this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 50 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

There is this exercise you can do for Agile/Lean estimation where you run a multi stage beer store by passing only order quantity notes up and down a chain.

The intent is to trick the participants into a whiplash effect where the retail store has a one off jump and so orders bigger than normal, and the whole supply chain then gets excited and thinks this is the new normal rather than an anomaly.

The exercise ends and the excess beer in the chain is counted.

Staffing when hyped is similar.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

You are not wrong, but remember that they only employ like 40-50 people. Even if the playerbase goes down to 10% of what it is that's still not a lot of people.

[–] SatouKazuma 41 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Considering I'm heading for a layoff soon, I'm actually probably going to apply. Glad I learned Japanese in grad school.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] SatouKazuma 3 points 7 months ago
[–] wccrawford 9 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Oh wow, I didn't realize they were Japanese. I wish I was in a spot in life that I could apply, too. Good luck!

[–] SatouKazuma 5 points 7 months ago
[–] xkforce 3 points 7 months ago

Its pokemon with guns. Its either american or japanese.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I hope you get it, but aren't they in Korea?

[–] wccrawford 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I looked, and they're headquartered in Tokyo!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago
[–] skydivekingair 29 points 7 months ago (3 children)

From what I’ve read about their Daily Active Users they’re going to be overstaffed soon. No hate but they exploded and when things settle they might not need as much staff. Thoughts?

[–] [email protected] 39 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They could lose 80% of their players and still be understaffed with a team of 40 tbh.

[–] skydivekingair 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Oh wow, I obviously didn’t read the article. Shame on me. Had no idea they had that few on staff.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You're good. I'd have thought the same thing had I not been following the development story.

Their game pass numbers also seem to be going up, which is harder to dev for as well. I know my steam friends got sick of it after putting in 100 hours in three weeks though

[–] Breezy 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I too have sunk more then 100 hours into the game. It was worth its purchase already. Yet in a year or however long it takes to be complete.... i and many others will jump right back on to see how everything has progressed. Plus they'll release on play station and that alone will be millions more copies sold.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah it reminds me of the Elden Ring "where'd the players go?" articles. They beat the game. I'll be back with the next content drop

[–] Breezy 1 points 7 months ago

HOPEFULLY elden ring dlc will come out on its two year anniversary. Of course itll probably just be a trailer, but people can hope.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

There's something called "Brook's Law" that basically observes that a software project which onboards more developers in order to catch up will fall further behind. I hope they're careful about how they allocate new developers or they'll end up doing a year of onboarding, rewriting core code, and have no meaningful updates for 6-12 months. I know they have the resources to spare, and that scenario worked out okay for Valheim, but I hope the game doesn't lose momentum because they overhire or don't allocate enough senior devs to continue feature development while they catch the new devs up to speed.

Edit to add: I don't think it actually matters in this instance if they don't have a large player base by the time the game is feature complete. They don't have continuous revenue streams like a live service game, so hiring more devs is ultimately just about making sure they have enough talent to make good on their early access promises. The company could probably dissolve tomorrow and all the staff could live the rest of their lives in luxury never working again. It'd be a dick move, but they already sold an insane number of copies.

[–] skydivekingair 5 points 7 months ago

Interesting to hear about Brook’s Law. Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

They don't have continuous revenue streams like a live service

Yet. The game seems extremely easy to monetize, up to them how evil they go. To be successful longterm (if thats something they even want) they will need to add more content first but they could cash in in so many ways. Dlc, selling servers, cosmetics or more nefarious stuff lkke boosters to speed up mechanics, pals that take huge grinds without payments. It would be very easy to do.

[–] Delphia 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

This is how it happens. If they dont staff to meet the demand the game suffers and dies out, if they do in a few years when the player base falls off and they announce layoffs everyone makes the shocked Pikachu face.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Live service games really did a number on people. Why does it matter if people stop playing Palworld between now and when those new people they hire can produce the things they're hired for?

[–] agitatedpotato 2 points 7 months ago

Yeah I keep thinking this too, it's a buy once game, they still have the money they made. They're trying to push more content as quick as possible to get more waves of players, new and old. I'm positive their accountants know the player base isn't rebuying the game.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm taking my conversation-level Japanese courses this year and have been looking to land a dev job in Japan. From the sound of it, I'd like working for Pocket Pair a lot. But then again, most companies make their employment sound fantastic...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Have you come across the word 過労死 in your studies yet?

[–] SatouKazuma 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] SatouKazuma 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Woops, thought you were responding to @[email protected]'s comment about work culture in Japan.

nvm 🙂

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[–] SatouKazuma 2 points 7 months ago

Shit happens, mate. All good! 🍻

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Haha, yeah, I'm familiar with the work culture in Japan. I've heard from other developers currently working there that it's much better working for newer and/or international companies.

[–] RizzRustbolt 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Maybe they can shift some off of the five projects they're working on that they're going to abandon this game for.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Japanese only and really only game devs. Thought there would DevOps jobs available 😢

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

They certainly need them