The Amount of Time "Vacationing" is Actually Absurd

Talk about a being a tyrant


How dare you work hundreds of hours leading up to the EA and push out a beautiful game that is not even 40% complete and bust your behinds to get it out to us and then take the holidays off to decompress and take time with your family. HOW DARE YOU WANT TO RELAX...I WANNA PLAY A GAME AND YOUR OVER THERE RELAXING WITH FAMILY...JESUS

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GregoryAdams#7051 wrote:

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Valsacar#0268 wrote:

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GregoryAdams#7051 wrote:

Yes and no. This is also a bit of a marketing problem. "Open Beta", given the meaning of "beta version" in the context of software, clearly communicates that the product is unfinished, as you say. Early Access, on the other hand, does not. In fact, the entire point of using the term "Early Access" is a deliberate marketing tactic to create the impression of something premium and exclusive.

So it's not really that people don't understand what early access means, it's that the term early access is, really by design, kind of a lie.

No, Early Access literally means ANY pre-release version. It is a funding model, and always has been.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_access

Did you actually read the article before quoting it?

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Early access to a game is typically offered when the game is in a playable state but may not be feature-complete, or may still have several software bugs to be found. Often these games are considered at alpha or beta releases, and may be months or years from anticipated completion.

Like, yes, but it's obfuscating it behind this additional layer of terminology.

Yes, you clearly didn't.

Early access, also known as alpha access, alpha founding, paid alpha, or game preview, is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can purchase and play a game in the various pre-release development cycles, such as pre-alpha, alpha, and/or beta, while the developer is able to use those funds to continue further development on the game.

These threads are getting really embarrassing. No wonder they took an extended vacation.

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GregoryAdams#7051 wrote:

I don't understand why people keep bringing workers' rights into this conversation.

Regardless of where you are in the world, part of running a business is knowing the legislation that applies to it (incl. workers' rights) and plan your capacity accordingly. This responsibility is a basic part of business management.

Right, and it is quite likely that they managed everyone's leave this year by holding it off as much as possible until they knew the game the game was in a decent state, which they would have known about by probably mid November.

The point isn't that workers have leave entitlement but that GGG have likely had to manage that around getting this game released and in a decent state for most players before they let them take it all.

Nothing is wrong that cannot and arguably should not wait a couple of weeks. In this time they have lots more feedback and no boubt back end analytics to help them make the right decisions.

Taking their keave at this time makes perfect sense for the company, as well as being a nice thing to reward them for working hard and getting the game out. Given they have to take it sometime and have likely not been able to as the game was not ready for the oroginal release time.

There's also the fact that, since they found tons of bugs around the original planned release time, they likely "forced" everyone to put in tons of overtime until the actual release date. Companies do this quite often, I know for a fact that law firms have it written into contracts that you are REQUIRED to put in requested overtime should the need come up due to a case....with the tradeoff that you get additional vacation time to spend later.

I'm sure lots of companies that can and do see unforeseen emergency situations have a similar clause baked into their contracts, including video game creators. So, because of unforeseen bugs heavy enough to delay the launch that was advertised for nearly a year (must have been big....), workers were probably pulling double shifts for 3 weeks. It makes total sense to then turn around and have everyone take a long, well deserved break: once they determined and saw that the game was stable.

You certainly don't want to burn out the entire staff...before the game is even "officially" released lol.

Hell, even if they lose 90% of the current players in the next week, they likely would still recoup all of them and more when it comes time for TRUE launch. PoE 1 didn't really even start to explode in growth until 3+ years into its development. The people around right now don't....really matter.

Sounds like somebody needs to touch some grass.

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Poe2WarriorMan#6401 wrote:

580k players on steam alone times 30 bucks ... they made bank for sure on EA

and thats assuming the absolute low end

Tens if not hundreds of thousands of codes have been given out for free by streamers.

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Valsacar#0268 wrote:

Yes, you clearly didn't.

Early access, also known as alpha access, alpha founding, paid alpha, or game preview, is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can purchase and play a game in the various pre-release development cycles, such as pre-alpha, alpha, and/or beta, while the developer is able to use those funds to continue further development on the game.

My point is that "Early Access" doesn't have a fixed definition. It might include the "alpha" or "beta" states of a game, or any other states. So it is still somewhat misleading, since it doesn't really tell you anything.

For example, claiming that something is made of "natural" ingredients is "technically" also always true, since synthetic ingredients are themselves ultimately made from natural ingredients.
But there are legal and regulatory limits to the definition of the term "natural ingredients" precisely for that reason.

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GregoryAdams#7051 wrote:

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Valsacar#0268 wrote:

Yes, you clearly didn't.

Early access, also known as alpha access, alpha founding, paid alpha, or game preview, is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can purchase and play a game in the various pre-release development cycles, such as pre-alpha, alpha, and/or beta, while the developer is able to use those funds to continue further development on the game.

My point is that "Early Access" doesn't have a fixed definition. It might include the "alpha" or "beta" states of a game, or any other states. So it is still somewhat misleading, since it doesn't really tell you anything.

For example, claiming that something is made of "natural" ingredients is "technically" also always true, since synthetic ingredients are themselves ultimately made from natural ingredients.
But there are legal and regulatory limits to the definition of the term "natural ingredients" precisely for that reason.

Not sure what the true point is, it's stated very clearly what state PoE2 is in.

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Orion_3T#5225 wrote:

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GregoryAdams#7051 wrote:

I don't understand why people keep bringing workers' rights into this conversation.

Regardless of where you are in the world, part of running a business is knowing the legislation that applies to it (incl. workers' rights) and plan your capacity accordingly. This responsibility is a basic part of business management.

Right, and it is quite likely that they managed everyone's leave this year by holding it off as much as possible until they knew the game the game was in a decent state, which they would have known about by probably mid November.

The point isn't that workers have leave entitlement but that GGG have likely had to manage that around getting this game released and in a decent state for most players before they let them take it all.

Nothing is wrong that cannot and arguably should not wait a couple of weeks. In this time they have lots more feedback and no boubt back end analytics to help them make the right decisions.

Taking their keave at this time makes perfect sense for the company, as well as being a nice thing to reward them for working hard and getting the game out. Given they have to take it sometime and have likely not been able to as the game was not ready for the oroginal release time.

Yeah, to be clear, my argument has never been that anyone should be denied their right to take their vacation. Besides, as a method for giving yourself more time, it's short-sighted and doesn't really work. Like, maybe it works for 1 week or something, but not much more. (I'm a software developer, and I've done this several times before, so that has been my experience, at least.)

You always have the classic time-scope-cost triangle.
Now, throwing more money or people at the problem would not have helped.

So I believe that what they should have done is either reduced the scope (e.g. released just 2 Acts for the Early Access), or extended the time i.e. delayed the Early Access.