- cross-posted to:
- gaming
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I had someone who works in the industry explain it to me like this:
Most game studios treat their employees as interchangeable components. Imagine a movie studio that just finished filming a movie - not everyone who was working on it will have more to do after that point. And the studio may not have open positions to fill on other films, so they let those additional people go instead of paying them to be on standby for months. After all, cameramen and grips and the like can always be found when the need arises. Apart from a handful of key members of the team, this is the fate of most game developers once their part of the project is completed.
If a company can’t manage a pipeline of work, then yes, they lose talent.
Yeah, but modern AAA games are so expensive and take so many years to make that nobody can afford to have a pipeline with multiple games in development. The AAA industry is choking itself to death.
To be honest game devs are more like contractors and it sucks.
Once you work for a studio you should be secure from layoffs.
Game devs need to unionize because what is a studio but a shop with consistent jobs?
They dont always have consistent jobs though, and a finished game, just like a finished building, needs a token amount of employees to maintain compared to the fleet that maybe built it.
Thats why a studio has multiple titles to work on. Also helps to have some ppl in the comp to chip in for bug fixes etc.
Large companies can’t. A company building a hospital, isn’t going to have another job lined up, to start the day the one ends. The first job probably won’t be done on time, now you have two jobs going and only the same amount of employees. The last part of building is always the biggest rush to finalize punchlists and everything.
Smaller companies, yeah they typically can operate that way.
The company also has to get paid for the first job, before they can have the equity to be able to even buy materials for the next job.
So if you don’t get paid for 3 months until after the building is open, how do you start the next with no money to pay employees or buy materials? Without constant investors, since they. Always take profit too, self funded jobs are the most profitable.
I’m sure most companies would just love to be sitting a few million in debt though, and than have the job fall through to the next bidder since you can’t start for another 3 months and would put them behind before it starts. You also can’t charge the next person until some work is done, usually 20%. So you gotta float all your employees wages for 6 months if the last job hasn’t paid fully.
In fact, jobs like that typically bankrupt smaller companies since they don’t get paid quickly enough to pay debtors and employees.
Good thing the studio will never need to build another game in the future, right?
Imagine a construction company that fires all their laborers after the end of each construction project…
that isn’t uncommon, except they are contractors instead of employees so it isn’t firing.
Same thing happens, apprentices are now journeyman and can work on their own, and new apprentices can do the same work for a third of the price.
Thats literally how it works? All the apprentices are now journeyman, they go off on their own, and they hire a new batch for the next multi year project.
It’s not feasible to continue a company with thousands of workers making $50 plus, when you can get the same work done with $20 laborers and apprentices.
A bad long term strategy?!?!?! Nonsense!!! This plan maximizes quarterly profits, how can it be bad for long term growth??? </s>
Unironically its exclusively to look “lean and efficient” to shareholders. You cant have “useless employees” making money when the product is already “finished”
No one in corporate America recognizes the value of a cohesive, well oiled team working a project theyre familiar with
We are extremely aware and super tuned in, but the vast majority of people who buy games do not look this closely.
Irresponsible companies are the result of irresponsible consumers. It sucks, but it’s built into our economic system, and more deeply, our species.
But I’m not a consumer, I’m a poor human being trying to survive in the modern world.
When the only options available to you are a douche and a turd sandwich, why would it be my fault for having those two options? Sure, I could get a better job, or perhaps, work more! Then I could afford to buy the non-parasitic vegetables that currently are only available to me through the salad on a McChicken sandwich.
Sry for the spiel, I know you’re talking about gaming and it is definitely not the same. I still wouldn’t go ahead and blame the victim on that.
That last line is an Amazon strategy too.
Square Enix when handling Deus Ex
Investors and shareholders: “Layoffs?! Take my money!!!”
