I just read on Shacknews that not all developers will be getting accredited for their work on Warhammer Online if they left the company before the game is launched. Honestly, what the fuck?
“Over the years, we’ve had hundreds of people work on the game, and we thank everyone who helped us bring our Warhammer passion to life, but only current employees that have continued until the end will be credited in the final game,” Mythic VP and general manager Mark Jacobs told Shacknews.
“Accreditation in Warhammer Online recognizes the incredible team that has poured their heart and soul into making WAR an amazing MMORPG experience,” he added.
That’s nice, Mark. But what about all the people who spent years working on the game, as hard as anyone else, who even have their work within the final version of the game? I guess they’re not important enough since they left early!
Or maybe even if you got sick and couldn’t come to work on the day…
“I was told they made SURE to not include anyone in the list who was not at the office the day of the credit list creation,” the one-time staff member continued. “This is wrong on many levels and should not go unnoticed.”
It’s not like this is the first time it’s happened in this industry. Would it be nice to have my name on the game? Sure, I liked working there and I was proud of my work, but if I leave a project before ship I don’t have any expectation of being in the credits.
I mean I can somewhat understand it, and most employers don’t really care about whether you appear in the game’s credits or not so long as they’ve known that you worked there and did what your CV says, but still…
It hurts to dedicate your work to a project for X amount of time only to not receive any credit for it because you had to leave for whatever reason.
So, what about people that were obviously unqualified, and were fired after a month or 2? I’m not sure the correct way to differentiate in the credits between them and people that left for various non-performance reasons. I asked around at work, and apparently people who aren’t with the company any more get put in the Special Thanks section, as opposed to broken out into roles. That seems somewhat reasonable, because it also encompasses people that were important to one product, but weren’t actually ON the specific product. I’m not really sure what the standard is now.
As a bitter and jaded software developer, rather then suspecting evil evilness, I’m assuming they simply don’t have those names available anymore because of the crap administrative software they use.
Maybe in the “special thanks”. Who knows. I don’t know what Blizzard’s policies are on accreditation. It varies from company to company.
Blizzard North’s work on D3 has mostly gotten scrapped. It wouldn’t be fair to the current guys if they got billed as lead designer alongside whoever did the scrapped version.
There’s actually a similar story about this in Hollywood, wherein 2 lousy scriptwriters received full writing credits for a movie that they had nothing to do with simply because of some prior contractual agreement they had with the company. I can’t remember what movie it was, but it goes something like this: Duo write bad script, company sees it, rejects it, takes someone else’s script. Duo sue company, receive credit for the other story alongside proper author.
I heard from an ex-employee at a now defunct game company that everyone who quit had a downgrade in the credits. Like if you were a Lead Level Designer, you would only get credited as a Level Designer. Ridicilous.
What’s the deal with this thread, outrage at the sky not being blue on cloudy days? This is completely standard practice. I’ve seen a couple of occasions where people went out of their way to include credits for people who’d left their companies earlier and in each case it was seen as a really big gesture, symbolic of how much the person had been liked. Not doing so is completely normal.
I don’t care if it is normal (and it is); I just don’t think it is right. But then again it is a darn sight better than other software where you aren’t credited at all.
I think anyone that had a hand in the shipped product should be in the credits. This doesn’t just mean shipped code or assets, but also things like concept art, etc.
I mean they have no problem finding room for much more “questionable” additions the higher up the administrative chain you go, why not include some of the lower levels that contributed but are no longer there?
It might be standard practice, but so what? Back in Atari’s heyday, it was standard practice not to give any of the developers any credit at all, so they resorted to the inclusion of easter eggs to credit themselves.
Also, recall that concept artists get credited for their work, especially if they’re outsourced or contracted. Their agency typically just sends in a list of all of the contributors and they get put into the credits. Heck, most of their stuff doesn’t even make it into the game, yet they’re credited nonetheless for their conceptual work. I don’t see why people who’ve contributed a lot to a project, but left, shouldn’t receive credit for their efforts. Does it hurt anyone to do that?
I guess the moral of the story is that when corporations have the opportunity to treat people badly without harmful consequences to themselves, they do. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. But no matter how furious you are about this injustice, would you choose not to purchase a game that you otherwise were super-pumped about, because you heard someone got left off the credits? Or, if you were offered a dream job working on a title you were seriously interested in, would you turn the job down because you heard a rumor that that company had one time left someone off the credits of a previous game? If both answers are no… that’s your answer.
