So a few weeks ago, the computer game company I work for suddenly announced that there would be a meeting on the coming Monday morning. I started to feel a bit nervous.
Then, after comparing notes, we (the employees) discover that three of us are being called in thirty minutes earlier. It was at that point that we knew- there would, indeed, be layoffs.
Sure enough, on Monday, three of the employees got laid off. Two designers and, get this, the lead programmer who originally started the game in his own house. Yes, the game that he created, the game that ultimately lead to his divorce, that lead to him losing his house, that may eventually push him all the way to bankruptcy- he got fired from it. The company that bought the game less than a year ago from him has now laid him off.
What’s more, those of us who’ve remained have been reassigned to different projects. The game that we worked on for the last three years, a good chunk of that unpaid, working out of my friend’s house, is dying. It’s still got players (it’s an MMORPG), but there really won’t be any further development.
The truly disgusting thing about this is that, at the parent company, two projects were terminated. One, a movie tie-in that, so far, has cost over ten million dollars in development. The other, an MMORPG that’s cost less than one million dollars, and which was bringing in money every month. Our game. Yeah, nice priorities, dickheads. Baby, bathwater, you fill in the blanks.
So, as Art Director, I’m now working on porting a twenty-year-old arcade game to a cellphone. That’ll look good on my resume. What’s more, I’m only making about a two-thirds, in salary, of what I should be making- yeah, when the company bought us, I was promoted to Art Director- but with no pay increase. And since we were shorthanded as far as artists, I had to be not only an Art Director, but also a full-time artist. I’ve been slaving away for the past half-year, doing two jobs, but only being paid for the lower-salaried one.
Screw this.
First, I’m asking for a raise. And I’m not talking about a minor little token increase- at the very least, I deserve a 30k/year raise.
Second, I’m looking for another job. Even if I get the raise (and I seriously doubt it’ll be near what I deserve), I simply don’t trust the company any more. We’ve seen enough knee-jerk reactions. We’ve seen one guy screw up customer service on our game so badly he should’ve been sued- but, since he’s the CEO’s friend, he keeps drawing a paycheck and rating a corner office- when he’s not out racing cars with the CEO, that is. (That’s all another rant, though- I could fill pages with his antics.)
Anyway, that brings me to the purpose of this little rant, dear reader.
I’ve started looking for a new job. Headhunters salivate at me, now- since I can command a higher salary, they really want to work to get me job wherein they get a larger payment for placing me. I’ve decided that I like the sound of desperation in other people’s voice.
However, about half the game companies seen to have this bizarre fixation with Maya (a 3D modeling program). Frankly, I don’t get it. I haven’t seen Maya do a thing 3DSMax (the competing program) can’t do- and Max has a much more user-friendly interface. But, since Maya is used by about half the game companies, my recruiter wants me to be able to list “Maya Experience” on my resume.
So here I sit, and here lies my rant- I despise the user interface on Maya… but I have to learn it. So I’m wasting a perfectly good July 4th, a vacation day, inside… learning Maya.
My dogs are outside, playing in the sun. The creek’s got water. But I’m inside, pulling my hair out (if I had any- it’s more of a literary device, actually), trying to figure out why I, as an artist, have to actually type in the sizes of the cubes and spheres I’m building in Maya. It’s like math or somethin’.
Can you tell I’m a bit peeved? A bit annoyed? A bit FUCKIN’ PISSED?
sighs, and cracks open a book entitled “Introducing Maya 5”
He’s juuuust as sane as he ever was!