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Gas Powered Games Layoffs

[Jan 18, 2013, 10:08 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

Gas Powered Games has laid of some staff shortly after the launch of their Wildman Kickstarter seeking $1.1 million for a new action/RPG. This is reported by Kotaku, who confirmed that the company has cut some staff with honcho Chris Taylor after getting wind of them through the grapevine. Taylor did not confirm the extent of the layoffs, however, so there are dramatic elements to the Kotaku report which remain speculative, as one source told them these were due to the Kickstarter underperforming, while other sources have told them that almost everyone who worked for the company was let go. There's a follow up to this on Gamasutra. "The studio is still operating, but we had to slim WAY down to conserve cash reserves," Chris Taylor confirmed for them, confirming some earlier comments that they are all in on Wildman: "We spent all the last dough that we've had, and the last several months working on it. So we're betting the company on it."

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Re: Gas Powered Games Layoffs

Jan 19, 2013, 15:59

Stormsinger

m00t wrote on Jan 19, 2013, 15:52: You claim to have worked in the industry for 12 years, but you show a pretty piss poor understanding of how it operates and how it really is substantially different from most other industries. Certainly every industry shares aspects of what the games industry does, but very few of them have to deal with all of the problems as extreme as this industry does. The nature of digital gaming is that it's actually very easy to get in to but much, MUCH harder to survive in. There are fewer protections against bad actors and sudden shifts in the environment, both of which happen with high frequency. Most publisher contracts are fairly draconian, yet aside from the novelty that is Kickstarter and the ilk, there are few alternatives to them aside from simply not existing at all. Recently that's improved somewhat with Steam, Faceobok, and the proliferation of flash games, but doing A - AAA games as an independent is still one of the hardest, yet rewarding, things to do. Still, even people in the industry don't seem to value the work that is done as much as it is in other industries. Part of that is simply the immaturity of the industry, part of that is there are a lot of eager people who are willing to forgo pay and benefits for the opportunity. Either way, the industry is different. In your infinite wisdom, if every industry is the same, why did you leave? Keep being an asshole, and this will be the last time I respond to you. Money, stability, and poor management (mostly because of programmers whose egos make them think that they are too smart to fail at business), are the biggest reasons. And #1 and 2 are mainly caused by #3.

Subject

Comment [quote="Stormsinger"Jan 19, 2013, 15:59][quote="m00t"Jan 19, 2013, 15:52]You claim to have worked in the industry for 12 years, but you show a pretty piss poor understanding of how it operates and how it really is substantially different from most other industries. Certainly every industry shares aspects of what the games industry does, but very few of them have to deal with all of the problems as extreme as this industry does. The nature of digital gaming is that it's actually very easy to get in to but much, MUCH harder to survive in. There are fewer protections against bad actors and sudden shifts in the environment, both of which happen with high frequency. Most publisher contracts are fairly draconian, yet aside from the novelty that is Kickstarter and the ilk, there are few alternatives to them aside from simply not existing at all. Recently that's improved somewhat with Steam, Faceobok, and the proliferation of flash games, but doing A - AAA games as an independent is still one of the hardest, yet rewarding, things to do. Still, even people in the industry don't seem to value the work that is done as much as it is in other industries. Part of that is simply the immaturity of the industry, part of that is there are a lot of eager people who are willing to forgo pay and benefits for the opportunity. Either way, the industry is different. In your infinite wisdom, if every industry is the same, why did you leave? [/quote] Keep being an asshole, and this will be the last time I respond to you. Money, stability, and poor management (mostly because of programmers whose egos make them think that they are too smart to fail at business), are the biggest reasons. And #1 and 2 are mainly caused by #3. [/quote]

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