NetEase Games has reportedly laid off the entire Seattle-based studio working on the game.
Looking at NetEase on LinkedIn and ZipRecruiter…
Very high probability these people were all contractors.
NetEase uses a number of contracting agencies to hire for the actual game development roles, whereas only senior/business management positions are actually directly posted under/by NetEase.
Its incredibly shitty, but this is what a whole lot of the tech industry has been for a long time.
People will very often say ‘oh I worked for so and so’ and not mention that they’re actually a contractor.
Hell, I did 3 V dash (9 month contract) gigs for MSFT a decade ago, so I guess I might as well put ‘Former Microsoft DB Admin’ in my bio, right?
If they were contractors, its very, very disingenuous of their team lead, who is likely an actual, proper employee of NetEase, to just entirely not mention that his latest batch of contractors got let go, just like the last ones, just like the next ones will be.
There is no job security for roughly 70% to 90% of American tech workers, because roughly that amount are contractors, and its very taboo and can get you blacklisted if you are vocal about how bullshit this is.
My first contract job at MSFT, my actually cool, actually MSFT employee boss just showed me the invoice for me vs what my contracting company was paying me.
Double. MSFT was paying the contracting company double, per hour, what they were paying me.
Corpos will do everything they can to keep shuffling people around, because if they don’t, they’re usually legally obligated to make you a full, real employee after some amount of time, give you better benefits, healthcare, stock options/401k, harder to fire, etc.
Theres nothing “weird” about it… Its a project-based profession, and our economy leaves little room for the dead weight on a company that many employees are after their part on a project is over.
Most software is project based, only the games industry regularly lays off their best people after projects are deemed “complete.”
This is exceptionally strange in the context of a successful live service game like Marvel Rivals where they’re going to need a good team working on the game if they want to keep the game bringing in money.
They also did not fire the Chinese portion of the team, only the Americans.
One of the reasons Halo Infinite was a giant clusterfuck was because MSFT hired a team of temp contractors to overhaul the engine all the Halo games had been built on…
… then handed actual development in this engine over to another team of 343 employees, and other teams of temp contractors…
… who could not figure out how to use this new/overhauled engine or get their assets to import/function in it properly… because the changes to the engine were not well documented, and they couldn’t ask anyone for help with it … because everyone with that knowledge was now gone, onto some other contract.
The modern paradigm for AAA game dev is basically:
Management is completely abusive and also incompetent and will give contradictory, countermanding directives constantly, can’t agree on or coordinate shit…
…but all the actual coders and artists and gameplay designers, who generally do exactly what they are told to do, are expendable, and will be blamed for doing something management told them to do, or not doing something management did not tell them to do.
They also did not fire the Chinese portion of the team, only the Americans.
Indeed, and given that NetEase is a Chinese corporation, this is hardly surprising. Not all layoffs come from a general industry trend, as the headline would suggest.
This is exceptionally strange in the context of a successful live service game like Marvel Rivals
Not really - building the game takes way more resources than maintaining it later. And I imagine that NA team was far more expensive than Chinese one.
It shows a deep lack of respect for the talent, though.
Well yes they’re a corporation. Disrespecting workers is par for the course
Well, I guess the games industry needs to morph into one that’s not salary & benefits based, but pure mercenary contract consulting for huge numbers up front, you want to keep someone past the intial eye watering amounts, then sign the contract extension for a full year. Can’t trust a salary if they keep acting mercenary with their employment shitcanning you after you provide something which will bring them in tens of millions.
It needs to have every MBA fired.
Out of a cannon, into the sun?
Good thing the level designers were laid off because the maps suck.
