WEBVTT - Examining Instability in the Video Game Industry 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:03.600 You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and 0:00:03.680 --> 0:00:08.160 Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Gotta tell 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:10.799 you you love a book when some of the chapters 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:15.880 are big, huge problems, Uh, workaholics, also the case of 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:18.880 the Missing studio and bloody Socks. So let's get into 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:21.000 it because these are all in a new book. It's 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:24.680 called Press Reset. Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry, 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:26.560 And you might remember I think it was over this 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:29.920 summer Bloomberg Business Week featured a cover story that was 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:33.280 all about the video game industry, the dark underbelly of 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:36.600 a business built on fund and that was also reported 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:39.839 by our own Bloomberg News technology writer Jason Tryer. He 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:42.959 too is author of this new book, Press Reset. He's 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.200 also author of the best selling book Blood, Sweat and Pixels, 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:49.159 And he joins us on the phone, good to have 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:52.520 you here. You're up in Westchester, So tell us about 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:54.880 this book because this is a little bit different from 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:58.760 your first book. Hi, Cal, thanks so much for having Yeah, 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.240 this is a little bit different. Um So with my 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:04.760 first book, I kind of broke down the question of 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:06.880 why are games so hard to make and I kind 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:09.080 of answered that through a bunch of case studies exploring 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:11.800 different games and telling their stories. With this book, I 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:14.520 wanted to tell more of a human story, tell the 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:17.520 story of people in the video game industry and the 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:20.760 hardships that they sometimes go through, and what that means 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:23.360 for them, what it does to them, um, what kind 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.800 of how it feels, how they recover afterwards. And through 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:29.319 that I explored the question of why is this games 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:32.200 industry which is making so much money, it made a 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:36.319 hundred eighty billion dollars last year, Why is it so 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.520 unstable for its workers? Why are workers whether they have 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.440 such a hard time keeping their jobs in this industry. 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:45.280 You write it's about heartbreak and tragedy, it's also about recovery. 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:48.240 I mean, there are several instances in the book where 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:50.840 you talk about you know, people who have worked together, 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:54.120 as you say, pulled all nighters, you know, working on games, 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:56.040 you know, hitting deadlines and so and so forth, only 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:57.560 to come in and just find out that they don't 0:01:57.560 --> 0:01:58.720 have a job and they're not going to see these 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.400 people anymore. Yeah. And it's not only that their games 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:06.280 failed or that the company is in business trouble. Sometimes 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:09.480 it's a successful game. As in the case of Irrational Games, 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:11.120 which is one of the companies that the cover in 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:13.679 the book, they made a game called BioShock, which is 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.880 very popular, critically acclaimed. About a year after their most 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:20.040 recent game, BioShock Infinite, everybody came in to find that 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:23.080 the studio was shutting down. And yeah, it can be 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:25.160 really brutal. One of the worst parts I think, and 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:27.600 I talk about this quite a book, quite a bit 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:31.560 in Press Reset, is that, um, you are kind of 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:34.000 stuck wherever you are, and you might have to move 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:36.440 thousands of miles away to get a new job. In 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:38.840 a Rationals case, they were in Boston and there are 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:41.280 not a lot of other video game companies in Boston, 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:43.000 so a lot of the people who wanted to stay 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:45.840 and keep working in games have to move across the country, 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:48.160 up with their whole families. And it can be really 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:51.680 just burn people out. It's it feels unsustainable to me. 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:53.640 I feel like it's a company that goes bankrupt, right 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:55.040 and then all of a sudden, everybody's in there, the 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:57.160 vultures like, I want the desks, I want this. But 0:02:57.200 --> 0:02:59.440 I mean, you talk about when a company goes down 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:01.760 one of these video game company goes down, then all 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:03.840 of a sudden, recruiters fly and right to kind of 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:06.679 take the workers. So they are in demand, but as 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:08.560 you said, they often have to be uprooted and move 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:12.200 their families, maybe across the country. Yeah, it's funny. I 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:14.880 saw a stat just the other day that was essentially 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:17.000 it was a list of job posting for the video 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:19.280 game industry, and there were like a couple of hundred 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:21.880 jobs here and there for junior level people, and then 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:25.360 it was like thousands of senior level Apple like applicated 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:29.160 job listings for senior level positions. And the reason that 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:31.880 is is because the game's industry has this dearth of 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:34.320 people who have five ten years of experience because so 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:36.800 many of them burned out. So yes, these recruiters are 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:39.680 seizing in and hoping against some of that talent, some 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:41.840 of that experience. But a lot of those people might 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:43.760 not want to move. I mean, in a rational case, 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:46.920 a lot of the people who were in Boston. Um, 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:48.720 maybe if they're in their twenties, they can move across 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:50.640 the country and get these jobs they're kind of free. 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:52.800 But if they're in their thirties, they have families, don't 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:54.480 want to pull their kids out of school, so a 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.040 lot of them just left the industry entirely went to 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:00.600 to other tech companies in the area, UM finance company, banks, 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:04.839 stuff like that, and that we are seeing uh way 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.720 too much in this industry. Well, we all got a 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.680 tease of your book thanks to Business Week magazine where 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:13.440 there was an excerpt in there, and that's where the 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:17.880 Bloody Socks chapter, which is specifically about Kurt Chilling of 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:21.120 the Red Sox UM just give us a little little tease, 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:23.320 and and folks can go to Bloomberg dot com or 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:25.280 on the Bloomberg or buy your book to read the 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:27.839 whole story, because I feel like that chapter alone could 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:31.520 be a Netflix series or a movie because it's just fascinating, 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:35.200 very successful baseball player, but it didn't turn out so 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:38.560 well when it comes to video games ultimately. Yeah, yeah, man, 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:40.719 thank you for the kind words. And yeah, so Kurt Chilling, 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:43.479 formerly of the Red Sox UM these days best known 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:48.920 as kind of uh provocateur, right wing provocateur um. But yeah, 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.479 he career that he was going to start this game 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:55.719 studio and he very much like came from the baseball life, 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:57.280 was very much like I'm going to treat all my 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:59.560 employees like all starts. I'm going to buy them the 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:01.240 best of the best, get them on these perks and 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.320 the best health benefits, which on its on the on 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:06.560 the face of things, is pretty great by that. But 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:10.039 he wound up running the company completely out of money. 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:12.240 They wound up taking a giant low and that was 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:14.880 guaranteed by the state of Rhode Island for seventy five 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.000 million dollars in exchanged for moving to Rhode Island and 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:21.040 getting a bunch of jobs. They're in Providence. Um, and 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:24.560 wound up burning through that in a year. Uh. Suddenly, 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:27.440 one day everybody gets into words. They think they have 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:29.400 been made in the shade that they're here at this 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:31.720 company where they are treated like the best of the best. 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.080 They get into work one day and they are not paid. 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:36.640 Their paychecks have not process because it turns up the 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.720 company ran completely out of money. Um. None of them 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:42.400 got severance, none of them got those final paychecks that 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.240 were all robbed essentially of weeks of work, and all 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:47.200 were stuck in Rhode Island where there are no other 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:50.720 game companies. It's a similar story, so Jason, Chapter nine, 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:53.720 Human Costs, Human Solutions, and you and you write. Ask 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.720 any veteran video game developer their least favorite thing about 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:59.279 the industry, and you'll probably get a different version of 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.440 the same answer. It treats people poorly. It choose them 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:04.520 up and then spits them back out, leaving nothing but 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:09.000 grizzle and bones behind. So why do they do it? 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:12.920 Because people go back, right? Or do they go back 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.880 to the industry? I mean they do write they like it. Well, 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:19.840 it's pretty much a young persons industry. And um, there's 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:21.600 a great there's a great quote in the book from 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:23.360 a guy named Zack Mumbox who has been a long 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:25.680 time at e A, and at one point later in 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:27.640 his career, he said, I was looking around in the 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:31.000 office and when I had started in two thousand, I 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:33.280 was in my twenties and everyone else was in their twenties. 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:37.120 Now I'm looking around my thirties and everyone else is 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:39.400 in their twenties, and I'm like, where is everyone who 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.680 came up with me? And the answer is that the 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:46.039 video industry, while it's certainly fun, I mean it's fun 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:48.080 to work on games, and it can be really interesting 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:52.440 and challenging and creatively satisfying. Um, all these these terrible factors, 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:56.039 including the volatility that I cover in press reset um, 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:58.560 just lead to a whole lot of burnout. UM. And 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.000 I'm not sure how many of those people are going back. 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:03.200 I think a lot of people just feel like games 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:05.400 does not treat them. Games of the games industry does 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.040 not treat them. Like. Is there any model that just 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:12.760 seems to work above and beyond other models or is 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:15.920 this just yeah, like, what are the companies that maybe 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:19.800 have done it right? Yeah? Well, there are a couple 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:21.920 of things, and I explore in the chapter you mentioned, 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:24.880 I explore some of the potential answers to these questions 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:28.040 and solutions to these problems that I bring up here. Um. 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:31.400 One is the big one is unionization, which has not 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.800 happened in the North American video game industry at all. UM. 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:37.760 And you look at, uh, the video games kind of 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.840 sister industry in Hollywood, and one of the reasons that 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:43.600 people are able to maintain careers in in that field 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.640 just because they're unionized and so they have protections in place, 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:48.640 and they might pounce around from gig to gigs, but 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:51.200 they know they'll get paid for every overtime hour, and 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:53.679 they know they're going to get a certain minimum salary 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:56.640 and they know they're going to get benefits and health care. UM. 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:58.240 So that's a big thing. And I think that could 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:00.880 offer some protections and give workers would be the table 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:03.120 in the video game industry UM to a level that 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:06.480 they haven't seen before. The other thing and this is it. 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:09.240 It's wild timing. You were talking about zoom before and 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:11.760 how a year ago we had no idea what it is. UM. 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.600 I actually think that remote work is one of the 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:18.040 big solutions to the to the video game industry's woes. 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.360 And I said that because, like I mentioned earlier, UM, 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:24.480 the worst part about being caught in a layoffers to 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:26.320 be a shutdown is knowing that you might have to 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:28.640 move thousands of miles away, you might have to support 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:31.440 your family. That's ultimately drives a lot of people out 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:35.800 of gaming. And a solution to that might be if hey, okay, 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:37.680 I just got laid off, but I can just log 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:40.199 into my computer and my home office and potentially get 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.120 a job anywhere without having to move. That I think 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:45.600 would keep a lot of people who left the industry 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:49.800 from running out because they wanted to worry about moving 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:52.520 to a new city every time they had to switch shops, 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:55.320 so coming a game changer. Give me an idea too. 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:57.720 You said it tends to be a lot of younger individuals. 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.480 I remember doing a story on a video game company 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.200 years ago out on the on the West coast. Uh. 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:05.400 In conjunction with it, give a Stanford that either had 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.679 a program you know, that was just specifically geared to 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:11.320 UM teaching people to kind of how to be in 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:16.000 the video ame industry. What do they get paid typically? Yeah, 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.560 I mean it varies drastically. Like if you're on if 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:20.800 you're in San Francisco, I you're an engineer, you could 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:23.199 be making over six figures. It could be making a 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:25.600 hundred fifty or something like that. But then again you 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:27.760 look around and she's footing Google and you could be 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:31.200 making double then double that. So it's it's uh, it's 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.160 all relative, right, Um. Yeah, I mean it can really 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:37.680 drastically differ depending on your discipline, depending on your years 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:40.200 of experience, depending on whether you're at a big company 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:42.600 or smart company. Um. But in general, the people on 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:44.720 the bottom of the poneum pole, the q A, which 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:47.559 is quality assurance, the testers in the video game industry. 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:49.240 They're the people who were paid to find how the 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:53.439 bugs and games. Um, they're making around usually close to 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:57.000 a minimum wage, maybe not exactly that, but um twenty 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:00.240 dollars an hour or something like eighteen twenty dollars an hour, um. 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.040 And then you can kind of get bumped up over 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:06.160 that as you become if you're if you're a junior designer, 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:09.360 maybe you're making I don't know, forty fifty thousand a year, 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:11.880 and then you kind of go up from there. It is, 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:14.920 by no means a well paying industry. It's not. It's 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:18.000 not banking or tech or anything like that unless you 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:21.320 are at the very top, unless you're well. You do 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.760 have a chapter called Workaholics, and you talked about some 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:25.959 of the different individuals that you talked to. I mean 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:28.960 a lot of industries, there's a lot of workaholics. I've 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:30.960 been in the media industry for a long time and 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:32.800 you work a lot. It's just the way it goes. 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:36.080 What's different though, about being a workaholic in the video 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.679 game industry. Yeah, I think it's a very different. I've 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.720 been in media for yeah, you know it, and yeah 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:44.800 I've been there. I've been there for sure. Um, I 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:47.160 think there's there's there's a lot of differences. But one 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:49.280 of the key ones for me at least is that 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:51.920 when I'm working late on a story um or when 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:53.760 I'm working late to cover in a band or something 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:56.080 like that, I may do it for a week. I 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:58.280 might do put in an extra weekend here and there. 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:03.160 Um engagementvelopment. It's often so prolonged and sustained that it 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:05.640 could be months and months of just like not seeing 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.440 your family working six days a week, working twelve hours 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:10.520 a day. And that's often what we see. And those 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:12.240 are some of the stories that I've covered over the 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:15.080 course of of writing about the video game industry is 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:19.199 that it's doesn't seem to end. And I think I 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.120 don't think you'll find many people out there who would 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:24.360 object to like a couple of weeks of overtime here 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:26.480 and there. It's just when it goes on and on 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:29.400 for months on end. Um, even if you have a 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:31.920 deadline in sight. It can just see how I can 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:34.160 really just eat away at your personal life and your 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:37.280 mental health. Hey, just got about fifty seconds left here. 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:40.800 What surprised you in doing this book? Yeah, the thing 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.360 that surprised me most is just hearing the same story 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.959 over and over again. Hey, Jason, I'm I'm burning out 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:48.800 of the video and I'm leaving the video of new industry. 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.160 I'm going someplace that treats me better or like, yeah, 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:53.400 I went through a layoffs. Every single game developer you 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.480 talk to, it's it's harder to find someone who hasn't 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:58.760 been through a layoff, and it has defend someone who has. 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:00.760 And that's to mean it's really sad, and it's just 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:03.199 I think one of the reasons that I wanted to 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.000 publish this book is to kind of bring put a 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.080 spotlight on this stuff and and bring it to more 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:11.640 people's attention. And yeah, I hope people people, I hope 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.800 it resonates with people. Well, it's a great read and 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:17.600 really fun to talk with you about it. Jason, thank 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:19.920 you so much. Good luck with it. Jason Schryer, he's 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:23.280 Bloomberg News technology reporter. As we said, his new book 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.280 is Press, Reset, Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:30.240 Industry and again also author of the bestseller Blood, Sweat, 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:32.840 and Pixels and you can check out more at Bloomberg 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:35.560 dot com also at business Week dot com.