A few interesting work/career related items have recently caught my attention:

  • Clint speculates that Eidos is producing the next Deus Ex game in their Montreal studio as a tactic to lure experienced talent out of the existing major Montreal studios (eg, Ubi, EA, A2M, etc). I have no basis to evaluate the validity of his claim, but I am certainly intrigued at the idea of using developer-loved IP as bait.
  • The ever colorful American McGee exposes his new funding model. In short, in trying to recruit for his Shanghai-based studio, entrenched studios - Ubisoft in particular - are doing all they can to thwart poaching (eg, providing bonuses and raises when staff present a letter of offer from a competing studio). So, McGee is offering to write any Ubi staff an offer letter if they agree to split the difference of bonus/raise money. Fun exercise, but does beg the question of why talent is not properly compensated to begin with…
  • Researcher Mark Deuze wrote up a condensed version of his study/paper on the professional identity and working lives of game developers, for the IGDA web site. Admittedly, I am fascinated by ethnographic/anthropological style studies that look at game developers “in the wild”. Sadly, there aren’t many of them. I can’t wait for Mark’s “media work” book to hit shelves.
  • The fine folks at Digital Artists Management explore the pros and cons of project-based contractual employment (much like Michael John has been evangelizing).
  • The June issue of Game Developer magazine has a cover story on quality of life within the game industry, which, sadly, I have not had the chance to read yet…
  • Pac-Man creator, Toru Iwatani, retires from Namco at age 52 to teach game design at Tokyo Polytechnic Institute. Nice to see such a famous developer survive until retirement (and, this can only mean good things for the education challenge noted previously).
  • We’re not alone: the Canadian Globe & Mail ran a piece on the rise of unpaid overtime in Canada and a recent class-action lawsuit in the banking sector. Gaming is listed as a “long-hour industry’ along with retail, insurance, fast food, telecom, etc.