As part of my process of refining this blog, I've decided that effective immediately, personal posts are going to be going to a private, friends-only blog.
Industry anecdotes, testing tips and discussion, and discussion about products will remain on this blog.
However, don't expect the removal of one topic to affect how far I go on these other topics. As this recent dust-up proves, people are not used to straight talk coming from this industry. Everyone assumes that we have an agenda, so we must be lying our asses off. One thing that caused issues for "SiN Episodes" was that we promised 4-5 hours of gameplay, so everyone assumed that it meant 2-3 hours because of "time inflation." Right now, our average playtime is 4h57m, so I'd say we were dead on.
I'm a very straightforward person. I do my best to say things as they are. While it may drive PR departments insane when I open my mouth, I'd be doing a disservice to myself and to quality assurance if I toned down my words, omitted more than was legally necessary, or intentionally misled people.
And as for an agenda, I do have one. My agenda is to bring quality assurance out of the basement and into the light. QA has become an army of disposable temps in this industry, and is seen as the invisible enemy of most development teams and the automatic scapegoat for most customers when something goes wrong. This perception will only fester and grow if nothing is said or done about it.
1 comment:
Mmm. I think that the median of 4 hours might be a more useful statistic than the average, mainly because of that high number of >12 outliers (especially if they're from secret hunters, and not "normal" players). But I certainly agree that Ritual did a good job of being honest about what to expect and of fulfilling expectations.
I appreciate your straightforwardness here; it's refreshing from the usual PR speak, as well as informative as far as showing how things actually are instead of the rose-tinted utopia PR would want us to see. While I'm an outsider as far as the industry is concerned, I'm not above acting the voyeur. ;)
I'd like to think that I'm above scapegoating QA. But regardless of whether or not I am, I know that some others aren't, so I don't mind your agenda at all. :)
Post a Comment