I’ve heard Roblox wasn’t good to work with, but I wasn’t expecting kids having to earn that much before being able to cash out.
All the scuttlebutt among indie devs has been that Epic’s contracts are incredibly generous and highly desirable. Any attempt to tie them to the unnamed publisher in the story is just your standard Epic hate-boner crap.
I’ve also seen suggestions on twitter from more experienced developers like Jonathon Blow basically saying the developer in question just sounds inexperienced and could have easily negotiated a more favorable contract.
Hence the advice people often give for devs to network and consult with other devs and industry associates before signing paperwork. Due diligence and all that. Mind you, I’m sure there are predatory publishers out there ripping off naive developers–just like in the music industry in its heyday. But charity begins at home and all that.
Mild concern as I feel like her appointment followed some of the kerfuffles over really unpleasant content showing up in White Wolf publications under their stead, and because a good friendquaintance just moved his whole family to the EU to rejoin WW under its new direction since then.
Nice timing; this was just released Wednesday by Shams. They also mention their chief product officer recently left.
Edit: here’s Shams interviewing Ebba last year, if anyone wants to try to read between lines.
Hopefully everything’s okay. This Fred Wester guy seems like he’d be tough for an outside CEO to work with.
abrandt
2066
This seems like a likely theory. Someone like that steps down from CEO but still has pull within the company and essentially undermines the new CEO in various ways.
They also just had a terrible quarter of financial reporting, unlike many other tech service companies that are booming. This may be one of the pitfalls of their decision to go public - occasionally a sacrificial lamb is needed.
jpinard
2068
It’s stupid companies look at quarters for profit and would need a sacrificial lamb. So you don’t have anything new for a bit, and it all comes in the other quarters. Why fire someone for that?
I agree that it is stupid to fixate on ultra short term profits. But that is the way of the world, especially publicly traded companies (like Paradox?).
I’m very curious how this will go from here. Gibson and Shipwright are both certainly free to do what they just did. Where will it go from here though? Like, I think Tripwire is at PAX West right now, which still has Monday left. What are the odds of PAX responding in any way? Will any platforms drop their games? How will the rest of Tripwire itself respond to Gibson?
Menzo
2071
He’ll apologize within 24 hours.
If they have any sense (and have the ability) they’ll jettison the toxic asset immediately. Forget being morally and politically wrong, this is a massively incompetent and wholly voluntary PR screw up. You can’t have a person like that as the face of your company.
What if they agree with him? I have no idea. They’re headquartered in GA, it’s not inconceivable there could be others who agree with him. But that’s what I mean when I say I’m curious how this will play out. I won’t be surprised if what you described happens as the outcome if the majority of the company disagrees (or those with the power to do something), but that’s just an assumption at this point. Maybe a safe assumption, but not the certainty I’d assume if they were located in Portland, for example.
See that’s the thing, though. Even if they do agree with him, his squawking about it was still a fundamentally bad business move, and is still grounds for removal. No one asked his opinion on this highly controversial and extremely polarized political topic and diving into that debate on either side is going to alienate part of your customer base. There’s just no reason for it.
It’s not like he said something fleeting. This is core to his beliefs, so presumably any apology would just be a “sorry if you’re offended” or “sorry that I posted political stuff.” It isn’t like he’s going stop supporting anti-abortion legislation.
Nah, and nah. edit: obviously, I’m saying cynical me believes no big consequences will happen, not that I remotely support his beliefs.
He’s clearly setting out to start a fight, because his motivation is to counter what he clearly sees as the progressive tendencies of the game industry in general. Then again, games like Chivalry 2 may well have a demographic that aligns more with Gamergate than with say BLM.
In my gut I think you’re probably right, but I don’t think it’s fair to assume he’s looking for a fight. I imagine what he does from here will probably clarify his intentions.
