[TRENCHES] Thursday, May 22, 2014 - Quit While You’re Ahead

Geth

Quit While You’re Ahead
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/quit-while-youre-ahead

Cellblock 2350

Anonymous

In the early 2000s, a AAA video game company that is not Rockstar decided to try and capture the same kind of magic in a free roaming crime based video game series that they own. The idea was to try and make the game as close to life in the blood splattered morally grey area of living as real as possible.  A very admirable goal, I would say.  But instead of consulting social workers, criminologists, or even police officers who have patrolled those places, the company decided to consult actual ex-convicts who lived in the specific area that was the subject matter of the game in question.

I’m sorry, did I say “Consult?”  I meant, “Hire.”

That’s right.  The company decided to hire a couple dozen ex-cons to work on the game.  Not in development, or level editing, or even as script reviewers.  The company decided to place all of these convicted felons in their testing department, pretty much the one and only place in a publisher’s hierarchy where you get no say in the game.

Now at this time, this AAA company had just expanded their Testing department to occupy an entire floor of a new high rise office building (who’s address number was 2350) directly across the street from their main office.  The AAA company was very proud of this, and intended to rent out more floors to further expand the corporation and increase the number of projects they can develop at one time in the near future.  The testing department was recently settled into this location when the ex-cons were dropped on them.  The change in the workplace was nearly instantaneous.

The office went from subdued efficiency to loud, crass, stinky, and inefficient.  The ex-cons to a man did as little work as possible and were uncooperative with the actual employees.  Within a week, the restroom on that floor began to degenerate into something a long haul trucker would shun in disgust.  The doors were torn off the stalls. Faucets and toilets were intentionally broken.  Graffiti was scratched in, markered in, and spray painted over all of the walls. There was fecal stains on every surface inside the stalls, including the ceilings.  My friend made a point of telling me that he jumped the elevator down to the lobby every time he needed to use a bathroom.

The toilet was also the place to go for illegal activities.  Drug dealing went on in there, as well as drug usage.  And one GUY was even arrested for PROSTITUTION in that MEN’S ROOM.

The best part of the story to me, and I just love this, is that the AAA company in question had an outdoor fitness center, an open air gym, in their front lawn area for their desk slaves to keep healthy. This gym was located in direct view from the company president’s office in the middle center of the home office building.  Every time there was a break, that gym was filled with the ex-cons pumping iron like they were still in the prison yard, in direct view out of the company president’s window.  I just can’t even comprehend what made the company president decide to forge on with this plan after seeing that sight three or four times a day.

But the company did hold fast to the idea of having criminals work on their crime game.  And as a result, before the game was even released on the market, their business was permanently evicted from the new high rise.

Warlock82

Ok this one actually made me laugh :P

(Although boo, still the same tale. Wonder if it will change at some point later on)

marsilies

A tale so nice they ran it twice.

plki76

Both the "fuck" quotient and humor value took a sharp turn upwards with this comic. First truly funny comic in a long time, and hopefully the first of many more.

forty

Good writing in this one, but Isaac looks weird (like, weird compared to the normal weird of the original cast).

JohnnyricoMC

forty wrote: »

Good writing in this one, but Isaac looks weird (like, weird compared to the normal weird of the original cast).

Isaac actually has elbows as of a few comics ago. Before his limbs almost never assumed sharp angles, which was part of the overall style for Isaac if I'm not mistaken. (Oh, I almost forgot the pointy rodent-fingers, those seem new too. Electric pencil sharpeners are dangerous!)

That, and his facial expression now looks like that of someone in charge who doesn't care too much about subordinates' opinions.

Aegeri

Looks like Isaac hasn't been sleeping.

Urban Achiever

JohnnyricoMC wrote: »

forty wrote: »

Good writing in this one, but Isaac looks weird (like, weird compared to the normal weird of the original cast).

Isaac actually has elbows as of a few comics ago. Before his limbs almost never assumed sharp angles, which was part of the overall style for Isaac if I'm not mistaken. (Oh, I almost forgot the pointy rodent-fingers, those seem new too. Electric pencil sharpeners are dangerous!)

That, and his facial expression now looks like that of someone in charge who doesn't care too much about subordinates' opinions.

Isaac drawing-guide (from between season 2 and 3): http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/isaac-style-guide

Showsni

Tale's been updated:

Credit Where it’s Due

Towards the start of my career in the industry, I helped wrap up a US-developed game based on a famous Japanese cultural icon. It was being published by a well-known company that had long left the console scene and has since, struggled on its own. Anyhow they didn’t seem keen on the idea of crediting the developers on the end game credits sequence.

From what I understand, our company owner refused to hand over the final build until that was remedied. It was - Every developer was listed in name only, without any job title, meanwhile the publisher’s own credits were extended to include not only their job titles, but as well as special thanks to their families and pets.

Nice, huh?

In the end, we still worked with them on two other projects, and to no one’s surprise, we still had issues with them…

So this would be like a book publisher refusing to let the author put their name on the front cover? Sounds pretty ridiculous...

SwashbucklerXX

Huh. I know a number of Japanese publishers that don't like to credit the English localization staff in their games, but most publishers are pretty good at crediting the developers...

azmod2000

SwashbucklerXX wrote: »

Huh. I know a number of Japanese publishers that don't like to credit the English localization staff in their games, but most publishers are pretty good at crediting the developers...

Is there an actual business reason for not crediting people?

marsilies

azmod2000 wrote: »

Is there an actual business reason for not crediting people?

It doesn't cost them money to include someone in the credits, in that nobody gets paid based on whether they're credited or not. It's usually an ego thing, with maybe a desire to keep credits short.