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And now, 'Easter eggs' are forbidden through policy and a fireable offense if you're not in a creative line of work where it is intentional. The same being for

And now, 'Easter eggs' are forbidden through policy and a fireable offense if you're not in a creative line of work where it is intentional. The same being for April Fools'. They seem to serve a legitimate purpose though. Provenance of creators/creation. While it is a cliche Hollywood plot line that true ownership of an entity is proved by an Easter egg, these seem to be harmless ways to stick it to the man.

gambiting 4y ago
I work in video games industry for one of the top 3 publishers and easter eggs definitely aren't a "fireable offsense", unless I guess they are in particularly poor taste or something. If you mean things hidden in the game without explicitly telling the player about them and hoping they find them, that still happens all the time. But even things which are hidden which no one really approved also happen on pretty much all levels, both from programmers as well as artists.
- wldcordeiro 4y ago
  No experience in gaming but given the amount of creative control I'm given in other dev work it's not surprising when you're talking about projects at the scale of most video games.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    My last project had 800 people on it and little things were added pretty much all over the place without the art directors ever knowing - even us as programmers shipped some programmer art that definitely wasn't meant to be there but it got "accidentally" left in the game files and shipped. And then there is a whole category of "official" easter eggs that obviously get approved by creative directors and are meant to be there for players to eventually find.
- userbinator 4y ago
  Emphasis on if you're not in a creative line of work.
  - klabb3 4y ago
    So managers, accountants and VPs?
- snarfy 4y ago
  They are by definition something an engineer snuck in. Anything else is a regular feature that has been premeditated. If it was snuck in, what else has been? What does it say about your security policies and practices if engineers can sneak stuff in? This is why they are fireable offenses. It might not be for a piece of entertainment software like a video game, but sneak one in while working at FAANG and you'll most likely get fired.
  - vlovich123 4y ago
    Maybe these days. There’s a famous story from early YouTube though and no one got fired. And Google frequently throws in Easter eggs like the time searching for cats or dogs let you trigger a mode where you can make paw marks on the page, although those are more formal affairs probably and not some random thing you throw in there on a whim.
    - cauthon 4y ago
      Just to rephrase the OP’s point, I think they are drawing a distinction between “a feature not directly advertised to the user” and “a feature not authorized by whatever chain of command is supposed to be followed at the developer”. The paw marks are an example of the former, but I believe OP was saying the latter is the fireable offense
      - vlovich123 4y ago
        The YouTube story I mentioned (couldn’t find it) is an example of the latter. There was like 1 guy and when Google introduced approvals he co-opted a coworker to stamp his PRs. This was a while back so unlikely to fly anymore, but only because the companies are so big and have all sorts of government and large business contracts that prevent that kind of stuff from a regulatory perspective.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    > What does it say about your security policies and practices if engineers can sneak stuff in? I mean, what does it say about hospitals that doctors can kill you with one stray cut? Ultimately you trust them to be benevolent.
motohagiography 4y ago
It's older than video games, and there's a spectrum between easter eggs and watermarks. Consider mapmakers adding fictional places to prove map copyright. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/trap-streets-with-no-names https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/trap-streets-with-no-n...
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  That's a different motivation
  - motohagiography 4y ago
    If readers refer to the article, the reason for the easter egg was because the textile execs hired to manage game development treated the idea of crediting developers as absurd, and so the developers inserted evidence of their work into the games as easter eggs, literal hidden paths. While it was not direct copyright enforcement, it was leaving a "makers mark" on the product, which has precedents in other fields such as map making. Or, I'm probably just too dumb to tell the difference and this insight was both incisive and deeply edifying.
    - AlbertCory 4y ago
      how about this: Easter eggs as we've been discussing are meant to be found, albeit with a lot of effort and good luck. Deliberate mistakes in maps are meant NOT to be found. If an infringer found them, they'd be sure to omit them from their maps.
ResearchCode 4y ago
Anything is a fireable offense if you're at-will. A termination like that is not likely to hold up in better jurisdictions.
JoeDaDude 4y ago
Although not technically an Easter Egg (more like unused code), the Hot Coffee mod [1] to Grand Theft Auto San Andreas certainly cost the developer and publisher a lot of headaches and money. I can see why Easter Eggs would be forbidden after that experience. [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Coffee_(minigame) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Coffee_(minigame)
- Zak 4y ago
  I always found it absurd that in a game where the player character is a street criminal and most of the game objectives involve robbery or murder, a minigame depicting clothed dry-humping is what pearl-clutchers found to be a step too far.
  - brewdad 4y ago
    [flagged]
yunruse 4y ago
When I was a teen my hometown's government fired me for "security concerns" because if you looked at the JS console on their website you'd see an innocent but goofy easter egg. It's still there, which continues to tickle me.
kabdib 4y ago
It was supposed to be a firing offense at Atari. We put easter eggs in the cartridges anyway (it helps when there is no source control at all, and your manager thinks that assembly language has something to do with LEGO).
JohnFen 4y ago
In my opinion, easter eggs that aren't against the rules aren't actually easter eggs at all. The whole point, and the thing that makes them awesome, is that they're illicit.

gambiting 4y ago

I work in video games industry for one of the top 3 publishers and easter eggs definitely aren't a "fireable offsense", unless I guess they are in particularly poor taste or something. If you mean things hidden in the game without explicitly telling the player about them and hoping they find them, that still happens all the time. But even things which are hidden which no one really approved also happen on pretty much all levels, both from programmers as well as artists.

wldcordeiro 4y ago
No experience in gaming but given the amount of creative control I'm given in other dev work it's not surprising when you're talking about projects at the scale of most video games.
- gambiting 4y ago
  My last project had 800 people on it and little things were added pretty much all over the place without the art directors ever knowing - even us as programmers shipped some programmer art that definitely wasn't meant to be there but it got "accidentally" left in the game files and shipped. And then there is a whole category of "official" easter eggs that obviously get approved by creative directors and are meant to be there for players to eventually find.
userbinator 4y ago
Emphasis on if you're not in a creative line of work.
- klabb3 4y ago
  So managers, accountants and VPs?
snarfy 4y ago
They are by definition something an engineer snuck in. Anything else is a regular feature that has been premeditated. If it was snuck in, what else has been? What does it say about your security policies and practices if engineers can sneak stuff in? This is why they are fireable offenses. It might not be for a piece of entertainment software like a video game, but sneak one in while working at FAANG and you'll most likely get fired.
- vlovich123 4y ago
  Maybe these days. There’s a famous story from early YouTube though and no one got fired. And Google frequently throws in Easter eggs like the time searching for cats or dogs let you trigger a mode where you can make paw marks on the page, although those are more formal affairs probably and not some random thing you throw in there on a whim.
  - cauthon 4y ago
    Just to rephrase the OP’s point, I think they are drawing a distinction between “a feature not directly advertised to the user” and “a feature not authorized by whatever chain of command is supposed to be followed at the developer”. The paw marks are an example of the former, but I believe OP was saying the latter is the fireable offense
    - vlovich123 4y ago
      The YouTube story I mentioned (couldn’t find it) is an example of the latter. There was like 1 guy and when Google introduced approvals he co-opted a coworker to stamp his PRs. This was a while back so unlikely to fly anymore, but only because the companies are so big and have all sorts of government and large business contracts that prevent that kind of stuff from a regulatory perspective.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  > What does it say about your security policies and practices if engineers can sneak stuff in? I mean, what does it say about hospitals that doctors can kill you with one stray cut? Ultimately you trust them to be benevolent.

motohagiography 4y ago

It's older than video games, and there's a spectrum between easter eggs and watermarks. Consider mapmakers adding fictional places to prove map copyright. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/trap-streets-with-no-names https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/trap-streets-with-no-n...

AlbertCory 4y ago
That's a different motivation
- motohagiography 4y ago
  If readers refer to the article, the reason for the easter egg was because the textile execs hired to manage game development treated the idea of crediting developers as absurd, and so the developers inserted evidence of their work into the games as easter eggs, literal hidden paths. While it was not direct copyright enforcement, it was leaving a "makers mark" on the product, which has precedents in other fields such as map making. Or, I'm probably just too dumb to tell the difference and this insight was both incisive and deeply edifying.
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    how about this: Easter eggs as we've been discussing are meant to be found, albeit with a lot of effort and good luck. Deliberate mistakes in maps are meant NOT to be found. If an infringer found them, they'd be sure to omit them from their maps.

ResearchCode 4y ago

Anything is a fireable offense if you're at-will. A termination like that is not likely to hold up in better jurisdictions.

JoeDaDude 4y ago

Although not technically an Easter Egg (more like unused code), the Hot Coffee mod [1] to Grand Theft Auto San Andreas certainly cost the developer and publisher a lot of headaches and money. I can see why Easter Eggs would be forbidden after that experience. [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Coffee_(minigame) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Coffee_(minigame)

Zak 4y ago
I always found it absurd that in a game where the player character is a street criminal and most of the game objectives involve robbery or murder, a minigame depicting clothed dry-humping is what pearl-clutchers found to be a step too far.
- brewdad 4y ago
  [flagged]

yunruse 4y ago

When I was a teen my hometown's government fired me for "security concerns" because if you looked at the JS console on their website you'd see an innocent but goofy easter egg. It's still there, which continues to tickle me.

kabdib 4y ago

It was supposed to be a firing offense at Atari. We put easter eggs in the cartridges anyway (it helps when there is no source control at all, and your manager thinks that assembly language has something to do with LEGO).

JohnFen 4y ago

In my opinion, easter eggs that aren't against the rules aren't actually easter eggs at all. The whole point, and the thing that makes them awesome, is that they're illicit.