Ed Boon says that NRS game development amounts to 'so far so good' amidst Coronavirus

[Nickolaidas]

I stumbled upon a somewhat old tweet Ed Boon replied to when someone was asking video game devs how goes their work during this whole pandemic. Ed replied with



And it's nice to know that NRS has not abandoned its projects amidst the corona situation and the team is working from home, in safety.

Fingers crossed, that Kombat Pack 2 reveal may be delayed, but not by THAT much ...

 

[Tertian]

not to open this can of worms but...

While i'm eager to get new content, I'm also curious if this "so far so good" extends to all their employees (given NRS history of worker treatment)

I'll have some faith and assume they're trying to do right by everyone.

 

[Nickolaidas]

not to open this can of worms but...

While i'm eager to get new content, I'm also curious if this "so far so good" extends to all their employees (given NRS history of worker treatment)

I'll have some faith and assume they're trying to do right by everyone.

Supervisor: Where do you think you're going Smithers?
Employee: I'm - I'm just going to use my 5 minute break to have a shower, Mr. Higgins!
Supervisor: Fine. But take your laptop with you. We need to talk about this Kano brutality animation you did in the morning ...

 

[chud_munson]

That's not too surprising. It's interesting to see game developers that were brought to a halt by this and ones that keep chugging along. I work for a FAANG company as a dev and if anything we've been more productive. I realize that not every part of a product lifecycle can be done from home, but in 2020, most of it can. It's just about whether the company's culture and process is already prepared for remote work.

 

[Nickolaidas]

That's not too surprising. It's interesting to see game developers that were brought to a halt by this and ones that keep chugging along. I work for a FAANG company as a dev and if anything we've been more productive. I realize that not every part of a product lifecycle can be done from home, but in 2020, most of it can. It's just about whether the company's culture and process is already prepared for remote work.

I think it's also about how much interaction is needed between employees. I mean, if like, ten people are working on Baraka in an entire room and need to constantly get up from their offices and go to the other one's office to check a texture, an animation or whatever and give their input or ask for some information regarding something the other employee is working on, instead of an environment where no employee actually needs to interact with one another than say, once or twice during the entire day … it can be a factor, I guess.

The company I work for never worked from home, during the 17 years I work there. My boss didn't want us to take the company's macs to our homes, so the solution was to install AnyDesk on our homes' PCs and remote use our MACs from our living rooms. Lags like hell, but most basic tasks are more or less doable. However, good luck using Illustrator with a 3-4 second lag every now and then.

 

[chud_munson]

I think it's also about how much interaction is needed between employees. I mean, if like, ten people are working on Baraka in an entire room and need to constantly get up from their offices and go to the other one's office to check a texture, an animation or whatever and give their input or ask for some information regarding something the other employee is working on, instead of an environment where no employee actually needs to interact with one another than say, once or twice during the entire day … it can be a factor, I guess.

The company I work for never worked from home, during the 17 years I work there. My boss didn't want us to take the company's macs to our homes, so the solution was to install AnyDesk on our homes' PCs and remote use our MACs from our living rooms. Lags like hell, but most basic tasks are more or less doable. However, good luck using Illustrator with a 3-4 second lag every now and then.

Yeah, the interesting bit is what you're saying is definitely a factor, but how teams respond to those situations under normal circumstances is what's important. My team for example is basically an Extreme Programming team, so we do a lot of pair programming, mob programming, real-time group code reviews, etc. But we already have a remote worker so we're used to doing all of that with screen shares on group calls and such. For us, this stay-at-home stuff just gave us an opportunity to further smooth out the wrinkles in our strategy there, so we're a pretty well-oiled machine now.

Yeah, your situation is exactly what I'm talking about with the "culture and process" bit. I also work on a company Mac that I use from home since we've already allowed remote work and have on-call. Our security team works under the assumption that we could use our computers from anywhere, so the company is very well positioned there. It's funny how some companies (sounds like yours) doesn't like something like taking company computers home, so they don't prepare for the situation. Then when they're forced to do it, they end up putting their business at risk and losing money because rather than mitigating the risk, they've tried to prohibit the behavior.

 

[Nickolaidas]

Yeah, the interesting bit is what you're saying is definitely a factor, but how teams respond to those situations under normal circumstances is what's important. My team for example is basically an Extreme Programming team, so we do a lot of pair programming, mob programming, real-time group code reviews, etc. But we already have a remote worker so we're used to doing all of that with screen shares on group calls and such. For us, this stay-at-home stuff just gave us an opportunity to further smooth out the wrinkles in our strategy there, so we're a pretty well-oiled machine now.

Yeah, your situation is exactly what I'm talking about with the "culture and process" bit. I also work on a company Mac that I use from home since we've already allowed remote work and have on-call. Our security team works under the assumption that we could use our computers from anywhere, so the company is very well positioned there. It's funny how some companies (sounds like yours) doesn't like something like taking company computers home, so they don't prepare for the situation. Then when they're forced to do it, they end up putting their business at risk and losing money because rather than mitigating the risk, they've tried to prohibit the behavior.

My boss is a paranoid control freak. Having seven workers each take home a six thousand euro mac doesn't sit with him very well.

 

[chud_munson]

My boss is a paranoid control freak. Having seven workers each take home a six thousand euro mac doesn't sit with him very well.

That's a shame. Sounds like he might be losing more money by hampering your team's ability to do their job than if you all just stole the computers or whatever he's concerned about happening. The fact that a manager would hamstring his employees to maybe save the company a one-time few thousand dollars is wild to me. We're not talking about multi-million dollar storage devices that are protected by compliance laws and stuff. They're basically office supplies.

 

[Nickolaidas]

That's a shame. Sounds like he might be losing more money by hampering your team's ability to do their job than if you all just stole the computers or whatever he's concerned about happening. The fact that a manager would hamstring his employees to maybe save the company a one-time few thousand dollars is wild to me. We're not talking about multi-million dollar storage devices that are protected by compliance laws and stuff. They're basically office supplies.

He many issues, all of them stemming from an utter lack of trust. He sees us as potential thieves and liars.

I mean, we've had conversations like:

Higgins: I'll have to take half the next day off, Mr Smithers. My uncle died and it's his funeral.
Smithers: Do you really need to go, Higgins? Were you and your uncle close or was he living in an island and you were seeing him once every year?

 

[chud_munson]

He many issues, all of them stemming from an utter lack of trust. He sees us as potential thieves and liars.

I mean, we've had conversations like:

Higgins: I'll have to take half the next day off, Mr Smithers. My uncle died and it's his funeral.
Smithers: Do you really need to go, Higgins? Were you and your uncle close or was he living in an island and you were seeing him once every year?

Oof. Not sure how big of a company you work at, but sounds like an HR complaint to me.

 

[Nickolaidas]

Oof. Not sure how big of a company you work at, but sounds like an HR complaint to me.

Yeah? Listen to this: (true story)

Smithers: New company policy, people. From now on, the windows in the bathrooms are going to be locked. Anyone who wants to open them will have to ask for the key from me.

Higgins: Why?

Smithers: Company policy. When you leave the windows open, the cool air from the company is going out of the building via the bathroom windows and the hot summer breeze enters the building instead, raising temperature - or vice versa in the winter: the hot air goes out, the cold air comes in. We're stopping this by locking the bathroom windows.

Higgins: But if the windows are locked, the bathrooms will stink everytime someone takes a dump!

Smithers: You'll ask me for the key, unlock the windows in order for the smell to get out, then close them and lock them up again and return the keys to me.

Higgins: So, we'll be outside the bathroom for ten minutes waiting for the smell to come out?

Smithers: Of course not. You'll come back upstairs and go back down to lock the windows once the smell is gone.

Higgins: So everytime I need to take a dump and have to open the window in order for the smell to go away, I have to come to you and ask you for the key.

Smithers: Excactly.

Higgins: So I have to take the key from you, go down two floors, take a shit, unlock the window, come upstairs, give you the key, then after ten minutes when the smell has gone, I ask you for the key once more, go down, close the window, lock it, come upstairs, and give you back the key.

Smithers: Exactly.

Higgins: Okay then.

 

[chud_munson]

Yeah? Listen to this: (true story)

Smithers: New company policy, people. From now on, the windows in the bathrooms are going to be locked. Anyone who wants to open them will have to ask for the key from me.

Higgins: Why?

Smithers: Company policy. When you leave the windows open, the cool air from the company is going out of the building via the bathroom windows and the hot summer breeze enters the building instead, raising temperature - or vice versa in the winter: the hot air goes out, the cold air comes in. We're stopping this by locking the bathroom windows.

Higgins: But if the windows are locked, the bathrooms will stink everytime someone takes a dump!

Smithers: You'll ask me for the key, unlock the windows in order for the smell to get out, then close them and lock them up again and return the keys to me.

Higgins: So, we'll be outside the bathroom for ten minutes waiting for the smell to come out?

Smithers: Of course not. You'll come back upstairs and go back down to lock the windows once the smell is gone.

Higgins: So everytime I need to take a dump and have to open the window in order for the smell to go away, I have to come to you and ask you for the key.

Smithers: Excactly.

Higgins: So I have to take the key from you, go down two floors, take a shit, unlock the window, come upstairs, give you the key, then after ten minutes when the smell has gone, I ask you for the key once more, go down, close the window, lock it, come upstairs, and give you back the key.

Smithers: Exactly.

Higgins: Okay then.

Haha, this should be a Dilbert cartoon. Wonder if anyone did a back-of-a-napkin calculation for the amount of time on average an employee will spend doing that process per week and how that compares to the building's AC/heating costs.

 

[MK Dragon]

The only part that they probably cannot do is new motion captures, though technically you'd only need one guy in the studio and some other technical guys who can definitely keep a distance. KP2 characters not done yet will now take longer I reckon, but I do not believe that at least the first or even all 3 leaked ones are not done yet as far as doing a trailer. Still it's probably at least still a month to 2 away..