Starbreeze board member Peter Tornquist resigns without a planned replacement
"It is sad that we are forced to make staff cutbacks," said Mikael Nermark, CEO of Starbreeze, "But we have to reduce staff after the final delivery of Syndicate."
The Swedish developer is currently working on a remake of the classic Bullfrog title Syndicate, recasting the isometric real time tactical game as a four player cooperative first person shooter.
25 employees will be terminated from the studio once the final product is delivered to EA.
Peter Tornquist will resign from his position on the Starbreeze board, with no planned replacement.
Syndicate is due for launch on the 21st of this month.
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... not!
- a 10, 12 or even 14 hours working day.
- little vacation.
- badly paid for hi level of education.
- no personal life but ...
- making the stintend furnished office your living room with pizza and coke!
- wretched long never ending crunch time.
- and the project alyways needs to be finished yesterday.
- as a final 'thx' you get fired when a project is finished.
- and then it's only profitable for people in business suits not for those who made the game.
- and the same business suits are laughing into a cam when 'their' game gets an award.
Correct me if my perception is wrong.
You're wrong.
I work 7 hour days. Weekends are strictly ours.
15days vacation, a week off over Christmas and all optional public holidays.
I am pretty happy with my compensation, I live comfortably, take multiple holidays in the year, never really need to think about money and save about $800-$1000 per month.
I was out on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this week and meet a host of new people. I am having a house party next weekend. On Tuesdays I play in a recreational sports league.
Not for me, I prepare and bring my own food every day and am in good health.
Haven't had to yet. Sure there has been some stretch but only perhaps 2 days a week and towards the very end of the project. I expect some at the end of a project, but we are given time back in recognition of this.
I guess this is somewhat true but it's true of most jobs.
I'm sure it happens, and you do need to be aware of the volatility of the industry but I've been lucky so far.
We get royalties and sales bonuses at the end of the year.
Well if they paid for it then let them. Also, most developers probably wouldn't be comfortable in front of that camera.
I don't doubt that each of these things in your list happens, but they don't happen everywhere.
And with all that out of the way, you want to know the best part? I love what I do, I will never wake up in the morning and not want to go to work.
your contract terms reads impressive. My points above had been my impression of the game industry a long time ago. I can't clearly say if it's the same today but sentences like "But we have to reduce staff after the final delivery of Syndicate." reminds me of the past and still got on my mind what happened to those Rockstar devs or not so long ago the stuff cutback at Crytek since Crysis 2 was released. It smells like labour is still used like toilet paper in this industry but there are people behind these jobs.
Most irritating to me is that as a game developer you need a high level of knowledge what's going on inside the machine. KnowHow that is needed by the game industry, Know-How most business suits dont have the slightest clue about.
Most other developers in the IT industry can live without this knowledge and are paid better in a lot of cases. So the question "why working as a game developer?" still seems justified.
Don't get me wrong my time as a game developer was the best i've ever had, it's an amazingly creative job imagining your own game engine but i wouldn't do it again as my current jobs needs not a half of those skills but nearly doubled my income easily getting more with less and i love my job too.
