Why can't I move (pan/tilt) the camera in the office?
Because that's not an available feature
But.. but... but... I totally saw someone completely unrelated to you on a two year old video that you had no part in creating, producing, or distributing, and that you're in no way responsible for now, move the camera around the room... so what gives?
The simple answer, and the only answer that really matters, is that I didn't make the video, and moving the office camera is not an available feature and it wasn't at the time the video was released, so there should be absolutely no expectation that the feature should be provided to you. If you have issues with the content of that video, take it up with the people who created it and distributed it, knowing full well that the content was inaccurate.
But since it clearly USED to be a feature, my inability to take advantage of it now has left a massive crater in the quality of my life, and I must know why it was removed to satisfy my curiosity. So why?
It was never removed. It's just not a feature now. It's a bit of a complicated situation, but every feature on the site requires a significant degree of maintenance for upkeep. Some features are easier to maintain than others. Changing the occasional bulb in one of the lamps isn't usually a major issue, but some features, like the RC cars, tank, critter, and other expensive, delicate, complicated contraptions with lots of moving parts will break frequently, require
massive amounts of time and money to repair, and are often highly unappreciated until it's gone. The ability to look around the room is not a feature that is missed by anybody who has ever used it in the past 21+ years that the site has been in operation. It is only requested by those who've never used it and in fact were never once on the site when it was available. However, the ability to move the camera around the room causes other more severe issues. The lights and sign are the main focus of the page. If the camera is in any position where those features are out of view, everyone else visiting the site complains that the lights don't work and that the site must be fake. I would rather 100% of the visitors to the site are actually able to experience the site as I had intended, rather than 90% of them missing out because someone just HAD to look around the room. Furthermore, anything involving moving parts in a device produced on the cheap somewhere in Asia is going to have additional issues. On this particular model, the camera gets stuck when someone decides to script the pan/tilt buttons to force the camera to pan to one extreme or the other. When I'm not around or whenever there's a large number of people regularly visiting the site, I can't afford to have that as an option for people to abuse.
Under what circumstatnces will you bring the pan/tilt option back?
There are several options to resolve this issue. First, I could add a second camera to the office, in the same position as the main one that has pan/tilt capability, while the main one will be static. This creates a lot of new problems. It will require more bandwidth, repositioning issues, and 90% of the people on the site who complain now will still complain because they will be unable to figure it out. I could purchase a better camera that has HDR support (so the sign shows up better), and hopefully doesn't have intermittancy issues with the moving parts, but I've yet to find one that costs less than $1000, and I'm not spending that much on any camera, and I'm not particularlly interested in replacing this one as long as it works.
