You know what happens when you buy in to the "it's a privilege to work here" mentality? You get screwed. I bought in to that lie once, sold by a con artist and thief, and I think it's time I tell that story as much as I can. Buckle up, this one's a ride.
This story begins back in late 2001. I was a naive kid with aspirations to be a professional illustrator. I did a lot of canvassing for jobs in the games industry to little results, until I caught the attention of a startup Malaysian game company working on a "next gen" MMO.
They brought me on as a concept artist working under some phenomenal creatives. I worked remotely (yes, in 2001) with an international team from across the world. We didn't start the project in earnest until early 2002.
In that time since I was brought on, I'd devoured the design documents for the game and put forth a lot of creative input back to the development team and it was decided that my role was going to be split between concept art and narrative design.
We were all effectively working for peanuts, building a proof of concept for an MMO that (at the time) would have been pretty revolutionary. We envisioned a lot of mechanics and concepts that didn't show up until five or ten years down the road. But we were all driven people.
In 2002 when we began working on the proof of concept I learned we were designing a game that was to be a part of Butterfly.net, a now-defunct network API. We were working towards securing investment funding, and one man swore up and down he had a plan.
The lead developer on the project promised the moon. He was an American and managed the US arm of the company I worked for. We were all told time and again what a privilege it was to "pioneer" on this project, to design for cutting edge technology, and to "be in this industry."
In 2003 we were to showcase our completed vertical slice to investors at E3. I was invited to go with our lead developer to help show off the game. This is when the cracks started to show in the seams. There was a lot of trouble getting a flight out, and no one on the Malaysian
side of the company knew what was going on or when the meetings were happening. I get to LA and the next day at the opening of E3 I'm calling and trying to find the project lead because I hadn't been given a schedule or anything. It was all "we'll figure it out soon."
Mind you by this point I'd been promised a year of back salary because of budget constraints no one had been paid. We were all promised once we landed the investments everything would be ok. But what we were doing was "great work" and "we were so privileged to be a part of it."
After several panicked phone calls that went straight to voicemail, I get a phone call from someone I've never spoken to from another company. He tells me there was a mixup with badges and that I never received one, but my Boss had worked out a deal with him and I was going to
Use his badge for the day so I could be at the demo and meeting while they sorted it out. Red flags everywhere. He pulls through, but now I'm wearing someone else's lanyard for another company. Thankfully everyone at our booth in Kentia hall knew me.
We set up and I realize my boss isn't around. I try calling him again, nothing. We're now 30 minutes out from the meeting and he's nowhere to be seen. I go and check my email. There's an email from different members of my team in absolute chaos talking about some sort of split.
I don't have time to process it all. But something weird is going on. I see an email from my boss instructing my team not to talk to the company CEO. I panic and call him.
He finally answers, fifteen minutes out from the meeting. I ask him where he is and he says "I'm still in Georgia. Something came up." I just about died right there.
He tells me "some stuff has come up" and that we're our own independent company now, that we've split off. I ask him who is giving the demo at the meeting.
He says I am.
He says I am.
After a panicked phone call that was probably mostly profanity I sprint down to Kentia hall and break the news to the other three team members there. They're frantically checking email and hadn't seen what was going on. The game is booted up and the companies we were meeting
had reps present. I don't really remember very well how the presentation went, I think I channeled the spirits of game developers past, present, and future. I didn't just set everything on fire because my immediate thought was "I can't lose this opportunity!" I'd bought the lie.
We got the funding. I went back to New England a few days later. I find out in the interim that my boss had tricked the Malaysian CEO, got him to sign things he never should have and never sign other things. Stole the games code, poached the entire team, and all the assets.
He painted the CEO as a villain. As the reason why we hadn't been paid but things were "going to be different." He strung us on for about four more months promising that paychecks were right around the corner. They weren't.
He disappeared without a fucking trace in 2004.
I never met him face to face, only ever spoke to him on a phone. No one heard from him again and everything folded. I wasted more than a year chasing a dream that was sold as a "privilege" because I was naive and bought into a lie.
Not every game dev situation is even close to that one. But the idea that working for a company no matter how they're structured is a "privilege" is a lie used to gaslight you into accepting that things can't -- shouldn't -- be better. That this is just how it is. Keep working.
Don't devalue yourself as a creator, as an employee, and most importantly as a human. No amount of pride in your work is worth being taken advantage of. No project is worth losing your family over. No paycheck is worth running yourself to the bone.
You may think "they aren't asking me to take overtime, I choose to." But really, you don't. You're guided to that choice, manipulated to feel guilty about not hitting unrealistic deadlines, goaded into choosing a company over your own well-being.
Don't.
