There is this exercise you can do for Agile/Lean estimation where you run a multi stage beer store by passing only order quantity notes up and down a chain.
The intent is to trick the participants into a whiplash effect where the retail store has a one off jump and so orders bigger than normal, and the whole supply chain then gets excited and thinks this is the new normal rather than an anomaly.
The exercise ends and the excess beer in the chain is counted.
You are not wrong, but remember that they only employ like 40-50 people. Even if the playerbase goes down to 10% of what it is that's still not a lot of people.
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.
They don't have continuous revenue streams like a live service
Yet. The game seems extremely easy to monetize, up to them how evil they go. To be successful longterm (if thats something they even want) they will need to add more content first but they could cash in in so many ways. Dlc, selling servers, cosmetics or more nefarious stuff lkke boosters to speed up mechanics, pals that take huge grinds without payments. It would be very easy to do.
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?
I'm taking my conversation-level Japanese courses this year and have been looking to land a dev job in Japan. From the sound of it, I'd like working for Pocket Pair a lot. But then again, most companies make their employment sound fantastic...
Haha, yeah, I'm familiar with the work culture in Japan. I've heard from other developers currently working there that it's much better working for newer and/or international companies.