90 replies to this topic

[Davegt27]

who said she was terminated

maybe she found a new job ??

oh F for respect

[Joshua McEvedy]

Matt Newman, on 30 January 2020 - 10:51 AM, said:

For the Future plans for MWO that information would come from Russ directly.

And when will that be happening, Matt? He hasn't said anything concrete since his End of Days podcast of May 29, 2019!

[RePlayBoy101]

Joshua McEvedy, on 30 January 2020 - 02:07 PM, said:

And when will that be happening, Matt? He hasn't said anything concrete since his End of Days podcast of May 29, 2019!

not true ... he said that pgi has no money a few months ago

[LordNothing]

i cant say i was ever a tina fan, but its sad to see her go. i hope she gets residuals for all the jump jet fuel ads. typical game companies screwing over their own people. this is why i never went into game dev despite having the chops. they just exploit the **** out of their people, and that's an industry wide problem.

[RickySpanish]

LordNothing, on 30 January 2020 - 04:38 PM, said:

i cant say i was ever a tina fan, but its sad to see her go. i hope she gets residuals for all the jump jet fuel ads. typical game companies screwing over their own people. this is why i never went into game dev despite having the chops. they just exploit the **** out of their people, and that's an industry wide problem.

Senior game dev here, Hi! I make good money and have a stable job. My hours are perfectly normal and our company has a pension plan and benefits. The trick is, to not apply at a company that recruits directly from a nearby game dev course because they will just burn out new staff while paying them nothing.

[thievingmagpi]

LordNothing, on 30 January 2020 - 04:38 PM, said:

i cant say i was ever a tina fan, but its sad to see her go. i hope she gets residuals for all the jump jet fuel ads. typical game companies screwing over their own people. this is why i never went into game dev despite having the chops. they just exploit the **** out of their people, and that's an industry wide problem.

Seeing the way PGI conducts business and treats its employees, I highly, highly doubt she gets anything for use of her likeness. They probably even made her buy the pop can used in the image.

[LordNothing]

RickySpanish, on 30 January 2020 - 04:41 PM, said:

Senior game dev here, Hi! I make good money and have a stable job. My hours are perfectly normal and our company has a pension plan and benefits. The trick is, to not apply at a company that recruits directly from a nearby game dev course because they will just burn out new staff while paying them nothing.

thats fine being all high up in the food chain and all. but what of your interns? no offence but your statement sounds like a multi-millionaire claiming that the economy is fine.

Edited by LordNothing, 30 January 2020 - 05:28 PM.

[RickySpanish]

LordNothing, on 30 January 2020 - 05:24 PM, said:

thats fine being all high up in the food chain and all. but what of your interns? no offence but your statement sounds like a multi-millionaire claiming that the economy is fine.

We don't have any at the moment, which I think is for the best. The last place I worked at kept getting unpaid ones and as you eluded to that's sketchy. Not only that, you can't expect someone making zero money to give a damn, so they tended to be unmotivated and required a lot of attention. That place was a startup so it was just me and two other developers on the coding side, so we didn't have time to baby sit someone and do our own work. Sometimes the interns were exceptional, and I'd like to think they learnt something working with us that helped them later on, those guys brought some pretty cool ideas and could complete tasks without being prompted to. However perhaps unsurprisingly the company eventually folded, games companies don't last all that long on average sadly. Despite tripping over themselves occasionally, I think PGI has done fairly well in the grand scheme of things.

Returning to my earlier comment about hiring from game dev courses I remember the first place I applied at - a big studio (now defunct) producing a certain MMO about cops and robbers. The interviewer asked me what I thought was a fair starting wage. After the interview I realised they were looking for people willing to work for less than peanuts. I ended up moving to North America shortly after that and similar experiences interviewing at companies close to the place I graduated from. I got the impression they were trying to screw me. In the end, all of my friends who got jobs at those places got screwed by sudden terminations and zero severance due to the companies suddenly filing for bankruptcy.

Edited by RickySpanish, 30 January 2020 - 06:22 PM.

[LordNothing]

RickySpanish, on 30 January 2020 - 06:16 PM, said:

We don't have any at the moment, which I think is for the best. The last place I worked at kept getting unpaid ones and as you eluded to that's sketchy. Not only that, you can't expect someone making zero money to give a damn, so they tended to be unmotivated and required a lot of attention. That place was a startup so it was just me and two other developers on the coding side, so we didn't have time to baby sit someone and do our own work. Sometimes the interns were exceptional, and I'd like to think they learnt something working with us that helped them later on, those guys brought some pretty cool ideas and could complete tasks without being prompted to. However perhaps unsurprisingly the company eventually folded, games companies don't last all that long on average sadly. Despite tripping over themselves occasionally, I think PGI has done fairly well in the grand scheme of things.

Returning to my earlier comment about hiring from game dev courses I remember the first place I applied at - a big studio (now defunct) producing a certain MMO about cops and robbers. The interviewer asked me what I thought was a fair starting wage. After the interview I realised they were looking for people willing to work for less than peanuts. I ended up moving to North America shortly after that and similar experiences interviewing at companies close to the place I graduated from. I got the impression they were trying to screw me. In the end, all of my friends who got jobs at those places got screwed by sudden terminations and zero severance due to the companies suddenly filing for bankruptcy.

i certainly did notice a huge drop in game quality when all the diploma mills started doing game dev courses. games seem to be of a higher quality when the devs came from a computer science, mathematics, or engineering background. i was doing my it program when they started offering courses in game dev and i was rather pissed off about it as i was way too far along in my program to switch over and i didnt want to take out any more loans. but i may have dodged a bullet.

though i cant really say my it degree ever paid off. i ended up working at a pawn shop for awhile, didn't like some of the business practices and quit. then ended up assembling bicycles for retail stores, did that till my back went to hell. it paid about $12 per unit and i had those things rolling out every 4 minutes, can make a years salary on a couple four hour days a week. somewhere along the line my cheese slid off my saltine. nowadays im an unpaid caregiver for my disabled mother while knowing full well that my own retirement plan involves a bridge and a length of rope. ah the american dream.

Edited by LordNothing, 30 January 2020 - 07:39 PM.

[Bistrorider]

LordNothing, on 30 January 2020 - 07:28 PM, said:

though i cant really say my it degree ever paid off. i ended up working at a pawn shop for awhile, didn't like some of the business practices and quit. then ended up assembling bicycles for retail stores, did that till my back went to hell. it paid about $12 per unit and i had those things rolling out every 4 minutes, can make a years salary on a couple four hour days a week. somewhere along the line my cheese slid off my saltine. nowadays im an unpaid caregiver for my disabled mother while knowing full well that my own retirement plan involves a bridge and a length of rope. ah the american dream.

Hope it's gonna get better for you. What you wrote here means you are a warrior and warriors never give up. I'll do translations for movie industry in Europe for a really big companies. No salary rise for years. Been chewed many times in my work. So yeah, I'm also #MeToo. In comparison with other positions in that industry I'm a beggar. And you can't distribute movies without translators. I took some contracts for big media service-provider and production company which is trying to settle in Europe. After a month of working with them I was at the edge of burnout cause of their idiotic corporate MO (they don't know the local market and 101 of translator work, totally ignorant). Right now I'm trying switch to game industry.
EDIT: Looks like PGI made some moves. Wonder what that means? Nobody knows. It's a thriller. For free. Wanna buy a popcorn?

Edited by Bistrorider, 30 January 2020 - 11:46 PM.

[Davegt27]

there are ways to get paid as a care giver for your parents
my mom died before I could figure it out
at the end SS was saying she was not handicapped even though she had no kidneys so we where paying back the SSI
you have to be strong to fight them

[LordNothing]

Davegt27, on 31 January 2020 - 04:21 AM, said:

there are ways to get paid as a care giver for your parents
my mom died before I could figure it out
at the end SS was saying she was not handicapped even though she had no kidneys so we where paying back the SSI
you have to be strong to fight them

my mom has been on ssi for years, with both mental and physical disabilities. we crunched some numbers and think our quality of life is better than it would be under a paid caregiver program. if i get paid its just an excuse for the government subsidies to pull out. i get some scratch but the rent goes up, the food stamps go down and we probably lose our tax free cards. fortunately my mom is a master of exploiting entitlement programs. id also technically have a boss and require a bunch of bogus certifications (likely at my own expense) to qualify. essentially id be doing the same work, but also have to deal with a lot of bureaucracy as well. the moral of this story is don't have disabled parents in america.

Edited by LordNothing, 31 January 2020 - 05:02 AM.

[RickySpanish]

LordNothing, on 31 January 2020 - 04:56 AM, said:

my mom has been on ssi for years, with both mental and physical disabilities. we crunched some numbers and think our quality of life is better than it would be under a paid caregiver program. if i get paid its just an excuse for the government subsidies to pull out. i get some scratch but the rent goes up, the food stamps go down and we probably lose our tax free cards. fortunately my mom is a master of exploiting entitlement programs. id also technically have a boss and require a bunch of bogus certifications (likely at my own expense) to qualify. essentially id be doing the same work, but also have to deal with a lot of bureaucracy as well. the moral of this story is don't have disabled parents in america.

Both my Mum and now my mother in law require(d) various forms of home care. It is soul crushing and consumes all your time and will. I'm really sorry to hear you're going through this man. It's little consolation but I imagine several of us players here are at least familiar with what you might be experiencing, stay strong.

[anfadern]

Everything burns

[Inatu Elimor]

Matt Newman, on 30 January 2020 - 10:51 AM, said:

As a general Rule companies do not discuss reasons for ending contracts so don't expect an explanation.
I am still here making Events and Sales and moderation is being handled in part by Customer support.

Well, point is, the initial finance for MWO came from backers, now was it not ? So the whole MWO excercition could not have been possible without them. So, in my view, the company has a responsibillity in communication towards the community. They made you possible. So yes, you owe them an explanation.

[Kodyn]

Not really sure what Tina ever did besides appear as a more pleasant alternative to Russ. She seemed nice enough, nothing against her, but I can't say she's missed, barely noticed her.

Can't really say much about NGNG- their players were decent for the most part, they produced and hosted some decent content, bunch of other content many didn't watch, and were just kind of a thing we all knew was around, but many of us didn't pay attention to. Probably more of a loss than Tina, but I'm never a huge fan of content creators who are beholden to devs and you can't trust to be honest and transparent.

Forum mods? There were too many for the amount the forum gets used, and at least one or two definitely had no business wielding any power. No loss here.

When Matt goes I go, he's the last bastion of PGI that keeps in touch with players and has always seemed to care more about player enjoyment as opposed to simply creating a minimally viable product. Other than Alex or the chick who designs the cooler-looking cockpits, I can't see any other personnel loss as significant for PGI.

[MischiefSC]

RickySpanish, on 30 January 2020 - 06:16 PM, said:

We don't have any at the moment, which I think is for the best. The last place I worked at kept getting unpaid ones and as you eluded to that's sketchy. Not only that, you can't expect someone making zero money to give a damn, so they tended to be unmotivated and required a lot of attention. That place was a startup so it was just me and two other developers on the coding side, so we didn't have time to baby sit someone and do our own work. Sometimes the interns were exceptional, and I'd like to think they learnt something working with us that helped them later on, those guys brought some pretty cool ideas and could complete tasks without being prompted to. However perhaps unsurprisingly the company eventually folded, games companies don't last all that long on average sadly. Despite tripping over themselves occasionally, I think PGI has done fairly well in the grand scheme of things.

Returning to my earlier comment about hiring from game dev courses I remember the first place I applied at - a big studio (now defunct) producing a certain MMO about cops and robbers. The interviewer asked me what I thought was a fair starting wage. After the interview I realised they were looking for people willing to work for less than peanuts. I ended up moving to North America shortly after that and similar experiences interviewing at companies close to the place I graduated from. I got the impression they were trying to screw me. In the end, all of my friends who got jobs at those places got screwed by sudden terminations and zero severance due to the companies suddenly filing for bankruptcy.

I was contracting with a good sized company that got bought by EA in the early 90s, and I ended up working for Sony (among others) for a bit after that. It's really toxic environment even at management levels. I worked for a couple smaller game companies for a while before getting out and getting a corporate job.

The model is essentially to hire interns for next to nothing and work the **** out of them. After game release you fire the actual full time coders and most the interns, keeping only a couple of the interns to do the work the coders were doing (patches, updates) but pay them a fraction of the wage. The idea being that they'll have learned enough from the good coders during development to at least fake it and fix critical issues. You may keep a couple really exceptional coders but move them to other projects.

Incredibly bloated executive salary, below market average for everyone else with strong rewards for corporate cannibalism. You find a way to release the game with fewer people? Great, here's your bonus. Use assets from another game instead of making your own? Good job, I won't fire you (this time).

Small to mid sized companies seem to be the absolute best. I have a friend who's absolutely incredible who still works at Blizzard and has been there a long time and loves it and another friend who's an absolute prodigy and ended up matriculating to Nvidia but otherwise just about everyone I know from then has burned out and moved on. You're very fortunate to be employed by a good company with benefits.

[KodiakGW]

F...for fail

Directed solely at management.

Edited by KodiakGW, 02 February 2020 - 07:04 AM.

[LordNothing]

MischiefSC, on 31 January 2020 - 09:37 AM, said:

I was contracting with a good sized company that got bought by EA in the early 90s, and I ended up working for Sony (among others) for a bit after that. It's really toxic environment even at management levels. I worked for a couple smaller game companies for a while before getting out and getting a corporate job.

The model is essentially to hire interns for next to nothing and work the **** out of them. After game release you fire the actual full time coders and most the interns, keeping only a couple of the interns to do the work the coders were doing (patches, updates) but pay them a fraction of the wage. The idea being that they'll have learned enough from the good coders during development to at least fake it and fix critical issues. You may keep a couple really exceptional coders but move them to other projects.

Incredibly bloated executive salary, below market average for everyone else with strong rewards for corporate cannibalism. You find a way to release the game with fewer people? Great, here's your bonus. Use assets from another game instead of making your own? Good job, I won't fire you (this time).

Small to mid sized companies seem to be the absolute best. I have a friend who's absolutely incredible who still works at Blizzard and has been there a long time and loves it and another friend who's an absolute prodigy and ended up matriculating to Nvidia but otherwise just about everyone I know from then has burned out and moved on. You're very fortunate to be employed by a good company with benefits.

i miss the days when the ceo was the lead developer, or at least where the lead developer was so high up in the food chain they were a permanent fixture at the studio. such that they were calling the shots as far as development was concerned.

[thievingmagpi]

Venture capitalism got wind of the gaming industry and games have never been that same (aka good) since.