It's standard procedure because it's a rare day when someone is /happy/ to lose their job for whatever reason. A person can do a lot of damage both physically and mentally to a company if allowed to run free after that happens. From the companies point of view it's the safest thing to do for their other employees.
Now as to how it's the consumers fault... bwuh? How is it the consumers fault for not buying a game that... hasn't been released yet? There was nothing to consume in that case and so it's clearly not the fault of the consumer.
Personally I think to many companies are on the 'Why bother?' part of can't please everyone, which is how we get the ending of ME3 for example, or SWTOR which was truly a good game up till the last 2 builds.
Oh well. One day I'll win the lottery and build my own game, cuz that's the only way I'll ever get enough money to fund one myself and not have to listen to investors and publishers.
Those in management should carry the can more than any other. But unlike the developers, artists, and so on the management team is not tied to MMO’s or gaming. Next port of call for them can be a local supermarket chain or Coca Cola.
While the future of MMO’s is being played out on the spin of a roulette wheel, the executives can always switch to another game in town. This is why I question their loyalty and enthusiasm for MMO’s and gaming. Its just another place to make a buck.
I feel bad for the dev's who try to please the big heads of the coompany and it caused their game to suck..then lead to it's death.
eg. SWG ... my heart goes out to the DEV's that lost their job and feel it was their fault they were made to lie to costumers to say they will but end up not.. cause of some suit wants the game to be easier for all ages.
People forget this is a business. It is quite obvious that 38 studios was not run like a business. 400+ employees with only a single player game as an income source equals only one result. All I can say is what were they thinking? They were doomed before they started and I do not feel sorry for them. Why should anyone feel sorry for someone that is doing something in a stupid manner.
I do feel sorry for Sanya's company though, they just could not get funding, they were not piling on the employee's in this case. Money is tight right now and unless you have a rich champion you are on the outside looking in.
I had hoped you all would have figured this out by now....
MMOs are not supposed to be a business. They were NOT originally designed to be businesses. They can not work as a conventional business no matter how you tweak them... That's most of the problem right there.
Take the Capitalism mentality and get it out of MMO Gaming before MMO Gaming is ruined beyond repair. There is no large quarterly profit to be made here in this genre... nor was there ever supposed to be.
The only Investors that should have anything to do with MMO Gaming should be the Nerds glued to their favorite MMO 80 hours as week... as a PLAYER. Investors like that don't bail out at the first sign a focus group is feeling a little under the weather. They get ingame and find out what the other Players think... the Devs, the Testers, the other Investors... that is how MMOs are supposed to work. No "small group" decisions being made in secret and all that nonsense.
One day maybe some of you will figure this out. Maybe one day you will realize that the reason that so many MMOs fail is because the MMO Model was never designed to be a business in the first place. If you attempt to run a MMO as a conventional corporate business you have already handicapped it.
This simple fact is not going to change. Any MMO worthy of the title won't be run as a business and any MMO run as a business won't be worth playing from a MMO gamers point of view.... hence there will never be the kind of profit in it the Investors are hoping for because the Players won't stand behind the product and support for very long!
Some Corporate types know this very well, and have even gambled on this characteristic of MMOs... a few "MMOs" that have been released in the last year "capitalized" on taking advantage of this and the Investors made a tidy profit (but hurt the genre overall)... so don't be so quick to dimiss my comments here are uninformed or incorrect...
This is really simple Folks. You all are not that stupid. Wake up.
To the original Poster... you have my sympathies that yours and many others hard work and dream has been lost. My condolences.
QFT. Do you think anyone is listening? Its the same thing I've been saying for 5 years.
This is the same thing that happened to my husband. He's been laid off twice in the last four years but not from the game industry. Both times was when a management company came in and fired all the old employees while eliminating positions. He's had 17 years in the industry we both work in.
Now my husband is working part time.
And me? I've moved jobs once but it was a lateral move and I'm no better off than I was four years ago. It's the same job with a different title, and it's an insult that I'm STILL on the lowest rungs of our industry after ten years in spite of being told all the time how great I am at my job and having customers write letters to my managers telling them that.
We are so sick of it, we finally decided to start working on our own business. So we're registered and we've been working on promoting ourselves. I do desktop publishing and office assistance from a distance, and he's a revenue manager. I'm the only one that's found any work so far (and I'm extremely excited about it too) as part of our business. If things keep going the way they are, we may both be able to quit our jobs within a year and work full time on our own business.
I'm so sick to death of working for someone else and hoping that I'm going to be employed next months. I'm tired of taking flack from customers who think they're rulers of the world and that we should pay THEM (yes, we actually had someone demand that once) to use the services at the place I'm currently working at. And I'm sooo sooo tired of being tired (I never ever get enough sleep because I'm a natural night owl but my job requires that I work days or I'm relegated to making minimum wage). I'm tired of incompetent and selfish managers, and owners, who get away with murder and treat everyone around them like dirt.
It's time to take control of our lives.
And those game companies? They're doing it to themselves. Just like so many of the companies in the business I currently work in.
The only fool is the fool that believes in any company in the end. Contract work is the only work in this industry, for you are your own boss, you loose that contract due to company failure, you still get your payout and in the end your lined up for more work. If your skills are not enabling you to get constant contract work, time to re-skill or change professions. The I.T. Industry is a very rough industry and the side of entertainment is even worse.
Most of anyone that I know worth a grain of salt in this industry is contract. A few mangment in some companies are excellent players, I have yet thou to run into any coder, designer and more that are full time steady employees with one company more then two years.
I am sure there are some, but out of all, contract is the way to do it. Just my 2cents, sorry but this posting to me seems more of a rant from a guy who is sick of getting laid off. Personally I would just better my skills or find a new line of work.
You're arguing semantics here. I've worked contract and perm, in the industry and before it, and there's little difference at the end of the day between "laid off" or "contract ended" when a studio closes. Actually, there is a difference - when I've worked contract, I don't gain access to equity, options, or full time benefits that I may have received as a perm. I've never even heard of contractors receiving severance when the time comes to shut the doors, but I've seen it plenty of times for full time employees. Contracting can also lead to some issues with seeking unemployment (depending on the reasoning for the request and the reason for the contract termination).
I'm sure contracting works for you (and there are days I miss my own contracting/consulting days), but the idea that only smart people in the gaming industry are working under contract and not seeking full time employment is a strange notion, to say the least.
People forget this is a business. It is quite obvious that 38 studios was not run like a business. 400+ employees with only a single player game as an income source equals only one result. All I can say is what were they thinking? They were doomed before they started and I do not feel sorry for them. Why should anyone feel sorry for someone that is doing something in a stupid manner.
I do feel sorry for Sanya's company though, they just could not get funding, they were not piling on the employee's in this case. Money is tight right now and unless you have a rich champion you are on the outside looking in.
I had hoped you all would have figured this out by now....
MMOs are not supposed to be a business. They were NOT originally designed to be businesses. They can not work as a conventional business no matter how you tweak them... That's most of the problem right there.
Take the Capitalism mentality and get it out of MMO Gaming before MMO Gaming is ruined beyond repair. There is no large quarterly profit to be made here in this genre... nor was there ever supposed to be.
The only Investors that should have anything to do with MMO Gaming should be the Nerds glued to their favorite MMO 80 hours as week... as a PLAYER. Investors like that don't bail out at the first sign a focus group is feeling a little under the weather. They get ingame and find out what the other Players think... the Devs, the Testers, the other Investors... that is how MMOs are supposed to work. No "small group" decisions being made in secret and all that nonsense.
One day maybe some of you will figure this out. Maybe one day you will realize that the reason that so many MMOs fail is because the MMO Model was never designed to be a business in the first place. If you attempt to run a MMO as a conventional corporate business you have already handicapped it.
This simple fact is not going to change. Any MMO worthy of the title won't be run as a business and any MMO run as a business won't be worth playing from a MMO gamers point of view.... hence there will never be the kind of profit in it the Investors are hoping for because the Players won't stand behind the product and support for very long!
Some Corporate types know this very well, and have even gambled on this characteristic of MMOs... a few "MMOs" that have been released in the last year "capitalized" on taking advantage of this and the Investors made a tidy profit (but hurt the genre overall)... so don't be so quick to dimiss my comments here are uninformed or incorrect...
This is really simple Folks. You all are not that stupid. Wake up.
To the original Poster... you have my sympathies that yours and many others hard work and dream has been lost. My condolences.
QFT. Do you think anyone is listening? Its the same thing I've been saying for 5 years.
This is the mentality MMO's should aim for, sadly, I don't see it coming to pass anytime soon.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
Comments
It's standard procedure because it's a rare day when someone is /happy/ to lose their job for whatever reason. A person can do a lot of damage both physically and mentally to a company if allowed to run free after that happens. From the companies point of view it's the safest thing to do for their other employees.
Now as to how it's the consumers fault... bwuh? How is it the consumers fault for not buying a game that... hasn't been released yet? There was nothing to consume in that case and so it's clearly not the fault of the consumer.
Personally I think to many companies are on the 'Why bother?' part of can't please everyone, which is how we get the ending of ME3 for example, or SWTOR which was truly a good game up till the last 2 builds.
Oh well. One day I'll win the lottery and build my own game, cuz that's the only way I'll ever get enough money to fund one myself and not have to listen to investors and publishers.
Came for the kitties and left with the kitties.
Liked how the developer talked from his perspective and how often game developers shut down and many games are never released.
Anyone who works in this throat cutting industry has my condolences
Really? You're holding a petty grudge THIS long? Get a life please...
I feel bad for the dev's who try to please the big heads of the coompany and it caused their game to suck..then lead to it's death.
eg. SWG ... my heart goes out to the DEV's that lost their job and feel it was their fault they were made to lie to costumers to say they will but end up not.. cause of some suit wants the game to be easier for all ages.
QFT. Do you think anyone is listening? Its the same thing I've been saying for 5 years.
This is the same thing that happened to my husband. He's been laid off twice in the last four years but not from the game industry. Both times was when a management company came in and fired all the old employees while eliminating positions. He's had 17 years in the industry we both work in.
Now my husband is working part time.
And me? I've moved jobs once but it was a lateral move and I'm no better off than I was four years ago. It's the same job with a different title, and it's an insult that I'm STILL on the lowest rungs of our industry after ten years in spite of being told all the time how great I am at my job and having customers write letters to my managers telling them that.
We are so sick of it, we finally decided to start working on our own business. So we're registered and we've been working on promoting ourselves. I do desktop publishing and office assistance from a distance, and he's a revenue manager. I'm the only one that's found any work so far (and I'm extremely excited about it too) as part of our business. If things keep going the way they are, we may both be able to quit our jobs within a year and work full time on our own business.
I'm so sick to death of working for someone else and hoping that I'm going to be employed next months. I'm tired of taking flack from customers who think they're rulers of the world and that we should pay THEM (yes, we actually had someone demand that once) to use the services at the place I'm currently working at. And I'm sooo sooo tired of being tired (I never ever get enough sleep because I'm a natural night owl but my job requires that I work days or I'm relegated to making minimum wage). I'm tired of incompetent and selfish managers, and owners, who get away with murder and treat everyone around them like dirt.
It's time to take control of our lives.
And those game companies? They're doing it to themselves. Just like so many of the companies in the business I currently work in.
You're arguing semantics here. I've worked contract and perm, in the industry and before it, and there's little difference at the end of the day between "laid off" or "contract ended" when a studio closes. Actually, there is a difference - when I've worked contract, I don't gain access to equity, options, or full time benefits that I may have received as a perm. I've never even heard of contractors receiving severance when the time comes to shut the doors, but I've seen it plenty of times for full time employees. Contracting can also lead to some issues with seeking unemployment (depending on the reasoning for the request and the reason for the contract termination).
I'm sure contracting works for you (and there are days I miss my own contracting/consulting days), but the idea that only smart people in the gaming industry are working under contract and not seeking full time employment is a strange notion, to say the least.
This is the mentality MMO's should aim for, sadly, I don't see it coming to pass anytime soon.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.