Ravings of a Madman

We recently got a lot of Malhavoc artwork framed and hung up. A friend was looking at it and said she could tell that it was from our books because the women were sensibly dressed.

— Monte Cook (source)

(2:15:09 PM) Andy: did you update the code and script today?
(2:15:23 PM) Jonathan: yes
[…]
(2:28:15 PM) Andy: you can debug the following function SingleGroupFinancialOptionXml2HtmlGenerate, which will basically generate the display of FOs on that page. Or if you don't want to, you can just delete that module from you local and check it out from svn again [emphasis mine]

For a "developer team lead", this sure is a huge lack of understanding about version control, and subversion in general. It kind of makes me cry.

WA-08: Helping Darcy recover (via Daily Kos)

I don't normally post things like this, but I think it's worth it in this case.

Blizzard's Perfect Storm - via Forbes.com

Blizzard is something of an anomaly in the industry: It's one of the few development houses that make hardcore games that appeal to casual gamers. The company polishes its titles obsessively, ensuring every detail meets its exacting standards. If not happy with the progress, Blizzard executives will cancel a game--even very late in the production process.

Let me get this straight… focusing on making high-quality games that large numbers of people actually want to play, and not releasing something that sucks&hellip is an anomaly. And yet…

Blizzard is already, hands down, the most dominant developer and publisher in the gaming industry. […] Activision-Blizzard, as the company will be called, will become the industry's largest publisher […]

So… Blizzard makes high-quality games that lots of people want to play. As a result, they are the premier developer in the industry, and will soon me the largest one, as well. This is, according to Forbes, anomalous. Aside from the "well, duh" aspect these statements, it's highly amusing the way this is treated as some kind of odd-ball scheme, and not, you know.. a solid way of doing business. It really speaks lengths about not merely the rest of the gaming industry, but the business world in general, where a quality product with high customer appeal is "anomalous".

Some days it's hard to not be paranoid.