If gamers are bitching about your menu system being navigable by someone with less than a PhD (cough, Risk of Rain 2 on console, cough), and you're estimating that will take 6 months to fix, then that's because you (as a company) coded your software badly.

[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 2 points 11 hours ago

menu system

I think you are vastly underestimating how complicated menu systems and UI in games are. I have a friend who works as a professional game developer in a small studio and far as I heard, he's spent most of his time just working on their UI/menus.

Changing these things is neither easy nor fast.

[–] Arcka@midwest.social 2 points 14 hours ago

Alternative reasons (not mutually exclusive):

The organization has outdated policies that make delivering changes difficult.
The systems used in development and delivery haven't been invested in enough to automate repetitive steps, optimize workflow, and increase safety of changes.

Again, complex changes are obviously going to take more time, but if the simplest changes take significant time or effort then something is wrong.

[–] ramirezmike@programming.dev 5 points 19 hours ago

6 months doesn't sound unrealistic for re-doing a menu system. Designing, reworking art, re-programming workflows and then testing everything can take several months. Even just the logistics of releasing it after it's done, that alone can take a month.

Yes, it is possible to setup everything in a very generic way that is data-driven, but that also is a lot of work that has to be prioritized with the scope of the project and the team members available.

[–] Ugurcan@lemmy.world 35 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That’s right. Still, it could take more than 6 months to make it right.

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

💯

[–] simple@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

cough, Risk of Rain 2 on console, cough

I still remember when they somehow broke the Xbox version and nobody could get past the start menu.

[–] JordanZ@lemmy.world 4 points 21 hours ago

I had to read an article about that. It apparently coincided with the release of the second DLC. It was pretty broken on PS5 as well. That just screams some high level exec said it MUST be out on the announced date cause they told someone that it would be. Likely part of a contract or their bonus was tied to it. Doesn’t matter if it’s unplayable. It ‘met’ the release deadline. Now we’re just ‘doing maintenance’.

I’m a dev and I firmly believe that if people could see the software they use daily as a physical object like a car…they’d be more “Hell, no. That’s a death trap” than they probably realize.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I like to link them to any modding SDK (official or unofficial) and as them why don't they make it.

[–] shoo@lemmy.world 9 points 19 hours ago

Well for one they're a consumer who paid for a functional game. Nobody expects drivers to break out power tools and mod their car right off the lot.

It's even more embarrassing when modders do fix it. Some random guy with no source code access manages to fix an issue in 3 weeks that a whole team couldn't fix in 3 years.