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[Draugoth]

In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Tim Bender, CEO of Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse, recalled seeing a post in the Steam forums asking if the game had been "abandoned" because it hadn't had an update yet—just four days after its early access launch. A solution put forward by another commenter was that Styczeń should "immediately hire 50 people and create a gigantic company, and that way they can get faster updates."

Bender brushed off those comments, which are hardly the first of their kind and feel like siblings of the 'dead game' accusations that get thrown around whenever a game's concurrents dip, as "one of the facts of life" that inevitably come with launching a successful game. What commenters actually want isn't always what they say they want, he said, particularly with regard to the hiring spree pitch.

"What they're probably not thinking about is that that's just fundamentally not the way things work,

said Bender.

"The best growth is very slow. It's keeping the core vision intact. It's the importance of Greg [Styczeń] and his work process. And so, as a result, people are going to be clamoring [for updates], and I think that's just virtually guaranteed. There's no pace of updates that would not result in people clamoring for more, and would not result in a bunch of people saying the ideal solution is to just hire 50 people."

 

[Kilau]

Why bender why!?

 

[Yoda]

Not hiring at all feels self defeating at this point. Can keep the team very small (4-5) to keep the 'culture' in tact; but it'd free him up to laser focus on design/gameplay instead of ironing on the simulation bugs which are currently plentiful and will be very tough given everything going on in the game.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Many people don't understand that you can't just hire X more employees and miraculously production will grow proportionally.

There are many factors at play, one of them the ability of the dev himself on team coordination and leadership. If he isn't good at those, increasing the team might just have a negative effect.

 

[SJRB]

People have no idea what they’re talking about when they say dumb things like “just hire five people to 5x development time bro, easy peasy”.

Clueless.

 

[feynoob]

More=\=faster progress

When you are making a game, you will need a clear guidelines on what to do. Messing up a tiny code can change the game from good to bad in 1 minute.

Colonial marine game got screwed by a simple line that made the enemies dumb as hell.

 

[theStartupSound]

I can also understand that he just want to make games instead of being a boss and have employees.

 

[Hudo]

People have no idea what they’re talking about when they say dumb things like “just hire five people to 5x development time bro, easy peasy”.

Clueless.

We all know the real bottleneck is the Mtn Dew vending machine across the street outside the office.

 

[GnomeChimpsky]

People on the internet know dick. He's created an amazing product all by himself, with better production values than games with hundreds of developers involved could deliver. I'm gonna trust his judgment on this one.

 

[Filben]

Maybe he doesn't need to "hire" because the whole "solo developer" marketing notion is a bit off. Just look at the credits. There's a couple of people who worked on the game/for the main dev. He will probably keep doing his logistics mainly like before. He may probably hire a one or two more contractors but won't start employing people under his business. And if he already has a person or company doing, like, animations for him, hiring another won't accelerate that much. Maybe he can choose a different contractor that delivers faster or is more "premium" so to say.

Just throwing money and workforce onto something isn't always better. See all those big AAA games that bombed hard.

 

[StueyDuck]

In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Tim Bender, CEO of Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse, recalled seeing a post in the Steam forums asking if the game had been "abandoned" because it hadn't had an update yet—just four days after its early access launch. A solution put forward by another commenter was that Styczeń should "immediately hire 50 people and create a gigantic company, and that way they can get faster updates."

Bender brushed off those comments, which are hardly the first of their kind and feel like siblings of the 'dead game' accusations that get thrown around whenever a game's concurrents dip, as "one of the facts of life" that inevitably come with launching a successful game. What commenters actually want isn't always what they say they want, he said, particularly with regard to the hiring spree pitch.



said Bender.

I mean he can run his company how he wants but it's always frugal to hire experience.

Sounds like he's all about the money. Let's hope it pays off and he is still able to keep up with demand. A released product is a different beast to one in production.

 

[poppabk]

I mean he can run his company how he wants but it's always frugal to hire experience.

Sounds like he's all about the money. Let's hope it pays off and he is still able to keep up with demand. A released product is a different beast to one in production.

I doubt it is about the money and more about the logistics. You hire 50 people, all of a sudden you need an HR department, training, space to put them, infrastructure. Depending on where you are based - 50 people means you have to comply with a whole bunch of extra regulations, family medical leave, etc. Plus you have to actually hire them, conduct interviews etc.
Plus you start to lose your vision as it gets diluted by all that extra input.
Adding 50 people fast is a bad idea, but he should be taking on a few more people and probably is.

 

[feynoob]

I mean he can run his company how he wants but it's always frugal to hire experience.

Sounds like he's all about the money. Let's hope it pays off and he is still able to keep up with demand. A released product is a different beast to one in production.

Its not a money problem, but a logistic one.
He can hire them for a new game. But supporting this game would require time for them to keep up with him. Not an easy task when you are solo or small dev.

 

[StueyDuck]

I doubt it is about the money and more about the logistics. You hire 50 people, all of a sudden you need an HR department, training, space to put them, infrastructure. Depending on where you are based - 50 people means you have to comply with a whole bunch of extra regulations, family medical leave, etc. Plus you have to actually hire them, conduct interviews etc.
Plus you start to lose your vision as it gets diluted by all that extra input.
Adding 50 people fast is a bad idea, but he should be taking on a few more people and probably is.

He doesn't need to hire a 1000 people though. Having a couple of devs employed wouldn't cause a major disruption and he'd probably get more progress done.

 

[Umbral]

He’s right.

 

[IntentionalPun]

I was on a team of 5 people once and they let go the other 4 and my production out-paced the team as they all got out of my way.

Then we slowly hired better candidates vetted by me rather than cobbled together quickly and ended up with a small team that built and managed 7 apps over about 2 years.

You have to hire the right people to not fuck things up.

 

[Ribi]

Game of thrones books all over again... One man with one vision says he'll take his time in updating the game. His mental health will deteriorate, he will slowly start to stop giving updates, and ultimately he'll do the classic "I'm still working on it here and there" 10 years from now with 0 updates in sight.

 

[Topher]

I've worked on software dev teams and I've worked alone. I can certainly understand his desire to work alone. Having to manage a team of people is a job by itself.

 

[IntentionalPun]

The guy mentioned “slow growth” and didn’t say they won’t hire anyone.

 

[poppabk]

He doesn't need to hire a 1000 people though. Having a couple of devs employed wouldn't cause a major disruption and he'd probably get more progress done.

Which is likely what he will do.

 

[StereoVsn]

Not hiring at all feels self defeating at this point. Can keep the team very small (4-5) to keep the 'culture' in tact; but it'd free him up to laser focus on design/gameplay instead of ironing on the simulation bugs which are currently plentiful and will be very tough given everything going on in the game.

Yeah, the hire 50 people shtick is nonsense but getting a small team could tremendously help long term.

Otherwise I guarantee the Steam scores will start going down and we will see reaction videos on YouTube.

 

[Embearded]

Yes, the old "1 woman needs 9 months for a baby so 9 women would bring that down to 1 month".

People saying that hiring x number of employees would make updates faster are fools and completely detached from software development.

 

[Edder1]

Yes, the old "1 woman needs 9 months for a baby so 9 women would bring that down to 1 month".

But 9 women can give you 9 babies in 9 months so...