EA games winning goat blowing competition
posted by stompbox at 11/14/2004 11:02:00 am
Sunday, November 14, 2004
My Undead Magic Bitch
TML home.
Cheap link to chat, till I get it working myself.
With props to Glen Murphy at BodyTag and Martin Albiez at asgleonberg.
2 Comments:
DLf continues raining shitstorm on games companies, see below. I've thought about games work before, and had a chance to get in "thru the back door" with help from a local bloke who works in a games joint. But I don't really want to work for someone else in a glorified factory job getting fucked in the arse with unpaid overtime. 2 weeks of 7pm finishes would see me divorced and sleeping on eightballs couch. These posts are making me glad I didn't go down that road.
Talking to Skaffen about EA earlier, I think this EA shit will either clean up the industry or bring about legislation supporting it (which wouldn't surprise me in the US, and just watch us sliding into the same cesshole.)
Just watched Supersize Me the other night, when 2 young girls sued McDs for making them obese the judge threw it out because they couldn't prove it was McDs which impacted on their health (yeah right) and then a bill was passed to outlaw suing fast food companies on these grounds. Legislation being passed to preserve the interests of big business. If it suited senators to perpetuate games industry exploitation of workers (someone's a shareholder, or a relative owns a business or something, or just to keep the now huge games industry (ie companies) happy) they'll do it in a heartbeat. And Australia will follow their lead, look what the free trade is going to do to our entertainment industry more generally (film, tv.)
I'm not trying to just rant, I'm inviting discussion. This shit worries me.
__________________________________
After all this talk of bad treatment, I wanted to
mention an experience I have roughly 4-6 months ago
with a games company down in Melbourne.
I recieved a call from an aquaintance one day after
work asking if I'd be interested in doing some
animation for this company for two weeks. After vague
capitulation as to what I'd be getting out of this, I
was told that I would have accomodation and airfare
taken care of, and that I'd be well recompensed salary
wise (yes the warning bells weren't ringing, but they
were warming up).
I spoke to my boss the next day, asking fi I could
take that time off (non-paid, obviously) and he most
graciously allowed me to. So I book the flight (yeah,
it wasn't booked for me. I was told I'd be reimbursed)
and rock up at Melbourne ariport by the boss and his
missus. They quiz me all the way to the place I'd be
staying as to my experience, and I end up at the lead
engineer's parent's place (they'd gone overseas
conveniently for a month - not that I'm complaining,
it was a very nice place).
I step into the office the next morning and am given a
rough list of what I'm required to do ("Uh, we need
four actions, three idles and maybe a 'funny'..."). I
say yeah, I can do that.
So I start off at 9am and all is going well. I get
picked up my my g/f (another story) and asks me if I'd
be finishing at 8pm regularly. I tell her maybe, it'd
depend on the deadline.
So as far as I know, all is good and I'm on schedule
for the fortnight, when I get told the next day to
stop dragging my feet as they want to get a
first-build demo off to E3. Wtf? And thus we'd need it
all done in two days time. W. T. F! Suffice to say, I
bust my chops and get three of the actions out as well
as an idle.
We had the producer from the publisher come by
frequently, and was constantly praising my work, but
as soon as he was gone the boss would ram down our
throats how it wasn't good enough.
Finally I get a chance to talk to them about pay.
*Sigh* They paid me $100 a day, and I only begrudingly
agreed to that because it was meant to be cash. I
figured, what the hell, I've gotten most of the work
done, the last week should be a cruise. Right?
They also say that because they're startup, they can't
really offer me that much money, but if I was
interested in moving back to Melbourne, what kind of
salary would I be looking for. $50k minimum I say and
they look at eachother (the boss and his missus) as if
I'd asked for his right testicle. They then inform me
that none of hte other staff are on that high a salary
but would be able to ofer it to me in 6-8 months but
could I start right away. I said I'd think about it.
Anyway, I finally get a chance to import my animations
to one of the game meshes only to watch the mesh go
absolutely spastic. The 'Lead Artist' had absolutely
no idea how to rig a character (this' not a go at the
artist himself, but the company for putting him in
this position) and I end up haveing to rebuild the
whole mesh.
The day before this, there was a Max User Group
meeting across the road from where I was working, and
Dave King was going to be down so I told the boss I
was going over and that it was work related. He
aceeded to this and off I went. Midway through the
meeting, I get a call on hte mobile. Bet you can't
guess who it was.
The next day, and they tell me that they've booked my
flight back to Sydney for thisafternoon. Seriously,
WTF? I tell them to book it for Sunday, please, and if
that was the case, could I get my money? Sure, they
say, and hand me a cheque. I get ready to head off, as
it seems they want me out of there, when they ask me
where the hell I'm going. I still had to get one more
animation done, and fix up the meshes. Uh... I
finished the final animation and started off on
another mesh on the Friday, said goodbye to all the
crew (they were cool, and went constantly above and
beyond the call of duty) and got to finally spend the
weekend with my g/f.
In that time there, I think there was only 1 day we
finished at 6pm and that was because we hit the E3
deadline.
All-in-all I love doing stuff in the games industry,
but it's horrid when artists and programmers get
exploited like this.
I'm not planning on sueing, but this' a warning tale
for all those with good intentions...
Cello
This stuff all sounds scarily Web design-developer-ish.
The main problem is.
1. They are both industries where people think they can make big bucks quickly.
2. There alot of people out there that are really passionate about it, have learn't stuff themselves & prepared to work for nothing. many of them are inexperienced & there fore are happy to get pushed around & flogged to death cause they either
a) don't know better
b) have no lives outside of work
All this equates to the people in fact 1 resorting to the, well we can find people (from point 2) to do this shit for free, hence they operate as complete cunts with no recourse.
I have never worked in teh games industry, but know IT well & this shit happens all the time.
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