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| [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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| 42. |
Re: Gas Powered Games Layoffs |
Jan 19, 2013, 16:31 |
Stormsinger |
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Sepharo wrote on Jan 19, 2013, 16:21:
Stormsinger wrote on Jan 19, 2013, 15:59:
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.
That's why the industry is the way it is or that's why you left? Either way... Blame it all on programmers? Come on... Hmmm...didn't think it was that hard to understand, but I'll spell it all out.
The game industry is notoriously low-paying and unstable. Most of the studios (that I've dealt with, and definitely the one I worked for) are/were run by programmers who started their own company with the attitude that "well, I'm smarter than a business grad, so I can certainly run a business. That's simple compared to writing excellent code."
That lack of business savvy, combined with the ego to think it doesn't matter, is the primary reason the game industry has a worse record than most others. The converse takes care of most of the rest...businessmen who think that game design and programming are so simple that anyone could do it are just as bad, but there are fewer studios run by those sorts.
Having gotten married while I was working in the industry, my ability to tolerate low pay and risk was substantially reduced when the recession hit. After being laid off, I migrated back to the real world for about double the pay, and a significantly larger market for my own skills (which means more stability).
Clear enough this time? |
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