So I was about to type up my latest in a series of commandments about writing for videogames when I got the news that EA was laying off people from EA LA and Montreal where I have friends. Then I made the mistake of reading the comments on some websites, and came across some of the typical regurgitations lauding the firings and studio closure of Visceral Games with comments like “good” and they “deserved it.”
My first response was less than kind. My knee jerk reaction was vitriolic. Then I reconsidered and spoke to Jean, the man behind the scenes at Get Stuffed here, and he echoed what I already knew. Insulting people leads nowhere. It dilutes and obfuscates the arguments. Look at politics. Look at how fast you can derail a rational argument with insults.
Fact is regardless of how you felt about any of these companies that closed recently, from THQ to EA, the loss of jobs is bad news for everyone. Everyone. That includes me, you (the consumers), and even the people who cheered the studio closures. Why, because when an industry, any industry, gets hit with the whiff of cheese, they amputate. Or in the case of entertainment, they shy away from innovation. Innovation is scary, innovation is untested. More importantly, there are no numbers to quantify the impact of innovation outside of technological advances.
Remember when I mentioned how everyone has an idea for a videogame? Everyone? Every? One? Well, there was another point I forgot to mention why companies aren’t enamored with story ideas, and that’s because they cannot ascribe a value to those ideas. Invent new tech, and they understand immediately the implications of that tech. Tech has a dollar value, tech has longevity for a handful of games. Tech can be made part of the intellectual property’s identity. But, an idea for a story is a one-shot thing that can’t be quantified in dollars.
So, when a studio shuts down, the industry gets jittery and eschews original ideas. Suddenly you meet with sequels to sequels, and re-envisioned properties. Why? Because a company can bank on about 75% of the previous installment’s returns (using movies as a baseline), and that’s something a company can show the jittery investors.
When people get fired, it’s far from good because the industry doesn’t flock to innovation as salvation. It avoids it. Like the plague.
But let’s move away from the business aspect of this and talk about the more important element. People lost their jobs, and for every decision-maker who was cast to the wind, I bet you at least ten to twenty men and women in the trenches followed. Think about it. Who are the companies going to lay off? Wars don’t throw their generals at the enemy, and neither do corporations. Blaming the men and women who got fired for bad games is like blaming WWI soldiers in the trenches for not winning the war when it’s their commanding officers who keep sending them over the wall into the gas and bullets.
The people who got laid off were your friends. They spoke your language. They played your games. They fought for you. They argued with their supervisors over decisions you eventually echoed after the game’s release. Nobody goes into games because they have no options left. They don’t sacrifice health and family for brutal overtime because they don’t believe in what they’re trying to do. They have children. They have partners. They have mortgages and car payments and meals to put on the table. And they live for the moment when a fan sends in a letter saying ‘thank you.’
These are the people who lost their jobs. They deserve better than “good.”
Very well said Lucien
Thank you, Alex.
Totally agree. I was raging at some of the comments on “that K site”.
I was as well, trust me. And I’m glad I didn’t succumb to it.
*applause*
Extremely well-said, and thanks for putting it out there. It makes me sad and angry when people dismiss devs as if they aren’t real people.
Thanks, Ceri. It’s become so easy to scapegoat people or treat them as the legitimate face of the companies they work for.
Fantastic post!
There’s an abstraction that happens where the devs become synonymous with the game as a whole.
These past few months we’ve seen massive layoffs in the games and movie industry. And you know people who just got laid off see an article reminding them about their recent loss on a site. They’re morbidly curious, peek at the comments and only see negativity towards them. Talk about kicking you while you’re down!
Totally agreed, Liam. People cheering for your downfall is difficult enough, but to be slapped in the face when you lose your job over corporate restructuring? That was too much.
Anyone who would be glad that someone lost their job is asking for some bad karma. Having been in this industry, I can tell you, some of the finest artists and programmers and downright good people have suffered a lot over fickle companies too scared to stay the course and complete projects. The pioneers have guts, and they deserve better than being kicked when they’re down. — Ken
Not just talented, but passionate and well-versed in the language of their industry because it’s also their beloved hobby. When those people are thrown to the wind, people don’t realize that the industry is hurt on a creative and social level. That passion evaporates and creativity suffers. I have met some truly talented and passionate individuals working in games, and man it pains me to see them face this uncertainty and this kind of callousness.
Yes, never give in to the comments on the K* site. That is the single worst community I’ve ever personally had the displeasure of encountering.
Thank you, Woody, and I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve had my run-ins with various fan-based communities and sites, but the good have far outnumbered the bad experiences so far.
PS: And may I say, I’m a huge fan of your webcomic.
I agree completely about your take on the negative comments. I can’t see who could possibly come up with stuff like that besides people completely out of touch with the reality of the world. These guys should get out of your parent’s basement and try to make a living by themselves before cheering about people getting laid off!
One thing I don’t quite understand your point of view on, though, is this: “But, an idea for a story is a one-shot thing that can’t be quantified in dollars.”
Well isn’t that the whole basis of the spec script market in the movie industry?
Studios buy ideas (whether it’s pitches or spec) from writers and have done so for decades. Granted, they do it less than ever, but there’s still roughly a hundred pitches or specs sold and bought every year in Hollywood. That’s not a lot, and even fewer of them get made, but it’s been rising for the last few years. And as many professional screenwriters put it, spec scripting is like the R&D of the movie business. That’s where people can take chances and do stuff differently, and that’s where a big part of the innovation comes from.
Anyway, I don’t want to get too deep into this since it’s a little bit besides the original point of your piece, but I think that’s another area where the game industry could take a clue from the movie business. As far as I know, very few studios allow their staff to freely pitch ideas and sometimes even go as far as to realize them (Double fine comes to mind), and maybe we need a little more of that in this business. All I’m saying is, if EA weren’t satisfied with their team’s rendition of the third “Army of Two” game, how about letting them try something different, something new, even if it’s a smaller scale project?
We keep hearing that sequels are more profitable. Well, there would be no Assassin’s Creed III if no one had taken a chance on AC I! Look at what’s happening in mobile games. Almost every major hit (Angry Birds, anyone) is a new IP right now.
All I’m saying is, wake up, studios! Take some chances and people might get more excited about your products! There’s so many creative people just doing their little thing, following other, sometimes less creative, people’s direction. Allow them to speak up and things might get shaken up a little.
Okay, getting off the soap box now…
Hey Mario, thanks for posting. The comment was based on an earlier post where I wrote about people having an idea for a videogame and trying to pitch a story idea versus a game idea. With spec scripts in movies, the story is the IP, but in videogames, the story is only part of the IP. Splinter Cell’s Sam Fisher is synonymous with stealth gameplay, for example.
The main issue with buying a script and building a game around it is that the script rarely survives the rapid iteration process of making a game. You yourself know what that’s like as stories, gameplay, and level design are often gutted during crunch. And then there’s the danger of generating a script independently from the game. Companies are trying harder to create a seamless experience, and that means that story is often built alongside the game as a result.
Don’t get me wrong… we’re still hunting for that perfect combination that intermarries art and technology and your way may be the way of the future. But as it is right now, our industry process is brutal on front-loaded creativity.
I get you. Of course, pitching a game concept involves more than story alone, and I was not really advocating for pitching a story script by itself to a game developer, just making a parallel between the processes in these two different but somewhat related industries.
You’re absolutely right that ideally a pitch should combine a strong story that supports a specific type of gameplay, and conversely, gameplay that allows that story to be told the best possible way. What I’m suggesting is that trying our hand at doing this on smaller scale projects with lower financial risks might be the way to go.
Look at what Telltale did with the Walking Dead. Here’s a game where the tension can get really high, and yet I’m not constantly shooting at stuff. And above all…, I actually do care about the people I’m interacting with, and I get strong emotional responses from the consequences of the choices I make that affect them.
That, to me, is a big step forward. And it came in a very small, initially low profile game, but I’m willing to bet it’s going to have a big impact on future development, at least, I sure hope so.
I hope so too. They did a wonderful job!
Very well said, Lucien, thank you.
Hating on a company or a game … ok (although I really can’t understand that either). But hating on the people who work there? People who give their heart’s blood and passion to make the best game possible … unbelievable!
Fingers crossed that many of those who were let go find new jobs soon. Good luck to all of you!
My pleasure, and thank you, Ursula. Fingers crossed for everyone involved.
Great info and right to the point. I don’t know if this is truly the best place to ask but do you people have any thoughts on where to get some professional writers? Thank you 🙂
If you contact me at lsoulban@hotmail.com, I can point you in a couple of directions. Just let me know what you’re looking for in a writer in terms of genre and whether its contractual freelance or in house. That’ll help me narrow my recommendations.