Tim Schafer on the Hire & Fire Cycle

I am not in the gaming industry. I studied it in college and have many friends currently involved in the industry. I have heard great stories and I have heard horror stories. One thing that has bothered me about the industry and continually reminds me that I perhaps should have tried to get in earlier, rather than going back to school a little later in life, is the  “corporatization” of it. What once seemed to be loose and fun has come down to rigid structuring, overworking, in many instances low pay and a “meet the bottom line for the stockholders mentality”. This has shown itself in many forms, the most well known is the chronic over-working that occurs at some studios. Perhaps second to that, is the hire and fire cycle. It’s pretty similar to seasonal hiring in a retail environment, except that the retail work pretty much knows when their time is up. Tim Schafer discusses this cycle in the above article.