[Loser]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
How is it possable that one guy, Aaron, working on his own can invent such a game as SEIV whereas a team of "motivated" people working at QS could only come up with a lame assed game like MOO3?

There is a word for this. I have heard it called Guruware, though I cannot find that term in Google, so it must not exist. While Guruware tends to have limitations, if it is done right a Guruware application is the only place you will find elegant code anymore.

Since the Algorithm, Application, and Solution are all under the control of a single individual, there are no communication issues, no short-sighted managerial decisions, and nothing to cloud the unity of vision and purpose.

The limitations of Guruware are found in scaling and maintainability. Since it is the work of one person, scaling the solution up to support the amount of features commonly found in Bloatware, or to service a larger number of Users, a larger quantity of data, or to run on a larger number of processors challenges the inherent limitations of mortal men. In addition to that, the author is human and things happen to individual humans.

As well, the author tends to be an inflexible control freak who refuses to bend to the will of his Users and views his code, and the decisions he made in that code, as sacrosanct and above question. After all, he wrote it and it works. Should another body come into possession of the code they may have trouble troubleshooting, rewriting, or even understanding it. Interestingly, Aaron and SE IV do not seem to suffer this issue: Aaron has allowed others to change the way his game works and I cannot think of a more flexible game.