Cronyism in the game industry
I have worked at 5 game studios now over the course of 10 years and have experienced gross cronyism at 4 of them. Most recently an individual several years junior and sub-par in general was promoted to "art-lead". The reason given by the art director was that he had known him for some years. In my experience, an art lead leads by example, not by words. So how do you reconcile this? Is this the case where you work? How systemic is this issue? How much do you think this contributes to the wealth of crappy game art?
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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/World_Map_Index_of_perception_of_corruption_2010.svg
As you can see, the US is very high in its corruption percent index.
That's perceived corruption - asking citizens of a country how corrupt they think their government is. Also "A higher score means less (perceived) corruption". So enough of this silliness.
An art lead is more about managing and less about art, most leads I know don't have time to do any art at all, they are completely swamped with managing their team.
I'm really confused now, what do you mean by 'managing their team'? As in the make sure the characters don't have biceps bigger then their heads, or make sure everyone is not on LoL?
Nope, it's up to the lead to figure out who models what and how much time they have to do it.
As in providing critique and direction, scheduling work, delegation of tasks, etc.
Depending on team size, you'll usually have a hierarchy that goes something like:
Art Director
Associate Art Directors in charge of X discipliens
Discipline Lead
Artists
And depending on staff size, etc, you trim out Associate ADs and Discipline Leads.
Who would you promote? Someone you're friends with and trust, or a slightly more talented individual who you either don't know very well, or even dislike a little.
Try staying at a studio longer and making some friends.
:thumbup:
Here's the thing. When there's bugger-all in it, then everyone can accept that, because it really could have gone both ways regardless of who was making the choice. If person A is a mere 1.869% better than person B, then the difference is less than a good day or a bad day or work. Also known as sweet bugger all.
The issue here is when one candidate is significantly better than another, they are the obvious choice, and then the person in charge picks their friend who should still be a junior. THAT pisses everyone off, would almost definitely have a bad effect on productivity and quality, and then you're going to have those two eventually dealing with it.
Just because the majority thinks someone is the obvious/correct choice, doesn't mean it is. The facts are, it's the art director's ass on the line if the person he promotes does a shitty job. He's going to promote someone he trusts not to fuck him. And I sincerely doubt he'd promote his friend if he thought his friend might fuck up and make him look bad.
You'd be surprised.
You don't necessarily have to be friends to trust someone in a business situation like this. If they get the job done and have a track record - there's your trust!
Personally I'd leave a studio where you have to suck up to your boss to get ahead and where relationship counts more than skill and ability. Sure some people call this a management style but it ain't my thing.
Unfortunately, there was not more reason given and it has been re-iterated a couple times now. This same lead was last in charge of a visual mess of a game.
Honestly a guy who had been working on the project for 6 months prior should have been given the opportunity and wasn't and he ended up quitting over it and went to a competitor. The short of it is that it is demoralizing and ultimately hurts the success of the studio.
An art director should, imo, have these two things; 1. Be good at what he does and have knowledge of how things work(both technical and esthetic)
2. Be a good leader and have the respect of the rest of the team. The latter can be achieved but I suspect he's gonna have a hard time gaining that. Especially if he's less experienced than the rest of you and would lead you guys into a ditch.
In the end this is all up to you. If the boss makes these kinds of decisions and you feel disturbed by it you can always do what your friend did, leave and join the others.
this might be an ideal solution, BUT often companies don't want to lose their strongest workers to managing positions, sometimes you can see a split in the job field, someone leading by example and doing the whole art process and another person doing the managing part of the art lead. But most of the times you'd either have a highly skilled artist sitting in the wrong position, juggling with spreadsheets or having an artwise less skilled guy doing the lead. Beeing the lead of a team is not always the best thing to do as an artist, it sounds higher, might be better paid but often you end up doing stuff you dislike - A LOT.
It's all teamwork anyway - the way I see it is that the lead should set the general direction and help the team to ensure everyone get their stuff done in the best way possible. As lead you help your team to get the work done! (and sometimes push them a little bit if they feel lazy
Having said that - I'm annoyed by those "I'm the best artist - I do the most interesting stuff!" leads. Great way to demotivate everyone by giving them boring pieces to work because the lead cannot delegate...
I fucked my way up the ladder.
Best way to combat this, is to get everyone on the same page. Tougher to do on large teams.
Other thing to be wary of are the descenting voices. Guys that create rifts on the teams. Make sure you're not involved in the bitch-fest or hate-gang groups.
BTW you'll be surprised at how many studios do NOT have a heavy mandate on quality+efficiency. Simple way to determine this, is to take a look at your annual evaluation criteria, and find out what % of the questions have to do with just that.
It best to avoid bitch other artist and hate groups
It no denying that Office politics does't exit
Every industry has it....
I dont see what nr's of year worked has to do with wether or not the person can do a good job as a lead?