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by TraderDuck 3756 days ago
Not to shit on you in particular, but you seem to have a bit of a chip on your shoulder about other forms of software development being done.

Everyone rationalizes what they do. People working in those other industries will usually tell their version of your story: "I'm not working on some shitty game that will be forgotten in a year... I'm working on building a social revolution!!!!"

Sorry. For the most part it's all about someone's bottom line. Indie game development isn't any purer than working for startup X on Bush st. that has similar lofty goals about "making people happy."

> get bigger returns for a financial firm

This is especially funny to me. If you're working for even a Mojang-sized studio, I hate to tell you but: You're definitely using technology to get bigger returns for a firm.

Sure, it's not a financial firm. Let's not pretend that the differences are all that meaningful. Instead of stock market returns, game studios just seek to maximize the return they get on game development time.

EDIT: s/Riot/Mojang. I didn't realize how large Riot has gotten.

> I'll never grow tired of that.

Great. And EA will never get tired of people working themselves to death for what inevitably amounts to minimum wage given the hours worked. Guess it's win-win.

1 comments

All points well said. You spoke my mind really. I felt the same way. All of the stuff that I've worked on, it's not just so some company can get richer. The story is that we're helping people. They also will likely use our products for a lot longer and get a lot more productive use out of it than any game.

Side note: Didn't Mojang get bought by Microsoft? Are they still considered small? (NOTE: I've not researched this is a serious, not-loaded question..)

Yeah, they did. I'm not sure how independent they are, but they're still around roughly 50 people it seems.

I was just making the point that unless it's essentially you and a couple buddies, profit and revenue is the elephant in the room.

Or the center-piece, depending on how brutally honest management wants to be about it.

Ah, alright, thanks!