News Shafer criticises industry lay-offs

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2012/10/24/shafer-criticises-industry-lay-offs/1

 

As someone who has been told that 2nd November is their last day due to the project ending, totally agree.

 

Tim Shafer is a hero!

 

I agree with Tims sentiment. Breaking up teams like that is not beneficial to the team members, also re-establishing a team will slow development down for the company when a new project starts. It seems to me that there is an opportunity for a small company of contractors who hire themselves out/offer expertise to various projects as needed. Contracting companies like that work well in other industries.

 

The reason teams are restructured after projects ending is to avoid promotions, IMAO.

 

Thats one possibility. I would also think that they cut costs by not having grunt programmers during early pre production phase where you have concept development, design, consultation, story boarding etc. etc. Perhaps one senior programmer who will be leading the team may be all that is needed at the early stages. Once pre-production is over, higher a few developers bang the game out and shove their asses in a giant cannon and fire them after release. After that keep a few around for maintenance and patching.

I'm sure its high stress getting a game out on time and once its all over instead of getting that nice feeling of satisfaction and camaraderie, you get fired and bear little good will to your former employers.

 

I'm so tired of hearing stories everywhere I turn of companies treating their employees like crap. Maybe if the executives weren't allowed to go bananas with salary and bonus demands, companies could treat their people (that is, the people who actually do the work) better. Where I work, raises were ~3% this year. Meanwhile, they've added yet another manager that, near as I can tell, spends about half his day talking on his (company provided) cell with his friends about (American) football. Another decent chunk of his day is having his sort-of underling do the grunt work because he (useless manager) barely understands Excel. Turns out this jackass makes more than the GM and will openly admit he wasn't qualified for the job he was hired to do. Small wonder my section has been frozen, staff-wise, for two years, and the manager openly admitted they're in no hurry to replace the only guy on staff who understands the e-comm side of the business (and does all the marketing materials, and coordinates sales reports, etc, etc)

But I digress...for the game studios, pay these devs well and furlough them when the project is over. Actually, furlough isn't the right term, I don't think - pay them well enough that they can get by for a while when the project is over, leave their insurance (actually, they probably don't even provide insurance, come to think of it), etc, intact, and bring them back when the next project starts.

I get the sinking feeling that it's going to end in bloody revolution in the streets before employees are treated right...
I get

 

Another possibility is for other companies like DoubleFine start a different paradigm. These companies could grow a lot (and thus set the standard) if gamers become aware of the significance of supporting them, instead of the big ones.
That's why I avoid big title games nowadays, and prefer to invest in Indie games.

Since nowadays you have a lot of adult gamers, I hope that they can see the difference, opposed to teenagers salivating to the next ultra coolest game.

The same principle applies to software in general.