I've noticed if you go on gamer forums (not something I normally do I hasten to add, but did recently due to some problems with a game) that the latest technical sounding term they are all using is optimised.

"This game is badly optimised - it runs slow on my system"

"Why do I need to upgrade my graphics card - can't the studio just optimise better"

And so on. Much as frob says, its become misunderstood as some kind of panacea among people without any actual technical understanding and they think it is a "thing". Suspect this is the case in this thread as well.

Someone just made a post about how to make a character rig with only 5 bones. They also use the optimize word in it. This is the type of stuff I am thinking about, but not just in the rigging area:

http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/graphics-programming-and-theory/5-bone-fully-rigged-humanoid-character-r3583

Yes frob, those "plans to reduce..." Are all under the umbrella of optimization- getting the most something.

Those are the plans I am talking about, like in the post above. The article talks about optimizing a rig. I have seen some pretty complicated rigs, usually for main characters, but for NPCs, you don't need so many bones. They use LOD for character modeling. Low poly for things in the background.

That article uses the word "optimise" in context. The context of how to reduce the bone count on a rig.

The question "what sort of methods do you use to reduce a rig bone count" is meaningful. It doesn't even need the word optimise.

The question "what sort of techniques do you use to optimise games" is not.

Citing articles that use the word "optimise" does not strengthen the meaningfulness of this question I am afraid. If you are interested in specific contexts then specific questions will get a far better response.

Funny you should mention optimization, I recently saw a talk by Doris Chen from MSDN on optimizing code. Here are the slides:

http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/27262164#

A couple of things of note:

1. This is JavaScript-specific (but it would be interesting if someone knowledgeable in many coding languages could chime in on how much might apply to others).

2. This specifically optimizes speed and processor use/battery life. File-size was not tested.

3. As mentioned, this is specifically coding optimization, and not design optimization.

4. FYI in case anyone was wondering why the heck Microsoft cares about JavaScript, apparently the code is easily portable to Windows 8 apps (almost a straight copy/paste).

(image needed) Optimize ALL THE THINGS!

(image needed) Optimize ALL THE THINGS!

http://i.imgur.com/dhgPcDO.jpg

Here you go, good sir.