It's been another long week.  I went to bed at 6:30am this morning, got up at around 10am and worked until around 11pm.  My schedule is pretty screwed up at this point.  But I think we've turned the corner in terms of work. 

GalCiv stuff...

We got Galactic Civilizations II 1.0X out the door.  I certainly hope it's "good enough".  It's really difficult to tell on so many different systems. I always get worried that we'll put something out and there will be some sort of catastrophic problem with it.  And the reality is, for someone, somewhere, there will be some catastrophic problem.  It's all about numbers.  The goal is to never have 0 problems because that's impossible. The goal is to keep it at less than 1% which is the goal of 1.0X.

It's been a pretty crazy ride though.  I don't think I've been flamed as many times in a 2 week span ever than these past 2 weeks.  On the other hand, I don't think I've ever had as many kudos/ataboys/cheers in a 2 week span than these past 2 weeks. 

It's probably the first time we've made something that had such instant, large scale success/availability that we've been able to attrack the kinds of attention we've gotten.  Last week we were the top selling PC software product at Walmart.  That's just crazy. 

This week, the reviews have started to come in.  Gamespot gave the game a 9/10.  That's the first 9 or better Gamespot has given a PC game since last October. It's very rare for them to give a game a 9 or better so it really means a lot.  Gamespy gave it 4.5/5.  UGO gave it an A-.  And so on.  Good reviews, strong sales, all seems well.  But man, am I tired.  Exhausted.  And soon I have to switch back to working on the core business stuff, the utility software.

Taxes

We also need to start hiring up to go to the next level.  Here on JoeUser, there's regular debates on taxes.  It's easy to talk about how "they" (i.e. "the rich") should pay a lot more in taxes.  But when you beocme "they" it's tough.  For instance, let's just us GalCiv as an example.  Let's say it sells 300,000 units.  We make around $20 per unit at retail.  So that would be $6M in revenue.  Since Stardock was already running well in the black before release, that woudl be $6M net.  The government would literally take around $3M of it.  Our accountants will probably be able to get that down to being a mere $2.2M probably.  But still, think of that money, gone.  

That's money that would have gone to give people raises.  Hire more people. Invest in more equipment.  Who is better qualified to spend the $2.2M?  Us or the government?  I guess that depends on your point of view.  When I hear of how much is wasted in Washington on boondongle projects, it's really painful to think that it's our money they do that with.  Those 90 to 111 hour weeks for the past few months spent making something so that the government can squander it on some pork barrel project or worthless study or one of the myriad of other blatantly, undefensibly wasteful things they do.

Investing and hiring

So like I said, we have to hire quite a few more people.  If we're going to expand our development team to make the most of Windows Vista as well as capitalize on the popularity of GalCiv to continue that series as well as expand into Society we're going to have to bring in more people. A lot more people.  Which of course is always a challenge.  I'm terrible at interviewing. I basically go by personality and potential ability and am tone deaf when it comes to measuring one's actualized ability.  That is, I can usually tell what someone is capable of but not very good at weeding out people who simply are not willing or able to meet their potential.

JoeUser melodrama

JoeUser is going through one of its melodrama cycles.  I've joked to friends in the past that this stuff could almost be plotted and graphed.  Every on-line community goes through it.  Seeing a prominent member like LW leave is sad but inevitable (not her in particular but prominent members leaving).  And it gives me no pleasure in saying that in another 9 months only a few people will remember her.  In fact, I find that one of the more depressing things about on-line communities.  The communities stay and grow even when individuals move on.

The Jark episode at deviantART is still one of the most troubling examples.  Here was a guy who was the heart and soul of the site. The literal founder. And then one day, he was fired by the other stock holders. Gone. One day he's there. Next day he's gone.  You can learn more about it from Jark's page (or at least his side of things).  The point of that isn't who is right or wrong but to point out that even someone who is the founder of a community and a daily presence for 5 years can be quickly and utterly forgotten by the community as a whole in less than 5 months.  There are plenty of people -- individuals -- who remember. But the community moves on.  That is one reason I never romantacize about any "community".  I have no illusions that if I disappeared from JU, there would be individuals who would care, but in time, the community would move on.

The point is, if you're going to be part of a community, be a part of it because YOU enjoy it. Because it brings you happiness or is interesting.  Be part of a community because you want to be.  Don't do it for the sake of others.  Blogging is about expressing yourself.  Putting your thoughts down. Expressing your opinions.  If you're not having fun doing it, take a break for a day, a week, a month and come back when you think it will be fun for YOU again. 

Never ever sacrifice your own interest for the sake of an on-line community because in the end you'll only be disappointed and embittered.  I've been doing this stuff for literally 20 years now (20 years this month actually).  From the earliest BBSes to this.  I'm part of dozens of different on-line communities. I've seen things come and go and the only way you can keep it up is to not confuse a community for a virtual family.  Individuals in a community can be counted on.  But not the community unto itself.  A community is a thing. It's not a person.  Communities have no loyalty, no compassion, no appreciation.  It's about the individuals of that community -- specific ones.  Each of us have people here we care about, that we like. Maybe there's some we don't like. It's all good. 

Just don't confuse the individuals for the community and make sure you're having fun.

Spin

Though to people on JU who care a lot about the community, and god bless them, the melodrama means a great deal to them.  If I had more free time, I'd be right with them.  The one thing I have noticed are the tell-tale signs of spinning.  For example, the melodrama here on JU was precipitated by a prominate user (LW) leaving in response to her husband being banned.  The spin I've seen is to imply that I got mad at her husband because of his blog article. 

On the contrary, I found the actual article amusing.  What I didn't care for was the personal (as in bringing in off-topic elements to use to create a personal attack) button pushing.  And congrats, condescension and patronziing push my buttons.  And if there were awards for being good at pushing someone's buttons, LW's husband would get one.  But I'd also argue that it's probably not a good idea to push the buttons of the person who runs the blog site.  I warned him, he persisted, he's gone. 

What really set some people off were my words: "I don't care if people blog here or not."  But that's the thing I don't care one way or the other.  People create their own virtual homes here.  I'm basically an indifferent landlord.  JU's complexity means that it's a problematic site at times.  I wish I could justify putting more dev time into the site but right now, we're stretched too thin.  Things slowly do get better on the technical side but it's slow going (though they'll be getting much better this Spring when the new server farm is in place which will automatically help JU).

I don't really feel that people who blog here owe me anything. I don't really look at it like I'm doing them a favor. I just don't like it when someone implies they're doing me a favor by being here.

What's next

Well hopefully in the next few weeks things will return to a more "normal" 60 hour a week thing.  Then this summer, things should really settle down and I'll start to take some serious time off.  I've even considered working only part-time this summer.  I'm 34.  I really don't want to think I've wasted all my youth working.  So if I'm posting about how many hours I'm doing this summer, you'll know I failed.