Categories: uncategorized
Date: 07 November 2004 16:19:34
I've been in two minds whether to talk about this over the course of the blog, but occasional questions have conspired to make me think it might be a subject worth chatting on...
H'ok, where to begin... up until the middle of July I was a computer games artist/animator at a UK game developer. Didn't make any games that set the world alight (at that company) but they sold well-ish and got fairly good reviews. Was there for just over 5 years, got on well and liked the people I worked with.
Then, this year it all starts to get shakey. January the company was shut down for two months because the people who owned us couldn't afford to pay wages or bills. 8 weeks later we were back in a smaller office with an agreement with another company to finish the game off, while they paid our wages.
In april, things started to go wrong again. Pay was delayed and phone calls to the two companies who owned us stopped getting answered. People seemed to think it was a blip. Ten weeks later when we still hadn't been paid we decided to take it to an industrial tribunal, two weeks after that we were locked out of the office.
All told it was a bit of a pain. In ways, the time was useful, because I was deep in the crunch time of finishing off the book amendments and launch OneHundredHours book launch party. I was doing silly hours even after they stopped paying us and we stopped working the six day weeks. As time went on and my focus shifted more onto doing the book-work the hours got sillier and I wonder how I would have been able to cope working all the time required at work.
The silly thing is that the game was 80% complete, and could have been released for Christmas, if not earlier (thanksgiving is a big market to hit with a new game). As it was everyone ended up with nothing and the workforce ended up 10 weeks out of pocket. Worse still the games industry in the UK is almost dead on its feet with a huge amount of devco's shutting down this year and more expected. The cynics in the company wondered whether the companies were hoping we'd finish the game unpaid so that they could take the code and shut us down. Both companies are in chapter 11 type trading agreements and are saying that our game is going to be their main source of revenue for the start of next year. Me, I think they might be wrong.
So, not good then. With the book due for release I thought I would start to look outside of the industry, and since then I've picked up a few pieces of freelance artwork, had a short story published (well, at printers at mo) and taught for three weeks at a council run summer school. All useful and all keeping my head, or more importantly my families heads, above water. Wifey was a primary school teacher before children came along and so applied for a current police check form so that she could go on the supply lists. That's come through and hopefully things might start to pick up on that score as well. We had the industrial tribunal hearing a month ago and they found for us, ordering the companies to pay wages + costs + unpaid pension and national insurance. they also told us that it was extremely unlikely to ever be resolved.
I mention this not for the sympathy vote, but just to explain where I'm at in a way. The trickiest thing is knowing that some elements of Christmas have to be paid for but pretty much the family has managed on very little from April onwards. In a way this has been quite freeing, not bothering to go shopping because I know I can't buy anything has made me realise how much I time I had devoted to shopping previously. Putting a DVD on my christmas list instead of just buying it makes me anticipate more and some random acts of kindness have blown me away. Alison Moyets Voice cd came out in September and I could not have wanted to buy it more. When a youth group assistant asked me what it was like and realised I couldn't buy it he went out the next week and bought it for me... Another youth group leader offered to buy me Halo 2! (These are both 18 yr olds, who have grown up with the group.. Amazing kindness.)
So in a way it's been an amazing experience. In a lot of ways its been horrible. To be kicked around like a piece of rubbish by companies who don't care whether you have a family or not and knowing that there is little protection for you as an employee has been unpleasant. I've been able to spend more time with my family which is lovely, but I often find myself drawn to working on promotional artwork/applying for jobs/sending out e-mails with a sense of guilt that months on I'm still sitting here... Like I said earlier this blog is in ways a diary, good and bad.
i'm split as to whether I would like to concentrate on being a freelancer.. (I like working as part of a close knit team and would always be nervous of where the next job is coming from... ) but by the same token I like working with clients and different briefs and also/mainly being around to look after the kids when needed, do the school run etc. I think art will always be the area I aim most at (rather than aiming to work as a writer, for which I would have nowhere near enough courage at the moment) but who knows..? At the moment, with few jobs on the games horizon, it's a case of looking for jobs in different areas and trying to build up a client list.
If Microsoft are looking :) they apparently pay people to go onto forums and put a balanced view on some computer games.. :) I could do that! Alternatively Orange could sponsor my hair... :) I'm in the midst of pitching for three projects all of which would make the Christmas a lot easier (and if anyone wants to pray for my situation it would be that whatever the path ahead of me is I would see the correct way and be as speedy as my little legs can carry me..)
But I'm coming to realise that money (mortgage/food and giving notwithstanding) is not something that I had the correct attitude towards beforehand and I hope that that's something that does remain with me.