Mini update

[gilesgoat]

PSVR2 on the PS5

We would need "something totally NEW" for that ...

[gilesgoat]

<DESPAIR>

.. I just came out with this sentence :

THE REALLY GOOD UI HAS ONLY ONE BUTTON !!

( and MAYBE NOT even that ! )

</DESPAIR>


So OK this is THE FIRST time I am doing "this" so I DON'T KNOW much about "this" ...

However .. I am now spending hours "around certain portal" trying to figure out WHERE IN THE ("£*$()*$*"£() is THIS and THAT ... WHERE I am supposed to go/do .. WHERE IN THE HECK is that thing they talk about ...

Yes .. there are some *VERY SPARSE* documents .. which says things like "register your name into X" .. .. without saying WHERE/HOW you access "X" and "how you actually register this thing once you reach X" ..

And you say "but when you'll find X SURELY there's a 'Register Name' menu/option somewhere" ... yes .. buried into 40 other links in some obscure place .. and "to reach X" is already another battle.

It really PUZZLES me the "HOW WE NOT ABLE ANY MORE TO MAKE *SIMPLE/R* THINGS ?" .. why everything has to be "so weirdly complicated ?" ..

"I just want to upload a file or two and send it for testing" ..

NO .. you can't do that .. it's TOO SIMPLE .. you can't do that without FIRST filling up 20 forms .. navigate through 10 "portals" put 30 different login info in 40 places .. answered certain question YOU DO NOT HAVE A CLUE about what they REALLY are asking .. wrote at least 4 times to "support" and waited 2 weeks to get answer because "you can't make something work as you THINK it should" ...

.. it's .. HOPELESS ... "we live in the world where SIMPLE things are NOT possible" ..

So if you wonder "why that game/thing is NOT out yet" .. BECAUSE things like those I am writing here now "should give you a bit of an idea" ...

And then also the "why you don't ask someone else that already done this how" .. because you have NO IDEA how many times - BASICALLY ALWAYS - I heard the "I DO NOT HAVE A CLUE ABOUT HOW IS DONE I NEVER DONE IT SOMEONE ELSE DID IT FOR ME" ..

And this "someone else" is UNreachaeble OR "does not tell you how is done" because it's "his/her ( well paid ) job" to do it ...

Anyway .. where in HECK is that page gone ? .. where are those "INFO" .. WTF ??!!!!??

[rowan]

* when companies get large they seek order through creating processes, so they can be handed on as employees come & go
* over time, they will start to have regular internal audits to improve processes & avoid situations when various incidents in the past have cost them
* any auditor's going to feel their job's not being done unless they have at least a couple of recommendations
* that will usually result in some more steps being added to some processes

All these processes, they go on at every level with almost every interaction between departments; the finance, the HR, the purchasing, the IT etc.

And they'll also be ingrained in all the management, support & development of internal business software. So by the time any kind of requirement or enhancement has filtered down from the functional guys, it's possible any usability or reason for adding a feature is not understood or considered by the developer, and a new link just gets shoved on the bottom of an existing list in a nonsensical place for the end user. Or maybe they ran out of budget on a project and had no time for "polish" once it kind-of worked in some vague way.

Or maybe they bought in various different backend software systems, which could be OK at their own individual things, but have ended up having a horrendous mess of interfaces or even batch files between them.

But there are many reasons for the kind of frustration you describe, it could be something worse


One thing to bear in mind: You know how horrible all that boring part of gamedev is - the leaderboards, different monitors & resolutions, rebinding controls etc. ?
I can make a wild guess that most business developers may not enjoy all that they have to do.

[noodles]

Some of the reasons for those frustrations I've seen in mostly large companies :

- Middle managers that see you as a threat to their job if you bypass them and talk to the engineers directly to get proper info about something
in order to get things done faster. The end result, after threats from said managers, is that the customer gets lousy service and delays in an answer,
making the company look bad. This would not happen in a smaller company where people could go over the middle manager's head quite easily and get
him to back off.

- Companies that have software that is cobbled together from various sources and some suppliers seek to profit by introducing atificial limits in what the
basic software can do in order to charge more for an "optional" (but clearly indispensable for any serious operation) module that allows it to communicate
with these other sources. Hence more complicated procedures to do what should be a built-in, basic function for no other reason than "more money please".

- Employee turnover that creates an endless chaos. Poorly managed businesses tend to disgust people much faster and they quit, turning certain posts
into merry-go-rounds of inexperienced kids that are brought in to replace the previous one that got fed up with the incompetent/asshole/abusive/etc. manager
and the end result is chaos, endlessly going on as long as the real culprit, the manager is still in place, sabotaging everything because, for example,
his fragile ego can't take the slightest criticism from anyone under him. Auditors will steer clear of pointing the finger at this culprit and his decisions
because he is the one paying them... And on it goes.

[gilesgoat]

I think in this case could be really a case of "incremental problem".

These companies are there "since long time" they started with something and they kept moving on ..

I am guessing while you "move on" there's always the moment "you still have to keep care of the 'old' while transitioning into the 'new' " ..

And/or there's the "phenomenon" of "we did not have this before let's ADD it now" .. you end up with a structure of thing that been made "adding up" stuff to existing things.

It would come a moment where someone should say "OK , it's TIME TO CLEAN/RE-ORGANIZE THE MESS and make it BETTER" ..

But this very rarely happens .. "too much inertia" too much "none knows exactly what 1,2,3,4,5,6 ... n are doing" or has "the complete vision from 1 to N" to say "ok let's re-organize this".

But mostly, from all times I've seen "this kind of situation" a lot boils down to :

- the person(s) with "such power to get such decisions and implement them" DOES NOT EXIST (*)

- NOBODY wants to take responsibility/task to do such a thing

- because doing such a thing could, for a time X, create a "dip" into profits/productivity/etc. "until things are settled" "nobody wants to do it"

- also logics of "if it DOES NOT do IMMEDIATE money/profit ( and this COULD possibly actually do "immediately the contrary" ) we don't do it

- really complete lack of anyone that could really understand all this and know how to fix it or improve it

- overall "big company inertia"

(*) it COULD be "the top owner/manager of the company" but "they have all else to think/care about and IT IS NOT THIS THEY WANT TO DO".

Smaller companies COULD do it, but sometime too they get caught into "we don't do it" ..

It's a loose loose scenario

[gilesgoat]

OK .. "I am super stressed" .. BUT .. I am uploading THE BUILD to start the "Certification" process ..

I don't know if after that there are still 30 forms to fill but hopefully not ...

And then .. "the heck knows what will happen" but "something will happen" ..

I have no idea, this is my FIRST time with "this thing I cannot name yet" ..

The good part once this is all done and dusted .. "I may have another thing in the pipeline" ready for another "cert" ...

I am NERVOUS .. I really AM .. I don't know "what to expect" yet ...

[Rhythm]

/excited

[gilesgoat]

/excited

*SOB*

.. aaand here we start .. "automatic pre-checks" already found 7 ( blocking ) issues .. one of which is "technical" ( i.e. they found out I use a certain thing, they want me to add/write a "test procedure" for it ) .. the remaining 6 are all "legalese issues" about missing certain "license wordings/code" NOT really sure "what the heck they want" but asked "above" about that.

This is actually the first time ever I see things like "you use that thing, YOU write for ME a test procedure to test that thing" .. oh hum .. oh well ..

You mean *I* am supposed to know "better than you" HOW to test YOUR thing ?

1. Start the game
2. Push that button
3. Observe that "nothing the fuck happens or something happens I cannot describe it"
4. If you get something that "looks good" then it's OK, if not it's still OK

.. there you go ...

[gilesgoat]

.. still tangled into LEGAL shit ...

After sorting out "all the rest" ( there's still "a little something of it to be sorted" ) it turns out "I am using a library that despite being part of the SDK is considered to be 'third party'" ( it's nothing special really ) but turns out "I miss the legal text for it" .. therefore "I cannot proceed until I sorted it" ..

Now "watch me spend all day" trying to figure out "where I am supposed to get/find this legal text" not to mention "and why it's not part of the other things already" ?

These things with "legal crap" are getting more and more annoying .. so even displaying "a user nickname" is actually "a fuckload of shit" because someone could name itself "I_AM_THE_MOTHERFUCKER" and I am not sure if there's anything preventing that and/or you need a special disclaimer about "user generated content" to sort things like those out.

Anyway .. "trying to locate some legal text" and "trying to figure out where to put it".

Also yes I am asking myself too "but if they supply the lib why somewhere is not also supplied its legal text ?" .. maybe there's .. but HECK if I know where to look at ...

[edit] - WOW INCREDIBLE I FOUND IT !

For once "it was in a LOGICAL PLACE !!!"

[Markie]

What I find amazing is the amount of work you are putting in, it's months!?!?! More and more forms you talk about, how can it be so hard? What cannot these companies streamline this more, surely this level of anxed constantly for all this time is not a great way to use time, although necessary I know. I feel for you, you have more patience than I :-) by far! lol

[gilesgoat]

What I find amazing is the amount of work you are putting in, it's months!?!?! More and more forms you talk about, how can it be so hard? What cannot these companies streamline this more, surely this level of anxed constantly for all this time is not a great way to use time, although necessary I know. I feel for you, you have more patience than I :-) by far! lol

Ok this development it's been a bit "harder than usual" because I am actually doing 2 things the same time in 2 completely different "new" platforms that required a totally NEW re-write of our "engine" plus there's been various things there and there that took a bit more time than usual.

All the ( games ) companies I've seen so far, when it comes down to the "publishing" aspect ( certification, etc. etc. ) "apart from Steam" they are all "full of complex steps/procedures/etc."

This thing I am doing now is "totally new for me never done before" so I am not yet fully knowledgeable/used to their procedures so I really need to spend more time "learning how it works".

Why the cannot streamline more .. eh .. good question .. see my posts above .. maybe part of the reasons are "because when you do something commercial there are FAR too many things you have to keep care of".

At least here "in SW" most of time is "time consuming BUT not super expensive" .. I know something about "HW" there all is very much time consuming AND incredibly expensive, at least here for SW, hopefully we never will, we don't need an IMQ or EMI certification ...

I am guess quite a part of all this is due to "oh there's some shit, SUE THEM SUE THEM FOR MILLIONS" .. you have to be very careful about what you put out.

But yes you need A LOT of patience and WILLPOWER to go on and not fall on the floor also "you don't have another choice", it is what it is

[gilesgoat]

The "various issues" should be technically resolved ...

.. But now I am waiting for the "materials" that been "about to be submitted for evaluation" to be accepted .. and there are 3 places where we asked for "a waiver" - rightly so - but now .. "the waivers needs to be approved" ..

So .. "whatever it takes I have no idea", maybe even tomorrow I don't know at the moment waiting for this "approval" ..

Meanwhile working on something else of course.

But you see how it goes ..

And yes that happens "the same" in other places as well, any time you "ask for something" it needs to be evaluated/approved/confirmed by someone/thing before you can continue.

Step by step.

[edit] I give you an example of "what could be a waiver" ..

You prepare a "material" for "submission" maybe it does contain an image with an icon ..

Maybe the icon had to be 30x30 pixels .. you done it 32x32 ..

Some "automatic check" signals an "error" saying "supplied icon is incorrect format".

For SOME type of errors "there's no waiver, you HAVE to correct and fix the materials".

For others it could be you can :

1. "correct the error", re-submit again, etc. OR

2. "ask for a waiver" saying "ok can you still accept 32x32 please ?"

There are situations/cases where "doing a re-submission could mean you lose a slot/time/etc. you want to avoid it" and/or "it's so trivial you don't want to re-do the whole thing".

So you ask for a wavier .. but "it needs to be approved" USUALLY this is FASTER than re-doing the whole submission again.

You get the idea.

NOTE : also "usually" when you ask for a waiver, this "depends on the policies of the company you deal with" it MAY BE that "this automagically means that whatever shit happend for that thing you asked a waiver for you and only you will be 1000% responsible for".

Which means , for example, "someone sues X because that icon is 32x32 created a disturbance to his/her eye cause it's too big" X says "ALT !! WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS ! ALL THE BLAME GOES TO Y THAT REQUESTED THE WAIVER !! WE CAN'T BE LEGALLY TOUCHED FOR THIS ISSUE !"

So you see .. "all legalese stuff" .. and so on ...

[gilesgoat]

... and we are still dealing with "legalese issues" ...

And it's stuff I can't do a thing I have to wait to ask someone else about ..

Paranoia .. meanwhile I keep working on something else ...

" blah blah the thing you supplied does not match information in the other document you supplied before blah blah .. "

" blah blah you requested this but it cannot be done because blah blah ... " ..

NNNNNGH ...

Oh well .. it is what it is ...

[gilesgoat]

FINALLY !!! SUBMITTED FOR CERTIFICATION !!

.. and now .. we'll see how many bugs/things they'll find out ...

I CANNOT tell you yet anything "what it is and for what it is" but .. "it's something pretty good" .. so you'll see when time will be

At least now I know "some more set of procedures" ..

[Jamesac]

Congratulations! Now to see the game fly through first try and this round of forms to be complete forever. Good luck!

Can't believe it's this far along in the development process and whoever is publishing still hasn't announced a thing. Don't they know how impatient we get?