Vivendi???

easterislandnick

Hi, Ive been lurking around this board for a couple of years but post so little that I can never remember my username!

Any way, I had an interview for an environment art job at Swordfish studios today in the UK who were really impressive, but having had my fingers burnt before by publishers pulling out of projects I have the following question... Has any one worked with Vivendi as their publisher and how was it??

Any advice would be seriously welcome, I quite like this posting lark, I might even pimp some work....

MoP

http://gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=14561

Visual Science went down after Vivendi pulled out on them.

I think it really depends on the studio though. I'm pretty sure there's a couple of people on these forums who either used to work, or currently do work for Swordfish. They might have a better idea...

Ruz

Ha ha , you met me in the reception trying to find my keys.

TBH, vivendi are a pretty stable company and you could do a lot worse right now.

poopinmymouth

Vivendi pulled the plug on my first game, for no reason related to the game progress. We were on time, under budget, overdelivering, and by their own words, "their best developer" yet because marketing decided it wouldn't be worth competing with EA on the LOTR license, (ours was a LOTR game), it got canned.

I personally dislike VU for above reason.

SouL

LOLOLOLOLOL
They're pretty good to me. Haha

SouL

Actually, in all seriousness, it isn't uncommon for a project to be pulled if the INVESTORS don't think it'll be profitable. They might as well cut their losses early and try to recoup it elsewhere.
A good game, is a good game... true. But that doesn't mean anything if the guys paying your salary thinks it won't sell. It's hard to take risks against something you know in the back of your head will be stiff competition. Regardless of the quality of EA games, they still sell because to the general public a movie license tied to EA is a "safe" purchase.

At the end of the day, there's not much you can do if your project gets pulled or not. Whoever you work for is guaranteed to be owned or heavily funded by some other larger entity. It happens. The only real way to find stability is to attach yourself to a popular, big name, developer. Granted, you may not have as much fun developing for them, but that's your trade off for security.

Smaller companies are often on shaky ground because they haven't had a whole lot produced to "prove" their profitability to the big boys.

Vailias

VU is such a huge beast, and your experience may vary greatly depending on which tenticle arm you wind up dealing with.

I used to begrudge them over the closing of dynamix and sierra, but in the assorted dealings with them over the starsiege: 2845 project, they have been quite accomodating.
Could be the general lack of risk, but I haven't known any other publisher to be so generous with their IP and other proprietary holdings. I think mutual respect and the occasional ultimatim goes a long way.

Kevin Albers

I worked with Ben/Poop on the LOTR game that Vivendi canceled a couple of years ago. It was a drag to have a potentially good game canceled, but I actually think Vivendi should be a good publisher to make games for currently. For several years, Vivendi's game division was losing lots of money, and so lots of projects got canceled in the financial panic. Now, due largely to World of Warcraft's sucess, Vivendi has HUGE piles of cash, and will have tons more money rolling in for a few years unless WoW does something really wrong. With all that money, Vivendi can take a bunch more risks with the games it makes. Therefore the odds of any given project being canceled after it has been green-lit is pretty low unless the project starts going in a real bad direction.

I think all big publishers are dysfunctional, but the ones with lots of money will cancel fewer projects for crazy reasons, on average.

poopinmymouth

[ QUOTE ]
I worked with Ben/Poop on the LOTR game that Vivendi canceled a couple of years ago. It was a drag to have a potentially good game canceled, but I actually think Vivendi should be a good publisher to make games for currently. For several years, Vivendi's game division was losing lots of money, and so lots of projects got canceled in the financial panic. Now, due largely to World of Warcraft's sucess, Vivendi has HUGE piles of cash, and will have tons more money rolling in for a few years unless WoW does something really wrong. With all that money, Vivendi can take a bunch more risks with the games it makes. Therefore the odds of any given project being canceled after it has been green-lit is pretty low unless the project starts going in a real bad direction.

I think all big publishers are dysfunctional, but the ones with lots of money will cancel fewer projects for crazy reasons, on average.

[/ QUOTE ]


Probably true Kevin.

Kevin is the guy who helped mentor me at my first job, teaching me the ropes and fielding all my many questions. I learned more from him in a month than I did my entire year and a half at SCAD. As usual his experience gives him a bit better perspective than whatever crazy conclusion I've jumped to.

easterislandnick

Thanks for the advice, I know no job is 100% safe in this industry but after having my fingers burnt before its good to know what sort of beast Im dealing with. Theres no massive horror stories, closing studios is sometimes inevitable (its happened to me!) and its dollas and pounds really dictate that sort of thing which is fair enough. Well Ive got a 2nd interview which Im really excited about so well see what happens.....

Ruz

good luck man. any questions , give me a shout.
Vivendi worked with swordfish on cold winter and they were not as financially stable as they are now, so it unlikely that swordfish is going to go under any time soon.