Software Development Paper
Minecraft Alpha:
Against the grain What is interesting about this article?
I find this article to be a story of a driven individual who started out with a hobby or passion for software development with his focus being on gaming. Mr. Persson lists out five reasons for success and five things that he would have done differently. Ultimately, this person outs the software development road map of potential pitfalls and reward. Why I choose this particular article and how it relates to the course?
As stated previously Markus shows us the “do’s” and “don’ts” for his creation, MINECRAFT. He starts out by listing his “What went right”, “Letting the game fund itself”, he shows a critical point in software development, when to launch, albeit as most of his points are atypical of traditional game development. The next point “Open Development” he says “talked about it on forums”, “set up and IRC channel” and “Tumblr blog” (p.26). Most game developers keep a tight lid on their work and companies tend to push for disclosure agreements for their employees. Which leads to number 3 out of 5, “Not listening to advice”, most projects that I have been involved with traditionally do involve subject matter experts (SME’s) these people all come together to form at first business requirements then later will develop into system/functional requirements. He is quick to note most advice “is based on personal experience, and just because something worked or didn’t work for them in the past, it doesn’t mean that it’s valid for me now” (p.26). He also says listening to such advice could have led to MINECRAFT being shelved and never released at all. The next two points “Making a game for myself” and “Pure Luck” are key to software as one will always put more into something they are passionate about, and lastly well sometimes it is just nice to be lucky, “make the right game at the right time” (p. 28). The last talking points he discusses are the things he would change,
Against the grain What is interesting about this article?
I find this article to be a story of a driven individual who started out with a hobby or passion for software development with his focus being on gaming. Mr. Persson lists out five reasons for success and five things that he would have done differently. Ultimately, this person outs the software development road map of potential pitfalls and reward. Why I choose this particular article and how it relates to the course?
As stated previously Markus shows us the “do’s” and “don’ts” for his creation, MINECRAFT. He starts out by listing his “What went right”, “Letting the game fund itself”, he shows a critical point in software development, when to launch, albeit as most of his points are atypical of traditional game development. The next point “Open Development” he says “talked about it on forums”, “set up and IRC channel” and “Tumblr blog” (p.26). Most game developers keep a tight lid on their work and companies tend to push for disclosure agreements for their employees. Which leads to number 3 out of 5, “Not listening to advice”, most projects that I have been involved with traditionally do involve subject matter experts (SME’s) these people all come together to form at first business requirements then later will develop into system/functional requirements. He is quick to note most advice “is based on personal experience, and just because something worked or didn’t work for them in the past, it doesn’t mean that it’s valid for me now” (p.26). He also says listening to such advice could have led to MINECRAFT being shelved and never released at all. The next two points “Making a game for myself” and “Pure Luck” are key to software as one will always put more into something they are passionate about, and lastly well sometimes it is just nice to be lucky, “make the right game at the right time” (p. 28). The last talking points he discusses are the things he would change,
References: Persson, M. (2011). MINECRAFT ALPHA. Game Developer, Feb 2011. Retrieved from http://gdmag.com/resources/