Are we tired of these stories yet?
Kotaku AU have reported that Melbourne games developer, Infinite Interactive, had shed a quarter of their staff today. Infinite Interactive CEO, Steve Fawkner, responded with a more correct figure and the reasons behind the reduction in staff numbers.
We actually let 6 people go today. It’s always terrible that people need to be let go, but this was part of a small downsize after a large project (Puzzle Chronicles) finished with Konami. Ordinarily, we’d keep everybody on staff while we started our next projects, but with the rising Australian Dollar, unfortunately we can’t.
The Puzzle Quest 2 team has been unaffected by this and it’s definitely full steam ahead for them – the game is looking and playing fantastic.
So, it's not quite the alarming news as it was initially, but quite sobering, nonetheless.
If you worked with Steve you
If you worked with Steve you know how hard he attempts to make sure his existing staff are employed.
EA Melbourne apparently also
EA Melbourne apparently also just let go 2 people, from what I've heard just bad luck and the projects the 2 happened to be working on got canceled.
Man all these lay offs and
Man all these lay offs and closures are really getting depressing. Hope the economy and other factors get a little more stable soon :\
Oh man, that sucks to
Oh man, that sucks to hear!
The rising Aussie dollar is really hurting development at the moment, considering the US usually the one paying for Australian game projects. Consider a medium sized project at US$1,000,000. Earlier in the year at an exchange rate of 0.7 that would mean AU$1,428,571 to the Aussie developer, now at an exchange rate of 0.92 it means AU$1,086,956. A difference of $341,615, that's a lot of money that developers could have been using to retain staff. And I'm sure many of the larger games companies have much larger budgets than that for their games.
Games I pitched in May now can't be made for the same budget, so features have to be cut to come in at the same budget. Not only that but consumers want to pay less and less for games. Last year a casual game could sell for $19.95, this year the standard is $6.95 for the same size game. So what can developers do? Make less game for less money or make games that would appeal to more of a mass market. It makes it hard to make niche games in genres like adventure games.
Come mid 2010 when my game comes out I'd like to make a stand and charge $19.95, but whether publishers will put the game on their site at that price is another matter.
Agreed
Its crazy - the long term rate has always been around 0.75. Its been 0.9 not just for a few months, but for several.
After my kid is born I've decided to move back overseas. My career here is finished. Can anyone envision AAA development happening again?
- Another Unemployed Aussie Game Developer.
Apparently Iron monkey also
Apparently Iron monkey also shed about a thenth of thier staff this week.
Ive gotta vote +1 for Steve.
Ive gotta vote +1 for Steve. He is a machine. I'm at the infinite christmas party right now. Instead of going to the party, Steve is locked in his office, drinking red bulls like crazy and working solid, because he got wind of some work with a publisher and he figured he might be able to save some of those jobs. Go Steve!!!!
Respect
I have to say, I am very impressed with his determination to assist his company and employees. I was just lamenting the apparent loss of honour amongst employers (remembering the lost days of Elixir), but I can see it's still around in a few individuals.
Yeah, delude yourself that
Yeah, delude yourself that he's a great guy. He's just a another incompetent middle manager who has screwed up. He's never done anything in his career except sponged off the hard labour of his underpaid employees. He's only working now so that he can line his pockets with a bit more cash from this slave-labour industry. The sooner we get rid of useless greedy corporate fatcats like this guy is, the sooner we can make some real games in this country again.
deluded? hmm....
The problem I have with this comment, and it's been a problem with a lot of the trolling comments we see on here, is that no significant insight is provided, no citation given, and all we have is a broad, sweeping comment.
Do you even know Steve? Have you worked at Infinite or know anyone who's worked there? I somehow strongly doubt it. I mean, you're saying these pretty damning things about Infinite whereas everyone in the industry would, without hesitation, have only nice things to say about them. If you're accusing Steve of exploiting his employees - well, you must have some super secret insider knowledge that we'd all love to hear about. So where is it? Perhaps it's time to start up a wordpress blog and jot all that insider knowledge down, I think.
When you say something like "He's never done anything in his career except sponged off the hard labour of his underpaid employees" - do you even realise that he started up Infinite Interactive only relatively recently in his career?
Look, there have been cases of employees getting exploited recently, Fuzzyeyes and Interzone definitely, but if you're going to accuse Infinite Interactive of that and provide absolutely nothing to back yourself up, don't be surprised that most people here is going to consider your post as nothing but the troll post that it is.
Well said, Souri.
I've been working at Infinite since April, and without hesitation I can say that everything anon says is garbage. Steve treats all of his employees with a great deal of respect, and we're certainly not exploited.
Calling him a corporate fatcat gave me a bit of a chuckle, couldn't be further from the truth.
I've worked with Steve and
I've worked with Steve and like any manager he has his good points and bad points. I wouldn't say he has attempted in any way to exploit any of the staff member. He runs from the philosophy "In my business decisions I have to make decisions that allow me to go home with a good conscious"
Industry reduction
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the Australian games industry has reduced in size by 50% over the last year or two. I am overly concerned that if this trend continues we will have very little of an industry to speak of come a year from now.
Being an industry with several export awards at the state and even federal level, droves of Australian workers having no option but to work internationally and very little job security... i would like to think our industry may very well be at a point of needing some government assistance before there's no industry to assist.
Perhaps.. Although I think
Perhaps..
Although I think the reduction in size & numbers of big name studios and pushing a lot more developers out there has created a lot more indie developers.
There is a lot more indie activity at the moment then there has been for the past couple of years. iPhone in particularly is buzzing, mainly I guess due to the fact that development costs are low, with the rewards potentially high.
I'm sure there is a bunch of jaded developers who have had enough with the ups and downs and have left the industry to work elsewhere in the IT / Design Sector. But I think we will see a resurgence when we come out of this "recession". We will have more smaller studios, creating quality games. It will be good for the industry in the long run, more spread of creativity, more eventual jobs.
We all just need to do what we can for now - and get through this. Just my two cents.
Tax incentives?
Australia need to look at Montreal in Canada as an example of how it is done right. Thq are opening a studio that will employ 1000. Ea employ over 300, ubisoft are easily over 1000... The assasins creed dev team is 400 strong. How does this happen? Govt incentives, 40% of each employees salary is covered. Australias dollar is better value than the Canadian... So it isn't the only reason. The govt in aus need to stop living in the past and need to look at new industries to grow the nation and appeal to the younger generation.
Sounds nice, but our
Sounds nice, but our government is too busy pandering to Christians.
Uh-Huh
Interesting choice of words there. Perhaps you would like to elaborate?
Polititians only care about
Polititians only care about voters. If throwing billions into videogame development comes at the expense of say... aged care, then people will vote against it. As it stands Christians are the majority so pollies pander to them with things like censorship, homophobia, xenophobia, and other backwardsness in order to get easy votes from a large pool of people. So no - you will not be getting government support for videogames. Unless the Greens or the Sex Party rule the roost maybe.
Fact-Check
Quite frankly video-game development shouldn't come before aged care, but that is completely besides the point. Within the Australian political system, the people do not vote on such issues. If you are meaning that people will not vote for a politician who supports video game development in his/her election campaign, then perhaps not. I doubt any party would bother talking extensively about video games, however, as quite frankly we're not extremely important on the national agenda. We're a reasonable industry, to be sure, but we don't even register on the radar next to health care, taxes and foreign relations.
I find it interesting you're choosing to blame your problems on Christians though. It's a popular pass-time lately, and a little disappointing. Firstly let's get the facts straight. It's difficult to gauge the actual Christian population of Australia with any degree of accuracy, so let's look at the 'active' Christians, shall we? The population of Australia is estimated to be just a little over twenty-two million (22,000,000). The number of church-going Christians is about one-and-a-half million (1,500,000). That's a little under 7% of the population, which is hardly a majority. In fairness, the number of people who are self-declared Christians is much higher, but their involvement (in large) with politics as Christians is hardly going to be significant if they don't even attend Church on any regular basis.
Moving on to the characteristics you associate with Christianity: censorship, homophobia, xenophobia and backward[s]ness. I'll give you homophobia, a lot of Christians are indeed quite homophobic. That said, that particular trait has very little to do with video game development at all. Censorship... really now? Are you really that desperate to pin all your troubles on Christians? I find your post quite distasteful. Censorship has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity and you are quite deluded if you think otherwise. To blame Christianity, solely, for those that attempt to force a moral code upon others is no different to blaming Atheists for all situations in which people lack morality. It's an invalid point based upon religious persecution and prejudice on your part. Xenophobia, again, has nothing to do with Christianity. This particular claim is groundless in its entirety, as is your last point of 'backward[s]ness'. Unless you intend to provide some form of supporting argument to these claims, what you are saying is simply trolling and is, in fact, religious persecution. Disappointing.
Also, I hope with every fibre in my body that neither of those parties ever holds government. Quite frankly they wouldn't know what to do if they did.
Censorship is a main goal of
Censorship is a main goal of organised religion. Censorship is a form of thought control, thought control is absolutely critical for organised religion to survive. Certainly some religions (and shards of religions) are less conservative than others, but choosing what people are able to see, hear, and talk about is only positive for them. Even the bible is a supreme work of censorship, and there are dozens of different versions of the bible each with their own edits to support that particular shards views.
I can understand the original poster target the christian group, as i'm sure it would be by far the largest religious group in australia (other religious groups probably don't hold enough sway in politics to be worth mentioning).
I wrote a bunch more, but decided to delete it...this ain't really the place for religious arguments.
Yeah, its the moral brigade
Yeah, its the moral brigade who push censorship. A large part of such a group would be made up of those who are religious.
There is a large group of peole out there who want their values enforced. 'Christian' values are a large part fo that.
Were it not for religious groups, I doubt censorship would be an issue.
Active (lobby) groups that
Active (lobby) groups that push for Christian values are a big factor on what politicians choose to support -- like incentives for videogames and censorship of them. However, there motives aren't necessarily promototed as being Christian, but rather, as morally right and virtuous. They're aware of just how much stigma there is out there about their fundamentalist views, why they choose their wording very carefully, by describing themselves as conservatives with 'family first' values -- they often neglect to mention that their values are hardline Christian.
Then there are the more secretive 'lobby' groups (or cults) who support Christian politicians and factions, like the right-wing Christian 'Exclusive Brethren' who supported the former prime minister John Howard and his (Christian) Liberal party, with sizable 'donations.'
If you don't think that they have a part to play in shaping society through media and politics -- with some nasty changes to federal and state laws that have actually erroded our freedoms in the name of protecting our 'way of life' -- then, you've been eating retard sandwiches ;).
And no, they aren't in the 'majority;' they don't have to be.
Religious Debate
I elected not to respond to the first reply to my message, despite the poster attempting to have the last say before ending a debate, because he/she was right that this is not the appropriate place to hold a debate on social and religious issues. Obviously you have far less restraint and respect for the purpose of the forum than myself, or the aforementioned poster who I will acknowledge has acted with some responsibility.
You can whine all your like and blame others for the problems that befall your small world of video-game development and free access to porn, but have you stopped to question your own role in the process? What you have supplied examples for is a SMALL NUMBER of people, Christian or otherwise, that have actually stood up for what they believed in with their voices and their money. I am a Christian and I strongly disagree with censorship and deciding what is appropriate for others, that is their choice. Some Christians disagree, just as many Atheists disagree. If you want your voice to be heard, the first step is to actually tell someone with some authority and actually do something about it. People cry that the video game industry doesn't get tax incentives. Do you think that just happens? Go out and ask for it if you want it. You don't like censorship? Neither do I, let's organise ways around it and make sure the government knows it won't stand. Regardless of your view, stand up and take responsibility for your own situation. Stop whining and blaming others for your problems just because it's convenient.
My name is Nathan Runge. I'm a Christian. I don't like censorship. I support an R18+ rating for videogames. That's me taking responsibility for my words and actions. Your post - that's whining and crying whilst hiding behind a wall of anonymity.
LOL
So in a fee market we need to rely on govt handouts..... now there's a business model that is bound to work!!!
Rely? No one said we shoudl
Rely?
No one said we shoudl rely on handouts. But if the Government invests in new industries, then there will be new industries.
The games industry has gotten thsi far wihtout much help. With some additional investment it could turn into something bigger. We are an export (and therefore porductive) industry.
This country needs more of those.
It's our fault
I think people who think government handouts will fix the problem have their heart in the right place, but their brain most definitely in the wrong one.
The industry in Australia is fine on a skills and productivity level, but what has become abundantly clear over the past year is that there is no means or mechanism for employees in the industry to protect themselves from shoddy business practises in a "fee for service" environment. There are plenty of state and federal level employee protections in place, but the fact is they simply don't cater to employees working for overseas publishers or management. Some of the things we've seen in the Australian industry this year would see directors lead away in handcuffs, "OneTel" style, but the fact is too many companies are run by remote control, from overseas interests who have no interest in the well being of their staff, and no real grasp of what it takes to make games, at the coal face. These guys don't fear the thought that their employees might not get their entitlements if things go tits up - It's just a game to them, ironically. As an aside, everything I've ever heard about Steve suggests he is the complete opposite of what I've just described. If anything we need more middle management like him - someone who is capable of making hard business decisions like letting people go, but who simultaneously works his arse off to try and protect his people.
Souri mentioned Interzone - and that's a prime example, and mostly an untold story. There's dozens of people there who are all owed months and months of superannuation and in many cases back pay, many former staff are taking legal action, and meanwhile the directors sit overseas sipping pina coladas, selling the remaining staff lies until their game ships, then presumably they'll wind up the company and vanish into the night (to Ireland), and never live up to their expectations under Australian workplace law. The Government doesn't care, by the way - I know for a fact that multiple complaints have been made to ASIC and the ATO about Interzone, and nothing has been done, the company still operates today (have you ever seen a two-legged dog?).
Now ask yourself, honestly, how would government subsidies have helped in that situation? Interzone DID get a handout from the West Australian State government - who are probably pissed off now because they realise they were exploited just like the employees, and that they probably won't see their investment back.
If we have an environment where borderline white collar crime in management in the aussie industry is acceptable, government handouts will just attract -more- fatcats to the table, who are more than ready to exploit a skilled, but relatively low cost (even with the rising dollar) workforce, and enjoy government handouts for their trouble.
Tax breaks? Now that's a different story.
Bottom line : Until the Aussie industry matures to the point where it can raise its own capital, manage its own publishing, and develop more original IP, rather than fee for service jobs, we really only have ourselves to blame.
Excuse my lack of business
Excuse my lack of business knowledge, but why do you describe Steve, the person who owns and runs the company, as middle management? I would personally have considered him to be upper management...there's no-one higher in the company than him afaik. Middle management would be the producers and leads i would have thought? Sorry if this sounds like a nitpick haha.
Well.. I guess I meant middle
Well.. I guess I meant middle management in the wider sense of studio heads who have to answer to Publishers or overseas interests. But my apologies for the mistake, clearly he's upper management.
It's worked
Not exactly "rely" on government handouts. But it's worked before. Just look at how Canada's development scene is booming since they started their government incentives. No reason why that kind of thing can't work here. But our government's too busy giving out money to make crappy movies about outback Australia.
You can handout as much money
You can handout as much money as you like, but if you insist on giving that money to the wrong people... then you might as well of used it to wipe your arse with. The reality is, is that the way things are done in Australia, is that money which should be going towards establishing new IP and new studios, to give them a break, give new approaches a chance, and grow the industry. More often than not, is given to an established studio so that they can remain afloat. They may state it is so as to do exactly what I have just said, but it is nothing more than BS. These are studios that have had their chance, and by all their own hype, should be able to stand on their own two feet. Yet their practices and reliance on 'fee-for-service' work, has made them a joke to local developers, and have damaged the credibility of the local industry globally.