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Ever had your name taken out of the game credits post launch?

polycounter lvl 8
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Seaseme polycounter lvl 8
I have. And it really sucks.

Why would they do that? Is this a common practice?

Oh, and I quit the company after the game launched, so maybe that's what their policy was. Or maybe there wasn't enough room on the .XML file for all of the suits who demanded credit for the game.


/bitter.

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  • [Deleted User]
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    [Deleted User] insane polycounter
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  • Jeremy Lindstrom
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    Jeremy Lindstrom polycounter lvl 18
    I've seen both, either only people working there 'currently' get in the credits, which makes the game 'look' like it was shipped with a really small dedicated team of members, looks good to the suits above too, even though 500 people worked on the project from start to finish only 120 are shown...
  • LMP
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    LMP polycounter lvl 13
    I know I guy who's contributed to 50 of the biggest games in the last few years, but he's only been credited 3 times. He works for a top art outsource company.
  • [Deleted User]
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    [Deleted User] insane polycounter
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  • confracto
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    confracto polycounter lvl 11
    ya, I've missed out on film credits because they only used the list from day 1, and I started day 7.
  • Kevin Johnstone
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    Kevin Johnstone polycounter lvl 20
    I've had it happen, I think the deal is that when you go, sometimes people don't care because they don't need to anymore as you are not an employee anymore.
  • Ennolangus
    I've had it happen, I think the deal is that when you go, sometimes people don't care because they don't need to anymore as you are not an employee anymore.


    I agree. This can also be applied to people who take verbal and not written contracts; which is a really really ney sayer and people shouldn't, but i've heard it happen frequently lately.

    Person is brought on, helps out project, leaves, then gets shafted on either pay, credited work or both.

    Sadly, I've had it just happen recently, but not on a game title, but a tv show.

    It happens an awful lot in the movie/tv show industry, so I can only imagine it happening frequently in the gaming industry as well.
  • Autocon
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    Autocon polycounter lvl 15
    ah that really sucks to hear :(

    one of the coolest things was for my friends, family and even myself get to see my name up in the credits for the first time.

    then again there is a typo in my last name : / small but its there, was sad a little at first but then realized that being the AWFUL speller I have been my whole life it kinda fit and now its funny.


    or i could just be stealing the identity of the person who really worked on the game just to take credit!
  • Entity
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    Entity polycounter lvl 18
    I've seen it happen many times in films
  • Seaseme
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    Seaseme polycounter lvl 8
    No. I was on salary and worked on the game for a year+. I was really close with most of the team. Its fucked up. I'm pretty upset about it. I poured my life out for that game, And they don't even give me any credit.

    What a joke.

    I guess I shouldn't be surprised. They threw the production artists under the bus the entire dev cycle.
  • thomasp
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    thomasp hero character
    I've seen both, either only people working there 'currently' get in the credits, which makes the game 'look' like it was shipped with a really small dedicated team of members, looks good to the suits above too, even though 500 people worked on the project from start to finish only 120 are shown...

    really? is that the new industry spirit? i've only ever seen the opposite where everyone and their dog gets shoved into the credits somehow to make the list longer... moar epic!

    just like company heads seemingly like to brag about rapid growth of their workforce and the enourmously large teams they have on a title.
  • r_fletch_r
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    r_fletch_r polycounter lvl 9
    Last production I was on we were given a set number of credits by our publisher, thankfully our producer fought it and got the whole team credited.

    I think if your production staff don't give a shit, then your pretty fecked.
  • crazyfingers
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    crazyfingers polycounter lvl 10
    While doing QA i worked on several titles that i didn't get my name on, but it really wasn't a big deal, they weren't very major anyway.

    I do remember the first time seeing my name in credits, we'd finally gotten a build of the game with the credits at the end. The whole QA team was standing around watching the screen in anticipations, for many of us it was our first title. Lots of finger pointing at the screen and yelling there I am! Good times :). Oh, and one of our QA staff had his name misspelled, he was pretty bummed. Probably happens a lot in QA, ironically haha.

    Cosmetic Bug: Name in end credits misspelled

    Dev Response: Not a bug

    This thread inspired me go to mobygames.com to look myself up, first game was 5 frickin' years ago. Time sure does fly.
  • PredatorGSR
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    PredatorGSR polycounter lvl 14
    I don't see why anyone would really care that much about the credits. You still got paid and all the people who would care know you worked on the game anyway. Seems like a pointless ego boost that isn't worth getting worked up about. Its not like it has anything to do with putting it on your resume or portfolio.

    The only time I ever cared about credits was when Far Cry 2 PC had 15 mins of unskippable credits that listed everyone and their mother who had ever worked at a Ubisoft studio, and I had to alt f4 the game.

    Now I sound like a cynic, but I honestly don't see what the big deal is.
  • Kwramm
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    Kwramm interpolator
    I worked on titles where I didn't even make it into the credits because some project "manager" couldn't do a query in the bug tracking system to see who all got tasks related to the game. (you guys did remind us to fill the hours every day in our tasks, remember?) ....ah well, guess it just sucks that some studios don't even bother to check if nobody has been "left behind". It's not like people weren't busting their asses....

    I'm more disappointed that studios just show so little appreciation. I guess it's just like rude people already leaving the theatre while the rest shows their appreciation clapping to the artists ...
  • Andreas
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    Andreas polycounter lvl 11
    Could you ask for a guarantee of a credit to be added to your contract before you sign it?
  • Geezus
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    Geezus mod
    I don't see why anyone would really care that much about the credits. You still got paid and all the people who would care know you worked on the game anyway. Seems like a pointless ego boost that isn't worth getting worked up about. Its not like it has anything to do with putting it on your resume or portfolio.

    Really? There's a significant part of you in everything you create. It's the simple principle of seeing your name in the credits, if only for the reassurance that it was all worth it. Honestly, I don't see why anyone wouldn't care. I don't view it as an ego thing at all.

    I'm more concerned as to why a company would actively remove you, post launch. That means that someone felt strongly enough to task someone else to remove your name from a list, and at some point it had to be tasked to be thrown in with a patch or what-have-you. That just seems like a shitty person. Though, I don't know you from Adam, and you could have left on the most epic of shitty terms in history. :D
  • Saman
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    Saman polycounter lvl 14
    I recall some companies asking for credits from films. I don't remember what company it was but for them it was a guarantee of you working on that film.
    As for OP; I've had that happen to me too on a film and some commercials. From what I hear they won't put your name in the credits list if you've been working for the game as a freelancer for some outsourced company(they only put the name of the outsourced company) but I'm not sure about that.
    I don't know if it's related to the amount of time you worked on it either but that might have been the case for me(I worked on a film for a month whereas there were others who worked on the same film for a year or more).
  • LMP
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    LMP polycounter lvl 13
    Sure but was the outsource credited? If not it was probably a pre-contract agreement or something.

    Sometimes even the outsource company isn't credited, hell, he's got work he's done that he can't ever "publish" he can show it in a private setting, but it can't ever end up on the web. SCEA Santa Monica he says was the best studio he's done work for when it came to credit.
  • JacqueChoi
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    JacqueChoi polycounter
    I was omitted from the Far Cry 2 credits.

    Funny how that happened, considering 2 Directing Members of the game are on the committee was involved with writing the IGDA credit standard:

    http://archives.igda.org/credit/IGDA_Game_Crediting_Guide_Draft_8-5.pdf
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