| ...perspective collection... |
[Sep. 30th, 2004|02:26 am] |
x-posted to my 1Up Blog
In just a few short days classes will start back up for the Winter Quarter and I will be neck deep in programming, 3D modeling, writing game reviews and the holiday season. I love San Francisco this time of year, the way the clouds linger desperately in the mid-day and the wind rips ferociously at all new students, tourists and fresh faces. Like the industry I find myself entwined in, I have come to believe that this city eats people alive and never spits them out. I often wonder if some people come here and just can't cut it, simply falling apart at the seams. I wonder if it is a smaller scale reproduction of what's going on in our industry.
The game industry has moved beyond its golden years and has graduated into a cash cow. The Alfred Hitchcock's and the Tim Burton's of old are few and far between, the ones who are left are retiring or making way for the Michael Bay's and Spielberg's of the industry. We are beginning to see the game industry's focus shift from the game to the harvest, so to speak. I could sit here and lament the days of old, how graphics don't make a game, or how it's the concept, not the 15 different points of audio that make the experience, but frankly, that's a lie today. We have adapted to the current conception of the video game just as a person who drives a BMW for ten years can't drive a Geo Metro without going insane.
If you haven't heard by now Vivendi Universal Games is being sued by Neil Aitken for violation of overtime laws in California. In a recent article published in the Computer Gaming World November 2004 issue regarding the lawsuit (pg.29), Steve Meister of Bethesda Software was quoted as saying "If you don't like the way you're treated at work, try to find work at a company that has more reasonable expectations of its employees." Several other unnamed developers felt that Aitken should not have filed the suit and should have just found another job altogether.
Folks, it is at this point that I have to take a step back and resist the urge to slap people Zsa-Zsa style. When has it ever been okay to rip people off? When has it ever been okay to step on the little guy? When has it ever been okay to take advantage of someone just because you have the ability to? Hey, just because you can doesn't make it right. California and Federal law give us protection against this kind of behavior and just because someone stood up to it doesn't give you the right to come down on him. This industry is in a dangerous state and it's not going to get better any time soon. As it stands, one way or another Federal and/or State intervention seems imminent and with companies like Rockstar Games and Running with Scissorsbearding the lion, how much longer will it take before we're seeing some sort of heavy-handed regulation? Couple this with the fact that we are seeing a major shift in development cycles, development house closures, poor accounting practices, bad games and the ever-present, ever-growing piracy issue, where are we headed?
Last quarter I had a class called "Data Structures and Concepts" and it was taught by a talented young man who was working at LucasArts on an unspecified project. One night in the middle of the quarter, during the middle of class he got a phone call that he had been laid off. Mind you, it's 8pm on a Tuesday night and he's getting a phone call informing him that he's coming in to a pink slip in the morning. Needless to say, he left the class and drove to LA where he was hired on at EALA for work on another game. He had to quit teaching in the middle of the quarter and leave.
The behavior of this industry is abhorrent, and it's going downhill fast. We've modeled ourselves after corporations like Microsoft and Enron. We idolize the Hollywood ideal and the people who head the major publishing houses have little to no interest in games what-so-ever, except whatever it can profit them now. Unless you're a Jon Carmack or a Cliffy B of the industry, you're meat, you're forced into working unpaid overtime, you're looked down upon and if you don't like it you should look for another job. Are we set to implode or is everything going to be shipped overseas to $2/hour programmers and non-English speaking tech support? More importantly, is there any hope for people like me who just want to create a game that's more than a fancy physics engine and some shiny water effects?
Gaming is becoming like film and music, you have to show exceptional talent or know someone on the inside to even hope to get a shot. I remember the first day of my Data Structures class, the instructor was asking each person to give a brief introduction and then tell everyone what they wanted to do upon graduation. I will never forget how the majority of students wanted to work for someone else for lots of money and bags full of success. One student even went so far as to brazenly declare that he "hated coding" and he just wanted to be a producer, the "idea man" behind the game. I still don't understand why he's majoring in programming. Regardless, when it came my turn, I realized that these individuals wanted success without forging a path, and this is what feeds the industry, the machine if you will.
As long as there are people with ideas and the burning desire to create them then there will always be great games, just fewer and far between, and sometimes with crummier graphics. However, as long as the majority of new industry recruits are content to just "work for someone" else and hope to make their "millions" doing the grunt work of others, then companies like EA, Microsoft, Vivendi Universal, and a host of other money-centric profit machines will continue to churn through developers like America does Prozac. Face it, there are enough brilliant 17 year old programmers and 3D modelers on the up and up right now who are willing to work for minimum wage that the time has come for people like Neil Aitken to stand up and call these corporations on their poor treatment of employees. More importantly, shame on you Mr. Meister for not having your fellow developer's back and telling him to find a new job even though the company he is working for is violating State and Federal laws, way to be a part of the problem and not the solution. |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
September 30th, 2004 |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
Next Day |
] |
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
ninjadan's journal