The game industry layoffs are really bad, but according to testimony gathered for The Jimquisition, it’s far worse than they look. It’s all thanks for the nasty tactics companies employ to obscure layoffs behind other forms of job termination.
#GameIndustry #Epic #Bethesda #CDProjektred #Layoffs #Money #JimSterling #Jimquisition #Games #JamesStephanieSterling #StephanieSterling #Gaming #Videogames
I worked more than 10 years at an Activision studio (thank god, no longer do) and was hired as a full time employee as it was normal at the time, but as the years goes on, more and more people were contract workers. People that have been contract workers for 2-3 years an near the end, the majority new hire were contract employees (cause full time employees were resigning in mass, which at some point included me).
They were dangling that carrot in front of them, doing stuff like changing their actual title. They will VERY often do that to QA, cause they knew a lot of QAs were actually desperate people wanting to get into the game industry and went for QA because that was the job they could get, not because they wanted to do QA. So not only QA was on contract, low pay and basically paid with hopes and dreams, but they would often change the contract of some QA to be “Tech Designers” or “Tech Artists” that were essentially doing the job of designers and artists, but paid like QAs and once they didnt need them, they would switch them back to QA. I saw a designer that started QA, but was a designer for 2 years at that point, being switched back to QA, essentially forcing them to resign, that’s another great way to hiding layoffs, you make the employee, HUM I MEAN CONTRACTER, want to quit instead.
It’s a pretty shocking state of affairs where I’m suddenly grateful that the team I’m in has the attitude that work is for work hours, and annual leave is dor using. That should be the bare minimum
Youtube can you please stop fucking hiding my favourite sub! I get no notification or bell or anything anymore for Steph, you are a fucking joke YOUTUBE!.
Hey Steph. I just want to say love your stuff and sorry i keep missing it thanks to my poor memory and YOUTUBES dickish behaviour.
Its ok stephanie once you finish bleeding chuds the sub count will start climbing again maybe around the 500k point. Its just crazy how much gaming commentary appeals to chuds and how much of your audience was comprised of them.
Hell yeah, I missed the “It’s time to shit on Bethesda” dance!
You rule Steph
The Bethesda is pathetic bit took me on an emotional journey.
Reaction 1: YES this pokemon music goes SO HARD!
reaction 2: holy shit! This gimmick hasn’t been done since PRE TRANSITION!?
Dear Stephanie, Have You ever started a letter or an email or such with “Not Very Dear” instead of “Dear”, or some reasonable facsimile thereof?
Once worked a temp-to-hire gig with the “expectation” that those still employed at the 1 yr mark would become real employees. I have no idea if it’s true or not, because while I’d agreed to work as an accountant, they’d found out I had customer service background and REALLY wanted me to in that role.
For $2 less an hour. Take it or leave it.
So I did that for a while, because I live under capitalism and like not starving. Until I could not take it any more. I was point of contact where people would call in and find the person who last had their job signed a contract so their company would pay for a printer. 2.5 times the price of it. Over 5 years, instead of buying it outright. Only they wouldn’t technically own it. We would. They’d pay our property taxes on it, and the contract literally said we retain all the benefits of ownership and you agree to take on all the liabilities. In plain english. Utter scum.
Eventually decided that, actually, I *would* rather starve than keep doing it. ‘s the nice thing about depression, really. Some things truly are worse than death, if you put in the thought. (Glad as hell I’m managing that better these days, but f—– that.)
Continuous push and call for Bethesda Bad Dance video to be remade. Not only to represent the truer identifying Stephanie, but also because now you can add in you Choke Slamming people with fun visual graphics to make the video go from a 10 to a 10 but with Choke Slams
2:45 There is no endless growth. The wealth of some is the debts of others. There is a reason why the animals in the Lion King sing ‘the circle of life’ and not ‘the endless growth’. Even they understand how the world works, but capitallism is Scar and will destroy the Pride Land.
Those in East Asia are especially cowardly about this, where they use “creative” language to not explicitly say that they’ve been fired, saying that they’ve agreed to be let go or something similar. Not even indie developers are immune to that, there was one, which I shall leave nameless for the sake of this (that and they’ve threaten to take legal action against those that speak of this in a way that they don’t approve of) it involved an artist who had problems regarding opinions that have been made regarding feminism that they’ve had in the past, which led to a trial by social media (or anti-social media as I put it as it involves accusations from them, which led to their dismissal, although they didn’t say it explicitly) although the accounts differ between the two sides, one thing is certain is that this artist is no longer working there anymore.
2:10 – Ah, you speak of Unicronic Arts. (e.g. EA)
Yeah, using that to increase their profits at their workers’ expense.
2:50 – This is largely because they’re psychopaths, having a heart and a sense of justice (that doesn’t benefit them) are incomprehensible concepts, they only do the right thing when it’s either convenient for them or it’s less convenient to not deal with that.
If they knew what they’d be put through, I’d be surprised if they can recruit anyone at all.
11:20 – If there’s no brush black enough to tar someone with, they make one out of whole cloth…coincidence happens every day, I don’t trust coincidence.
You really need to update the F*** Bethesda Dance with your current appearance.
Nice to see the bethesda techno song/dance again.
Who the fuck is that at 15:30 ?
As a patron I definitely AM paying for you to destroy the AAA game industry, so come on, get that shit done!
Capitalism is working just fine you guys
7:10 You are like batteries, replaceable.
crazy how people fell for this image that nintendo is a wholesome company that treats its workers like gold when in reality, its just another soulless corpo that played the public for fools
Companies have to give 2 weeks notice just like employees.
I work at a tech startup and have survived four rounds of layoffs. It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.