

Ubisoft's Game Developer 'Limbo' - cpeterso
http://kotaku.com/ubisofts-game-developer-limbo-1644500222

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Mithaldu
I don't really understand the negativity. You get paid to spend your time:

    
    
      1. finding work inside ubisoft
      2. finding work outside ubisoft
      3. improving your skills on your own
      4. work on projects you didn't have time for while
         in perpetual crunch on a ubisoft project
    

The alternative is to be let go immediately and do all of the above on
government aid (if your location even has that).

Am i missing something or are the negative voices mentioned in the article
just people who don't deal well under self-direction?

~~~
antimagic
Yeah, I'm right there with you. What an opportunity! You're sitting in an
office, surrounded by a bunch of other game developers / designers _with
nothing to do_. How are they _not_ churning out indie-style games by the
dozen???

The description of "interproject" sounds like my dream job (well, apart from
the lighting). Anyone that finds themselves in that position, and then wastng
it by doing nothing, well, those people would by high on my list for firing if
I was management of Ubisoft. Maybe that's the point, maybe this is a test to
see if they actually want to retain the employee or not. You would have to
suspect that the people that find themselves in interproject are already not
the best performers, who would have already been poached to participate on
other projects, so this is a way of winnowing the herd a bit maybe?

~~~
pjmlp
> How are they not churning out indie-style games by the dozen???

Work contract?

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mrpollo
I think he meant developing/prototyping ideas not actually releasing them

~~~
antimagic
_She_ meant developing indie games _for_ Ubisoft. Surely they should be able
to come up with a few that would be good enough to become actual products...

~~~
unwind
Isn't that a contradiction?

If they're a bunch of professional game developers sitting in an office run by
one of the industry's most famous developers/publishers and developing games,
then how can they be said to be doing "independent" games?

From my experience of the game industry, it would be quite hard to do
something that very much looks like a game project at a place like that,
without also involving the normal planning/financing/sales/marketing
requirements.

If it looks like a game project, in those circles it's probably going to _be_
a game project, and there are rules for those. Just my thoughts.

~~~
wingerlang
> .. then how can they be said to be doing "independent" games?

They would still be doing the game/prototype independently from the company.
There would be no difference in the making of the game from an "actual" indie
dev.

Now for the IP, legal things surrounding it that's a different question.

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bmh100
It is great that Ubisoft is retaining its employees this way. What is
unfortunate is the wasted potential. Hundreds of talented employees sitting
around with no management deadlines? This the perfect opportunity to create an
internal innovation lab, with employees creating small experiments
("projects"). At a minimum, it hones skills and encourages collaboration
between former members of different teams. In the best case scenario, new
profitable games are invented. Eric Ries would have a lot to say about this.

~~~
bryanlarsen
You've got these employees who have been working 80 hours a week in a big
company, where they're told exactly what to do.

Then suddenly you essentially tell them: go make some cool stuff, or you'll
probably be fired. Nobody's going to tell you what that cool stuff is, though;
figure it out yourself.

Some people will thrive in that environment. But for most, it's just going to
ratchet up the stress, especially since they're coming in burnt-out. Most
working for a big company do it because they work better in an environment
where they're told what to do. The path to success is crystal clear.

IMO, interproject should be all about burn-out prevention. The job path for
video game developers is fairly standard. You spend your 20s developing video
games, and then you get married and get a real job: twice the pay, half the
hours. Interproject could keep those employees in Ubisoft rather than forcing
them out.

P.S. By married, I mean "mortgage and a baby". Very few people in Quebec
actually get married.

~~~
Fuzzwah
> Very few people in Quebec actually get married.

I'm interested in this line. I take it there is a cultural reason for this?

~~~
bryanlarsen
Marriage in Quebec means "church marriage", and church means the Catholic
church. The church had iron-fisted control of Quebec up until the 70s or so,
so in backlash nobody in Quebec is religious any more.

Civil marriages exist in Quebec, but they're not seen as a real marriage. So
if you're not really going to get married, why have the ceremony?

disclaimer: not Quebecois.

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jpatte
Seems like Ubisoft is managing their employees just like every French
consulting company is managing its consultants between projects. Why is it
considered unorthodox? Is it because Ubisoft is a game editor and other
editors never do that, or because they host their own projects with their own
schedules, and therefore should be somewhat able to better reallocate their
workforce?

~~~
eloisant
Probably because the way French consulting companies manage their employees is
awful.

They're a reason they're called "meat sellers".

~~~
raverbashing
YES

Thanks to French Labour Laws, nobody hires anymore, except those consulting
companies.

~~~
S4M
That's actually true and some big companies employ consultants from those
consulting firms for couple of years - costing much more than a permanent or
even contract employee would.

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mkohlmyr
Seems to me if Ubisoft had half a brain they would turn this in to a 20% time
of sorts.

A bunch of talented game developers we already pay wages have a few months
off? What if.. _gasp_.. We let them make games? Any games. There's literally
nothing whatsoever to lose. Worst case scenario your employees do something
they enjoy for a while.

~~~
raverbashing
I thought about this, but you know why this doesn't happen?

I don't get the motivation at working at Ubisoft. They're about blockbusters,
about series, etc

Sure, Assassin's Creed is very interesting, but it's more of a movie
production than a game.

Looks like you would get a lot of crunch time and work on very hard things for
a (slight) financial gain and your name on the credits.

------
lostcolony
A lot of people seem to be viewing this from a developer's perspective, when
those are the people spending the least amount of time interproject.

You mostly have the non-programmers. You can't build an indie; you can't even
really come up with a real project with any hope of coming to fruition, to
make use of the talent, because any member of it could be pulled away at any
time.

And it's hard to motivate yourself when you know anything you -do- do belongs
to Ubisoft, and there's no expectations set on you. It's easy on the sidelines
to say "Well, -I- would...", except no, you probably wouldn't. Your employer
benched you, you have no tasks, and anything you produce on your own is
theirs, and you're free to go home. Any reasonable person would go home; even
if you want to spend the time working on something better to do it where you
can claim it wasn't at work, using work resources, and take credit for it.

That said, Ubisoft should probably be finding things to task these people
with. You've got artists and designers and such? Concept art and design of new
ideas. Treat this as the equivalent of an R&D department for the company
rather than a place to cool your heels. If need be, task a few people with
coming up with pitches to provide structure, etc. Basically, try and change it
so people feel that even while benched, they are being valued, and their work,
though not able to be a project due to lack of consistent resources, is still
worthwhile and can still effect the direction of the company.

------
FollowSteph3
I think the main problem is that people from HN are on average much more self-
motivated than your average person. And as a result the average person who
goes on bench quickly gets bored with nothing to do rather than take the
initiative and do something. They need someone to direct them. Remember most
people socialize, watch tv, etc. most people are not self-motivators. It's sad
but unfortunately it's the reality. On a positive note we need employees, not
everyone can be an entrepreneur.

I think Ubisoft is doing a very good thing. It's better than most companies.
If they want to maximize their retainment investment they just need to have
some direction for the people on the bench. The problem is, is it worth this
additional investment? Probably not. On a positive note your self motivators
can take advantage of it which is great. And those that don't, well they
don't.

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yardie
So let me get this straight. You work on a project that may require up to
80hours/week for weeks and months at a time. And then at the end instead of
massive layoffs, as game companies are known to do, they send you to an office
to wind down, spaz out, and recharge. This I don't mind. Sounds better than
the emotional rollercoaster of working hard and layoffs.

Also, the Japanese were doing this for a long time. Salarymen, between
projects, regularly came into work and did nothing all day. Eventually when a
new division started you had a viable pool of candidates.

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ghshephard
I'm surprised employees on "Interproject" (also known as being on the Bench
pretty much every consulting company out there) don't just treat this as
vacation and let Ubisoft know they'll check their voicemail every couple days
to see if they any new gigs coming up.

If the place is depressing, and you aren't actually doing work - why not spend
the time resting, recharging and relaxing.

~~~
crdoconnor
>I'm surprised employees on "Interproject" (also known as being on the Bench
pretty much every consulting company out there) don't just treat this as
vacation and let Ubisoft know they'll check their voicemail every couple days
to see if they any new gigs coming up.

That behavior sounds like it would lead you into getting laid off as often as
not. Ubisoft clearly expects you to be proactive in finding projects.

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illumen
The bench. That's what it's called at some companies. I've seen it at maybe
seven companies. Not every place I've been at, but a good portion. Agencies,
or studios where project work is common. You do a project, and then move onto
another one. However, sometimes there isn't a project starting at the exact
time, or the project managers think a person needs a break.

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aluhut
What an awful article. So much text, so few informations.

We need an tl;dr app that measures the amount of informations and gives you a
tl;dr version if the blow-up and repetitions reach a certain percentage of the
complete length of the article.

~~~
abluecloud
[http://www.textteaser.com/](http://www.textteaser.com/) \- Chrome extension.
Generated for this article (pretty rubbish, tbf):

One morning late last year, not long after Guillaume, a developer at Ubisoft
Montreal, had finished working on his newest game, he was told he'd be moving
offices.

Guillaumewho asked that I not use his real name for this storysoon found
himself on the third floor of one of Ubisoft's buildings in downtown Montreal.

For the days, weeks, or maybe even months to come, they were in "limbo," as
Guillaume put it.

Call it Video Game Developer Purgatory.

But as each person finishes his or her role on a game, there won't always be
new positions or projects open just yet.

So instead of just laying off the ones who can't be placed on new teams,
Ubisoft sends them to limbo.

Though I wasn't able to talk to anyone who had a positive experience in
Ubisoft's game developer limbo, it certainly seems better for employees than
mass layoffs.

~~~
aluhut
Pretty good.

I should try this. Thank you.

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snorrah
This sounds exactly like being "on the bench" at a big IT company - no current
project, yet still retained and encouraged to find new work for a while before
any mention of redundancy or unemployment rolls around.

Edit - ghshephard pretty much nailed it in his post just before mine!

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JamesBaxter
Reminds me of the sequence where Big Head gets kicked off the Nucleus project
in "Silicon Valley"

~~~
CmonDev
But those guys were vesting not just resting. Salary is not same.

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dang
Url changed from
[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/227464/New_report_looks_i...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/227464/New_report_looks_inside_Ubisofts_littleknown_interproject.php),
which points to this.

~~~
bmh100
This was an appropriate exercise in link replacement. The original post adds
little to the original content, basically summarizing it.

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CmonDev
They should assign them to work on an ultra-violent mini shooter with an
unreasonable number of different weapons and monsters.

