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Ion Storm Austin Studio Under 'Transition'?
madhatter256 writes "According to Shacknews, around 20-25 more employees, allegedly including noted designer Warren Spector, have left the Eidos-owned Ion Storm studio in Austin." There's an official Eidos response at GameSpot, where a spokesperson "denied Spector had exited the organization", but IGN has further official Eidos reports confirming "Both Ion games have been completed and those who were hires specifically for those titles are now finished", and noting that Spector himself, though he could theoretically be exiting by other means, "certainly has not been laid off." This news comes in the context of earlier personnel turmoil, Thief III's fairly well-received release (there's now a playable PC demo available), and a mixed reception for Deus Ex: Invisible War.
A Haiku for him:
Weep not for Spector,
DX2 sucked anyhow,
Here's to better days!
I've been playing it for about the last 24 hours non stop. It's pretty much exactly what I would have wanted, minus the loading zones in the city sections (which still aren't bad).
I hope everyone at ION lands on their feet, and I also really hope that Eidos will actually shell out the incredibly minor amount of money that would be required to get the Editor in a releaseable state (though that's looking less likely).
All employees are expendable except government civil servants. You are animals to be used and discarded when they're finished with you.
Sadly it happens all too often nowadays. "Oh, your project is done, and you still want to get paid? Bye bye" The good people get fed up and leave the industry, and we end up with crap programs. Maybe more companies should do what the WB is thinking of (see here ).
Wow, you win the award for most insane post on the internet today.
Well, I hoped you liked playing games because its a thing of the past for you if you are boycotting companies that lay people off when a project is done because thats all of them. On second thought, I'm sure you'll still find a way to play the games without paying because you seem like such an upstanding citizen.
Is it unclear to anyone why this happens? Company needs to accomplish X. People are hired to accomplish X. X gets accomplished. People hired to accomplish X need to be reallocated. If there is no Y, people are reduced. Its the way the industry works. Not just video games, entertainment as a whole. You think Jerry Seinfeld is still sitting around making episodes of his show? No, the project ended. Yes it sucks, but everyone involved knows the deal before they start. I find E3 uncomfortable because I see so many people who used to work here working for other companies. It hurts, but thats how it goes.
Look at the credits for any game and I'd wager from 30-50% of the names there are contract workers or outright temps. Not to mention what can happen when an independent developer is poorly managed. *shudder* You should consider yourself a temp every day you go to work, even if you are the CEO. Its just the way the game of games is played.
Hey, moron, since you know DICK about the games industry... ANY industry, actually, I'll explain it to you. Not every game development team stays together forever. In fact, most change from game to game. You'll have a core team of developers (lead programmers and artists, producers, level designers, etc.) that move from one project to another, but most everyone else is hired on a TEMPORARY BASIS for the duration of the project development. They know this up front, and they accept it. It is a standard practice. If you're going to boycott everyone that does that, you'll never play a commercially developed game again.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
It doesn't happen at all developers, but some make it part of their business, some developers mention it during the job interview and some developers mention it during the release party. Usually you get the idea early enough that you can jump ship ahead of termination, making it their headache instead of your own, and most game programmers are not contractors but around 50% of artists I know are. Usually layoffs are part of cost savings from above, and Eidos really need some of those these days, so it would not surprise me if there were layoffs from other Eidos studios as soon as their projects are done.
Just because it's an accepted business practice doesn't make it right.
You are STILL missing the point. It's called contract work, moron. This is like saying it's not right to hire an architect to design your building, then firing him when it's done. No, it's not wrong. They work on a contract basis and have absolutely no guarantees of future employment. Most game artists have contracts for the life of a project, after that they're on their own.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
It makes me wonder whether the workplace was so volatile that they couldn't wait to split (maybe nobody could get along with Warren, ergo Randy Smith's departure), or whether everybody was just a 'hired gun' for the the two projects.
On the hired gun theory, maybe future Ion Storm projects will be from 'Ion Storm India'.
It also leaves me wondering if there is a snowball's chance in hell for a Thief 4 title, or even whether Thief: Deadly Shadows will have any of it's bugs addressed.
Well, Ion Storm hasn't always been on top of things, heh. The founder of it (John Romeo), as you may or not know, left after a few years.
Masters of Doom. Very interesting read indeed.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
Why do I keep having flashbacks of John Romero and robotic frogs. I though I was going to be his "bitch"
This is why the Japanese games are so much better. They keep their teams apart, and thus keep their knowledge and experience in the company instead of taking it out with the trash after every project.
There's two separate Ion Storm development studios. Well, there were anyway. Romero headed the crappy Dallas studio while Spector is/was at the Austin studio, which actually made some awesome games. They're more or less separate entities.
Actual personal employment, zero. All of my information comes from friends that have worked in the industry for several years.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
I'm pretty sure it said lay offs, not expiration of contracts. You don't fire an architect after the project is done, because the contract is already up.
The contracts expire when the company says they expire. It could be called layoffs if you so chose. As for the architect thing, I clearly stated "They work on a contract basis and have absolutely no guarantees of future employment".
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
Us older gamers can remember when games were made by developers because, well, they liked playing games, and wanted to make good games - their hearts and souls went into it, and people were constantly awed by the stories and gameplay.
Warren Spector has always struck me as this kind of person, as is Peter Molyneux and Ian Livingstone (who I had the pleasure of working with very closely at one time).
Of course, Warren became a marketable item. It was ok when everyone was looking for the next best thing from John Romero, and Warren was very much in the shadows, creeping in with the Thief series and System Shock, but with the surprise hit of Deus Ex (and the failure of Daikatana), all of a sudden, Warren was da man!
But, you see, with that kind of attention, the publishers (Eidos, in this case, but they all do it) suddenly want to make sure the next game is a definite hit, and thus stick their oar in. While he was happily working in the shadows, noone really took much notice what he was doing, so he had a lot longer leash, but no longer, and thus, you have the ruination of another potentially great game (DX2).
As for most of the development being temps and contractors... what do they care? They have no real cause to care whether the game does well or not... they get paid either way.
Thus, those who once lived for games, pouring their heart and soul into their projects, are now gone, and you are left with mindless automatons doing the work, and then you all moan coz the games are boring or unoriginal.
Until we, as consumers, stand up and say 'no, we're not buying your games', the situation will become worse. And at the moment, while mass-market is still quite strong, that is unlikely to make much difference, but that is waining too - it's just a matter of time (and again, the signs are there)
It's too late, imho - any real gamers are now enmeshed in MMORPG's or going back to older games or even pen & paper RPG's, because at least you have control over what is going on. The core-market is gone, and no market can live without it's heart.
Strangely, I predicted this over 3 yrs ago, but noone listened then and I doubt anyone listens now, but the signs are there - I'm just waiting for the big crash, when I can happily go back to being 'that weird guy in the corner that plays games'. At least then there may be someone with the balls to make something interesting...
If a man speaks in a forest, and there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?