How big IC is!?!?!

from Sins Forums

After owning boxed version of Sins since day 1 of release last night was actually the first time that I opened last page of the manual and looked at the credits...

I couldn't believe my own eyes when I saw ONLY 9 (yes nine!) people under Iron Clad!!!

WTF!

Is it really true that only 9 people (with obvious help of handful of other guys from SD) made one of the best games of all time!?!?!

If it is... My super respect for you guys has just gone through the roof!!!

k6  

22,016 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I think it's quite possible since it isn't nearly as artistically demanding as a first person shooter where the game needs at least twenty high-quality maps and large amount of textures, etc.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

They are up to 10 now :P But yep, it was made by 9 people originally.

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 2
They are up to 10 now But yep, it was made by 9 people originally.
End of Annatar11's quote

LMAO!!!

This is insane :p

Of course, in positive sense!!!

It almost reminds me of C64 and Amiga 500 times of "bedroom programming" :D

Genius!!!

Genius!!!

Genius!!!

 

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Personally I think the small team at ironclad did an amazing job and frankly this is one of my favorite games.  It must be double the satisfaction for the deveolpers since they made such a great product with 1/10 the size of some game development teams. 

 

 

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Simmyaz, reply 4
Personally I think the small team at ironclad did an amazing job and frankly this is one of my favorite games.  It must be double the satisfaction for the deveolpers since they made such a great product with 1/10 the size of some game development teams. 
End of Simmyaz's quote

Exactly!

I personally know couple of dev studios (no names mentioned) that number well over 120 guys yet objectively speaking have achieved way less than 9 guys at IC...

This stuff should be going into gaming history books as of now :) 

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

I remember Blair did an interview at one point and he said (to paraphrase) that whenever you have people whose only job is to manage other people, you're already too big :P So that's their philosophy and the kind of company they want, small and where everyone is involved and there's much less red tape, so to speak.

Last time I checked they had posted a job opening for a concept artist, so maybe they even have 11 or so by now! Or at least looking to get a handful more people.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 6
Last time I checked they had posted a job opening for a concept artist, so maybe they even have 11 or so by now! Or at least looking to get a handful more people.
End of Annatar11's quote

OMG thats shit...

They should stay at 10 or soon will need a manager of some sort ;)

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Aside from the idea that more staff means more people-management issues, from a software development perspective, it really starts to get complex. SVN starts requireing serious check-in rules/policies, test and debug complexity increases, chances of missing a development issue gets higher, code review becomes more critical, etc etc. Just look at the complexity of softare development at Microsoft or Linux Kernels and you can see that the process (not talking about quality) of software development is really complex.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

They will be at 12 employees soon.  I'm just waiting for the call to say "you're hired". 

 

I can game test, software debugging, support, bit of audio in the way of music/effects, bring coffee, work weekends/holidays, don't require a lot of pay, and will move to Vancouver.

 

/end pipe dream

 

Anyway, Ironclad and Stardock are beacons of hope to me in this sespool companies like EA haved turned gaming into.  Keep up the good work, and I'll continue to buy your and Stardock's games/software out of principle.