Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Adventures in Indie Gaming!

How to say “You’re Fired!” at a game company

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 13, 2015

Kotaku has an article entitled, “The Pizza Party Where Everyone Got Fired.” It contains horror stories about working in the video games biz. Or, more properly, about losing work in the video games biz.

Read the story. It’s amusing in a stomach-turning kind of way.

For me, it was right after a Valentine’s Day pot luck. Fifteen years ago tomorrow. Wow. That was a long time ago. Doesn’t feel like that long. But yeah – we had the big party, and then after the party, half the company was invited to one meeting, the other half to another meeting. In retrospect, although it was devastating at the time (I’d worked there more than five years, and it was my first job out of college), I think I was invited to the better of the two meetings. We got out clean, I got a small but reasonable severance, and I was able to snag a better-paying job by the end of the week.

A far worse case didn’t happen to me, but convinced me that the far better-paying job was going to end badly. We had some people from corporate visit. One particular team was really nervous, and at the end of the day they were all taken into a room and explained that no, layoffs were NOT happening. Even better, they’d received a two-month extension on their milestone. The brass explained that after two months, the game would be re-evaluated, but they had that much time to pour their heart and souls into this latest version of a long-running franchise product and make it really shine and become competitive in the marketplace again.

I guess the secret point of this pep-talk was to avoid any sabotage or something, because the entire team was laid off individually as they came into work the next morning and found their key-cards didn’t work.

I’d taken some non-game jobs after that. I learned working at some start-ups with sometimes inconsistent funding / revenue periods that I’d be willing to accept a single late paycheck. At one place, I went over six months with inconsistent paydays. The dev team – some of the last employees left at this shop – decided as a group that we’d draw the line at two paychecks overdue. It was a good rule-of-thumb which I’ve fortunately not had to follow too often since. When one paycheck hadn’t been made and another payday rolled around two weeks later without a check, we informed the remaining management that we were done. Effectively, we informed them that the company was now over. It closed up shop the next day.

When I had a game dev job a few years later with a few late paychecks, I followed the same rule of thumb. Then one day, a payday came along and our previous paychecks hadn’t been made. I’d already cleaned out my desk, and had a job offer waiting for me. At the end of the day, people were rounded up by teams for meetings. Paychecks didn’t require meetings, so I took my last remaining personal possessions out to my car. At the meeting, we were informed that the paychecks would be late – again – but that a milestone payment would be coming really soon. But, we were warned, layoffs would be coming soon, and would likely hit about half the company. So we needed to work extra hard to make sure we were in the top 50%.

“So wait a minute,” I asked a coworker. “We’re supposed to work twice as hard in order to keep this crappy job that they aren’t paying us for anyway?”

I resigned a half-hour after the evening. I was given a check covering all remaining pay, but I knew from experience that there was a good chance they’d bounce. I’d learned that I could call the bank and find out whether or not there were sufficient funds for the check to clear. About a week later, I called and was told that yes, there was enough to cover the check. Since I had a bank branch only two blocks away, I raced over and cashed the check before anything unfortunate could happen.

I might have been the last person at that company (of triple-digit employees) to receive all of his pay. Many of the other employees ended up going as much as three or four months without pay before the company finally collapsed.

It seems the games biz has a lot more problems dealing with layoffs than other industries. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe because managers are pulled from the ranks of introverted game developers?


Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 6 Comments to Read



  • McTeddy said,

    Heh, I have a buddy who was told that the entire studio was closing so he’d stop coming to work.

    Turned out they decided he was getting paid to much for their budget and they didn’t have the heart, nor a valid reason to actually fire him. He was FURIOUS when he found out after talking with his former coworkers.

    Maaaaan, I can’t believe I’m still want to get back into that industry. I am seriously defective.

  • Rampant Coyote said,

    Unbelievable. Like with the one where they lied to the team about the extended milestone – how can a company have that little respect for their employees? I don’t get it.

    If I ever have to be on the other side of that desk, I hope I can handle it better.

  • Steve_Yorkshire said,

    “Here’s 2 more months to fix everything!”
    Next day, “Why can I not get into the building?”
    Ouch!

    quote/”I guess the secret point of this pep-talk was to avoid any sabotage or something”/quote.

    Incidentally is this an American thing or something? You never hear about people in Europe or Asia smashing up the office, stealing everything they can get their hands on or deleting other teams hard drives. Just sayin’.

    quote/”About a week later, I called and was told that yes, there was enough to cover the check. Since I had a bank branch only two blocks away, I raced over and cashed the check before anything unfortunate could happen”/quote

    Wow, living the dream! 😉

  • Eric Wiggins said,

    I guess I’ve been really lucky in the industry. Only one job I had did the company go under, but I got out before it did. In fact, I left so it could survive a few more months.

  • Anon said,

    “You never hear about people in Europe or Asia smashing up the office, stealing everything they can get their hands on or deleting other teams hard drives. Just sayin’.”

    I guess you also never hear about people attacking and murdering the personnel of employment centers in Germany?
    Or the suicides of older people who can’t get any jobs because of their age?

    Believe me when I say that “a little sabotage here and there” is as common in Germany as in other countries.

    There’s also at least the same amount of corruption and economical espionage in Germany even if it is less obvious…

  • Maklak said,

    Wow. My first time was when the company wasn’t paying me for three months because “the donations from EU are late”. When I said I was going to quit, they paid me for a single month. I quit anyway and they were supposed to pay me for at least another month, but delayed it, then told me it was my fault and I didn’t even go to court. Fuck my first boss.

    My second boss made me an honest offer. “You are underperforming and I don’t want you here. You may stay for another month while you’re looking for a new job”. I quit immediately and don’t like the guy. He is a very competent programmer, but a dick when it comes to people skills and company policies. Well, at least it was clean on both side.

    I’m still wating for my third time, but it will most likely be clean too. They pay me on time at least. But then I’m just a programmer and I don’t work for video game companies. Oh well, I worked there for a year and saved some money, so getting fired wouldn’t be that big of a deal. And they are starting to annoy me.

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