I'm with the naysayers on this one. People can desire change and follow it if they want to but goddamn this industry is filled with just too much "reinventing". We don't need to destroy everything we had and then build it up again every single time. To me that's not progress.
Not entirely OT, but the deeper question for me is...
Which brings in more money today : AAA game vs a game like Candy Crush.
I just did my own quick math from googled numbers, Bioshock Infinite type of game wins sales for at least 2 quarters - roughly 100 million dollars more if you assume (just for this quick check) all sales are $59.95 and it's a chart buster.
But overtime, say annually, I suspect Candy Crush brings in more profit versus cost of development (ROI?) for one AAA game.
I'm no journalist but I'd be interested in a Gamasutra in-depth analysis.
The IPO prospectus offered a first glimpse into King's money-making machine, which generated $1.9 billion in revenues in 2013, or $5 million a day. It posted adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of $825 million in the year, up from $28.5 million in 2012.
Not entirely OT, but the deeper question for me is...
Which brings in more money today : AAA game vs a game like Candy Crush.
I just did my own quick math from googled numbers, Bioshock Infinite type of game wins sales for at least 2 quarters - roughly 100 million dollars more if you assume (just for this quick check) all sales are $59.95 and it's a chart buster.
But overtime, say annually, I suspect Candy Crush brings in more profit versus cost of development (ROI?) for one AAA game.
I'm no journalist but I'd be interested in a Gamasutra in-depth analysis.
It may be wise to let the dust settle before anyone starts forming a strong decision one way or another. My bet is it's complicated.
^^ This, good luck to all the dev's involved, Guerrilla is hiring for a few spots if anyone fancies a serious location change : http://www.guerrilla-games.com/jobs.html
It's a shame. I literally know everyone there and now they don't have a job. There are lots of resources being put up to help them out (Jon Jones put together a doc, theres a Facebook group, and tons of support on Twitter, as well as recruiting sessions.) It's just really heartbreaking and something that it is hitting me, personally, as i had just worked there in December (Though, this isn't about me - it just hits really close to home.)
I wouldn't jump to conclusions just yet regarding finances and - please - don't paint this with the "AAA IS CHANGING OMGZ!" bullshit. This was a personal choice and something that has been an idea for a long time - you can see it in older articles / interviews. It's restructuring to match the President's ideal team / development scenario. Without getting into it to a point where it would break my NDA, this is something that Ken has wanted to do for a while and if you look at different elements from the past few years you can see how they make sense (i.e. Rod leaving and not replacing him, having a full team on DLC, talking about being tired, etc.) It's not a failure by any means, Infinite actually did the best out of the series and was a success. I had left the company because I didn't think my career goals lined up with the company goals - meaning: they had been talking about going smaller, flatter, and story driven for months. I had no idea that by "smaller" they meant closing and restarting. A lot of people have asked me if I knew before leaving (again, since i just left a little while ago...) but I didn't. There were rumors, and shit talking, but that's because morale was low - I think a lot of people got caught with their pants down and it's a fucking shame.
I love(d) the company. I learned the most there more than any other job I've had. Made great friends, overcame a lot of challenges, and really leveled up - as well as delivered a critically acclaimed title. It's really sad to see this happen, even from afar.
Ken Levine is the only human being that was really central to the creative process at Irrational Games, while the rest are only servants of the computers that guide and direct their work.
Can't say that the story behind this isn't leaving a very sour taste...
It may be wise to let the dust settle before anyone starts forming a strong decision one way or another. My bet is it's complicated.
I disagree. If they don't want everybody judging them on sparse facts and hearsay then they should be completely forthcoming and transparent. At least the debate from my point of view isn't that were arguing amongst the kicked-up dust, but that the dust has been kicked up at all.
What an awful blog post that was. Just goes to show you how wrong so many people are on the internet (including some on this forum). Speculation in this industry is the worst. If you are so "involved" and "know everything about the industry" why don't you put your energy into helping these fine folks find work, like gav and many others are doing right now.
The only fact that matters, currently, is that there are extremely talented people that just got let go and ANY studio in this industry would be lucky to have them.
Say what you will, they are going out of their way to get everyone being let go new positions. Job fairs, time to get portfolios together, etc. They aren't just locking people out of the building.
My guess is there's more to the story and, odds are, we'll never fully know what happened.
Oh god, that blog post made me angry. What utter, utter crap.
I can't comment on the situation other than to say I'm sorry to hear people lost their jobs and I hope they land on their feet ok.
Here's a few links I've come across recently, maybe they'll help some of you out -
Just wondering what people's take is on that post; he's sort of extrapolating from the official statement made by Ken. I agree that hypothesis is super bleak and horrible to realize, but it's kind of what they are saying? All the other staff apparently don't matter, since Ken can just go on to create amazing games, regardless of who or how many work on it beside him?
Just clarifying that I do feel for all who lost their jobs and hope they end up OK, I'm just thinking about how the official statement kind of makes it feel worse than the predictable "out of money" scenario...
Might I say this may not be relevant at all but I think there needs to be more transparency on how much developers are spending to make these games and how much they actually make back in profits..There is a lot of speculation and not enough hard evidence, we get this all the time with several sources citing different fonts of intel which almost always leads to people getting misled. This information might be readily available and maybe it's me being ignorant.
But if for example I wanted to know the budget and profit margin for a movie like avengers assemble I could easily wiki it and even though I won't get the precise numbers I'm at least getting information that gives me a general ball park figure to assess from.
I only say this as there have been plenty of films that have been critical successes and well received but yet not actually done good numbers or the numbers it needs in order to be a success.
Terrible news, really sucks for those involved. There's gamedevmap which pretty much everyone knows about, I'll edit/update this later with any links I find for opportunities, think I saw quite a few yesterday day. Good luck all!
Can't say that the story behind this isn't leaving a very sour taste...
Wow any ones eyes open yet? suggest taking a quick look at that link if you haven't short read.
Matt yea speculation has been made but you can pretty much ball park a decent figure yourself, for whatever reason a few months back i estimated how much a small college would make and boy'o'boy was i shocked. I think it is good practice to anyone and everyone to give a shot even if you don't have real figures you can even low ball or even high ball salaries and all the hard work of building a building location, floors, management materials ect,ect. well let's just say in 1 year my figure came out to somewhere around 71 Million in 1 year... a small college.. that should help you view what games make if games are more popular.
To add i went to a college and i know the price at least 7-8 years back or so, so i used that estimate not the inflation of today's estimate, so i had to pay about 17-24G 2 year college and you pretty much, just times that by 200,000 for students in a regular college for 2 years let's be lenient that is about the normal range 4.8 Billion @ 24g per student and was your college tuition 24g ? no right it was more wasn't it.
let say for the hell of it i wanted to be generous with my money and give 70% of it to labor insurance ect,ect, super generous right, 1 Billion in 1 year profit, not bad for a 200 + 500 g loan right.
I think people get too attached to studio names.
It's never the studio that makes the games that people love, its the people behind the studio. Those people will carry on somewhere else if they choose to do so. I understand if they decide to cash out and go do something else that isn't as volatile, the industry isn't really geared toward stability, never has been, probably won't ever be. Creativity and stability seem to be at odds with each other.
We're all a bunch of pirates...
...who sail under any flag we can for as long as we can. No ship can keep on sailing indefinitely and all ships return to port for supplies. It doesn't matter what randomly generated studio name is painted on the ship today, crews tend to stick together. Get in with a good crew and you won't have too much trouble finding a captain willing to take you on. Know that you will be returning to port and plan your life around that.
Don't get your stability from your job, build stability into your life so you can do what you love for as long as possible. You, will, sail again, if that's really what you want to do.
Yarr... what the f*ck was I sayin? Oh yea...
I totally understand his need to do something new.
He is one of those people that doesn't get much joy from "maintaining". He loves to do new things, it's a different skill set and he needs to be out there creating new things. I won't hold that against him, its what makes him happy and I don't think he should sacrifice that, so that others can have a slightly less volatile future. Because lets be honest, you where kidding yourself if you thought it wasn't going to last for 50+ years.
Sure it would be nice...
if he could find the perfect person who is suited to maintain the studio and no one loses their job but those people are even more rare than the unicorns that actually manage to start something successfully.
There are so many more forces working against maintaining a studio that it has to be easier to just hit reset. There is certainly more financial intensive to do so. It's how a lot of people made a lot of money selling studios and IP to publishers then running away to do it all over again. Wash rinse repeat until your 25 car garage is full of your favorite cars. If they can avoid sinking what they accumulate into another studio that gets crushed by ubber-nerds then they might just be able to retire without having generic cat fud being part of their daily diet.
Honestly, fans are dicks.
Most of the time they want more of the exact same experience, then bitch when they get exactly what they want. There is no satisfying the ubber-nerds who think that clawing something to pieces will bring them happiness, or at least bring everyone down to their miserable level. Once you establish a game, you start collecting these types of people and the only way to shake them, is to go do something where they aren't. So it's easier to cut the cord, drop the baggage and start something new.
If you got into this for stability you got into the wrong industry.
If you want a studio to be focused on stability maybe you should start one with that written into its mission statement? "Our games maybe as watered down as the coffee we drink but damn it we're really hoping to be here 25 years from now, so please buy our games."
Would it have been nice to see him pass the reigns to someone else who is better suited for maintaining a studio but most studios self destruct after a few games and drive away the people who helped make them worth playing.
Get over it, studios have always been bottle rockets and that isn't likely to change. There are far fewer studios that actually have staying power and most of those are studios you haven't heard of.
As unfortunate as this is for the talented folks at IG. It is probably the best, though a little painful, case scenario.
It would be a disservice to the legacy of Irrational Games and every talented man and woman responsible for such critically acclaimed titles to keep it alive as a shell of its former self.
Ken gets the opportunity to stay in the games industry doing what he loves best on a smaller scale.
Take-two gets to keep Ken and the Bioshock franchise.
Irrational Games avoids the fate of Infinity Ward.
I am going to be sad to see Irrational Games dissolve but I am going to remember the enormous amount of love and care that IG developers have put into their work for the sole purpose of telling great stories.
shittty situation all round. if anyone is interested in coming up to Montreal where business is a'boomin, and work here at ubisoft on some kickass titles, send me a PM!
Say what you will, they are going out of their way to get everyone being let go new positions. Job fairs, time to get portfolios together, etc. They aren't just locking people out of the building.
It's really lame that we applaud studios that do this. This should be the BARE MINIMUM. Of course 2K is happy to do this, Ken is saving them buckets of money.
Wow any ones eyes open yet? suggest taking a quick look at that link if you haven't short read.
Matt yea speculation has been made but you can pretty much ball park a decent figure yourself, for whatever reason a few months back i estimated how much a small college would make and boy'o'boy was i shocked. I think it is good practice to anyone and everyone to give a shot even if you don't have real figures you can even low ball or even high ball salaries and all the hard work of building a building location, floors, management materials ect,ect. well let's just say in 1 year my figure came out to somewhere around 71 Million in 1 year... a small college.. that should help you view what games make if games are more popular.
To add i went to a college and i know the price at least 7-8 years back or so, so i used that estimate not the inflation of today's estimate, so i had to pay about 17-24G 2 year college and you pretty much, just times that by 200,000 for students in a regular college for 2 years let's be lenient that is about the normal range 4.8 Billion @ 24g per student and was your college tuition 24g ? no right it was more wasn't it.
let say for the hell of it i wanted to be generous with my money and give 70% of it to labor insurance ect,ect, super generous right, 1 Billion in 1 year profit, not bad for a 200 + 500 g loan right.
I believe you might not be properly taking into account several major factors such as operating costs. I go to a university that has around 70,000 students. For students that live in-state, tuition comes out to around $11,000 per year for a 4-year program and that price is doubled for out-of-state universities.
My university, like many others, releases financial information publicly. From doing some searching, my university gets a budget of around $3 billion dollars per year, of that budget, around 75% of it is spent on different services such as healthcare, housing, food, transportation, etc. with the remaining 25% being spent on paying teacher salaries and hiring new teachers along with providing teachers with new resources and technology (just got the google glass and an oculus rift!)
Additionally, all revenue made from the school goes back into it in the form of expenditures to help expand it more.
I also went a step further and looked up the salaries of top faculty members and even the president (who makes around $600,000 a year) whereas the highest paid staff member under him makes around half that.
Colleges/universities make a lot of money in revenue, that's for sure, but it's important to realize that revenue and profit are two different things.
To apply this to the games industry, I'd say it's pretty safe to say the same thing happens. AAA games cost a lot of money to make and even if they sell well (it's also important to realize devs/publishers also lose money through used game sales, piracy, third parties such as gamestop, etc.) they may not bring in a lot of profits.
It's easy to make ballpark figures but unless information is released publicly, all we can really do is make educated guesses which can be pretty inaccurate.
I still think there must be something, this is quite fishy... there is no logic in all this.
BTW, for those interested in a job in the videogame industry: "welcome to the reality, these jobs are for nomads and slaves, don't cry if you end with a kick in the ass".
I am shocked and saddened by the news, could they not have handed the studio over rather then crashing the workforce it into a cliff! It seamed like such a lodgical transition to get the work force to move over to UE4 with the next Bio Shock. While I understand why the bosses may have wanted to move on to new ventures it seams too harsh to behold.
Did the work force get any redundancy pay? I hope so.
Oh yeah because things haven't changed yet lets never try.
I'm all for making things more stable and predictable. I'm at a pretty stable company and if I didn't have the stability I would probably leave. If I couldn't find that same level of stability some place else I would consider leaving the industry.
BUT applying stability to a creative process often kills it. It's like applying a pillow to someones face when they cut their finger.
"Hey look they stopped bleeding!"
"They also stopped breathing, congratulations..."
I work for a really stable company we've been around for over 15 years and I've been with them for 8, but the types of games we make (mystery adventure games) are not your average FPS shooter. Your average FPS gamer would find our games boring and if we tried to make an entirely new game like BioShock was to the industry, our stability would go right out the window.
We would hire and fire people as the development cycle dictated, which is what a lot of studios do. Places need different levels of staff at different times of the dev cycle. Re-engineering a dev cycle to provide stability has a large capacity to crush creativity and often just bleeds the company dry. Juggling multiple projects is often soul crushing murder on the staff and leads to a schizophrenic and disjointed work force.
Our stability comes from how predictable our games are, our customers love that and reward us for it, but we're some kind of mutant unicorn that doesn't play by the same rules that everyone else does. It's unreasonable to expect that some place taking risks, doing something new and inventive, to operate the exact same way. There is just too much volatility in the process to normalize it.
Being creative and innovative means taking some risks, if you are a risk adverse person then maybe it's not a good industry to work in. There are pockets of stability like the one I'm in, but they are rare. You can try to carve out some stability but there aren't that many ways for someone so low on the totem pole to affect that kind of change. Most of the time that requires a very high level shift at the top and it isn't always possible, even if they agree that it needs to happen. What is easier, if they don't agree, is getting rid of the people who are busy sewing the seeds of malcontent... Often its just distracting and destructive and if the heads don't see it your way you're out the door.
There are a lot of careers out there that allow the time and freedom to play games and make art in your spare time while also providing a decent pay check and the stability you want.
There are ways for workers to gain stability and still be wildly creative but that would involve a lot of grown up discussions and a lot of collaboration among workers across all of the studios. That isn't likely to happen for a wide range of reasons...
My name is Alaric Roor, and I am working for gamekult.com, a french website
about video games. The announcement made by Ken Levine on the Irrational
Games website was unexpected, to say the least, and I am trying to
understand what really really explain the decision to let most of the team
live their life in other studios. Even if Ken Levine tells he is winding
down IG because he wants to work on something "smaller", it is hard to
believe development costs and sale figures have nothing to do with it.
In order to really understand what happened, I am now trying to gather
testimonies of IG programmers, developers, artists, etc. I am looking for
anything you have to share, would it be kind memories of your work at IG,
resentment, figures or anything you want people to know about this
situation. Of course, everything you would have to tell would be reworked
and your anonymity preserved if you desire so. I know most of you are now
looking for new jobs, and I do not want to make it harder than it can be.
And as I was only able to contact a small portion of the team, feel free to
tell your colleagues that we would be happy to hear from them if they have
something to say.
Finally, I know the perspective of being unemployed is a scary one, so I
wish the best of luck to every member of Irrational Games in their research
of a new company. Hopefully, the #IrrationalJobs campaign will be a
success, and other studios are looking for talented people to hire. Old or
young, there will always be room for creative people dedicating their time
to entertain others.
Yeah. The article I linked had it pretty accurate imho. We devs won't talk, bad-mouthing is really not a good idea, when you want to find a new gig in this small world.
But it means a lot of bad mgmt practices don't get air time. We can't or won't talk. Not saying that's the case here, just a general problem, e.g. persistence of crunch, etc.
Best of luck Paul! Hope you can stay in the area. I know R* up in Andover is looking for an Env Artist, if you're interested.
Yeah my last post was totally knee-jerk and I apologise for that.
Your post came across to me as the many "can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" posts I've read before, and in my opinion, does little to help.
BUT applying stability to a creative process often kills it...
We would hire and fire people as the development cycle dictated, which is what a lot of studios do. Places need different levels of staff at different times of the dev cycle. Re-engineering a dev cycle to provide stability has a large capacity to crush creativity and often just bleeds the company dry. Juggling multiple projects is often soul crushing murder on the staff and leads to a schizophrenic and disjointed work force.
Now that's something I just plain old disagree with. I mean I'm not saying I've got it right because I'll need to err on experience - you have it, I don't.
I didn't see anything wrong with the common hire-up then cut-down as busy schedules of developments may require, but the slash'n'burn and constant need to reinvent the wheel that is all to commonplace. I don't see in any way how planning for stability stifles creativity; I'm not talking about risky ideas here, I mean creativity in general.
Our stability comes from how predictable our games are, our customers love that and reward us for it, but we're some kind of mutant unicorn that doesn't play by the same rules that everyone else does. It's unreasonable to expect that some place taking risks, doing something new and inventive, to operate the exact same way. There is just too much volatility in the process to normalize it.
Nobody said all businesses had to work the same to provide stability. To be creative, take risks etc doesn't require destroying what you already had.
This whole business with Irrational Games has rocked my foundations in a bad way. A studio I highly respected run by people I highly respect, and makes profitable high quality games has just upended itself for appears to be no good reason. Maybe there was issues in the studio but hey they're not forthcoming with info so from our end it looks like all is sunshine. Ken wanting to try out new things is not an excuse to shut it all down and disrupt what they already had.
There are a lot of careers out there that allow the time and freedom to play games and make art in your spare time while also providing a decent pay check and the stability you want.
Looking at myself I think I'll be stuck looking for that kind of life for a while, and being happy? Who knows... All I know in context of this conversation is that I don't want to keep an impression of this industry as some kind of undesirable wild west where nobody even tries to improve it.
There are ways for workers to gain stability and still be wildly creative but that would involve a lot of grown up discussions and a lot of collaboration among workers across all of the studios. That isn't likely to happen for a wide range of reasons...
What reasons? That they people in charge can't act like adults? You mentioned that your studio has stability, and while you also mentioned that their culture couldn't be just applied to all others, surely there's something you guys have got right that the rest of the industry surely needs - and there's no way in hell that will destroy creativity.
This whole business with Irrational Games has rocked my foundations in a bad way. A studio I highly respected run by people I highly respect, and makes profitable high quality games has just upended itself for appears to be no good reason. Maybe there was issues in the studio but hey they're not forthcoming with info so from our end it looks like all is sunshine. Ken wanting to try out new things is not an excuse to shut it all down and disrupt what they already had.
?
This has been standard practice for AAA development for over ten years. Its the reality of high variance game development.
The only reason they laid everyone off was it was more profitable to get rid of them than keep them. Take-Two is a publicly traded company and has a responsibility to increase profits. The option they chose was to get rid of the people. Because that was the most profitable decision.
There are lots of options if you don't want to ride the rollercoaster. Help an indie or make your own game are two options.
I didn't see anything wrong with the common hire-up then cut-down as busy schedules of developments may require, but the slash'n'burn and constant need to reinvent the wheel that is all to commonplace.
I'm not fond of the hire-up and cut down.
Most places do that because they are under the gun to hit milestones. They quickly ramp up and struggle with all kinds of growing pains. They try to get more done in a shorter amount of time and that compacted and frantic work environment can lead to a lot of costly mistakes that they can't afford to fix. They burst and anyone lucky enough to be hanging on, has as serious hang over.
In those places Artists are viewed as easily replaceable resources, it's like working at Mc Donalds?
Push button, monkey. Make art.
Faster, faster!
Is that a spark of creativity!? (pulls out water bottle and sprays the artist in the face, like a cat)
I said push button. Faster!
Good monkey, you're fired.
Personally I would rather see a studio maintain a smaller tighter team and take a bit longer. Give each person more of a creative stake in the game and trust them to work through creative decisions, while valuing their input and output. If they need to, reach out to well established outsource studios that do enough work to provide stability for their people on varied projects.
I don't see in any way how planning for stability stifles creativity; I'm not talking about risky ideas here, I mean creativity in general.
Well it really depends on the game.
When you are trying to find out what works and what doesn't you have to iterate. When you already know what works, you just create it the first time, and move onto to something else."It's finished when it's finished" doesn't work for a lot of places burning through mountains cash. Decisions need to be made about what to cut, keep or salvage and those can drastically effect the entire production.
Nobody said all businesses had to work the same to provide stability. To be creative, take risks etc doesn't require destroying what you already had.
For my studio, I think it would. We could not operate the same way. The schedule could not be as stable and the asset creation would not be as predictable. It was like that once and not too many people would be willing to do it again.
This whole business with Irrational Games has rocked my foundations in a bad way. A studio I highly respected run by people I highly respect, and makes profitable high quality games has just upended itself for appears to be no good reason. Maybe there was issues in the studio but hey they're not forthcoming with info so from our end it looks like all is sunshine. Ken wanting to try out new things is not an excuse to shut it all down and disrupt what they already had.
I've started to lose track =( Maybe I'm just old and crazy =P
Very few places that originally got me excited about games are still open. The industry is full of Toyota's but there just aren't that many Tesla's around.
When publishers swoop in they take over, ultimately it is their studio and their call as to who stays and who goes. Ken may have run things day to day, and had some pull but he answered to Take2. There might have been some friction as he wanted to change gears, or Take2 wasn't interested in keeping around a lot of staff in search for a project. Publishers tend to undervalue creative talent and view it as easily replaceable. But I just don't know.
Looking at myself I think I'll be stuck looking for that kind of life for a while, and being happy? Who knows... All I know in context of this conversation is that I don't want to keep an impression of this industry as some kind of undesirable wild west where nobody even tries to improve it.
I really don't want to tell people how to live their lives, but I think people tightly wrapping their self worth around their jobs, leads to a lot of the problems, not just for them but for the rest of the industry. I think a lot of people keep falling on their swords hoping to curry favor but anyone that would appreciate the act would also be horrified by it and try to stop it. In other places it just gets exploited and milked until they throw the person away.
Not every job is going to generate joy 100% of the time, there will be aspects of even a dream job that suck, having something or someone outside of that job, helps generate happiness in other ways.
What reasons? That they people in charge can't act like adults?
I think there are a lot mature people in the industry and some great level headed people who listen to logic and reason, they are open to change if it can be worked out and for the most part those places run great, they hire reasonable people who know how to get the job done and do it with very little drama. But I don't think those places are the rule, they are the exception.
By adult conversations I mean people across the industry (and even people outside of it) need to have a deep and meaningful conversation about work life balance and then take a good long look at how that can be achieved. I personally don't see any quick or easy answers. The middle class has eroded in the US and been replaced with low wage service sector jobs, that trend is dragging on the industry as well.
Unionizing seems to be the most talked about (and never implemented) method but that alone is a political hand grenade. Toss into it the logistical nightmare of setting up and maintaining the organizations and infrastructure needed to even begin to wrestle with the powers that have shaped the industry. There is also a serious lack of on the ground awareness and leadership willing to fight many battles often in their own trenches. There are grocery clerks in my area that have a better sense of their union and what it affords them than a lot of people in the industry.
I guess the easiest thing for people to do, is to carefully choose who they work for and to ask a lot of questions before they sign on. That may mean staying away from publisher owned studios, they tend to view people at readily replaceable, meat-in-a-seat... But a lot of the time people can't afford to be choosy. They can't be pushy once they get hired on because they'll be replaced by people who eat rainbows and fart butterflies (like they did when they replaced the worn down cogs).
so I'm not sure there is a good or simple answer to any of it, hence the cynicism and looking outside the industry for stability and work life balance. A lot of places have fought and won the battles that this industry has barely even acknowledged.
Okay that's some quality replies that certainly gives me some perspective. Mark you nicely demonstrated your views on what could be done better.
Look, my grounds for this rant really does source from the lack of information from Irrational and Take 2. Sure Take 2 want to be profitable and all, but the news reports hasn't blamed them. It's been reported as an internal decision with the leaders wanting to change direction and unfortunately decided throw away everything else. That doesn't leave an unsavoury taste in my mouth because I want to trap Ken in some kind of AAA reverie, it's because it's wasteful and negatively disruptive. Stability to me doesn't mean no change and no risks, it means being able to better survive and implement change and risks - for all involved and doubly so for those with more responsibility.
I'm not fond of the hire-up and cut down
Oh don't get me wrong, I don't like it either. I just understand it, when I don't understand the other crazy things these companies do.
In terms of needing complete restructuring to take risks. I was wondering, surely these big risks, big changes with iterations added, surely a smaller team inside the studio could work that and all required planning while regular scheduled work is applied to the larger team's current project? Like pre-production? If something of great creative impetus is to rock the boat, it'd be best to prepare right?
I really don't want to tell people how to live their lives, but I think people tightly wrapping their self worth around their jobs, leads to a lot of the problems, not just for them but for the rest of the industry
I completely agree. Unfortunately for me, a job is the defining difference between me and you. Until my art/design starts making me money it is worthless. All the other activities I enjoy make no income. Even if so many people will likely be stuck in zero-enjoyment careers, I don't see why we need to remind each other of that.
@ Gav - yeah I got the same thing from two different game journalists. I work at Big Huge Games ( owned by 38 Studios). After we went down I got emails from journalists trying to dig up dirt. I got one rather recently too. It's just sleazy. I was just an Intern as well...
I think of game journalists as enthusiast press to be honest as most of them are not much more than that. Only a handful really do journalist work (RIP 1UP.COM).
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Which brings in more money today : AAA game vs a game like Candy Crush.
I just did my own quick math from googled numbers, Bioshock Infinite type of game wins sales for at least 2 quarters - roughly 100 million dollars more if you assume (just for this quick check) all sales are $59.95 and it's a chart buster.
But overtime, say annually, I suspect Candy Crush brings in more profit versus cost of development (ROI?) for one AAA game.
I'm no journalist but I'd be interested in a Gamasutra in-depth analysis.
News today:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/18/us-king-ipo-idUSBREA1H0RY20140218
It's not just about sales, it's about what has a better return on the investment.
^^ This, good luck to all the dev's involved, Guerrilla is hiring for a few spots if anyone fancies a serious location change : http://www.guerrilla-games.com/jobs.html
I wouldn't jump to conclusions just yet regarding finances and - please - don't paint this with the "AAA IS CHANGING OMGZ!" bullshit. This was a personal choice and something that has been an idea for a long time - you can see it in older articles / interviews. It's restructuring to match the President's ideal team / development scenario. Without getting into it to a point where it would break my NDA, this is something that Ken has wanted to do for a while and if you look at different elements from the past few years you can see how they make sense (i.e. Rod leaving and not replacing him, having a full team on DLC, talking about being tired, etc.) It's not a failure by any means, Infinite actually did the best out of the series and was a success. I had left the company because I didn't think my career goals lined up with the company goals - meaning: they had been talking about going smaller, flatter, and story driven for months. I had no idea that by "smaller" they meant closing and restarting. A lot of people have asked me if I knew before leaving (again, since i just left a little while ago...) but I didn't. There were rumors, and shit talking, but that's because morale was low - I think a lot of people got caught with their pants down and it's a fucking shame.
I love(d) the company. I learned the most there more than any other job I've had. Made great friends, overcame a lot of challenges, and really leveled up - as well as delivered a critically acclaimed title. It's really sad to see this happen, even from afar.
Can't say that the story behind this isn't leaving a very sour taste...
I disagree. If they don't want everybody judging them on sparse facts and hearsay then they should be completely forthcoming and transparent. At least the debate from my point of view isn't that were arguing amongst the kicked-up dust, but that the dust has been kicked up at all.
The only fact that matters, currently, is that there are extremely talented people that just got let go and ANY studio in this industry would be lucky to have them.
(Portfolios coming soon)
My guess is there's more to the story and, odds are, we'll never fully know what happened.
I can't comment on the situation other than to say I'm sorry to hear people lost their jobs and I hope they land on their feet ok.
Here's a few links I've come across recently, maybe they'll help some of you out -
http://careerpowerups.com/
https://riotgames-openhire.silkroad.com/epostings/index.cfm?fuseaction=app.jobinfo&jobid=516
https://www.ubisoftgroup.com/en-US/careers/search_for_jobs.aspx
http://www.microsoft-careers.com/job/Redmond-Environment-Artist-Devices-&-Studios-Microsoft-Studios-343-Industries-Halo-%28858291%29-Job-WA-98052/28136800/?from=email&refid=644683000&utm_source=J2WEmail&source=2&eid=116-201401200223-1385724300&locale=en_US
http://www.crytek.com/career/offers/overview/austin/art-animation/art-senior-environment
Just clarifying that I do feel for all who lost their jobs and hope they end up OK, I'm just thinking about how the official statement kind of makes it feel worse than the predictable "out of money" scenario...
But if for example I wanted to know the budget and profit margin for a movie like avengers assemble I could easily wiki it and even though I won't get the precise numbers I'm at least getting information that gives me a general ball park figure to assess from.
I only say this as there have been plenty of films that have been critical successes and well received but yet not actually done good numbers or the numbers it needs in order to be a success.
Wow any ones eyes open yet? suggest taking a quick look at that link if you haven't short read.
Matt yea speculation has been made but you can pretty much ball park a decent figure yourself, for whatever reason a few months back i estimated how much a small college would make and boy'o'boy was i shocked. I think it is good practice to anyone and everyone to give a shot even if you don't have real figures you can even low ball or even high ball salaries and all the hard work of building a building location, floors, management materials ect,ect. well let's just say in 1 year my figure came out to somewhere around 71 Million in 1 year... a small college.. that should help you view what games make if games are more popular.
To add i went to a college and i know the price at least 7-8 years back or so, so i used that estimate not the inflation of today's estimate, so i had to pay about 17-24G 2 year college and you pretty much, just times that by 200,000 for students in a regular college for 2 years let's be lenient that is about the normal range 4.8 Billion @ 24g per student and was your college tuition 24g ? no right it was more wasn't it.
let say for the hell of it i wanted to be generous with my money and give 70% of it to labor insurance ect,ect, super generous right, 1 Billion in 1 year profit, not bad for a 200 + 500 g loan right.
It's never the studio that makes the games that people love, its the people behind the studio. Those people will carry on somewhere else if they choose to do so. I understand if they decide to cash out and go do something else that isn't as volatile, the industry isn't really geared toward stability, never has been, probably won't ever be. Creativity and stability seem to be at odds with each other.
We're all a bunch of pirates...
...who sail under any flag we can for as long as we can. No ship can keep on sailing indefinitely and all ships return to port for supplies. It doesn't matter what randomly generated studio name is painted on the ship today, crews tend to stick together. Get in with a good crew and you won't have too much trouble finding a captain willing to take you on. Know that you will be returning to port and plan your life around that.
Don't get your stability from your job, build stability into your life so you can do what you love for as long as possible. You, will, sail again, if that's really what you want to do.
Yarr... what the f*ck was I sayin? Oh yea...
I totally understand his need to do something new.
He is one of those people that doesn't get much joy from "maintaining". He loves to do new things, it's a different skill set and he needs to be out there creating new things. I won't hold that against him, its what makes him happy and I don't think he should sacrifice that, so that others can have a slightly less volatile future. Because lets be honest, you where kidding yourself if you thought it wasn't going to last for 50+ years.
Sure it would be nice...
if he could find the perfect person who is suited to maintain the studio and no one loses their job but those people are even more rare than the unicorns that actually manage to start something successfully.
There are so many more forces working against maintaining a studio that it has to be easier to just hit reset. There is certainly more financial intensive to do so. It's how a lot of people made a lot of money selling studios and IP to publishers then running away to do it all over again. Wash rinse repeat until your 25 car garage is full of your favorite cars. If they can avoid sinking what they accumulate into another studio that gets crushed by ubber-nerds then they might just be able to retire without having generic cat fud being part of their daily diet.
Honestly, fans are dicks.
Most of the time they want more of the exact same experience, then bitch when they get exactly what they want. There is no satisfying the ubber-nerds who think that clawing something to pieces will bring them happiness, or at least bring everyone down to their miserable level. Once you establish a game, you start collecting these types of people and the only way to shake them, is to go do something where they aren't. So it's easier to cut the cord, drop the baggage and start something new.
If you got into this for stability you got into the wrong industry.
If you want a studio to be focused on stability maybe you should start one with that written into its mission statement?
"Our games maybe as watered down as the coffee we drink but damn it we're really hoping to be here 25 years from now, so please buy our games."
Would it have been nice to see him pass the reigns to someone else who is better suited for maintaining a studio but most studios self destruct after a few games and drive away the people who helped make them worth playing.
Get over it, studios have always been bottle rockets and that isn't likely to change. There are far fewer studios that actually have staying power and most of those are studios you haven't heard of.
It would be a disservice to the legacy of Irrational Games and every talented man and woman responsible for such critically acclaimed titles to keep it alive as a shell of its former self.
Ken gets the opportunity to stay in the games industry doing what he loves best on a smaller scale.
Take-two gets to keep Ken and the Bioshock franchise.
Irrational Games avoids the fate of Infinity Ward.
I am going to be sad to see Irrational Games dissolve but I am going to remember the enormous amount of love and care that IG developers have put into their work for the sole purpose of telling great stories.
We got a few design and programming positions open as well.
It's really lame that we applaud studios that do this. This should be the BARE MINIMUM. Of course 2K is happy to do this, Ken is saving them buckets of money.
My university, like many others, releases financial information publicly. From doing some searching, my university gets a budget of around $3 billion dollars per year, of that budget, around 75% of it is spent on different services such as healthcare, housing, food, transportation, etc. with the remaining 25% being spent on paying teacher salaries and hiring new teachers along with providing teachers with new resources and technology (just got the google glass and an oculus rift!)
Additionally, all revenue made from the school goes back into it in the form of expenditures to help expand it more.
I also went a step further and looked up the salaries of top faculty members and even the president (who makes around $600,000 a year) whereas the highest paid staff member under him makes around half that.
Colleges/universities make a lot of money in revenue, that's for sure, but it's important to realize that revenue and profit are two different things.
To apply this to the games industry, I'd say it's pretty safe to say the same thing happens. AAA games cost a lot of money to make and even if they sell well (it's also important to realize devs/publishers also lose money through used game sales, piracy, third parties such as gamestop, etc.) they may not bring in a lot of profits.
It's easy to make ballpark figures but unless information is released publicly, all we can really do is make educated guesses which can be pretty inaccurate.
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/211139/Irrational_Games_journalism_and_airing_dirty_laundry.php
http://theconversation.com/games-by-humans-23399
BTW, for those interested in a job in the videogame industry: "welcome to the reality, these jobs are for nomads and slaves, don't cry if you end with a kick in the ass".
Did the work force get any redundancy pay? I hope so.
Sad times!
Mark i love the way you put that with the pirate saying, perfect i enjoyed the read and valid points for sure.
Again hope everyone all the best for the future and you see studios posting them positions send your stuff off a.s.a.p.:poly002:
Oh yeah because things haven't changed yet lets never try.
BUT applying stability to a creative process often kills it. It's like applying a pillow to someones face when they cut their finger.
"Hey look they stopped bleeding!"
"They also stopped breathing, congratulations..."
I work for a really stable company we've been around for over 15 years and I've been with them for 8, but the types of games we make (mystery adventure games) are not your average FPS shooter. Your average FPS gamer would find our games boring and if we tried to make an entirely new game like BioShock was to the industry, our stability would go right out the window.
We would hire and fire people as the development cycle dictated, which is what a lot of studios do. Places need different levels of staff at different times of the dev cycle. Re-engineering a dev cycle to provide stability has a large capacity to crush creativity and often just bleeds the company dry. Juggling multiple projects is often soul crushing murder on the staff and leads to a schizophrenic and disjointed work force.
Our stability comes from how predictable our games are, our customers love that and reward us for it, but we're some kind of mutant unicorn that doesn't play by the same rules that everyone else does. It's unreasonable to expect that some place taking risks, doing something new and inventive, to operate the exact same way. There is just too much volatility in the process to normalize it.
Being creative and innovative means taking some risks, if you are a risk adverse person then maybe it's not a good industry to work in. There are pockets of stability like the one I'm in, but they are rare. You can try to carve out some stability but there aren't that many ways for someone so low on the totem pole to affect that kind of change. Most of the time that requires a very high level shift at the top and it isn't always possible, even if they agree that it needs to happen. What is easier, if they don't agree, is getting rid of the people who are busy sewing the seeds of malcontent... Often its just distracting and destructive and if the heads don't see it your way you're out the door.
There are a lot of careers out there that allow the time and freedom to play games and make art in your spare time while also providing a decent pay check and the stability you want.
There are ways for workers to gain stability and still be wildly creative but that would involve a lot of grown up discussions and a lot of collaboration among workers across all of the studios. That isn't likely to happen for a wide range of reasons...
Thank for some of the links Polycount! Was a thrill working on one of the top games of last year
*works on portfolio*
But it means a lot of bad mgmt practices don't get air time. We can't or won't talk. Not saying that's the case here, just a general problem, e.g. persistence of crunch, etc.
Best of luck Paul! Hope you can stay in the area. I know R* up in Andover is looking for an Env Artist, if you're interested.
I'm also hoping this will motivate some ex-Irrational people to start up their own small studios in Boston! Aw yehhhh.
https://www.idlethumbs.net/idlethumbs/
Your post came across to me as the many "can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" posts I've read before, and in my opinion, does little to help.
Now that's something I just plain old disagree with. I mean I'm not saying I've got it right because I'll need to err on experience - you have it, I don't.
I didn't see anything wrong with the common hire-up then cut-down as busy schedules of developments may require, but the slash'n'burn and constant need to reinvent the wheel that is all to commonplace. I don't see in any way how planning for stability stifles creativity; I'm not talking about risky ideas here, I mean creativity in general.
Nobody said all businesses had to work the same to provide stability. To be creative, take risks etc doesn't require destroying what you already had.
This whole business with Irrational Games has rocked my foundations in a bad way. A studio I highly respected run by people I highly respect, and makes profitable high quality games has just upended itself for appears to be no good reason. Maybe there was issues in the studio but hey they're not forthcoming with info so from our end it looks like all is sunshine. Ken wanting to try out new things is not an excuse to shut it all down and disrupt what they already had.
Looking at myself I think I'll be stuck looking for that kind of life for a while, and being happy? Who knows... All I know in context of this conversation is that I don't want to keep an impression of this industry as some kind of undesirable wild west where nobody even tries to improve it.
What reasons? That they people in charge can't act like adults? You mentioned that your studio has stability, and while you also mentioned that their culture couldn't be just applied to all others, surely there's something you guys have got right that the rest of the industry surely needs - and there's no way in hell that will destroy creativity.
?
This has been standard practice for AAA development for over ten years. Its the reality of high variance game development.
The only reason they laid everyone off was it was more profitable to get rid of them than keep them. Take-Two is a publicly traded company and has a responsibility to increase profits. The option they chose was to get rid of the people. Because that was the most profitable decision.
There are lots of options if you don't want to ride the rollercoaster. Help an indie or make your own game are two options.
Most places do that because they are under the gun to hit milestones. They quickly ramp up and struggle with all kinds of growing pains. They try to get more done in a shorter amount of time and that compacted and frantic work environment can lead to a lot of costly mistakes that they can't afford to fix. They burst and anyone lucky enough to be hanging on, has as serious hang over.
In those places Artists are viewed as easily replaceable resources, it's like working at Mc Donalds? Personally I would rather see a studio maintain a smaller tighter team and take a bit longer. Give each person more of a creative stake in the game and trust them to work through creative decisions, while valuing their input and output. If they need to, reach out to well established outsource studios that do enough work to provide stability for their people on varied projects.
Well it really depends on the game.
When you are trying to find out what works and what doesn't you have to iterate. When you already know what works, you just create it the first time, and move onto to something else."It's finished when it's finished" doesn't work for a lot of places burning through mountains cash. Decisions need to be made about what to cut, keep or salvage and those can drastically effect the entire production.
For my studio, I think it would. We could not operate the same way. The schedule could not be as stable and the asset creation would not be as predictable. It was like that once and not too many people would be willing to do it again.
I've started to lose track =( Maybe I'm just old and crazy =P
Very few places that originally got me excited about games are still open. The industry is full of Toyota's but there just aren't that many Tesla's around.
When publishers swoop in they take over, ultimately it is their studio and their call as to who stays and who goes. Ken may have run things day to day, and had some pull but he answered to Take2. There might have been some friction as he wanted to change gears, or Take2 wasn't interested in keeping around a lot of staff in search for a project. Publishers tend to undervalue creative talent and view it as easily replaceable. But I just don't know.
I really don't want to tell people how to live their lives, but I think people tightly wrapping their self worth around their jobs, leads to a lot of the problems, not just for them but for the rest of the industry. I think a lot of people keep falling on their swords hoping to curry favor but anyone that would appreciate the act would also be horrified by it and try to stop it. In other places it just gets exploited and milked until they throw the person away.
Not every job is going to generate joy 100% of the time, there will be aspects of even a dream job that suck, having something or someone outside of that job, helps generate happiness in other ways. I think there are a lot mature people in the industry and some great level headed people who listen to logic and reason, they are open to change if it can be worked out and for the most part those places run great, they hire reasonable people who know how to get the job done and do it with very little drama. But I don't think those places are the rule, they are the exception.
By adult conversations I mean people across the industry (and even people outside of it) need to have a deep and meaningful conversation about work life balance and then take a good long look at how that can be achieved. I personally don't see any quick or easy answers. The middle class has eroded in the US and been replaced with low wage service sector jobs, that trend is dragging on the industry as well.
Unionizing seems to be the most talked about (and never implemented) method but that alone is a political hand grenade. Toss into it the logistical nightmare of setting up and maintaining the organizations and infrastructure needed to even begin to wrestle with the powers that have shaped the industry. There is also a serious lack of on the ground awareness and leadership willing to fight many battles often in their own trenches. There are grocery clerks in my area that have a better sense of their union and what it affords them than a lot of people in the industry.
I guess the easiest thing for people to do, is to carefully choose who they work for and to ask a lot of questions before they sign on. That may mean staying away from publisher owned studios, they tend to view people at readily replaceable, meat-in-a-seat... But a lot of the time people can't afford to be choosy. They can't be pushy once they get hired on because they'll be replaced by people who eat rainbows and fart butterflies (like they did when they replaced the worn down cogs).
so I'm not sure there is a good or simple answer to any of it, hence the cynicism and looking outside the industry for stability and work life balance. A lot of places have fought and won the battles that this industry has barely even acknowledged.
Look, my grounds for this rant really does source from the lack of information from Irrational and Take 2. Sure Take 2 want to be profitable and all, but the news reports hasn't blamed them. It's been reported as an internal decision with the leaders wanting to change direction and unfortunately decided throw away everything else. That doesn't leave an unsavoury taste in my mouth because I want to trap Ken in some kind of AAA reverie, it's because it's wasteful and negatively disruptive. Stability to me doesn't mean no change and no risks, it means being able to better survive and implement change and risks - for all involved and doubly so for those with more responsibility.
Oh don't get me wrong, I don't like it either. I just understand it, when I don't understand the other crazy things these companies do.
In terms of needing complete restructuring to take risks. I was wondering, surely these big risks, big changes with iterations added, surely a smaller team inside the studio could work that and all required planning while regular scheduled work is applied to the larger team's current project? Like pre-production? If something of great creative impetus is to rock the boat, it'd be best to prepare right?
I completely agree. Unfortunately for me, a job is the defining difference between me and you. Until my art/design starts making me money it is worthless. All the other activities I enjoy make no income. Even if so many people will likely be stuck in zero-enjoyment careers, I don't see why we need to remind each other of that.