Only bad revies

[Adriano]

I stayed for a few months in the game fulfilling contracts, I was able to make some money and started designing software, so I had 4 million in cash. Subsequently, I developed one antivirus and a 3D editor, this amount was for 75 million, and that's it, I can not make money anymore.

Any software I develop gets bad reviews [2.1] and the product does not sell, which I tried to do:

  - Hire a team for the project, 3 artists, programmers according to the program requirements
  - Hire a team also with these requirements but much larger than necessary.
  - Keep teams that made two successful apps.

And no good, I can not sell anything else ... When the note in one aspect [3D art] is bad, I put a competent team and I leave for 3 or 4 months and it improves, but little. What can I do? I'm in 1995

Sorry for my bad english

[Proteus]

Training Training Training

The skill level of programmers, designers and artists in the relevant fields of the project (always "System" but, depending on the project, usually also 1-2 additional specializations, like 2D)
does a lot to determine the overall quality of the project.
And especially, let the people stick to their roles ... if you leave all team members as "able to do anything" (instead of assigning a role to them according to their skills (i.e. programmer, designer or artist) then they will also contribute to specializations they are not skilled in (like, a programmer to art) and will drag the quality down.
Therefore "fill all roles" should only be reserved to employees who really are skilled in all 3 roles.

Also remember that the "estimated number of code points" and art points only are some kind of minimum requirement ... usually you will have to produce more than those estimates in order to generate good software

As for selling the software:
Well, aside from always reprinting new disks (when stocks get low) the most important thing is, to have a marketing team (already during the programming phase of the project), doing 1 or more press releases and 1 or more press announcements and finally, after release of the software, have a marketing campaign tghat is stocked with enough money and marketers in order to raise brand awareness.
Even a good software without a marketing will not sell well ... and evenb a bad software will sell well if it has good marketing ;)

[Adriano]

Originally posted by Proteus:

Training Training Training

The skill level of programmers, designers and artists in the relevant fields of the project (always "System" but, depending on the project, usually also 1-2 additional specializations, like 2D)
does a lot to determine the overall quality of the project.
And especially, let the people stick to their roles ... if you leave all team members as "able to do anything" (instead of assigning a role to them according to their skills (i.e. programmer, designer or artist) then they will also contribute to specializations they are not skilled in (like, a programmer to art) and will drag the quality down.
Therefore "fill all roles" should only be reserved to employees who really are skilled in all 3 roles.

Also remember that the "estimated number of code points" and art points only are some kind of minimum requirement ... usually you will have to produce more than those estimates in order to generate good software

As for selling the software:
Well, aside from always reprinting new disks (when stocks get low) the most important thing is, to have a marketing team (already during the programming phase of the project), doing 1 or more press releases and 1 or more press announcements and finally, after release of the software, have a marketing campaign tghat is stocked with enough money and marketers in order to raise brand awareness.
Even a good software without a marketing will not sell well ... and evenb a bad software will sell well if it has good marketing ;)

I've done it, delegate specific tasks instead of letting them do whatever they want ...

So the ideal is to have many programmers and two or three "specials"? I'll test that today. Marketing is still getting the hang of it, since it's interesting to have a release date to have more effect

[Proteus]

Originally posted by Adriano:

...

So the ideal is to have many programmers and two or three "specials"? I'll test that today. ...

In a way there are 2 possible approaches:
1. Specialize your programmer (and designer) teams for a certain type of software (for example Antivirus or 2D-Editor). That means, you need to train your programmers (and designers) only in "System" and 1-2 additional categories (in case of 2D-Editors, for example, in System, 2D and (later) in Algorithms)
2. Make your programming (and your designing) teams more versatile, by training them in all specializations ... that makes them more versatile, but it will take a very long time till they are proficient enough to produce good software

So, with approach 1 you will get good software faster (but only software that fits to their specialization) whereas with approach 2 you will get jacks of all trades, but their learning progress will be more slow
A third approach is, to use a mix of 1 and 2, by firt making them good in System and 1-2 other specializations and tghen spreading their training out to other specializations.

Approach 3 is, what I usually do ... and every time I hire new members of a team, they will first get repeatedly sent to trainings for 1-2 years, before they are actually allowed to work full time on a project

[Adriano]

Originally posted by Proteus:

Originally posted by Adriano:

...

So the ideal is to have many programmers and two or three "specials"? I'll test that today. ...

In a way there are 2 possible approaches:
1. Specialize your programmer (and designer) teams for a certain type of software (for example Antivirus or 2D-Editor). That means, you need to train your programmers (and designers) only in "System" and 1-2 additional categories (in case of 2D-Editors, for example, in System, 2D and (later) in Algorithms)
2. Make your programming (and your designing) teams more versatile, by training them in all specializations ... that makes them more versatile, but it will take a very long time till they are proficient enough to produce good software

So, with approach 1 you will get good software faster (but only software that fits to their specialization) whereas with approach 2 you will get jacks of all trades, but their learning progress will be more slow
A third approach is, to use a mix of 1 and 2, by firt making them good in System and 1-2 other specializations and tghen spreading their training out to other specializations.

Approach 3 is, what I usually do ... and every time I hire new members of a team, they will first get repeatedly sent to trainings for 1-2 years, before they are actually allowed to work full time on a project

I think that alternative 3 would be more interesting, because I like the idea of developing different types of software, I think it gets more challenging.

From what you said, something I'm doing in every attempt is: Hiring a staff to specifications and having them develop the project, I'm not specializing anyone at all, just picking up guys and having them develop.

I think I'm going to do the following then: Hire a team of programmers, put together a little support [containing those special guys] and have them train, while I pick up the teams that have been with me for a while and try to build something, when the gang returns after one or two years, I use them in something bigger.

By the way, is there a simple way to avoid asking for a raise all the time? I managed to reduce this by getting compatible members and improving the installations, but sometimes it seems that something is missing

And.... Thanks =D

[Adriano]

Thanks for the help, I managed to surpass 500 million, I optimized my teams and company, is flowing well now = D

[Harag]

Optimizing the teams - in the latest update for A10.3.1 there is now a minimum % specialization slider on the "teams" screen. I've just started playing with this and found it very useful.

Say you have a programer with 60% in System and 20% in 2D and you have another programer with 30% system and 70% 2D.

In the old A9, the first programmer with 20% 2D would also developer some of the 2D code, along with the 70% 2D developer - because he only had 20% he could acually make your software quality worse because he is rubbish in 2D.

With the specialization slider, you can select the team and then change the slider to say 50%, that means anyone BELOW 50% skill in will NOT do any work on the special area. so the 20% 2D developer will not work on the 2D element of the software, and will only work on the system code, and the 70% 2D developer will not work on the system code because he only has 30% system skill.

So in a way you have 2 people very good in their area working on the code in only the area they know.

I've not tested this fully yet, but it makes sense to me..

[Adriano]

It certainly makes perfect sense.

It was a little hard to get to know the mechanics of the game, I had played others of the same style, but they were much simpler, things are flowing now, after all, I went from 850M, a remodeled company and everything well organized :)

This mechanic I have not moved with her, I'll do it soon