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Comment by cableshaft | Hacker News Reader

Most I've ever gotten for severance was 1 week pay (and I've been laid off 3 times). And that's even in tech (video game studio).

My previous company (a large corporation) did 1 week per year you worked there, capped at 4 weeks (one person I know that was laid off was there for 17 years, only got the 4 weeks). They actually used to be more generous but made significant cuts to their severance benefits shortly before layoffs so they could save a bunch of money on it (they also took away 401k match later, reduced PTO days, eliminated bonuses, froze raises, made our health care benefits worse, let tons of people leave without authorizing filling in gaps so many departments became overworked skeleton crews, all sorts of crap to save money).

So at least in that case, it wouldn't have mattered if I asked what their severance policies were while interviewing.

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> And that's even in tech (video game studio).

Given everything I've ever heard about working conditions, pay, and benefits in video game studios, it seems more appropriate to think of them as opposite to the mainstream software industry rather than a part of it.

The vast majority of layoffs in tech (not 'big tech' or name brand companies) is likely closer to 1 week than 16 weeks.

Sorry to be contrarian, but the only companies that do these bigger packages are doing it because it will be in the news.

If you're making a universal claim like that, you are just being contrarian. My last job was at a Series C startup that you've probably never heard of, and when they had to lay off 2/3rds of their employees in late 2020 due to the pandemic, they gave a couple months of severance (don't remember the exact amount, I wasn't laid off) + extended COBRA coverage.

Still is a series C startup that almost certainly is trying to keep its brand intact up rehire after the uncertainty dissipated.

I think you're being unrealistic as to what the industry as a whole is like. 1 week per year is not uncommon. I've been doing this 26 years and have had many dozens of friends laid off during this period, back in 2009, and back during dot com.

On a reread, you'll note that I didn't make any claims about what layoffs are like in the industry as a whole: I implied that pay/benefits/conditions tend to be pretty bad in gaming and pretty good in the rest of tech, and I noted that you're wrong to make a universal statement about only high-profile companies giving severance.

I don't doubt your experience, and I don't have a survey of industry standards. But I will also say that experiences 14 or 25 years ago are not a reliable guide to HR choices in the 2023 tech industry.

I agree they are bad in the game industry, but conveniently ignored was the second part of their post about the non-gaming company... 1 week per year is common, but most common seems to be 2 weeks w/ 1 week per year on top and capped after a number of years.

I didn't say only high profile companies gave severance. I'm saying 3+ months is rare and it seems normal because it is a marketing tool used like this.

Also to restate, my experience translates to what is currently happening in tandem with the last two periods. I know someone who was recently let go getting 4 weeks after 16 years.

Not sure I made it clear that the second one wasn't a non-gaming company, but yeah it wasn't (it was webdev). I was laid off from three gaming companies, and haven't yet from any non-gaming companies, even though I've been through more layoff rounds with non-gaming companies now.

But my friends have been laid off, and I've yet to hear of any of them getting more than 1 week per year worked. But I don't have any friends that work for big tech (I live in the Midwest, a lot easier to not know anyone in big tech here). A lot of insurance, health, and financial companies around here, not too many Facebook or Apple or Netflix offices.

The video game industry seems to uniquely suffer from under-trained, nepotistic, and inept project managers and game directors.

Which inevitably leads to lying, poor communication, and surprise boom/bust layoffs.

In contrast, most other software development industries have figured out how to square the budget-time-people circle, most of the time.

It's a shame Rockstar doesn't do more interviews, as they appear to have a working incremental project development model, that reliably (if slowly) delivers results. My suspicion is they just hire/train professional PMs.

From the people I met at school and worked with since then, the really talented folks who want to make video games _really_ want to make video games. This leads to a fairly natural goal of wanting to set up their own game shops rather than join a large one, where they'll feel they have less impact.

I suspect this leads to a trend where you have disproportionately more mediocre product/vision people at the large gaming companies, because if you have really good product sense in a space with as much passion as video games, and with a relatively low barrier to getting your foot in the door (if you have a small core team of very talented, dedicated people), what on Earth are you doing being a cog in someone else's machine?

> with a relatively low barrier to getting your foot in the door

If you want to work on a AAA level product (or even a AA product nowadays), that's increasingly becoming out of reach with a small team. Some people want to work on games that millions of people will play and enjoy. I know a guy who made and released a few small games on his own (I helped with one of them) and they sold like 1000 copies at most, but he maintains a day job in the industry for the past 12 years and is currently a senior engineer at Epic Games working on AAA titles.

Meanwhile I'm working on a small game in my spare time this past couple of years and I'm worried I might not break 1000 copies with its release either (not the prettiest game and a bit of a niche genre, but I'm on my own in my spare time). But at least I have a fairly well paying day webdev job so I'm not screwed if it doesn't do well.

Rockstar is notorious for crunch, or overworking and poor conditions, especially near the end of a project life. There are a lot of horror stories about games like red dead redemption 2, you'll find an overwhelming amount of articles about this if you Google it.

Circa RDR2, it seems they had hours worked as a individual performance metric.

https://kotaku.com/inside-rockstar-games-culture-of-crunch-1...

https://kotaku.com/red-dead-redemption-2-developers-speak-ou...

But it still seems to be a mixed bag of experiences (with the expected "certain locations have shit management" and "QA always gets shit on"). And at least they shipped a finished product, that was arguably improved by crunch.

In contrast, there are a ton of games that don't measurably improve/ship and people are asked to crunch to cover management screw-ups.

I'm baselining at things like Star Citizen and Beyond Good and Evil 2, of the "How are these people even allowed to call themselves professional managers/directors?" level.

Whilst I won’t deny that incompetent leadership and planning are involved, I think there are structural reasons for the game industry being uniquely problematic.

Games have massive cost efficiencies from scaling. Studios are incentivised to always make the biggest games they can with their budget. Games team sizes vary strongly with the project period. They can’t handle more than a small team early and can absorb almost any number of people at any skill level before release.

End result is that game development is always boom and bust. Small core teams build a game up slowly, then more and more are added until just before release when a mad scramble for anyone and everyone they can be bought borrowed or stolen to get the game released on time. Then there’s no work except for the core team on the next game.

The obvious solution is to have many games running in one studio to even out the team sizes and absorb the crunch, but that implies either studio sizes beyond anything we see currently (and no increase in per project scope) or much smaller scope for games.

I’ve seen models like they work, and be much less painful to work with for everyone involved, but it did require different market conditions to justify the alternative model, I’m not sure the entire industry could switch.

That’s not to say fixing the problem is impossible, just that the bad incentives will always be there to push back against improvements..

It's bad, but to me it seems like at least some notoriously bad ones are making incremental changes.

Game studios are notorious for being the worst places to work as a programmer/engineer in objective terms.

I wouldn't take your experience at one to be representative of how termination and severance at US tech companies is usually handled.

There is a point in the company size (in some metric) vs. job responsibility curve where you can successfully make contract changes, within reason. One thing you should absolutely consider is pushing for a specific severance clause.

This serves two purposes, an indication of their seriousness about your position, and some peace of mind (e.g. have 6/12 months or whatever in your pocket).

That being said, there are scenarios where you won't see a penny of it.

Also, depending on your jurisdiction and job tenure, you may have a very viable claim for more severance. Nobody is likely to offer you more than statutory (or whatever is in your contract) without asking, but it may be worth paying a lawyer hour or so to find out properly.

one word. Unionize

I'd sign up to unionize, but I wouldn't organize a union myself (I'm not organized enough for that). Haven't even heard a whiff of desires to unionize at any company I've ever worked for.

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