I’m saving here something that Megyn wrote on her blog. I like it and I won’t comment it here.

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Learning from Austin

So, a few weeks ago I went to the Austin Game Convention. There wasn’t a write up (from me at least) because well, I didn’t go to all that much of the convention, and as far as I was concerned, nothing new or even particularly interesting went on, more or less, it was the usual suspects all going over the usual topics. Oh! And the guy from Star Trek Online was there, and uh, Yantis!! How. Interesting. While I was there however, I did notice that even more so than last year, resumes and cards were littered all over. I mean, even I got assaulted with listening to ridiculous sales pitches for all kinds of useless people and products. And I’m not even anyone important. I’d hate to try and walk around being Gordon Walton or Richard Garriott, or some local guy who actually is interested in, or has the money and authority, to hire people.

For those of you who don’t pay much attention to what goes on as far as studios and rumours and the shit behind the scenes when it comes to games, Austin has always been something of a hotbed for computer games. I mean, our console scene hasn’t been great, but there are a good many studios here in town. Sadly, that number is ever-decreasing. Not to mention the rampant lay-offs and reported financial clusterfucks at most of the remaining studios. I think it’s fairly safe to say that job security isn’t necessarily a promise getting tossed around at studios here right now. But then again, maybe it isn’t as bad as all of that.

All Southern yokel jokes aside, Austin’s studios are suffering from the results of twenty years of incest, and it’s finally starting to strangle the studios. Instead of bringing in new and upcoming talent, those in charge are going for the old, safe standbys. The people who might make great friends and fantastic drinking buddies, but aren’t always the best guys for the job I imagine. Now then, I do realize how hard it sometimes is to separate your personal life and feelings from your professional decisions, and of course, sometimes your friend of twenty-some-odd years really does fit the job perfectly, but as I watch hiring mistake after hiring mistake, I can’t help but wonder how some of these people became in charge of making those hiring decisions.

As game after game here tanks, you have to start eventually looking at where we’re going wrong. If it becomes consistent that we’re failing, maybe it’s not the variables that are responsible. Maybe it’s the constants. If you look at most of the teams at studios, you’re looking at huge parts of other failed teams. We’re not talking about one or two guys in most cases; we’re talking about you know, half of a team. Perish the thought of anyone to be held accountable for the failure of a game, the game failed itself. The company didn’t put enough money behind it, there was too much pressure, and it was some other guy’s fault. Oh, that other guy? He’s at some other studio blaming the failure on, well, me. Who care’s whose responsibility it was, the game failed, millions of dollars were wasted, but I have mortgage payments to make, and we’ve been friends for so long, I really need a job man, come on. Oh, sorry, I got sidetracked; I was busy channeling my inner game developer.

What really amazes me is that some of these guys bounce around from project to project, getting seemingly little accomplished, and keep finding work. The good ol’ boys network does seem to work for some. The same hundred people or so have been mulling around town, getting job after job, and no one seems to have come up with any original ideas in awhile. There’s no new blood coming in, and I guess the old guys are out of original ideas. Or they’ve become mighty content to not express them or something. I cannot quite decide which is more applicable. In a town with over fifty-thousand college kids alone, you’re telling me none of them could do a better job than some of these asshats we have at Sony, NCSoft, Digital Anvil, IonStorm, Ubisoft, or Retro? Fuck, they’re a hell of a lot cheaper, they’re less disenchanted, and maybe if you give one of them a fucking job they could come up with a new idea. Just like sports, eventually your all-stars will have to retire, and theoretically, they’ve trained at least one of their backups to step forward and lead the team.

Hopefully the Austin game community finds him.