Creditgate

[Arthur_Parker]

First Quote from Psychochild’s Blog

More recently, I was told by a former developer that Turbine will not be including the names of people who left before launch to the credits of Dungeons & Dragons Online. If true, this is a really sleazy move on Turbine's part. Some of the developers had put a lot of effort into early development, and had worked on the project for the majority of its development. To leave them out is to try to deny their role in the game. No matter how the game turns out, they should have the right to have their names associated with the project. Obviously, information like this gets out so the people won't be completely forgotten, but it's nice to have your name on the project "officially".

Ken Troop replies.

You (this is a global you) may think the plan was ungenerous, or needlessly stringent, but I'm amazed there was a furor over this. I doubt strongly that the people who left care as much about whether they get an Acknowledgement credit than some of the people still here apparently do, *mostly people who are not even on the D&D team currently* (this is the part that really amazes me).

And if some of those people who had left did care that strongly, if it was or is that important, *to them*, to get a credit...they could have stayed and finished the game. A fairly simple calculation.

As a final note, and something that seemed to go unremarked during all this melodrama -- I applaud giving full Design credit to Phillip Speer, Brent Walton, Ryan Schaffer, Ian LaBrie, Tim Lang, and Thatcher Risom. 6 people who came to us for a few months from QA and made a critical difference when it counted in helping this game make it. More than anything else, I'm glad they were recognized for it.

Jason Booth comments.

This morning I had an interesting realization about my roles over the years at Turbine. I flirted with the Creative Director position several times, but each time backed away from the role at some point, sometimes after having the role for a while. For me, it was a naturally attractive position. I’m the type of person who not only has and recognizes good ideas from others, but am someone who can get them implemented either through my own perspiration or the inspiration of others. I always seemed to have the teams ear, and I think it was primarily because they had mine as well.

But what I realized this morning is that in this particular environment the management of the company was more interested in my ability to sell things to the team than my ability to rationalize the correct answer from the team. In fact, there was a repeating pattern of behavior that showed as much. What they wanted out of a CD was someone to sell whatever shlock was tossed down from high above on the mountain regardless of if it made sense or not; a yes man with the teams ear. A CD in this environment would be part used car salesmen, part fall guy. To be able to sell it, they’d need to be someone who had credentials with their team; but inevitably, it would be their credentials which would act as fuel, burned away on a given task. And thus, with each flirtation, an uncompromising position would be forced, and I’d back away from the position rather than compromise my beliefs or relationship with my team.

Now; DDO has shipped. It is what it is, but what it isn’t is a game with a proper credits list. In management’s infinite wisdom, it was deemed that anyone who was not with the company at the moment of ship would have their credit on the game revoked, regardless of if they wrote like half the game code or not. Quite a few of us bailed on that project due to a wide range of very valid reasons, as for myself, I was interviewing with Harmonix while being offered the CD position at Turbine, and when I backed away from the position yet again quickly turned in managements eyes. I was not willing to tote a line of action I didn’t believe in.

The only rational reason for not giving people their rightful credits is that those involved are acting out of petty and spite. In fact, Ken’s post on the matter seems to confirm it. You can reason the whole thing here, but I’ll pull out the poignant part for you:


“And if some of those people who had left did care that strongly, if it was or is that important, *to them*, to get a credit...they could have stayed and finished the game. A fairly simple calculation.”


It’s sad, because many of the people who were not credited were incredibly talented individuals who I loved working with (and some I currently work with again at Harmonix). Many of the things which made that game work at all can be directly attributed back to these people, who worked their asses off for the company. Crediting them doesn’t diminish the credits of those still hard at work on the game.

Perhaps they see it as a way to scare employees into staying, but I think this type of treatment speaks to the type of environment and executives that make someone want to leave a company in the first place, don’t you?

[Margalis]

Jesus Troop sounds like a real ass. Especially when he makes the condescending remarks about people staying the full term and then goes out of his way to point out they credited people for roles they only held for a few months. It looks like some wagon-circling is going on with a healthy does of "with us or against us."

Clearly there is a lot of ill-will here. Looks like Troop sees people leaving as some sort of personal betrayal.

Ken is amazed that people not on the team care? That sometimes people stick up for other people.


Here is my ideal credit scenario: credit people for what they did. Nothing more, nothing less. I note that there wasn't any explanation given why people who left were not credited. I assume because "I loathe those people" wouldn't come off very well.

[schild]

Here's how I look at the situation:

It's immature. That's all there is to it. You want respect like Hollywood? You wanna not be a bunch of geeks chugging mountain dew and munching on cheetohs, stop doing shit like this.

[Arthur_Parker]

I'd agree that it seems petty to not credit people for their creative work, but I'm ignoring that for a moment.

By not giving credit, Turbine created a situation were Psychochild opened the whole subject of up, by responding like he did Ken directly caused Jason to go on the record with his comments.

All that prompted me to remember that one of the few good things about AC2 was the ability of the players to create music and I believe Jason was heavily involved with that. 

It also prompted me to read the rest of Jason's blog especially here.  On the work he did in DDO on hearing/sight attributes for mobs, his work on objects being used to create location based sounds to distract mobs and especially the work he did on stealth.

So, the net result of all this appears to have given Jason more exposure (for me anyway) and I'm glad Jason's involvement in Guitar Hero has gone so well.

[Soln]

A lot of gaming professionals whatever the role are forced to relinquish authorial rights on the grounds that the provider can then change their contribution however they want and whenever they want. That kind of makes sense.  HOWEVER, I think that also extends to being credited, which is disgusting i n this case.  I mean, honest to God, we're talking about 2-3 pages at the back of the FM -- how hard is it to include a few names even if they bailed?  I can understand if they were released, maybe, but even I would've thought legally the provider would be required to show all FTE people involved.  So, yeah, this is just someone's pettiness now being exposed wide open. 

[Miasma]

That was an awful decision and his explanation was extremely weak, it's also a very good way to make future talent avoid going to Turbine.

Ironically I found out in-game last night that if you aren't in the dungeon when the final event happens that you don't get credit for it at all.  I got killed and released to the tavern so that I could regen health/mana as we had used up all the shrines, the final giant died as I was running back to help.  Despite spending a couple hours in there, being on the top of the kill list, and figuring out some of the quest I got nothing but a lump of xp debt.

Oh, and please post this on the DDO general discussion board, I would like to see some drama.

[HaemishM]

So Turbine can't be bothered to credit everyone that worked on the game? That IS immature, and stupid, especially when it costs them nothing, nada, fuckall. Shit, even directors who leave a movie production in nasty, public snits still get credited for their contributions. There are whole unions and rules in Hollywood based around when and where someone's name appears in the credits.

The video game industry shows its ass once again. Time to grow up and leave the monkey pants behind. There's a pair of billion-dollar big boy pants waiting.

[Lt.Dan]

I'll take the contrary point of view.  People who leave mid-project shouldn't get credit.  Sure, they contributed, they put in the time.  But they left it unfinished.  They moved onto something else which they felt suited them better.  I have respect for Troop's position. 

And if some of those people who had left did care that strongly, if it was or is that important, *to them*, to get a credit...they could have stayed and finished the game. A fairly simple calculation.

Hard ball, yeah, but fair in many ways.  It's not a fair to everyone but they made their decisions.  Sour grapes?  Maybe, but then you'd have to have an insiders perspective on who did what to whom.  I hate speculating on that stuff - jesus, it's on a par with guild drama.

As for there not being a cost to including credits I call BS.  The people at the end saw the product through to completion, the survived the crunch, the deserve their reward.  Why should that get diluted by adding some guy who left six months ago?  Turbine should be making current staff happy not giving warm fuzzies to everyone everywhere.  Asisde from that, if it's a big deal, negotiate it as part of your terms of employment. 

As for future talent avoiding Turbine, well no company is perfect.  But I'd think not getting your name on something after you leave would be pretty low on the totem pole of anyone's assessment of a company and the position your applying for.

[HaemishM]

If you co-write a novel with someone and they leave halfway through, you still are responsible for crediting them for having worked on it in some way.

[Soln]

I'll take the contrary point of view.  People who leave mid-project shouldn't get credit.  Sure, they contributed, they put in the time.  But they left it unfinished.  They moved onto something else which they felt suited them better.  I have respect for Troop's position. 

What, as very often happens in a sw project, you are put on another project?  Or, you have to go on leave for whatever reason?  Online services take years to design/develop/test/deploy and are filled with n+1 "projects" (e.g. client, audio, AI, trade, tool building...).  It's normal on the projects I work on for someone to be reassigned in another dept. or for me to re-task someone to another project or problem.  No, the difference is "left voluntarily == no credit" which is just cheap IMO, their perojative, but just bad karma I think.  Maybe the people they left off the credits they assumed wouldn't need to accredited in order to help them get work (like JasonB), but otherwise I don't know the justification.  Personal whim is what it looks like, which as Haemish suggests, isn't very professional.  /shrug

[Miasma]

As for there not being a cost to including credits I call BS.  The people at the end saw the product through to completion, the survived the crunch, the deserve their reward.  Why should that get diluted by adding some guy who left six months ago?  Turbine should be making current staff happy not giving warm fuzzies to everyone everywhere.  Asisde from that, if it's a big deal, negotiate it as part of your terms of employment.

If the guy who came on for a few months at the very end of the project to do a little QA can get credit why the hell shouldn't someone who spent a year there writing/designing the hard stuff at the birth of the game?

As for future talent avoiding Turbine, well no company is perfect.  But I'd think not getting your name on something after you leave would be pretty low on the totem pole of anyone's assessment of a company and the position your applying for.

It gives the impression that the company is run by a spiteful little man and that if you cross him not only will you have to leave the company but you won't get the recognition you deserve.

Keep drinking that kool-aid.

[Lt.Dan]

I work in the financial services industry where bonuses for the previous year are paid to employees around Feb/Mar in the next year.  If you leave during the year, no bonus.  If you leave after year end but before bonuses are paid, no bonus.  It's a workable system but sometimes you get screwed.  But if you get screwed you're the one making the decision and you take responsibility for it.  

I view voluntarily leaving any project the same way.

[HaemishM]

Except this really doesn't cost the company anything. It's a tiny, tiny thing that makes the difference between being professional, and being an asshole.

[Kail]

I work in the financial services industry where bonuses for the previous year are paid to employees around Feb/Mar in the next year.  If you leave during the year, no bonus.  If you leave after year end but before bonuses are paid, no bonus.  It's a workable system but sometimes you get screwed.  But if you get screwed you're the one making the decision and you take responsibility for it. 

I view voluntarily leaving any project the same way.

The argument isn't about getting paid, though, it's about getting credit.  Prior experience on a game project is an important factor (I'm told) in getting hired in the industry.  If you apply for a game development job, the first thing they'll ask you is "what is your prior experience."  If you say "I was in D&D Online" and they look at the credits and your name isn't listed there, I'd be surprised if they didn't immediately sail your application down to the recycle bin.

A company paying out bonuses costs the company money.  A company printing names in the back of an instruction booklet doesn't (to a comparable degree).  Additionally, a yearly bonus happens every year, while the credits for D&DO are a one-shot thing; if someone thought they'd be included in the credits and they weren't (which sounds like the case), you can't point to the last time this happened and call it policy.  It's just an arbitrary decision.

[shiznitz]

I work in the financial services industry where bonuses for the previous year are paid to employees around Feb/Mar in the next year.  If you leave during the year, no bonus.  If you leave after year end but before bonuses are paid, no bonus.  It's a workable system but sometimes you get screwed.  But if you get screwed you're the one making the decision and you take responsibility for it.  

I view voluntarily leaving any project the same way.

As Kali said above me, you cannot compare monetary compensation with reputational credit for work done. If you work at a financial firm and earn 25% for your clients and leave before your bonus, you still earned 25% for your clients and you can take that with you anywhere you go. And in fact, many financial firms will compensate you for leaving a bonus on the table at your old firm with an upfront of some kind as an incentive to leave earlier if that is what the new firm wants.

[Lt.Dan]

I just happen to be on the other side of this.  I'm talking about people leaving to go to other jobs.  They made a rational decision, considered all the facts, and decided to move on with a new opportunity.  Not having credit for DDO obviously didn't hold them back.  And obviously, not being credited in the game manual means they never worked on it and could never describe their role on a resume or discuss the specifics of what they did in an interview.

Sure it would have been nice for Turbine to recognize their contribution but not everything works out that way. 

[Jobu]

Psychochild also says this in his comments:

BTW, I just looked through the credits for Dungeons & Dragons online. The printed manual does not include the names of the people who contributed literally years of work to the project but that left before launch. The in-game credits lists the people as "additional" and not associated with any particular company. These credits came after every other credit, and only appear in the game (which Sandra points out above is often not accepted as "real" credit).

So this really isn't as nefarious as the initial post makes it seem. Putting people who quit/fired/transferred in an "acknowledgements" section is very, very standard practice. I'm of the opinion they should be credited for their disciplines with everyone else... but a special thanks section is an acceptable consolation. It absolutely should have been printed in the manual as well. Ken Tropp's reaction was just... juvenile.

I imagine that too some of the people burned, this is just sweet vindication of their grievances they had that made them leave. "See!! I told you he was a dick!".

[Margalis]

The big problem here is his justification and the fact that he used his justification to shit on those people some more and rub in their faces the fact that people who barely did anything on the game got credit where they did not.

Essentially this is what he said:

People who left us didn't get credit no matter how much work they did - and I gave the janitor that started working in the last two weeks full design credits!


This could not be more simple. Credits give you "credit" for what you did. Complicated huh? If you did programming you get programming credit. Wow, crazy! If they don't accurately reflect what people did they don't mean anything.

[Lum]

Except this really doesn't cost the company anything. It's a tiny, tiny thing that makes the difference between being professional, and being an asshole.

It also means the uncredited people involved are screwed over when looking for work; many companies won't recognize that you've worked on the game if you're not in the printed credits.

And obviously, not being credited in the game manual means they never worked on it and could never describe their role on a resume or discuss the specifics of what they did in an interview.

Obviously, yes, you can say "I worked on Whamadoodles Online for 4 years on the network client-server architecture" but without a printed credit an employer could ask why, and generally you don't want to have the whole "my supervisors were buttheads" conversation during a job interview.

(Before anyone asks, I wasn't affected by this personally... I was listed on DAOC's last expansion credits and left just as preliminary work was beginning on the next one.)

[Malathor]

Obviously, yes, you can say "I worked on Whamadoodles Online for 4 years on the network client-server architecture" but without a printed credit an employer could ask why, and generally you don't want to have the whole "my supervisors were buttheads" conversation during a job interview.

In this case however, butthead supervisor was kind enough to proudly exclaim his buttheadedness on the intarweb leaving a permanant record for all to see. Henceforth I suspect that a Turbine entry on one's resume will, at least in some circles, carry with it the implicit understanding of butthead supervisors and absent printed credits without the need to engage in unpleasant conversation to that effect. No?

[Lt.Dan]

Essentially this is what he said:

People who left us didn't get credit no matter how much work they did - and I gave the janitor that started working in the last two weeks full design credits!

I read that totally differently - as a proof statement that there were some people who made significant contributions, got credit, and were no longer involved. 

Obviously, yes, you can say "I worked on Whamadoodles Online for 4 years on the network client-server architecture" but without a printed credit an employer could ask why

The question then is: what the hell were you doing for four years and why can't you explain to said employer that you actually know stuff about implementing a network client-server architecture?  I don't think we're talking GPAs or MSCE here.

That said, this whole thing lost a bit of steam when someone kindly RTFA.  They all got acknowledgements.

[El Gallo]

Turbine always reeked of an operation run out of somoene's basement even moreso than the rest of the pre-Blizzard MMO companies.  Color me unshocked.

[Trippy]

Obviously, yes, you can say "I worked on Whamadoodles Online for 4 years on the network client-server architecture" but without a printed credit an employer could ask why

The question then is: what the hell were you doing for four years and why can't you explain to said employer that you actually know stuff about implementing a network client-server architecture?  I don't think we're talking GPAs or MSCE here.

That said, this whole thing lost a bit of steam when someone kindly RTFA.  They all got acknowledgements.

That means diddly-squat. And the problem isn't not being able to explain what you did for those missing years -- the problem is getting the interview in the first place. You have to be able to get your resume through the HR-drone screeners first or worse the automated resume scanners. If you aren't credited on the game that you worked on you have two options -- "lie" on your resume and include the credit where it doesn't officially exist and then have to explain why you did lie on your resume when the screener or later interviewer calls you on it or don't include it and hope for a miracle when the HR-drones do a keyword search on your scanned resume.

Jason already had a number of developer credits in his resume before working on DDO and then subsequently moving to Harmonix so this isn't a career-impacting thing for him, but for somebody just starting out in the business it could very well be.

[Shockeye]

I wonder if places like MobyGames will list this "missing" credits or not. It all seems a bit Petty. As in Tom. As in ugly.

[Trippy]

So Turbine can't be bothered to credit everyone that worked on the game? That IS immature, and stupid, especially when it costs them nothing, nada, fuckall. Shit, even directors who leave a movie production in nasty, public snits still get credited for their contributions. There are whole unions and rules in Hollywood based around when and where someone's name appears in the credits.

Actually Hollywood, or more specifically the Director's Guild of America, has a "one director" rule on movies. Hence the reason why Robert Rodríguez quit the Guild and forfeited his director's seat on John Carter of Mars when the DGA refused to allow Frank Miller co-directing credit on Sin City (leaving the Guild meant the film was no longer under the auspices of the DBA so Rodriguez could include Miller in the credits).

http://dga.org/news/v29_1/craft_singularity_504.php3

The Writers Guild, on the other hand, does have an arbitration process to handle the messy process of deciding who gets screenwriting credit on a movie.

Edit: fixed typo

[Stormwaltz]

I sincerely doubt the decision was Troop's to make. He's a very decent guy, and he works hard to make sure his people are happy and respected. He practically gave the ACDM team bonuses out of his own pocket when MS refused to. Of the various people I worked under at Turbine, I was happiest under him.

I can't say much more, although I will note that such a decision is entirely consistent with the management strategy of Certain People in the upper echelons of the company. Who are, incidentally, the reason I am no longer there myself.

[Telemediocrity]

Someone should really mosey on down to CafePress and work up a "Jeff Anderson Treated Me Like Shit And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt" design.

[Strazos]

[Ironwood]

Heh.

[Arthur_Parker]

I should update this as there's an update on Psychochild's blog relating to Ken's original post.

I just wanted to post a new comment saying that comment #12 above was not posted by Ken Troop, although it was previously attributed to him. Ken talked to me at the GDC and said that the quote was taken out of context from an email he had sent. I have edited the comment, but have kept the quote since some of the discussion was centered around it.

There's more mud flying at the other place about this now.  I guess I shouldn't believe everything I read on the internet. 

[Broughden]

Jesus Troop sounds like a real ass. Especially when he makes the condescending remarks about people staying the full term and then goes out of his way to point out they credited people for roles they only held for a few months. It looks like some wagon-circling is going on with a healthy does of "with us or against us."

Clearly there is a lot of ill-will here. Looks like Troop sees people leaving as some sort of personal betrayal.

Ken is amazed that people not on the team care? That sometimes people stick up for other people.


Here is my ideal credit scenario: credit people for what they did. Nothing more, nothing less. I note that there wasn't any explanation given why people who left were not credited. I assume because "I loathe those people" wouldn't come off very well.

Whats really funneh is that as soon as the game was done Troop went running off to WoTC. What a jack ass.