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How Do You Think It Is Working For Pgi?


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#1 Rabcor

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Posted 21 October 2013 - 05:28 AM

Let me make one thing clear, this post is not meant to be offensive, i try not to point any fingers either. If PGI staff sees this i encourage them to think about how they like working for PGI.and post it. They shouldn't have to do such a thing anonymously either, after all it'd only be informative for the higher ups to see what their employees think of their jobs.

If theres anything we players have seen about PGI it's that they're really badly organized. I don't know how they are regarding the companies structure, but it can be seen that they announce features as if they could be coming in any patch within the next 3 months (soon) when they're really many months from completing it, so many in fact you'd think they announce these things just as they start working on them rather than after they're halfway finished with them.

What is it if not bad organization to put a third person view mode into a game where 80-90% of the people either hate the very thought of it, and the rest (like me) just don't care (nobody wants it).

They were very careful about making 3p unplayable, but still put it as the DEFAULT mode (bad organization), their only effort to cater to the 80-90% i mentioned earlier (until now when they disabled it in 12 player premade matches), was making it unplayable, seems that was not enough for people (but it was for me...) As they said they certainly failed to communicate (bad organization) about this to the players before releasing it, but without warning they still released it. I can only assume the reason they didn't communicate about it is that they didn't want to, they knew there'd be nothing but rage and there were already polls that said 90% of the players (or so) hated the idea.This wasn't taking some risk that could benefit the game, this was somebody's obsession that third person view had to be placed in the game even if it could cost them a huge part of their playerbase to do it.

Any developer worth his salt developing a multiplayer game like this would have at least talked about this to the players before even starting to develop it, hell how hard could it have been to put a poll inside the game itself so the "Vocal Minority" wouldn't be the only ones who have their say in the matter?!

Again, badly organized.

I've gone enough into how badly organized PGI seem to be, i hope they learn. Now lets talk about development speed, it feels like they're taking forever to do everything it is that they're going to do. Typical for workplaces where the employees sorely lack motivation and would rather sleep on their desks than work (some of them might).There can be various reasons for this to happen, all of them are the fault of "not-good-enough" management. This is mostly just speculation though, i don't know what its like to work for PGI, but judging by the speed at which they develop and the quality (or often lack thereof) i like to think that maybe it just isn't very fun nor rewarding to work for PGI.

I mentioned reasons, let me point out a few possibilities since i did:
Maybe the break times are too short,
maybe the pay is too low,
maybe there's harassment in the workspace(this can be anything from persecution to someone forcing everyone to listen to their music or forcing their opinions on everyone),
maybe its not rewarding enough (employees don't get congratulated for completing tasks, and get yelled at for trying but not meeting the deadline),
maybe the work hours are too long or the overtime is too much (ties in with pay),
maybe people are uncomfortable for some reason (such as noise, or co-worker's bad language)

There could be many more reasons but you get the idea of what i'm getting at. People working for game studios tend to be doing jobs they want to be doing (someone likes programming so he programs, someone likes art so he's a concept artist) and because they want to be doing it, it should be fun. The only reasons i can think of for it not to be fun (not fun = less productivity) is if their personal workspace isn't satisfactory or people are unhappy about something. Maybe PGI management doesn't ask their employees what they like, dislike and could improve. Communicating with players is important, but communicating among yourselves as a company is vital.

Edited by Rabcor, 21 October 2013 - 05:29 AM.


#2 TychoTheItinerant

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Posted 21 October 2013 - 05:34 AM

Well, we've already seen that PGI's upper management throws lower level employees under the bus (the apology that basically tried to blame Garth Erlam)

http://mwomercs.com/...te-and-apology/

Edited by TychoTheItinerant, 21 October 2013 - 05:41 AM.


#3 Rabcor

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Posted 21 October 2013 - 07:40 AM

Yes indeed that was quite rude and unprofessional, i would've started looking for another job if i was Garth as one way or another, i was either blamed for something that wasn't my fault (just saying what i've been told) or i had been left out of the loop when it's my responsibility to give the community updates and thusly gave them outdated information and was blamed for doing that.

In my opinion the whole apology letter was unprofessional, all it did was say "we're sorry but what's done is done and we're not gonna do anything about it, at least not yet." which only added fuel to the flames. That's entirely my opinion though.

I think that a company should take responsibility for its employees actions if the employee is just doing his assigned job. The company should not point their finger at that employee and try to push the blame away from themselves, after all he was doing the job they assigned him to.

Edited by Rabcor, 21 October 2013 - 07:44 AM.


#4 Heffay

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Posted 21 October 2013 - 08:10 AM

What's your point?

#5 Rabcor

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Posted 21 October 2013 - 08:21 AM

My point, or what i'm wondering is that maybe PGI needs to be improved as a company, needs to be better managed and better organized, and needs to be more worker/employee friendly. Note the "maybe" since i actually don't know for sure how they work as i'm not an employee myself.

If PGI improves so does MWO, if MWO improves so does the playerbase and if PGI fix their currently damaged reputation by improving themselves and the game, there may be a (good and profitable) future for both the company and this game.

Keeping your customers happy is one thing but keeping your employees happy is crucial to any sort of long term success (unless we're talking about slaves).

Edited by Rabcor, 21 October 2013 - 08:23 AM.


#6 Heffay

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Posted 21 October 2013 - 08:29 AM

View PostRabcor, on 21 October 2013 - 08:21 AM, said:

My point, or what i'm wondering is that maybe PGI needs to be improved as a company, needs to be better managed and better organized, and needs to be more worker/employee friendly. Note the "maybe" since i actually don't know for sure how they work as i'm not an employee myself.

If PGI improves so does MWO, if MWO improves so does the playerbase and if PGI fix their currently damaged reputation by improving themselves and the game, there may be a (good and profitable) future for both the company and this game.

Keeping your customers happy is one thing but keeping your employees happy is crucial to any sort of long term success (unless we're talking about slaves).


You're making an awful lot of assumptions.

#7 Rabcor

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Posted 21 October 2013 - 09:32 AM

Woop, it got moved to K Town

View PostRabcor, on 21 October 2013 - 08:21 AM, said:

Note the "maybe" since i actually don't know for sure how they work as i'm not an employee myself.


I am making no assumption, i'm simply wondering if this is going on in PGI or not. If this is why MWO is being developed so slowly and if this is why many decisions made by PGI are outright hated by large portions of the playerbase.

I'm not saying that i actually know anything, and i'm not assuming anything, i'm simply thinking about it, i mean there has to be a reason why a company would repeatedly make big mistakes over and over right? And in cases like that, it's never some one person's fault but the companies as a whole.

Edited by Rabcor, 21 October 2013 - 09:35 AM.


#8 TychoTheItinerant

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Posted 21 October 2013 - 09:38 AM

View PostRabcor, on 21 October 2013 - 09:32 AM, said:

Woop, it got moved to K Town


I am making no assumption, i'm simply wondering if this is going on in PGI or not. If this is why MWO is being developed so slowly and if this is why many decisions made by PGI are outright hated by large portions of the playerbase.

I'm not saying that i actually know anything, and i'm not assuming anything, i'm simply thinking about it, i mean there has to be a reason why a company would repeatedly make big mistakes over and over right? And in cases like that, it's never some one person's fault but the companies as a whole.


Honestly? It really seems to me like PGI is woefully understaffed and the higher-ups view "accountability" as something they can drop on their subordinates' desks and walk away from. Those two (perceived) issues are what I am GUESSING most of PGI/IGP's issues with MWO spring from.

#9 Heffay

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Posted 21 October 2013 - 10:00 AM

View PostRabcor, on 21 October 2013 - 09:32 AM, said:

Woop, it got moved to K Town


I am making no assumption, i'm simply wondering if this is going on in PGI or not. If this is why MWO is being developed so slowly and if this is why many decisions made by PGI are outright hated by large portions of the playerbase.

I'm not saying that i actually know anything, and i'm not assuming anything, i'm simply thinking about it, i mean there has to be a reason why a company would repeatedly make big mistakes over and over right? And in cases like that, it's never some one person's fault but the companies as a whole.


It's a leading question not based off of any evidence other than speculation.

#10 Mike Forst

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Posted 21 October 2013 - 10:03 AM

I like it a lot

#11 Rabcor

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Posted 22 October 2013 - 04:04 AM

View PostTychoTheItinerant, on 21 October 2013 - 09:38 AM, said:

Honestly? It really seems to me like PGI is woefully understaffed and the higher-ups view "accountability" as something they can drop on their subordinates' desks and walk away from. Those two (perceived) issues are what I am GUESSING most of PGI/IGP's issues with MWO spring from.


Might be.

Good to see that the IT Admin likes his job :D

#12 Mike Forst

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Posted 22 October 2013 - 12:52 PM

Thanks

#13 Mike Forst

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Posted 23 October 2013 - 06:30 PM

Probably a good plan

#14 Chavette

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Posted 24 October 2013 - 05:48 AM

View PostRabcor, on 21 October 2013 - 05:28 AM, said:

I mentioned reasons, let me point out a few possibilities since i did:
Maybe the break times are too short,

Definitely not, every third day seems like a canadian holiday, and at the rate things are moving... well games that went into development 1.5yr+ after this one will have more features in a few months.



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