
How it feels when everyone you know gets laid off - staringispolite
http://staringispolite.com/blog/2012/03/20/how-it-feels-when-everyone-you-know-gets-laid-off/
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deservingend
I've been in the social games industry for a couple of years now. Zynga may
have gotten more attention for some of its negative tactics, but Lolapps takes
the cake for shady social gaming.

They consistently provided grossly inflated (by an order of magnitude) numbers
for their user counts and revenue. I honestly would not be surprised if they
had lied to 6Waves in order get a merger in the first place.

They were almost banned from Facebook for selling user data to third parties.

Recently, they were contracted to help publish a game developed by an indie.
As publishers, they got to see a game that hadn't yet been released. They
stalled the indie shop in publishing the game while rushing to create a
blatant clone. They then ditched the indie shop and released their own clone.

~~~
staringispolite
Perhaps not surprising, but I think those are drastic mischaracterizations of
the company. I was there for the merger and the almost-Facebook-ban From
anything I saw, numbers weren't cooked.

The Facebook ban was due to one of many small ad tests (<<1% of users each
IIRC) we did with third parties, and had already stopped. Turns out one of
them was later banned from Facebook, as was anyone who did business with them,
regardless of how small or how short. IIRC we weren't even working with them
when we got the punishment. But once accused, this kind of thing tends to
stick with public perception.

Can't speak to the indie dev thing as I wasn't there at the time and haven't
followed it. I will say that the studio that shut down wasn't the same studio
as this controversy, but another in the "6L" umbrella.

The fact remains that the people there were some of the best I've worked with,
and no one I knew wanted to screw anyone over or copy games. If anything, we
had to scale back our vision at times. They were mostly engineers/artists/etc
just incredibly happy to be getting paid to make original games after trying
to 'break in' to the industry for so long. And the many people who played our
games & our competitors' - even other game designers - thought that ours were
pushing the boundaries of the industry forward.

~~~
deservingend
So you agree that you had 150 million users when Facebook banned you? LOL

And hey, I'm not saying you didn't have good engineers or artists. I think
Ravenwood looked great and creating something like that is no joke.

~~~
staringispolite
Do you have a reference for the 150M number? Disclaimer: This would've been
over a year ago, and I don't remember specifics. I was an engineer, so my main
focus was elsewhere.

1) We had a TON of users across many apps and not just our games (many
thousands of apps when you include our user-generated ones).

2) These types of numbers were often "sum(MAU-app1 + MAU-app2 + ... + MAU-
appN)". This point was always communicated clearly, but may not have been in
the press, or could be a source of confusion? Even if communicated clearly,
this may still seem like bloating the numbers: but my understanding is it more
accurately represents the amount of impressions one would expect (from say a
cross-promo with other games, or ad sales) than if you were to de-dupe them by
Facebook ID. In other words, say you have 2 games with 10M MAU each, and 2M
users play both: it's preferable to make decisions based on 20M as opposed to
18.

3) All apps' MAU/DAU numbers are public anyway, so there's not much to hide.

Thanks for complementing Ravenwood, btw. I really appreciate that. (I was a
pre-alpha engineer)

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yk_42
It's quite stressful when even half the people you know get laid off.

I worked at a startup that began expanding very quickly in early 2008 (i.e.,
the worst possible time in recent history). When the economy collapsed that
summer and they couldn't raise capital, they had to do layoffs.

That in itself isn't really interesting, but the way they carried out the
layoffs was... suboptimal. At some point on a Tuesday, they had the HR manager
walking around the cubicle areas, tapping people on the shoulder and calling
them in for a meeting. After that, they would return to their desk, pack up
their stuff, and leave the building forever.

No one really knew what was going on and those of us who hadn't been tapped by
this "Angel of Death" were confused and afraid that we would be next on the
list. It wasn't until after the herd was culled that management told the rest
of us what happened.

I'm no HR expert, but there must have been a better way to do that.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Did management explain that this was surely the only round of lay-offs, and
did people manage to stifle their laughter, or keep from rolling their eyes so
hard as to snap their optic nerve?

I bet installing a nursery for colicky babies in the now-empty cubicles would
have less of an impact on productivity.

~~~
yk_42
I don't quite recall what they told the rest of us, but another 20% of the
remaining employees submitted their resignation within a few weeks. Those who
stuck it out were given the option to receive payment as stock and take a pay
cut.

I think they may have considered your colicky-baby-nursery idea as a way to
make up for office space costs, but they eventually settled on renting 33% of
the floorspace to another company.

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Uchikoma
"How it feels when EVERYONE you know gets laid off"

Perhaps due to my imperfect English, from the title I thought that everyone he
knows was laid off, instead of the developers at a former employer he no
longer works for.

~~~
staringispolite
Everyone I know at Lolapps - the company that moved me out to SF in the first
place - and then some. Roughly 100 out of ~114 people. And probably 80% of my
friends in the SF bay area. You're right that I did use hyperbole, but it
wasn't to deceive, it was to avoid an awkwardly over-specific title.

~~~
Uchikoma
"You're right that I did use hyperbole, but it wasn't to deceive, it was to
avoid an awkwardly over-specific title."

I will use that line next time!

Update: NO, I really will!

~~~
staringispolite
LOL well you don't know me so perhaps I should expect that you don't believe
me. It's pretty obvious it's not /literally/ everyone I know - my parents, for
instance, happily retain their jobs on the other side of the country :) I
think the intent is pretty clear from the content of the article, but I'm
sorry if you felt mislead

Update: Oh ok! I misunderstood

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peacemaker
Such is life as a games company employee. Been there, done that and will
likely never go back unless a LOT of things change in that industry.

Good luck to all the guys who were laid off, I'm sure things will work out!

~~~
InclinedPlane
In terms of basic development best practices the game industry is easily a
decade or two behind the software development industry as a whole. Death
marches are commonplace. QA is often neglected. "Write the code, then fix the
bugs" is a typical development style. It'll be interesting to see how long it
will take to change, or if it does.

~~~
smiler
I think you'll find death marches, QA often neglected and "Write the code,
then fix the bugs" are far more common than you think

~~~
ma2rten
I wasn't sure what you meant with the term death march, so I looked it up on
Wikipedia. I am still not sure what you mean exactly, but I am sure it is not
a fitting metaphor.

EDIT: removed the quote

~~~
InclinedPlane
"Death march" is a common term of art in project management:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_march_(project_management...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_march_\(project_management\))

~~~
ma2rten
That explains it. Maybe I am overly sensitive to this, because I am German,
but I still think it is not appropriate to compare your own suffering of
working hard for a couple of weeks, to that of those who were forced to march
into their death during the Holocaust (or other times). That it is a common
term does not excuse anything.

~~~
InclinedPlane
That's the way language works. I don't think the term trivializes real death
marches any more than saying "I was sent to the gulag" when one means being
sent off to do office drudgery diminishes the seriousness of real gulags, or
saying "open-plan offices should die" diminishes the seriousness of murder or
death, or using a term such as "viral video" diminishes the seriousness of the
prevalence of viral infection such as HIV or the problems of cholera in the
3rd world.

~~~
ma2rten
You are right. I don't really feel offended anymore. It's just, that this type
of thing goes against my upbringing. To give you an idea, if you used this
metaphor in Germany it would be way worse than saying "We had to work like
niggers".

~~~
jholman
It's interesting to me to compare those, and claim that "if you used this
metaphor [of a 'death march'] in Germany it would be way worse than saying 'We
had to work like niggers' [in America]".

(Note: I am neither American nor German, and all my problems are definitely of
the first-world variety. I hope to be thoughtful, but I am sure to be
ignorant.)

In the one case, millions of people (say 5% of the country?) were terrorized,
then kidnapped from their homes, then treated astonishingly badly, and then
many of them were murdered. And it happened during a brief period of 5 years
or so, 60 years ago. Short duration, but pretty recent.

In the other case, first of all, consider only the so-called Middle Passage.
The total number of people involved is roughly comparable (over 10M), and
mortality rate was perhaps a little lower, but roughly comparable (millions
died). There then followed generations of maltreatment; appalling as the
physical treatment is, the long-term cultural impact of generations of forced
ignorance is arguably worse. (I think we can all agree that the oppressed
people of Germany are doing much better now [65 years after 1945] than were,
say, the Americans of African descent in 1930 [that's 65 years after 1865].)
The only thing that seems less horrifying about the era of slavery is that
it's a little more distant, at least the really brain-wreckingly horrifying
parts.

So, in conclusion, it's not at all clear to this outsider why references to
"death marches" are "way worse" than references to "niggers". Seems to me like
they're pretty comparable.

~~~
ma2rten
What I meant was: "If you used this metaphor [of a 'death march'] in Germany
it would be way worse than saying 'We had to work like niggers' [in Germany]."
The latter would still be very offensive in Germany as well. I honest don't
know if it would be "way worse" than saying it in the US, maybe it's about the
same category.

I don't really think there is a point in putting up a comparison whose crimes
were worse. It's more an emotional response when people get offended than a
rational one, anyway. Maybe it's only worth pointing out that genocide is seen
a more grave category of crime than other forms of homicide in international
law.

------
Kiro
If you think the gaming industry is bad you should see how it is in the
gambling business. Surprise reduncancies happen all the time, for example
morning meetings with all scheduled employees where everyone is told to just
go home.

When big legislation changes hit it's not uncommon for hundreds of people
being fired overnight.

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dustin
Quite the shock to have the whole studio laid off like that, but I dare say
that sort of thing isn't unusual in the games industry at large.

I worked at a big publisher studio for quite some time. They laid off people
nearly every year, yet it felt relatively 'safe' compared to the rest of the
industry.

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cskau
Seems overloaded. Anyone got a mirror?

~~~
rubynerd
<https://gist.github.com/87207d332aabbef4c618>

~~~
nyellin
With linebreaks added for readability:
<https://gist.github.com/b69c536f31bc584e557d>

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yangtheman
Oh....boy. Reminds me of the layoff at a social gaming company at which I used
to work... Major layoff, and even though I wasn't affected, still felt sad and
depressed to see so many people I worked closely with would be gone.

It's really tricky for the company... I don't think moral ever came back, and
there had been continued attrition after the layoff. :(

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onan_barbarian
I don't know the details of the $35M raising, but it's quite unclear on
whether the attempt to estimate their cash on hand was remotely accurate. A
$35M round might be tranched to hell and back and a company that isn't hitting
promised targets may not get all its tranches (experience speaking :-) ).

~~~
staringispolite
This is a very good point, and one I didn't address in the post. In fact I may
go back and add this.

From my understanding in talking with some of the ex-employees: it doesn't
seem to have been the issue in this case. But it's a huge point to consider if
you're looking for take-aways for your own startup.

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staringispolite
Apologies for the overload, all. Currently resizing the server, should be
better shortly

~~~
staringispolite
Doubled the server, looks to be still a bit slow as the cache warms up, but
loading again. Will keep an eye on it. Thanks for your patience!

~~~
staringispolite
...and going up another two server sizes. Rackspace Cloud is easily scalable
but painfully slow in practice. Lesson learned.

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smashing
I thought social gaming was the future. What is going on with this company in
relation to the market?

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ootachi
The second dotcom bubble is bursting.

~~~
zaidf
If this is what the second dotcom bubble popping feels like, we're doing
really well as an industry!

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skrebbel
Am I the only one who misread the title and looked over the "off" part?

