Ion Storm Austin Studio Under 'Transition'?

madhatter256 writes "According to Shacknews, around 20-25 more employees, allegedly including noted designer Warren Spector, have left the Eidos-owned Ion Storm studio in Austin." There's an official Eidos response at GameSpot, where a spokesperson "denied Spector had exited the organization", but IGN has further official Eidos reports confirming "Both Ion games have been completed and those who were hires specifically for those titles are now finished", and noting that Spector himself, though he could theoretically be exiting by other means, "certainly has not been laid off." This news comes in the context of earlier personnel turmoil, Thief III's fairly well-received release (there's now a playable PC demo available), and a mixed reception for Deus Ex: Invisible War.

Re:Layoffs...

[Anonymous Coward]

No industry should have "normal staff reductions". That's complete bullshit, and I will openly boycott any company that ditches it's development teams as expendable.

All employees are expendable except government civil servants. You are animals to be used and discarded when they're finished with you.

Re:Layoffs...

[Talith]

Personally, I would say ignore those n00bs below dissing you for your comment, coz you are right in ur attitude, albeit an impossible one to follow if you are a real gamer.

Us older gamers can remember when games were made by developers because, well, they liked playing games, and wanted to make good games - their hearts and souls went into it, and people were constantly awed by the stories and gameplay.

Warren Spector has always struck me as this kind of person, as is Peter Molyneux and Ian Livingstone (

Re:Layoffs...

[aramith]

Sadly it happens all too often nowadays. "Oh, your project is done, and you still want to get paid? Bye bye" The good people get fed up and leave the industry, and we end up with crap programs. Maybe more companies should do what the WB is thinking of (see here [hollywoodreporter.com] ).

Re:Layoffs...

[Mike Hawk]

Wow, you win the award for most insane post on the internet today.

Well, I hoped you liked playing games because its a thing of the past for you if you are boycotting companies that lay people off when a project is done because thats all of them. On second thought, I'm sure you'll still find a way to play the games without paying because you seem like such an upstanding citizen.

Is it unclear to anyone why this happens? Company needs to accomplish X. People are hired to accomplish X. X gets accomplished. People hired to accomplish X need to be reallocated. If there is no Y, people are reduced. Its the way the industry works. Not just video games, entertainment as a whole. You think Jerry Seinfeld is still sitting around making episodes of his show? No, the project ended. Yes it sucks, but everyone involved knows the deal before they start. I find E3 uncomfortable because I see so many people who used to work here working for other companies. It hurts, but thats how it goes.

Look at the credits for any game and I'd wager from 30-50% of the names there are contract workers or outright temps. Not to mention what can happen when an independent developer is poorly managed. *shudder* You should consider yourself a temp every day you go to work, even if you are the CEO. Its just the way the game of games is played.

Re:Layoffs...

[black mariah]

Look at the credits for any game and I'd wager from 30-50% of the names there are contract workers or outright temps.

That right there is all that needs to be said. These people are hired with the knowledge that when the project is over, their employment WILL BE TERMINATED. They are on a contract or temp basis. I know quite a few game artists. Most of them are run through revolving doors like crazy. One guy I know worked for three different companies on three different projects in one year. One would get done with whatever he was doing, so he had to move on. It's an accepted thing with videogame artists/programmers/designers/producers that for the first few years of their career they WILL be jumping from company to company.

Re:Layoffs...

[AltaMannen]

It doesn't happen at all developers, but some make it part of their business, some developers mention it during the job interview and some developers mention it during the release party. Usually you get the idea early enough that you can jump ship ahead of termination, making it their headache instead of your own, and most game programmers are not contractors but around 50% of artists I know are. Usually layoffs are part of cost savings from above, and Eidos really need some of those these days, so it would

Re:Layoffs...

[black mariah]

Hey, moron, since you know DICK about the games industry... ANY industry, actually, I'll explain it to you. Not every game development team stays together forever. In fact, most change from game to game. You'll have a core team of developers (lead programmers and artists, producers, level designers, etc.) that move from one project to another, but most everyone else is hired on a TEMPORARY BASIS for the duration of the project development. They know this up front, and they accept it. It is a standard practi

Re:Layoffs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because it's an accepted business practice doesn't make it right.

Re:Layoffs...

[black mariah]

You are STILL missing the point. It's called contract work, moron. This is like saying it's not right to hire an architect to design your building, then firing him when it's done. No, it's not wrong. They work on a contract basis and have absolutely no guarantees of future employment. Most game artists have contracts for the life of a project, after that they're on their own.

Re:Layoffs...

[17028]

I'm pretty sure it said lay offs, not expiration of contracts. You don't fire an architect after the project is done, because the contract is already up.

Re:Layoffs...

[black mariah]

The contracts expire when the company says they expire. It could be called layoffs if you so chose. As for the architect thing, I clearly stated "They work on a contract basis and have absolutely no guarantees of future employment".

Re:Layoffs...

[johannesg]

This is why the Japanese games are so much better. They keep their teams apart, and thus keep their knowledge and experience in the company instead of taking it out with the trash after every project.

Re:Layoffs...

[black mariah]

Actual personal employment, zero. All of my information comes from friends that have worked in the industry for several years.

Re:Layoffs...

[SphericalCrusher]

Well, Ion Storm hasn't always been on top of things, heh. The founder of it (John Romeo), as you may or not know, left after a few years.

Masters of Doom. Very interesting read indeed.

Re:Layoffs...

[one4nine4two]

There's two separate Ion Storm development studios. Well, there were anyway. Romero headed the crappy Dallas studio while Spector is/was at the Austin studio, which actually made some awesome games. They're more or less separate entities.

No concern...

[WinnipegDragon]

I have no doubt that Warren will land on his feet. He has a following akin to Peter Molyenieux, although DX2 might have jeopardized that a bit.

A Haiku for him:

Weep not for Spector,

DX2 sucked anyhow,

Here's to better days!

Thief III is great

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been playing it for about the last 24 hours non stop. It's pretty much exactly what I would have wanted, minus the loading zones in the city sections (which still aren't bad).

I hope everyone at ION lands on their feet, and I also really hope that Eidos will actually shell out the incredibly minor amount of money that would be required to get the Editor in a releaseable state (though that's looking less likely).

Re:Thief III is great

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too. Could have used a little more polish in some areas (better load/save menu, I'd like at least a screenshot of the area as saved, and the ability to name saves). Also some kind of quest log for all the books and documents you _can't_ take with you wouldn't be amiss (In the church there's a document detailing some books -- two of them are in the church, two of them aren't. I had to write down their locations on paper since the game wouldn't store it anywhere). I'm also wondering where screenshots end u

Raises a lot of questions for me

[thirty2bit]

It makes me wonder whether the workplace was so volatile that they couldn't wait to split (maybe nobody could get along with Warren, ergo Randy Smith's departure), or whether everybody was just a 'hired gun' for the the two projects.

On the hired gun theory, maybe future Ion Storm projects will be from 'Ion Storm India'.

It also leaves me wondering if there is a snowball's chance in hell for a Thief 4 title, or even whether Thief: Deadly Shadows will have any of it's bugs addressed.

Re:Raises a lot of questions for me

[Doctor Cat]

I worked with Warren back in the Origin days, on Ultima 6. He's a great guy and fun to work with, I can't buy any "nobody could get along with Warren" theory. The guys at Looking Glass insisted on having him as their producer for every project they did for Origin (Underworld, Underworld 2, and System Shock), he got along great with them too.

I was just talking to one of the Ion Storm programmers a couple weeks ago (he lives across the street from me), and he was happy to be working there, didn't mention any problems or turmoil. Whatever changes are being made have almost certainly been decided upon by Eidos, that's the way these things go. Most game developers, when they get a steady, paying job, will try to stick with it until they don't have the option to do so any more. There are the highly publicized exceptions, of well known teams with a recent big hit under their belt splitting off to do something new, but those are pretty rare compared to the vast majority of folks just trying to stay employed and keep making games.

Robotic Frogs

[spektricide]

Why do I keep having flashbacks of John Romero and robotic frogs. I though I was going to be his "bitch"