– Posted on February 16, 2013Posted in: Video Games
Anonymous Gearbox Developer:
Somehow the schedules for Pecan and Borderlands 2 managed to line up and GBX realized that there was no fucking way they could cert and ship two titles at the same time. Additionally, campaign (which was being developed by TimeGate) was extremely far behind, even as Pecan’s Beta deadline got closer and closer. In April or May (can’t remember which), Pecan was supposed to hit beta, but GBX instead came to an agreement with SEGA that they would push the release date back one more time, buying GBX around 9 mos extension.
Ok, I know you’re probably already rolling your eyes at the title, but believe it or not, he’s got some valid points. I can speak from first hand World of Warcraft raiding experience that it takes some pretty legit cross-functional teamworking skills to be able to pull it off. We’re talking about 25 people all working in unison to execute a plan in a timed pressure situation with oftentimes little room for error. On top of that, if you can’t pull your own weight in productivity, you’re going to be fired for someone who can. The best raiders actually have friendly competitions with team members in similar roles to see who can do better.
That being said, playing a video game is, at the end of the day, playing a video game. The stakes aren’t as high in the real business world, and, let’s be honest, a Harvard MBA is probably a better indicator of a quality employee. We’re also talking about the top 5% or so of World of Warcraft players that exhibit these business-like teamworking skills. It’s a small, but not insignificant percentage of the total player population. Still, if I was a company looking for out-of-the box candidate qualities, I would definitely put some weight into having high end World of Warcraft raiding experience if the rest of his resume checks out.
It gets downright messy. Marvel’s new offices have only one restroom for each gender. In a company of hundreds of people. The post-lunch hour piddle line is said to be especially long and people actually stagger their lunches so as not to wait in it. There’s a human resources staff of one for the whole company. Review copies? You’ve got to be kidding. Editors have to purchase copies of the books they worked on.
God, that’s depressing to read. It’s just sad to see a place called the “House of Ideas” to be such morale deflating misery factory. Makes one wonder how many great ideas are being stifled by penny pinching.
Warren Ellis had a great tweet about this last week given the success of “The Avengers” movie:
Hell, the AVENGERS movie has made so much money that Disney might even let Marvel Comics buy a second toilet for their offices.