this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

No, actually it's not. It's actually well know how Japanese culture actually affects programming. I, a software engineer who has worked with many other cultures, can confirm that culture affects quality. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I am saying that culture affects work.

Indian culture is interesting because you never say no to your boss. Even if you don't understand something, or don't have all the information you need, you say yes. Do you understand? Yes. Are you sure, it's okay to ask me clarifying questions. "Yes, I'm sure". Then they give me something that doesn't work because they didn't understand the question.

Japanese is another culture that's slightly different, but if your boss asks you to do something not only do you say yes, you also don't ask for help to do it. You brute force it done, put in long hours, and you get it done. However, in software that's a horrible way to operate because we need to not just get the current problem done, but you need to build something that others will use later, that will be reused, that will be expanded and shared with and by other teams. So what you get is quite literally this - poorly optimized code from many people whose code doesn't really work well together.

So, none of these are stereotypes. In fact, as engineers it would be culturally insensitive if I wasn't aware of this and assumed people worked in the same way as Americans. Your virtue signalling is pretty transparent. Yes, it's humorous, but it's also 100% the truth. They're not bad coders, but their culture does not breed great software projects.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

You talk like Nintendo games weren't optimized to hell and back.

Edit: I meant games developed by Nintendo. Pokemon is developed by Game Freak.

[–] calcopiritus 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The new Pokemon games grind to a halt if you are in the south of the map and look at the north. Because you are rendering the entire map. How is that optimized to hell and back?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Those aren't developed by Nintendo, but by Game Freak. Compare those to Mario Cart, Mario Odysee, Zelda BotW and TotK, etc.

[–] calcopiritus 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Well, game freak is still a Japanese developer. Mario Cart is a very computationally light concept, as usually are Mario games, idk about odyssey in particular though, but they tend to be small maps with small amount of entities each. Zelda is fair, I've heard good things about it.

It's easy to make a good performing game if its concept and art design are computationally light. Optimization is about turning a computationally hard problem into a light algorithm that doesn't take much resources.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Not claiming that all japanese devs are like Nintendo. Just that there is some variety.

Mariko Kart is graphically quite complex for the hardware it's running on, so are Mario games (these maps are neither small nor do they have only few entities). There's a german youtuber who analyses the technical aspects of many nintendo games and given his report: it's amazing how good these games look on the switch.

Optimization is about turning a computationally hard problem into a light algorithm that doesn't take much resources.

Yeah. And Nintendo's first party games look incredible for the hardware they run on.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Zelda is fair, I've heard good things about it.

Breath of the Wild actually had quite a lot of frame drops in the Lost Woods. I remember it was a topic of discussion for a while.

I don't remember for sure if Tears of the Kingdom suffered from the same issues or not.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Tears of the kingdom runs worse than BOTW. The game feels like it's running at 15fps when anything remotely complex is happening. It's running on a phone processor though so the performance is forgivable.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Thinking on it more, I do remember the game pausing to load whenever I dove quickly into the depths.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They haven't been optimised in over a decade at this point.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Have you seen TotK, Mario Odysee, etc.?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Have you seen them?! Obviously not.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They are all technically a mess.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

How? How is a game that would have been considered impossible on the hardware "technically a mess"?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Have you seen the pokemon games?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

Are those developed by Nintendo?

[–] Sheldan 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Optimization died when hw limitations are less severe

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Good thing the Switch is very limited, I guess?

[–] daggermoon -1 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

... was not developed by Nintendo.

Pokemon games sell, no mattersif the are/run like shit. That's why Game Freak doesn't put the effort in.

[–] daggermoon 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I thought it meant Nintendo exclusives, my mistake

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Could've specified "developed by Nintendo". At least you're not claiming that Mario and TotK was "technically a mess".