XALAVIER
NELSON JR
I’m a full-time
game writer and
narrative designer,
with credits inside
and out of gaming.
I
t’s easy to see game layoffs as a tragic but
disconnected event. 150 people lost their jobs,
but that’s easy to reduce to simple numbers.
What does it mean? For many developers, it can
be anything from the confusing loss of a dream
job, to the sudden absence of treasured friends and
colleagues. According to one person who requested
anonymity—I’ll call him
Jason—it meant a $
Amazon gift card.“In 2013,” Jason begins, “I
got a job at one of the three
largest third-party game
publishers as a PR
employee. It was my first
real job in the games industry—a dream job to me. I was
immediately blinded by how ‘honored’ I should be to
work for said brand. So much so that I didn’t notice
obvious problems from the outset. About five months in I
was already burnt out. The hours and the pressure to
perform got to me, and my manager could not deal with
the emotions involved with that level of stress. He put
every small mistake I made under a microscope and every
task was being micromanaged. There was no trust
involved. If coverage of a game wasn’t positive it was my
fault. Period.” In the spring of the next year, Jason was
escorted into a room, and without warning told that the
company “didn’t have time” for him.
His contract would not be renewed.
He was given a $25 Amazon gift card
and pushed out of the building
within a half-hour.
This lack of warning isn’t atypical.
Larz Smith has survived multiple
layoffs as lead gameplay programmer
at Daybreak, and can attest to the
uncertainty that comes with a round
of layoffs. “In many cases,” says
Smith, “I’ve felt like our studio was
doing good!” In fact, after one round
of layoffs, Smith found himself
planning out a schedule for people
right until the day of the next layoffs.
Detailing the process, Smith said,
“You’ll get an impromptu meeting
invite to one of two possible
meetings: One for the people being
fired and one for everybody else. I’ve never been in the
meeting where people were let go, I can only imagine the
anger and panic they feel. In the meeting for people who
remain its just shock and sadness. The meeting is usuallyshort, enough time to let this group of people know they
still have jobs, assure them that this is a necessary evil for
the ongoing stability of the company, and in fact to our
remaining jobs, and to answer some brief questions.”
Developer Dan Jordan found similar processes at work
after suffering layoffs at Red 5 of Firefall, as well as Game
of Thrones: Ascent developer Disruptor Beam. Two
separate meetings, and the
quiet realization of which
one you occupy. “Both times
felt frustrating,
demoralizing, and
humiliating,” says Jordan.
“For both valid reasons
like not having been able
to secure a lifeboat and
invalid reasons like not being able to save the studio
single-handedly. Difficulty finding jobs at other studios
only exacerbated things.
“I still feel bitter and frustrated—with myself, the
companies, the circumstances. Maybe devs who go
through the wringer enough times get desensitized to it
or end up at more stable places. I never got that chance.”
Jordan is now working outside of the industry.SURVIVOR’S GUILT
The ramifications of a layoff can be wide-ranging. “Once
people have found their motivation again, the effects of a
layoff keep popping up,” Larz Smith says. “Did you fire
somebody in the middle of a big task? We have their PC if
the work is on there, but what if they hadn’t started on it
yet? What if some of the code was left in an in-between
state and things aren’t quite working? Did they have assets
checked out and locked in version control? Do they have
any documents on process or pipelines on their machines
that haven’t been shared or uploaded?” That isn’t to
mention the guilt cited by many of my sources following a
layoff of any size. Gwen Frey, formerly of Irrational
Games, addresses the survivorship bias that crops up
when we discuss surviving a layoff, “When I go to GDC I
run into old co-workers from Irrational all the time, and
they are all doing really well, and working on exciting
new things! However, that is only because the people who
never worked in games again don’t go to GDC. I honestly
don’t know who didn’t cope with the closure well. I have
no idea how many talented people decided that this
industry is just too unstable for them.”
It’s one of several things layoff numbers alone can
never address. We can learn that 800 lost their jobs
at Activison-Blizzard, but we can’t tell how many
won’t come back.“IF COVERAGE OF A GAME
WASN’T POSITIVE IT WAS MY
FAULT. PERIOD”LAID OFF
The people behind the numbers. By Xalavier Nelson Jr.
Inside Dev
MAKING GAMES IS HARD