Hacker News Reader

Comment by CydeWeys | Hacker News Reader

Those are bad examples because they didn't need huge unprofitable upfront investments. Unreal engine, for example, was a side benefit of creating a game that was itself profitable, and then they realized they could make additional money from licensing the engine, and did so. It simply doesn't take massive upfront independent investment to develop game engines, and the market is already crowded with all sorts of good options some of which are even developed on a volunteer basis (like Minecraft which originally used the open source LWJGL).

View on HN

This comment doesn't really make sense to me. To me, (paraphrasing heavily), the comment two tiers above you is trying to say, "The upside is not high enough as typical moonshot companies to raise as much as they did. Plus, they could have probably broken the problem down further."

The guy above you responds: "But these game engines had very high upside."

And you respond: "But those game engines didn't need high upfront investment. And none really do, you can make them cheaply."

That wasn't the point of the guy above. His point is, "There may be enough upside to building a really good game engine." The hypothesis of this company is by spending a lot of money building a really good game engine, they can get upside like Unreal. Whether or not that hypothesis makes sense is entirely a different discussion than: "Is there enough upside to justify this hypothesis", the question at hand.

That's not what the poster you're responding to said.

Ruby on Rails was extracted from the creation of a website, basecamp. Once they were done creating it they realized they could extract a new framework out of it and did so.

This has multiple benefits.

1. profitable from the get go 2. design geared towards solving actual problems

What the person above you is saying is that the Unreal Engine was created in the same manner, whereas SpatialOS was not. And because of that, the risk was much lower.

I agree with you, but why was the person above me commenting on risk?

While it is true that those things happened with Unreal Engine, it was sideways from the discussion that was occurring, but presented as a refutation. Risk has nothing to do with the comment two tier above me. I'm just pointing that out.

when people start quibbling over words I like to point them to this feynman video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFIYKmos3-s

The idea that risk isn't a part of the discussion about why a company is laying off 40% of its work force doesn't seem like it has much merit.

The responses made sense, and they've been explained to you. You're just casting about trying to come up with some way to dismiss the other persons point while intellectualizing it for the HN audience. If we were on reddit your tone would be some passive aggressive wiffle waffle about experience or intelligence.

The tone might change based upon the site, but the inaneness of the person behind them doesn't.

Hey man, I still don't think you are understanding my point. This comment is actually pretty interesting:

> if it had been unity or unreal engine, would you have changed your opinion?

To me (again, to me. You could have a different interpretation, that's fine), the conversation was no longer about Improbable. It's about VC. The guy above him is arguing that a game engine does not have long term payoffs to justify the investments Fair got. But if they had made Unreal Engine, maybe it would have been worth it. It's not a bad comparison at all- Unreal Engine was made in a non-risky way, but if they HAD made it in a risky way, it might have been worth it to do.

> The idea that risk isn't a part of the discussion about why a company is laying off 40% of its work force doesn't seem like it has much merit.

When I commented, we were three degrees of separation away from Fair. So while this happened on a post about Fair, I just didn't get why it was relevant. But I see how my tone could have came off as dismissive. In truth I would rather have seen people debate the quoted comment, which is interesting, but the discussion got sidetracked, and I was trying to bring it back to the main point- I see how it could have been seen as dismissive for sure.

Your comment kind of bugs me. It's one line of content and four of person attacks. You've said that the responses have been explained, but you spent way more time insulting me than explaining. You said my tone would have been condescending if we were on Reddit, but you directly insulted me multiple times, and we're not on Reddit. Read your comment back to yourself. How would you feel if you received that? Are you proud of saying that to someone? I seriously don't think I said anything pointless. Even if it was pointless, there are way more respectful ways to say it, I was feeling down today and you made me feel worse.

How does it make sense to take massive risks when doing so is simply not necessary? That's very rarely going to be the correct play. It does not take a massive risk (i.e. huge upfront financial investment) to make a game engine, so why in the world would you do so? And why would anyone give you the money to do so?

Contrast with something like self-driving cars, which do require unbelievably massive upfront investments and still aren't solved satisfactorily yet, despite the investment of untold tens of billions of dollars that no one has yet recouped a cent of.

honestly, all you've done here is reinforced my belief that you're not worth interacting with.

> Are you proud of saying that to someone?

well my days of dismissing you are certainly coming to a middle.

Imagine if my spent my time caring about someone who chose to patronize me.

> I was feeling down today and you made me feel worse.

good! Perhaps you'll adjust your behavior.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com