12/12/2014 Alleged 38 Studios spouse outlines family's financial struggles after company's closure | Massively
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Alleged 38 Studios spouse outlines family's financial 36 struggles after company's closure
by Jef Reahard on Jun 13th 2012 2:00PM Culture, MMO Industry, News Items, Miscellaneous
38 Studios stories continue to circulate through the gaming media this week, with the latest arriving courtesy of Gamasutra. The industry news site has published an anonymous letter from an alleged former employee's wife that details the challenges inherent in supporting a large family that is subject to the whims of the game industry.
The letter outlines the family's financial struggles in great detail, and it serves as a cautionary tale to game industry hopefuls who are thinking of uprooting a family to follow a dream. Though the author is unnamed and could quite literally be anyone, Gamasutra says it has "verified her husband's name and former position at 38 Studios."
Source: Gamasutra
Tags: 38studios, 38studiosclosure, 38studiosspouse, business, copernicus, culture, curtschilling, kingdomsofamalur reckoning, Miscellaneous, mmoindustry, reckoning, rumor, rumors
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JohnBusch Jun 14, 2012 What a nightmare for those poor folks. I graduated with a degree in computer animation in 05, and I wouldn't even dream of being in the gaming industry anymore.
It's sad, but the market is just flooded and with companies like EA mass producing garbage instead of quality it's only gonna keep getting worse. Too many games on the market, prices are way too high, and 8 out of 10 games are a dud.
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JoshOkleasky Jun 19, 2012 i worked security there ....they spent tens od thousands on catering http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/13/alleged38studiosspouseoutlinesfamilysfinancialstruggles/ 2/9 12/12/2014 Alleged 38 Studios spouse outlines family's financial struggles after company's closure | Massively
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JoshOkleasky Jun 19, 2012 plus the free vending machines and so forth
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ineedaloginalre Jun 14, 2012 If they were laid off, can't they collect unemployment?
I think we're better off pitying the thousands of new grads who will likely be unemployed for a year as they look for jobs that don't exist, and are unable to collect unemployment.
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mark8 Jun 14, 2012 @ineedaloginalre Yes they can, except:
1> They moved to RI for this job. 38 Studios was footing the bill for this. 2> Now they find out that 38 Studios hasn't been paying any of their bills for over half a year and now the moving company is coming after them for the moving costs. 3> They're owed paychecks by 38 Studios which also won't be paid.
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McGuffn Jun 13, 2012 the people that defended this company are hacks or flat out imbeciles.
38 lied to this family from day one. Her husband was hired for a job that did not exist. Almost certainly he was hired to pad the bottom line so they wouldn't default on the loan. 38 didn't pay the moving bill for 6 months, which means the studio had a major cash crunch shortly after getting the loan money, which again means that they probably shouldn't have hired in december. The insurance money wasn't paid for months, and they didn't tell anyone. How exactly is the governor's public comments in mid May responsible for the insurance not getting paid in March? And then in the final week, the company lied repeatedly to extract slave labor from their employees and then lied again about the relocation costs to get them out without starting a riot.
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real65 Jun 14, 2012 @McGuffn
yeah it's pretty sad people ignore the truth because they liked a video game, but that's how things go in today's society.
The governor is a public servant entrusted with public funds. If Chafee would have given another loan to 38 after this, he would have been under investigation himself. The reason is that common sense would have been for RI to ask to see the company's financials before putting another loan out. That's just standard business practice especially when you're talking millions and you've ALREADY given someone millions.
I'm betting Chafee and the state there saw the horrific numbers and realized something wasn't right and that's when it all started to go public. No politician in his/her right mind will cover for someone like that unless they are getting a piece of the pie and in trouble too. Any company with millions potential to invest in 38 would have asked to see the same books and given it's a crime to 'cook books', it would have all come out anyways.
Like Reply http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/13/alleged38studiosspouseoutlinesfamilysfinancialstruggles/ 3/9 12/12/2014 Alleged 38 Studios spouse outlines family's financial struggles after company's closure | Massively
mark8 Jun 14, 2012 @McGuffn Reminds me of the saying: Where there's smoke, there's fire.
It's not rocket science.
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digitalexodus Jun 13, 2012 Wow, talk about BAD BUSINESS.... I have been listening to this story unfold for weeks now. Is there any definitive answer to this madness, short of just some bad execs mismanaging money?
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real65 Jun 14, 2012 @digitalexodus That final answer will come after the state and federal law enforcement types get done their official investigations of the company's finances, which is already underway per new reports.
"PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – 38 Studios declared bankruptcy on Thursday, one day after federal and state officials began a formal investigation into Curt Schilling's video game company, WPRI.com has learned."
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carson63000 Jun 13, 2012 In the few years I spent working in the games industry, I don't think I knew anyone who was married with a large family. It's simply not an industry you should work in if you have dependents and responsibilities everything is just so projectbased, even if the project you're working on is a success, there's a very real risk that you'll find yourself out of work after it's finished.
Leave that work to the kids they'll be willing to do it for less money than you, anyway, don't get into a reverse bidding war for an unstable job if you've got kids to take care of.
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McGuffn Jun 13, 2012 @carson63000 It isn't just the games industry, the same pressures are on almost anyone working as contract labor for larger corporations. And if one of the unwritten rules of the field is going to be "don't have kids" these are dead end, socalled "careers."
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real65 Jun 14, 2012 @carson63000 Programming: Already some of the highest paid talent in the game industry, programmers made even more in 2011 as their average salary jumped up to nearly $92,962 from $85,733.
Art and Animation: Artists and animators' average salaries increased to $75,780 over the previous year's average of $71,354.
Game Design: Game designers, writers, and creative directors were paid $73,386 on average in 2011, up from $70,223.
Production: Though producers saw a huge increase in 2010 for their average salaries http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/13/alleged38studiosspouseoutlinesfamilysfinancialstruggles/ 4/9 12/12/2014 Alleged 38 Studios spouse outlines family's financial struggles after company's closure | Massively to $88,544, that dropped last year to $85,687.
Audio: The average audio professional's reported salary in 2011 was significantly higher, $83,182 compared to 2010's $68,088.
Quality Assurance: Quality assurance professionals (testers and QA leads) are the lowestpaid workers in the games industry for yet another year and in 2011, their average salary decreased to $47,910 from $49,009 in 2010
Business: Business and legal employees are still the highest paid in the industry, but their salaries dropped from $106,452 in 2010 to $102,160 last year if you were in the industry, why would you ask married people to forgo these kinds of salaries and leave them to the 'kids'? When you throw health benefits on top of this, it's families that need these average salaries in the gaming industry; not the kids. I'm pretty sure 38 was paying close to these rates or even busting them as well as those moving allowances and such.
It's kind of crazy in this economy to tell someone with a family to ignore these types of salaries. When did you work in the industry? In the 80's?
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/167355/Game_Developer_reveals_2011_Game _Industry_Salary_Survey_results.php
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real65 Jun 13, 2012 It's refreshing to hear a voice from someone involved who doesn't have to worry about burning bridges so she can't get a job with Company X. (smart thing staying anonymous)
Most of the time from what I see in this industry according to writings/blogs, is this when a game fails or a company folds, you get Company Buttkisser #1 saying all good things about a company he knows to be rotten/run bad because he knows if he says the truth about things, he'll be blacklisted in this field. I saw that with Mythic and the Warhammer Online failure where people were afraid to say what they knew was making the game fail and who really ruined it because then people would figure out who leaked the stuff.
I feel bad for the wife because she wasn't expected to know all the gaming angle stuff and was simply along for the ride because like most women, they go where the husband's job is. The timeline she laid out from not getting paid, losing insurance and then getting the letter about being on the hook for the moving costs is dizzying.
But I guess according to most of the gamer fans I've read defending 38 Studios, Curt Schilling was a fantastically great guy and the Governor of Rhode Island was Simon LeGree twisting his moustache so that makes it all okay.
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MasterNardz1 Jun 13, 2012 I agree this whole situation was very messed up, but you don't move across the country to work for a noname company without accepting a huge amount of risk. And, granted I don't know the whole story, but from what I've heard, the offers these people were getting to move sounded too good to be true, which usually means, yeah...
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UnSubject Jun 14, 2012 @MasterNardz1 They recognised it as a risk. What is galling is that 38 Studios had to have known they were in financial trouble while they continued to hire people and then collapsed without much warning.
And then potentially left its employees with certain uncovered debts that they need
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/13/alleged38studiosspouseoutlinesfamilysfinancialstruggles/ 5/9 12/12/2014 Alleged 38 Studios spouse outlines family's financial struggles after company's closure | Massively to manage. So SURPRISE! not only don't you have a job, here are a bunch of extra costs in your name that we've not been paying!
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robn Jun 13, 2012 Ok, i'll probably take lot of flak for this BUT this has been going on all over the country for years now. Companies and politicians make bad decisions. Who pays the price? The worker.
It happened to me 3 years ago. It happened to my wife one year. She had to move to freaking Alaska for a job while i stayed at home with the kids to finish school. Now, we are up and moving to Wisconsin from Georgia for a job. NO guarantees that will work out BUT you have to go where the jobs are.
What happened to this family is a tragedy but by no means are they special or deserve special attention. There are tens of millions of people currently unemployed because of bad political or business decisions right now. Honestly, welcome to the club lady and good luck.
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Space Cobra Jun 13, 2012 @robn
This was my first thought as well. Such things are tragic, but I've heard/seen families pick up and move over the years when jobs dry up in one section of the country and become more abundant or desirable in another section. In some cases, things don't turn out so good and some folks move back (and even move into their parent's home and I am talking a family with wife and kids moving in with parents/relatives).
Granted, she needs to vent and get heard, but so do others not in the game industry. Moving for a new life or job is always a risk. One hopes for the best.
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bAss_ackwards Jun 13, 2012 @robn I don't see the problem here then. It even sounds like you're on the same page as them. This is their cautionary tale to those in the industry with families, not their plea for special attention.
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jeremy2020 Jun 13, 2012 38 Studios definitely pulled a con job and there deserves to be a criminal investigation on the matter. What they did was awful and the people in charge deserve to be punished.
That being said, reading the letter, it seems like some more work should have been done before accepting the job. The whole thing felt like doomed from the time of the announcement of the Rhode Island deal.
Being an industry veteran, didn't he know how risky these investments were especially with a startup being run by a baseball player?
Don't mistake this as 'blaming the family'. They were royally screwed, but people working in the industry should know by now that you can't uproot your family on promises when you don't have the financial savings to survive a catastrophe.
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tominva2012 Jun 13, 2012 @jeremy2020
While I, too, feel for the author of that letter, anyone getting involved with (1) a http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/13/alleged38studiosspouseoutlinesfamilysfinancialstruggles/ 6/9 12/12/2014 Alleged 38 Studios spouse outlines family's financial struggles after company's closure | Massively startup company and (2) particularly one in the gaming industry ought to know what a hugely iffy proposition that is. A lot of more even promising ventures than this one go down in flames, and the whole 38 Studios/KoA/Copernicus shebang looked (at least to me, when I first heard of it) a whole lot less promising than most, imo. To bank on the success of a sequel MMO (Copernicus) for a game KoA that hasn't even been released yet is, just wow. Talk about going out on a financial limb. I'm not saying these people were in any way to blame, but a complete meltdown in this industry, like what happened here, is not all that uncommon.
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real65 Jun 13, 2012 @jeremy2020 I've said something like this in another post where a 'creative director' was talking about 'death' and 'wars' and 'trenches' with coworkers making.. a video game.
I understand how some of these people feel betrayed because if you look at it on the surface:
1. Company founded by Curt Schilling, allstar Hall of Famer baseball player who has serious name recognition among people who name chase. He's a avid gamer so a potential employee might resonably figure in their mind that he 'knows what he's doing' more than just a guy in a suit. This was some seriously flawed logic if this was used to base a career.
2. R.A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane hired to help develop games. This is another one of those 'name chaser' things that only adds to the megablockbuster type 'star power' that someone would think makes their company probably bulletproof, even though these two don't actually make the games. It's kind of like making ice cream and being able to say "REAL Hershey's chocolate!" but doesn't mean it's going to taste better than a brand using generic chocolate in their ice cream.
3. We're movin' on up! When they heard "We'll move you and your family free and pay your mortgage" I'm guessing a lot of people figured this company was going to be like Apple or Oracle where they provide all these goodies for their U.S. workers. Problem is, 38 Studios was promising all this with limited funds, no game on the market yet and an mmo that was far from being released.
Probably a few other things convinced some of them but I could see how some employees could look at all of that and think they struck it rich and would never have to worry about anything ever again. When they lost it all in the span of one month, it's probably more shocking. But you're right, these kinds of things happen everyday to millions of people in the U.S. and abroard, but you usually don't hear about the gamers writing these things.. usually factory workers, teachers, and the like.
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russochristopherx Jun 13, 2012 The runaround employees got from their employers is inexcusable. I hope a civil suit can be brought against them.
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nhat11 Jun 13, 2012 @russochristopherx A civil suit against who? The company is out of business and no one has anything.
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Cure4Living Jun 14, 2012 http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/13/alleged38studiosspouseoutlinesfamilysfinancialstruggles/ 7/9 12/12/2014 Alleged 38 Studios spouse outlines family's financial struggles after company's closure | Massively
@nhat11 @russochristopherx Presumably management, the manager of a company can be held responsible for choices and decisions made while running a company.
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greaterdivinity Jun 13, 2012 It' such horseshit that companies can get away with this kind of bullshit and that there aren't any kinds of protections for families who are lied to and misled.
It's shitty to see a studio go under to downsize and cause people to lose their jobs, but it's even worse when it comes out of the blue with no priorwarnings to employees. That and I can't believe those executives could lie to everyone like that and not receive some kind of punishment, that should be criminal. How the sleep at night is beyond me.
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nhat11 Jun 13, 2012 @greaterdivinity Do you live in a commonwealth state? A company can fire you anytime and not tell you anything. The same goes for the employee, the employee can leave anytime. Yeah its a crappy situation but unions aren't that much better either.
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real65 Jun 13, 2012 @nhat11 @greaterdivinity Unions are far better than not having them for most workers as an employee can't be fired without cause due to contract negotiations. They afford much more protection than working without one. Besides, unions don't have anything to do with this situation so why are you mentioning them?
1) These people weren't in a union and 2) the business went bellyup so I'm not sure why you bring unions into this when no one raised that issue.
He's talking about corporate responsibility at the top towards rank and file employees as in: a company completely dissolves in less than a month after the leadership fails to make the payments on a HUGE loan.
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BalsBigBrother1 Jun 13, 2012 I have just read the entire letter and it is a heart wrenching read. Its a stark reminder that there is a very real human cost behind all those big headlines that featured here and on other sites that I am sure a lot of people tend to overlook.
I sincerely hope that the letter writer and her family (and the other families affected) are able to get back on their feet and are able to put this sad episode behind them without running into any further problems..
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Joe6 Jun 13, 2012 Speaking as a former employee that article pretty much covers it.
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Jeremy8 Jun 13, 2012 Sounds like the housing problem they had as well, with telling people they sold their property when they didn't. Honestly, They should throw management of that place in fucking jail, Curt Shilling with them for sure...There is no way he didn't know this shit was going down, but he had to much of a ego as well as being a huge dick to come clean about it. http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/13/alleged38studiosspouseoutlinesfamilysfinancialstruggles/ 8/9 12/12/2014 Alleged 38 Studios spouse outlines family's financial struggles after company's closure | Massively
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Harrier0 Jun 13, 2012 That totally sucks :( I've been a Software Engineer for a long time and I've learned from bitter experience that the trusting companies, especially startups is very dangerous. I've learned to make a living selfemployed, or contracting on short terms that don't force me to put all my eggs in one basket.
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Cure4Living Jun 14, 2012 @Harrier0 Yeah, but being a software engineer is a relatively stable career path (or at the least you don't say jobless for too long if you're actually half decent at it, you know with our ever increasing technological world). Video games however is a far more volatile industry unless you're a big name (and unfortunately almost all the big names in video games are Producers/Designers/Directors, don't even hear of a big name network programmer), so personal skill and ability don't always help you to keep a job or get a new one.
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joeykisling Jun 13, 2012 How depressing
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