Ex-employees try to take over Massive Black
polycounter lvl 18
Hmmmm ... my post title isn't exactly accurate but I couldn't come up with a better one. Anyhow:
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3152235
This sounds pretty fucked to me. I hope Massive Black prevails in their suit and a criminal investigation follows.
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3152235
This sounds pretty fucked to me. I hope Massive Black prevails in their suit and a criminal investigation follows.
Replies
Their first work was for companies like Flagship Studios, id Software -- at the time the company was based in Austin (they relocated to San Francisco in 2004 and now have offices in Shanghai, as well).
[/ QUOTE ]
I thought for a second there they were talking about id... O_o
Hopefully the sentence is fairly harsh.
I remember seeing a lecture of his at the ConceptArt.org workshop in January 2005... everything seemed fine then, and he was a good artist with plenty of tips. Seems so dumb to try this, money does strange things to people...
"In addition to killing Massive Black Inc., and as a result one of the most important art suppliers in the game industry, a takeover would've shifted labor out of the West and back to the East, where the labor is cheaper."
WTF.
They were allegedly embezzling, not conquering the Western game industry.
They were probably fed up with Jason and the rest of the MB crew and decided to set their own shop up. Who wouldn't call up your clients and let them know that? It's the money stealing that's bad. And stealing $100k, while horrible, is not a "hostile takeover" and does not have larger implications to the entire industry.
That can seriously fuck over a company.
Also, in this case they were also apparently using Massive Black's equipement, which is another blow.
No, the money isn't the only bad part at all.
As for that commentary, while possibly not said the best, he might be trying to get at what happened with the animation industry. Trying to point out that this could be an attempted start in the game industry as the trend that we see there, where almost everything is outsourced to the east where it is far cheaper. I'd say he was a bit extreme in his assesment regarding this situation, but he did have a point.