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[Noeski]

That is pretty retarded how this happens, but why wouldn't you stay till the end anyway? At least in this case it was only an iphone game anyway, and not something cool like Halo 4.

True, it isn't an amazing AAA console game, but anything you put a lot of time and effort into you'd want to see a little credit for your work. I decided not to stay for personal reasons, the job was awful and I made barely enough to survive in NYC.. Yes I am happy I quit, but I still wanted to get a little credit for all the work I put into it, I think that's reasonable.

It's one of those good for nothing, abhorrent, scum-of-the-earth freemium games

when you go to italy, you don't complain about the pasta eh

When I first got a job at Gameloft I had never heard the word freemium, 6 months later the first game I worked on gets canned and we get pulled into a room saying the stockholders decided our company wants to go in another direction.. I got deported to Italy.

[Maud'Dib Atreides]

*goes to credits in the game*

"hey ma look my name is in this game are you proud of me yet"

*mother takes a picture and posts it to her wall on Facebook*

*3 people like this*

ah memories

[Muz]

The game is Zombiewood.

It's one of those good for nothing, abhorrent, scum-of-the-earth freemium games, but god dammit I'm still proud of the technical work I did!

Oh my. I was just talking with one of the other developers of that game about 3 minutes ago. How awkward.

It sucks, but I think credit's a little overrated anyway. You don't really get into many paid jobs expecting to have credit. You can pretty much convince most people who deserve to know that you worked on it, via interviews or whatever. I've come to accept that it's what comes with working in bigger studios.

[VDZ]

no one reads credits except the people on them anyways

No one reads them, but people do reference them to find out who worked on X or confirm that person Y actually did work on game Z. Games are kind of peculiar in how credits aren't looked at much, but various other artforms (including visual novels, which may or may not count as games) have people being interested in people working on the thing, ranging from important roles as 'director' to more trivial things like 'who did the key animation in that one awesome fight scene'.

But yes, credits for technical people are hardly ever looked at, but they still serve as proof you worked on something.

[Rob Lach]

I worked on 3 games at EA and I'm not credited in any of them.

[Superb Joe]

I worked on 3 games at EA and I'm not credited in any of them.

it sounds to me like you're lying about working on those games

[Rob Lach]

it sounds to me like you're lying about working on those games

Yah probably.

[Udderdude]

Gameloft is one of those soulless "Clone every popular game down to the last detail" sweatshop game companies, anyway.  Hopefully it looks good on your resume. :p

[PompiPompi]

Well big surprise.
It's not just game companies, but companies in general tend to optimize the ratio of What they gain divided to what you gain.
They would work you out to death and with no salary if they could get away with that.
You need to understand that your coworkers and your boss are not your friends.

[Muz]

A good deal of high tech, especially gaming companies actually don't do that. Maybe the ones who try to sell games because they make the most money, but any company built on passion for something are usually a hell lot nicer on their employees.

[Eigen]

If think if EA could replace all programmers, designers and artists with chimps or robots that require no pay nor credit space they probably would. Manpower is so over-rated.

[ElVaquero]

If think if EA could replace all programmers, designers and artists with chimps or robots that require no pay nor credit space they probably would. Manpower is so over-rated.

Game jam - In 2035, one of EA's game-dev robots independently develops sentience/self-awareness and decides to make an indie game. What kind of game does a sad robot make?

[theRaddRedd]

Oh HELL yeah. somebody make that 

[theRayDog]

Oh HELL yeah. somebody make that 

Isn't this a game development forum? I think YOU should go make it.

[Maud'Dib Atreides]

it would ruin your future job opportunities once they find it and see your name on it, and if you do get hired, prepare to get treated somewhere between dung and the dry white stuff that forms on the edge of your mouth when you're super thirsty

them bosses

[PompiPompi]

A good deal of high tech, especially gaming companies actually don't do that. Maybe the ones who try to sell games because they make the most money, but any company built on passion for something are usually a hell lot nicer on their employees.

Depends what you mean by nicer.
If you mean trying to give emplpoyees gifts, make fun events and pretend they work in a really good place then yea.
But usually companies want the best of their share holders, not the best of their employees.

[Christian Knudsen]

...because shareholders don't like it when game companies credit the people that worked on the game?

[Schoq]

If the information provided in this thread is correct, it's an incentive for employees to stick to the end of a project despite working conditions being shit. So no, shareholders would not like that.

[Christian Knudsen]

But aren't huge parts of a game development team often let go nearing the end of the development cycle before the product is finalized? It's my understanding that the size of the programming team will for example shrink as it gets closer to beta status, as it's more a matter of generating content at that point, and only a small programming team is kept on hand for whatever stuff pops up? But maybe you're just talking about people that leave on their own accord, like the OP?

[Muz]

Yeah, shareholders don't really like employees being treated like shit. Good investors look into things like that. Most of the time, the senior management are the only shareholders too. Game development is all creative work, right down from databases to project management; employee morale is your biggest asset.

If anything, leaving people out of credits is more to appease the ones who still stick around or encourage them to stick around until the project is finished. Especially with art or code, it's hard to just have someone fill in for someone else… if people leave in the middle, it sets things back a few steps.