Originally posted by Garkan

I am curious about the being escorted off the premises thing, is that something unique to the software industry or is it standard practice for other employers?

Personally I have been made redundant only once. I have little experiance in that regard but in my case I was not escorted out, noone else was either. I can see why it might be necessary if someone was sacked for bad conduct but not for redundancy.

It's pretty common in industries where you have access to sensitive/critical material.  It's not a reflection of the individual, because they do it for everyone; the one time they don't do it, is the one time they get bit in the arse because of it.

Slightly different set of circumstances, but In some companies you actually get all your access and passes taken away on the day you hand your notice in, even if you theoretically have a notice period.  You essentially get gardening leave for the length of your notice period.

It probably happens where I work because we're a military contractor and also because you just handed over your security pass, so you can't actually open any of the doors to get out any more...

First I dont have a clue why these companies with no other completed mmos try to jump in and fight WoW...

Second these companies need to start small get the core game working with functional core gameplay fluff should come later. (incase of lack of funding you could maybe soft launch with a version of the completed game minus some fluff)

Finally I have no clue why they keep making copies of whats out, make something different look at the success of dayz that would have been a great soft launch of a mmo. 

Originally posted by Ozmodan

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.

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Originally posted by Gardavsshade

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Originally posted by Ozmodan 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.  

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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.        

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MMO's were a business from day one. A product was made and it was bought by the consumer. Then they paid a monthly fee for continued access to that service provided by that product's company. That is the basics of a business.

If they weren't made that way, then they would all be free and possibly even open source to involve the community more. Ala Saga of Ryzom's move, after which it failed to operate as a business. Yes a good majority of the people in the game development field love their work, but at the end of the day they need some type of monetary compensation to make it through the world just like the business' they work for.

Has it gotten out of hand with the corporate nonsense, yes I'll agree there. But don't project that the original makers of online games were some messiahs gifting us with there games for the low low price of 49.95 and 14.95 a month. Hell there are even some MUD games today that charge a monthly fee.

deleted

Originally posted by Serpentar

 

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Originally posted by Gardavsshade

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Originally posted by Ozmodan 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.  

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MMO's were a business from day one. A product was made and it was bought by the consumer. Then they paid a monthly fee for continued access to that service provided by that product's company. That is the basics of a business.

If they weren't made that way, then they would all be free and possibly even open source to involve the community more. Ala Saga of Ryzom's move, after which it failed to operate as a business. Yes a good majority of the people in the game development field love their work, but at the end of the day they need some type of monetary compensation to make it through the world just like the business' they work for.

Has it gotten out of hand with the corporate nonsense, yes I'll agree there. But don't project that the original makers of online games were some messiahs gifting us with there games for the low low price of 49.95 and 14.95 a month. Hell there are even some MUD games today that charge a monthly fee.

Both are very true.

I do feel sorry for the employees of 38, because I'm sure that most of them did not see the writing on the wall. Suzie alludes to this a bit in her OP, but doesn't really go into details; however many newbies to game developement go into it with utopian promises (many of which are hammered into their heads during college), which just don't hold up in the real world. It's kind of disgusting how many bambies get slaughtered by this industry.

However, from a management perspective, what 38 did was absolutely idiotic. They had some good ideas, but again, trying to dive in head-first (as a new studio) into an MMO is just asking for failure. The only studio I've seen which seems to do this correctly (albeit we will have to wait until launch to see) would be Anet. While they didn't try and make an MMO right out of the gate, they did lay the groundwork for one with the original game, and set aside some of the profit to fund the 2nd. 38 didn't do this at all. I think it was TB that stated this, but 'the two most expensive games you can make are an MMO and a 100+ hour RPG, and 38 studios tried to do both as their first project'.

I really wish newer developers would start small, work on solid game mechanics first, before they dive into a game that demands an insane amount of content just to stay afloat. MMOs are definitely a business, and everything about them requires them to be. MMOs live or die by how healthy their playerbases are. Even an excellent MMO isn't the same with a small population. Because of this simple truth, MMOs have to make sure they keep that in mind, and are strucuring their games to hold on to a healthy amount of people for a prolonged period of time.

Again, I feel bad for the employees, but I really hope situations like these open the eyes of more developers. We need more developers who know how to run a game production smoothly, manage their funds intelligently, and to stop trying to emulate the same game with the pipedream of achieving the same success. It doesn't work.

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

 

 

Someone earlier mentioned the consumer is to blame. I'd agree, but probably not for the reasons they intended (or maybe so, they didn't elaborate). The fact of the matter is that money corrupts people, and when you as a consumer continue feeding these leeches your money, you validate their actions and are telling them that everything they're doing is perfectly fine. You're not just validating lackluster games based just on the brand name, you're validating business practices and the people who decide them. Money is power, and they have your money because you give it to them, thus they have the power to keep fucking everyone over, both employee and consumer, as many times as they like.

 

Without lube.

 

Actually in Star Wars Galaxies the consumer did speak up loud and clear when the New Game Experience hit/.  But on the most part you are right.  The Consomer's are so in love with the brand they contunue playing and paying no mater how curropt the game alters from the original intent. 

 

While I was in the Gaming Industry, it was Casino Games as a Surveillance Supervisor. I was told my First day that the EMPLOYEE'S were the casino's most valued assest and it was my job to prove the employee innocent when ever they were charged with something and if I could not prove them innocent then they most be guilty,  Not many Companies have that outlook, and I was lucky to work for them. With most companies, you can take a 5 gallon bucket of water, push you fist into it and pull it out, the time it takes for the water to fill back in, is the lenght of time the company will miss you once you are gone.

 

Interesting read, very sad though...

Sanya, you are one of the best CM's I've run across in all my years playing these games (since UO), but you have a *bad* case of Stray Kitten Syndrome... ^^  I feel bad that you've now had three games shot out from under you (you deserve much more, from my perspective), but why do you continue to pick games that have *so* many things against them?

I'm all too painfully familiar with closing time.  Its never fun, and those whose bad decisions resulted in it being necessary, almost never get the blame.  Not to mention all of the talented/experienced people who lose their jobs when companies fail.

But thats all water under the bridge at this point. I wish you and the tech staff all the best in finding another game, and hope that it makes it to launch and beyond.

Originally posted by Cymdai

This topic made me think of Brad McQuaid immediately.

Or David Bowman, or good Old Smed, to name but a few of the slime balls from the past.

Originally posted by Garkan

I am curious about the being escorted off the premises thing, is that something unique to the software industry or is it standard practice for other employers?

Personally I have been made redundant only once. I have little experiance in that regard but in my case I was not escorted out, noone else was either. I can see why it might be necessary if someone was sacked for bad conduct but not for redundancy.

Thats SOP in many parts of the various software/technical industries (who have professional security).  Once the decision is made, the escort from security tells technical (security)  they are in place (out side), and the target instantly loses all connectivity (everything goes down). 

The target is then told to collect their personal things and then they are escorted off site. While this is going on ALL of their pass words and access are revoked, and it may also include a general pass word switch for that entire section (depends on their role and what lead to their being terminated), and then their personal system is imaged, and then wiped and brought up fresh. Or they may just pull the storage (send it to technical security) and replace it.

Thats pretty much the basic idea. It can get more or less involved, depending on the CSO.

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

Originally posted by SBE1

Just tell them those employees to "use skill" just like you did after the "see hidden" patch in DAOC Sonya!  

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. 

Originally posted by Gardavsshade

Originally posted by Ozmodan

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. 

Originally posted by chaintm

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.