Game developer loses multiplayer service code

Re:Game developer loses multiplayer service code by Rotten194 on Monday September 09, 2019 @02:26AM (#20915659)

> Your software is your product. The primary cost of software is NOT the initial development: It is the ongoing maintenance. When you cut corners, you are taking out a loan against your future sanity and time. Higher quality code bases and better practices lead to stability, ease of extension, and more money.

I want to agree with this attitude, I really do. But with how crowded the indie game market is right now, I understand the urge to move fast and loose. Games already take years to develop and are incredibly expensive, and hiring additional developers is incredibly expensive. Considering the tiny chance your game will be successful and make its money back, why would you spend tons of time frontloading work to avoid future maintenance? In all likelihood, nobody will play your game and it won't matter! And in the off chance it does get popular, you can go back and clean things up later... definitely... right?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Game developer loses multiplayer service code by honkycat on Monday September 09, 2019 @11:37AM (#20919121)

I would argue it is not that much harder to do things correctly as opposed to doing things fast and loose. It just requires reading a few books and learning a tool like ansible. It is extremely boring, but the time pays for itself.

I suspect this is a case of inexperience as opposed to someone casting off established wisdom ( you should be able to rebuil your project, be constantly testing to ensure you can, enable automated backups for all servers )

Read the stardew valley chapter in "Blood, Sweat, and Pixels".

Turned out great, but it was harrowing for a while.

[ Parent | on HN ]