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Comment by walru | Hacker News Reader

I worked on a game that sold three times that and never saw one.

The parent company was 'retooling the royalty structure' for well over a year, even had people come from corporate to tell us the progress of said monetary division. Meanwhile we worked a forced six month crunch, 5-6 days a week - most of those twelve hour days, on the first game and were in the middle of the same for the rushed out sequel.

Said parent company no longer exists.

*Just as an aside, during said royalty meeting they made note of how the money they were spending on food each night was being deducted from our eventual royalties. :)

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It's not on the same scale, but I recently left a company. Part of the reason is we got a talking to for expensing a $19/person lunch that was apparently over the $15/person maximum... when we went out to eat on a Saturday that I spent 9 hours at the office. I was just stunned the company wanted to bitch about $4 when I gave them 9 hours of my Saturday. This was far from the only reason I left, but it left me feeling very unappreciated.

I've also had this pleasure. The, we bought you a five dollar meal, now 'please' work until 10PM (or later).

Instead of OT your hourly rate goes to $1.25/hr and your quality of life goes out the door as you amass weight and no time for yourself, or activity. My first year in the industry I gained (no exaggeration) 50lbs.

Funny part of this story, because I refused to eat the meals served for the team, and went out for something more healthy, I was ostracized at the above company.

That's a great lesson.

Long ago I found myself working every weekend at a new job - a place which subjected me to hours of grilling interviews by multiple people.

I got hurt in training one evening, came to work the next day and scheduled less than half a day off to see a doctor the following week.

I was told after the fact that I would have to take 'leave without pay' for the time - despite working 50+ hours for the week.

If not for certain obligations I'd have lost it on the spot. I ended up leaving soon after for a far better deal.

I took that whole experience as a valuable lesson in self-worth, the value of my time and how to treat interviewing and employers in the future - as an equal.

Reminds of Zynga trying to bully/steal the equity back from employees. I think MBA types just don't consider developers to be equals (is "line value generation resources" the right term ?).

As an MBA type, I take extreme offense to your statement. As a full-time programmer, I totally agree with you!

You're lying. As an MBA, you're considering a VC round to fund a corporation which would attempt to file a class action lawsuit on behalf of all MBAs against people slandering MBAs. Getting an MBA is like gaining vampirism - you need to drain human blood just to stay alive.

Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News. Please don't do this again.

Is satire allowed?

I was responding to a comment that was humorously self-deprecating, and I thought my response's satiric tone was clear.

I'm sorry if you or anyone else perceived it as a personal attack.

Also, it's a personal attack to satirically compare someone to a vampire, but it's okay to compare someone to a lamprey? Is there some list of blood-sucking creatures I can refer to, which indicates which ones you will consider a personal attack, and which ones you will not? Mosquitoes? Ticks? Patent trolls? :-)

Sadly, there are enough comments on Hacker News that say such things and mean them that I could not tell that yours was satire. Sorry for misunderstanding.

Is satire allowed? Sure, of course. But fluff humor tends to get downvoted, since it mostly leads to more fluff humor, which takes threads off topic. Fluff humor isn't bad in itself, but it's bad when it obscures high-quality content.

Thank you on all points, and I agree with what you've said.

I kind of wish I had a "parenthetical comment" option. "This is not on topic, but if someone else feels like looking into the parentheticals, they can turn them on."

Then again, isn't that what reddit was invented for? :-)

Have a pleasant, fun, and engaging day!

WTF is this comment? Chastising someone for satire? Get a grip.

As someone who deeply appreciates the work 'dang is doing trying to maintain civility on the site and thinks the site is drastically better now that moderation has a public face and improved transparency: maybe you can find a better way to discuss what he's doing than saying "get a grip". Reading horrible, mean-spirited comments day-in and day-out must be the shittiest part of that job. I can't fathom a reason why anyone would want to make the job shittier.

Overreaction is still overreaction.

I must protest, because there's a serious point here. Satire aside, it's not ok to say things like "You're lying" on Hacker News. There are civil ways to make any such point. If people break the HN guidelines egregiously, it's not overreacting for a moderator to say so.

The satire thing is a separate issue. To anyone who reads as many toxic HN comments as I do, the satire in that comment was anything but obvious. It's not even close to the worst stuff HN users say to each other.

The implication in your comment and the root comment is that moderators shouldn't make mistakes. That's too high a bar. We make mistakes all the time. That's why I picked this username!

The serious point that lately seems to be frequently missed is that people communicate in different ways. Some use satire, some use brevity, some use example, some use beat-them-into-submission verbosity, but some use counter example, some play at ludicity, some only elocute in jargon, some lay on the sesquipedalian, and some simply quip. The benefit of the doubt or the long pause goes a long way to healthy and interesting conversation.

I didn't (and wouldn't) chastise anyone for satire. I wonder if you perhaps read these comments in the wrong order, or didn't see them all before you posted this?

Personal attacks on vampires?

Whom do MBA types consider as equals?

MBA types.

Close. MBA types consider MBA types who make more money than they do to be their equals. Therefore, the only way for two MBA types to consider each other equals is for them each to believe that the other makes more money.

lamprey.

Anyone with a big enough stick.

"This is a ruthless world and one must be ruthless to cope with it." Charlie Chaplin

Ruthless does not mean amoral. And amoung the philisophically iliterate "How to Make Friends and Influence People" can amount to nothing more then patronage and polite cover for knives.

Carry your stick publicly if you want your opponent to be forced into showing their nature. The just ruthless are comfortable in the light of scruteny. They are comfortable with accountability and will stand for their actions.

It is never just business. It is the definition of a social order and cowards love to cover themselves in niceties.

Also in downvote with out comments :)

Isn't this a bit apples to oranges? I have to read between the lines since you're not being clear, but you sound like you're talking about your personal royalties. It sounds like your "parent company" was your publisher. So basically: they didn't profit share?

In the case of Oddworld, they had a publisher. They were given an advance or budget to make the game. There was likely some royalty structure in place for revenue exceeding cost. Sounds like the costs were trumped up to avoid paying royalties.

The difference would be that Oddworld had a business contract stipulating this royalty structure. Did you have a contract stipulating profit sharing?

Soo, you worked all that time without getting paid? Or is "royalties" simply the game industry equivalent of "bonus"?

royalties are your profit sharing agreement basically. you get paid a salary(which might be less than normal because you are banking on the project to be a hit and receive royalties) and then a certain percentage of the sales of the game. A bonus is like a "hey we did well so here is a certain amount of money at the end of the year."

The music industry also has royalties on how much a song is played and how many copies of the albums are sold. It's frequently gamed by the studios to pay very little by citing "costs associated with the distribution and recording".

I worked all the overtime essentially for free. They would serve meals, but after a while I chose not to eat them, as I wanted to eat better than greasy tacos served out of a tub or cheesy pizza.

How is this not considered criminal activity?

Depending which state you work, it now is. However, the indie scene is rising again and mini-shops are popping up everywhere.

I had an interview at one such place last week. The discarded pizza boxes were stacked at least eight high.

Clearly they need to cut back on lavish Developer benefits so they can afford a cleaner.

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