"Hey guys, I don't know anything about computers or technology, but I just got a lead on $10 million in funding from the morons in Menlo Park, so can you get me something working by Friday for the dog and pony show?"

I admit I laughed when I saw "ambitious and capable innovation companies". I agree, Google is ambitious. But more egotistical than capable, and much of their "innovation" comes from acquiring other projects.

Careful, you might anger the cult of Tesla.

Corporations are set up so that you never have to blame yourself. If you do something a bit shady, it's because the boss told you to, and it was likely due to a bout of group-think. If you are the boss, then you're doing it because some executive told you to do it, during a session of group-think. If you're an executive or even the CEO then you did it because the board expects you to do it, and you do whatever it takes to make the quarterly numbers look right. If you're on the board you get excused because you're not actually running the company or doing any management whatsoever, you're just there to make sure the books look correct and keeping the execs from stealing your money.

So who do you blame? It's all group think. It only falls down when a CEO is stupid enough to actually admit an intention to do something unethical, as in the Uber case.

It's a big train wreck. Maybe it's systemd, but maybe it's just lack of good leadership and teamwork. Overall though when you see a trainwreck like that people should stop and figure out what happened.

There are two ways to view this conflict. One view is that the fight is between those who are implementing systemd as a necessary feature and those who are obstructionists. The other view is that the fight is between those who want to keep systemd optional and those who want to make it mandatory. Because those two perspectives see the world in very different ways, people who don't see the same reality will tend to assume the opposition must be irrational. Thus no resolution is possible.

Why explore it though when there's work to do? Systemd is still in the experimental stage, let some offshoot branches try it out for a few YEARS before attempting to make it mainstream.

That situation sounds very un-American. Maybe congress should look into it.

Nope. Nokia was a very diverse company and not just a phone maker. Nokia Networks morphed into Nokia Siemens Networks but it is still a Nokia subsidiary, and there is still Nokia Research as far as I know, and there are other small divisions.

I love running around like a headless chicken. It's my best joke at work and lightens up the dull meetings.

On that note, let's have a quiet remembrance in honor of Mike the Headless Chicken.

Allegedly told and allegator.

It's a virus! Anyone who's been in the same building as Obama is tarnished and forever afterwords will attempt to do evil whenever possible. Or worse, become liberal.

Shouldn't they then take these problems and present them to the funders of the game? Tell the paying customers of the problems and find out if changes are acceptable or not. Maybe find other solutions (ie, some games delay themselves and the customers are actually happy about it, see Project Eternity for example).

So many gamers hate online-only games, the devs can not be ignorant of that, they must know this would go over badly. To remain in the dark seems strange, as if the devs are caught up in their own small world where they've never played any non-PvP games in their lives, don't know any of their close friends who play offline games, or think that those players aren't worth keeping as customers ("care bears" or "not real gamers" or other idiotic stuff).

Where is the layer of management that is supposed to remain objective, keep the dev team on track, keep the investors happy, etc?

Passion for the games is great. But you also need at least some management with reality in mind, who keeps the customer and profits as priorities.

I say this as a developer, because when I develop something I get caught up in my own world and can lose sight of the bigger picture. I may deliver the best product ever but if it is a product that the customer does not want then what's the point?

They promised product X, got a lot of money for it, and are delivering product Y instead. Bait and switch. Somewhere along they line they got caught up in their own world and forgot about the customers who gave them the money. I'm only guessing, but I just have this feeling that some devs are thinking about making the game that they want even if it's not the game that the customers want.

If a product's direction needs to make a major change then it needs to be brought up before the board, and for kickstarter games the board are the funders.

Agreed. However if you lose the money that you can afford to lose, you still have the right to complain about it. And that's what people are doing. Telling them to stop complaining is kind of dumb. At the very least there's some moral obligation to warn potential customers to stay away from Frontier and its games.

Beware of gamers developing games. Too often you find them preferring their own game play style, ramping up difficulty, no bones thrown to casual players, and so forth. Then it gets defended as "by real games for real gamers" or something like that.

I get a sneaky suspicion this might fall into that category. They've got a "vision" of what they want, and damn the paying customers who say differently.

I mean isn't this part of the whole reason kickstarter games are popular, because they're supposed to listen to customers which is the opposite of what the big name game publishers do?