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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Investors and shareholders: “Layoffs?! Take my money!!!”
Square Enix when handling Deus Ex
