Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Trans-Financial-Man]

And suddenly I'm excited for Star Wars again. Funny that.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Is Annie VanderMeer related in any way to Jeff VanderMeer?

 

[toro]

Spoiler

hE wRoTe For tHe NEw Sw bUt HIs coNTeNt wAS cUT

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Is Annie VanderMeer related in any way to Jeff VanderMeer?

Jeff VanderMeer is a good writer. Better than Avellone (IMHO) but he doesn't write for videogame.

 

[Fairfax]

Full thread:

• There’s a lot of wisdom in this article. (1) Your fellow devs come first. (1/#)
• It sounds obvious, but company loyalty is not always anywhere near as “rewarding” as the bonds of friendship, personal loyalty, and professional respect. (2/#)
• And once the faceless entity lets you down, you’ll discover it’s the individuals who fought with you in the trenches who are the ones who are there to help when you make a difficult transition – and a better transition. (3/#)
• Respect the company, but value those you work with first, and do not assume that "following the company line" will be rewarded – personal relationships and valued relationships are the true rewards. (4/#)
• Your co-devs often will go on to better things (even if not at first) and when you support each other, that’s what will keep you going should the company entity let you down. (5/#)
• To this day, it’s the people I worked with, that I enjoyed working with, that I respected, and more importantly, I respected *beyond* the company line that I work with this to this day - and I consider my life (work and personal) better because of their presence. (6/6)

• I (strangely) feel more secure freelance than I ever did at any of my past full-time employers – one for financial reasons, one for ethical reasons. In my experience, company mantras were “Quality”, “Loyalty”, and “Employment” followed by two words: “...when convenient.” (1/4)
• And also, I feel like the people I work with now care more for the project than the companies (or the CEOs) I worked for ever did beyond how much money they could gain from the developer's success - often, the developers would never see where the profits truly went. (2/4)
• The upper executives often did not contribute to projects, did not add value to projects (and often damaged pipelines and quality if they did), but yet deducted a sizable % from the game’s profits - and considered that their justified reward for their perceived "skillset". (3/4)
• Companies are transitory, personal relationships last far longer and are what’s important. It’s difficult for me to imagine making games for a company being anywhere as rewarding as the relationships to the people you’re making the game with. (4/4)

 

[Roguey]

not having to explain why someone was being let go helped avoid "inconvenient" litigation

What could this be about?

 

[Sailor Woedica]

You left out the most important tweet Farfax!



Dragon Prince is totally amazing!!! (Though She-Ra is still totally definitely still the best Netflix anime!)

 

[Duraframe300]

 

[undecaf]

Chris still harping on about Obsidian and how terrible it was for him? Jeez...

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

You are afraid of losing your job? Does it make you feel bad? Well better get used to it, because that feeling isn't going anywhere, and you're going to experience it until you retire. Congratulations, you just graduated and became an adult. Welcome to life.

Fucks sake, if I see one more article with game developers bitching how sad they are, I am going to pop a vain. What a bunch of whiny, self-centered, neurotic, masturbatory, insecure, soy-drinking, oversensitive, permanently butthurt low T individuals. Oh I'm afraid about my job, this must be a very unusual experience, because I am very special.

Take your fucking unkept beards and your fucking unwashed hair and your fucking Pokemon t-shirts, go do some fucking coding and stop your whining because nobody cares.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

His argument against "at will" employment is bullshit.

Don't disagree - the "at will" benefits the CEO and the company and is hard to argue with when you need a job. Obsidian used it to full effect w/numerous employees, b/c not having to explain why someone was being let go helped avoid "inconvenient" litigation. It was shameful.
And in case it's in doubt - anyone, feel free to ask them: Obsidian is firmly an "at will" employer and proud of the freedom that grants them with every employee.

At-will employment encourages employers to hire people who otherwise would have never had a chance at all. It must be nice to hate on it when you know you have a guaranteed job, but to someone just breaking into the industry it's the difference between even being able to find a job or not.
At-will employment also cuts both ways, you can get a better job offer and quit when you want.
And no, "at-will" employment doesn't give you a blank check to just fire employees whenever you want.

My two cents: How many of the artists and programmers have been cut lately compared to writers, designers, etc.? There might be a correlation here, maybe.

 

[Efe]

at-will sounds like a horrible practice. nobody fires for "discriminatory" reasons, they just make up a valid business reason and roll with it.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

at-will sounds like a horrible practice. nobody fires for "discriminatory" reasons, they just make up a valid business reason and roll with it.

Yeah, there's absolutely no way to prevent that at all. Nope. Definitely no "wrongful termination" lawsuits or anything.
https://www.cersnow.com/blog/the-average-employee-lawsuit-costs-250000how-safe-is-your-company/

The Cost to your Company

Employee lawsuits are expensive. An average out of court settlement is about $40,000. In addition, 10 percent of wrongful termination and discrimination cases result in a $1 million dollar settlement. The majority of cases, about 67 percent, are ruled in the plaintiff’s favor when taken to litigation.

Plus, litigation costs are on the rise. During 2008, the average cost of litigation was $115 million. This is up 73 percent from $66 million in 2000, according to a litigation cost survey of major companies, prepared by the Layers for Civil Justice Group, Civil Justice Reform Group and U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform. This is an average increase of 9 percent each year.

https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/1-25-18.cfm

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today announced that 84,254 workplace discrimination charges were filed with the federal agency nationwide during fiscal year (FY) 2017, and secured $398 million for victims in the private sector and state and local government workplaces through voluntary resolutions and litigation. The comprehensive enforcement and litigation statistics for FY 2017, which ended Sept. 30, 2017, are posted on the agency's website.

 

[Sailor Woedica]

At-will sounds like it legit sucks, but wasn't Chris one of the owners at one of those 'faceless companies' not just someone working a job?

 

[Duraframe300]

Chris still harping on about Obsidian and how terrible it was for him? Jeez...

He's obsessed. And honestly, without going full armchair psychology here, thats usually a sign of not being in a good place.
Ditto him constantly having to express how much better his life as a freelancer is now.

 

[Roguey]

IME it takes just as long to get over it as it lasted so he has a good number of bitter years ahead of him

 

[Nano]

So is Chris still married, or whatever? I don't even remember the last time I heard about his wife.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

it's not like this was totally unprompted. as a former studio co-owner who's not in a management position somewhere else, he's in fairly unique position to shed some light on the stuff the polygon piece was talking about.

 

[S.torch]

You are afraid of losing your job? Does it make you feel bad? Well better get used to it, because that feeling isn't going anywhere, and you're going to experience it until you retire. Congratulations, you just graduated and became an adult. Welcome to life.

Fucks sake, if I see one more article with game developers bitching how sad they are, I am going to pop a vain. What a bunch of whiny, self-centered, neurotic, masturbatory, insecure, soy-drinking, oversensitive, permanently butthurt low T individuals. Oh I'm afraid about my job, this must be a very unusual experience, because I am very special.

Take your fucking unkept beards and your fucking unwashed hair and your fucking Pokemon t-shirts, go do some fucking coding and stop your whining because nobody cares.

For this nonsense you just wrote maybe the only manchild who needs to become an adult is you. Because I can tell from a distance that in your life you have never gone through a difficult time.

 

[Irata]

From the way he talks about Obsidian it sounds like he was just an employee. Which makes sense as he was never paid for his share of the company. Still, good advice about not thinking your employer is your friend, but that doesn't mean they have to be your enemy in every situation.

 

[Mr. Hiver]

One of the fundamental adult and human employment rights is bitching about your job.

Especially when you have a good reason to.
That is practically sacred. Although its also true that bitching about people who have a better job then you bitching about that job is also an ancient tradition.

And no, Chris wasnt an owner at Obsidian. Pretty clear from what he described extensively.
More like an "owner" with no real influence or leverage.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

You are afraid of losing your job? Does it make you feel bad? Well better get used to it, because that feeling isn't going anywhere, and you're going to experience it until you retire. Congratulations, you just graduated and became an adult. Welcome to life.

Fucks sake, if I see one more article with game developers bitching how sad they are, I am going to pop a vain. What a bunch of whiny, self-centered, neurotic, masturbatory, insecure, soy-drinking, oversensitive, permanently butthurt low T individuals. Oh I'm afraid about my job, this must be a very unusual experience, because I am very special.

Take your fucking unkept beards and your fucking unwashed hair and your fucking Pokemon t-shirts, go do some fucking coding and stop your whining because nobody cares.

For this nonsense you just wrote maybe the only manchild who needs to become an adult is you. Because I can tell from a distance that in your life you have never gone through a difficult time.

And I can tell from a distance you often walk down the street, glued to your phone and tweeting about how hard your life is, and while doing all of that, you don't even notice a homeless dude begging for scraps of food.

 

[Beastro]

And no, Chris wasnt an owner at Obsidian. Pretty clear from what he described extensively.
More like an "owner" with no real influence or leverage.

Brings to mind a working sinecure.

 

[S.torch]

And I can tell from a distance you often walk down the street, glued to your phone and tweeting about how hard your life is, and while doing all of that, you don't even notice a homeless dude begging for scraps of food.

If you could not come up with a better answer than that, ok, thanks for confirming what I said. But the next time you go to post a stupidity like the one back there, consider that on the Internet there are not only rich and spoiled children who do not have any kind of problem, that can spend all day talking shit on Twitter.

Fuck, not even on the Internet, you just have to know that there are people like that in the world. Where the fuck is your common sense? Not wanting to be in the street or unemployed when you have bills to pay is little for you? Because that was what the article was talking about, someone who had debts, lost his job and obviously was not going to feel good about it. But I bet you did not even bother to read the article before commenting on that nonsense you said. Showing zero empathy for a precarious situation for which you have obviously never gone. And you still have the nerve to criticize others for ignoring "homeless", what the fuck.

 

[Nutria]

When the loggers cut down the last tree and the coal miners dig up the last from their mountain, when the guys & girls on the assembly line can't compete with foreign labor because the cost of living is too high here, these people laugh at their "economic anxiety". But when game developers don't get to work at their dream job and get paid well and have job security at the same time it's a tragedy. Kinda makes you think.