tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125751497341487123.post1736013208748679577..comments2009-11-11T22:29:22.139ZEmmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122571765272745027noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125751497341487123.post-20398797828778655762009-11-11T22:29:22.139Z2009-11-11T22:29:22.139ZRegarding no dedicated server functionality in the software, one thing to consider in software development is that organisations generally want to build upon what is used most, in the hope that it appeals to the widest audience, and or ditch stuff that is not in the hope that they can maximise productivity in the development teams.<br /><br />With large and complex products like these, and if the organisation is reasonably large, the actual developers are unlikely to make those kind of decisions independently. Normally such direction (in my experience and knowledge of other organisations) comes from a group within R&amp;D called Product Managers – they don’t code or get too involved with design, but they do tend to be the interface between what the customers want, the market in general, and the development teams. So they generally decide what is in, and what is out of a product.<br /><br />At my place of work, we have such people. A large part of how they determine what users are currently doing with the software is from usage data from previous versions of the software. We have smarts in the software that return to us usage logs of all functionality and other usage behaviour within the software etc. One caveat is that this kind of thing is an opt-in... so results are skewed by those kind of users who opt in to the scheme (though our default setting in the installers opt them in..) Take up though is very high amongst our userbase.<br />So, on our latest project, a brand spanking new product, the project managers look at the behaviour and usage of things in the last product and several years worth of usage data and analyse it. There are usually some very surprising results. Functionality in the software that the development organisation sees as of key importance may not be getting used very much, other stuff doesn’t get used at all etc. <br />In one particular product, the usage logs showed that out of several thousand individual distinct pieces of functionality it turns out that near a 1/4 of those are never used.. at all! With this kind of data you have to say ask yourself if it is worth spending developer time maintaining and supporting that functionality. In that case we just stripped them out all together..... <br />This can lead to complaints, but the bottom line is that it is hard to justify spending development dollars/pounds on features that are used by a very tiny proportion of users. It makes more sense (financially at least) to spend that developer time on features tat impact the largest possible number of users. Well that is one school of thought anyway, and it does seem to make business sense.<br /><br />This is the same argument when there are very few uses of a feature apparant in the software. So the product managers, or analysts have to figure out why they are not being used and act accordingly. If it is because they are inaccessible, well that needs to be sorted out, or it is possible that the users just don&#39;t use them.<br />So it could be the case, with the dedicated server stuff, that despite a petition of 200000 users claiming to want dedicated servers, perhaps their product history shows that dedicated servers for their games are actually something that is not worth maintaining? Who knows? What you can count on, especially in a competitive market like gaming, is if it were a feature that would bag them a lot of cash they would do it without hesitation :)<br /><br />This may sound like software that starts out with all cool features can get watered down a bit - but at the end of the day, the companies tend to be in it for the cash not the coolness. The trick I guess is to focus on cool features that appeal to all users.<br /><br /><br />Just an insight to how these kind of decisions are made, within my, and a few other organisations I know. <br /><br />NikkAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125751497341487123.post-90514712734948291922009-11-11T13:27:07.521Z2009-11-11T13:27:07.521ZSomething else I think would be interesting. If IW/Steam could track who disabled or enabled said content.<br />Would be interesting to see how many players actually have a problem with it in a years time.<br />There is also a tinfoil aspect to this idea but I wont go into that!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1125751497341487123.post-48918333945255783922009-11-11T13:19:13.316Z2009-11-11T13:19:13.316ZYes, the undercover bit is a bit meh morally, but did you know you have the option to disable that lvl and content?<br /><br />But yes, the press will grab a hold of this and run!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com