Studio boss responds to concerns that staff will migrate to Montreal
Developers at New York studio Kaos fear they will soon have no choice but move to THQ’s new Montreal site or lose their jobs.
Concerns are mounting that "some or all of the team will be moving to a studio space in Canada", an inside source told Develop.
Many of the studio’s 200-odd workers are "worried about their jobs", the source added.
In response to the claims, Kaos general manager David Votypka did not rule out any scenarios.
“This is certainly a concern I am aware of at Kaos, and have taken questions from the staff about it on a number of occasions,” Votypka said.
Advertisement
The news comes after many of the 200-odd staff at Kaos were at the centre of a row concerning crunch periods and overtime.
Owning publisher THQ has asked many at the studio to work minimum ten-hour days for six months in order to complete the Homefront project. Now staff are turning attentions to what happens when the project is completed.
“If [Homefront] does poorly will we be laid off? If we the game does well and we keep our jobs do we get to stay in New York?” the source asked.
“As you can imagine all of these questions weigh heavily on our minds, and even more so for those with kids in school, houses, family, spouses with jobs in the area, etcetera.
“After crunch time is over who wants to be told they have to move to another country or they have been laid off?”
Kaos owner THQ recently opened a 400-person-capacity studio in Montreal. THQ core games boss Danny Bilson said the massive complex would be filled by “people from the community in Montreal and all over the world.”
One of THQ Montreal’s biggest attractions is the generous tax break subsidies it receives in Quebec. Development studios in the region are offered at least 35 per cent tax relief on labour and production costs.
Kaos, currently based in the costly city of New York, is now at risk of being muscled out.
“With the opening of the THQ Montreal studio the goal has always been to find a way to utilise that studio in future Kaos projects,” Votypka said.
He added this was because the Montreal base was “a lower cost centre”.
“Seeing as New York is not the most inexpensive location to develop games, utilising Montreal one way or another is understandable,” Votypka claimed.
In a bid to curb discontent at the studio, Votypka is currently negotiating terms with THQ.
“We've submitted various shared development scenarios to THQ, each have different pros, cons, and different costs,” he said.
“They are all being considered, but I don't expect that their final decision will be made for some time yet.”
That's what you get for "accepting" 6 months of crunch...
First the crunch, then the Quebec, next is layoff between projects (if it's not already the case), less employee benefits, cheap sequels/DLCs/ports, part of the production offshored in China, etc... Business is business
*** Nb : customers/players will NEVER stand up against THQ unethical behaviour by voting with their wallet, don't expect anything from them : the vast majority (more than 95 percent) don't read nor care about the industry and the working conditions of devs. ***
In this case, the only downside for THQ will be losing experienced devs (the few who can refuse an offer), who want good working conditions (= "expensive" + requiring skilled leadership) anyways...
(there's a reason why the over-40 are (almost) all leaving the VG industry, and it's not because "VG are for kids" :D)
- - - - - - - - - -
(please excuse my poor english, it's not my first language)
Seriously, why trying to please your employees, when little studios begging for a publishing contract are everywhere ?
And fresh unexperienced devs are "not that bad" : they will fail at planning the project, but it's not a problem = they can crunch for MONTHS in the end, "problem solved" !
* Need a gap-filling game ?
Hire an independent studio begging for a project. The result won't be that good, but it won't be that bad. You weren't looking for a big hit anyways.
* Need a promising, ambitious project ?
Hire a brand-new studio recently formed by young-and-gullible devs, who are going to do their best, put their heart and soul into the game, in the vain hope of "breaking into the industry" with their successful project.
Reality check : Kaos was formed in 2006, with the core team of Trauma Studios (formed in 2003 => Desert Combat mod, a bit of consulting for BF2 at Dice*) ... They only shipped 1 game before Homefront : Frontlines: Fuel of War*2 (poorly backed up by THQ, average sales).
*1 See the "short" consulting they did at Dice : *google "DICE NYC KIA" - no url allowed in comments*
Ha ha, poor young-and-innocent lads... Trying to "break into the industry" ?
- If the project ends up being really good (despite poor funding and short scheduling), you can put some magical marketing on top of it to turn it into a success (or make a decent sequel if you missed the right marketing windows, the growing fanbase of gamers can help "heating" up the place for the sequel)
*2 Frontlines: Fuel of War plot was about fighting for fuel ressources, with some political commentaries here and there... Homefront sequel "with-marketing-this-time" anyone ?
- then you'll squeeze all the cash you can from it with some sequels/ports/dlcs, since that fresh-new studio wasn't experienced enough to think about and/or to negotiate the IP/sequels/etc part in the contract.
Back to Kaos : Basically, they hope Homefront will be success, so THQ can drive the series into the ground while it's still hot, while some of them (the lucky ones) are doing some slavish job at the Montreal studio. That's how you motivate your team, hell yeah ! :D
(Sadly ?) Nothing surprising here.
- - - - - - - - - -
Need an example of an experienced developer, so tired of the publishers' abuses and lack of respect for creativity that he leaved the industry ?
*google "The Oddworld Game that Never Was" - no url allowed in comments*
The only reason the oddworld thingy will ever be back (the "rumors") is the recent rise of the digitally distributed indies, not the publishers becoming more respectful/respectable.
- - - - - - - - - -
What is going to happen with Kaos will be exactly like in the unskilled workers field :
- the factories who fail at meeting the x percent benefits goal will be closed (replaced by third-world factories)
- while the factories meeting the x percent benefits goal will be offshored to a third-world country too, with "an offer you can't refuse" : you accept to move to that country and get the same wage/employee benefits (excuse for no compensations : in that poor country your purchasing power is more important).
=> Then a specific (let's say, 33 or 20 percent - the percent needed is determined by experts weeks before the offshoring - benefits/raises can be changed to reach that needed percent) of the original working-force will "follow" the factory to lead it and train the local workers, since they (executives) perfectly know these workers are competent (=> they met their almost-impossible goal in the first factory).
Game devs are being treated like unskilled laborers.
Until there's a world-wide union of game developers, few multi-millions dollars trials lost by publishers (which is the most important - you need to put a financial risks for each abuse), nothing will ever change.
Else, follow the motto : "Not happy ? Leave the industry"
