this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
87 points (93.9% liked)
Games
16800 readers
680 users here now
Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)
Posts.
- News oriented content (general reviews, previews or retrospectives allowed).
- Broad discussion posts (preferably not only about a specific game).
- No humor/memes etc..
- No affiliate links
- No advertising.
- No clickbait, editorialized, sensational titles. State the game in question in the title. No all caps.
- No self promotion.
- No duplicate posts, newer post will be deleted unless there is more discussion in one of the posts.
- No politics.
Comments.
- No personal attacks.
- Obey instance rules.
- No low effort comments(one or two words, emoji etc..)
- Please use spoiler tags for spoilers.
My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.
Other communities:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Huh, makes sense I guess.
I just wonder because there was a massive ramp up in gaming demand during COVID, and that has retreated a bit and the higher borrowing rates aren't helping, so this year is probably worse than most.
I'm sure they'll say those are the reasons, but the fact is they'd do it anyway. The video game industry churns through people every single year; it doesn't matter if they had a terrible year or a great one. You know why credits are so long now? It's not just the amount of people needed, it's that anyone who touched anything in the game has to be mentioned, and people are laid off so often (and cheaper, newer people hired) that you get these insane lists of people. I spoke with (one of) the people in charge of doing the credits for a well-known game, that sold millions and had a banner year for the company -- she said 55% - fifty-five percent - of the names in the credits no longer worked at the company by the time the Gold Master was finalized.
I checked last month with people I still know in the industry, one who still works there, and he said none of the QA people he worked with there five years ago are still there. Not the lead QA, not the QA manager, and not a single senior.
If anyone out there is curious why games suck more and more, this is why. Anyone who cares about making a good game is thrown out. It's a bunch of suits hoping (so far correctly) that players won't care.
Holy crap! I knew it was bad, but not that bad.
Do you know of any studios that don't do this? I'm guessing indie studios, but I'd like an idea of which companies to avoid and which to support. I don't play a ton of AAA games (especially eSports games, I avoid those like the plague), but it's still good to keep in mind which are the better actors in the industry.
If they have more than 100 people, they do this. There may be exceptions outside of North America (I only know 2 people who work in games outside of there), but if you want the worst offenders I have personal experience with, or know someone who does; I am including publishers here because any company owned by one of them has the same issues:
If you ever hear about a company you like working with one of these guys, it's safe to assume anything they make is about to nosedive after they get bought out, if they even make it. The majority of people I know who left the industry did so after an acquisition because they were all laid off, and then left the industry.
It's so bad I know six different people who went back to making movies in the damn effects industry after working in games. I asked one the difference and she said "I make double."
EDIT: I can't find the article anymore, but about 7-8 years ago one was flying around studios emails/slacks showing that the average person in the games industry lasts 3 years. Looking at the people I've worked with that seems about right.
I tend towards indie games generally, particularly single-dev games like Stardew Valley or a slew of incrementals out there, and I think by definition these issues don’t exist in those spheres. Beyond that I’m a big Nintendo fanboy and from what I’m given to understand Nintendo doesn’t churn and burn their employees as much, however they do work them to the absolute bone and demand nothing short of perfection which is its own kind of hostile workplace.
The only complaints I hear about Nintendo are they can be, uh, 'a tad' racist, and that working in Japan in general sucks. They said there's hope with the millennial Japanese though, who are much better at work/life balance, and less racist.