Software Corps: Assholes versus Not-Assholes

Disclaimer: Yeah, I realise that the corporate world is a bitch, and basically everywhere one could work one will find conditions to be much less than ideal. What I am about to say perhaps reflects far more on the contentment of the consumers than of the employees, but I do believe there is something of a correllation.

I find it amazing how you can get an impression of just how much a certain software company must have bullied its employees to get its products out the door. It is especially evident when software is released with glaring bugs, loop-holes, or just general all-round shittiness that doesn't belong there. Obviously the poor programmers that were forced to write that code weren't given enough time, enough motivation, or sufficent peace of mind to be able to make the software as clean and robust as they would have liked, because I don't believe that any professional software programmers are naturally inclined to want their programs to suck ass.

Consider UbiSoft. Recently they've released games like Prince of Persia 3D and Rainbow Six 3, amoung others. Many of their games are big hits and I suspect that they are very well off in the financial dept. These games are also plagued with subtle bugs and are generally unstable feeling enough to leave you with the impression that they were cobbled together all hack-and-slash like. The artistic development team for PoP obviously had enough time to make the game look awesome, but the programmers were probably forced to work 80 hours/week and flogged until it got done. Under such circumstances, I'm willing to bet that the code base of PoP contains many nightmares that are probably continuing to plague the programmers at UbiSoft right now as they work on the PoP sequel. The employee turnover rate is also likely high enough to hurt the process even more.

I more-or-less know this to be the case at BioWare. When they are producing games like Neverwinter Nights or Knights of the Old Republic, it is all about getting the software out the door at any cost. The notion of developing a robust codebase that will serve the company well for years to come is viewed as an unrealistic dream that would be an outright waste of investor cash. I know that BioWare's games are awesome, but if you look closely, you can see the seams in their software. It's dissapointing to be sure.

Now consider somebody like Id Software. Those guys have a strict policy of no compromises with their programming, and it shows--their software is virtually bulletproof. Even legacy products of theirs like the original Quake stand the test of time and are easily modded because the code is so clean and well designed. Companies like UbiSoft and BioWare would (or should) be embarassed to reveal their source code, but Id Software releases the sources to their old products with pride. And they should be proud; they are admired for it.

This is where my real point comes in. Companies like UbiSoft and BioWare think that nobody notices their shoddy programming practices, but nothing could be further from the truth: whether they are even aware of it or not, players intrinsically recognize game software that is slapped together in a big hurry to score a quick buck versus the stuff that is painstakingly engineered by programmers who are given enough time and space to do their jobs properly. When you play a game like Metal Gear Solid, you can literally feel the cleanliness of the game software in your bones--it harmonizes with the brilliant artistic and technical direction of the game as a whole to completely blow you away. When you play Rainbow Six 3, you love where the game is going, but you are frustrated by the numerous holes and oversights inherent in the software; you will eventually set that game aside and remember it as something that was lacking in ways you might be at a loss to describe.