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Analogue Pocket Hate Story

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Re: Analogue Pocket Hate Story

#121

Post by timw4mail »

emodendroket wrote: post #111
kllrnohj wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://anbernic.com/products/anbernic-new-rg351v-retro-game... Seems to be $120 for equivalent form-factor, but still missing a large amount of what the Pocket supports (such as physical cartridges, link cable, and TV output), and with a worse display and a smaller battery. And it's not like the Pocket is that much more expensive at $220.

On the other hand, I can't use the Analog Pocket to play PlayStation, Dreamcast, Genesis, etc., can I?

Not yet, but the hardware capability is there.

Re: Analogue Pocket Hate Story

#122

Post by renewiltord »

donatj wrote: post #50

I think Analogue was more than reasonable here? They offered an entirely reasonable amount of money for anyone who didn't live in the valley (most people), then we're flexible enough to double it when it wasn't enough. They asked the person to sign a reasonable NDA that sounds much less restrictive than anything I've ever had to sign, and they were out? 6 months of non-competition on a direct competitor in a tech job…

My consulting rate for just talking about areas of business is $400/hr. I live in SF so I’m maybe seeing a little less than half that post tax, which is why the offer may seem so out of touch.

It’s a pretty straightforward conversation. I just say what I’m willing to do. If it doesn’t work out, it’s okay. But that’s harder for enthusiasts.

I think part of this is that enthusiasts also want to help out and they’re usually unfamiliar with consulting style gigs. When both parties want to play and they’re both willing to discount/pay premium but bid and ask don’t cross even with the handicap, then this sort of thing tends to happen.

That’s why the value judgment comes in. They both want to play.

Re: Analogue Pocket Hate Story

#123

Post by emodendroket »

tombert wrote: post #118
emodendroket wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FPGA doesn't really solve your other two issues, nor is it practical for anything post-PlayStation/Saturn/N64, so those objections are not very strong. Past that point the games are designed more with a certain amount of lag in mind anyways.

> FPGA doesn't really solve your other two issues, nor is it practical for anything post-PlayStation/Saturn/N64 I agree with most of your point here, bus is that particular one true? Doesn't the Gamecube (for example) use a PowerPC chip? I would be very surprised if isn't an effort to make FPGA implementations of the PowerPC. I realize that there's a lot more to making a clone system than "just recreating the CPU", b…

As I understand it, the hardware they’re using isn’t up to the task and it would be prohibitively expensive. The complexity is also greater but perhaps that isn’t insurmountable.

Re: Analogue Pocket Hate Story

#124

Post by teawrecks »

zackbloom wrote: post #3

This reads like a case of 'all about me'-ism. It sounds like this person negotiated their salary, and then decided the company didn't value them _because_ the company agreed to raise it when asked. If your goal is to have people throw money at you which you don't ask for, you are going to have a tough time working. A company that's willing to double your salary when you point out the offer is low sounds pretty great…

When I'm negotiating compensation for a job, it should most definitely be 100% "all about me". There is no charity involved here. The company isn't going to make any investments in me that it doesn't think will pay off for itself later, and I should do the same.

> The company being somewhat reasonable with money

That's the thing, they weren't. If you've done the math and know how much a task is worth, then you should offer roughly that amount. To ask one amount and then double it when it's not enough means you either haven't done the math, or you have and you were hoping the potential hire hadn't.

It's like when I see anything regularly go on sale for 50%+ off; they're probably making money even when it's on sale, which means without the sale they have more than a 100% markup over cost. They have their market cornered and are getting as greedy as they can. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with me not buying it either.

Re: Analogue Pocket Hate Story

#125

Post by BizarroLand »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #88
friedman23 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A company that's willing to double your salary when you point out the offer is low sounds pretty great to me. Yeah, a $1 to $2 raise, how generous. What I got out of this article is that the author knows the value of their time. $20,000 for 4 to 6 months of work for a software engineer is an insult. They might as well ask him to work for free.

>>$20,000 for 4 to 6 months $20,000 for 300-400hrs of work, as estimated, quoted and documented by the author. I don't know why we are trying to misinterpret the story so hard in this thread. And I don't know how much more entitlement we can possibly have as profession on this continent, where we find $50-$66USD per hour of optional, interesting and challenging, comfortable and remote work, a perceived insult worthy…

That's 300-400 hours in the mines. That doesn't account for the time you spend pondering about the problems, or studying and researching solutions. Sure, you could in theory power through 10 hour days and knock it out in a month, but that is only if you know the solution and all that has to be done is to press keys on a keyboard until the solution is built.

Re: Analogue Pocket Hate Story

#126

Post by TAForObvReasons »

aseipp wrote: post #106
zackbloom wrote: post #3

This reads like a case of 'all about me'-ism. It sounds like this person negotiated their salary, and then decided the company didn't value them _because_ the company agreed to raise it when asked. If your goal is to have people throw money at you which you don't ask for, you are going to have a tough time working. A company that's willing to double your salary when you point out the offer is low sounds pretty great…

Doesn't matter. She has the needed skills, she gets to set the terms completely. "I want X to happen" and X doesn't happen? No deal. Pretty straightforward. I read all the chat logs and I can say she was much nicer than she probably had to be, honestly. In the end, she realized they wanted to delay mGBA development, that their deadlines were shifting (they wanted no commits for 6-months post release of a product that…

There's a deep and misplaced sense of entitlement here.

Some companies have money and want to complete a project, and some developers can do the work and want to be compensated. The process by which the compensation is determined involves negotiation. That is a two-sided process. In none of the presented screenshots did the author actually propose what she thought was a fair compensation for the work. She suggests $20K may work but that is the moment to say what she thinks is fair or what would have been worth her time

A lot of people who do emulator work are not based in SF. Many are in other countries where $10K stretches a lot further. The actual offer is not really insulting if the company didn't know she was in such a high COL area.

In the case of GBA emulator work, there is some sort of market. For example, MVG wrote the emulator for the Shantae re-release and there's no reason to believe others can't do the same.

If the author straight up made a counter, we could judge the reasonableness accordingly. In absence, it seems like entitlement.

Re: Analogue Pocket Hate Story

#127

Post by xondono »

RandallBrown wrote: post #77
xondono wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $20,000 for 4 to 6 months of work for a software engineer is an insult. In SV, the company is from HK. If that offer was ridiculous too, she should have said as much. I’ve been offered flat 200$ for jobs that cost >10k$. Your clients might not know the price of your labor, it’s your job to inform them.

Wikipedia says the company is in Seattle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogue_(company)

It says “founded”. Their terms of service point to Analogue Enterprises Limited, registered in HK.

Founded is a typical weasel word because people tend to be more trusting of american companies.

Re: Analogue Pocket Hate Story

#128

Post by tombert »

emodendroket wrote: post #123
tombert wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FPGA doesn't really solve your other two issues, nor is it practical for anything post-PlayStation/Saturn/N64 I agree with most of your point here, bus is that particular one true? Doesn't the Gamecube (for example) use a PowerPC chip? I would be very surprised if isn't an effort to make FPGA implementations of the PowerPC. I realize that there's a lot more to making a clone system than "just recreating the CPU", b…

As I understand it, the hardware they’re using isn’t up to the task and it would be prohibitively expensive. The complexity is also greater but perhaps that isn’t insurmountable.

I don't know a lot about FPGAs, but I guess I just assumed that they're like basically everything else in tech where they get cheaper and better as time goes on. If that's correct then I don't see why we couldn't have a GameCube or Xbox clone system eventually.

I think this might be more important as time goes on as well. Getting cycle-accurate emulation of anything more complex than the Dreamcast I think will become pretty prohibitive to do in-software. I suspect something like CEN64 might end up being the last cycle-accurate emulator out there (though I would absolutely love to be wrong on that). The advantages of FPGAs would make themselves substantially more apparent at that point than the Gameboy or NES.

Re: Analogue Pocket Hate Story

#129

Post by NikolaNovak »

danShumway wrote: post #110
NikolaNovak wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything else aside, let's pick a math and stick with it :). The offer was not (as I understand it) $20k for 4 months of life, it was $20k for estimated 300-400hrs of work, freely estimated by the author themselves. Which comes out to $50-$65 USD/hr. Which is atrociously low for Silicon Valley consultant rates, and quite high in much of the world. So it may well not be worth author's time, but does not on its own i…

> Which is atrociously low for [deleted] consultant rates I don't think $50 an hour is a reasonable salary for consulting period. An experienced/senior developer working full time for a company with benefits in a cheap area should still (off the top of my head) probably be looking for at min $100,000 to $120,000 yearly salary (roughly $50 an hour). Depending on the situation you might be able to get more than that, I…

You don't have to go far for Silicon Valley rates to be insane.

I'm in Canada. Experienced developer salary under 100k CAD is the norm. Consultant rates of $100CAD/hr are not unusual.

And then there's the rest of the world.

I have no beef with author for rejecting an offer that didn't make sense to them.

I am however disappointed for eagerness to ascribe malevolence and disrespect, and demonize a company whose side, balance sheet, and options we don't understand even remotely. I've read the screenshoted messages and they all seemed polite & understanding; no pressure, no offense. They made an offer and it didn't work out, life goes on for all involved - unless, and this is my personal daily fear, an internet mob decides some offense was committed. I expect and hope for more from HN.

Re: Analogue Pocket Hate Story

#130

Post by NikolaNovak »

BizarroLand wrote: post #125
NikolaNovak wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>$20,000 for 4 to 6 months $20,000 for 300-400hrs of work, as estimated, quoted and documented by the author. I don't know why we are trying to misinterpret the story so hard in this thread. And I don't know how much more entitlement we can possibly have as profession on this continent, where we find $50-$66USD per hour of optional, interesting and challenging, comfortable and remote work, a perceived insult worthy…

That's 300-400 hours in the mines. That doesn't account for the time you spend pondering about the problems, or studying and researching solutions. Sure, you could in theory power through 10 hour days and knock it out in a month, but that is only if you know the solution and all that has to be done is to press keys on a keyboard until the solution is built.

All 100% correct, and in my mind 100% irrelevant. Author was the sole source of seemingly unpressured estimate; it was up to them to give an inclusive realistic estimate and quote they felt confident about.

They gave an estimate, company made an offer; they asked for more, company doubled. They decided it still wasn't worth it. Awesome. Nobody was forced to do business together. Why are we still trying to make excuses as if there was some pressure to do un/underpaid work? I did not see it in the very polite and understanding screenshots. Am I missing something that's causing this outrage? why is this even a thing we're talking about is still my personal question in this thread :D

Edit: You know what; I re-read to see if I'm missing something, and indeed I did: though author insists, multiple times, in bold letters, that company mandated six months, based on screenshots, company in fact relented and agreed to one month difference. Which author themselves indicate was far less than normal between-releases period.

1: https://endrift.com/resources/post-assets/analogue-12.png

Nope, I'm out, I have no rage to spare at this particular "injustice".

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