This Max credits thing is apparently gonna be a big, stupid mess to fix
A new report suggests it could take weeks to restore proper credits to all the "Creators" who've been lumped together on Warner Bros. Discovery's streamer
Aux News Max
As far as own goals in digital media go, Warner Bros. Discovery’s freshly launched “Max” is the unwanted gift that keeps on giving. Several days on, there remains something almost inspiringly stupid about launching a “new” streaming service in the midst of a writers strike largely centered on the studio’s unwillingness to give writers on streaming projects their proper due, only to do so in a way that boils all proper credits down to a single “Creators” category that blurs and obscures the line between so many creative jobs.
And, as it turns out, this creative misattribution wasn’t even a deeply petty and intentional burn, which we could at least respect, in a perverse sort of way. A new report from Deadline states that WBD executives didn’t even know they were about to step on this particular rake, because the Creators tab was apparently the product of harried IT folks who were faced with the daunting task of smooshing together Warner Bros. Discovery’s huge library of content—HBO, Discovery, and other Warner Bros. properties—into one service with insufficient guidance. Rather than parse all the writers, directors, producers, and more who made these shows, movies, stand-up specials, animated series, etc.—and facing the rush to get Max out the door—they opted for the catch-all “Creators” thing instead. WBD executives apparently didn’t find out about the issue until people started, rightly, yelling at them after Max launched earlier this week.
The crux of all this, of course, is the fact that, at least from a consumer-facing point of view, there really was no reason to rush any of this; nobody except WBD execs have been clamoring for the studio to slam HBO Max and Discovery+ together, and especially not in so shoddy or slapdash a manner. The idea that nobody at higher levels even apparently thought to ask how the service would be presenting the credits of the people who actually make the content they all profit from is just sort of icing on the fecal cake here.
The Deadline report suggests that untangling this giant pile of “creators” could take the service weeks, since it’s not just like they can push a button and sort everyone who worked on, say, Mad Men, or any of the hundreds of other shows and films affected by this, into their proper spots. When asked for comment, HBO apparently pointed reporters back to their “We’re trying to fix it, we swear, please stop yelling” comment from earlier this week, which does not, in fact, seem to have stopped the yelling at all.
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Pretty sure anyone who’s ever written a line of SQL knew exactly how this situation came to be.
Tabs.
*threatens you with switchblade*
It’s nice when cyberbullying is used for good.
So either:- No one at WBD/MAX has any oversight over the IT department — which is absurd for a major division and initiative, and the IT department was put in charge of everything up to and including UI/UX — OR!- This is an excuse meant to cover either a very big mistake/intentional redesign by pushing the fault and blame to “nameless overworked IT people”, tempering the blowback because if the WGA/DGA were to go after some IT staffers they’d be the bad guy… Bad look either way, IMO!
Frankly, I believe the excuse that IT wasn’t given any guidelines and their work was rushed through. I’ve worked places where things like that happen.
IT is not going to map many fields to one without being told what the merged field would be called.But even if not, that’s still a management failure.
Maybe not your IT department, but I’ve seen it happen firsthand (albeit on a much, much smaller scale). It’s possible some executive or director didn’t understand that the field in the CMS would be called the same thing in the user’s app. Or some middle manager tasked with merging the content libraries for HBO Max and Discovery (which as has been pointed out is full of reality TV shows where the producers do the writing and directing) decided “creator” was the most apt name to describe all three jobs. Frankly, I already refer to writers, directors, actors, and producers collectively as “creators.”But yes, it is a management failure. I wasn’t accusing IT of anything but doing their job.
Third option- no one with oversight over the IT folks gave a flying fuck about whether or not “creators” were respected with proper credits.
I believe the excuse honestly – Hanlon’s Razor’s usually pretty solid.
Calling Max’s development team “IT folks” is pretty misleading – it makes it sound like they’re blaming the sysadmins and tech support department, when it will have almost certainly have been owned by a dedicated team of software engineers.
I thought they did it to lump Union and Non-Union ‘ creators’ all together in some kind of strike breaking category.
As far as I’m aware, non-union writers, directors, and producers tend to work with other non-union creators so there’s not many situations where a unionized writer’s credit would be smooshed with non-union creators. Maybe anything Robert Rodriguez works on.
Is it a credit to become union system? I think to an extent actors need to collect work credits before becoming eligible to be unionized. Back when I was trying to make a go of it i remember hearing at cattle calls that they hired like 80% union actors and they purposely leave room for some non-union actors and that’s a way to build credit towards equity or actra, I think? But maybe it just a status you get if you pay the fees I’m not certain how it works.
I don’t know the rules for every union, but I know there’s something like that for the DGA: PAs have to log their hours to join. I’m not an actor, but I’ve heard that if you get a line (i.e. you get Taft Hartley’d), you’re eligible for a SAG card. I’m not sure if that’s true though.
I thought they did it to lump Union and Non-Union ‘ creators’ all together in some kind of strike breaking category.
Justice will not be done until Satan’s name is rightfully restored as the chief creator of 90 Day Fiancee.
Joke’s on you, it was created by Nick Morgenstern.Wait…
100% based on the Discovery side of things where nobody cares who made what show.
This is every work project ever done. Spend months planning, designing, and prototyping. Give a phase gate presentation. The only contribution from upper management is a request to condense timeline. Mid level too afraid to say no.
The av club snarking about a streamer making a technical blunder feels a lot like the guy in the glass house who liked to throw stones.
This wasn’t a technical blunder. This was an idea which was implemented exactly as intended. It’s just that the idea was incredibly stupid.
Its what you get when you don’t give the developers good requirements.
It’s what you get when you do give the developers bad requirements.
Technical in the sense that it was very obviously an oversight. IT didn’t receive comprehensive guidelines (just a “make this work by May whatever” directive), so the developers had to figure out some answers on their own.I’ve seen it happen before. Management gets irritated that development is asking them questions for every little thing, tells them to just figure it out on their own, and then goes all Pikachu face when they realize that developers made decisions they don’t agree with.IMO it’s unfair to expect development to have all the same skill sets as other departments. It’s not their fault Zaslav et al rushed the app out the door.
That doesn’t get you the merged field since you would still need a name for it, and that’s one of the two hard things in Computer Science along side cache invalidation and off-by-one errors.
To be fair, I don’t think Hughes has much say in how the Kinjaverse is run.
nobody except WBD execs have been clamoring for the studio to slam HBO Max and Discovery+ togetherI think some major shareholders were, but they also wanted it to be, you know, done right, rather than fast.
“Major shareholders” don’t give a fuck about “right”, they just want to make sure the stock goes up every quarter.
Discovery+ and HBOmax are two services I have subscribed to for a few months at a time from time to time. Though I’m waiting until they get the bugs out, I’m all in favor of getting two for a low price. So much so, maybe after sampling it for a month or two, I’m much more likely to pay for a year.
Man, WBD just keeps raising that “fuck up” bar. Well, raising it after they’ve dropped in on their feet 5 times.
The crux of all this, of course, is the fact that, at least from a consumer-facing point of view, there really was no reason to rush any of this; nobody except WBD execs have been clamoring for the studio to slam HBO Max and Discovery+ together, and especially not in so shoddy or slapdash a manner.This is far too common in software development. Instead of asking the developers what a reasonable time-frame would be, the higher-ups demand it be done by a certain financial deadline, to appease shareholders. This forces developers to work unreasonably long work days (“crunch time”) to get it out the door in a passable (not necesarily good) state.Then, consumers notice the flaws in the products and complain. So, eventually, it gets patched…and maybe patched again…and again. Urgency of the fix probably depends on how angry consumers are and/or how loyal their fans are.The sad end to this tale: if it eventually gets fixed to a workable state or if the product is so compelling that consumers are willing to overlook a few bugs, the initial launch problems eventually recede in the collective memory and the cycle begins anew.
I’m less bothered by this than I am by the sudden stripping out of 5.1 audio and UHD video (now 2-channel and 1080p) on much Max content with the $15.99 plan. They want $20 now for those features in this shameless money grab.