ActivisionBlizzard $ATVI Dividend increasing 9% Headcount reducing 8%
February 20, 2019 8:18 PM Subscribe
Activision Blizzard Reports Record Revenue as They Fuck Over 800 Employees [Waypoint] “Activision Blizzard, a company of more than 9,000 employees who’ve built some of the world’s most popular games, is a few things. They are a company who bragged about having a “record year,” on an earnings call this afternoon, a quarter where only raking in $2.4 billion in revenue was considered a disappointment. They are a company who granted a $15 million signing bonus and a $900,000 salary to a high-ranking executive who joined last month. And they are a company who just laid off around 800 employees, or 8% (!!!) of its total workers. 800 people will be without jobs at the end of the day. 800 people head into an uncertain future, wondering how long their severance and health insurance will get them before the next job. That list of 800 will not include Bobby Kotick. He will, of course, sleep well tonight.”
• What the hell happened at Activision Blizzard? [Polygon]
• What the hell happened at Activision Blizzard? [Polygon]
“Bobby Kotick has become the villain in this story. Kotick drew a $1.75 million salary plus another $26 million or so in stock and other equity awards in 2017. Dennis Durkin, who recently returned to the CFO role and was also put in charge of “emerging business” (figuring out where the company will make its money in the coming years), was given a $3.75 million cash bonus and another $11.3 million in as yet unearned, performance-based equity. The disparity between bottom line executive compensation and what the 800 people laid off were making is staggering. A number of people have pointed to former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata taking a pay cut to preserve the jobs of developers after the company had massive shortfalls in 2014. The sentiment is understandable, but the situations at Nintendo and Activision Blizzard are drastically different. As CEO, Kotick’s job is to deliver ever-increasing value to shareholders. He accomplished that task, and as far as investors are concerned, Kotick’s doing a good job.”• The Fallout Of Activision Blizzard’s Massive Layoffs [Kotaku]
“It was carnage. People were laid off at Activision’s main office in Santa Monica, California, where an entire team of Destiny publishing staff had been coming to work with nothing to do. (Some of them were laid off; some were moved to Call of Duty or other teams. Some in other departments were also laid off.) People lost their jobs at King, the developer of Candy Crush, and at Activision’s various development studios including Vicarious Visions (Albany, NY) and High Moon Studios (San Diego, CA), both of which had handled support on Destiny 2. Activision Blizzard staff in Europe, Latin America, and other regions across the world also lost their jobs. Some who were laid off wrote messages on social media to say goodbye, while developers all across the video game industry tried to help by posting job listings on Twitter and Facebook. Although the bulk of laid-off employees were support staff, some were in departments like art and design as well. Over the past week I’ve talked to around 20 people who were laid off or close to those being laid off, as well as others with knowledge as to what’s happening at Activision Blizzard. If there’s a consensus, it’s rage.”• Activision Blizzard cuts nearly 800 jobs amid ‘record results in 2018’ [The Verge]
“Activision Blizzard says that it’ll be focusing more on its biggest franchises: Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Overwatch, Warcraft, Hearthstone, and Diablo, with plans to increase developers across those titles by “approximately 20% over the course of 2019.” (Destiny, another one of Activision’s marquee titles, parted ways with the publisher in January and is now back in the hands of developer Bungie.) On the flip side, Activision Blizzard said that it’ll fund those increases “by de-prioritizing initiatives that are not meeting expectations and reducing certain non-development and administrative-related costs across the business,” resulting in the nearly 800 laid off employees. According to Variety, the job cuts will be coming from support staff as Activision Blizzard reworks some of its commercial and marketing teams.”
Game Workers Of The World Unite!
ALF-CIO says it’s time for game workers to organize
@GameWorkers
posted by The Whelk at 8:29 PM on February 20, 2019 [52 favorites]
ALF-CIO says it’s time for game workers to organize
@GameWorkers
posted by The Whelk at 8:29 PM on February 20, 2019 [52 favorites]
Yeah, it really is WAY past time for the video game industry to unionize.
posted by mstokes650 at 8:39 PM on February 20, 2019 [19 favorites]
posted by mstokes650 at 8:39 PM on February 20, 2019 [19 favorites]
"The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games." - Bobby Kotick, 2009
posted by Tenuki at 8:43 PM on February 20, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by Tenuki at 8:43 PM on February 20, 2019 [6 favorites]
Moviebob has a pretty good call for unions, suggesting the industry should mirror Hollywood. I know this damage is done, but it would be great if one could enjoy a triple A game without worrying about the folks making them.
posted by es_de_bah at 8:50 PM on February 20, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by es_de_bah at 8:50 PM on February 20, 2019 [9 favorites]
Dennis Durkin, who recently returned to the CFO role and was also put in charge of “emerging business” (figuring out where the company will make its money in the coming years)
You don't put your CFO in charge of product - ever. That's a recipe for growth by financial tricks rather than investment in new (risky) things, which can work in the short term but always leads to mediocrity in the long term.
This is not going to work out well for shareholders.
posted by fremen at 8:57 PM on February 20, 2019 [22 favorites]
You don't put your CFO in charge of product - ever. That's a recipe for growth by financial tricks rather than investment in new (risky) things, which can work in the short term but always leads to mediocrity in the long term.
This is not going to work out well for shareholders.
posted by fremen at 8:57 PM on February 20, 2019 [22 favorites]
Today's New York Times profiles Bobby Kotick, the boss of Activision Blizzard and longtime bête noir of many a longtime gamer, many of whom have created unflattering portrayals of him quickly found by Google Image search. Well, he wants you to know this doesn't help his game. See, he's divorced and on the prowl.
"Think about what it's like for my dating life when the first picture that comes up is me as the Devil," Kotick tells the Times. from kotaku
*tiniest violin*
posted by juv3nal at 8:59 PM on February 20, 2019 [29 favorites]
"Think about what it's like for my dating life when the first picture that comes up is me as the Devil," Kotick tells the Times. from kotaku
*tiniest violin*
posted by juv3nal at 8:59 PM on February 20, 2019 [29 favorites]
Jim "Jim Fucking Sterling Son" Sterling, video game journalist and part time pro wrestler had this to offer: "Fire Bobby Kotick"
The lunacy of the AAA Video Game business has been something he's been talking about for a bit. To the point of predicting where the industry's current model would lead "The Deadly Spiral of Live Services".
The quick summary is this: The big video game industry imported the gambling mechanics such as loot boxes and micro-transactions from freemium games and saw massive massive revenue growth (and potential regulatory trouble). Then they ran into massive user backlash and the trick stopped working. So now they're eating themselves to try and preserve the share prices that were premised on the growth they had experienced from turning all IP into virtual casinos continuing indefinitely.
Also, for people talking about unionization, the political mainstream has wholly embraced policies that make large scale unionization impossible; I.E. free trade and free movement of people. Unionization depends on the ability of the workforce to shut down the operations of the business. If the business can up sticks and move and not incur any costs beyond the costs of setting up a new office, then the unions are entirely de-fanged. Likewise if the business can always bring in people to do the work. As it stands now, if the workforce in one place attempts to unionize the jobs will be moved to where the unions aren't, or people will be moved to break the union.
posted by Grimgrin at 9:03 PM on February 20, 2019 [19 favorites]
The lunacy of the AAA Video Game business has been something he's been talking about for a bit. To the point of predicting where the industry's current model would lead "The Deadly Spiral of Live Services".
The quick summary is this: The big video game industry imported the gambling mechanics such as loot boxes and micro-transactions from freemium games and saw massive massive revenue growth (and potential regulatory trouble). Then they ran into massive user backlash and the trick stopped working. So now they're eating themselves to try and preserve the share prices that were premised on the growth they had experienced from turning all IP into virtual casinos continuing indefinitely.
Also, for people talking about unionization, the political mainstream has wholly embraced policies that make large scale unionization impossible; I.E. free trade and free movement of people. Unionization depends on the ability of the workforce to shut down the operations of the business. If the business can up sticks and move and not incur any costs beyond the costs of setting up a new office, then the unions are entirely de-fanged. Likewise if the business can always bring in people to do the work. As it stands now, if the workforce in one place attempts to unionize the jobs will be moved to where the unions aren't, or people will be moved to break the union.
posted by Grimgrin at 9:03 PM on February 20, 2019 [19 favorites]
Pretty ironic for an article titled "What the hell happened at Activision Blizzard?" to not mention "Fortnite" at least once.
posted by sideshow at 9:29 PM on February 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by sideshow at 9:29 PM on February 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
I'm confused. If "an entire team of Destiny publishing staff had been coming to work with nothing to do," why would anyone be surprised if they were let go?
posted by PhineasGage at 9:32 PM on February 20, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 9:32 PM on February 20, 2019 [7 favorites]
There is absolutely no room for humanity in capitalism.
Plan accordingly.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:37 PM on February 20, 2019 [11 favorites]
Plan accordingly.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:37 PM on February 20, 2019 [11 favorites]
Well, Overwatch is still fun to play...
After being top of the rock, WoW, and then falling off, SC2, then grabbing mindshare again with Overwatch, the new kids on the block, Fortnite and now, apparently, fucking EA with Apex Legends are likely eating their lunch. Hearthstone doesn't cut it against the current FTP offerings, which are way hotter than anything blizzard is putting out.
Paradigm shift incoming.
posted by Windopaene at 9:37 PM on February 20, 2019
After being top of the rock, WoW, and then falling off, SC2, then grabbing mindshare again with Overwatch, the new kids on the block, Fortnite and now, apparently, fucking EA with Apex Legends are likely eating their lunch. Hearthstone doesn't cut it against the current FTP offerings, which are way hotter than anything blizzard is putting out.
Paradigm shift incoming.
posted by Windopaene at 9:37 PM on February 20, 2019
It's not just globalization due to freer movement of labor and capital, it's also globalization due to increasingly better technology which allows offices around the world to work together on the same product. When you do global programs management you're always aware that you can hire 5 engineers in India or 1 engineer in the US for the same price - which one are you going to go with? To some degree, we delude ourselves into thinking we deserve our super high salaries in the West because we are just that much more productive, and to some degree it's true, we do quality work, but this advantage in knowledge and experience will not hold forever. The situation is even worse for lower educated staff, like QA or even call center support staff, where it's harder to justify how staff in the US could possibly resolve 5x as many tickets per hour as the staff in Philippines or India.
My workplace at some point laid off 25% of our staff in one go while I was there. The only way we can stuff the genie back in the bottle is to either.
1) have some kind of disaster that destroys the internet and brings us back to before the information age, killing the ability for companies to operate globally.
2) erecting huge trade barriers making cross border trade all but impossible.
3) ... in a fantasy world, but also the most likely to happen over a long time horizon, the equalization of wage rates between all countries and within each country removing the incentive to optimize costs by outsourcing to lower cost countries.
posted by xdvesper at 9:40 PM on February 20, 2019 [9 favorites]
My workplace at some point laid off 25% of our staff in one go while I was there. The only way we can stuff the genie back in the bottle is to either.
1) have some kind of disaster that destroys the internet and brings us back to before the information age, killing the ability for companies to operate globally.
2) erecting huge trade barriers making cross border trade all but impossible.
3) ... in a fantasy world, but also the most likely to happen over a long time horizon, the equalization of wage rates between all countries and within each country removing the incentive to optimize costs by outsourcing to lower cost countries.
posted by xdvesper at 9:40 PM on February 20, 2019 [9 favorites]
As it stands now, if the workforce in one place attempts to unionize the jobs will be moved to where the unions aren't, or people will be moved to break the union.
That assumes a degree of low-friction replaceability that is more realistic for some work than other work. When you're talking about development of a particular software product, it may be possible to replace the whole workforce in the long run, but certainly not all at once.
posted by atoxyl at 10:03 PM on February 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
That assumes a degree of low-friction replaceability that is more realistic for some work than other work. When you're talking about development of a particular software product, it may be possible to replace the whole workforce in the long run, but certainly not all at once.
posted by atoxyl at 10:03 PM on February 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
PC Gamer: Ubisoft reports strong profits, doesn't fire 800 people
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:12 PM on February 20, 2019 [32 favorites]
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:12 PM on February 20, 2019 [32 favorites]
the equalization of wage rates between all countries and within each country removing the incentive to optimize costs by outsourcing to lower cost countries.
This isn't fantasy, it's already happened. A decade ago Indian outsourcing firms that could compete on quality with North American dev shops (like HCL) had already raised their prices to where their profitable use depended upon the kind of marginal efficiencies that had NA execs looking to India in the first place.
The connected world works both ways.
posted by fatbird at 10:23 PM on February 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
This isn't fantasy, it's already happened. A decade ago Indian outsourcing firms that could compete on quality with North American dev shops (like HCL) had already raised their prices to where their profitable use depended upon the kind of marginal efficiencies that had NA execs looking to India in the first place.
The connected world works both ways.
posted by fatbird at 10:23 PM on February 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
I've never really understood the games industry. It's a group of incredibly talented people who have the skills and mobility to work elsewhere but endure sub-standard conditions in every way. They could all go work for one of the big software companies on something less exciting and make 50% more for 40 hours a week, yet there's always another batch of engineers itching to death march for another game.
I don't think a studio model or unionization solves this, it's a labor model where the participants value their own labor much lower then the market is willing to pay.
posted by temancl at 10:40 PM on February 20, 2019 [16 favorites]
I don't think a studio model or unionization solves this, it's a labor model where the participants value their own labor much lower then the market is willing to pay.
posted by temancl at 10:40 PM on February 20, 2019 [16 favorites]
Unfortunately, there are a lot of hungry people who want those jobs, so yeah: unionizing would be difficult. It always is, always has been. Doesn't make it a bad idea, especially if you can get the consumers on the side of the union leaders.
posted by es_de_bah at 10:55 PM on February 20, 2019
posted by es_de_bah at 10:55 PM on February 20, 2019
As it stands now, if the workforce in one place attempts to unionize the jobs will be moved to where the unions aren't, or people will be moved to break the union.
This is, in fact, a core part of the argument that capitalistic exploitation of developing countries is good for the countries: eventually, the workers develop skills enough to be able to make higher quality goods, and at this point they also start insisting on proper pay. Unionisation happens, the multinationals flee to another country, and the people left behind have a country that is mostly out of the poverty trap. The argument says this is the typical pattern for countries with sweatshops, citing Japan, Korea and Taiwan.
I don't know whether I agree with it - it skirts over the issue of how these countries became 'poor' in the first place - but it does suggest that even the rah-rah-capitalism types see the exploited organising as part of the process.
They are a little concerned with what Bangladesh means for their argument.
posted by Merus at 10:59 PM on February 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
This is, in fact, a core part of the argument that capitalistic exploitation of developing countries is good for the countries: eventually, the workers develop skills enough to be able to make higher quality goods, and at this point they also start insisting on proper pay. Unionisation happens, the multinationals flee to another country, and the people left behind have a country that is mostly out of the poverty trap. The argument says this is the typical pattern for countries with sweatshops, citing Japan, Korea and Taiwan.
I don't know whether I agree with it - it skirts over the issue of how these countries became 'poor' in the first place - but it does suggest that even the rah-rah-capitalism types see the exploited organising as part of the process.
They are a little concerned with what Bangladesh means for their argument.
posted by Merus at 10:59 PM on February 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
They could all go work for one of the big software companies on something less exciting and make 50% more for 40 hours a week
Where, at big not-game software companies? There's an aspect of game programming that isn't satisfied by being a line programmer, and there's only a few companies where you can really do it at a really visible level. That the industry is fixed as far as misery goes doesn't deter people who want to have a hand in it.
It truly is like Hollywood in that way, and as far as the analogy above goes it would be like telling a struggling actor that they can make more as a salesperson. It's all just playing a role and maybe improvising a little.
posted by rhizome at 11:54 PM on February 20, 2019 [14 favorites]
Where, at big not-game software companies? There's an aspect of game programming that isn't satisfied by being a line programmer, and there's only a few companies where you can really do it at a really visible level. That the industry is fixed as far as misery goes doesn't deter people who want to have a hand in it.
It truly is like Hollywood in that way, and as far as the analogy above goes it would be like telling a struggling actor that they can make more as a salesperson. It's all just playing a role and maybe improvising a little.
posted by rhizome at 11:54 PM on February 20, 2019 [14 favorites]
Also, for people talking about unionization, the political mainstream has wholly embraced policies that make large scale unionization impossible; I.E. free trade and free movement of people. Unionization depends on the ability of the workforce to shut down the operations of the business. If the business can up sticks and move and not incur any costs beyond the costs of setting up a new office, then the unions are entirely de-fanged. Likewise if the business can always bring in people to do the work. As it stands now, if the workforce in one place attempts to unionize the jobs will be moved to where the unions aren't, or people will be moved to break the union.
This is the theory that's always given, but it doesn't actually hold up in practice, because it turns out that it's never that frictionless, especially when it comes to the games industry (which is one of the more grueling branches of development, leaning on a lot of the more bleeding edge parts of the field.)
I've never really understood the games industry. It's a group of incredibly talented people who have the skills and mobility to work elsewhere but endure sub-standard conditions in every way. They could all go work for one of the big software companies on something less exciting and make 50% more for 40 hours a week, yet there's always another batch of engineers itching to death march for another game.
This is a bigger part of the problem, but as was pointed out, the industry's like Hollywood in that way, as well as that the industry needs specifically skilled people as well.
No, the large part of why unionization hasn't had much penetration here is because programmers culturally are opposed to unionization, which is really frustrating to see.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:00 AM on February 21, 2019 [6 favorites]
This is the theory that's always given, but it doesn't actually hold up in practice, because it turns out that it's never that frictionless, especially when it comes to the games industry (which is one of the more grueling branches of development, leaning on a lot of the more bleeding edge parts of the field.)
I've never really understood the games industry. It's a group of incredibly talented people who have the skills and mobility to work elsewhere but endure sub-standard conditions in every way. They could all go work for one of the big software companies on something less exciting and make 50% more for 40 hours a week, yet there's always another batch of engineers itching to death march for another game.
This is a bigger part of the problem, but as was pointed out, the industry's like Hollywood in that way, as well as that the industry needs specifically skilled people as well.
No, the large part of why unionization hasn't had much penetration here is because programmers culturally are opposed to unionization, which is really frustrating to see.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:00 AM on February 21, 2019 [6 favorites]
I'm confused. If "an entire team of Destiny publishing staff had been coming to work with nothing to do," why would anyone be surprised if they were let go?
The problem is that it should have never gotten to that point with Destiny and the Activision-Bungie split was the canary in the coalmine with how fucked the company is. The reality is that A-B doesn't have many "tentpoles" anymore (at this point, they pretty much have just one, Call of Duty), and they're bleeding all over - the Blizzard publishing split was a massive failure that's now being reversed, resulting in a number of redundancies; World of Warcraft's most recent expansion has...not gone over well with the player base, which has lead to losses there; the esports initiative lost their primary backers and as a result is getting rolled back (which I think is one of the stupider results of all this), and then you have the Destiny clusterfuck, which could be a thread of its own, and many other fuckups besides. And before you say that I'm defending Kotick, let me point out that the vast, vast majority of all this can be laid at his incompetent feet. Activision-Blizzard has more or less been driven into the ground, and while this year's profits looked great, the future is starting to look a lot bleaker for the company.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:15 AM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
The problem is that it should have never gotten to that point with Destiny and the Activision-Bungie split was the canary in the coalmine with how fucked the company is. The reality is that A-B doesn't have many "tentpoles" anymore (at this point, they pretty much have just one, Call of Duty), and they're bleeding all over - the Blizzard publishing split was a massive failure that's now being reversed, resulting in a number of redundancies; World of Warcraft's most recent expansion has...not gone over well with the player base, which has lead to losses there; the esports initiative lost their primary backers and as a result is getting rolled back (which I think is one of the stupider results of all this), and then you have the Destiny clusterfuck, which could be a thread of its own, and many other fuckups besides. And before you say that I'm defending Kotick, let me point out that the vast, vast majority of all this can be laid at his incompetent feet. Activision-Blizzard has more or less been driven into the ground, and while this year's profits looked great, the future is starting to look a lot bleaker for the company.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:15 AM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
it may be possible to replace the whole workforce in the long run, but certainly not all at once.
Speaking as a AAA-turned-indie* developer married to a AAA developer, I've never met anybody who's been in the industry longer than a year that lacks a keen grasp of the situation: they could fire the entire North American gaming industry tomorrow and replace every last one of us with *just* the annual crop of fresh college grads trying to get in, in somewhere between three and five years.
This is why we work ~60 hours/week for two years, 70~80 for 6~12 months, and 100+ for 1~3 months wash/rinse/repeat every 3-year project cycle, with not a cent of overtime ever paid, royalties typically equivalent to a few months of salary, average job length of 3 years before facing the prospect of moving cross country, and with the full knowledge that many or most of us could boost our salaries by 50~100% in under a month by leaving for a different industry. Which if you've survived AAA longer than three years, is probably not a choice you will make.
If you're in anything like a desirable big-name studio, you're there because it's the thing you want to do most in the world and capitalism is only too happy to exploit that passion. It's not like a room full of that many 99.x percentile IQs hasn't fucking heard of unions, or doesn't want to unionize, or isn't angry about being exploited: it's because anybody who wasn't willing to continue doing it anyway left years ago or was fired. The pressure from below is so intense, the supply of potential scabs so functionally infinite, that the ownership class can continue this behavior while maintaining the highest skill requirements for each role. We are *that* fucked.
The only real compensations of the industry are working on something you love every day, watching fans wet their pants when they find out you worked on their favorite game, absolutely nobody giving a fuck about whether you have a degree provided you have the skill and work ethic, and most importantly never having to deal with "not my problem" or "just a job" bullshit attitudes, ever. For all its many faults, working in AAA introduced me to a shit-ton of other people with the same intensity and commitment (including my wife). People who are 110% emotionally invested in what they are working on and willing to make enormous personal sacrifices to see it completed. Those relationships are what keeps me going during the shitty weeks.
*fully-funded indie, not mom's basement indie, and still working AAA hours despite ostensibly being my own boss. The thing that actually changed is my desk is now in a co-working facility instead of a studio, and I can retire if we make a hit.
posted by Ryvar at 12:37 AM on February 21, 2019 [44 favorites]
Speaking as a AAA-turned-indie* developer married to a AAA developer, I've never met anybody who's been in the industry longer than a year that lacks a keen grasp of the situation: they could fire the entire North American gaming industry tomorrow and replace every last one of us with *just* the annual crop of fresh college grads trying to get in, in somewhere between three and five years.
This is why we work ~60 hours/week for two years, 70~80 for 6~12 months, and 100+ for 1~3 months wash/rinse/repeat every 3-year project cycle, with not a cent of overtime ever paid, royalties typically equivalent to a few months of salary, average job length of 3 years before facing the prospect of moving cross country, and with the full knowledge that many or most of us could boost our salaries by 50~100% in under a month by leaving for a different industry. Which if you've survived AAA longer than three years, is probably not a choice you will make.
If you're in anything like a desirable big-name studio, you're there because it's the thing you want to do most in the world and capitalism is only too happy to exploit that passion. It's not like a room full of that many 99.x percentile IQs hasn't fucking heard of unions, or doesn't want to unionize, or isn't angry about being exploited: it's because anybody who wasn't willing to continue doing it anyway left years ago or was fired. The pressure from below is so intense, the supply of potential scabs so functionally infinite, that the ownership class can continue this behavior while maintaining the highest skill requirements for each role. We are *that* fucked.
The only real compensations of the industry are working on something you love every day, watching fans wet their pants when they find out you worked on their favorite game, absolutely nobody giving a fuck about whether you have a degree provided you have the skill and work ethic, and most importantly never having to deal with "not my problem" or "just a job" bullshit attitudes, ever. For all its many faults, working in AAA introduced me to a shit-ton of other people with the same intensity and commitment (including my wife). People who are 110% emotionally invested in what they are working on and willing to make enormous personal sacrifices to see it completed. Those relationships are what keeps me going during the shitty weeks.
*fully-funded indie, not mom's basement indie, and still working AAA hours despite ostensibly being my own boss. The thing that actually changed is my desk is now in a co-working facility instead of a studio, and I can retire if we make a hit.
posted by Ryvar at 12:37 AM on February 21, 2019 [44 favorites]
and most importantly never having to deal with "not my problem" or "just a job" bullshit attitudes, ever.
And this here, more than anything, is why the exploitation will continue. Because from where I'm sitting, those attitudes are called setting boundaries for what you'll allow a job to take from you - and if you're not going to set them, then the job will take everything it can from you.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:55 AM on February 21, 2019 [48 favorites]
And this here, more than anything, is why the exploitation will continue. Because from where I'm sitting, those attitudes are called setting boundaries for what you'll allow a job to take from you - and if you're not going to set them, then the job will take everything it can from you.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:55 AM on February 21, 2019 [48 favorites]
unionizing would be difficult. It always is, always has been. Doesn't make it a bad idea, especially if you can get the consumers on the side of the union leaders.
I'm having trouble imagining all the hardcore gaming nerds suddenly developing a collective consciousness.
I don't think that Activision's labour shittiness will cost it a single sale.
posted by Sauce Trough at 1:10 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
I'm having trouble imagining all the hardcore gaming nerds suddenly developing a collective consciousness.
I don't think that Activision's labour shittiness will cost it a single sale.
posted by Sauce Trough at 1:10 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
Because from where I'm sitting, those attitudes are called setting boundaries for what you'll allow a job to take from you - and if you're not going to set them, then the job will take everything it can from you.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:55 AM
Yeah, that was kind of my point. There are an endless supply of bright young things for whom the only boundary - stated or implicit - is "just don't ask me to commit a serious crime in order to ship this project, anything else goes." (and I have actually said that exact sentence). Because the labor supply is so high they can effectively staff the company with the functional equivalent to cultists receiving on-the-job training from a few key specialists.
When I was new to the industry I liked to brush off my lead's protestations I was working too much with "I came here looking for a crusade, not a fucking career, Jim." (Example case #083A29 that technically-minded young people say a lot of stupid edgelord shit). I don't think an industry where that sentiment is regarded as a little extreme but not totally beyond the pale is going to be ready for unionization in my lifetime.
The only thing that seems likely to break the cycle from where I'm sitting is that while egregious crunch is generally the result of Production royally fucking up the schedule, *typical* crunch is not. Project complexity and developer-hours required to ship are increasing, but the Team Size vs. Communication Efficacy curve is fixed. Which means our present course is not sustainable. Eventually something will have to give, and there's every possibility it won't be pretty when that happens.
posted by Ryvar at 1:59 AM on February 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:55 AM
Yeah, that was kind of my point. There are an endless supply of bright young things for whom the only boundary - stated or implicit - is "just don't ask me to commit a serious crime in order to ship this project, anything else goes." (and I have actually said that exact sentence). Because the labor supply is so high they can effectively staff the company with the functional equivalent to cultists receiving on-the-job training from a few key specialists.
When I was new to the industry I liked to brush off my lead's protestations I was working too much with "I came here looking for a crusade, not a fucking career, Jim." (Example case #083A29 that technically-minded young people say a lot of stupid edgelord shit). I don't think an industry where that sentiment is regarded as a little extreme but not totally beyond the pale is going to be ready for unionization in my lifetime.
The only thing that seems likely to break the cycle from where I'm sitting is that while egregious crunch is generally the result of Production royally fucking up the schedule, *typical* crunch is not. Project complexity and developer-hours required to ship are increasing, but the Team Size vs. Communication Efficacy curve is fixed. Which means our present course is not sustainable. Eventually something will have to give, and there's every possibility it won't be pretty when that happens.
posted by Ryvar at 1:59 AM on February 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
A large part of that mentality comes back to the toxic tech culture as a whole, where you see the attitude that to be good at tech, it has to be your entire life. That said, I think the dam's starting to break on that, as more and more people are starting to realize that no, you can have other interests and that you can leave work at work. The push for diversity is also part of this as well, as it turns out that when you bring in people from outside the culture, they don't buy into the toxic myths that everyone steeped in them have.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:14 AM on February 21, 2019 [18 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:14 AM on February 21, 2019 [18 favorites]
I'm confused. If "an entire team of Destiny publishing staff had been coming to work with nothing to do," why would anyone be surprised if they were let go?
Winning comment.
I'm guessing this particular story is of interest to MF because a disproportionate number of us are involved with the industry, but there seems to be nothing particularly unique: business, for whatever reasons, finds itself with more staff than it needs, trims back in attempt to remain viable. Unionization is irrelevant, blaming free trade and free movement of people is wrong headed and makes the case that the union is little more than a protection racket. And in this case, prone to non-viability due to our old buddy supply and demand of labor. Plenty of testimony of what it'a like to be a worker bee in the industry, little comment about what this particular company is dealing with that caused the cutbacks. Seems the only thing we actually know at this point is that the company had employees with nothing to do. Without inside information, why they had nothing to do is pretty speculative.
posted by 2N2222 at 3:25 AM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
Winning comment.
I'm guessing this particular story is of interest to MF because a disproportionate number of us are involved with the industry, but there seems to be nothing particularly unique: business, for whatever reasons, finds itself with more staff than it needs, trims back in attempt to remain viable. Unionization is irrelevant, blaming free trade and free movement of people is wrong headed and makes the case that the union is little more than a protection racket. And in this case, prone to non-viability due to our old buddy supply and demand of labor. Plenty of testimony of what it'a like to be a worker bee in the industry, little comment about what this particular company is dealing with that caused the cutbacks. Seems the only thing we actually know at this point is that the company had employees with nothing to do. Without inside information, why they had nothing to do is pretty speculative.
posted by 2N2222 at 3:25 AM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
Seems the only thing we actually know at this point is that the company had employees with nothing to do. Without inside information, why they had nothing to do is pretty speculative.
Only if you haven't been paying attention to Kotick's mismanagement of Activision Blizzard for the past few years. The company has been destroying tentpoles because they don't perform as well as they think (see: Skylanders, Guitar Hero), mismanaging properties and running them into the ground (this video is a good overview of how Destiny was mismanaged so badly that their ad campaign wound up lifting their competition), and basically eating the corporate seed corn. As most analyses I've read about this have stated, Activision Blizzard is basically looking down the barrel of a year where the only major release they have on tap is just the annual Call of Duty game, which does not bode well for them.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:38 AM on February 21, 2019 [11 favorites]
Only if you haven't been paying attention to Kotick's mismanagement of Activision Blizzard for the past few years. The company has been destroying tentpoles because they don't perform as well as they think (see: Skylanders, Guitar Hero), mismanaging properties and running them into the ground (this video is a good overview of how Destiny was mismanaged so badly that their ad campaign wound up lifting their competition), and basically eating the corporate seed corn. As most analyses I've read about this have stated, Activision Blizzard is basically looking down the barrel of a year where the only major release they have on tap is just the annual Call of Duty game, which does not bode well for them.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:38 AM on February 21, 2019 [11 favorites]
The quick summary is this: The big video game industry imported the gambling mechanics such as loot boxes and micro-transactions from freemium games and saw massive massive revenue growth (and potential regulatory trouble). Then they ran into massive user backlash and the trick stopped working. So now they're eating themselves to try and preserve the share prices that were premised on the growth they had experienced from turning all IP into virtual casinos continuing indefinitely.
I think this is a large part of it, and I'm also not sure that huge AAA developers/publishers with giant studios dotted around the place really make sense any more no matter how they're run.
For a few years it seemed to be possible for them to survive through huge marketing budgets and sequel inertia, where there was a decent chance that enough of the people who bought the last CoD or whatever could be relied on to buy the next one as well to justify the cost of paying hundreds or thousands of developers for years to make these things, plus marketing. But now the market is so insanely saturated with games, and at the same time the feast-or-famine network effects of near-ubiquitous multiplayer and celebrity Twitch streamer culture have made the difference between a massive hit and a disaster much sharper... I don't know if a company like Activision can really survive in its present form when every release is so much of a gamble, even without someone as annoying as Kotick in charge.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 4:07 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
I think this is a large part of it, and I'm also not sure that huge AAA developers/publishers with giant studios dotted around the place really make sense any more no matter how they're run.
For a few years it seemed to be possible for them to survive through huge marketing budgets and sequel inertia, where there was a decent chance that enough of the people who bought the last CoD or whatever could be relied on to buy the next one as well to justify the cost of paying hundreds or thousands of developers for years to make these things, plus marketing. But now the market is so insanely saturated with games, and at the same time the feast-or-famine network effects of near-ubiquitous multiplayer and celebrity Twitch streamer culture have made the difference between a massive hit and a disaster much sharper... I don't know if a company like Activision can really survive in its present form when every release is so much of a gamble, even without someone as annoying as Kotick in charge.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 4:07 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
Thirty comments in, and nobody has mentioned the irony of Activision’s founding 40 years ago by disgruntled Atari game developers who were fed up with being underpaid and denied credit for their work?
posted by Big Al 8000 at 4:42 AM on February 21, 2019 [25 favorites]
posted by Big Al 8000 at 4:42 AM on February 21, 2019 [25 favorites]
... but there seems to be nothing particularly unique: business, for whatever reasons, finds itself with more staff than it needs, trims back in attempt to remain viable.
Think about what you're saying here for a moment. There was some kind of mismanagement leading to having less work to do than workers on hand could do, and the reasonable response to that is that 800 people who had no hand in the mismanagement should have their lives upended, potentially with permanent consequences? That's monstrous, frankly. This business, like all businesses, has a responsibility to its employees, and it has failed them terribly.
posted by IAmUnaware at 4:45 AM on February 21, 2019 [17 favorites]
Think about what you're saying here for a moment. There was some kind of mismanagement leading to having less work to do than workers on hand could do, and the reasonable response to that is that 800 people who had no hand in the mismanagement should have their lives upended, potentially with permanent consequences? That's monstrous, frankly. This business, like all businesses, has a responsibility to its employees, and it has failed them terribly.
posted by IAmUnaware at 4:45 AM on February 21, 2019 [17 favorites]
Firings happen. Layoffs happen. These are a part of the everyday course of business. But mass layoffs are not part of the everyday course of a business operating.
They are a ritual performed to appease shareholder bloodlust. They pile up the victims. They collect them. They corral them over time. They plan it the staging of it. They maximize the impact of it. And then in one big spectacular singular move they fire them. The shareholders roar! This is an echo of the Aztecs rolling heads off temples alters.
They appease their god.
posted by srboisvert at 5:10 AM on February 21, 2019 [28 favorites]
They are a ritual performed to appease shareholder bloodlust. They pile up the victims. They collect them. They corral them over time. They plan it the staging of it. They maximize the impact of it. And then in one big spectacular singular move they fire them. The shareholders roar! This is an echo of the Aztecs rolling heads off temples alters.
They appease their god.
posted by srboisvert at 5:10 AM on February 21, 2019 [28 favorites]
I can see the other side of this argument, but in this case having 800 workers with nothing to do should be seen as an obvious management failure (and it is being reported as such by a lot of people in the games industry and beyond).
posted by aspersioncast at 5:18 AM on February 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by aspersioncast at 5:18 AM on February 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
I'm having trouble imagining all the hardcore gaming nerds suddenly developing a collective consciousness.
I don't think that Activision's labour shittiness will cost it a single sale.
Pretty much this. It's handy to remember that "hardcore gaming nerds" tend to skew heavily toward the gamergate crowd, a group which isn't exactly sympathetic toward ideas like labor rights, unionization, and pretty much any other progressive/liberal thought. Sadly, the very people who would benefit from game-dev unionization tend to also be people who hate on the very existence of unions.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:35 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
I don't think that Activision's labour shittiness will cost it a single sale.
Pretty much this. It's handy to remember that "hardcore gaming nerds" tend to skew heavily toward the gamergate crowd, a group which isn't exactly sympathetic toward ideas like labor rights, unionization, and pretty much any other progressive/liberal thought. Sadly, the very people who would benefit from game-dev unionization tend to also be people who hate on the very existence of unions.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:35 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
I've never really understood the games industry. It's a group of incredibly talented people who have the skills and mobility to work elsewhere but endure sub-standard conditions in every way. They could all go work for one of the big software companies on something less exciting and make 50% more for 40 hours a week, yet there's always another batch of engineers itching to death march for another game.
You had to be there?
I was a game developer. We had shitty pay, low respect, asshole management. Occasional months with exactly one day off, occasional 19-hour days, and of course no overtime pay. Called in to work while on vacation (an "emergency" created by trying to run a demo on a big monitor at 4 times the resolution we had ever run it at before and of course the goddamn frame rate was lower!!!) and again while at a wedding reception (an "emergency" rescue of a completely broken system that an unpaid intern had built, which required actual design work and three solid weeks to fix, not half of a Sunday afternoon).
In retrospect it was stupid to endure it and I should have left. But I didn't have any confidence in myself because the boss was so good at tearing down our egos, making us feel like we wouldn't make it anywhere else and like our few skills were too specialized to be useful except where we were. When I finally left the industry though -- I was pretty depressed for the first two months because the place is so damned square and beige, in a cultural sense. (I still am not happy with it six years later.) But I was simultaneously amazed by getting decent pay, not being in a crisis 95% of the time, being forbidden from working overtime, and the emphasis on quality of code and quality of life.
posted by Foosnark at 5:43 AM on February 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
You had to be there?
I was a game developer. We had shitty pay, low respect, asshole management. Occasional months with exactly one day off, occasional 19-hour days, and of course no overtime pay. Called in to work while on vacation (an "emergency" created by trying to run a demo on a big monitor at 4 times the resolution we had ever run it at before and of course the goddamn frame rate was lower!!!) and again while at a wedding reception (an "emergency" rescue of a completely broken system that an unpaid intern had built, which required actual design work and three solid weeks to fix, not half of a Sunday afternoon).
In retrospect it was stupid to endure it and I should have left. But I didn't have any confidence in myself because the boss was so good at tearing down our egos, making us feel like we wouldn't make it anywhere else and like our few skills were too specialized to be useful except where we were. When I finally left the industry though -- I was pretty depressed for the first two months because the place is so damned square and beige, in a cultural sense. (I still am not happy with it six years later.) But I was simultaneously amazed by getting decent pay, not being in a crisis 95% of the time, being forbidden from working overtime, and the emphasis on quality of code and quality of life.
posted by Foosnark at 5:43 AM on February 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
Moviebob has a pretty good call for unions, suggesting the industry should mirror Hollywood.
Considering the closest equivalent to the work game devs do - visual effects - are mainly not unionized and are trapped in a cycle of dev houses underbidding to get the gigs, maybe Hollywood isn't the best point of comparison.
I'm confused. If "an entire team of Destiny publishing staff had been coming to work with nothing to do," why would anyone be surprised if they were let go?
Somewhere else in the company, supporting another title? Or titles? Activision makes billions and publishes a lot of software. There is work to do.
posted by thecjm at 5:48 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
Considering the closest equivalent to the work game devs do - visual effects - are mainly not unionized and are trapped in a cycle of dev houses underbidding to get the gigs, maybe Hollywood isn't the best point of comparison.
I'm confused. If "an entire team of Destiny publishing staff had been coming to work with nothing to do," why would anyone be surprised if they were let go?
Somewhere else in the company, supporting another title? Or titles? Activision makes billions and publishes a lot of software. There is work to do.
posted by thecjm at 5:48 AM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
800 full-time employees' worth of work, that isn't currently being done? I mean, I know there's evidence of management failures, but that would be another level...
posted by Dysk at 6:05 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Dysk at 6:05 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
It sounds like the employees who got laid off were all support staff of various kinds (customer support, admin, marketing etc) and not the kinds of programmers that some people seem to be thinking of. The Polygon article goes into this a bit, with some scepticism about how much difference a union for "developers" would have made.
It seems like the Activision/Bungie split had a lot to do with this, and while I'm happy to blame Activision's management for many things I don't think it's at all clear that the problems with Destiny were their fault. It sounds like Bungie were more than capable of screwing that one up themselves.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 6:09 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
It seems like the Activision/Bungie split had a lot to do with this, and while I'm happy to blame Activision's management for many things I don't think it's at all clear that the problems with Destiny were their fault. It sounds like Bungie were more than capable of screwing that one up themselves.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 6:09 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
It's handy to remember that "hardcore gaming nerds" tend to skew heavily toward the gamergate crowd
Citation absolutely fucking needed. They want people to believe this, but it's not even close to true.
posted by tobascodagama at 6:26 AM on February 21, 2019 [13 favorites]
Citation absolutely fucking needed. They want people to believe this, but it's not even close to true.
posted by tobascodagama at 6:26 AM on February 21, 2019 [13 favorites]
As it stands now, if the workforce in one place attempts to unionize the jobs will be moved to where the unions aren't, or people will be moved to break the union.
I am super tangentially involved in this, but let me say this shows a large ignorance of the power various game workers have. They absolutely have the power to shut down the industry if they work together, and like many others in this age. they are looking at the tools and tactics.
People have always been moved to break the union. You just don’t let them. That’s what picket lines are for. That’s what a robust respect for labor is for. Honor people’s pickets, whether virtual or physical. They come for game developers today; they are coming for you tomorrow.
posted by corb at 6:43 AM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
I am super tangentially involved in this, but let me say this shows a large ignorance of the power various game workers have. They absolutely have the power to shut down the industry if they work together, and like many others in this age. they are looking at the tools and tactics.
People have always been moved to break the union. You just don’t let them. That’s what picket lines are for. That’s what a robust respect for labor is for. Honor people’s pickets, whether virtual or physical. They come for game developers today; they are coming for you tomorrow.
posted by corb at 6:43 AM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
When you do global programs management you're always aware that you can hire 5 engineers in India or 1 engineer in the US for the same price… and after a few years of project write-offs and massive budget overruns you’re back to hiring domestic engineers because you’ve learned that Indian developers who are actually qualified cost more like 80+% and the communications overhead eats up the remaining difference several times over.
This claim has been used as an excuse for underpaying workers for decades but it’s important to remember that the closest it’s ever been to true has only been for the simplest, most interchangeable jobs (i.e. call centers where things are heavily scripted). For most jobs the communications overhead cancels out any savings unless you can move an entire office, including most layers of management.
posted by adamsc at 7:02 AM on February 21, 2019 [15 favorites]
Unfortunately, there are a lot of hungry people who want those jobs, so yeah: unionizing would be difficult. It always is, always has been.
Us film and TV actors formed a union. Animators did too.
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:08 AM on February 21, 2019 [6 favorites]
Us film and TV actors formed a union. Animators did too.
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:08 AM on February 21, 2019 [6 favorites]
shameless plug in today's excellent Fizz gaming thread: Switch gamers, if you're keen to swap friend codes, feel free to pop over to MetaTalk and share!
posted by lazaruslong at 7:32 AM on February 21, 2019
posted by lazaruslong at 7:32 AM on February 21, 2019
programmers culturally are opposed to unionization
It's true. We tend to prefer structs.
posted by suetanvil at 8:14 AM on February 21, 2019 [21 favorites]
It's true. We tend to prefer structs.
posted by suetanvil at 8:14 AM on February 21, 2019 [21 favorites]
800 full-time employees' worth of work, that isn't currently being done? I mean, I know there's evidence of management failures, but that would be another level...
There were a number of major fails on the part of Activision Blizzard in recent years. The Destiny clusterfuck was a massive part of that, with a number of the smaller studios under the A-B umbrella getting roped into supporting Destiny 2 and now having the ground cut out from under them with Bungie leaving and taking Destiny with them. Another failure was Blizzard splitting publishing into NA and global arms - this was deemed a failure and the reconsolidation left a number of redundancies.
The problem isn't just that people found themselves without current work, but that A-B's floundering left them with no projects to move to - and that was due to gross malfeasance.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:17 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
There were a number of major fails on the part of Activision Blizzard in recent years. The Destiny clusterfuck was a massive part of that, with a number of the smaller studios under the A-B umbrella getting roped into supporting Destiny 2 and now having the ground cut out from under them with Bungie leaving and taking Destiny with them. Another failure was Blizzard splitting publishing into NA and global arms - this was deemed a failure and the reconsolidation left a number of redundancies.
The problem isn't just that people found themselves without current work, but that A-B's floundering left them with no projects to move to - and that was due to gross malfeasance.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:17 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
Also: How 'Slime Rancher' Made a Ton of Money And Stuck to 40-Hour Workweeks. If you're looking for a humanely-sourced game to buy.
posted by suetanvil at 8:19 AM on February 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by suetanvil at 8:19 AM on February 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
Without inside information, why they had nothing to do is pretty speculative.
The relative failure of Destiny 2 and the subsequent split between Activision and Bungie is well documented.
It's handy to remember that "hardcore gaming nerds" tend to skew heavily toward the gamergate crowd
Besides that being a questionable statement in the first place, it's also handy to remember that one of Activision's biggest games is Candy Crush.
posted by robertc at 8:20 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
The relative failure of Destiny 2 and the subsequent split between Activision and Bungie is well documented.
It's handy to remember that "hardcore gaming nerds" tend to skew heavily toward the gamergate crowd
Besides that being a questionable statement in the first place, it's also handy to remember that one of Activision's biggest games is Candy Crush.
posted by robertc at 8:20 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
Also: How 'Slime Rancher' Made a Ton of Money And Stuck to 40-Hour Workweeks. If you're looking for a humanely-sourced game to buy.
Not only humanely-sourced but also fun and chill, it's a game that will make you smile and feel good.
posted by Fizz at 8:22 AM on February 21, 2019
Not only humanely-sourced but also fun and chill, it's a game that will make you smile and feel good.
posted by Fizz at 8:22 AM on February 21, 2019
I know next to nothing about the game development industry, so forgive me if this is a stupid question... How in the world does a company get away with not paying overtime on these ridiculous work schedules?
posted by FakeFreyja at 8:24 AM on February 21, 2019
posted by FakeFreyja at 8:24 AM on February 21, 2019
How in the world does a company get away with not paying overtime on these ridiculous work schedules?
Programmers are, for the most part, salaried exempt employees.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:27 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
Programmers are, for the most part, salaried exempt employees.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:27 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
Huh. I wouldn't have thought that a programmer fit the FLSA definition, but I guess whichever definition benefits the employer is preferred.
posted by FakeFreyja at 8:34 AM on February 21, 2019
posted by FakeFreyja at 8:34 AM on February 21, 2019
The code mines are as real as coal mines, but programmers aren't used to beating the shit out of things with pickaxes so unionization efforts have been ineffective so far.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:38 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:38 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
I liked to brush off my lead's protestations I was working too much with "I came here looking for a crusade, not a fucking career, Jim." (Example case #083A29 that technically-minded young people say a lot of stupid edgelord shit). I don't think an industry where that sentiment is regarded as a little extreme but not totally beyond the pale is going to be ready for unionization in my lifetime.
I fully appreciate the pleasure of working on a project that you enjoy and that engages you intellectually (even the need to do so), and I would never suggest that video games are some trivial thing that don't deserve care and attention, but I quail at the vacuum of values that would allow them to rise to the level of crusade. It seems like this mindset sets up tech people to welcome their own exploitation, all in the name of more-realistically-rendered bootlaces on the player avatar.
In Biglaw, where the juniors are faced with somewhat similar pressures (except they get paid somewhat better, and mass layoffs are still considered fairly declasse), you'd have to look hard to find someone deluding themselves that their (revenue-generating) cases constituted crusades. No one works harder than they have to to survive and, for some fools and a few canny operators, to try to make partner.
posted by praemunire at 8:40 AM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
I fully appreciate the pleasure of working on a project that you enjoy and that engages you intellectually (even the need to do so), and I would never suggest that video games are some trivial thing that don't deserve care and attention, but I quail at the vacuum of values that would allow them to rise to the level of crusade. It seems like this mindset sets up tech people to welcome their own exploitation, all in the name of more-realistically-rendered bootlaces on the player avatar.
In Biglaw, where the juniors are faced with somewhat similar pressures (except they get paid somewhat better, and mass layoffs are still considered fairly declasse), you'd have to look hard to find someone deluding themselves that their (revenue-generating) cases constituted crusades. No one works harder than they have to to survive and, for some fools and a few canny operators, to try to make partner.
posted by praemunire at 8:40 AM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
I've never really understood the games industry. It's a group of incredibly talented people who have the skills and mobility to work elsewhere but endure sub-standard conditions in every way.
Game developers are artists. And artists starve.
posted by ocschwar at 8:46 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
I liked to brush off my lead's protestations I was working too much with "I came here looking for a crusade, not a fucking career, Jim."
At some point you have to wonder how much empathy you can afford the cattle that volunteer for the abattoir.
posted by tclark at 8:47 AM on February 21, 2019
At some point you have to wonder how much empathy you can afford the cattle that volunteer for the abattoir.
posted by tclark at 8:47 AM on February 21, 2019
With respect, "I came here looking for a crusade, not a fucking career" that may be great for you, but helps ruin the industry for other people who enjoy things like vacations, sick days, family time, seeing the sun occasionally ...
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:59 AM on February 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:59 AM on February 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
PC Gamer: Ubisoft reports strong profits, doesn't fire 800 people
and
Considering the closest equivalent to the work game devs do - visual effects - are mainly not unionized and are trapped in a cycle of dev houses underbidding to get the gigs, maybe Hollywood isn't the best point of comparison.
Be aware that much of a AAA game's development relies on subcontractor labour as well, and that job security, work culture and compensation is often divided along the F/T | Contractor line. We had a discussion about this recently with regards to Apple, Google and other major tech companies.
posted by Evstar at 9:00 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
and
Considering the closest equivalent to the work game devs do - visual effects - are mainly not unionized and are trapped in a cycle of dev houses underbidding to get the gigs, maybe Hollywood isn't the best point of comparison.
Be aware that much of a AAA game's development relies on subcontractor labour as well, and that job security, work culture and compensation is often divided along the F/T | Contractor line. We had a discussion about this recently with regards to Apple, Google and other major tech companies.
posted by Evstar at 9:00 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
Just before this broke, I had accepted a job in the games industry (haven't even started yet) that could plausibly be called "support" (it's IT, but emphatically not "game development") by the definition given in the investors' call. I sure know how to pick 'em.
posted by LiteOpera at 9:12 AM on February 21, 2019
posted by LiteOpera at 9:12 AM on February 21, 2019
Thirty comments in, and nobody has mentioned the irony of Activision’s founding 40 years ago by disgruntled Atari game developers who were fed up with being underpaid and denied credit for their work?
Which is the real problem for union efforts. The history of video game development, and much of Silicon valley itself, is groups of bright engineers getting pissed off at shitty treatment, and starting their own company. Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory begot Fairchild Semiconductor, and Fairchild begot legions.
Usually the ways to change a system are based on Voice, or Exit. Exit is seminal part of computer culture. You see it in this thread, game developers quitting Big Co. and going indie. And it's never been easier.
posted by zabuni at 9:14 AM on February 21, 2019 [6 favorites]
Which is the real problem for union efforts. The history of video game development, and much of Silicon valley itself, is groups of bright engineers getting pissed off at shitty treatment, and starting their own company. Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory begot Fairchild Semiconductor, and Fairchild begot legions.
Usually the ways to change a system are based on Voice, or Exit. Exit is seminal part of computer culture. You see it in this thread, game developers quitting Big Co. and going indie. And it's never been easier.
posted by zabuni at 9:14 AM on February 21, 2019 [6 favorites]
It is amazing to see the model go from arcade quarter munchers to console to the most relevant art form of our time brimming with untapped story-telling and experiential potential to arcade quarter muncher for people with modems.
posted by es_de_bah at 9:27 AM on February 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by es_de_bah at 9:27 AM on February 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
Exit is seminal part of computer culture.
And I think this is why references to 'Hollywood' are likely to backfire, because developers are wary of anything that looks like them having to ask permission to develop, such as SAG-style barriers to entry.
posted by Pyry at 9:32 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
And I think this is why references to 'Hollywood' are likely to backfire, because developers are wary of anything that looks like them having to ask permission to develop, such as SAG-style barriers to entry.
posted by Pyry at 9:32 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
In Biglaw ... you'd have to look hard to find someone deluding themselves that their (revenue-generating) cases constituted crusades
A key difference between any entertainment industry and most everything else is that entertainment products conjure up pure human happiness out of nothing.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:32 AM on February 21, 2019
A key difference between any entertainment industry and most everything else is that entertainment products conjure up pure human happiness out of nothing.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:32 AM on February 21, 2019
And I think this is why references to 'Hollywood' are likely to backfire, because developers are wary of anything that looks like them having to ask permission to develop, such as SAG-style barriers to entry.
The worst part is that the industry has been shown over and over, from the 83-84 Crash to the current mess at Steam, that those barriers exist for a reason. The problem is that developers keep thinking that all these issues will not happen to them, and then act surprised when they do.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:52 AM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
The worst part is that the industry has been shown over and over, from the 83-84 Crash to the current mess at Steam, that those barriers exist for a reason. The problem is that developers keep thinking that all these issues will not happen to them, and then act surprised when they do.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:52 AM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
Huh. I wouldn't have thought that a programmer fit the FLSA definition, but I guess whichever definition benefits the employer is preferred.
And whatever the employees prefer as well. (Some) Software Engineers aren't pulling in $350k+ total comp a year by being on the clock.
posted by sideshow at 10:03 AM on February 21, 2019
And whatever the employees prefer as well. (Some) Software Engineers aren't pulling in $350k+ total comp a year by being on the clock.
posted by sideshow at 10:03 AM on February 21, 2019
It truly is like Hollywood in that way, and as far as the analogy above goes it would be like telling a struggling actor that they can make more as a salesperson.
Not in the least. It's like telling this hypothetical struggling actor there is actually this other "Super Hollywood" where the day to day work is almost identical (off-by-one errors are off-by-one errors in every industry), except you make 2x-3x more and work 30% less. The problem is that this actor has spent their career buying into bullshit mythos, so they continue to fuck themselves by not moving into a better industry.
posted by sideshow at 10:12 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
Not in the least. It's like telling this hypothetical struggling actor there is actually this other "Super Hollywood" where the day to day work is almost identical (off-by-one errors are off-by-one errors in every industry), except you make 2x-3x more and work 30% less. The problem is that this actor has spent their career buying into bullshit mythos, so they continue to fuck themselves by not moving into a better industry.
posted by sideshow at 10:12 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
And I think this is why references to 'Hollywood' are likely to backfire, because developers are wary of anything that looks like them having to ask permission to develop, such as SAG-style barriers to entry.
And this applies to a lot of software development outside the gaming industry, especially in the web world.
While the majority of developers probably have CS degrees and “traditional” career paths, there’s still a sizable contingent of folks who were able to get in through just being enthusiastic and good with computers. (And, of course, the privilege of having money and time to fuck around with computers on their own.) At several of my past employers, including government contractors, software development was the only department where you could find well-paid professionals without a college degree.
These folks are incredibly unlikely to accept any kind of professional organizing that imposes qualifications or standards, because they believe doing so could cost them their jobs, or at least close down the path that got them into the industry.
posted by a device for making your enemy change his mind at 10:32 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
And this applies to a lot of software development outside the gaming industry, especially in the web world.
While the majority of developers probably have CS degrees and “traditional” career paths, there’s still a sizable contingent of folks who were able to get in through just being enthusiastic and good with computers. (And, of course, the privilege of having money and time to fuck around with computers on their own.) At several of my past employers, including government contractors, software development was the only department where you could find well-paid professionals without a college degree.
These folks are incredibly unlikely to accept any kind of professional organizing that imposes qualifications or standards, because they believe doing so could cost them their jobs, or at least close down the path that got them into the industry.
posted by a device for making your enemy change his mind at 10:32 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
A key difference between any entertainment industry and most everything else is that entertainment products conjure up pure human happiness out of nothing.
People were happy playing Combat, Choplifter, and Wizard of Wor. And would be happy, playing games released on a schedule that didn't require "crunch." (And still are, playing with their dogs, no coding required...)
Creating fun video games is absolutely a worthwhile human endeavor, but there is a line between "worthwhile human endeavor" and "worthy subject of a crusade." Many people in this world have no choice but to waste their youth, health, and energy on subjects unworthy of draining them all away. If you have a choice...
It seems like there is a demographic fundamentally incapable of grasping that in any situation, they might be the suckers, and an infrastructure well-calculated to take advantage of that.
posted by praemunire at 10:39 AM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
People were happy playing Combat, Choplifter, and Wizard of Wor. And would be happy, playing games released on a schedule that didn't require "crunch." (And still are, playing with their dogs, no coding required...)
Creating fun video games is absolutely a worthwhile human endeavor, but there is a line between "worthwhile human endeavor" and "worthy subject of a crusade." Many people in this world have no choice but to waste their youth, health, and energy on subjects unworthy of draining them all away. If you have a choice...
It seems like there is a demographic fundamentally incapable of grasping that in any situation, they might be the suckers, and an infrastructure well-calculated to take advantage of that.
posted by praemunire at 10:39 AM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
It's a bit ironic that these hundreds of unnamed people working at a company that makes FPS games were victims of a CEO who (figuratively) walked around a maze of cubicles knocking them off...
posted by PhineasGage at 10:53 AM on February 21, 2019
posted by PhineasGage at 10:53 AM on February 21, 2019
Creating fun video games is absolutely a worthwhile human endeavor, but there is a line between "worthwhile human endeavor" and "worthy subject of a crusade."
Of course there is. I'm just saying is that there's very little that's mysterious about it happening in game development and not in biglaw.
Saying that game developers are setting themselves up to be exploited, sure. But why people do that to develop games or work in movies or write novels and not so much to mediate the inane disputes of artificial psychopaths isn't a mystery.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:15 AM on February 21, 2019
Of course there is. I'm just saying is that there's very little that's mysterious about it happening in game development and not in biglaw.
Saying that game developers are setting themselves up to be exploited, sure. But why people do that to develop games or work in movies or write novels and not so much to mediate the inane disputes of artificial psychopaths isn't a mystery.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:15 AM on February 21, 2019
It is amazing to see the model go from arcade quarter munchers to console to the most relevant art form of our time brimming with untapped story-telling and experiential potential to arcade quarter muncher for people with modems."
It's so incredibly disheartening, for a while I really did believe it would become the ultimate art medium. In terms of potential, it can do everything every other art medium has ever done, but combined with one another with an added component of very real interactivity and viewer-input. In reality we basically get toy after toy, escapist entertainment after escapist entertainment, gussied up slot machines & skinner boxes, and simply games.
posted by GoblinHoney at 11:35 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
It's so incredibly disheartening, for a while I really did believe it would become the ultimate art medium. In terms of potential, it can do everything every other art medium has ever done, but combined with one another with an added component of very real interactivity and viewer-input. In reality we basically get toy after toy, escapist entertainment after escapist entertainment, gussied up slot machines & skinner boxes, and simply games.
posted by GoblinHoney at 11:35 AM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
but I quail at the vacuum of values that would allow them to rise to the level of crusade. It seems like this mindset sets up tech people to welcome their own exploitation, all in the name of more-realistically-rendered bootlaces on the player avatar.
Since that "crusade, not a career" comment picked up a lot of responses I feel I should probably underscore something: if you dial my comment history back fifteen years you'll find nothing but the worst variety of 4-chan style shitlord imprisoned by severe mental illness. The person I was back then is not the same person who made that declaration is not even remotely the person I am today. I barely recognize those past selves or think about them other than to apologize when appropriate, and I really have no wish to revisit them except as examples of problems endemic to our societal handling of mental illness, and/or problems endemic to the games industry.
There is a very, very long sidebar I don't have time to write - maybe that's another post for the future - about how the games industry has classically been rife with unacknowledged mental illness and how that is effectively leveraged as part of its culture of exploitation.
Creating fun video games is absolutely a worthwhile human endeavor, but there is a line between "worthwhile human endeavor" and "worthy subject of a crusade." Many people in this world have no choice but to waste their youth, health, and energy on subjects unworthy of draining them all away. If you have a choice...
It seems like there is a demographic fundamentally incapable of grasping that in any situation, they might be the suckers, and an infrastructure well-calculated to take advantage of that.
For my own part, the motivation was to pull gaming out of the cultural sewer occupied by comic books, and my work on Bioshock's narrative was, for me, part of a deliberate and conscious effort to make gaming's equivalent to Citizen Kane. We failed at that goal for myriad reasons, but lack of trying was not one of them. That is no longer something I care about deeply enough that I end each project quietly disappointed it failed to literally kill me - with the help of therapy and medication I've outgrown my suicide-by-cop approach to the industry - but I do still want to see that goal realized.
Happily, the industry's efforts towards diversity and inclusion of a broader set of viewpoints seems like a major part of the solution. If you're a developer unwilling or unable to support inclusive hiring and boosting of non-white-cis-male voices within the games industry for the correct reasons of empathy, social justice, and equality, then maybe you can do it for the pragmatic reason of having your work taken seriously as art.
I do find the continued insinuation that we're incapable of grasping that we're suckers to be fairly insulting, though. Most of the developers you're talking about are fairly lefty - not as much as Metafilter or other forms of media arts, but profoundly moreso than the rest of the software industry. They're almost without exception some of the most intelligent people you'll ever meet, and all of them are aware of their situation and historical context (both the extreme privilege and the extreme exploitation aspects). Everyone has different reasons for rationalizing their way past that, but it's not lack of awareness or comprehension at issue; it's having a different set of priorities that tend to push quality of life into the category of secondary considerations. This is fading somewhat as traditionally excluded groups join the industry, but there tends to be self-selection even within those groups for people who trend towards that mindset. This may not be your personal outlook on life, but I find it strange - possibly even problematic - to condemn people for their decision to prioritize thusly.
posted by Ryvar at 11:49 AM on February 21, 2019 [14 favorites]
Since that "crusade, not a career" comment picked up a lot of responses I feel I should probably underscore something: if you dial my comment history back fifteen years you'll find nothing but the worst variety of 4-chan style shitlord imprisoned by severe mental illness. The person I was back then is not the same person who made that declaration is not even remotely the person I am today. I barely recognize those past selves or think about them other than to apologize when appropriate, and I really have no wish to revisit them except as examples of problems endemic to our societal handling of mental illness, and/or problems endemic to the games industry.
There is a very, very long sidebar I don't have time to write - maybe that's another post for the future - about how the games industry has classically been rife with unacknowledged mental illness and how that is effectively leveraged as part of its culture of exploitation.
Creating fun video games is absolutely a worthwhile human endeavor, but there is a line between "worthwhile human endeavor" and "worthy subject of a crusade." Many people in this world have no choice but to waste their youth, health, and energy on subjects unworthy of draining them all away. If you have a choice...
It seems like there is a demographic fundamentally incapable of grasping that in any situation, they might be the suckers, and an infrastructure well-calculated to take advantage of that.
For my own part, the motivation was to pull gaming out of the cultural sewer occupied by comic books, and my work on Bioshock's narrative was, for me, part of a deliberate and conscious effort to make gaming's equivalent to Citizen Kane. We failed at that goal for myriad reasons, but lack of trying was not one of them. That is no longer something I care about deeply enough that I end each project quietly disappointed it failed to literally kill me - with the help of therapy and medication I've outgrown my suicide-by-cop approach to the industry - but I do still want to see that goal realized.
Happily, the industry's efforts towards diversity and inclusion of a broader set of viewpoints seems like a major part of the solution. If you're a developer unwilling or unable to support inclusive hiring and boosting of non-white-cis-male voices within the games industry for the correct reasons of empathy, social justice, and equality, then maybe you can do it for the pragmatic reason of having your work taken seriously as art.
I do find the continued insinuation that we're incapable of grasping that we're suckers to be fairly insulting, though. Most of the developers you're talking about are fairly lefty - not as much as Metafilter or other forms of media arts, but profoundly moreso than the rest of the software industry. They're almost without exception some of the most intelligent people you'll ever meet, and all of them are aware of their situation and historical context (both the extreme privilege and the extreme exploitation aspects). Everyone has different reasons for rationalizing their way past that, but it's not lack of awareness or comprehension at issue; it's having a different set of priorities that tend to push quality of life into the category of secondary considerations. This is fading somewhat as traditionally excluded groups join the industry, but there tends to be self-selection even within those groups for people who trend towards that mindset. This may not be your personal outlook on life, but I find it strange - possibly even problematic - to condemn people for their decision to prioritize thusly.
posted by Ryvar at 11:49 AM on February 21, 2019 [14 favorites]
Erik Loomis made this argument mostly regarding the textiles industry, but it could apply here: there's no reason why the regulations and standards on good imported into the US can't include standards for workplace safety, or other issues important to labor.
If the problem is a corporation's ability to leave regulations behind by moving to another country, require working conditions in their supply chain or, in this case, international offices, to meet certain standards, if they want to sell their produce in the US. Give those international workers the legal standing to sue in US courts if those standards aren't met.
Maybe that results in the jobs coming back to the US: fine
Maybe that results in the jobs staying elsewhere, but now with improved working conditions: also good
posted by vibratory manner of working at 12:10 PM on February 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
If the problem is a corporation's ability to leave regulations behind by moving to another country, require working conditions in their supply chain or, in this case, international offices, to meet certain standards, if they want to sell their produce in the US. Give those international workers the legal standing to sue in US courts if those standards aren't met.
Maybe that results in the jobs coming back to the US: fine
Maybe that results in the jobs staying elsewhere, but now with improved working conditions: also good
posted by vibratory manner of working at 12:10 PM on February 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
Investors don't like layoffs in companies that depend on skilled labor. They are a sign the company was poorly managed, has a pipeline in which executives have little confidence, and will have reduced ability to capitalize on the next big opportunities. Activision's stock dropped almost 10% on the announcements.
posted by MattD at 12:42 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by MattD at 12:42 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
Eh, there's enough "sell when there's news" investors to render that less than conclusive. Since capitalism is fundamentally oriented around screwing the little guy, or the individual contributors, my sense is that layoffs have ceased to be a negative indicator in this century (so far).
posted by rhizome at 1:13 PM on February 21, 2019
posted by rhizome at 1:13 PM on February 21, 2019
World of Warcraft's most recent expansion has...not gone over well with the player base, which has lead to losses there…
Only anecdotally related to their issues, but I've seen this comment a lot and can't disagree. I've pretty consistently played WoW since Vanilla, but finally let it lapse because of this expansion. And oddly, it was because of the current shithole of a world our politics has us in at the moment. Real life is hopelessly factionalized, I don't need the game I use to escape from that shittiness to double down on it themselves. It felt like a real misreading of the culture around them for Blizzard to release an entire expansion based on ramping up the hatred of your fellow players —players who have been questioning the need for that factional divide more pointedly each expansion.
At any rate, I assume I can't be the only one avoiding the game now because it hits a little too close to home for comfort.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 1:22 PM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
Only anecdotally related to their issues, but I've seen this comment a lot and can't disagree. I've pretty consistently played WoW since Vanilla, but finally let it lapse because of this expansion. And oddly, it was because of the current shithole of a world our politics has us in at the moment. Real life is hopelessly factionalized, I don't need the game I use to escape from that shittiness to double down on it themselves. It felt like a real misreading of the culture around them for Blizzard to release an entire expansion based on ramping up the hatred of your fellow players —players who have been questioning the need for that factional divide more pointedly each expansion.
At any rate, I assume I can't be the only one avoiding the game now because it hits a little too close to home for comfort.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 1:22 PM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
They're almost without exception some of the most intelligent people you'll ever meet
I'm not saying your friends aren't smart, but...man.
and all of them are aware of their situation and historical context (both the extreme privilege and the extreme exploitation aspects). Everyone has different reasons for rationalizing their way past that, but it's not lack of awareness or comprehension at issue; it's having a different set of priorities that tend to push quality of life into the category of secondary considerations.
If you are serving in the function of sucker, and rationalizing that you are not the sucker, then you are still the sucker. Possibly you are doubly the sucker.
You can believe, as I do, that video games are one of the great pleasures of the later twentieth century onwards, as well as potentially art, and still recognize that they do not fall into the relative small group of human goals for which it makes sense to sacrifice your entire quality of life over a meaningful period of time, especially as there is no actual necessity for them to be made in such a way that it requires the sacrifice of your entire quality of life. That is strictly to line the pockets of a few parasites who hold you in contempt. And then not even to get good money out of it? Tell some middle-class white boys that they have to be smart and special to work on your project and they will enslave themselves for you.
posted by praemunire at 2:09 PM on February 21, 2019 [11 favorites]
I'm not saying your friends aren't smart, but...man.
and all of them are aware of their situation and historical context (both the extreme privilege and the extreme exploitation aspects). Everyone has different reasons for rationalizing their way past that, but it's not lack of awareness or comprehension at issue; it's having a different set of priorities that tend to push quality of life into the category of secondary considerations.
If you are serving in the function of sucker, and rationalizing that you are not the sucker, then you are still the sucker. Possibly you are doubly the sucker.
You can believe, as I do, that video games are one of the great pleasures of the later twentieth century onwards, as well as potentially art, and still recognize that they do not fall into the relative small group of human goals for which it makes sense to sacrifice your entire quality of life over a meaningful period of time, especially as there is no actual necessity for them to be made in such a way that it requires the sacrifice of your entire quality of life. That is strictly to line the pockets of a few parasites who hold you in contempt. And then not even to get good money out of it? Tell some middle-class white boys that they have to be smart and special to work on your project and they will enslave themselves for you.
posted by praemunire at 2:09 PM on February 21, 2019 [11 favorites]
Hell.
Kotaku: Guild Wars 2 Developer ArenaNet Plans For Mass Layoffs
posted by scaryblackdeath at 3:10 PM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
Kotaku: Guild Wars 2 Developer ArenaNet Plans For Mass Layoffs
posted by scaryblackdeath at 3:10 PM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
NCSoft is particularly infamous in this arena, having killed off the still profitable City of Heroes mainly out of a "not created here" mindset.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:25 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:25 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
(Btw, Nox - I think we view the dynamics of the industry very differently aside from the obvious innate goodness of the recent shift towards diversity, but I wanted to say your analysis on every single point re: the companies and events covered in this thread has been spot fucking on.)
posted by Ryvar at 3:49 PM on February 21, 2019
posted by Ryvar at 3:49 PM on February 21, 2019
if you go on Hacker News, the Silicon Valley programmer forum that traditionally has been a hotbed of smug libertarianism and people who consider themselves entrepreneurs, there's now a general sense that unionization might not be all bad, which is very surprising. and even among the skeptics there seems to be an opinion of "well, we don't need unions here, but specifically the games industry should probably get them".
posted by vogon_poet at 5:17 PM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by vogon_poet at 5:17 PM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
I've never really understood the games industry. It's a group of incredibly talented people who have the skills and mobility to work elsewhere but endure sub-standard conditions in every way.
Some jobs in games are pretty niche and the skills are not transferrable. My spouse is a level designer. He does not have fully developed skills in programming or animation or audio design or really anything that could be relatively easily applied to another industry (and it's not like life's a picnic for a lot of these positions outside of games, either).
My spouse is in a situation where he's been in the industry long enough to make a salary that he'd never be able to earn in a different job without seriously developing skills in another area. He's working on it, but it's going to take awhile. He and most of his design colleagues feel kind of stuck. They got into the industry as very young (mostly) dudes who were passionate about games and didn't mind putting in insane hours doing something they loved. But then they got older and wanted to spend time on other things in life. For most of them that's spouses and kids, but it could be other hobbies and friends, or any number of things that aren't work.
The other thing about design is that solely design work (that is, not a design/programming hybrid position) is really concentrated at the big budget, AAA level. There are very few jobs and they are spread out around the world. This is another reason why designers feel particularly stuck - when a job sucks (which they always do) there might literally not be another position available within 300 miles.
One of the things that honestly boggles my mind the most about this industry is the complete lack of emphasis on quality management or planning. I don't think any of my husband's supervisors have ever had any type of training in management or respect for what it takes to actually manage people well. People seem to be promoted solely based on seniority or because someone above them likes them or because they themselves produce good work. But of course, that says nothing about their ability to motivate or guide others to do good work. To me, it is such a despicable waste of money, time and labor to launch these enormous projects and put not even, like, first semester MBA levels of care into how to actually pull them off successfully. It says a lot about how the only thing that matters to these studios is the end product - it's up to the employees to suck up all the bullshit and make it work. But the most obvious thing is that the product will be better, and more consistently better, if they ran a more professional and humane operation.
posted by imalaowai at 5:56 PM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
Some jobs in games are pretty niche and the skills are not transferrable. My spouse is a level designer. He does not have fully developed skills in programming or animation or audio design or really anything that could be relatively easily applied to another industry (and it's not like life's a picnic for a lot of these positions outside of games, either).
My spouse is in a situation where he's been in the industry long enough to make a salary that he'd never be able to earn in a different job without seriously developing skills in another area. He's working on it, but it's going to take awhile. He and most of his design colleagues feel kind of stuck. They got into the industry as very young (mostly) dudes who were passionate about games and didn't mind putting in insane hours doing something they loved. But then they got older and wanted to spend time on other things in life. For most of them that's spouses and kids, but it could be other hobbies and friends, or any number of things that aren't work.
The other thing about design is that solely design work (that is, not a design/programming hybrid position) is really concentrated at the big budget, AAA level. There are very few jobs and they are spread out around the world. This is another reason why designers feel particularly stuck - when a job sucks (which they always do) there might literally not be another position available within 300 miles.
One of the things that honestly boggles my mind the most about this industry is the complete lack of emphasis on quality management or planning. I don't think any of my husband's supervisors have ever had any type of training in management or respect for what it takes to actually manage people well. People seem to be promoted solely based on seniority or because someone above them likes them or because they themselves produce good work. But of course, that says nothing about their ability to motivate or guide others to do good work. To me, it is such a despicable waste of money, time and labor to launch these enormous projects and put not even, like, first semester MBA levels of care into how to actually pull them off successfully. It says a lot about how the only thing that matters to these studios is the end product - it's up to the employees to suck up all the bullshit and make it work. But the most obvious thing is that the product will be better, and more consistently better, if they ran a more professional and humane operation.
posted by imalaowai at 5:56 PM on February 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
Well this is disheartening. However, I just have to say if anyone is interested, to check out Larian Studios. They seem like they're doing things right. Their most recent game Divinity 2 Original Sin is beyond excellent.
I have been pretty let down by the gaming industry for a long time. Most recently, with the Diablo debacle and "don't you have a phone?" and with Shadow of the Tomb Raider and their season pass and challenge tombs nonsense.
posted by lunastellasol at 6:22 PM on February 21, 2019
I have been pretty let down by the gaming industry for a long time. Most recently, with the Diablo debacle and "don't you have a phone?" and with Shadow of the Tomb Raider and their season pass and challenge tombs nonsense.
posted by lunastellasol at 6:22 PM on February 21, 2019
To keep a sense of perspective -as much flak as Destiny 2 gets, it did score 84/100 on Metacritic and was generally well received. We gamers relentlessly criticized it, even as much as we loved parts of it.
Now that Anthem is getting released - EA's response to Destiny 2 - it's getting very middling reviews (64/100 right now), with players now lamenting that they suddenly appreciate all the things that Activision's Destiny 2 got right, and where EA's Anthem is completely dropping the ball.
Like a good magician vs bad magician - you only appreciate how good the former is when the latter starts stumbling over all the moves.
I wanted so much for Anthem to be good. It's Bioware. So many fond memories. If Anthem bombs, maybe that will be the end of Dragon Age and Mass Effect, just like the way EA killed Maxis after Simcity 2013.
posted by xdvesper at 6:42 PM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
Now that Anthem is getting released - EA's response to Destiny 2 - it's getting very middling reviews (64/100 right now), with players now lamenting that they suddenly appreciate all the things that Activision's Destiny 2 got right, and where EA's Anthem is completely dropping the ball.
Like a good magician vs bad magician - you only appreciate how good the former is when the latter starts stumbling over all the moves.
I wanted so much for Anthem to be good. It's Bioware. So many fond memories. If Anthem bombs, maybe that will be the end of Dragon Age and Mass Effect, just like the way EA killed Maxis after Simcity 2013.
posted by xdvesper at 6:42 PM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
Yeah I don't understand the direction that Bioware took with Anthem at all. I really don't see why they don't just settle in and chunk out a new ME every 4 years interleaved with a new DA every 4 years and drop some DLC on alternate years, because as far as I can tell that was like holding Fort Knox up like a salt shaker and money would just rain out. Baffled, so baffled.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:25 PM on February 21, 2019
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:25 PM on February 21, 2019
Eat the rich. / There is absolutely no room for humanity in capitalism. Plan accordingly. / Firings happen. Layoffs happen. These are a part of the everyday course of business.
Some day a real rain is going to come.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:21 PM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
Some day a real rain is going to come.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:21 PM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
To keep a sense of perspective -as much flak as Destiny 2 gets, it did score 84/100 on Metacritic and was generally well received.
My understanding is that the bulk of the reviews were of a pre-release version which did not contain the microtransactions.
posted by robertc at 4:58 AM on February 22, 2019
My understanding is that the bulk of the reviews were of a pre-release version which did not contain the microtransactions.
posted by robertc at 4:58 AM on February 22, 2019
Kotaku: Guild Wars 2 Developer ArenaNet Plans For Mass Layoffs
Scuttlebutt goes that almost all of those being laid off were working on unannounced projects of various kinds. Those projects have all been canceled, obviously. Apparently, those projects drew resources away from GW2 itself, which has had a pretty sluggish content release cadence since its last expansion in 2017.
Despite that, ArenaNet itself was doing fairly ok financially. It seems that the layoffs are primarily triggered by poor performance in other divisions of NCSoft, ArenaNet's parent company.
Yet more evidence that the industry's fish are all, indeed, rotting from the fucking head.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:51 AM on February 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
Scuttlebutt goes that almost all of those being laid off were working on unannounced projects of various kinds. Those projects have all been canceled, obviously. Apparently, those projects drew resources away from GW2 itself, which has had a pretty sluggish content release cadence since its last expansion in 2017.
Despite that, ArenaNet itself was doing fairly ok financially. It seems that the layoffs are primarily triggered by poor performance in other divisions of NCSoft, ArenaNet's parent company.
Yet more evidence that the industry's fish are all, indeed, rotting from the fucking head.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:51 AM on February 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
My understanding is that the bulk of the reviews were of a pre-release version which did not contain the microtransactions.
If anything my complaint was that Destiny 2 didn't have meaningful microtransactions - I would have thrown some money at them if there was anything worth buying. I bought a full set of dawning armor for my hunter and a nice ship with just the free dust you get from playing the game. If I could have bought say, some missing raid pieces, I might have, but I eventually grinded out all the masterwork raid weapons I wanted. Not sure what the fuss about mtx in destiny was about, it felt really tame.
posted by xdvesper at 5:57 AM on February 22, 2019
If anything my complaint was that Destiny 2 didn't have meaningful microtransactions - I would have thrown some money at them if there was anything worth buying. I bought a full set of dawning armor for my hunter and a nice ship with just the free dust you get from playing the game. If I could have bought say, some missing raid pieces, I might have, but I eventually grinded out all the masterwork raid weapons I wanted. Not sure what the fuss about mtx in destiny was about, it felt really tame.
posted by xdvesper at 5:57 AM on February 22, 2019
The Arenanet news feels like a gut-punch, on top of other developments in the MMO space. Over the last decade I've spent a fair bit of time in WoW, EVE, and GW2 among others, and to see the trajectories these games are taking – purely for business reasons – saddens me. The places for building communities and enjoying long-term stories in a shared universe are shrinking, as investors steer the big publishers to chase after the alluring profits of Mobile or Battle Royale or whatever the next thing is. I have to wonder if we're witnessing the passing of the AAA MMORPG age. (I also wonder if I'm having a Principal Skinner moment.)
The layoffs at Activision-Blizzard are particularly galling to me, because they appear to have hit heavily the customer support staff: the GMs and such who answer trouble tickets and relay news or plans from the game developers. You know, the folks who actually interface with the customers, the folks who give players the warm fuzzies when they can restore an accidentally-deleted item, the folks who can unlock long-lost accounts, the folks who participate in the forums, the folks who write blog entries outlining the game's plans for the next year or more. Meanwhile, Activision-Blizzard plans to hire even more game developers – perhaps indicating they'll increase the number of titles published while decreasing actual support for those games after they're out. It really seems to me that the days of subscribing to a game to play it for years through multiple expansions are coming to an end, to be replaced by a shooter-of-the-month with PTW micro-transactions and loot-boxes and all the skins you could want.
Maybe it's time to turn off the gaming PC for good. There's always Pandemic or Concordia or even Ticket to Ride, and I've been hearing some buzz about this little indie RPG called D&D....
posted by The Nutmeg of Consolation at 6:45 AM on February 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
The layoffs at Activision-Blizzard are particularly galling to me, because they appear to have hit heavily the customer support staff: the GMs and such who answer trouble tickets and relay news or plans from the game developers. You know, the folks who actually interface with the customers, the folks who give players the warm fuzzies when they can restore an accidentally-deleted item, the folks who can unlock long-lost accounts, the folks who participate in the forums, the folks who write blog entries outlining the game's plans for the next year or more. Meanwhile, Activision-Blizzard plans to hire even more game developers – perhaps indicating they'll increase the number of titles published while decreasing actual support for those games after they're out. It really seems to me that the days of subscribing to a game to play it for years through multiple expansions are coming to an end, to be replaced by a shooter-of-the-month with PTW micro-transactions and loot-boxes and all the skins you could want.
Maybe it's time to turn off the gaming PC for good. There's always Pandemic or Concordia or even Ticket to Ride, and I've been hearing some buzz about this little indie RPG called D&D....
posted by The Nutmeg of Consolation at 6:45 AM on February 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
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posted by Fizz at 8:19 PM on February 20, 2019 [27 favorites]