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CONFONZ — When it comes to making software, it's Q/A that really sucks. The job is totally thankless. As if this weren't bad enough, there is a distinctly finite amount of actual programmers in the games industry, and they all know each other. And, more importantly, they all know the ones that stink. Those stinky programmers still get jobs, though, and it looks like Activision managed to hand off the engine development duties for its Spider-Man 3 movie game to some numbskulls that didn't understand the RAM constraints of the various consoles. After the jump, the gory details, as told to the ConFonz over web-covered beverages.

The initial intention of Activision was to have the Spider-Man 3 movie tie-in game out a month ahead of the movie's release, evidently. But when it turned out that, one month before ship date, the game was still gobbling up RAM as though every console was an Xbox 360, the company panicked. According to the Conference Fonz's inside source, Activision had to halt all other publisher-side Q/A work in order to get this turd ready for market before the movie arrives tomorrow.


Thus, nothing else could get through the company's Q/A department in April. Of course, the company was still able to ship "Pimp My Ride" for PSP, but that chunk of plastic probably doesn't include anything that can be tested, beyond the standard questions of "Is this game completely stupid? Does it have an IP tie-in? Will we make oodles of money from idiots?"


So, when you wake up and run to EBX, er.... GameStop, tomorrow morning to get your copy of Spider-Man 3 for Nintendo DS, Xbox, et al, just remember that the Q/A department died for your sins. And your games.