other leads on many occasions.

 

[Cashon]

On the journalism front, I tried writing articles for cbr.com (just because it was an open opportunity), as a contributing writer once; I only wrote three articles before giving up on it because everything I wrote was heavily edited to remove and semblance of my personality, to make it more SEO-friendly.

 

[Hawking Radiation]

Interesting for sure. That's why development team numbers don't always mean faster development.

It would if everyone is on the same page to, you know, fucking work ?!!

It's the same situation in my workplace and in the country where I live now. People here are fucking lazy. Simple tasks for a South African like me back in my home country would get done in a day. Here in this place (I shall not say where) it takes weeks and I've lived here for 15 years and I've experienced it in every job I've held here. Caught someone sleeping in the office on the sofa a few times. That's the level of laziness I've witnessed here and no it wasn't during his break or lunch time.

It has to be a cultural thing. Some people just don't care to get things done in a timely manner.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

You know the old saying in life.... "sometimes it's better to do it yourself"

A lot of people out there are lazy, unskilled, or just plain idiots. It makes no sense that farming out some tasks to someone else takes longer to do than doing it yourself (along with the other tasks you already have on your plate to finish), but sometimes it's better to do it yourself because you know it'll get done, done right and on time. A lot of people have no respect helping other people so they take their time or dont give a shit.

There's some tasks and reporting I do for other departments because the idiots there couldnt figure out their own systems. So it got to a point the VP of my department told me (wink wink), if I can just keep doing it so it's seamless and on time.

 

[ChoosableOne]

I'm worried that with studio acquisitions and subscription systems, this situation might also take hold of the indie games. My backlog is becoming more valuable with each passing day.

 

[Aion002]

There's some tasks and reporting I do for other departments because the idiots there couldnt figure out their own systems. So it got to a point the VP of my department told me (wink wink), if I can just keep doing it so it's seamless and on time.

They probably can do it, but they just tried to pass the work to someone else... and they did it.

Most people try to avoid responsibilities and try their hardest in pushing work on to others.