Course Maker: how big is it and when can we expect it?

[TRLWNC7396]

Those have been my thoughts, as well, and probably why Kaz said, "I have it in my hands, but we don't know when."

Pretty easy to understand from this ^^^ perspective.

 

[xiando]

Not so sure what's so urgent about creating an applet for rich folk so they can use the latest track features at a tiny handful of tracks that allow it, or if it's so urgent to change internal company focus to the next version for the next console when this version for this console isn't completed (although paid for).

With all due respect, I think your excuses for PD are just that. excuses. I too am a developer, and while I can't always guarantee that a new feature will be released on the dot to the estimated time of completion, I do keep my customers in the loop and make it a priority (all crises aside) to complete the aforementioned task, not a "I'll like get to it like when I like feel like it, that is, when I'm not jetting off to visit my rich pals and go racing and sipping champagne". These aren't people learning to program, they're professionals who get paid oodles of money for their skills. Pretending that they're (or should be) governed by mom&pop code shop or CS student-created application rules is a bit too much. This is an enterprise level company, and as such they are subject to associated expectations for performance and delivery.

 

[TonyLomas]

I'm not trying to make excuses. I too am disappointed that the course maker isn't available yet. I was just trying to give a perspective about managing finite resources when trying to complete multiple projects and how, in my experience, projects with immovable deadlines get prioritised over others.

I also wonder how PD is funded and whether payments and pressures from car manufacturers or track owners have any influence.

 

[xiando]

Fair enough and no insult intended (I realize you aren't literally "defending" PD). Just a particular pea under my mattress wrt PD and GT6. IMO, the time for speculative reasons, excuses, etc is over and has been for months. It's now July, over seven months since the game was released.

The point is, they had time to serve their rich customers with what the vast majority of PD"s customers would logically consider frivolous custom added-value content (since we can't afford to Jet around the world to visit the few courses that utilize it, and most of us aren't rich enough to even sit in the seat of one of the cars that can utilize it), and they've made it quite clear they've been spending large amounts of time both using this version as a test bed for GT7 and for development of GT7 in general, so they should have plenty of time to accomplish the tasks they advertised and were already paid for in advance.

Regarding PD funding, PD is funded well enough. If they sold only 1 million copies of GT6, they made 40-60 million. At a guess, based on past market performance, they sold well over a million copies. Even with Sony tithes, they're making money hand over foot. I doubt anyone at PD is starving, let alone worrying about where their next car or mortgage payment is coming from. Pressures from their business associates is to be expected, but the bottom line is that the car makers aren't the software customers, we are. Without us, the subliminal (or overt) advertising value of GT is moot.

 

[Imari]

Regarding PD funding, PD is funded well enough. If they sold only 1 million copies of GT6, they made 40-60 million. At a guess, based on past market performance, they sold well over a million copies. Even with Sony tithes, they're making money hand over foot. I doubt anyone at PD is starving, let alone worrying about where their next car or mortgage payment is coming from. Pressures from their business associates is to be expected, but the bottom line is that the car makers aren't the software customers, we are. Without us, the subliminal (or overt) advertising value of GT is moot.

Even if you consider Sony and PD to be the same entity, this isn't true. For starters, the retailers want their cut, they're not working for free. Then there's costs associated with actually producing the discs and shipping them out to retailers. Marketing costs a fair bit, especially when you're talking about a worldwide campaign.

Yes, PD/Sony make a lot of money out of Gran Turismo.
No, they don't make retail cost multiplied by units sold.

You can find figures on rough profit distributions for video games, have a general guess at how much money was spent on GT6's production, and come up with an approximate figure for how many copies they need to sell to break even. It's more than you think, which is not surprising considering they probably expected to sell 7+ million copies..

 

[Griffith500]

They should have engineered an interim solution, or at least planned a development path that had something to spit out every five years or so. I don't think that's too much to ask, that there be a playable version of the technology every five years.

It's still an example of them holding back because it's not done to the standard they wish though, and a sign that this behaviour is not necessarily going to cripple Gran Turismo's creativity were it to be applied across the board.

Except that it is a major issue; people complain about the lack of creative direction with the sounds all the time. Whether they realise that's what they're saying, or not.

As for "a playable version of the technology every five years", that's cutting things out again that you know won't make that window. How do you determine that in advance, without being excessively conservative? Note that there has been considerable research done to try to determine, in advance, the tractability of certain algorithmic tasks (for obvious reasons, I'm sure), and it turns out there are a few fundamental lessons of mathematics we need to learn first. One day, maybe.

Besides, if there's one thing we all want in our games, it's conservatism and sameness.

 

[Imari]

As for "a playable version of the technology every five years", that's cutting things out again that you know won't make that window.

No, you can continue your research into revolutionary sounds until the cows come home. It simply means that with a couple of years to go before release you should look at forking a functional branch. Yes, if that means the most cutting edge version of your sound system doesn't make it into a game, that's fine. Happens with every single part of the game when they go to gold, and generally happens earlier for most functional parts of the game.

I don't see why this is a problem, this is what is expected of ALL industrial or commercial research, and on a much more regular timescale than once every five years. If you can't get something working once every five years, why are you spending so much time on it? That's not conservative, that's common sense.

 

[meek]

You can find figures on rough profit distributions for video games, have a general guess at how much money was spent on GT6's production, and come up with an approximate figure for how many copies they need to sell to break even. It's more than you think, which is not surprising considering they probably expected to sell 7+ million copies..

where at, please?

 

[xiando]

Imari, I agree that it costs money to produce, to maintain, to promote, etc. And I don't doubt that nor contest it. I do doubt that this title is anything other than a very profitable venture, for both Sony and PD.

 

[Griffith500]

No, you can continue your research into revolutionary sounds until the cows come home. It simply means that with a couple of years to go before release you should look at forking a functional branch. Yes, if that means the most cutting edge version of your sound system doesn't make it into a game, that's fine. Happens with every single part of the game when they go to gold, and generally happens earlier for most functional parts of the game.

Could you provide examples of how that is applied?

A three-minute egg takes 3 minutes, no matter how you fork it. If you've only got 2 minutes, you won't get the thing you're actually trying to make. Adding extra cooks won't help, either.

I don't see why this is a problem, this is what is expected of ALL industrial or commercial research, and on a much more regular timescale than once every five years. If you can't get something working once every five years, why are you spending so much time on it? That's not conservative, that's common sense.

It depends entirely on what you're trying to make. Any examples of analogous engineering projects?

Also, there's no such thing as a true "common sense" (outside of the self-defined), but that's a different argument.

 

[Imari]

where at, please?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=video+game+profit+distribution

http://www.ps3blog.net/2010/02/25/where-does-the-60-you-pay-for-a-game-go/
http://www.jacehallshow.com/blog/20110504/how-video-game-money-is-split-where-your-60-bucks-goes/

None of which I'd consider hard sources, but it gives you a feel for rough numbers.

Imari, I agree that it costs money to produce, to maintain, to promote, etc. And I don't doubt that nor contest it. I do doubt that this title is anything other than a very profitable venture, for both Sony and PD.

It may be, it may not.

The next bit depends on a lot of assumptions, simply because to my knowledge it's information that doesn't exist. But I'll explain my assumptions, and you can see if you agree.

1. Working on the assumption that the VGChartz sales numbers are broadly correct. I'll be generous and we'll say that GT6 has sold 3 million copies so far.

2. From both the links above, the publisher+developer cut is about 45%. Given that Sony pays for Gran Turismo to be made, I'm going to take that number to calculate how much money they see back.
I figure this is generous as well, because Sony may well not be thinking of it that way and expects to make back it's investment with the 15-20% usually allotted to developer, and then have it's own profit on top of that.

3. The hard numbers we have for GT5 say that it cost $60 million, although there's speculation that it cost a lot more by the end. GT5 took 5 years, and GT6 took three, so I'm simply going to take three fifths of $60 million. GT6 is assumed to have cost $40 million.
I figure this is an underestimate, I've taken the lowest known value for GT5, and when making GT6 Polyphony had more employees, and more content to license. I'd be very surprised if it cost any less.

4. Average sales price of GT6 at retail. This is a pretty tough one, the discounts kicked in really fast on GT6. I think I'll just calculate a range of average sale prices, because that's easy enough to do.
I figure the real value is going to be somewhere between $40 and $50, but we might as well do $60 and $30 as well.

5. All this is done in US dollars, just because it's easier.

So:

Raw Sales
@$60/copy = $180 million
@$50/copy = $150 million
@$40/copy = $120 million
@$30/copy = $90 million

Publisher+developer cut (Raw Sales x 0.45)
@$60/copy = $81 million
@$50/copy = $67.5 million
@$40/copy = $54 million
@$30/copy = $40.5 million

If my assumption that the average cost is somewhere in the $40~$50 range, then Sony has made about $20~25 million dollars on a three year investment of $40 million. Which is pretty good.

If Sony is thinking the other way, however, and expects to make it's 30% regardless and the cost of the project to be recouped through the 15% developer cut, let's take a look.

Developer cut (Raw Sales x 0.15)
@$60/copy = $27 million
@$50/copy = $22.5 million
@$40/copy = $18 million
@$30/copy = $13.5 million

Polyphony couldn't possibly survive on those numbers, that's a ~$20 million loss. The assumption that they're working with Sony's cut included must be correct, unless Sony is content to use them as a loss leader. Although a loss leader that only sells 3 million copies isn't a very good loss leader.

For comparison, let's do GT5. We don't know average sale price still, but we have fairly accurate sales numbers (~11 million) and a known cost of production ($60 million).

GT5 - Raw Sales
@$60/copy = $660 million
@$50/copy = $550 million
@$40/copy = $440 million
@$30/copy = $330 million
@$20/copy = $220 million

Publisher+developer cut (Raw Sales x 0.45)
@$60/copy = $297 million
@$50/copy = $247.5 million
@$40/copy = $198 million
@$30/copy = $148.5 million
@$20/copy = $99 million

The average sales price of GT5 could have been pretty low by the end. If I had to pick a number off the top of my head, I'd probably say around $30, but anything from $20~$40 could be reasonable.

Still, that results in Sony/PD making somewhere between $40 million and $120 million. That seems good.

Again, for interest's sake:

Developer cut (Raw Sales x 0.15)
@$60/copy = $99 million
@$50/copy = $82.5 million
@$40/copy = $66 million
@$30/copy = $49.5 million
@$20/copy = $33 million

This tends to reinforce the assertion that Polyphony is only profitable because it's a Sony first party studio. I'd find it hard to believe that the average sales price of GT5 was more than $40, and at that level Polyphony itself is only just covering costs after Sony takes it's cut. Much less and they start bleeding money.

But these numbers are for GT5 after 3+ years of sales, so it's not the best comparison.

At two months after release, GT5 was nearing 6 million, and was at 7-and-some million a year after release. I'm going to call 6 million a reasonable guess at the figure at six months, which is roughly where GT6 is now.

GT5@6 months - Raw Sales
@$60/copy = $360 million
@$50/copy = $300 million
@$40/copy = $240 million
@$30/copy = $180 million

Publisher+developer cut (Raw Sales x 0.45)
@$60/copy = $162 million
@$50/copy = $135 million
@$40/copy = $108 million
@$30/copy = $81 million

From memory, price cuts didn't come in as fast for GT5, but that's just my gut feeling. I'm too lazy to look it up. Anyway, say the average price ended up being the same as GT6, $30~40. Even with the increased budget ($60 million vs. $40 million) Sony/PD is still making somewhere between $20 million and $50 million. At worst they were doing as well as GT6 is doing now, and likely doing a lot better.

Developer cut (Raw Sales x 0.15)
@$60/copy = $54 million
@$50/copy = $45 million
@$40/copy = $36 million
@$30/copy = $27 million

GT5 couldn't even hold it's own head above water in the first six months, so in this respect it's exactly the same as GT6.


TL;DR:

Gran Turismo isn't nearly as profitable for Sony as you'd think, and it's not really profitable for Polyphony at all if you treat them as an independent entity. They only make money because they can count on getting part of Sony's revenue share as well.

GT6 isn't particularly different to GT5 in this respect, once you push all the numbers through. They make a reasonable sum of money for Sony, but what would traditionally be considered the "developer's cut" is only really barely managing to fund the production costs of the game.

This would tend to promote the hypothesis that the game is pushed for other purposes, probably to move consoles. This isn't a new idea, and Gran Turismo has traditionally been very good at helping to shift hardware. This just sort of backs up the idea that this is in fact it's main purpose.

Unfortunately, if this is true then GT6 could well be considered a failure. If profit is not the main motivator behind the game, and pure sales numbers are, then GT6 is not doing it's job.

While I wouldn't agree with @xiando that GT6 has been very profitable, it seems fairly clear that Sony is likely to be making a reasonable amount of money. Even so, it may not be fulfilling the role they have set for it.

 

[TRLWNC7396]

Imari, I agree that it costs money to produce, to maintain, to promote, etc. And I don't doubt that nor contest it. I do doubt that this title is anything other than a very profitable venture, for both Sony and PD.

Maybe when it passes 5-6 mill sales.....

Very thorough guesswork, @Imari . I think you have a good grasp of the concept.

I DON'T think that GT has made much, if any, profit at this point. I think the PS3 and bad PR screwed every level of Sony from before the PS3 came out.

That said, I see GT as a hardware mover (I would have never purchased AN?Y PS's if it hadn't been for GT).

In all reality, GT6 IS GT7 because of GT5P.....

I also see GT7 being rushed in much the same way as 6, but being developed much better.

We shall see.

 

[Imari]

Could you provide examples of how that is applied?

A three-minute egg takes 3 minutes, no matter how you fork it. If you've only got 2 minutes, you won't get the thing you're actually trying to make. Adding extra cooks won't help, either.

Yes, and a cake may take an hour and a half to bake, but you might be able to use the same mix to bake some muffins in half an hour if you wanted to get something out straight away.

See how your choice of analogy strongly affects how it's perceived?

If you think a research project is an egg, that is indivisible until it's finished, then sure. That's not been my experience, and I think that I'll struggle to communicate with anyone who thinks that every research project is like that.

It depends entirely on what you're trying to make. Any examples of analogous engineering projects?

You strongly emphasised engineering there, which makes me think that this word has a specific meaning for you. I don't know what that meaning is, and so it would help if you defined exactly what you're looking for.


I can give you a chemical engineering example. I have a product that needs to start being made in large volumes at the end of September, at the absolute latest. It's a seasonal product, and we need to hit the start of the season or wait until next year. Fundamentally, it's a bunch of powders that need to be mixed together. It's not horribly difficult. There's a few unique properties that need to be addressed so it's not simply something that we can copy off someone else, but none of the problems appear to be unsurmountable with current technology.

The best way to do it is to get a really big custom mixer to deal with the volumes that our projections say we will need, and fit it with storage tanks at various points to absorb any natural variation in the process speed. Designing and mapping that out takes time, as does sourcing all the components, getting other components designed and fabricated from scratch, assembling it and then troubleshooting the whole thing once it's up and running. I know roughly how long each of these things will take, and there's always the chance of something going catastrophically wrong meaning the timelines blow out massively. But even so, it's going to take too long, it's not physically possible for it to happen by September, even if everything were to come together perfectly.

So I'm getting a smaller, off-the-shelf mixer and other easily available components. They'll meet our needs for the moment as we're still establishing a position in the market, and the money we'll make selling the product initially will cover the costs of the purchase and installation. It'll be here in the next couple of weeks so we'll have plenty of time to set up and troubleshoot, but ultimately that equipment is going to be superseded pretty quickly. Sales projections say that within a year that system won't be able to output the volume that we need. So the big mixer still needs to happen, but I buy myself six months to a year to do it right by putting in off-the-shelf stuff.

An advantage is that some of the off-the-shelf stuff we were going to have to buy for the big mixer anyway, such as packing and stacking machinery, so all that will be already in place once we get the big mixer and we'll have been using it for a year, so there shouldn't be major problems transferring it across. The actual additional cost in doing it this way isn't as big as the loss that would be sustained by not doing anything at all, or continuing to try and make the sales volumes in the tiny trial mixer we have now.

I'm also creating backup plans for if everything goes wrong in the next 12 months and the big mixer doesn't come online in time. We have the option of hiring time using the mixers of another company, although that's undesirable as it means letting other people see our formulations, even under NDA. Or setting up multiple small mixers ourselves, but that starts getting expensive for the volumes we expect.


You start to see that I can keep working on my end goal, the big mixer, whilst still meeting my timed obligations, namely having the capacity to produce a 50 tons a month by September. It's going to end up costing a little more than going straight to the best solution, but because I was tracking the progress of the project I knew when we'd passed the point that the best solution wasn't going to happen in time and I already had a "best backup" plan available.

Polyphony continuing to use GT4 sounds in GT6 is the equivalent of me continuing to use my trial mixer to produce 5 tons a month when I need ten times that. It's something, but it's not nearly enough. They're still shooting for that best solution, my big mixer, which is great. That needs to happen too. But they're missing the "best backup" plan, my 50 ton/month mixer that keeps us going until I can get the big one online.

Honestly, setting up the 50 ton/month mixer has probably cost me a couple of months progress on the big mixer. But the big one wasn't going to make it in time, and it buys me so much extra time that I'll be able to make up that couple of months and then some before it's really needed. Because our product is so strongly seasonal, my "release window" is basically only every 12 months.

Polyphony has this effect even stronger than I do. If they can spend a little time to make something acceptable for one release, that buys them years until the next release.


Maybe audio and game design is horrendously different to chemical engineering. But from the coders I've talked to, it doesn't seem to be. Most of the time you have a fairly good idea of whether something can be done, how you're going to approach the problem, roughly how long it's going to take and roughly how likely it is that you run into issues and how long they're likely to take. It's always a bit of a guessing game, but experienced people can make pretty good guesses at this stuff. And when push comes to shove, most designers have some functional but not pretty piece of tech they can use to get the job done. I've got my old standbys that I use when something just needs to work right now, and I imagine coders do to.

Also, there's no such thing as a true "common sense" (outside of the self-defined), but that's a different argument.

Why do you do this? You know what common sense is, it's the group of standardised responses that a culture has to common problems or situations. It's a set of rules of thumb and heuristics.

It's absolutely applicable when someone is performing a task for a long period without seeing concrete results. Without any other factors, the action that will most commonly produce a good result is to stop, which is why that is common sense.

 

[TRLWNC7396]

The big plus that I see at this point is that GT6 has been built as a "pieced together" program (can't remember the exact phrase). That fact in and of itself is going to allow the "small" parts to be built and released (as has been happening so far, to an extent) as the "big picture" gets completed.

We shall see, but at this moment, even though PD waited too long to get to this point, it is looking very positive for the future.

 

[ildd]

Yes, and a cake may take an hour and a half to bake, but you might be able to use the same mix to bake some muffins in half an hour if you wanted to get something out straight away.

See how your choice of analogy strongly affects how it's perceived?

If you think a research project is an egg, that is indivisible until it's finished, then sure. That's not been my experience, and I think that I'll struggle to communicate with anyone who thinks that every research project is like that.



You strongly emphasised engineering there, which makes me think that this word has a specific meaning for you. I don't know what that meaning is, and so it would help if you defined exactly what you're looking for.


I can give you a chemical engineering example. I have a product that needs to start being made in large volumes at the end of September, at the absolute latest. It's a seasonal product, and we need to hit the start of the season or wait until next year. Fundamentally, it's a bunch of powders that need to be mixed together. It's not horribly difficult. There's a few unique properties that need to be addressed so it's not simply something that we can copy off someone else, but none of the problems appear to be unsurmountable with current technology.

The best way to do it is to get a really big custom mixer to deal with the volumes that our projections say we will need, and fit it with storage tanks at various points to absorb any natural variation in the process speed. Designing and mapping that out takes time, as does sourcing all the components, getting other components designed and fabricated from scratch, assembling it and then troubleshooting the whole thing once it's up and running. I know roughly how long each of these things will take, and there's always the chance of something going catastrophically wrong meaning the timelines blow out massively. But even so, it's going to take too long, it's not physically possible for it to happen by September, even if everything were to come together perfectly.

So I'm getting a smaller, off-the-shelf mixer and other easily available components. They'll meet our needs for the moment as we're still establishing a position in the market, and the money we'll make selling the product initially will cover the costs of the purchase and installation. It'll be here in the next couple of weeks so we'll have plenty of time to set up and troubleshoot, but ultimately that equipment is going to be superseded pretty quickly. Sales projections say that within a year that system won't be able to output the volume that we need. So the big mixer still needs to happen, but I buy myself six months to a year to do it right by putting in off-the-shelf stuff.

An advantage is that some of the off-the-shelf stuff we were going to have to buy for the big mixer anyway, such as packing and stacking machinery, so all that will be already in place once we get the big mixer and we'll have been using it for a year, so there shouldn't be major problems transferring it across. The actual additional cost in doing it this way isn't as big as the loss that would be sustained by not doing anything at all, or continuing to try and make the sales volumes in the tiny trial mixer we have now.

I'm also creating backup plans for if everything goes wrong in the next 12 months and the big mixer doesn't come online in time. We have the option of hiring time using the mixers of another company, although that's undesirable as it means letting other people see our formulations, even under NDA. Or setting up multiple small mixers ourselves, but that starts getting expensive for the volumes we expect.


You start to see that I can keep working on my end goal, the big mixer, whilst still meeting my timed obligations, namely having the capacity to produce a 50 tons a month by September. It's going to end up costing a little more than going straight to the best solution, but because I was tracking the progress of the project I knew when we'd passed the point that the best solution wasn't going to happen in time and I already had a "best backup" plan available.

Polyphony continuing to use GT4 sounds in GT6 is the equivalent of me continuing to use my trial mixer to produce 5 tons a month when I need ten times that. It's something, but it's not nearly enough. They're still shooting for that best solution, my big mixer, which is great. That needs to happen too. But they're missing the "best backup" plan, my 50 ton/month mixer that keeps us going until I can get the big one online.

Honestly, setting up the 50 ton/month mixer has probably cost me a couple of months progress on the big mixer. But the big one wasn't going to make it in time, and it buys me so much extra time that I'll be able to make up that couple of months and then some before it's really needed. Because our product is so strongly seasonal, my "release window" is basically only every 12 months.

Polyphony has this effect even stronger than I do. If they can spend a little time to make something acceptable for one release, that buys them years until the next release.


Maybe audio and game design is horrendously different to chemical engineering. But from the coders I've talked to, it doesn't seem to be. Most of the time you have a fairly good idea of whether something can be done, how you're going to approach the problem, roughly how long it's going to take and roughly how likely it is that you run into issues and how long they're likely to take. It's always a bit of a guessing game, but experienced people can make pretty good guesses at this stuff. And when push comes to shove, most designers have some functional but not pretty piece of tech they can use to get the job done. I've got my old standbys that I use when something just needs to work right now, and I imagine coders do to.



Why do you do this? You know what common sense is, it's the group of standardised responses that a culture has to common problems or situations. It's a set of rules of thumb and heuristics.

It's absolutely applicable when someone is performing a task for a long period without seeing concrete results. Without any other factors, the action that will most commonly produce a good result is to stop, which is why that is common sense.

As much as I like this post, can you supply a "TL; DR" for the lazy people or for those who don't have the time?
Just kidding, I didn't read any of it so I'm just making an excuse for a tldr cause I fit both of the categories I mentioned

 

[Imari]

As much as I like this post, can you supply a "TL; DR" for the lazy people or for those who don't have the time?
Just kidding, I didn't read any of it so I'm just making an excuse for a tldr cause I fit both of the categories I mentioned

The TL;DR version is that even if you have a long project that is going to take many years, you still have to ship something in every release window. Good planning means that you almost always can, and it doesn't need to come at the expense of things like creativity in the design process, nor do you usually need to make major compromises to your ultimate goals.

Shipping the same thing you did last year is not progress, and doesn't count.

 

[Griffith500]

Yes, and a cake may take an hour and a half to bake, but you might be able to use the same mix to bake some muffins in half an hour if you wanted to get something out straight away.

See how your choice of analogy strongly affects how it's perceived?

Exactly. And yours is not applicable to software development, generally. What you've done is change the product; whether that's the dubious 2 minute egg from the 3 minute one, or the muffin from the cake. In order to meet time constraints, the product has inexorably been altered. For a cake, that doesn't make much difference, but for interactive systems (remember those?), you've got waves of knock-on effects to communicate and deal with.

If you think a research project is an egg, that is indivisible until it's finished, then sure. That's not been my experience, and I think that I'll struggle to communicate with anyone who thinks that every research project is like that.

We're not talking about a pure (basic) research project. This is closer to R&D, or engineering, in that a product is required at the end of it. Basic research and engineering are complementary, but a project really ought to be one or the other, in my experience (we used to struggle with the necessity for rigour against the demand for "results", i.e. a product, for example).

You strongly emphasised engineering there, which makes me think that this word has a specific meaning for you. I don't know what that meaning is, and so it would help if you defined exactly what you're looking for.

It's common sense.

I can give you a chemical engineering example. I have a product that needs to start being made in large volumes at the end of September, at the absolute latest. It's a seasonal product, and we need to hit the start of the season or wait until next year. Fundamentally, it's a bunch of powders that need to be mixed together. It's not horribly difficult. There's a few unique properties that need to be addressed so it's not simply something that we can copy off someone else, but none of the problems appear to be unsurmountable with current technology.

The best way to do it is to get a really big custom mixer to deal with the volumes that our projections say we will need, and fit it with storage tanks at various points to absorb any natural variation in the process speed. Designing and mapping that out takes time, as does sourcing all the components, getting other components designed and fabricated from scratch, assembling it and then troubleshooting the whole thing once it's up and running. I know roughly how long each of these things will take, and there's always the chance of something going catastrophically wrong meaning the timelines blow out massively. But even so, it's going to take too long, it's not physically possible for it to happen by September, even if everything were to come together perfectly.

So I'm getting a smaller, off-the-shelf mixer and other easily available components. They'll meet our needs for the moment as we're still establishing a position in the market, and the money we'll make selling the product initially will cover the costs of the purchase and installation. It'll be here in the next couple of weeks so we'll have plenty of time to set up and troubleshoot, but ultimately that equipment is going to be superseded pretty quickly. Sales projections say that within a year that system won't be able to output the volume that we need. So the big mixer still needs to happen, but I buy myself six months to a year to do it right by putting in off-the-shelf stuff.

An advantage is that some of the off-the-shelf stuff we were going to have to buy for the big mixer anyway, such as packing and stacking machinery, so all that will be already in place once we get the big mixer and we'll have been using it for a year, so there shouldn't be major problems transferring it across. The actual additional cost in doing it this way isn't as big as the loss that would be sustained by not doing anything at all, or continuing to try and make the sales volumes in the tiny trial mixer we have now.

I'm also creating backup plans for if everything goes wrong in the next 12 months and the big mixer doesn't come online in time. We have the option of hiring time using the mixers of another company, although that's undesirable as it means letting other people see our formulations, even under NDA. Or setting up multiple small mixers ourselves, but that starts getting expensive for the volumes we expect.
You start to see that I can keep working on my end goal, the big mixer, whilst still meeting my timed obligations, namely having the capacity to produce a 50 tons a month by September. It's going to end up costing a little more than going straight to the best solution, but because I was tracking the progress of the project I knew when we'd passed the point that the best solution wasn't going to happen in time and I already had a "best backup" plan available.

Polyphony continuing to use GT4 sounds in GT6 is the equivalent of me continuing to use my trial mixer to produce 5 tons a month when I need ten times that. It's something, but it's not nearly enough. They're still shooting for that best solution, my big mixer, which is great. That needs to happen too. But they're missing the "best backup" plan, my 50 ton/month mixer that keeps us going until I can get the big one online.

Honestly, setting up the 50 ton/month mixer has probably cost me a couple of months progress on the big mixer. But the big one wasn't going to make it in time, and it buys me so much extra time that I'll be able to make up that couple of months and then some before it's really needed. Because our product is so strongly seasonal, my "release window" is basically only every 12 months.

Polyphony has this effect even stronger than I do. If they can spend a little time to make something acceptable for one release, that buys them years until the next release.

How does that apply to the new sound method? I asked for an analogous example, and I asked for you to break down how the new sound method could be "forked" and delivered in a partially functional state. Then see if you can do the same for the course creator.

Plant / process design (especially not one so paint-by-numbers as that) is not analogous to making a single programming feature (never mind one that is interdependent with other features), having experience with both. Also, solids mixing is pretty well understood and one-dimensional as far as unit ops go; hardly risky or breaking new ground. This is more like developing a swanky new model-predictive non-linear state-space process controller for a brand new process, or a fly-by-wire aircraft; perhaps unsurprising given that both are primarily software-bound.

Maybe audio and game design is horrendously different to chemical engineering. But from the coders I've talked to, it doesn't seem to be. Most of the time you have a fairly good idea of whether something can be done, how you're going to approach the problem, roughly how long it's going to take and roughly how likely it is that you run into issues and how long they're likely to take. It's always a bit of a guessing game, but experienced people can make pretty good guesses at this stuff. And when push comes to shove, most designers have some functional but not pretty piece of tech they can use to get the job done. I've got my old standbys that I use when something just needs to work right now, and I imagine coders do to.

Yeah, maybe they are. Did those coders have actual experience in designing and building experimental systems for audio? Also, in "predicting" potential failure, how do you have experience in something you've never done before? An experienced experimental programmer / systems architect knows how to be careful with deadlines, and maintains a list of removable features and ways the product can be split-up if necessary - how does that work for games, I wonder? Additionally, how do you reckon the parallel nature of the plant construction (and the way such projects are planned, e.g. critical path etc.) against the seriously linear and interconnected nature of programming?

What "standby" (that they magically worked on but never used, for whatever reason) could PD have deployed for the new sound method? "Hey, I've got this useful sorting algorithm, let's use that!"

I'm confused, though; is this a research project, or a simple process adaptation?

Why do you do this? You know what common sense is, it's the group of standardised responses that a culture has to common problems or situations. It's a set of rules of thumb and heuristics.

It's absolutely applicable when someone is performing a task for a long period without seeing concrete results. Without any other factors, the action that will most commonly produce a good result is to stop, which is why that is common sense.

But it doesn't exist; when people say "common sense", all I hear is derision - I responded to the connotation, like most people do with any word or phrase. If it truly were common (to all), there wouldn't be an issue. Ergo misnomer first, logical fallacy second.
Besides, why would you stop when your aim is to achieve the thing you've been working on? That doesn't make sense at all. I want a three-minute egg. My choices: wait three minutes; get something else instead (change the product).

The TL;DR version is that even if you have a long project that is going to take many years, you still have to ship something in every release window. Good planning means that you almost always can, and it doesn't need to come at the expense of things like creativity in the design process.

Shipping the same thing you did last year is not progress, and doesn't count.

You're still ascribing miraculous foresight to something that is notoriously unpredictable.

 

[Imari]

I never thought I'd see the day where I put Griffith500 on ignore, but there you go.

I don't need this sort of aggression in my discussions.

For what it's worth, had you not put the word "engineering" in there you would have got an example from my actual profession, pure chemistry research. But you wanted engineering, and whatever way you cut it chemistry is not engineering. So you got the closest thing I'm doing right now.

If you think chemistry R&D is not like audio programming R&D, then maybe it's not. Frankly I don't care much for your opinion on the matter.

 

[ezfaun]

I don't come here a lot. But when I do, it's for the track maker. If I wanted to hear engineers bicker, I'd go to work and watch my manager give hell to the supplier over the phone.

BUT. I didn't. I came for the touge and all the sweet and sugary touge goodness that comes with it. Move along people.

 

[Griffith500]

I don't come here a lot. But when I do, it's for the track maker. If I wanted to hear engineers bicker, I'd go to work and watch my manager give hell to the supplier over the phone.

BUT. I didn't. I came for the touge and all the sweet and sugary touge goodness that comes with it. Move along people.

I like how people wait for the discussion to end before "ordering" the discussion to end.

I'm not an engineer.

The argument was that, supposedly, PD could / should have included a cut-down version of the course creator instead of letting it overrun. But they did that with GT5...

I never thought I'd see the day where I put Griffith500 on ignore, but there you go.

I don't need this sort of aggression in my discussions.

For what it's worth, had you not put the word "engineering" in there you would have got an example from my actual profession, pure chemistry research. But you wanted engineering, and whatever way you cut it chemistry is not engineering. So you got the closest thing I'm doing right now.

If you think chemistry R&D is not like audio programming R&D, then maybe it's not. Frankly I don't care much for your opinion on the matter.

You don't do R&D if you do "pure chemistry research", just FYI.

The fact that you lack the requisite knowledge didn't seem to stop you from having an opinion and passing it off as "common sense", so you shot yourself in the foot, really.

I'd still like to hear how they can "fork" the new sound method, though.

 

[ezfaun]

I like how people wait for the discussion to end before "ordering" the discussion to end.

I'm not an engineer.

The argument was that, supposedly, PD could / should have included a cut-down version of the course creator instead of letting it overrun. But they did that with GT5...

It wasn't directed to you. I was talking about the massive post #283. I know it was a rebuttal to your reply to him/her. IDK it just instigated me to voice my disapproval towards the post. Which kinda seems to have little relevance to the holy track maker. I came here for das track maker ja?

There's like some weird office politics in here.. It puzzles me why you liked imari's post above mine. Unless it was a poker face kinda deal. That's some complicated conflict going round here. Well, cheerios. I'm just here to be positive

 

[Griffith500]

It wasn't directed to you. I was talking about the massive post #283. I know it was a rebuttal to your reply to him/her. IDK it just instigated me to voice my disapproval towards the post. Which kinda seems to have little relevance to the holy track maker. I came here for das track maker ja?

There's like some weird office politics in here.. It puzzles me why you liked imari's post above mine. Unless it was a poker face kinda deal. That's some complicated conflict going round here. Well, cheerios. I'm just here to be positive

Well, it's all the same deal. I'd recommend reporting it in future to let the mods decide, if it's causing an issue.

The relevance is there, rooted in earlier posts. It might be tricky to follow, but the issue isn't clear-cut, so requires some depth of analysis and a fair bit of tangent-walking in exploring that depth.

The question was, effectively: why would features be pulled or implemented poorly in software development? The short answer is: software development.

I don't dislike Imari, by the way; I just had nothing to say before he edited his post.
EDIT: as an amusing aside, chemical engineers and chemists are "traditional mortal enemies", if only in jest, mostly because of communication difficulties.

 

[ezfaun]

Well I can't argue with that. To be honest, I've only just skimmed that long argument and I guess I could understand. But damn did the whole thing derail to the point of discussing chemical compounds derived from mixing powders.

Imari, if you're reading this, no offence intended. That was one long essay. But you did get some points across when you stopped talking about chemical compounds. Seemed to have a lil wee bit too much rage but the basis is there.

I guess I'll just wait till the release to come back here. Not too much information considering how japanese game makers rarely share details until the last possible second. Which pisses me off because there isn't any news about Horizon 2 either.

 

[Tenacious D]

1. This isn't a news thread, it's a discussion thread.

2. If you're used to Japanese developers being tight lipped, why are you expecting a sudden change? Especially when one of them is locked in a cold war with Microsoft?

3. Kaz mentioned for the first time I can remember that this feature is in beta stage. This has been worked on for some time, so expecting any word of imminent release of something this ambitious and complex is wishful thinking.

4. This discussion between Imari and Griff has been useful, because Imari comes from a manufacturing background in which half a product is better than none. And this is how a lot of people think. Griff comes from a software background in which half a product is usually unsatisfying to the customer, or unworkable.

We have half an online build, or maybe even a third of one, and no one really likes it.

If a one-third Course Maker II build would work, we'd have downloaded it by now. No one making a game wants to hear complaints about it. Heck, for the first time EVER, Kaz is communicating with us, and people complain about THAT!

So the thing to do is wait, dream, discuss, play GT6, play something else, whatever.

 

[CeeJay]

3. Kaz mentioned for the first time I can remember that this feature is in beta stage. This has been worked on for some time, so expecting any word of imminent release of something this ambitious and complex is wishful thinking.

But this is the rub of the whole thing for me. Kaz just casually mentions that a feature, that is actively being touted as a feature in online retail stores, is still not functional or a part of the game yet. I actually expected an imminent release when I got the game. But I don't expect an imminent release anymore at this point. Now I'd just love to hear Kaz's reasoning for advertising this feature at all. The customers who bought GT6 shouldn't be accused of wishful thinking (the course maker is advertised on the retail page!), I believe the wishful thinking accusation should be given to PD at this point. From now on if PD touts some grand feature I'll only believe it when I actually play the game and can select the feature from a menu!

 

[ezfaun]

1. This isn't a news thread, it's a discussion thread.
4.

Aha. But sometimes, there'd be people who know more about something if they researched more. There's always going to be a guy that knows a bit more than the rest because he just looks for it more. Don't know bout now though..

I'll be completely honest when I say any news is GOOD news. God knows the trenches I've been in with Rick Astley trying to find some info. This thread is one way of the ways to comb for info so to speak.

Well I'm just desperate for some touge racing. Ever since the GT5 shutdown and my xbox breaking, I've been totally void of mountain pass racing. Not doing that with my bugeye roo on public roads neither cause thats just silly *shifty eyes

To no. 4, yeah I know. I've read it and all. But it was pretty ranty. It's got good info but had a weird angry vibe around it. Well I guess you don't like me and want me to go away, and I guess that was bound to happen. I'm just trawling for info so any input that I already don't know of would tide me over slightly. There's nothing worse than not knowing...

El Edito: Not asking you for info (for fear of being replied to like that again) I'm just looking for info from people who know better. Didn't really expect it to get all GTAForum-y. I guess that happens with all threads eventually. Tensions and emotions rise from a lack of much needed info. It's just the mind at work but when there's many, ho boy. Could get a little messy.

 

[meek]

This discussion between Imari and Griff has been useful, because Imari comes from a manufacturing background in which half a product is better than none. And this is how a lot of people think. Griff comes from a software background in which half a product is usually unsatisfying to the customer, or unworkable.

half a product is better than none works when you can "sell" that half product.

Yes, you can't sell a half working console game (looking at you ETX!), but we're only talking about part of it here, the course maker.
They should give us the half working feature -course maker in its GT5 stage- in the next update and patch in the rest later, before people move on to something else and sales suffer.

EDIT:thank you @iainoflo85 !

 

[iainoflo85]

how do you do this, please?

Do you mean make text into a link?

Type a word or sentence that you wish to become a hyperlink then highlight it with the cursor and click the chain icon next to the formatting options in this menu then insert the URL into that box and click Insert.

Like this: blahblahblah

 

[Tenacious D]

The customers who bought GT6 shouldn't be accused of wishful thinking (the course maker is advertised on the retail page!), I believe the wishful thinking accusation should be given to PD at this point. From now on if PD touts some grand feature I'll only believe it when I actually play the game and can select the feature from a menu!

Except, we were all well aware that GT6 would be a work in progress, and would be updated with features over the coming year, perhaps even longer. Some people ignore this, and then get upset at their own peril.

Would I rather GT6 be held back until it's well onto the path of feature completion? Heck no, because I'd be stuck with GT5 and its weird issues I was getting really tired of, like the paintshop with no paint of its own, a real and very expensive peeve of mine. Or with Forza 4 and its hideous bots, or GRID Autosport and its rather narrow focus, limited car list and more simcade physics. And bots in Touring Car racing which manage to be worse than the bots in Forza. Or playing a PC sim, which I'd rather not.

We have acknowledgement that the team are still working on the Course Maker, at least, which some were beginning to think had been abandoned. A beta means that something is in some kind of working form, and it won't be a small eternity till release.

I find it way too typical of GT Planet that we get what we ask for, like this board, the Pit Stop site, news of the Course Maker work or whatever, and people have to grouch about everything they get.

They should give us the half working feature -course maker in its GT5 stage- in the next update and patch in the rest later

I'm just not sold on this. Patching something that you intend to kill can have unintended consequences. GT5 was such a patched up mess that for many of us, it became unstable. In my case, it reached the point that it crashed without fail after three races. Besides, it's not like PD are so dumb that giving us something to play with hadn't occurred to them. The fact that they haven't indicates to me that it's more trouble than it's worth. Or that the CM is closer than we think.

This is one of those cases that complaining won't change things, and you really want a solid tool, and bug free as possible.

 

[TRLWNC7396]

Lack of information is the key to this situation. This forum could be hopping with "wow, they answered", but instead, we are back to waiting......

I am confident that when Kaz said we would get a big update this month, that something spectacular has a chance of showing up.