
I Freelanced On Halo 4. It's Time For Gaming's Contractors To Strike - minimaxir
http://pastebin.com/sCSjhn5P
======
Irregardless
One guy had one bad experience as a gameplay tester, and now it's time for all
gaming contractors to strike? That's a pretty big leap.

This sounds like a typical story of poor management in any industry: Lack of
communication, failure to follow through on performance review policy, hostile
work environment, inability to recognize and allocate talent, etc. Then again,
we're relying entirely on this guy's self-assessment for that last part. This
bit in particular set off some alarm bells for me:

> _I took the job by the horns and ran with it. I did everything I could to
> stand out. I asked a ton of questions about code, the debug, the game modes,
> everything. I talked to all the producers and developers and level designers
> I could to ensure we were on the same page and also so they would know my
> name._

Despite his good intentions, he might have inadvertently gone too far and
turned himself into "that guy". You know, the one who people see coming from a
mile away and think _"Shit, here he comes to bug me with a million pointless
questions again."_ Ambition is a good thing, but sometimes they just want you
to do the job they hired you for and stop distracting other employees, and
those other employees only have so much patience for the new guy who keeps
asking questions.

~~~
stcredzero
_> One guy had one bad experience as a game tester (most kids' dream job)_

I have a friend who was a game tester. It's not just a kid's job. If you ever
see someone who is good at being a game tester do his thing, you will find out
that they are very skilled and many have a wealth of experience in terms of
where to look for bugs.

EDIT: Now my friend has moved out of the game industry and into corporate
life. The pay is better and the job is more secure.

~~~
omni
I think Irregardless meant that this is a job that a lot of people dream about
having when they are children. Landing such a job as an adult would serve to
realize that dream. This makes it pretty devastating if the job turns out to
be a disaster.

~~~
Irregardless
Right, also trying to reinforce the fact that we're talking about actual
gameplay testing and not something code related (a lot of people might assume
the latter since this is on HN).

I'm sure testing games is far more demanding and tedious than kids imagine it
to be.

~~~
fragmede
> One guy had one bad experience as a game tester (most kids' dream job)

You might want to rephrase this then, your original wording comes off in a
condescending "playing games? for money? he should be _glad_ to have a job!"
sort of tone to me.

------
devindotcom
I'm not sure that I feel this guy has much of a point. He got to do something
he loves for $11 an hour, when many people are taking any job they can for
minimum wage. I know it's a false equivalency, but the real point is there
wasn't some big conspiracy to keep him down, he just didn't really like the
conditions (common, vague problems - a couple crappy coworkers, some bad
management, phony atmosphere) and he didn't get the raise he wanted and didn't
get hired full time, when neither of these were promised. I sympathize, but
this also smacks of entitlement.

Organizing is probably a good idea, there are already freelancer unions out
there. But is that going to fix temps not being treated like employees who
have been there for years, or make them more likely to be hired on?

I'm not saying we shouldn't all work together to make a better workplace for
workers of all stripes. But this guy just doesn't seem to have much to
complain about.

~~~
organizewut
I'm not sure why contractors or freelancers need a real "union". It kind of
runs counter to the whole point of being an independent worker. Part of being
a freelancer or contractor is that you already have all the power and you get
to set the terms. If you don't like it, you walk away and go somewhere else.

Things like the Freelancer's Union are really about getting group benefits.

~~~
smacktoward
The problem is that you have an entire industry set up to push people into
contracting who really should be employees. In other words, there are lots of
"independent contractors" out there who have one client they work on full-
time, which really does not fit under any reasonable definition of an
independent businessperson. The companies just prefer to have these people
defined as freelancers so they don't have to pay for the types of benefits
(health insurance, retirement, etc.) that employees get, and to make them more
easily disposable.

 _Part of being a freelancer or contractor is that you already have all the
power_

This is a joke, right? How much power does a single independent contractor
have by themselves over (say) Electronic Arts? Especially when they have no
other clients to fall back on should EA tell them to go pound sand?

~~~
pandaman
QA does not have a lot to do during most of the production so they should not
be employees. If your job is to play the game what are you going to do while
there is no game to play?

~~~
stirno
There is a _lot_ more to QA than just execution. On any normal team I'd expect
them to spend considerable time creating a test plan and start figuring out
the ways to test specific things, well before the game is in a playable state.

~~~
pandaman
Do you expect the planning to take more hours than actual testing? In a
typical title I have seen there are about 20-50 contract testers working for
few months. With 2 year development cycle they need to spend 5-10 times more
time on planning to justify employing them full time. For reference the entire
game art and tech planning takes about 100 times less resources (dozen people
over 1-4 months).

------
jasonkester
Strange. His description of the situation sounds like the company treated him
exactly the way it should treat contractors. They payed him an hourly wage to
do a job, and kept him at arm's length.

That's what contracting is.

They asked for lots of hours, which is fine. They paid for them. They asked
for some weekends, which is fine. As long as they pay for them, which they
did. And as long as the contractor agreed to work them, which he did.

In short, it sounds like a completely amicable gig. Except for the part where
the author is upset about it. He doesn't really explain what he thinks the
company did wrong.

I can see lots of places where he did _himself_ a dis-service. Agreeing to
work in the software industry for $11/hr is one place, as is agreeing to work
hours he would have preferred not to, as is misunderstanding the relationship
and expecting mentoring, recognition, training, promotion, etc. But none of
that is the company's fault.

You hear a lot of horror stories from the gaming industry. This doesn't seem
to be one of them.

~~~
unreal37
I believe that he was told that "people who do well get brought on full time"
was a lie from the start. I can imagine the HR/agency people trying to sell
candidates on how great it will be in the future, if some of the conditions
are crappy now. We've all been there right?

But at 32 I never ever would have taken a job for $11 an hour. If he was paid
$40 an hour, would he have been happier in the end?

------
moron4hire
IMDB credits... even I have IMDB credits
(<http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5111059/>). It's not that hard. Get yourself a
camera, get a few friends to dick around in front of that camera, submit your
shitty film to one of the myriad of film festivals that readily advertise
themselves as valid for IMDB credit, and then submit the forms. Anyone can get
on IMDB.

And his feeling if isolation as a contractor rather than an employee,
especially in a department full of contractors, is his own damn fault. I've
never had a contract position that felt isolated for long. But then, I don't
ever treat anyone differently than respected coworkers, so they quickly learn
to treat me nicely, too.

"I talked to all the producers and developers and level designers I could to
ensure... they would know my name." People see that shit coming from a mile
away. He got pegged as a slimeball early, that's why he didn't make any
progress.

"Once, I worked an entire weekend on a voluntary basis." As a contractor, this
is the surest way to lose everyone's respect.

The article title is just inviting the Prisoner's Dilemma. Ain't going to
happen. For every shmoe who calls for a strike, there's another shmoe ready to
fill his spot. Games won't get better until they stop being made by-and-for
petulant children, be they 13 or 30.

~~~
arkades
Can you elaborate on your comment about why working a weekend as a contractor
is a sure way to lose people's respect? I don't understand.

~~~
ctdonath
I expect it's because he made a big whiny deal about working _one_ weekend, in
a culture where 60-hour weeks are the norm.

Flip side, working for free on an hourly job is...baffling. The arrangement
is: you work an hour, they pay you for an hour. You start working more than
they want to pay you for, they get concerned that you're going to bill them
for it. If they're willing to pay for whatever you can put in, they get
concerned that you're not being compensated - nay, _refusing_ compensation -
when you should be. Was the time he spent really something they wanted him to
do?

------
antoko
There's a weird repeat and a whole section missing in the pastebin.

full source article: [http://kotaku.com/i-freelanced-on-halo-4-its-time-for-
gaming...](http://kotaku.com/i-freelanced-on-halo-4-its-time-for-gamings-
contract-510353357)

~~~
fragmede
Thanks for the full source.

This is also why banning by domain is crap.

------
ctdonath
And the point is...?

He gave up a viable career in music because of one failure. Lacking more
productive alternatives, he took on play-testing games. Lacking any inherent
forward momentum, not standing out in an abundance of similar applicants, he
quit that too.

Supply-and-demand rules. There's a lot of kids wanting to get paid to play
games. There's probably a bunch like him, older looking-for-something-anything
types overqualified but willing. There wasn't an apparent upward-mobility
path, and while he may have been better than average he didn't sound
outstanding in a room full of easy-come-easy-go high-turnover types. With so
many applicants for a short-learning-curve job, the company has little
incentive to keep 'em happy.

Don't mean to bash the guy. He, and his situation, are not horrible - and not
outstanding. Work is work, some jobs have a certain degree & type of suck, do
it or move on ... he moved on.

What's to strike about? $11/hr to play games? Industry won't pay more because
there's plenty willing to work for that pay. Crappy conditions/treatment?
High-turnover positions in a high-stakes industry tend to. You're doing a low-
training task (playing games) in a rather safe & comfortable environment, paid
a decent wage considering the job, and have otherwise little stake in the
project; it's not like you risk falling into a sausage grinder or have your
life savings tied up in the product's success. Strike? You don't show up,
somebody else will be happy to take your seat.

------
sdoowpilihp
I have known a number of people that work in Quality Assurance for games and
they all have pretty much the same story. Though treating employees like this
may not be ethically ideal, it is certainly not to be unexpected when
considering a few points:

* The gaming industry has far more people that want to work in it than there is need for. This gives the employer a LOT of leverage.

* The type of Quality Assurance that this individual speaks about is not a position that could be considered "highly skilled". Though there are QA positions that require a higher level of expertise and knowledge, the people doing regression testing on a game are not them. Because of this, there is a mentality within the industry that "if you won't do the job, it will be trivial to find someone else that can".

* This type of QA the writer speaks of tends to have a productivity curve that is concave. The difference between a really great QA tester and an okay QA tester is probably less than 2x. The type of management style described in this article tends to be pervasive in professions with the aforementioned productivity curve.

On a personal level, I do feel for the individual. That being said, the best
solution to his problem is to gain a skill set that gives him more leverage in
the work force, and get out of low skilled quality assurance testing.

~~~
stcredzero
_> Though there are QA positions that require a higher level of expertise and
knowledge, the people doing regression testing on a game are not them._

I suspect that's a self fulfilling prophecy there.

 _> The difference between a really great QA tester and an okay QA tester is
probably less than 2x._

If you're going to treat people like QA people like they're low skilled, and
that they really make no difference as people, then you're going to get wind
up with people like that. QA can be more than just kitty on the keyboard
button pushing. Customer service has been thought of this way, and
unsurprisingly, companies got lots of mediocre and bad outcomes. Zappos shows
that this doesn't necessarily have to be the case.

~~~
sdoowpilihp
> If you're going to treat people like QA people like they're low skilled, and
> that they really make no difference as people, then you're going to get wind
> up with people like that.

I wasn't saying that. What I was trying to say is that this style of Quality
Assurance tends to have a throughput that scales linearly. There are a lot of
professions like that, even highly skilled ones. For example, traditional hand
drawn animation (think Bambi or any other classic disney movie) requires
highly skilled artists. And though some of those artists maybe faster than
others or more proficient, it is nowhere on the scale of what you might see
with a profession such as software development. A few A+ developers can
probably build a system that can support just as many users just as fast as a
much larger C team. The same isn't true for a feature animated film, in which
a single person will hit a physical limit to the number of drawings they can
create in a day, or for QA'ing a game, where the number of areas that can be
tested or bugs that can be found is also bound, and where the quality of the
product created does not directly influence productivity by orders of
magnitude.

~~~
stcredzero
_> The same isn't true for a feature animated film, in which a single person
will hit a physical limit to the number of drawings they can create in a day,
or for QA'ing a game, where the number of areas that can be tested or bugs
that can be found is also bound, and where the quality of the product created
does not directly influence productivity by orders of magnitude._

This makes me wonder how Valve does QA. Also, note that QA of this kind has
the same kind of scaling as customer service. The raw measured throughput may
not vary that much. Quality could vary a lot, however.

------
grrrando
> _Now, at this time I had no degree to speak of (as of this writing I am an
> undergraduate at the Art Institute of Austin, majoring in a BS of Audio
> Production) so I knew I probably had to start back at the bottom of the
> ladder. I felt that, if I could get my foot in the door, within a year,
> whatever studio that hired me would realize that I would be quite an asset
> for their audio team._

This kind of sadly smacks of someone putting too much credence towards the
myth that you need a degree to get hired. Or worse, the kind of person who
believes that a degree entitles you to a job.

Also,

> _In late 2010, I closed shop on my business, sold off every bit of music
> equipment I had, and sold off all of my possessions, except for my Xbox 360.
> I moved in with my sister and decided I needed to start over. With all of my
> free time, I managed to pick up Battlefield 3 on release (I was already
> playing Bad Company 2, and played the BF3 Beta to level cap). I would play
> it about eight hours a day, and eventually saw that I was ranked 3,338 on
> the Xbox leaderboards. I then made the decision to try and get back into the
> gaming industry._

Or, he quits his job and plays videogames for the majority of his day. Instead
of, perhaps, writing his own scores or producing audio for an open project or
a game mod to put into a portfolio (maybe he did do this, but I'm assuming
not, since he sold off all of his possessions except his least useful thing -
an Xbox).

This doesn't sound like a story about getting screwed over, it just sounds
like he doesn't want to put (the right kind of) effort towards something he
really wants.

------
eggbrain
Note: this isn't the full article. I finished the text thinking "hmm, that
didn't sound so bad", but just before commenting, I searched for the article
-- there is a lot more content in the Kotaku article than what is posted here
(From "One of the cool things we did..." to "I felt like I was a part of
something special.")

~~~
minimaxir
Drat, it looks like I missed a section. (first time using Pastebin. My fault
completely.)

If a moderator could change the article URL to the Kotaku article, or a fixed
Pastebin (<http://pastebin.com/JHP8yCk4>) that would be appreciated.

The missing section for reference:

\---

 _One of the cool things we did at CA were playtests. A lot of playtests! For
nine months I literally played Halo 4 every day for money. We would grab the
newest build and go into a closed room with 16 Xboxes and play various modes,
checking code and, most importantly, monitoring host and client frames per
second.

These playtests would always be a mixture of QA, developers, coders, producers
and artists. It was not uncommon to see Max hang out and observe or even play.

Most of the sessions were fun, but there was also a nasty air of "nerd-
dickdom" competitiveness. Controllers were slammed; F bombs were dropped;
homosexual slurs were tossed about (and I know for a fact we had some gay
workers in the studio). So yeah, it was grown-up nerds making a video game.

At this point in the article, some readers may be thinking, “Well what is the
problem here? This sounds awesome!” Truth be told, it wasn’t, and it was
because I was a contractor. It was like being Jon Snow or Theon Greyjoy under
the Stark roof. Yes, people may talk to you, or relatively like you, but you
are not accepted. The smiles, and jests and "bottle talk" always seemed phony,
and the reason was because I was temp—in fact, my whole department was.

One of the reasons I took this job was because they sold me on the fact that,
if I did well, and showed promise, that it would be a real possibility to get
hired on full-time. I sure as hell did not accept it for the whopping pay rate
of $11 an hour. So being older and a bit more experienced in the work world, I
took the job by the horns and ran with it. I did everything I could to stand
out. I asked a ton of questions about code, the debug, the game modes,
everything. I talked to all the producers and developers and level designers I
could to ensure we were on the same page and also so they would know my name.

Once, I worked an entire weekend on a voluntary basis. Halo 4 primary
developer 343 wanted to cut our signature mode: Dominion. At that time, it was
broken as hell and really unbalanced. The concept was outstanding, but there
were a crap load of balancing issues. 343 was always tinkering with kits and
available weapons, so the devs were having a hard time balancing ordnance
drops.

We worked all weekend while coders would cook up frankenbuilds, and even Max
stayed for the majority of the sessions. After long playtests he would take us
in the kitchen and personally ask everyone in the group their thoughts. I felt
like I was a part of something special._

~~~
michaelhoffman
Why did you use Pastebin instead of linking the original article?

~~~
minimaxir
I attempted to post the raw Kotaku article but it did not appear at all. I
know Gawker network links are auto-deaded, so I figured that was the case.

I did search through the archives to see if there were any recent kotaku.com
submissions and couldn't find any.

------
incision
_> I felt that, if I could get my foot in the door, within a year, whatever
studio that hired me would realize that I would be quite an asset for their
audio team._

I know several people who've been pretty successful in the gaming industry,
none of them started out in QA.

Generally, they just worked on small bad/games eventually moving up to bigger
and better ones. They all had solid track records of being active in various
communities writing FAQs/guides or modding before finding a way to do those
things for a living.

~~~
hga
Near the end of a fairly successful and long programming career I made the
mistake of taking a QA job (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5785759> for
some details) and boy, was it a mistake. No matter how sophisticated the work,
QA people get no respect.

It might be better than no job, but I suspect if you start out with one it
could have a long term detrimental effect on your career (I escaped that
because my QA job ended with a demanding software project and the company was
independantly of my group going down the tubes, Lucent made a bad bet on next
generation technology, and in trying to catch up, shipped a ton of equipment
that didn't work ... and financed too much of their equipment sales, which
ended badly when too many of those companies went bankrupt; see
[http://www.amazon.com/Optical-Illusions-Lucent-Crash-
Telecom...](http://www.amazon.com/Optical-Illusions-Lucent-Crash-
Telecom/dp/0743226674/) for lots more details).

~~~
mathattack
Very good point. QA doesn't get respect.

As a result, QA does provide one thing earlier than other areas: management
responsibility. Because churn is so high, it's important to put in good
processes. Additionally, very few people stay. As a result, it isn't uncommon
for QA managers (in any part of tech, not just games) to be in their mid-20s.
This is demonstrated in the story, with the managers being in their mid 20s.

That said, as you say, it can be detrimental for software development careers.

~~~
BrentRitterbeck
Why does QA not get any respect? This is something I have trouble
understanding.

I work in QA. I am fully able to read and write code. The engineers I work
with have a background in computer science, and I have a background in the
domain. The engineer is learning about the domain as he does his job. I am
learning about computer science as I do my job. QA and engineering have to
operate as a cohesive unit. It's not supposed to be one group against the
other. Both groups are there to make the product better. The two groups are
just approaching a better product from different directions.

The engineers I have the easiest time working with are the ones that leave the
ego at the door, realize that both sides bring something to the table, and are
simply concerned with solving the problem at hand.

~~~
mathattack
I think it is a self fulfilling prophecy.

But companies in markets that value quality can use QA for competitive
advantage.

------
tumes
I agree with the organizational sentiment, but almost everything else reads of
woeful naiveté for a 32 year old person in the work force. Not trying to hard
hearted, and I sure as hell don't know the rest of this guy's story, but I
think maybe his expectations were a bit overblown to begin with.

~~~
smrtinsert
I agree. Welcome to being a contractor. In this case, since the skill required
was very low, the reward is low. If you were a high skilled contractor you
would be paid handsomely, but the hours would still be awful in most cases.

------
look_lookatme
I get that HN doesn't do Gawker, but I find something distasteful about taking
Kotaku's content and putting it up on another site. If HN is too good for
Gawker Media, then it should stick to that.

------
david_shaw
I can't say I'm incredibly surprised: any time you're a temp worker
(especially through a third-party agency), you're disposable. It's the nature
of the beast.

It's upsetting that this man didn't have a fulfilling experience with the
studio, but there are a couple of things to consider. I'm not trying to be
harsh, just realistic:

\- He was contracted through a third-party, and was never an official employee
of the studio.

\- He was paid relatively little (as evidenced by asking for a $1 raise), so
was probably not a senior member of the QA team.

\- He is still able to say to any future employers that he worked on Halo 4,
and even had influence on map names, etc. Presumably, he did good work there
and they might even act as a reference.

\- The gamedev industry is very competitive, even in QA roles. This man has
now worked at Activision and Certain Affinity, and will hopefully be able to
get a full-time staff position at his next job.

I know it seems blunt, but a lot of the problem here is just supply and
demand. There are a _lot_ of people trying to get their foot in the door at
game studios, and a _lot_ of people that think they'd love to play video games
for a living (even buggy ones). That makes studios able to pay very little,
and hire temp workers for ramping up their projects.

------
TheMagicHorsey
Supply and demand. The barriers to entry to be a QA tester are very low.
Everyone with no art or programming skills that loves games and wants to get
into the industry applies as a QA tester. If people unionize and prevent
employers from hiring at the organic wage, that job will probably just get
pushed to casual/part-time workers or outsourced overseas.

------
simias
Why the pastebin?

If it's because you don't like kotaku it seems like a weird way to protest: if
you consider this article insightful enough to post here don't you think you
should give them the page hits to "positively reinforce" them?

I really don't know much about kotaku and they may be more evil than I
suspect, but it just seems awfully childish and passive aggressive.

~~~
minimaxir
As said below:

I attempted to post the raw Kotaku article but it did not appear at all. I
know Gawker network links are auto-deaded, so I figured that was the case.

I did search through the archives to see if there were any recent kotaku.com
submissions and couldn't find any.

~~~
simias
Ah, my mistake, I didn't know that. I apologize for the attack then :)

------
superkamiguru
I think it is a bad thing to tell people that their contract position is
contract-to-hire. For one, I feel that is always implied. For another, it
maybe something that is well-intended but eventually can't happen due to bad
circumstances. Lastly, it creates this entitlement feeling of the contractor
which he/she doesn't deserve (maybe it is a good thing because it can help
weed out potentials... same for interns).

This is something beyond just the games industry. The other issue I have is
from the position that he was in. To have clout as QA takes a lot of work.
Especially when you are basically doing black-box testing. He has to be on his
very best to show that he should be hired. This post doesn't seem to reflect
that.

------
beagle90
It seems to be as though you may be seeking reward from the wrong places. Yes
you weren't treated great and yes you didn't become part of the team, but you
WERE part of something special. The work you did there contributed towards
2012's most successful video game! If you really want to be part of a team you
should push for a permanent position somewhere.

On the other hand... if you're confident you're dang good at what you do and
don't need to seek outward approval (from the wrong sources) keep being a
contractor, keep blasting those projects and eventually someone will notice
how you're a common denominator of success.

------
hbnyc
Hiring contractors with irrelevant fps experience and a lack of understanding
of core halo flow at $11 an hour, now I understand how Halo 4's multiplayer
failed so hard.

~~~
stcredzero
As I've pointed out elsewhere, this is what results when you discount
experience and treat personnel like they're just mindless button pushers.

------
EternalFury
Yep, software developers need to organize. Will they?

~~~
organizewut
Really? Organize for what? In today's market, people who can write good code
are getting poached left and right. It's one of the easiest, if not THE
easiest, market to move around in. Don't like your current gig? Quit and go
somewhere else.

The demand far outstrips the supply. You already have the upper hand on pretty
much every employer.

~~~
TheMagicHorsey
QA testers are not in the same boat though. I think the post is about QA
testers.

~~~
jlgreco
Maybe QA testers should, but not software developers at large.

~~~
jacobquick
There are a lot of benefits to organization beyond simple salary negotiations.
Other professions in very high demand like doctors organize themselves to an
incredible extent, and are able to have significant pull with both employers
and governments as a consequence. They have meaningful input into the laws and
regulations that apply to their craft. Doctors don't have organizations with
the word "union" in the title, but the AMA, essentially the doctors' trade
association, was maybe the second most powerful player who opposed meaningful
healthcare reform (and they won).

An equivalent association of developers could basically dictate terms for
software patents/licensing/ownership issues and software-related IP
regulations in the US. They could secure absolute limits on the length of
their work week. They could easily block Zuckerberg, et al.'s H1B visa
expansion garbage.

And yeah, on top of all that, they could include QA in their little club and
maybe get them some health insurance or job security or literally anything
approaching just and fair employment terms.

~~~
jlgreco
An industry wide political interests group (not a labor union) could be
useful, but to be honest I expect there would be far less common ground than
you might expect or hope.

For every Bay Area programmer that is really into sane standards, open
software and minimal surveillance, there are probably half a dozen programmers
throughout the rest of the world that work 9-5, have a few patents in their
name, and primarily care about their family and (consequentially) their
employers stability. They are the people participating in most of the stuff
the rest of us think is wrong with the industry, and they don't hate
themselves for it. On another end of the multidimensional spectrum you have
armies of STEM graduates working/contracting for the Federal government who
_really do_ buy into "nothing to hide". (For an example of this attitude, see
Bob Metcalfe's recent reddit 'AMA').

I'm spinning these perspectives very negatively because I don't share them,
but regardless of my bias the fact remains there are _a lot_ of programmers
that the diversity of "what programmers think about stuff" is underestimated.

------
SippinLean
fyi: just skip to the part that starts with "Towards the end, things started
to fall apart..." the rest isn't really relevant.

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post_break
When you are hired from a temp agency there is no ladder to climb. There may
be a step stool buried somewhere under all those feces but you're still only
going to be knee deep in shit. I remember doing this and it was soul crushing.
You're not an employee until you sign a contract or have a badget with your
face printed on it.

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rmrfrmrf
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I don't see anywhere that gives a clear timeframe
of how long this person contracted for a company.

For starters, you're doing play testing for a game. Is it really that
difficult to see why you're hired on contract? When the game has been
released, what are you going to play test? Sure, there will be other games,
but unless you have a crazy EA-style development house (doesn't sound like
it's the case), it doesn't make sense to be paying people to twiddle their
thumbs for 9-12 months waiting for the next upcoming release to be tested.

Adding to that, the fact of the matter is that _every_ job has a pay ceiling.
It may seem like a cold business practice, but there _are_ pay thresholds
where an employee's compensation exceeds the maximum value the employee's
position brings to the company. Adding play testers full time is a poor
business practice for this very reason -- the ceiling is very short, and at a
certain point it will no longer be "worth it" to pay higher wages to even
high-performing play testers.

The issue of the length of employment is a big one. A good friend of mine JUST
got hired full time at a large company after freelancing for them for 5 years!
Getting hired out of a contract isn't something that just happens after a few
months. Companies that work on fiscal years might have to wait for budget
approvals before hiring people. Furthermore, it's not just the title that
changes: companies are often paying thousands of dollars more when an employee
goes full time to cover retirement and health care benefits.

One last thing: even if you had a shitty time at this company, not showing up
to work is literally the WORST thing you can do if you have any interest in
working in a particular industry. Your reputation really does follow you and
can make it _very_ hard to get anywhere. I personally would never hire a
candidate that I knew pulled something like that -- I expect that, when an
employee doesn't get what they want the first time, they keep working hard
while still being persistent when it comes to compensation. Giving up and
slacking off isn't the answer.

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tehwebguy
That position definitely does not seem to pass the "independent contractor"
test.

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fragmede
Video game company mismanaged, film at 11.

