Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Gotta tell
Speaker 1: you you love a book when some of the chapters
Speaker 1: are big, huge problems, Uh, workaholics, also the case of
Speaker 1: the Missing studio and bloody Socks. So let's get into
Speaker 1: it because these are all in a new book. It's
Speaker 1: called Press Reset. Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry,
Speaker 1: And you might remember I think it was over this
Speaker 1: summer Bloomberg Business Week featured a cover story that was
Speaker 1: all about the video game industry, the dark underbelly of
Speaker 1: a business built on fund and that was also reported
Speaker 1: by our own Bloomberg News technology writer Jason Tryer. He
Speaker 1: too is author of this new book, Press Reset. He's
Speaker 1: also author of the best selling book Blood, Sweat and Pixels,
Speaker 1: And he joins us on the phone, good to have
Speaker 1: you here. You're up in Westchester, So tell us about
Speaker 1: this book because this is a little bit different from
Speaker 1: your first book. Hi, Cal, thanks so much for having Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a little bit different. Um So with my
Speaker 1: first book, I kind of broke down the question of
Speaker 1: why are games so hard to make and I kind
Speaker 1: of answered that through a bunch of case studies exploring
Speaker 1: different games and telling their stories. With this book, I
Speaker 1: wanted to tell more of a human story, tell the
Speaker 1: story of people in the video game industry and the
Speaker 1: hardships that they sometimes go through, and what that means
Speaker 1: for them, what it does to them, um, what kind
Speaker 1: of how it feels, how they recover afterwards. And through
Speaker 1: that I explored the question of why is this games
Speaker 1: industry which is making so much money, it made a
Speaker 1: hundred eighty billion dollars last year, Why is it so
Speaker 1: unstable for its workers? Why are workers whether they have
Speaker 1: such a hard time keeping their jobs in this industry.
Speaker 1: You write it's about heartbreak and tragedy, it's also about recovery.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are several instances in the book where
Speaker 1: you talk about you know, people who have worked together,
Speaker 1: as you say, pulled all nighters, you know, working on games,
Speaker 1: you know, hitting deadlines and so and so forth, only
Speaker 1: to come in and just find out that they don't
Speaker 1: have a job and they're not going to see these
Speaker 1: people anymore. Yeah. And it's not only that their games
Speaker 1: failed or that the company is in business trouble. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's a successful game. As in the case of Irrational Games,
Speaker 1: which is one of the companies that the cover in
Speaker 1: the book, they made a game called BioShock, which is
Speaker 1: very popular, critically acclaimed. About a year after their most
Speaker 1: recent game, BioShock Infinite, everybody came in to find that
Speaker 1: the studio was shutting down. And yeah, it can be
Speaker 1: really brutal. One of the worst parts I think, and
Speaker 1: I talk about this quite a book, quite a bit
Speaker 1: in Press Reset, is that, um, you are kind of
Speaker 1: stuck wherever you are, and you might have to move
Speaker 1: thousands of miles away to get a new job. In
Speaker 1: a Rationals case, they were in Boston and there are
Speaker 1: not a lot of other video game companies in Boston,
Speaker 1: so a lot of the people who wanted to stay
Speaker 1: and keep working in games have to move across the country,
Speaker 1: up with their whole families. And it can be really
Speaker 1: just burn people out. It's it feels unsustainable to me.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's a company that goes bankrupt, right
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, everybody's in there, the
Speaker 1: vultures like, I want the desks, I want this. But
Speaker 1: I mean, you talk about when a company goes down
Speaker 1: one of these video game company goes down, then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, recruiters fly and right to kind of
Speaker 1: take the workers. So they are in demand, but as
Speaker 1: you said, they often have to be uprooted and move
Speaker 1: their families, maybe across the country. Yeah, it's funny. I
Speaker 1: saw a stat just the other day that was essentially
Speaker 1: it was a list of job posting for the video
Speaker 1: game industry, and there were like a couple of hundred
Speaker 1: jobs here and there for junior level people, and then
Speaker 1: it was like thousands of senior level Apple like applicated
Speaker 1: job listings for senior level positions. And the reason that
Speaker 1: is is because the game's industry has this dearth of
Speaker 1: people who have five ten years of experience because so
Speaker 1: many of them burned out. So yes, these recruiters are
Speaker 1: seizing in and hoping against some of that talent, some
Speaker 1: of that experience. But a lot of those people might
Speaker 1: not want to move. I mean, in a rational case,
Speaker 1: a lot of the people who were in Boston. Um,
Speaker 1: maybe if they're in their twenties, they can move across
Speaker 1: the country and get these jobs they're kind of free.
Speaker 1: But if they're in their thirties, they have families, don't
Speaker 1: want to pull their kids out of school, so a
Speaker 1: lot of them just left the industry entirely went to
Speaker 1: to other tech companies in the area, UM finance company, banks,
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and that we are seeing uh way
Speaker 1: too much in this industry. Well, we all got a
Speaker 1: tease of your book thanks to Business Week magazine where
Speaker 1: there was an excerpt in there, and that's where the
Speaker 1: Bloody Socks chapter, which is specifically about Kurt Chilling of
Speaker 1: the Red Sox UM just give us a little little tease,
Speaker 1: and and folks can go to Bloomberg dot com or
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg or buy your book to read the
Speaker 1: whole story, because I feel like that chapter alone could
Speaker 1: be a Netflix series or a movie because it's just fascinating,
Speaker 1: very successful baseball player, but it didn't turn out so
Speaker 1: well when it comes to video games ultimately. Yeah, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: thank you for the kind words. And yeah, so Kurt Chilling,
Speaker 1: formerly of the Red Sox UM these days best known
Speaker 1: as kind of uh provocateur, right wing provocateur um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he career that he was going to start this game
Speaker 1: studio and he very much like came from the baseball life,
Speaker 1: was very much like I'm going to treat all my
Speaker 1: employees like all starts. I'm going to buy them the
Speaker 1: best of the best, get them on these perks and
Speaker 1: the best health benefits, which on its on the on
Speaker 1: the face of things, is pretty great by that. But
Speaker 1: he wound up running the company completely out of money.
Speaker 1: They wound up taking a giant low and that was
Speaker 1: guaranteed by the state of Rhode Island for seventy five
Speaker 1: million dollars in exchanged for moving to Rhode Island and
Speaker 1: getting a bunch of jobs. They're in Providence. Um, and
Speaker 1: wound up burning through that in a year. Uh. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: one day everybody gets into words. They think they have
Speaker 1: been made in the shade that they're here at this
Speaker 1: company where they are treated like the best of the best.
Speaker 1: They get into work one day and they are not paid.
Speaker 1: Their paychecks have not process because it turns up the
Speaker 1: company ran completely out of money. Um. None of them
Speaker 1: got severance, none of them got those final paychecks that
Speaker 1: were all robbed essentially of weeks of work, and all
Speaker 1: were stuck in Rhode Island where there are no other
Speaker 1: game companies. It's a similar story, so Jason, Chapter nine,
Speaker 1: Human Costs, Human Solutions, and you and you write. Ask
Speaker 1: any veteran video game developer their least favorite thing about
Speaker 1: the industry, and you'll probably get a different version of
Speaker 1: the same answer. It treats people poorly. It choose them
Speaker 1: up and then spits them back out, leaving nothing but
Speaker 1: grizzle and bones behind. So why do they do it?
Speaker 1: Because people go back, right? Or do they go back
Speaker 1: to the industry? I mean they do write they like it. Well,
Speaker 1: it's pretty much a young persons industry. And um, there's
Speaker 1: a great there's a great quote in the book from
Speaker 1: a guy named Zack Mumbox who has been a long
Speaker 1: time at e A, and at one point later in
Speaker 1: his career, he said, I was looking around in the
Speaker 1: office and when I had started in two thousand, I
Speaker 1: was in my twenties and everyone else was in their twenties.
Speaker 1: Now I'm looking around my thirties and everyone else is
Speaker 1: in their twenties, and I'm like, where is everyone who
Speaker 1: came up with me? And the answer is that the
Speaker 1: video industry, while it's certainly fun, I mean it's fun
Speaker 1: to work on games, and it can be really interesting
Speaker 1: and challenging and creatively satisfying. Um, all these these terrible factors,
Speaker 1: including the volatility that I cover in press reset um,
Speaker 1: just lead to a whole lot of burnout. UM. And
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how many of those people are going back.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people just feel like games
Speaker 1: does not treat them. Games of the games industry does
Speaker 1: not treat them. Like. Is there any model that just
Speaker 1: seems to work above and beyond other models or is
Speaker 1: this just yeah, like, what are the companies that maybe
Speaker 1: have done it right? Yeah? Well, there are a couple
Speaker 1: of things, and I explore in the chapter you mentioned,
Speaker 1: I explore some of the potential answers to these questions
Speaker 1: and solutions to these problems that I bring up here. Um.
Speaker 1: One is the big one is unionization, which has not
Speaker 1: happened in the North American video game industry at all. UM.
Speaker 1: And you look at, uh, the video games kind of
Speaker 1: sister industry in Hollywood, and one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: people are able to maintain careers in in that field
Speaker 1: just because they're unionized and so they have protections in place,
Speaker 1: and they might pounce around from gig to gigs, but
Speaker 1: they know they'll get paid for every overtime hour, and
Speaker 1: they know they're going to get a certain minimum salary
Speaker 1: and they know they're going to get benefits and health care. UM.
Speaker 1: So that's a big thing. And I think that could
Speaker 1: offer some protections and give workers would be the table
Speaker 1: in the video game industry UM to a level that
Speaker 1: they haven't seen before. The other thing and this is it.
Speaker 1: It's wild timing. You were talking about zoom before and
Speaker 1: how a year ago we had no idea what it is. UM.
Speaker 1: I actually think that remote work is one of the
Speaker 1: big solutions to the to the video game industry's woes.
Speaker 1: And I said that because, like I mentioned earlier, UM,
Speaker 1: the worst part about being caught in a layoffers to
Speaker 1: be a shutdown is knowing that you might have to
Speaker 1: move thousands of miles away, you might have to support
Speaker 1: your family. That's ultimately drives a lot of people out
Speaker 1: of gaming. And a solution to that might be if hey, okay,
Speaker 1: I just got laid off, but I can just log
Speaker 1: into my computer and my home office and potentially get
Speaker 1: a job anywhere without having to move. That I think
Speaker 1: would keep a lot of people who left the industry
Speaker 1: from running out because they wanted to worry about moving
Speaker 1: to a new city every time they had to switch shops,
Speaker 1: so coming a game changer. Give me an idea too.
Speaker 1: You said it tends to be a lot of younger individuals.
Speaker 1: I remember doing a story on a video game company
Speaker 1: years ago out on the on the West coast. Uh.
Speaker 1: In conjunction with it, give a Stanford that either had
Speaker 1: a program you know, that was just specifically geared to
Speaker 1: UM teaching people to kind of how to be in
Speaker 1: the video ame industry. What do they get paid typically? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it varies drastically. Like if you're on if
Speaker 1: you're in San Francisco, I you're an engineer, you could
Speaker 1: be making over six figures. It could be making a
Speaker 1: hundred fifty or something like that. But then again you
Speaker 1: look around and she's footing Google and you could be
Speaker 1: making double then double that. So it's it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: all relative, right, Um. Yeah, I mean it can really
Speaker 1: drastically differ depending on your discipline, depending on your years
Speaker 1: of experience, depending on whether you're at a big company
Speaker 1: or smart company. Um. But in general, the people on
Speaker 1: the bottom of the poneum pole, the q A, which
Speaker 1: is quality assurance, the testers in the video game industry.
Speaker 1: They're the people who were paid to find how the
Speaker 1: bugs and games. Um, they're making around usually close to
Speaker 1: a minimum wage, maybe not exactly that, but um twenty
Speaker 1: dollars an hour or something like eighteen twenty dollars an hour, um.
Speaker 1: And then you can kind of get bumped up over
Speaker 1: that as you become if you're if you're a junior designer,
Speaker 1: maybe you're making I don't know, forty fifty thousand a year,
Speaker 1: and then you kind of go up from there. It is,
Speaker 1: by no means a well paying industry. It's not. It's
Speaker 1: not banking or tech or anything like that unless you
Speaker 1: are at the very top, unless you're well. You do
Speaker 1: have a chapter called Workaholics, and you talked about some
Speaker 1: of the different individuals that you talked to. I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of industries, there's a lot of workaholics. I've
Speaker 1: been in the media industry for a long time and
Speaker 1: you work a lot. It's just the way it goes.
Speaker 1: What's different though, about being a workaholic in the video
Speaker 1: game industry. Yeah, I think it's a very different. I've
Speaker 1: been in media for yeah, you know it, and yeah
Speaker 1: I've been there. I've been there for sure. Um, I
Speaker 1: think there's there's there's a lot of differences. But one
Speaker 1: of the key ones for me at least is that
Speaker 1: when I'm working late on a story um or when
Speaker 1: I'm working late to cover in a band or something
Speaker 1: like that, I may do it for a week. I
Speaker 1: might do put in an extra weekend here and there.
Speaker 1: Um engagementvelopment. It's often so prolonged and sustained that it
Speaker 1: could be months and months of just like not seeing
Speaker 1: your family working six days a week, working twelve hours
Speaker 1: a day. And that's often what we see. And those
Speaker 1: are some of the stories that I've covered over the
Speaker 1: course of of writing about the video game industry is
Speaker 1: that it's doesn't seem to end. And I think I
Speaker 1: don't think you'll find many people out there who would
Speaker 1: object to like a couple of weeks of overtime here
Speaker 1: and there. It's just when it goes on and on
Speaker 1: for months on end. Um, even if you have a
Speaker 1: deadline in sight. It can just see how I can
Speaker 1: really just eat away at your personal life and your
Speaker 1: mental health. Hey, just got about fifty seconds left here.
Speaker 1: What surprised you in doing this book? Yeah, the thing
Speaker 1: that surprised me most is just hearing the same story
Speaker 1: over and over again. Hey, Jason, I'm I'm burning out
Speaker 1: of the video and I'm leaving the video of new industry.
Speaker 1: I'm going someplace that treats me better or like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I went through a layoffs. Every single game developer you
Speaker 1: talk to, it's it's harder to find someone who hasn't
Speaker 1: been through a layoff, and it has defend someone who has.
Speaker 1: And that's to mean it's really sad, and it's just
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons that I wanted to
Speaker 1: publish this book is to kind of bring put a
Speaker 1: spotlight on this stuff and and bring it to more
Speaker 1: people's attention. And yeah, I hope people people, I hope
Speaker 1: it resonates with people. Well, it's a great read and
Speaker 1: really fun to talk with you about it. Jason, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Good luck with it. Jason Schryer, he's
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News technology reporter. As we said, his new book
Speaker 1: is Press, Reset, Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game
Speaker 1: Industry and again also author of the bestseller Blood, Sweat,
Speaker 1: and Pixels and you can check out more at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com also at business Week dot com.