Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
“
their firstborn took a few wobbling steps or spoke his first words,
Hey where in
the hell is Mommy, anyway?
”
This frustration works into anger and finally into
people leaving the company for what they think are greener pastures. High turn-
over right after a project ships is pretty common in companies that require tons of
overtime.
Someone once told me that you
'
ll never find a tombstone with the following epitaph:
“
As a team member, you can translate that into a
desire to predict your own schedule as best you can, try to scope your project within
your means, and send up red flags when things begin to get off track. If you ever get
to be a project lead, I hope you realize that there
I wish I worked more weekends.
”
'
s a place for overtime, but it can
'
t
replace someone
'
s life.
Pixel Fodder
Throw Warm Bodies at the Problem
Perhaps the second most common solution to projects seriously behind schedule is to
throw more developers on the project. Well managed, this can have a positive effect,
but it
—
'
s never very cost effective, and there
'
s a higher risk of mistakes. It turns out
there
'
s a sweet spot in the number of people who can work on any single project.
More People Make Work Go Faster, Right?
Ultima Online was the poster child of a bloated team. In December of 1996,
the entire Ultima IX team was moved to Ultima Online in the hopes that
throwing bodies at the problem would speed the project to completion. This
ended up being something of a disaster, for a few reasons. First, the UltimaIX
team really wanted to work on UltimaIX.Their motivation to work on another
project was pretty low. Second, the Ultima Online team had a completely
different culture and experience level, and there were clashes of philosophy
and control. Third, Ultima Online didn
t have a detailed project plan,
somewhat due to the fact that no one had ever made a massive multiplayer
game before. This made it difficult to deploy everyone in his area of expertise.
I happened to find myself working with SQL servers, and I didn
'
'
t have a shred
of experience!
Through a staggering amount of work
on the part of the original Ultima Online
team and the Ultima IX newcomers, the project went live less than nine months after the team was
integrated. The cost was overwhelming, however, especially in terms of employee turnover in the old
Ultima IX team. Virtually none of the programmers, managers, or designers of Ultima IX remained at
Origin to see it completed.
—
an Origin hallmark
—
One effect of overstaffing is an increased need to communicate and coordinate
among the team members. It
s effectiveness
falls sharply if he has any more than seven reports, and it is maximized at five
'
s a generally accepted fact that a manager
'
