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Employee Exodus at Rockstar Games?
hammersuit writes "GameDaily Biz is reporting on recent troubles at Rockstar Games. 'A difficult console transition, FTC investigation, re-rating of GTA: San Andreas and more have put Rockstar and Take-Two in an unenviable position. We've received word that in addition to people who left because of studio closures, even more either fled or quit. Are Rockstar employees jumping ship or is this just a result of cost-cutting at Take-Two?'"
Come on, after releasing a game like TABLE TENNIS, if employees there are leaving because of anything, it's because they got bored silly programming pong all over again.
Yes, I know the came's supposed to be incredibly good and realistic, but it's a drastic turn from what they'd been doing no matter how you see it.
...Rockstar's HQ is next to a killing spree spawn point.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
If the ship is going down, the smart employees would jump first and probably ahead of any disasters in the making. When I left Atari in 2004 after being there for six years, my exit strategy was already planned out three years before. I been told that things got significantly worst after I left as Atari starting selling all there studios and laying people off.
Is it just me or doesn't there seem to be a single coder or designer there? Nobody who actually makes these games? noNow if people from HR are leaving, then their is a reason to be worried. When HR quits update your resume yesterday.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I bet the remaining Rockstar employees hunted them down, drove over them, beat them up with baseball bats and stole their money.
Honestly the fun of developing games is gone ...
...
It wasn't that long ago when every on the team had enough creative control over what they were doing that your fingerprint could be felt on any game you made. Now, if you're an artist, level designer, or scripter you are essentially a factory worker who does exactly what someone tells you to do without any input on your actions. I understand why it has to be this way (because how else do you produce a product with a 60 person dev team that takes 24-30 months) but it is no longer an enjoyable experience.
Every time I read a review where the reviewer is harsh because there is no normal maps (or whatever) I wonder why people even play games when they can get the graphics they want on DVD
A difficult console transition, FTC investigation, re-rating of GTA: San Andreas and more have put Rockstar and Take-Two in an unenviable position. We've received word that in addition to people who left because of studio closures, even more either fled or quit. Are Rockstar employees jumping ship or is this just a result of cost-cutting at Take-Two?
Maybe, or Rockstar was actually populated with conscientious people and most people didn't know it.
The development of Bully in which you play a schoolyard thug who tortures fellow classmates for fun might just have been the breaking point for some of Rockstars talent. It's time to move on when you're asked by your boss to do work that is morally contrary to your beliefs...I think a number of Rockstar's best and brightest did just that.
The GTA series was sylish and artistic, 'Bully' is irresponsible and sadistic.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Not to be an English nazi, but since when has there been a discrepancy between quitting and fleeing from a job?
Uh, please don't base your whole post off of your assumptions and 3 screenshots on their site.
E3 preview of bully
http://ps2.ign.com/articles/611/611166p1.html
excerpt:
"It follows the story of a troublesome schoolboy in reform school as he tries to _stand up to bullies_, gets picked on by teachers, plays pranks, and even tries to get the girl. All of this takes place in the fictional Bullworth Academy."
Emphasis mine.
Don't listen to Jack Thompson, k? He has no clue what he's talking about.
Depends on how you look at it. A company that needs to work its employees until 2 AM would count as a sinking ship for me, even in the games market. Even when you factor in that the game companies do have a seemingly endless stream of young idealists willing to be overworked just because, hey, making games is cool, the worse you treat them, the faster anyone with marketable skills looks for a job somewhere else. Or discovers that programming some boring java+oracle stuff pays twice the money for half the stress.
So eventually any company with that kind of a culture ends up mostly with people whose only skill is taking lots of shit. It counts as going down in my book. It's only a matter of time until they end up with people who can't program or design a game.
Plus, let's put it like this: if it's in the kind of financial situation where it needs that to break even, it's just a matter of time until it pulls a dud and goes down like a lead duck. It may be tomorrow or it may be in a few years, but bigger names than Rockstar went down like that. (And if it's just greed, see the previous paragraph.)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
There's a subtle difference between:
A) "I quit because I found a better playing job" or "I quit because I found a job in the same town where my wife works and no longer need to commute" or whatever, and
B) "this job sucks, the next product is a turd, the company is going downhill fast, time to FLEE before it really hits the fan"
The first is "quit", the second is "flee".
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Can you pick out one person from this list that is invaluable? Hell, they're all upper managers and marketing/PR flunkies. Getting rid of them can only improve game development.
* Jamie King (VP of Development) * Jennifer Gross (Director of Marketing) * Laura Paterson (Director of Marketing) * Navid Khonsari (Director of Development) * Jeff Castaneda (Director of PR) * Chris Carro (Sr. Pr Manager) * Corey Wade (Sr. Product Mgr) * Futaba Hayashi (Sr. Web Designer) * Todd Zuniga (PR Manager) * Ryan Rayhill (PR)
I have dealings with them, and every single person I've spoken to has left or is leaving. The moment you get told that bob is now handling this, bob tells you he's leaving and jim is handling it etc etc.
No idea why, but it feels a lot like a sinking ship to me.