Meanwhile Nintendo provides lifetime employment. It's why they can pass down institutional knowledge to the next gen of employees. Hence why every entry in series like Mario and Zelda are almost consistently great.
this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2026
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My dad works at Nintendo!
Cool 😎
Layoffs always lead to loss of tacit institutional knowledge. In other words, they end up firing the people who know how shit really works.
Games are creative projects, so this is even more of a problem. They fire people who made the first game and knew exactly why the game was made that way, and it comes as no surprise that the new hires end up making the sequel completely different way. The new people can see the big picture but not the reasoning behind the tiniest details.
Don't worry all the rage is outsourcing now, so they can lay an entire studio off and ideally that studio gets another contract somewhere else (most don't).
i think they're onto something... oh wait!
computer + business = layoffs Don't you know?
Business+Business = also layoffs.
B2BLO
Everywhere I look, problems are coming from rich assholes removed from actually doing work making decisions.
somewhere along the way the csuite forgot about or devalued institutional knowledge. they think of people like expensive hardware theyre renting, that they can just fire and rehire at no cost. they ignore the fact that the majority of the knowledge and expertise they need is stored in peoples heads and nowhere else. when they do a huge layoff theyre throwing all of that away and essentially starting over from scratch the next time. i suspect this is a large part of why games take way longer to develop now. the teams have to build up the knowledge and working relationships basically from scratch on every game, which is a slow messy process in the best of times but is made waaay worse by delusional schedules and excessive hours. these corporate douchebags keep literally cutting off their nose to spite their face over and over again like its a functional business strategy.
Csuites of all industries are becoming like nobles from feudal eras. The only difference is the lack of in-breeding happening, but give it a decade or more and it'll start.
They assume that they have right of rule despite having no actual commitments, then they throw a fit when they aren't fed.
They already have apps for dating amongst themselves
Back when I supported HR at a hospital I built these ultra detailed employee turnover reports, which included average cost of turnover (metrics for what it costs to cover shifts until the position is filled, cost of recruiting/posting positions, cost associated with hiring, separation cost of the employee leaving, etc etc). And of course they would focus primarily on nursing roles. They spent about 5 years doing just about anything they could; hiring bonuses, incentives, referral bonuses, various outreach programs and tuition assistance for nurses. After those 5 years they found no noticeable reduction in nursing turnover. What they did eventually notice, however, is a steady increase in turnover for all other non-nursing positions.
After another year or 2 of bullshit excuses and throwing whatever paltry perks they attempted to throw at us the only thing they found actually lowering their turnover figures...reinstate annual 3% raises. Because they found out paying their employees was actually cheaper than the annual cost of turnover.
"Does anyone have any ideas on how to boost morale that don't include pay raises?"
Not an uncommon question in meetings, if you'd believe people on the internet.
It's like trying to figure out how to grow a plant without water. Pointless from the beginning.
That's pretty much business 101 though. It's almost always cheaper long term to retain employees (especially high performing employees) rather than getting rid of and re-hiring. But when you are at the edge of bankruptcy or can't afford to keep people (sometimes simply for 'profit') then short term it's a better idea.
Companies are not ethereal, so there are always going to be short term decisions made that hurt long term.
i see what youre saying, but i think youre missing some stuff here. companies being "on the edge of bankruptcy" is usually also the fault of csuite douchebags. where do you think all the money companies make goes? it goes to the obscene csuite salaries. those fuckers make these ridiculous short term decisions that only benefit them while taking credit for every success and claiming every failure was due to "market forces" completely outside their control. yeah companies are responding to the situation of the moment, but how the fuck do you think they got there in the first place?
the last place i worked had this problem constantly. management makes a dumbass decision that hurts the business for no benefit, then we get in a tight spot because of it, and management makes another decision that only really hurts the actual workers with the justification that they have to because the company is in a tough spot. rinse and repeat. no accountability, no repercussions, and nothing meaningfully changes except for things get worse for all the people doing the actual work.
dont just swallow their propaganda without thinking.
What kills me with this ridiculous form of corporate thinking is the sequel does not have all the quality of life improvements of the original, i.e., they don't build on lessons learned. A game may have patchs that add features that improve playability, or make settings easier to find, or just add some cool mechanic that everybody loves. Then the sequel comes out and all those features are missing for some reason. It's fucking infuriating!
Why do you think they like AI so much? The bought into the hype and now they think they can just own a data center and make more money that way. Everything can be their “creative vision” because they’re the smartest and most talented because they got themselves so rich and god/society reward the best
I think they 'like' AI because it's the promise of how much what they see as 'redundant' being done. Unfortunately some people think that's story boarding, artwork, anything that is creative, and forgetting that so much of the office could be enhanced and improved with 'AI'.
Only a single rule is needed. If mass layoffs need to happen, the top person responsible, the CEO, must also leave the company in the same fashion.
Without a golden parachute.
..B..b.ut the yacht can stay. Right??
Some bilionare
What about a trial by combat clause? CEO has to fight one representative of the workforce. In America this could be a whole new genre of reality tv! We could call it... Luigi's Mansion.
It kinda baffles me that people still apply for jobs at EA, Activision/Blizzard, etc. We need more disenfranchised developers making their own studios like Supergiant, Respawn and Embark, who go back to making quality games that are passion projects instead of sloppy money churners. I simply don't understand why anyone would buy a game, then spend more money to not play the game in order to progress/level up/whatever.
Just to be clear I'm well aware Apex Legends could be thought of as a money churner, but it's still a free-to-play, quality product that just sells cosmetics so I personally don't see it in the same light as CoD, FIFA or Madden.
Because when starting your own studio in the garage you and your family has no money or insurance.
It probably makes for a good look in your CV. You work there for a few years, and then you can apply anywhere else with better chances, I guess.
You can probably Occam's razor as to why they don't make their own studios
I had a professor who had worked for a big company, was laid off, joined a smaller company, then the bigger company bought that one up.
Was your professor Steve Jobs??
No? I don't think he ever worked in game design.
This has to be the best meme I've seen in a very long time, made it worth logging into Lemmy. Thank you :)
Got free time for making memes? Guess what...
That’s a paddlin’
Funny because it’s true. Painfully true.
Men, you're lucky men. Soon you'll all be fighting for your planet. Many of you will be dying for your planet. A few of you will be forced through a fine mesh screen for your planet. They will be the luckiest of all.
As long as we all lay them off constantly so their children are always near death from malnutrition they will always come back when we tell them to. Plan can not fail.
I mean, you joke. But this is just the definition of contract labor.
In theory, contractors earn sizably more than salaried workers. If you're bringing in $200/hr, you can get away with working six months a year. Or working two years and then taking a year off.
But because so much of this contract work has been outsourced overseas or managed through networks of subcontractors, you end up with people actually earning a $30-60/hr salary for work that's getting billed at $200/hr by some gatekeeping intermediary. And you end up with a steady stream of people in-between jobs whose skills atrophy and whose interests in the long-term function of the project don't align.
Alternatively, you've got a bunch of these little indie pop-ups that churn out reskinned GACHA crap based on whatever happens to be popular at a given moment. And the name of the game is to get enough end-users to win yourself a corporate buyout, then dash out the back door with all the cash you can stuff in your pockets.
The idea of seasonal or boom-bust employment isn't unworkable on its face. But without labor solidarity or a professional organization to prop up wages, you just end up with a bunch of middle-men and corporate suits draining the lay workers dry.
“We have the best game profits. Because of layoffs”