- I said in my previous post that I would write about the Energy expo next, but I’ll save that till tomorrow when I’m at work, where I’ll have plenty of time to kill; with the loss of an evening front office manager, the rest of us has to put in extra hours to fill the void, which means until a replacement is found, I’ll be working 9-10 (13 hours… sheesh!) every Monday.
But I just wanted to share a few things real quick like. On top of the list is an excellent New York Times article related to the EA controversy. Also, a few days ago, the IGDA issued this open letter to the industry.
I forgot to mention last time, but I still believe it is worth pointing out that, unfortunately, none of this news is all that surprising. In fact, it’s not even all that new. My Ubi Soft days were no bed of roses either, though thankfully they weren’t nearly as grueling as what’s going down at EA. Though they did have their games as well.
After a long 12 hour work day to cap a hellish work week, whenever I got ready to go home and get some well deserved rest, I always got snibe remarks that equated to “Goodbye quitter” or “Enjoy yourself, you selfish loser” (but not in those exact words) to reinforce that I wasn’t a team player. The fact that I didn’t fall for them is perhaps a good reason why I didn’t last too long there.
But the real problem here is that what EA is doing much worse, since it can afford to do so.
Back to EA’s practice not being all too surprising, folks also need to remember that video games are still relatively new. And like almost every other creative field in its infancy, there’s always abuse. It happened in film, it happened in animation, and now it’s happening in video games. Hence why the notion of a possible union now seems to be a possible reality. And as much as I’d like to see it, I know that it will never happen. The days of unions died with the passing of the 20th century, and there’s just too much talent out there starving for work, and ready to abused, for that to ever come close.
- I know this is old new, but I definitely feel it bares repeating: if you have the PlayStation Underground holiday 2004 demo disc (with the Viewtiful Joe 2), whatever you do, don’t play it it. There’s a very good chance it will erase everything in your memory card. Actually, I think VJ2 is the culprit.
- Again, this might be old news (really old news actually) but I just discovered that Nanoloop, a sound editor for the Game Boy, has just been released for the GBA. Sweet! This one seems just as deep and powerful as the original. I think I might have to get my hands on this one…
- Okay, this definitely is old news (hey, I’ve been both too busy and sick to post in a timely manner) but this past Saturday was everyone’s chance to trade in their Ashlee Simpson CDs for a Mr Bungle CD (and other stuff as well) thanks to H.O.P.E. I also love how they seem to hate Jimmy Fallon just as much as I do.
- According to a study, if you like Superman, you’re probably an asshole.
- Said it before, and I’m saying it again: this song rocks.
- I just updated my links page. Check it out.
- And finally, this is fucking awesome.
