this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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From what I’ve read about their Daily Active Users they’re going to be overstaffed soon. No hate but they exploded and when things settle they might not need as much staff. Thoughts?
There's something called "Brook's Law" that basically observes that a software project which onboards more developers in order to catch up will fall further behind. I hope they're careful about how they allocate new developers or they'll end up doing a year of onboarding, rewriting core code, and have no meaningful updates for 6-12 months. I know they have the resources to spare, and that scenario worked out okay for Valheim, but I hope the game doesn't lose momentum because they overhire or don't allocate enough senior devs to continue feature development while they catch the new devs up to speed.
Edit to add: I don't think it actually matters in this instance if they don't have a large player base by the time the game is feature complete. They don't have continuous revenue streams like a live service game, so hiring more devs is ultimately just about making sure they have enough talent to make good on their early access promises. The company could probably dissolve tomorrow and all the staff could live the rest of their lives in luxury never working again. It'd be a dick move, but they already sold an insane number of copies.
Interesting to hear about Brook’s Law. Thanks!
This is how it happens. If they dont staff to meet the demand the game suffers and dies out, if they do in a few years when the player base falls off and they announce layoffs everyone makes the shocked Pikachu face.
Live service games really did a number on people. Why does it matter if people stop playing Palworld between now and when those new people they hire can produce the things they're hired for?
They could lose 80% of their players and still be understaffed with a team of 40 tbh.
Oh wow, I obviously didn’t read the article. Shame on me. Had no idea they had that few on staff.
You're good. I'd have thought the same thing had I not been following the development story.
Their game pass numbers also seem to be going up, which is harder to dev for as well. I know my steam friends got sick of it after putting in 100 hours in three weeks though
I too have sunk more then 100 hours into the game. It was worth its purchase already. Yet in a year or however long it takes to be complete.... i and many others will jump right back on to see how everything has progressed. Plus they'll release on play station and that alone will be millions more copies sold.
Yeah it reminds me of the Elden Ring "where'd the players go?" articles. They beat the game. I'll be back with the next content drop