Acleacius wrote:
I wonder if the Credits had something to do with the original drm, and this is only a temporary issue.
Not likely, at least not in any game engine I have ever worked with. Credits are usually either a pre-rendered movie/images or a text file that is read at run-time. This allows for easy fixes or additions in patches.
Prez wrote:
Without a mention of your contribution in the credits, can you even still include that on your resume? I'm just trying to wrap my head around just how egregious this actually is.
You absolutely can, but it really comes down to how the various companies screen your resume. There is a certain amount of fact checking that needs to be done, to make sure that someone isn't someone claiming years of experience, with nothing to back it up.
Tom wrote:
Sure, why not? What matters is that you did the work. Most people don't have their name in credits somewhere as proof that they worked on something. If you need to prove it to someone, there are other ways.
There really aren't. I will explain more at the bottom.
Prez wrote:
But it's still pretty disrespectful. Credit needs to be given or it's a slap in the face to people who I'm sure worked very hard. In my former line of work as an electrician credit was never taken. Whereas I made sure that I was properly credited on my music. In a creative endeavor it matters very much.
This, exactly. Because it all comes down to claims and proof.
Jim wrote:
Eh, I don't think this realistically matters much. they screwed up deleting the DRM files and probably deleted a credits file. Even so, these games have been out for years in Japan and also for years on steam. I doubt anyone is going to play them on GOG and look at the credits.
This is the one exception to this specific situation, in that there are other versions of the game out there that can back up their claims.
Since I have been personally responsible for the credits in the last several games I have worked on, I have a bit of insight for this situation.
In most places in North America, when you are contacted to confirm that an employee worked for your company, you are only allowed to state their start date and their end date. No comments on performance, problems, work they did, or any specifics outside of start and end dates. This is because any comment, positive or negative, opens these large corporations to lawsuits from previous employees or new employers if they don't work out. I had to sit through a very brief bit of legal training where I was told over and over, "Start date. End date." and that was it.
So, how do you prove that the years you worked at a game company were actually on a game, in the position that you are claiming? Credits are pretty much the one guarantee that what you claim is correct. Credits don't go out until most of the senior folks on a project and company have reviewed them, including Legal.
Sure, you can point people to Moby Games, and that carries a certain weight, mainly because it is crowd sourced, and based on what people read from the credits. I can send people to my entry, but because it isn't "ground truth" and it could still be wrong.
https://www.mobygames.com/person/27739/derek-french/credits/How much of the above is correct? Well, most of it, but there are some errors. But I have enough there that it doesn't matter. But what about someone who has worked in the industry for 5 years on 3 different project that shipped, and has been screwed over for credits each time? How do they prove their work?
This is also why many developers appreciate folks that screen capture the credits of a game and upload them to YouTube. Another fairly solid record of work.
Credits in game companies are
VERY political, if you work with petty, vindictive people in power. Usually, each company has a crediting policy and mostly aligns with the Game Developers association crediting standards. But in the end, it comes down to who in the company has the final say. I had one senior person come to me and demand that I remove an employee from the credits, because after contributing a significant amount of work on the project, for just over a year, the got a job offer from another big developer, and so they resigned before the game shipped. That was the reason they wanted them removed. Because they left and the senior person was a tiny, tiny, human and had their feelings hurt. So I took this to the person in charge, and they overruled the senior person, thankfully. Other times it has gone the other way. I feel confident in saying that each time that someone was removed from the credits, it was never because they didn't work on the project.
The comment about electrical work got me thinking. I have a friend who is an electrician and I know that he talked about how his name or a supervisor's is usually on permits and such, so that is the "credit" in that particular situation. Not completely the same, but I think you get my point.
Derek French
Live Ops Producer
Beamdog