Actually there were worker's protection rights in play when I got laid off last year, I don't want to get into details but everything combined, I had no gap in income between getting laid off and moving up to Massachusetts. What happened to the GRIN or RTW guys when their respective studios got shut down?
Remove WOW from the equation and still say the game was a disaster: a fairly high meta-critic rating and fairly decent subscriber numbers (CCP celebrated when they reached the "horrible" sub numbers of WAR). MMO critics love there Hyperbole, there's only two options, WOW levels of success or failure.
Those worker rights are voluntary corporate procedure, not guaranteed through legislature, so next go round or a smaller company is free to ignore them. I am glad it didn't leave you out in the cold, but that doesn't disprove the point.
CCP is a success with 350k because they don't have a publisher. WAR was a failure because it couldn't bring in crazy returns for corporate EA and it's shareholders. Success for a mom and pop is different than for walmart. You fall into your own trap by trying to posit that CCP is a failure for not having WoW levels. I'd rather work for a profitable company with a long term plan that makes less money, than an international super profitable company that fires it's peons at every turn.
A few people have commented that he was paid to do a job and that in essence, he is been a whiny bitch. But you forget the decisions he 'whines' about are the reasons why 'he' is losing 'his' job.
Bad decisions an arrogance lose people there jobs at no fault of their own. Simply put, in a creative industry it can be a mighty big slap in the face telling someone they are doing something wrong, only to be ignored and lose your job after the games released...
There's something to be said for having a say in what you're creating. However, at some point, you should be able to have faith in the leadership to simply tell you what to create. On the flip side, when management consistently asks for input from development, it can come off as laziness and inability to make informed decisions.
Personally, I like a small mix of both. I love to have a minor say in direction and I love to have my voice be heard. More often than not, I would much rather have management that I trust to make good decisions. Even if I, as an artist, don't agree with the choices; so long as I can look at the decisions made and understand that it's the best choice available.
All-in-all, I think EALouse is allowing their bitterness to shine through way too much in their rant/posts. A calmer approach could have made it much more respectable and better received. Additionally, something like this can, and most likely will, seriously hurt share holders. Though I may agree with and understand where this person is coming from, I expect a serious backlash on this employee...and I can't say I would feel sorry for whatever they get.
the severance package was voluntary, I'm glad they gave me it, the extra package was voluntary as well, the worker protection law wasn't voluntary - I won't name it because people could do some math and figure things out that I'm not at liberty to talk about.
I wasn't saying CCP was a failure, that's why "horrible" was in quotation marks.
So I guess that we should adjust our mindset to that the place where we will spend a bigger part of our life, make friends, and be creative should be a place where we just take the money, shut up and not get involved.
Voting with your feet. If you don't like it, then leave. Those are conservative views, not liberal, hope that helps. It presupposes that a person can leave at any time and no outside factors could come into play which is demonstrably false.
What other option does a US worker have besides cut their losses and walk away? It seems like the only other option is to suffer more abuse, just to make ends meet? Which just perpetuates the problem by supplying the douche bag with labor.
There might not be greener pastures to go to and life might get harder, but what other option besides more abuse, is there?
I don't think he was actually being abused and I'm pretty sure he could sue and if it ever got to a jury they would sympathize with him but that's a big what if, he probably won't take the gamble. He'll suffer his non-abuse/artist rage, take his severance (or get canned over this) and move on. Probably something he should of done a while ago.
What other option does a US worker have besides cut their losses and walk away? It seems like only other option is to suffer more abuse just to make ends meet, which just perpetuates the problem by supplying the douche bag with labor.
There might not be greener pastures to go to and life might get harder, but what other option besides more abuse, is there?
Well, I believe he supports regulations where you can't be fired for speaking out against your company, nor can you be fired without 6 months notice, so that in essence your employer becomes helpless to stand against your constant ranting and eventually gives in to your demands to allow all space marines to dance when you press shift-ctrl-d
Well, I believe he supports regulations where you can't be fired for speaking out against your company, nor can you be fired without 6 months notice, so that in essence your employer becomes helpless to stand against your constant ranting and eventually gives in to your demands to allow all space marines to dance when you press shift-ctrl-d
I really don't see that happening especially if what everyone says is going to happen in Nov, comes to pass. The unions have been broken and beaten down more in the last 10 years than at any other point. If the house and senate flip flop in Nov its going to be very ugly for anyone looking to protect workers...
So I guess packing up and moving is in order... damn that's more voting with your feet... fuck...
Well, I believe he supports regulations where you can't be fired for speaking out against your company, nor can you be fired without 6 months notice, so that in essence your employer becomes helpless to stand against your constant ranting and eventually gives in to your demands to allow all space marines to dance when you press shift-ctrl-d
A straw-man argument mocking worker's rights. Yup, totally "as liberal as it gets".
I find it amazing that there is still that view about "you dont like it , leave it" im pretty sure it was mentioned, but that is BS line of thought , just like saying that he is beeing whiny . The situation he exposed is disgusting , and im sure it applies to alot of studios , theres no way ,whatever people say ,that it will make it seem less evil.
Its just baffling how theres people that defend the nefarious way how upper corporate management treats their bread earners like shit, and i dont mean in game studios only. ITs like you see people walking over your colleague and when he says "eh ! feck ye guys !" you think he is beeing whiny and shrug , until the next one with the face on the moud is you.
johny, how was he treated like shit? Because there were layoffs?
Dude, your lack of experience is showing. Working even just 40 hour weeks (and Mythic used to do overtime a lot, so I wouldn't be surprised if he had to do that) on a crappy project is a shitty work environment. We are creatives, we get a lot of our satisfaction outside of the paycheck by working on projects we can be passionate about and have fun working on. That's not always possible, but at the very least it can be expected to work on a well run project. Especially since the whole justification for management making so much more money than the peons, is that they are supposed to be trustworthy of the larger decision making responsibilities. Something they continue to be unable to do, in every industry.
AND getting laid off IS ALSO SHITTY! This wasn't some unforeseeable circumstance that couldn't be avoided, it is because of poor planning. People didn't cancel because a line of code was wrong, or an environment hut wasn't detailed enough, the failure of the game is in the hands of upper management, not grunts. What is your living situation that losing your job is such a flippant thing? Do you just like playing devils advocate? Why are you coming from the standpoint that A. his arguments are without merit, and B. the way things are currently are fine and desirable? There are ACTUAL ex-mythic employees lending at least partial credibility to the guy's rant in this very thread.
I do think a management system has to be in place, in any given workplace of a certain size and subtance. I do think managers need to be able to make decisions on the fly, without approval of their employees in certain instances. I think "voting" too often would be silly.
But here's something I consider pretty certain: People who hire quality people to develop something at all related to a creative endeavor, but don't hire people who's mentalities (or overall well being) they actually give a shit about...
Those people. Those "managers", CEOs, are assholes. Total. Fucking. Assholes.
They should be treated like total fucking assholes.
if they had made a successfull title.. maybe they would all keep their jobs.
Or they would've canned even more people and claimed it was part of a restructuring initiative, and how they're 'totally committed to making the best games and the wellbeing of their employees'.
If he complained about long hours, I'd be completely on his side. That sucks. However, it wasn't mentioned.
If he'd complained about a shitty work environment, I'd be with him too. But he didn't. He complained about clueless management and people getting promoted who didn't know what they were doing. That will contribute to the failure of the project, but it doesn't make your work environment crappy. It's not like he was dealing with abusive bosses or sexual harassment or even general rudeness.
And yes, getting laid off sucks, but adopting some sort of us vs. them attitude toward your bosses solves nothing. They don't want to fail either.
It's a shame that EA Louse wasn't working with a more competent team of producers, and it's a shame that their big project failed, but that's no reason to toss your co-workers under a bus. You can't guarantee a successful project and failing isn't a crime.
As far as my lack of experience, it's true I've only interned at game studios, but I've been working two years in advertising, and I've certainly done my share of landscaping and restaurant work. I'm sorry EA Louse's job didn't live up to his standards, but it's a far cry from something worth crying over.
He complained about clueless management and people getting promoted who didn't know what they were doing. That will contribute to the failure of the project, but it doesn't make your work environment crappy.
How is incompetent management gambling with your job anything but a shitty environment, worthy of complaint?
And yes, getting laid off sucks, but adopting some sort of us vs. them attitude toward your bosses solves nothing. They don't want to fail either.
Again, this is based on the assumption of a level playing field. It's not as if senior management is going to take the fall, or the shareholders that will suffer a financial loss first, is it?
AND getting laid off IS ALSO SHITTY! This wasn't some unforeseeable circumstance that couldn't be avoided, it is because of poor planning. People didn't cancel because a line of code was wrong, or an environment hut wasn't detailed enough, the failure of the game is in the hands of upper management, not grunts. What is your living situation that losing your job is such a flippant thing? Do you just like playing devils advocate? Why are you coming from the standpoint that A. his arguments are without merit, and B. the way things are currently are fine and desirable? There are ACTUAL ex-mythic employees lending at least partial credibility to the guy's rant in this very thread.
I'm gonna kind of play devils advocate here because I actually agree with Aesir's last post - Bad working conditions such as unpaid hours or poor environment would be something serious - like the ea spouse blog was - but the fact is every office in the world has gossip about this sucky manager that fucked up that project. Or about how x product is a pile of shit and its y directors fault. I've worked at places where a 10 hour day wasn't what people bitched about, it was their team leaders and managers - and it wasn't actually that bad a place to work. It wasn't the best, but if you believed everything you got from the gossip it was some kind of hell hole.
now as I say, I'm only playing devils advocate, we all know the games industry is famously harsh on employees companies often see as disposable. And Obviously Ex Mythic guys are going to really have the final say here.
My argument would be that it's sad that an anonymous blog is all this guy could have gone for. Its clearly a massive fuck-up that's gonna bite him in the ass with some legal trouble, but what other options are open to him? It seems to me that artists are very poorly represented in terms of working rights in the industry.
I'm still a student though so what do I know. :shifty:
I find it amazing that there is still that view about "you dont like it , leave it" im pretty sure it was mentioned, but that is BS line of thought , just like saying that he is beeing whiny . The situation he exposed is disgusting , and im sure it applies to alot of studios , theres no way ,whatever people say ,that it will make it seem less evil.
Its just baffling how theres people that defend the nefarious way how upper corporate management treats their bread earners like shit, and i dont mean in game studios only. ITs like you see people walking over your colleague and when he says "eh ! feck ye guys !" you think he is beeing whiny and shrug , until the next one with the face on the moud is you.
I sure hope I don't come off as defending the corporate douche baggery. They're guilty of being idiots and making bad decisions, which sadly aren't illegal at least not on any level that a lawyer would actually be willing to take on EA over.
It sounds like they ground his personal self worth into a fine paste which makes me sick, but its not illegal because they didn't purposefully do it to him. They didn't set out to ruin his self esteem by tanking the company. If they did and he can prove it, they holy crap does he have a legal case. He attached his personal value to the things he created and they turned that into a marketing failure, now he feels bad and he's seen his friends laid off as a result of their stupidity.
By him staying and collecting a check, that tells the douche bags its ok to treat people that way. If he's exhausted all other avenues, he's left with the decision to keep working and be abused or leave. If it really is as bad as actual abuse then he should leave. It's a one man strike, its all you can do when you have nothing else. It does send a message, they have to find, hire and train someone else.
If more artists adopt the "You need me more than I need you" attitude they would have to start treating people better and it would actually foster a positive worker environment. But as it is, suck it up and shut up are the norm. You can't change the environment until you change the workers. If they're willing to be abused then how is anything going to ever get any better? So far all I see, is to stay, collect a check and get crapped on...
In his rant I don't see any abuse, I see an unhappy passionate worker who's pissed that the fortunes of his company continued to spiral out of control after EA bought them. I see a bunch of idiots making bad decisions and running their company into the ground but I don't see any proof of abuse. Yea it sucks but there isn't anything illegal about running a company into the ground through incompetence.
Why isn't it illegal?
Douche bags run the companies, douche bags make the laws, come nov (in the us) more douche bags will be in power making more laws to protect douche bags.
Be thankful your in a country where workers give a fuck about their jobs and each other.
How is incompetent management gambling with your job anything but a shitty environment, worthy of complaint?
I agree with you.
Aesir, if you see the wrong people leading your team, your not going to like working there.
Either way, its nice that this info has come out, not to sure if its all true or not. But it does give you a brief inside look into it all went down. Drama is always fun to hear about.
CCP is a success with 350k because they don't have a publisher. WAR was a failure because it couldn't bring in crazy returns for corporate EA and it's shareholders.
I totally agree that it's the Publisher/Developer relationship that's killing a lot of these companies. But that's exactly the consequence, that houses that rely on that relationship fail and go bankrupt (eventually), while the more sane places that actually run their ship properly will remain profitable in the long run.
I mean, so many people would love to have a job period. And this guy is complaining about being mistreated, while many people out there would just love to be mistreated like that and actually be working. Which is why I feel like what he did, with posting anonymously like that, is actually 100% appropriate and what he should have done. And we (as artists) shouldn't be judging him too harshly for speaking out.
So the way that I see it, things are moving in the right direction. The people who are unhappy can legitimately speak out. And the companies that run their business this way will suffer financial losses. I just hope nobody bails them out when they end up shutting down.
Gee, I distinctly remember saying on this very forum that shit was going to go bad as soon as this EA Mythic deal happened and I got torn into because everyone at Mythic was super happy and excited and it could only bring great, wonderful things and I shouldn't criticize it because it was going to be awesome and I didn't know what I was talking about.
COUGH. COUGH.
Look guys, I'm working with EA right now, but I have a PARTNERSHIP with them. Partnerships are great things. Partnering with a publisher is really cool. I'm a big advocate of EA's recent push to PARTNER instead of ACQUIRE. I think it's working really well for them and the studios they work with. Valve, Harmonix, id, Crytek, etc. Good stuff. It's nice when publishers focus on publishing instead of developing.
Mythic wasn't a partnership. It wasn't a 'publishing deal'. It was EA taking over and trying to develop and if you thought otherwise you're naive as hell. It was doomed from day one and it's tragic that people decided to stick their head in the sand and pretend "this time it will be different" when they had absolutely no reason to think that way.
Gee, I distinctly remember saying on this very forum that shit was going to go bad as soon as this EA Mythic deal happened and I got torn into because everyone at Mythic was super happy and excited and it could only bring great, wonderful things and I shouldn't criticize it because it was going to be awesome and I didn't know what I was talking about.
that happened in... 2006? have you been waiting 4 years to say this?
evidently, he wasn't anonymous enough. They seem to have called him out pretty quickly. Although I cant really tell whether he is being sarcastic or not...
You know, after all these companies crumble into dust it's kinda nice to see people out those responsible, but why the hell don't they say something nice about the people who worked their asses off and did a good job. THAT might actually cause some good, get them a job somewhere else. All this moaning about a failed launch and who F'd up doesn't really do much good for anyone.
I dont think they are ranting/whining because they want to be more creative or whatever or they dont like being told what to do. Art is always creative(unless they say they want you to copy that), even if someone gives your a thousand word description and a thousand changes.
They dont want to work in a situation of fear, they dont want to be steered blatantly on to the rocks, because the Captains to busy in his cabin wining and dining or doesnt have a clue what he's doing, but pretends he does and shouts at people whom questions him because thats what Captains should do(and they are out of there depth).
How do you be a manager anyway, do they not have training or something, or shouldnt you basically be doing the job already?
You know, after all these companies crumble into dust it's kinda nice to see people out those responsible, but why the hell don't they say something nice about the people who worked their asses off and did a good job. THAT might actually cause some good, get them a job somewhere else. All this moaning about a failed launch and who F'd up doesn't really do much good for anyone.
When I was in middle management at Miller Freeman/UAP and they moved the graphics hub from Seattle to Dallas I let people use me as a personal reference in addition to writing the letters of recommendation. Every other place I've worked at that has laid people off has done the same. It's pretty nasty to hear that wouldn't be the norm everywhere else... kind of disgusting to think that people would try and sandbag someone else, which is why some people have a reaction to him naming names and airing dirty laundry.
Most people have an attitude of "yea that didn't end well, lets smile and move on" this guy seems to want to dwell and grind an axe. I'm not saying he shouldn't blow the whistle and uncover corporate misdeeds but it seems kind of after the fact when its not going to do much good, other than serve as a warning, which most people are already clued into to... so...
Why isn't there a computer game developers union? At least then they could go on strike. Miners learnt about this crap 150 years ago. If the writers can go on strike and badly damage nearly two years worth of American TV...
Why isn't there a computer game developers union? At least then they could go on strike. Miners learnt about this crap 150 years ago. If the writers can go on strike and badly damage nearly two years worth of American TV...
Mother f*ck tons of reasons why.
Too much first time talent willing to stab vets in the back to get in.
Too many vets willing to do the same to get ahead or get back in.
Labor needs to be in demand for those two things to reverse. But then when the good times are going and everyone's hired no one cares about organizing.
Fractured workforce, unions normally coalesce around one group of workers to fight off one corporation.
The industry spit up across international boarders with different laws and views about worker organization.
Not everyone has it that bad, there are lot of decent places to work, they just don't make the headlines with their boring, stable employment.
Some people think they have it worse than they actually do. Sometimes they're anti social and project more fear and cynicism then what is really there. Sometimes they're right on the money and the place is a disaster.
If its a disaster they normally walked blinding into accepting the job, or the company was good at lying to its employees. With the industry there seems to be a willingness to live the dream at any cost that people will walk into a bad place and be disappointed when its not all hookers and trampolines or even if turns out to be a regular 9-5.
There are other organizations for VFX in TV and film, they aren't that strong but it seems like games should be rolled under their wing.
And there are a lot more but I would start ranting...
Not to speak to what is actually said in the post if it's true or not but I don't think Unions even relate to this discussion. The guy seems to be complaining about the way the project was run creatively and his opinion of how people manage their employees or promotions. I honestly don't think a union would fix that, I don't even think you'd want a union involved with that.
Even if you have unions you're still going to have crappy companies that make crappy decisions creatively and promote crappy people. I'm not saying this is true of mythic I actually know very little about them or the way they run their projects.
Not to speak to what is actually said in the post if it's true or not but I don't think Unions even relate to this discussion. The guy seems to be complaining about the way the project was run creatively and his opinion of how people manage their employees or promotions. I honestly don't think a union would fix that, I don't even think you'd want a union involved with that.
Even if you have unions you're still going to have crappy companies that make crappy decisions creatively and promote crappy people. I'm not saying this is true of mythic I actually know very little about them or the way they run their projects.
Besides, you have Cliffy B being a Hostess fruit cake fanatic at Epic versus making good levels!
Just as an observation I noticed kotaku hasn't reported on this which usually loves covering the dirt. As well giantbomb had an article that has since been taken down which makes me feel like EA is trying to censor or bully the outlets? I mean there is a chance there just not interested in covering it, but looking back on the rockstar and ea spouse stuff it was everywhere. Seems odd to me.
Just as an observation I noticed kotaku hasn't reported on this which usually loves covering the dirt. As well giantbomb had an article that has since been taken down which makes me feel like EA is trying to censor or bully the outlets? I mean there is a chance there just not interested in covering it, but looking back on the rockstar and ea spouse stuff it was everywhere. Seems odd to me.
Replies
Those worker rights are voluntary corporate procedure, not guaranteed through legislature, so next go round or a smaller company is free to ignore them. I am glad it didn't leave you out in the cold, but that doesn't disprove the point.
CCP is a success with 350k because they don't have a publisher. WAR was a failure because it couldn't bring in crazy returns for corporate EA and it's shareholders. Success for a mom and pop is different than for walmart. You fall into your own trap by trying to posit that CCP is a failure for not having WoW levels. I'd rather work for a profitable company with a long term plan that makes less money, than an international super profitable company that fires it's peons at every turn.
Bad decisions an arrogance lose people there jobs at no fault of their own. Simply put, in a creative industry it can be a mighty big slap in the face telling someone they are doing something wrong, only to be ignored and lose your job after the games released...
Personally, I like a small mix of both. I love to have a minor say in direction and I love to have my voice be heard. More often than not, I would much rather have management that I trust to make good decisions. Even if I, as an artist, don't agree with the choices; so long as I can look at the decisions made and understand that it's the best choice available.
All-in-all, I think EALouse is allowing their bitterness to shine through way too much in their rant/posts. A calmer approach could have made it much more respectable and better received. Additionally, something like this can, and most likely will, seriously hurt share holders. Though I may agree with and understand where this person is coming from, I expect a serious backlash on this employee...and I can't say I would feel sorry for whatever they get.
I wasn't saying CCP was a failure, that's why "horrible" was in quotation marks.
Ok, I was wondering if maybe that's what you meant, sorry for the misunderstanding.
There might not be greener pastures to go to and life might get harder, but what other option besides more abuse, is there?
I don't think he was actually being abused and I'm pretty sure he could sue and if it ever got to a jury they would sympathize with him but that's a big what if, he probably won't take the gamble. He'll suffer his non-abuse/artist rage, take his severance (or get canned over this) and move on. Probably something he should of done a while ago.
Well, I believe he supports regulations where you can't be fired for speaking out against your company, nor can you be fired without 6 months notice, so that in essence your employer becomes helpless to stand against your constant ranting and eventually gives in to your demands to allow all space marines to dance when you press shift-ctrl-d
So I guess packing up and moving is in order... damn that's more voting with your feet... fuck...
A straw-man argument mocking worker's rights. Yup, totally "as liberal as it gets".
Its just baffling how theres people that defend the nefarious way how upper corporate management treats their bread earners like shit, and i dont mean in game studios only. ITs like you see people walking over your colleague and when he says "eh ! feck ye guys !" you think he is beeing whiny and shrug , until the next one with the face on the moud is you.
Dude, your lack of experience is showing. Working even just 40 hour weeks (and Mythic used to do overtime a lot, so I wouldn't be surprised if he had to do that) on a crappy project is a shitty work environment. We are creatives, we get a lot of our satisfaction outside of the paycheck by working on projects we can be passionate about and have fun working on. That's not always possible, but at the very least it can be expected to work on a well run project. Especially since the whole justification for management making so much more money than the peons, is that they are supposed to be trustworthy of the larger decision making responsibilities. Something they continue to be unable to do, in every industry.
AND getting laid off IS ALSO SHITTY! This wasn't some unforeseeable circumstance that couldn't be avoided, it is because of poor planning. People didn't cancel because a line of code was wrong, or an environment hut wasn't detailed enough, the failure of the game is in the hands of upper management, not grunts. What is your living situation that losing your job is such a flippant thing? Do you just like playing devils advocate? Why are you coming from the standpoint that A. his arguments are without merit, and B. the way things are currently are fine and desirable? There are ACTUAL ex-mythic employees lending at least partial credibility to the guy's rant in this very thread.
I do think a management system has to be in place, in any given workplace of a certain size and subtance. I do think managers need to be able to make decisions on the fly, without approval of their employees in certain instances. I think "voting" too often would be silly.
But here's something I consider pretty certain: People who hire quality people to develop something at all related to a creative endeavor, but don't hire people who's mentalities (or overall well being) they actually give a shit about...
Those people. Those "managers", CEOs, are assholes. Total. Fucking. Assholes.
They should be treated like total fucking assholes.
he was exposing the bad managment that happenned.. and why? because that bad managment back then, is gonna cost him his job now..
if they had made a successfull title.. maybe they would all keep their jobs.
Or they would've canned even more people and claimed it was part of a restructuring initiative, and how they're 'totally committed to making the best games and the wellbeing of their employees'.
If he'd complained about a shitty work environment, I'd be with him too. But he didn't. He complained about clueless management and people getting promoted who didn't know what they were doing. That will contribute to the failure of the project, but it doesn't make your work environment crappy. It's not like he was dealing with abusive bosses or sexual harassment or even general rudeness.
And yes, getting laid off sucks, but adopting some sort of us vs. them attitude toward your bosses solves nothing. They don't want to fail either.
It's a shame that EA Louse wasn't working with a more competent team of producers, and it's a shame that their big project failed, but that's no reason to toss your co-workers under a bus. You can't guarantee a successful project and failing isn't a crime.
As far as my lack of experience, it's true I've only interned at game studios, but I've been working two years in advertising, and I've certainly done my share of landscaping and restaurant work. I'm sorry EA Louse's job didn't live up to his standards, but it's a far cry from something worth crying over.
edit: I gotta stop. i'm off the net for today.
How is incompetent management gambling with your job anything but a shitty environment, worthy of complaint?
Again, this is based on the assumption of a level playing field. It's not as if senior management is going to take the fall, or the shareholders that will suffer a financial loss first, is it?
Justin, you comin'?
I'm gonna kind of play devils advocate here because I actually agree with Aesir's last post - Bad working conditions such as unpaid hours or poor environment would be something serious - like the ea spouse blog was - but the fact is every office in the world has gossip about this sucky manager that fucked up that project. Or about how x product is a pile of shit and its y directors fault. I've worked at places where a 10 hour day wasn't what people bitched about, it was their team leaders and managers - and it wasn't actually that bad a place to work. It wasn't the best, but if you believed everything you got from the gossip it was some kind of hell hole.
now as I say, I'm only playing devils advocate, we all know the games industry is famously harsh on employees companies often see as disposable. And Obviously Ex Mythic guys are going to really have the final say here.
My argument would be that it's sad that an anonymous blog is all this guy could have gone for. Its clearly a massive fuck-up that's gonna bite him in the ass with some legal trouble, but what other options are open to him? It seems to me that artists are very poorly represented in terms of working rights in the industry.
I'm still a student though so what do I know. :shifty:
It sounds like they ground his personal self worth into a fine paste which makes me sick, but its not illegal because they didn't purposefully do it to him. They didn't set out to ruin his self esteem by tanking the company. If they did and he can prove it, they holy crap does he have a legal case. He attached his personal value to the things he created and they turned that into a marketing failure, now he feels bad and he's seen his friends laid off as a result of their stupidity.
By him staying and collecting a check, that tells the douche bags its ok to treat people that way. If he's exhausted all other avenues, he's left with the decision to keep working and be abused or leave. If it really is as bad as actual abuse then he should leave. It's a one man strike, its all you can do when you have nothing else. It does send a message, they have to find, hire and train someone else.
If more artists adopt the "You need me more than I need you" attitude they would have to start treating people better and it would actually foster a positive worker environment. But as it is, suck it up and shut up are the norm. You can't change the environment until you change the workers. If they're willing to be abused then how is anything going to ever get any better? So far all I see, is to stay, collect a check and get crapped on...
In his rant I don't see any abuse, I see an unhappy passionate worker who's pissed that the fortunes of his company continued to spiral out of control after EA bought them. I see a bunch of idiots making bad decisions and running their company into the ground but I don't see any proof of abuse. Yea it sucks but there isn't anything illegal about running a company into the ground through incompetence.
Why isn't it illegal?
Douche bags run the companies, douche bags make the laws, come nov (in the us) more douche bags will be in power making more laws to protect douche bags.
Be thankful your in a country where workers give a fuck about their jobs and each other.
Aesir, if you see the wrong people leading your team, your not going to like working there.
Either way, its nice that this info has come out, not to sure if its all true or not. But it does give you a brief inside look into it all went down. Drama is always fun to hear about.
I totally agree that it's the Publisher/Developer relationship that's killing a lot of these companies. But that's exactly the consequence, that houses that rely on that relationship fail and go bankrupt (eventually), while the more sane places that actually run their ship properly will remain profitable in the long run.
I mean, so many people would love to have a job period. And this guy is complaining about being mistreated, while many people out there would just love to be mistreated like that and actually be working. Which is why I feel like what he did, with posting anonymously like that, is actually 100% appropriate and what he should have done. And we (as artists) shouldn't be judging him too harshly for speaking out.
So the way that I see it, things are moving in the right direction. The people who are unhappy can legitimately speak out. And the companies that run their business this way will suffer financial losses. I just hope nobody bails them out when they end up shutting down.
COUGH. COUGH.
Look guys, I'm working with EA right now, but I have a PARTNERSHIP with them. Partnerships are great things. Partnering with a publisher is really cool. I'm a big advocate of EA's recent push to PARTNER instead of ACQUIRE. I think it's working really well for them and the studios they work with. Valve, Harmonix, id, Crytek, etc. Good stuff. It's nice when publishers focus on publishing instead of developing.
Mythic wasn't a partnership. It wasn't a 'publishing deal'. It was EA taking over and trying to develop and if you thought otherwise you're naive as hell. It was doomed from day one and it's tragic that people decided to stick their head in the sand and pretend "this time it will be different" when they had absolutely no reason to think that way.
that happened in... 2006? have you been waiting 4 years to say this?
congrats. you win.
/fistraise
Edit:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/104366-David-Jaffe-F-Bombs-the-EA-Louse
David Jaffe angry at people arguing over the internet, argues over the internet.
edit: but then again, it sounds like it hit a bit close to his personal experiences, an additional +1 classy point to you david.
They dont want to work in a situation of fear, they dont want to be steered blatantly on to the rocks, because the Captains to busy in his cabin wining and dining or doesnt have a clue what he's doing, but pretends he does and shouts at people whom questions him because thats what Captains should do(and they are out of there depth).
How do you be a manager anyway, do they not have training or something, or shouldnt you basically be doing the job already?
Most people have an attitude of "yea that didn't end well, lets smile and move on" this guy seems to want to dwell and grind an axe. I'm not saying he shouldn't blow the whistle and uncover corporate misdeeds but it seems kind of after the fact when its not going to do much good, other than serve as a warning, which most people are already clued into to... so...
- Too much first time talent willing to stab vets in the back to get in.
- Too many vets willing to do the same to get ahead or get back in.
- Labor needs to be in demand for those two things to reverse. But then when the good times are going and everyone's hired no one cares about organizing.
- Fractured workforce, unions normally coalesce around one group of workers to fight off one corporation.
- The industry spit up across international boarders with different laws and views about worker organization.
- Not everyone has it that bad, there are lot of decent places to work, they just don't make the headlines with their boring, stable employment.
- Some people think they have it worse than they actually do. Sometimes they're anti social and project more fear and cynicism then what is really there. Sometimes they're right on the money and the place is a disaster.
- If its a disaster they normally walked blinding into accepting the job, or the company was good at lying to its employees. With the industry there seems to be a willingness to live the dream at any cost that people will walk into a bad place and be disappointed when its not all hookers and trampolines or even if turns out to be a regular 9-5.
- There are other organizations for VFX in TV and film, they aren't that strong but it seems like games should be rolled under their wing.
And there are a lot more but I would start ranting...Even if you have unions you're still going to have crappy companies that make crappy decisions creatively and promote crappy people. I'm not saying this is true of mythic I actually know very little about them or the way they run their projects.
Besides, you have Cliffy B being a Hostess fruit cake fanatic at Epic versus making good levels!
Noticed the same thing and got the same reaction.
FTW!
"post it and you'll never get any support from us anymore when it comes to anything related to EA"
alt:
"post it and we'll bury you"
alt2:
"post it and we'll withdraw your TOR beta invites"