Trenches comic: Tuesday December, 13 2011 - Overdose

Bogey

The game has been accepted! Time to celebrate! Or not.

12/13/2011 - Anonymous

I programmed for a very small game company back in 1998, right at the end of a deathmarch. The previous lead programmer had left, and I had been hired to help tie up loose ends and get the game out the door. There were seven of us. Two programmers, two artists, the president/designer, the lackey, and a single QA intern.

We finally finish up and submit the final build to the publisher, waiting with baited breath. I had quit a job at IBM to join this team. The others had similar stories of following their dreams to do what they loved. Contribute to something they had a true passions for.

The publisher accepted, and we were overjoyed!

And then the president fired us over lunch the next day. The company dissolved.

DarkPrimus

Wow, those are certainly some these those star points stand for.

Bishop99999999

Remember kids: Your favorite show sucks.

Falx

There's nothing like having an adult brain for murdering nostalgia.

CheBourgeoisNoir

"Weilds" ? Wields?

Darkewolfe

Man, who quits a good job to join a company that is OBVIOUSLY going under? Did the previous senior leadership leave? They probably had good reason to. That company isn't going to last. Maybe the people who go into game design make bad decisions.

kingworks

The designer was also the president. He was just looking for some people to make his game before he dumped them.

What a douche.

The Last Gent

I now want to see the in-universe Lawstar comics written 20 years later by ascended fans that attempt to provide detailed explanations for the meanings of all these star points, and other we-really-didn't-care-when-we-wrote-this story elements.

marsilies

waiting with baited breath...

It's not "baited breath," but "bated breath" as in abated.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bai1.htm

Pedantry finished.

Lindsay Lohan

This was the first Trenches to get a really solid laugh out of me. The first panel is simply awesome in its redundantness. Still don't like the artstyle, but the writing on this one was great.

Andy Joe

A captain and a sheriff? Impressive.

see317

marsilies wrote:

waiting with baited breath...

It's not "baited breath," but "bated breath" as in abated.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bai1.htm
Pedantry finished.

Naw, they were all munching on fish eggs and nightcrawlers.
Sure it's tasty, but the things they do to your breath is just horrendous.

Taramoor

Good to see the tales from the Trenches returning to their "and then we all got fired" roots.

roadtoad

CheBourgeoisNoir wrote:

"Weilds" ? Wields?

also: "lawfulness"

assuming it's the noun form of lawful and not some sort of mashed together "fullness of law"

hurm...

The Infra

Oh my Jesus

also, not Law

This is so Kurtz writing. And I love it.

Aurich

My question is, and I think this is important for character development: Did he make them pay for the lunch he invited them to to fire them?

Henroid

Aurich wrote:

My question is, and I think this is important for character development: Did he make them pay for the lunch he invited them to to fire them?

That would be the hugest dick move ever.

Also, "not law," I agree with The Infra. Definitely Kurtz writing there. :^:

Zazu Yen

kingworks wrote:

The designer was also the president. He was just looking for some people to make his game before he dumped them.

What a douche.

This. And he didn't want to pay them for one day more than he needed them. He must talk a mean game. There are those out there who will sell you on the most amazing "we're going to be the next id/Zynga/Popcap/(name your favorite company) and we'll all be rich" story and it's not surprising someone who hasn't worked in this industry would take such bait just to get into it. Talk about learning the hard way.

But it takes a special kind of bastard to go through crunch time working shoulder to shoulder with guys and then let them go the very day they are no longer needed. I hope the author didn't agree to take a pile of stock in lue of a decent salary, though he almost certainly did.

GSM

How weird is it that the cartoon characters in the comic are drawn more realistically than the real characters?

Blake T

Zazu Yen wrote:

kingworks wrote:

The designer was also the president. He was just looking for some people to make his game before he dumped them.

What a douche.

This. And he didn't want to pay them for one day more than he needed them. He must talk a mean game. There are those out there who will sell you on the most amazing "we're going to be the next id/Zynga/Popcap/(name your favorite company) and we'll all be rich" story and it's not surprising someone who hasn't worked in this industry would take such bait just to get into it. Talk about learning the hard way.

But it takes a special kind of bastard to go through crunch time working shoulder to shoulder with guys and then let them go the very day they are no longer needed. I hope the author didn't agree to take a pile of stock in lue of a decent salary, though he almost certainly did.

No it doesn't. It takes someone who isn't fucking rich to do this.

It was a company not the best friends forever club.

I'm not sure if you know this but it costs money to hire people. Even if they aren't doing anything. As such if there isn't anything for them to do, it hurts the company.

When you hire a plumber do you just keep paying for him for like a few days afterwards?

Taramoor

Blake T wrote:

Zazu Yen wrote:

kingworks wrote:

The designer was also the president. He was just looking for some people to make his game before he dumped them.

What a douche.

This. And he didn't want to pay them for one day more than he needed them. He must talk a mean game. There are those out there who will sell you on the most amazing "we're going to be the next id/Zynga/Popcap/(name your favorite company) and we'll all be rich" story and it's not surprising someone who hasn't worked in this industry would take such bait just to get into it. Talk about learning the hard way.

But it takes a special kind of bastard to go through crunch time working shoulder to shoulder with guys and then let them go the very day they are no longer needed. I hope the author didn't agree to take a pile of stock in lue of a decent salary, though he almost certainly did.

No it doesn't. It takes someone who isn't fucking rich to do this.

It was a company not the best friends forever club.

I'm not sure if you know this but it costs money to hire people. Even if they aren't doing anything. As such if there isn't anything for them to do, it hurts the company.

When you hire a plumber do you just keep paying for him for like a few days afterwards?

No, but I also don't tell him that if he just does one more thing for less than he normally charges then I'll totally call him when I redo the entire bathroom and install a hot tub out back.

Then again, my plumber is my uncle, so the analogy kind of falls apart.

Rehab

GSM wrote:

How weird is it that the cartoon characters in the comic are drawn more realistically than the real characters?

We haven't seen Lord Hate Star's been-shaped sidekick yet!

Rehab

Also, this might be the bleakest industry post thus far.

Aurich

Blake T wrote:

Zazu Yen wrote:

kingworks wrote:

The designer was also the president. He was just looking for some people to make his game before he dumped them.

What a douche.

This. And he didn't want to pay them for one day more than he needed them. He must talk a mean game. There are those out there who will sell you on the most amazing "we're going to be the next id/Zynga/Popcap/(name your favorite company) and we'll all be rich" story and it's not surprising someone who hasn't worked in this industry would take such bait just to get into it. Talk about learning the hard way.

But it takes a special kind of bastard to go through crunch time working shoulder to shoulder with guys and then let them go the very day they are no longer needed. I hope the author didn't agree to take a pile of stock in lue of a decent salary, though he almost certainly did.

No it doesn't. It takes someone who isn't fucking rich to do this.

It was a company not the best friends forever club.

I'm not sure if you know this but it costs money to hire people. Even if they aren't doing anything. As such if there isn't anything for them to do, it hurts the company.

When you hire a plumber do you just keep paying for him for like a few days afterwards?

They almost certainly weren't expecting to be paid for doing nothing. I think the implication is that they were busting their asses for something they could be part of, rather than getting canned like so much unskilled seasonal labor. Even Best Buy will tell you point blank right when you start that they're going to fire you in a couple months.

Darkewolfe

Aurich wrote:

Blake T wrote:

Zazu Yen wrote:

kingworks wrote:

The designer was also the president. He was just looking for some people to make his game before he dumped them.

What a douche.

This. And he didn't want to pay them for one day more than he needed them. He must talk a mean game. There are those out there who will sell you on the most amazing "we're going to be the next id/Zynga/Popcap/(name your favorite company) and we'll all be rich" story and it's not surprising someone who hasn't worked in this industry would take such bait just to get into it. Talk about learning the hard way.

But it takes a special kind of bastard to go through crunch time working shoulder to shoulder with guys and then let them go the very day they are no longer needed. I hope the author didn't agree to take a pile of stock in lue of a decent salary, though he almost certainly did.

No it doesn't. It takes someone who isn't fucking rich to do this.

It was a company not the best friends forever club.

I'm not sure if you know this but it costs money to hire people. Even if they aren't doing anything. As such if there isn't anything for them to do, it hurts the company.

When you hire a plumber do you just keep paying for him for like a few days afterwards?

They almost certainly weren't expecting to be paid for doing nothing. I think the implication is that they were busting their asses for something they could be part of, rather than getting canned like so much unskilled seasonal labor. Even Best Buy will tell you point blank right when you start that they're going to fire you in a couple months.

But this is how game studios work. Haven't we seen a bunch of other stories, clearly outlining that the expectation is most people lose their jobs when a game is finished?

Silas Brown

Blake T wrote:

Zazu Yen wrote:

kingworks wrote:

The designer was also the president. He was just looking for some people to make his game before he dumped them.

What a douche.

This. And he didn't want to pay them for one day more than he needed them. He must talk a mean game. There are those out there who will sell you on the most amazing "we're going to be the next id/Zynga/Popcap/(name your favorite company) and we'll all be rich" story and it's not surprising someone who hasn't worked in this industry would take such bait just to get into it. Talk about learning the hard way.

But it takes a special kind of bastard to go through crunch time working shoulder to shoulder with guys and then let them go the very day they are no longer needed. I hope the author didn't agree to take a pile of stock in lue of a decent salary, though he almost certainly did.

No it doesn't. It takes someone who isn't fucking rich to do this.

It was a company not the best friends forever club.

I'm not sure if you know this but it costs money to hire people. Even if they aren't doing anything. As such if there isn't anything for them to do, it hurts the company.

When you hire a plumber do you just keep paying for him for like a few days afterwards?

Well I guess now we know who the president was.