Comments on: Game Company Failures http://www.eldergame.com/2007/11/game-company-failures/ MMO game development Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:48:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Eric http://www.eldergame.com/2007/11/game-company-failures/comment-page-1/#comment-120 Eric Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:25:08 +0000 http://www.eldergame.com/2007/11/27/game-company-failures/#comment-120 I completely agree about the unfair fates of the low-level content creators. It's a sad state of affairs when a customer service rep, earning $30k a year, can get "promoted" to designer positions and find that they have to take a pay cut! They also get treated as disposable resources, when it comes time to lay people off: "we can always hire some more out of the QA pool!" There are so many people who want to design games that the actual earning potential of new designers is very low. I'm not sure what to do about that, but I guess I've wandered off topic anyway, so I'll stop now. :) I completely agree about the unfair fates of the low-level content creators. It’s a sad state of affairs when a customer service rep, earning $30k a year, can get “promoted” to designer positions and find that they have to take a pay cut! They also get treated as disposable resources, when it comes time to lay people off: “we can always hire some more out of the QA pool!”

There are so many people who want to design games that the actual earning potential of new designers is very low. I’m not sure what to do about that, but I guess I’ve wandered off topic anyway, so I’ll stop now. :)

]]> By: Sanya http://www.eldergame.com/2007/11/game-company-failures/comment-page-1/#comment-118 Sanya Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:19:35 +0000 http://www.eldergame.com/2007/11/27/game-company-failures/#comment-118 Perhaps I was too broad - I was trying to entertain as well as inform, and sometimes shades of gray are lost. It seems to me, based on my own experiences and those of my comrades on other developing MMOs and their live teams (you're quite right to draw a distinction between the designers and the people who cope with the fallout), that management decisions are often not in tune with the realities of the customer base... but the management class is the one that is protected in the event of disaster. It frustrates me to see the 30K/year guy take the brunt of the pain in terms of relocation, job changes, and blame. I also prefer directness. For anyone to say "Here are the reasons for closing a studio - failure to XYZ. Oh, but I don't mean THESE guys" is the worst kind of nonsense and entirely prevalent within some corporate cultures. Either the speaker does indeed mean "these guys" or he's referring to a different studio entirely, and either way, his statement reflects poorly on him. Perhaps I was too broad – I was trying to entertain as well as inform, and sometimes shades of gray are lost.

It seems to me, based on my own experiences and those of my comrades on other developing MMOs and their live teams (you’re quite right to draw a distinction between the designers and the people who cope with the fallout), that management decisions are often not in tune with the realities of the customer base… but the management class is the one that is protected in the event of disaster. It frustrates me to see the 30K/year guy take the brunt of the pain in terms of relocation, job changes, and blame.

I also prefer directness. For anyone to say “Here are the reasons for closing a studio – failure to XYZ. Oh, but I don’t mean THESE guys” is the worst kind of nonsense and entirely prevalent within some corporate cultures. Either the speaker does indeed mean “these guys” or he’s referring to a different studio entirely, and either way, his statement reflects poorly on him.

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