I get it, but it seems frustrating to me. Another commenter suggested that a difficulty in non-game development is there is not really a right answer except the consensus answer. Unlike a game, it’s not something you can just feel on your own.

It’s a “you’ll know it when you see it” situation, rather than something you can track your progress towards.

I think you’re right, this is a big difference.

What this article suggests to me is that the big companies went wrong mainly in recruiting, probably by offering good salaries and work life balance to people used to impressing generic authority figures.

The idea that non-game software doesn’t involve creativity or spit balling or iteration is ridiculous. But from what I’ve seen it does involve a lot more waiting for consensus and thinking too far down the road, which are political activities aimed at being right (as measured by vice presidents) rather than productive activities aimed at getting something done or making something cool (as measured by your own name in credits of a completed work offered to the public).

I’m not sure why big company engineers don’t just start coding while their bosses are dithering about, but they don’t, and my pop psych guess is that they’ve selected for people who want to know what’s going to be on the exam. As long as the product is never really done and almost never seen or applauded outside the company, this kind of makes sense.

As some big game studios seem to be moving to legacy products and rolling delivery to more and more captive audience, I wonder if the differences in culture will shrink. Maybe we will always depend on cash-strapped studios of slightly desperate iconoclasts for the big leaps.

Thanks for that link, amazing. I didn’t realize how unlikely US is to change copyright length, or how important the creative commons license was