3 ms·

I've worked at both and between both the games industry and SV. Given the presence of Roblox, EA and the Playstation unit in SV it is a bit odd to consider them

I've worked at both and between both the games industry and SV. Given the presence of Roblox, EA and the Playstation unit in SV it is a bit odd to consider them such outsiders, but in a real sense they are. Broadly though, the problem is SV in a business culture sense conflates fun with role playing, expressing yourself, generating and consuming UGC, and feeding the beast. Play in the sense of discovery without any external side effects confuses it. If you are in games you see more and more of this tendency infesting western games production too, and it's largely down to those versions of fun being far easier to monetize. The blind spot of this article is a huge amount of the "productivity" users are larping as PMs and using Notion etc. in a manner completely consistent with their sense of play, while acting seriously about it in order to maintain their ludic circle. To say they are not gamers is false; their entire lifestyle is the game. The huge reason the games industry hasn't been completely overwhelmed by SV types is it contains a critical mass of idealists that genuinely care about the player and player experiences, even in the most cynical companies.

mablopoule 3y ago
UGC ?
- fidotron 3y ago
  User generated content
automatic6131 3y ago
That's... a really interesting thought. These mid-brained people that indulge in the endless productivity treadmill (the most appropriate word for it - working hard to end up where you started) are... actually role playing someone productive. I love this idea.
- pjc50 3y ago
  This is the "bullshit jobs" thesis. It's very common in rat races. You can find recognizable forms of it in the ancient history of Imperial China or Rome. Job #1 is producing the appearance of usefulness, importance and status. Job #2 is doing enough actually useful things that the appearance and system is maintained.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- greentea23 3y ago
  "All the world's a stage, all the men and women merely players", Shakespeare anyone?
qiine 3y ago
"it contains a critical mass of idealists that genuinely care about the player and player experiences, even in the most cynical companies." This is so true and why video games are so special, its full of slightly insane guy that will endlessly tweak variable so that the explosions feels just right and satisfying, set jump speed so that it goes up and down at just the "right rate" (which means jumping again and again in the engine for hours sometimes). The final impact of all of it is often hard to quantify and sometimes feels silly but to them its important and they will do it even if it means working overtime because it feels like the right thing to do.
rhizome 3y ago
The fish rots from the head, blame MBAs and Stanford GSB in particular. Google e.g. "Peter Thiel laughing" and click on Images to view a panoply of boundaries in executive humanity.
- mwhitfield 3y ago
  > a panoply of boundaries in executive humanity Anyone else's brain kind of error out trying to parse this phrase?
  - rhizome 3y ago
    It means Peter Thiel's smile looks fake.
  - kridsdale3 3y ago
    I liked it. Poetic word use evokes mental imagery.
bartwr 3y ago
Before switching to big tech I worked 8y in video games - and agree. Many practices of gamedevs - like designers literally just exploring stuff without any plan for years before commiting to any feature - would make SV directors and PMs (not to mention investors) scream. :) This is a double edged sword. On the one hand, this aimless exploration is needed in pursuit of real fun (as opposed to compulsive loops of mobile games). On the other hand, this leads to crunch, games being buggy and always delayed, and how most fun games always had very troubled production and sometimes literally destroy the studios/teams. More organized companies I worked at (Ubisoft) had less crunch but also less fun games (cookie cutter AC formula). The messy toxic crunch workplaces (CD Projekt Red) I was at produced amazingly fun cult games...
- hoseja 3y ago
  Why is everyone piling on CD Projekt, they just had a massive growth after W3 they didn't manage quite right, along with perhaps overcommitting to C2077. I'm allergic to it, is there any evidence of "messy toxic crunch" before or after the one bad (in large part because shitty consoles are a thing) launch? There are way more egregious US game companies but CD Projekt gets mentioned way too often. Cyberpunk is fixed and very good now BTW.
  - kibwen 3y ago
    > is there any evidence of "messy toxic crunch" before or after the one bad (in large part because shitty consoles are a thing) launch? "There was no crunch, as long as we don't count all that crunch before the launch, and all that crunch after the launch..." There's no need to be so defensive. We can rightfully criticize any employer who mistreats their employees, without giving a free pass to ones that might mistreat their employees slightly less than others. There was exactly one pre-existing comment in this thread that mentioned CDPR at all; nobody is targeting them unfairly.
  - bartwr 3y ago
    The evidence - people's statements and experiences. I worked there for 3y and can give "on the record" statement that it was the most toxic company I ever worked for. 80h work weeks, management shouting at people and calling their work "shit", constant lies, firing people on the spot for minor disagreements and many many more.
JohnFen 3y ago
It's been a while and maybe things are different now, but I left the video games industry because it was easily the most awful and least fun segment of the software industry that I've been exposed to.

mablopoule 3y ago

UGC ?

fidotron 3y ago
User generated content

automatic6131 3y ago

That's... a really interesting thought. These mid-brained people that indulge in the endless productivity treadmill (the most appropriate word for it - working hard to end up where you started) are... actually role playing someone productive. I love this idea.

pjc50 3y ago
This is the "bullshit jobs" thesis. It's very common in rat races. You can find recognizable forms of it in the ancient history of Imperial China or Rome. Job #1 is producing the appearance of usefulness, importance and status. Job #2 is doing enough actually useful things that the appearance and system is maintained.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
greentea23 3y ago
"All the world's a stage, all the men and women merely players", Shakespeare anyone?

qiine 3y ago

"it contains a critical mass of idealists that genuinely care about the player and player experiences, even in the most cynical companies." This is so true and why video games are so special, its full of slightly insane guy that will endlessly tweak variable so that the explosions feels just right and satisfying, set jump speed so that it goes up and down at just the "right rate" (which means jumping again and again in the engine for hours sometimes). The final impact of all of it is often hard to quantify and sometimes feels silly but to them its important and they will do it even if it means working overtime because it feels like the right thing to do.

rhizome 3y ago

The fish rots from the head, blame MBAs and Stanford GSB in particular. Google e.g. "Peter Thiel laughing" and click on Images to view a panoply of boundaries in executive humanity.

mwhitfield 3y ago
> a panoply of boundaries in executive humanity Anyone else's brain kind of error out trying to parse this phrase?
- rhizome 3y ago
  It means Peter Thiel's smile looks fake.
- kridsdale3 3y ago
  I liked it. Poetic word use evokes mental imagery.

bartwr 3y ago

Before switching to big tech I worked 8y in video games - and agree. Many practices of gamedevs - like designers literally just exploring stuff without any plan for years before commiting to any feature - would make SV directors and PMs (not to mention investors) scream. :) This is a double edged sword. On the one hand, this aimless exploration is needed in pursuit of real fun (as opposed to compulsive loops of mobile games). On the other hand, this leads to crunch, games being buggy and always delayed, and how most fun games always had very troubled production and sometimes literally destroy the studios/teams. More organized companies I worked at (Ubisoft) had less crunch but also less fun games (cookie cutter AC formula). The messy toxic crunch workplaces (CD Projekt Red) I was at produced amazingly fun cult games...

hoseja 3y ago
Why is everyone piling on CD Projekt, they just had a massive growth after W3 they didn't manage quite right, along with perhaps overcommitting to C2077. I'm allergic to it, is there any evidence of "messy toxic crunch" before or after the one bad (in large part because shitty consoles are a thing) launch? There are way more egregious US game companies but CD Projekt gets mentioned way too often. Cyberpunk is fixed and very good now BTW.
- kibwen 3y ago
  > is there any evidence of "messy toxic crunch" before or after the one bad (in large part because shitty consoles are a thing) launch? "There was no crunch, as long as we don't count all that crunch before the launch, and all that crunch after the launch..." There's no need to be so defensive. We can rightfully criticize any employer who mistreats their employees, without giving a free pass to ones that might mistreat their employees slightly less than others. There was exactly one pre-existing comment in this thread that mentioned CDPR at all; nobody is targeting them unfairly.
- bartwr 3y ago
  The evidence - people's statements and experiences. I worked there for 3y and can give "on the record" statement that it was the most toxic company I ever worked for. 80h work weeks, management shouting at people and calling their work "shit", constant lies, firing people on the spot for minor disagreements and many many more.

JohnFen 3y ago

It's been a while and maybe things are different now, but I left the video games industry because it was easily the most awful and least fun segment of the software industry that I've been exposed to.