Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I call it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.) Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I’d point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all. But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn’t. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.
Which is why it’s so frightening Buyin’ papers in the morning Fearing the next Mike Skinner scoop ’Cause I used to believe what I read So now I know that others Will believe that it’s true
This is interesting. But perhaps some professions or some subsets of them are really better understood by the general public and journalists than others.
For example in software, a lot of people seem to have a good basic idea about what a web browser is how game development looks like. However it is really funny that if you work with ERP/business software like SAP, Oracle Financials or Navision, you find that nobody outside the fairly narrow profession has any clue. Articles are full of empty platitudes like “XY implements best-practice business processs and provides transparency” and it is very clear that this all simply means absolutely no idea about what it actually does, or how, or even what it is for. Meanwhile, a huge number of people know that game development is usually about artists making 3D objects and textures, an inner core of real programmers making a 3D engine and an outer circle of less-real-programmers-but-know-more-about-fun type of people writing scripts to script the behavior of the 3D objects in the engine. At least this is what the common knowledge seems to be and IMHO fairly accurate.
It’s accurate but not very precise, in the same way that the story about how there are wet streets and rain is true but misses the inner connections. Many people fail to get the distinctions between programmers, artists, and designers, because they want designers to fix bugs, just shift staff to design, etc. And testers are nowhere in that simplified model. So people have enough of an idea to get the wrong idea.
Many game developers have a shaky idea of how game development works once the team is larger than can work in one room. That becomes project management, and if you ever want to to see the planning fallacy in all its glory, follow game development and the timelines of when things will be ready. Showing off my own availability bias, the first example that comes to mind is this game, which was “two months from beta” three years ago and has yet to release. Heck, last week’s big story in game development was the PC port of Batman: Arkham Knight, a major release that had to be taken off the market and is now labeled as available this fall. They had to revise the release date after releasing.
“Why Speculate?” by Michael Crichton
— Mike Skinner, “When You Wasn’t Famous”
This is interesting. But perhaps some professions or some subsets of them are really better understood by the general public and journalists than others.
For example in software, a lot of people seem to have a good basic idea about what a web browser is how game development looks like. However it is really funny that if you work with ERP/business software like SAP, Oracle Financials or Navision, you find that nobody outside the fairly narrow profession has any clue. Articles are full of empty platitudes like “XY implements best-practice business processs and provides transparency” and it is very clear that this all simply means absolutely no idea about what it actually does, or how, or even what it is for. Meanwhile, a huge number of people know that game development is usually about artists making 3D objects and textures, an inner core of real programmers making a 3D engine and an outer circle of less-real-programmers-but-know-more-about-fun type of people writing scripts to script the behavior of the 3D objects in the engine. At least this is what the common knowledge seems to be and IMHO fairly accurate.
It’s accurate but not very precise, in the same way that the story about how there are wet streets and rain is true but misses the inner connections. Many people fail to get the distinctions between programmers, artists, and designers, because they want designers to fix bugs, just shift staff to design, etc. And testers are nowhere in that simplified model. So people have enough of an idea to get the wrong idea.
Many game developers have a shaky idea of how game development works once the team is larger than can work in one room. That becomes project management, and if you ever want to to see the planning fallacy in all its glory, follow game development and the timelines of when things will be ready. Showing off my own availability bias, the first example that comes to mind is this game, which was “two months from beta” three years ago and has yet to release. Heck, last week’s big story in game development was the PC port of Batman: Arkham Knight, a major release that had to be taken off the market and is now labeled as available this fall. They had to revise the release date after releasing.