A Developers Article on Getting Scammed by the Man

Games that suck aren't always the developers fault...

I sympathize. From working in Information Technology, I've found that the "suits" often demand request unreasonable completion dates, ridiculous procedures, money-consuming "cheaper" upgrades, programs that move in the wrong direction, and other smooth-operation inhibitors.

One recent event in my department was the hiring of a contracted programmer without IT consent. Come to find that this contractor doesn't know how to program in the language that we hold as a standard. The contractor also claimed the project he was assigned would take 40 hours (it would have been more like 80+), and he could learn the new language effeciently and throw it together in that time frame.

The reason behind the surprise contractor? The manager was trying to complete a project faster than normal because he wanted to get a certificate faster. Our programmers are currently busy on more important projects. It's understandable to go with outside help, but without consulting the resident programmers and their standards, it's just setting us up for failure. Our programmers would have to support a program that an outsider wrote that didn't follow our standard coding practices. Bug fixes would waste a ridiculous amount of man/woman hours (we have a female programmer) since they'd have to decipher potentially jumbled code.

I'm sure this garbage happens all the time in the video game development industry as well. Thankfully for us, our manager stuck a wrench in that fiasco, and our programmers will get to that project when they are able. But I'm sure others are not always so lucky.