Not always. At Frontier, I'm pretty sure lead programmers like Adam(s) and (Space Loach Guy before them) are calling the shots, or at least have some significant sway.
space loach guy should be sandro and i'm pretty sure he's not a programmer. anyway, i get your point. of course there are lead programmers, even locally revered gurus, and usually they are taken into account about what can be done and what is too much. that's still a long shot from calling the shots, their input will always be constrained to the specific field they are good at. say, server stuff, stellar forge, 3d engine, etc. e.g. adam is a producer (statisically: a mediocre ex-programmer
) and as such i expect him to weight all those inputs and, yeah, call some actual shots, definitely not all of them.
That's not to say that there aren't some "cog" programmers at Frontier who only do what they are told, but I've yet seen much evidence that Frontier has a whole team dedicated to marketing, strategies, and product design. They still feel like small-scale indie developers, at least when it comes to ED.
this is the thing, it's kind of a mix because they are still assimilating that growth. they are indy-ish in product, but act like activision in presence and communication. and they have just built a high throughput game factory, starting from a small for hire developer, the staff has increased manifold and all that is incredibly hard to manage and takes time and a lot of energy.
elite is also special because it has lived through this transition and, maybe more important, has little to do with their other work (both recent and old). it is indeed nothing like frontier themselves imagined at start, where they were still clearly pushing a niche title, and talking about vr, linux, offline mode, ship boarding, etc. consoles came a few years later out of the blue and are a clear sign of that shift in priorities. namely: into turning elite into the revenue machine their other titles are. i guarrantee you, over a cold dead thargoid wrapped in elephant leather, that decision wasn't made by any programmer
Though I think a huge part of the ADS / FSS controversy was that people bought product A, and then Frontier did a switch-a-roo and gave them product B after funds were transferred from our wallets. Now many of us may choose not to reward Frontier with any more money (cosmetics or their other products like JWE), but we can't go back in time and not buy ED based on what it will become vs. what it was.
well, that's life. i didn't suggest to sue them either. it's just how it is, and the money paid, at least from my perspective, they duly earned, no problem with that. it's just that the product has indeed changed, and is not what we would have expected, which was a possibility, and also understandable. dead horse, jim. i will likely buy their next expansion too, because all in all it's a good game. what i won't do is giving them additional profits for junk while fundamental issues are still pending. i did that the first year, now the whole 'support the developers' psalm some people still chant today is really embarrassing, and imo works
against the quality of the game. well, if people are fine with that and feel like spending money on crap ... well, that's their decision.
add: the real gripe i have with frontier is having used elite as a launchpad for their big business dreams. that's not really fair, specially not for the people who supported them at start. but, business is business.
