Death March: The Long, Tortured Journey of Homefront (2012) | Hacker News Reader

Death March: The Long, Tortured Journey of Homefront (2012)

polygon.com

48 pointsFlopsy17 comments

Why does it seem that every game development post mortem I come across read like the Rocky Horror Picture Show? After reading a million and one of these you inevitably come to understanding of what not to do - it would be nice to find an example of what actually to do!

Lots of postmortems on Gamasutra have a "What Went Right" section; pick a few games you consider successful from the list below, and read what they say about that. Of course, it's not so much about what to do, but about doing it right: there really is no silver bullet. But in products like games, where everything is so tangled up together, every mistake send ripples of trouble across the entire project and team.

http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-postmortems/

I am bit disappointed the author blames the failure partially on Peter's Principle. As if hiring outside managers is a silver bullet, especially in a situation where the very top management is clearly incompetent.

Homefront is/was a fun game with IMO a great multiplayer mode. Not needlessly complex but enough variety for a casual to play pretty easily.

It's a shame not more people are still playing it.

I really enjoyed the game, but I was very surprised with how short the single player mode was.

I practically finished the game in one sitting.

That being said, I absolutely loved every minute of it. The atmosphere was really interesting, and there were a number of unique elements to the game.

I'm pretty disappointed that we will likely never see a continuation of the franchise.

Keep hopes high: http://www.deepsilver.com/news/newsdetails/article/deep-silv...

Single player for me honestly was meh.

The true value in the game was multiplayer for me. I'm almost tempted to spin up a server and find some players. You in?

The premise of Homefront is completely ridiculous! We're expected to believe that North Korea ... a nation of 25 million with limited resources and a half-starved population takes over the pacific rim and then pushes its way into North America?

Games don't have to be believable they have to be fun. I'd say believable games are the exception rather than the rule.

Ridiculous premise. Agreed.

Fun multiplayer? Yes.

Drawback was DLC maps were infrequently played and too big.

And that is a great example of why career advice that uses words like 'dreams' and 'love' is such bullshit. People who follow it end up turning themselves into little more than slaves.

It depends if your dreams take you in an area of the software industry well known for long hours, terrible work practices and comparatively small pay. AFAIK, nobody asks pentesters to work 90 hours a week.

As a network security analyst, I know quite a few former pen-testers. Every single one of them cites 70+ hour weeks as their primary reason for getting out of it. Its not 90, but its also not 40.

It's definitely a problem in games, but there are plenty of people working 9-5:30 or so with regular lives outside work. There's plenty of SV startup that would have you work similar hours with similar pay as the notorious gaming studios.

tl;dr?

Don't work in the game industry.

>> "At Kaos studios in New York sitting with a team that's finaling on 7-day weeks for a couple of months. Talk about that ‘thousand yard stare’."

Geez this twitter comment from Bilson makes me so damn angry I shouldn't even write here. I can understand why the developers freaked out. Turn the production line grinding down of your people into process jargon. Well done, sir.

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