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Re:Package managers keep using Git as a database, it never w... by ux266478 on Friday December 26, 2025 @01:12PM (#46394563)
That's not how it works. The demand for engineering hours is an order of magnitude higher than the supply for any given game, you have to pick and choose your battles because there's always much, much more to do. It's not bizarre that nobody verified texture storage was being done in an optimal way at launch, without sacrificing load times at the altar or visual fidelity, particularly given the state the rest of the game was in. Who the hell has time to do that when there are crashes abound and the network stack has to be rewritten at a moments notice?

Gamedev is very different from other domains, being in the 90th percentile for complexity and codebase size, and the 99th percentile for structural instability. It's a foregone conclusion that you will rewrite huge chunks of your massive codebase many, many times within a single year to accomidate changing design choices, or if you're lucky, to improve an abstraction. Not every team gets so lucky on every project. Launch deadlines are hit when there's a huge backlog of additional stuff to do, sitting atop a mountain of cut features.

Re:Package managers keep using Git as a database, it never w... by swiftcoder on Friday December 26, 2025 @01:26PM (#46394717)
> It's not bizarre that nobody verified texture storage was being done in an optimal way at launch

The inverse, however, is bizarre. That they spent potentially quite a bit of engineering effort implementing the (extremely non-optimal) system that duplicates all the assets half a dozen time to potentially save precious seconds on spinning rust - all without validating it was worth implementing in the first place.

Re:Package managers keep using Git as a database, it never w... by rovr138 on Friday December 26, 2025 @01:42PM (#46394881)
Yes.

They talk about it being an optimization. They also talk about the bottleneck being level generation, which happens at the same time as loading from disk.

Re:Package managers keep using Git as a database, it never w... by MBCook on Friday December 26, 2025 @05:32PM (#46397070)
Was Helldivers II built from the ground up? Or grown from the v1 codebase?

The first was on PS3 and PS4 where they had to deal with spinning disks and that system would absolutely be necessary.

Also if the game ever targeted the PS4 during development, even though it wasn’t released there, again that system would be NEEDED.

Re:Package managers keep using Git as a database, it never w... by esseph on Saturday December 27, 2025 @09:55AM (#46402276)
It's a completely different game, engine, etc.
Re:Package managers keep using Git as a database, it never w... by jesse__ on Friday December 26, 2025 @09:29PM (#46398524)
> It's a foregone conclusion that you will rewrite huge chunks of your massive codebase many, many times within a single year

Tell me you don't work on game engines without telling me..

----

Modern engines are the cumulative result of hundreds of thousands of engine-programmer hours. You're not rewriting Unreal in several years, let alone multiple times in one year. Get a grip dude.

Re:Package managers keep using Git as a database, it never w... by atiedebee on Saturday December 27, 2025 @05:23AM (#46400696)
I think they meant the gameplay side of things instead of the engine
Re:Package managers keep using Git as a database, it never w... by whstl on Saturday December 27, 2025 @11:55AM (#46403107)
Unity rewrote and discontinued lots of major systems several times in a row in the last 10 years.

I’d be careful before telling people to “get a grip”.

Re:Package managers keep using Git as a database, it never w... by jesse__ on Saturday December 27, 2025 @12:31PM (#46403443)
Several times in 10 years, sure. Many times every year, certainly not. I'm getting downvoted, but I stand by my statement.
Re:Package managers keep using Git as a database, it never w... by whstl on Sunday December 28, 2025 @04:32AM (#46409719)
Strawman. If GP had said “full rewrite” sure. They said “huge chunks of your massive codebase” which is definitely true for unity.
Re:Package managers keep using Git as a database, it never w... by ux266478 on Saturday December 27, 2025 @03:20PM (#46404886)
I'm mostly speaking to gameplay systems, rendering pipelines, etc. but even then it is quite common in a real gamedev shop to rearrange and replace foundations and guts. And within those off-the-shelf turnkey engines themselves, features are in flux to a far higher degree than other codebases of similar size and complexity.

I thought this post was weird for a few reasons, so I read through your resume, which perfectly explained everything. You're the author of that voxel engine I keep seeing get posted, but you have absolutely no experience in the industry, not even bushleague itch.io stuff. I wouldn't normally call someone out for any of this, but who are you to tell anybody to get grip? You don't even know what you're talking about, which is why your reply is simultaneously naive and a non-sequitur. Chill out. You have a cute toy engine, but it's nothing more than portfolio padding. Until you've actually shipped a real game from start to finish, you've got no room to act like this. A little bit more self awareness please.

Re:Package managers keep using Git as a database, it never w... by jesse__ on Saturday December 27, 2025 @09:29PM (#46407830)
Granted, my reply was somewhat offensive, but that was kind of the point.

That said, it's easy to throw shade from a new, blank account. Nothing to lend credibility to your statements, not even bushleague itch.io stuff, or a cute, toy engine. Give me the goods, otherwise you're just blowing smoke.

> your reply is simultaneously naive and a non-sequitur

Basis? Pretty watery rebuttal for someone so sure of themselves.

Re:Package managers keep using Git as a database, it never w... by degamad on Saturday December 27, 2025 @03:26PM (#46404941)
> > you will rewrite huge chunks of your massive codebase

> You're not rewriting Unreal

Do you consider the Unreal engine code to be part of "your codebase"?

Re:Package managers keep using Git as a database, it never w... by jesse__ on Saturday December 27, 2025 @05:13PM (#46405846)
It's a dependency .. do you not consider dependencies as part of your codebase?
Re:Package managers keep using Git as a database, it never w... by darubedarob on Saturday December 27, 2025 @03:44AM (#46400248)
Gamedev engineering hours are also in endless oversupply thanks to myDreamCream brain.