Has Godus hurt your love of the God game genre?

I wanted to give the previous reply a bit to be read before the next part, and to have it separate from this post, because it sets the stage for a very important point that I think everyone here could agree with when it comes to the poor bastards in the rank and file of 22cans. It's not like I want any of them - even Colin - to be put on an industry blacklist, because I do believe that a person's efforts should be able to be individually recognised and evaluated, not held for blame or incompetence for the actions of those in management.

But the problem is...some of 22cans are already on a "blacklist".



Nailed it. But just like good titles push you into the spotlight, bad titles push you into the midden pile.



Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Not at all. We all wish game companies were that logical but they are often not, and publishers are an even harsher animal.

Do you really think that it'll get to the point of an interview instead of the person going through the applications having a laugh before roundfiling the application?

Sure, if it's the only application they received they might be interested.

Here's the thing, those developers who had a couple of bad titles had to dig their way out of that stigma, even if they were on an amazing title before, much like the position Peter Molyneux himself is now in and trying to take his studio along with him. To avoid public recognition of their involvement, it is understandable that the team would want to appear as cogs without any say, public or otherwise. Now think of those who have Godus as their sole credit, or took internship at 22cans - not exactly a good position to be in at all, when most would probably chance someone entirely new that they can train versus trying to undo whatever 22cans have done. That's why I mentioned Derek Smart, as many - probably almost all - of those who have worked with him haven't really done much afterwards, at least not in credited work.

What about those who are working on The Trail? How do you explain being a part of leaving Godus an unfinished mess to run off to another title, even on company orders? How would you try to describe that being anything which could add to your career, since many of these folks have been developing upon The Trail while Godus remains a mess?

You could probably say that you could work under unfavourable conditions or the like, I suppose.


Then there's the example of those involved with Herve Caen's "revival" of Black Isle Studios and the "BIMAR" silliness - that was pretty much the toilet flush of the careers of ALL involved.

Here you can actually watch their future career prospects shrivel and die in front of the camera as they violate the fond memories of BIS:



Ion Storm Dallas was another where some publishers said to their personnel department, "Do not hire ANYONE from that company."

There exists a very real need for "Alan Smithee" - where a person disowns their involvement with a title because the final product mashed together by the management hardly matches their vision, contributed parts, or even what they believed they were working upon. Yes, they DID work on it, which is known in records, but their disowning of end state of that work as being out of their control is extremely important.

The video game industry is extremely new compared to film and radio and still has yet to develop some of the same protections and provisions, so being able to pseudonym or Smithee your work is entirely up to the whim of the publisher writing the credits.

Without being able to disown through a Smithee credit or similar, Freyermuth had to publicly explain how the final product didn't really match his vision. (Well, that and leaking internal design documents - NOT a good idea, normally.) A lifeline from a buddy to Surreal until Midway was going sour, then SpongeBob, WWE, to finally get back into a decent creative role on Disney Epic Mickey 2. Quite the career hit after being preened to be the top designer/writer at Digital Mayhem.

Without any protections, such explanations can be and usually are held against them.

Blacklists/DNH lists do certainly exist - they're often known as Credits.

Does it if your looking for a new job the whole time but because you are an intern or this is your very first job and you can not find another? If you have a family to support?

Bad character? At best more likely conscientious workers trying to fix things best they can or more likely people just trying to pay the bills or get a foot in the game dev door. I'm sure none of the actual workers are out to make a quick profit from paywalls, I bet there is no profit sharing.

You need to ask the ethics of anyone who does a scam and what truly consitutes a scam. Kickstarters may feel scammed by the broken promises, but I believe PM as deluded as is sounds probably believed he could deliver the promises.

My opinion is 22cans and more likely peter himself thought he could make a game that pleased everyone (on PC and mobile) and it would make him tonnes of money and he failed miserably on all fronts. Does it make him a scammer or a failure? I reckon failure but I only spent £15.

I think someone who's worked for 22cans has a much better chance at landing a job in the industry than I do having no experience whatsoever.

Snif.

Gosh, life is just so unfair, isn't it?

GODUS has hurt my desire to purchase EA games a lot more than my desire to buy God games. Overall I'm now much cynical about developers and their provinces.

As for hiring ex GODUS people, I'd want to have a long conversation with them about what they thought about the decisions that were made and what their contributions to the project were. I'd also want to know what they thought they would've done differently. If they answered these intelligently and with passion I'd consider hiring them.

This is actually a form of "lifeline" from one acquaintance to another - which I actually encourage - some studios DO headhunt folks away from these situations with attractive sign-on bonuses.  

We all have seen some pretty creative stuff from 22cans - if only they had made something of what they once described.  We've seen their employees' side-projects, their hobbies, their interests otherwise and know a bit more about them and how they fit into the picture.

To someone who doesn't know all of that?  Ouch.





Bad management promotes cronyism whenever they are trying to make their job easier by adding to the number of voices heard around the table in their pocket. Those seen at the company when the ship finally does sink are either held to be naive, or uncaring of their career to not look for better already, or were the management's muppets. Maybe some bit of all three as seems routine around indie.
 CodeHatch was a prime example of this.  Chucklefish was heading into this direction until they acquired an actual producer who could provide them some focus (they are doing better for having doing so, last I checked on them - good news!)

What suggests this happening is Simon, while the others like Rance (~10% owner), Murphy (~20% owner), while a communications block was put into place on several levels and locations to varying degrees.  The...complete lack of pass-down from when Bryan was forgotten has really illustrated a "Don't give a #^@&" attitude there at 22cans about the production as a while that has extended back to Curiosity's development.


If you want to see one of the few cases worse than 22cans, check out a fellow named "David Allen" of Artifact Entertainment/Horizons and...if he wasn't trying to intentionally screw himself out of every IP he owned then he was fooling everyone.
 (I also know of this fellow in another way, through a title called "Infinite Worlds" - the production of THAT was a curious thing I'll post another time.)  Why was everyone wary of those who stayed?  Mainly by two people, James Jones and David Bowman.  Because when those employees who escaped got to their next development gig, they would - usually on the sly - let their new studio know of what else they have endured.  Who then might have someone go onto another studio/publisher and so word goes on.  Except for one thing - NDAs, and NDAs aren't given that much credit when the other "side" is a studio that's already gone arse-up.  (Important bit, that last.)


I've seen this horrorshow so many times in the industry that I've been a bit jaded.
 I actually envy many of you for this being your first time.
 

• To prevent repeat performances, this is why publishers/developers do have blacklists/DNH lists of sorts. Private, of course. A person's credits can be bad enough that it can make them seem unsuitable for a genre, since being good at a genre also tends to become brand recognition; they may become untrusted to those making similar in similar.
  
  
• The possibility of your talent going "This isn't my vision." to omit their name from your work in protest should serve as a warning to not let marketing/management make "BAWLS-stupid" mistakes.
  

And yes, Lord Ba'al.  I remember when a kid 'bout right out of uni walked into Interplay's offices with an armful of notebooks from back to high school filled with 2nd Edition AD&D notes and designs, and nothing else under his belt.  He eventually went on to go design Fallout: New Vegas.

But that's not exactly the one you want to be the lead programmer for a title midway through...switching to a continuation/sequel/spin-off/update of "Godus Wars".  

I am curious about this one point:
Those working on Godus Wars would have known about the deception by this point, right?  Or are we to expect that they are completely unaware of their own title's reception and what it really looks like?  This is entirely relevant when considering the Kickstarter and how well 22cans have ever worked towards ANY of that.  It shouldn't require being Peter Molyneux to understand what Godus' general design was pitched to be and what arrived was nowhere close; this whole "two games" bit is just doubling down on the rubbish from before - those at Ground Zero should have long been able to recognise what they are working upon by now.

Peter Molyneux was kind enough to have their faces in the credits, after all...

Oh, and I'll also point out that some stay on some of these projects as a means of espionage, with apparent hostility being the perfect cover to disguise or divert from other associations.  

(As I did mention before, I'm a bit of a librarian/historian and so my knowledge is a bit encyclopedic... )

"I just hate to see QA lumped into the same category as developers and managers."

I'm a very experienced dev here and I strongly disagree with this specific notion. QA *should* be lumped in the same category as developers and managers. Its all a mix that requires everyone to perform strongly to get a good product...

...But I do totally agree with your larger point; the result of a buggy product absolutely does not mean QA was poor. I have no doubt QA found most of the larger bugs and there were tickets lodged and never viewed. It means stake-holder decisions and risk assessment was poor, to release it in that state.