[TRENCHES] Tuesday, May 20, 2014 - Losing It

Geth

Losing It
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/losing-it

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.

Polaritie

Wow. This may take the cake for managerial blunders in tales.

marsilies

In case anyone missed it in the last comic's thread, Tycho posted this news on PA:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/05/19/the-state-of-play

You might have noticed an art change over at The Trenches, and that is because Monica Ray (of Strip Search, and Other Fames) is now a storyboard artist on new cartoon show Bad Seeds(!!!). What this means is that Ty Halley, who was writing this season of Trenches, is now writing and drawing The Trenches. It could literally say “The Trenches, By Ty Halley” and it would be accurate. It’s fun to step outside something like this, and have a chance to be a fan of something you started. The comics are great, the Anonymous Stories of Development Woe (ASDW) are fascinating, and there’s years and years of both in the archive.