An extra medium time ago I was a platform QA lead at a mobile phone game company. When you read that you probably thought of the phone in your hand and the most recent mobile game you played. Nah, think of this, and you are in the ballpark.
Back then we had to test every version of every game on every SKU. There were hundreds stored in a place we called "The Armory." All to be issued, received, and maintained countless times throughout the day. Guess who that task fell upon? But I didn't mind, it was exactly what I did in the military, cept everything at the old gig blew up. A step up, in my humble opinion.
Apple's new "iPhone" was set to launch summer of that year. I asked my boss how many we had ordered to test, and I... hahaha... I still laugh at it today... Here is what he said:
"We aren't ordering that piece of shit. Nobody is gonna buy it, it's too expensive. Nobody wants their phone to do "everything" and they don't care what it looks like. They want it to make calls and maybe play a little solitaire while they take a shit. That's it. And the touchscreen, don't even get me started! It's gonna get dirty the first day!! Have they even thought this through? Yeah we ordered a ton of Blackberry's cause we aren't fuckin' morons."
Even back then, well before I experienced first-hand what Apple's iPhone product line would become, well before I saw what smartphones would do to this planet. Well before I really, trully, understood the catastrophic effects of the capitalistically transmitted buisness disease called hubris. I looked that man dead in his corneas for a beat, then laughed a throaty, teary eyed guffaw. He got in his feelings about it and fired me in the fall, right after his boss forced him to place the first "iphone" order.
Listen: Gaming industry management and C-Suite are full of idiotic, gatekeeping, racist, misogynistic, man children. A perfect representation of the majority of the player base. Point blank period. And when pressed they say they were too young to judge but they were thirty fuckin' plus years old. They say no one spoke up at the time, lies. Anyone brave enough to speak up were fired to maintain the "Company Culture." They say they will do better, but they prove time and again that they don't know how. They just are not worthy leaders.
The people who survived your attempts to kill us in this town because we dared to be intolerant to intolerance and made you uncomfortable about making people uncomfortable. We still around, so just tell the truth, especially now that it's the only move you got left. Enjoy your time on that summer jam screen.
Anyway, The Ascent is dope. The ride I been waiting for since CP 2077. Gewd shit. Also rip TB rip TC tip Tall-T. Love is wise, hate is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobs.
