Guerrilla's dev team answers questions

xbdestroya said:
Well and NDA's have more going for them than just employment prospects. If a breach can be proven to have a 'material' effect on the company's possible revenues/marketing strategy/etc.. the breacher could be the target of quite the troublesome lawsuit.

That's the *real* power of NDA's, the job stuff is extra.

I don't imagine many people consider that though - and going after an individual isn't likely to be financially worthwhile anyway. Also it depends what contracts have been signed by individuals and which are between the companies (which then rely on the companies internal NDAs to enforce).

I suspect an individual would only be subject to a lawsuit if they did something like make money selling secrets to competitors, rather than just blab a bit too much in public.

I'm not about to test this theory however.
 
ERP said:
Sony were really anal about who could sign initially, we had a programmer here who was lead programmer on a would be PS3 title who wasn't allowed access to the docs because his nationality wasn't on the list.

That's insane. I hope they've changed that...
 
typoEDR said:
That's insane. I hope they've changed that...

As it was explained to me, the issue was that there were export restrictions on stuff relating to Cell (any sufficiently powerful computer technology is problematic) and giving individuals access to the technology (even just the docs) counts as export to an individuals country of origin, not where they currently live.

Given that most info on Cell is now actually public, it shouldn't apply anymore. It's at the stage now where we can vet our own staff and not have to ask Sony for each person.
 
MrWibble said:
I don't imagine many people consider that though - and going after an individual isn't likely to be financially worthwhile anyway. Also it depends what contracts have been signed by individuals and which are between the companies (which then rely on the companies internal NDAs to enforce).

I suspect an individual would only be subject to a lawsuit if they did something like make money selling secrets to competitors, rather than just blab a bit too much in public.

I'm not about to test this theory however.

Well, when my company back in the start-up days used to dole out the NDA's, we were definitely thinking the lawsuit threat was the more prominent 'tool' at our disposal, since jobs were a-plenty at that time. You're right though, it depends NDA to NDA, and who the two involved parties are.

And I agree, more often than not it wouldn't be worth pursuing on the issuers part. In fact, it could blow up in their face PR-wise. (Apple's legal actions last year come to mind)

But whatever's going on, Sony seems to achieve an unprecented level of compliance.
 
Yes. Leaks occassionally happen but all members of the chain are normally dead before they have chance to release the rumours into the wild. And we know the Ninja's are so good and effective because we never hear leaks and we never hear stories of Ninjas. :oops:
 
All those NDA responses make it a little clearer the mechanics of why there haven't been any major (if any?) leaks on the PS3 compared to the 360. Pretty impressive I'd say.

Bearing in mind TTP & Mr Wibble's responses, it does feel like the time where lack of news is just not funny anymore.

Anyway, I think that the integration of the regional Sony studio's was announced around September '05. Bit of a wishy-washy question but how long til the Sony 1st party studios see any benefit from that? And is there a precedence to this scenario? I know dev's have merged/been consumed before but on a tech sharing level... is it really that easy?
 
DeanoC said:
Well as Lead Programmer, would be a bit scary if I didn't ;-) We've met up with Guerilla a few times, last time was when we had Guerilla over at the office a few months ago. We (all SCEE 1st parties and NT) are all getting together soon IIRC

Guerilla and NT have direct contact and we also share forums etc. We should probably use them more than we do, buts its fairly hard on a day to day basis. One of the things I've got to sort out... We both work very closely with ATG (DeanA's group) and so we get to see posts made by all users of ATGs libraries (so I see posts by Guerilla, SCEE game teams etc.). All one big happy family, except we (NT) aren't actually family, more just some lodger who won't leave :D


NT get treated pretty much as a first party, only real difference is that occaniously Phil has to confirm whether we can attend or get access to some stuff. Which makes sense as we aren't Sony...

Are Icognito also treated in this way like NT and have they been on the meetings also?
 
slider said:
All those NDA responses make it a little clearer the mechanics of why there haven't been any major (if any?) leaks on the PS3 compared to the 360. Pretty impressive I'd say.

Bearing in mind TTP & Mr Wibble's responses, it does feel like the time where lack of news is just not funny anymore.

Anyway, I think that the integration of the regional Sony studio's was announced around September '05. Bit of a wishy-washy question but how long til the Sony 1st party studios see any benefit from that? And is there a precedence to this scenario? I know dev's have merged/been consumed before but on a tech sharing level... is it really that easy?
One of the odd things about NDAs is that you can't even mention your under them... so no comment except to say that they are taken VERY seriously and that breaking some NDAs could land people jail time!

No its not 'that' easy to combine disperate groups, nor I'd imagine would complete integration be possible or diserable. Different teams across the world have different likes and dislikes, but what can work quickly (and which Sony has set up) is the marketplace model. Groups offer things they have they think might be useful and then other groups take them, work with them etc. for the benefit of all interested groups.
 
overclocked said:
Are Icognito also treated in this way like NT and have they been on the meetings also?
Don't know... its not that organised, the people we have some contact with are basically the Europeans that did stuff for the E3 presentation. We have only meet a few times and I don't think its ever been the same people. Its usually happens when there is some overlap in what we are doing and somebody has spotted that, and think its wise to get the various groups together.
 
DeanoC said:
One of the odd things about NDAs is that you can't even mention your under them... so no comment except to say that they are taken VERY seriously and that breaking some NDAs could land people jail time!
Which raises the question is it fair and decent to 'pressure' devs to leak info? Isn't that like asking a friend to shoplift or nick a car or something? All these people asking for clues, and what do they give in return for devs, if they did leak info, to justify the risks involved?
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Which raises the question is it fair and decent to 'pressure' devs to leak info? Isn't that like asking a friend to shoplift or nick a car or something? All these people asking for clues, and what do they give in return for devs, if they did leak info, to justify the risks involved?

Just so you all know I wasn't after that! I've seen various "jokey" attempts to entice devs to reveal just a little more but sheesh, I can wait the however many months til launch day - esp if not waiting is pressuring people who contribute to the board. Apologies if it came across like that

I was gonna say something about "you're the real heroes" but that's a little too flippant.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Which raises the question is it fair and decent to 'pressure' devs to leak info? Isn't that like asking a friend to shoplift or nick a car or something? All these people asking for clues, and what do they give in return for devs, if they did leak info, to justify the risks involved?

Well it's understandable that people want to know things, and will ask whatever is on their minds. What they should try to remember is that devs are already skirting around the limits of what they're allowed to say (because most devs are just such nice people they want to share :) ) so asking for more isn't likely to make much difference.

If anything it'll just encourage developers to stay away in future - especially if every last random comment gets disected and things inferred that weren't actually said.

So I don't have a problem with people asking questions, so long as no-one takes offence if they don't get answered. And it'd be nice if people would not try to read *too* much into every last statement, but it's only human nature (especially on the internet).
 
Jail time?

How could violating a company's trade secrets result in jail time?

I could see civil suits (in the US).

Here, the NDAs say violating could lead up to termination.
 
typoEDR said:
That's insane. I hope they've changed that...
It's normal for the tech industry in general. At IBM, a chinese national was delayed for well over a year from joining our team b/c of security clearance reasons. Not that it was some national secret or anything, but nationalities still play a significant role in determining eligibility for employment. PEACE.
 
DeanoC said:
Guerilla and NT have direct contact and we also share forums etc. We should probably use them more than we do, buts its fairly hard on a day to day basis. One of the things I've got to sort out... We both work very closely with ATG (DeanA's group) and so we get to see posts made by all users of ATGs libraries (so I see posts by Guerilla, SCEE game teams etc.). All one big happy family, except we (NT) aren't actually family, more just some lodger who won't leave :D


NT get treated pretty much as a first party, only real difference is that occaniously Phil has to confirm whether we can attend or get access to some stuff. Which makes sense as we aren't Sony...

Is this mainly first and second parties or third parties too?

Back in the PS1 days, it was alleged that first parties had access to libraries others didn't, like for instance Sony Sports vs. EA Sports.
 
Back
Top