Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 6579688" data-attributes="member: 177">So it is clear, I agree with you - they do good work.&nbsp; Many people really like DDI, but other than that, they haven't had much in the way of digital successes.It isn't actually a curse.&nbsp; It is that our view of software production is skewed.&nbsp; We have this idea that software is easy, software is cheap, and most folks who try to put out software succeed.&nbsp; I'm pretty sure this impression is incorrect.&nbsp; Lots and lots of software initiatives fail.Making software is not, in fact, cheap.&nbsp; Consider:&nbsp; A decent, proven development professional is, once you consider salary and benefits, a six-figure item.&nbsp; A team of three developers, one quality assurance engineer, and one product/project manager for a year is a half-million dollars right there.&nbsp; And that's before you buy a single machine for them to work on, or pay for a single software license for their tools.&nbsp; That's before you pay for however many servers this software needs in production to serve the customers, as well.Well, for the moment, the why is secondary.&nbsp; The fact that it went wrong is what is relevant.I think that's a seeming, but not a reality.&nbsp; Someone's putting in a lot of time, and time is money.&nbsp; A guy in his garage can do that out of love, but WotC cannot.Oh, as soon as it is &quot;official&quot;, they probably would be.&nbsp; A third party, some guy working on his home computer to build the thing, is forgiven much by the public.&nbsp; But if WotC does it, what the public will expect in terms of quality standards will be higher, and the expected list of features will be longer, and more complicated.&nbsp; In addition, if WotC does it, there will be an expectation of some form of direct customer support, and that, too, costs money.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 6579688, member: 177"] So it is clear, I agree with you - they do good work. Many people really like DDI, but other than that, they haven't had much in the way of digital successes. It isn't actually a curse. It is that our view of software production is skewed. We have this idea that software is easy, software is cheap, and most folks who try to put out software succeed. I'm pretty sure this impression is incorrect. Lots and lots of software initiatives fail. Making software is not, in fact, cheap. Consider: A decent, proven development professional is, once you consider salary and benefits, a six-figure item. A team of three developers, one quality assurance engineer, and one product/project manager for a year is a half-million dollars right there. And that's before you buy a single machine for them to work on, or pay for a single software license for their tools. That's before you pay for however many servers this software needs in production to serve the customers, as well. Well, for the moment, the why is secondary. The fact that it went wrong is what is relevant. I think that's a seeming, but not a reality. Someone's putting in a lot of time, and time is money. A guy in his garage can do that out of love, but WotC cannot. Oh, as soon as it is "official", they probably would be. A third party, some guy working on his home computer to build the thing, is forgiven much by the public. But if WotC does it, what the public will expect in terms of quality standards will be higher, and the expected list of features will be longer, and more complicated. In addition, if WotC does it, there will be an expectation of some form of direct customer support, and that, too, costs money. [/QUOTE]

Verification