CGL Speculation #10, Time for asbestos underoos Options

[emouse]

I don't think most of us care that the freelancers have been paid promptly, other than it effects the quality of the line.

Ancient History's stuff that he pulled? I've read most of it and it was /good/
Now it's all gone, and who knows what will come out in it's place from Catalyst.

I'm not as fixated on individual contributors. Shadowrun existed before Ancient, and it will go on after him. The main reason he ended up leaving was because of the situation created by IMR being low on funds resulting in people not getting paid and publishing schedules getting pushed back. If IMR gets that fixed then presumably they'll be able to avoid losing future contractors due to the same reason. A reason that has struck the publishers of Shadowrun before, and cost them (FASA) names bigger than Ancient's.

[sabs]

Ancient was more an example (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) than an actual.. OMG!heleft!
I'm sure that several freelancers did what AH did, but not as vocally.

And I do remember the death of FASA well. I've been an avid shadowrun/earthdawn geek since 1989 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Cain]

See, that's part of the problem. We've all been so fixated on freelancer payment that we forget it's only a symptom. The cause is mismanagement of creative talent. Who wants to buy from the writing equivalent of a sweatshop? Watch talented freelancers become burned out and jaded? We want to see Shadowrun freelancers treated with the utmost respect, not with the bare minimum. And paying on time *is* the bare minimum.

[Critias]

*sigh* This is really getting silly. No wonder I avoided the previous hojillion threads. I can only blame some weird mixture of morbid curiosity and smoldering indignation, for my visits to this one -- indignation because I keep seeing some pretty wild claims and demands being made, and now a pretty ridiculous condemnation of how freelancers are supposedly being treated.

For starters -- wholly independent of any conversation about Shadowrun, Catalyst, IMR, or anyone else specifically mentioned in this thread -- I just want to say something about freelancing in general. As someone who's done freelance writing for several game companies over the course of several years, I can tell you that "utmost respect" just isn't part of the expected job description with any of them. Aspirations aside, none of us are Stephen King, J. K. Rowling, or Billy Shakespeare (yet), and we know it. Freelance work is what it is.

You write, you get your couple pennies a word, you have some fun adding to the canon of a game universe you (hopefully) enjoy, and that's that. You get a thank you when you meet a deadline, you get another contract if they like your work, and if you know someone at the company personally you indulge in some friendly banter via e-mail when schedules permit. You make a few new friends at conventions, shake a few hands and put faces to names...and...well, that's the job. You get paid peanuts, because you sign a contract accepting peanuts in exchange for your work.

Complaining about an outright lack of pay is all well and good -- as someone who collects that pay, I can understand indignation along those lines! -- but no one gets into freelance writing for ticker tape parades, corporate jets, corner offices, and Swedish massage girls. The honest truth is most people don't find full time work in the gaming industry (of all places) for fancy perks or soft handling. Freelancers are big boys. We know the nature of the business when we approach a company, any company, with a proposal. We don't get into it looking forward to being beaten with sticks or having bamboo shoved under our nails or anything, but as someone who did temp jobs for part of my college career, I can tell you it and freelancing are an awful lot alike. No one gives temps or interns "the utmost respect," and no temp or intern that's cut out for it expects "the utmost respect." No one in the RPG or wargame industry gets "the utmost respect," in the big picture. Let's not have unrealistic expectations, here.

Just like shadowrunners don't get into their business for the medical and dental plan, we freelance writers know full well that "writing equivalent of a sweatshop" is pretty much the whole career description. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Let's not blame one conveniently target-able game company for the nature of the industry itself, based on one string of unfortunate incidents.

Now, for CGL in particular?

For what it's worth? I can certainly tell you there's absolutely nothing more "sweatshop" about what I'm seeing with CGL than there has been for any of the other game companies I've worked with, at any rate. If anything, the atmosphere has been the most transparent and community-oriented, with all sorts of brainstorming and idea swapping going on, with communication and coordination to help us all be on the same page. Truth be told, it's jarring compared to the "you write this many words about X, you write this many about Y, and when you're done we'll mish-mash them together into a cohesive article. What? No, you two don't need to coordinate or anything, I just coordinated you!" atmosphere that I've run into with several previous companies. There's an almost-overwhelming amount of coordination and communication going on, between document sharing groups, instant messenger services, mailing lists, and plain old emails. CGL has also been right in line with handling contract, NDA, and invoice paperwork, every bit as professional as any business I've dealt with (right up there with Privateer Press, to be honest, which is the only other franchise I've operated with that's been anywhere near this businesslike making sure the t's are crossed and i's are dotted). Whatever happened, happened. I can tell they're working hard not to let it happen again.

I'm not going to claim to know every detail of the crap that's happened in the past. I'm not naive enough to think I'm going to get every detail, no matter how many DS threads I read, how much I scour RPG.net for it, or how many posts I find by AH, FT, Jason Hardy, or anyone else, I hunt down to eagerly devour. What I do know is how I'm getting treated right now, compared to how I was treated by previous Shadowrun line developers, and how I've been treated by other game companies, and I know that just doesn't jive with some of the wild accusations people are throwing around right now.

So, anyways, there. If anyone cares about what someone who's freelanced for other game companies, and is freelancing for CGL right now, feels, there you go.

If y'all will pardon me, I'm off to write.

[Mesh]

That sounds like a nice ending. Thread closed.

[otakusensei]

...

So, what you're saying is that the industry itself is to blame? And no one who makes these games is any better than IMR?

I handle IT operations for a company large enough to make use of quite a bit of freelancer contractors.

I pay them on time.

I don't fuck around, I get checks out. It's not a matter of hiring Alexander Graham Bell to do your phone install, or not. I pay whoever does the work for me if it's up to the standard of quality that I require, and I do so on time. If I can't afford to hire someone, then I have to reevaluate why I need the work done in the first place.

Being unprofessional is exactly that. Being unprofessional. Pointing fingers and saying that everyone else is doing it is deplorable for someone in IMR's position to do, and ridiculous for anyone who expects payment from them. Professionalism is a social contract and needs to be upheld on both sides of any transaction. Failing to do your part means you're failing to fix the problem. Openly supporting your failure means you're actively working to make the problem worse.

Honestly, what part of supporting unprofessional and abusive practices toward freelancers makes IMR look any better?

[Critias]

I handle IT operations for a company large enough to make use of quite a bit of freelancer contractors.

I pay them on time.

I don't fuck around, I get checks out.

Did you even read what I said -- very specifically -- I was talking about, versus what I said -- very specifically -- I was not? Did you pay any attention at all to what I said I knew, versus what I said I hadn't been involved in and didn't pretend to know the details of? Did you pick up, in the slightest, on the very precise part of Cain's post I was obviously addressing, and the parts of the previous 10 CGL speculation threads I wasn't?

I mean, really?

[Jaid]

Did you even read what I said -- very specifically -- I was talking about, versus what I said -- very specifically -- I was not? Did you pay any attention at all to what I said I knew, versus what I said I hadn't been involved in and didn't pretend to know the details of? Did you pick up, in the slightest, on the very precise part of Cain's post I was obviously addressing, and the parts of the previous 10 CGL speculation threads I wasn't?

I mean, really?

if it helps any, i'd say my summary of what you said would go something like:

"As someone who is currently working as a freelancer for CGL, Critias thinks they're doing a pretty good job of treating their freelancers as well as could be reasonably expected given the nature of the job, and are in fact currently doing better than most other companies he has worked for in the industry."

but then, i suppose i'm not one of the people tearing into CGL for not telling us every last detail of what they're doing. still, perhaps the two line version will actually get read...

[Grinder]

This thread gets us nowhere any longer.