Pot-Stirring Time

[whyBish]

Your control over a softwares features are highest at the time of conception, and diminish to nearly zero at implementation.

Alone anyones opinion is useless, but just like voting it does matter in the long run.  If you write, and consistently write or produce stuff that is trash, that becomes your reputation.

Re: first quote, This is for traditional waterfall software development techniques, but in a R.A.D. or prototyping environment (which is useful in an R&D/Experimental type setup) this is not so true (Yes there is less control at implementation, but, I just disagree with the 'diminishing to almost zero'). A lot of games seem to be developed following the experimental approach...

Re quote two, This is a problem in so many fields. Negative feedack as a means of enforcement only works on a going concern, and not a transient. It also means that you need to sample (though not neccessarily first hand) before you can judgge quality. A 'bad rep' is not enough of a negative reinforcement in the software industry I.M.O. due to the following:
- Games have large gaps between development, so memory/weighting of bad experiences may diminish
- Transience, companies can always claim that this game is either different from the 'bad' ones in some way (all games can have the 'unique' claim, just varies in degree), even if they can't they can also point that a different division/dev team/ lead designer worked on the latest one so it "won't have the same issues"


Sorry if arguements are not coherent... just finished 19hr work day, need to be up again in 3 hrs... should be asleep now :P