Human Head Offices Destroyed, Company Bands Together

Yesterday, Gamasutra reported the sad news that the offices of Human Head studios were destroyed in a fire. Based out of Madison, Wisconsin, the indie developer recently signed up to do the next Mark Ecko game, riding high on their success with Prey from last year. Today, thankfully, Next Generation has the news that the company has survived more or less intact. "[Office Manager Carol] Smith said, 'I work with an incredible group of guys, and as soon as we got over the shock of oh my gosh, we had a fire--what if we lost data, what if we lost art? ...the next words out of everybody's mouths were, What can we do to help?' An update on Human Head's website confirmed that there were no injuries in the blaze that occurred at 2:30 a.m. on Friday and that the Prey developer 'suffered no significant data loss.'"

Note to Developers

[HoosierPeschke]

Fragging shall now be an outdoor activity ONLY!!!

Re:

[TheThiefMaster]

I know you were joking, but actually we're not allowed to take the guns out of the studio in case the police get the wrong idea...

(ok, they're not real, only replicas, but the point still stands)

Re:

[TheThiefMaster]

I should probably have mentioned that I work for a different games studio. Not even in America in fact.

Better than most "oh shit" stories.

[Kadin2048]

Every time we have an article on Slashdot about some backups-gone-bad horror story, someone always asks "hey, how come we never hear about the times when things go right and the sysadmin saves the company?"

Well, here you go.

Somebody owes someone a beer.

Re:

[MacroRex]

You make a good point, but it does not really apply here. The office was not "destroyed", but rather some equipment and furniture was damaged. Lacking any real details it's completely possible that the servers were not affected at all, aside from temporary power loss.

Re:

[someoneelsetookmyuse]

>>Every time we have an article on Slashdot about some backups-gone-bad horror story, someone always asks >>"hey, how come we never hear about the times when things go right and the sysadmin saves the company?" >> >>Well, here you go. >>Somebody owes someone a beer. You're assuming the sysadmin wasn't the one that started the fire! =)

Re:Better than most "oh shit" stories.

[Applekid]

>You're assuming the sysadmin wasn't the one that started the fire! =)

The things we do to get a free beer these days.

Re:

[D4rk Fx]

Better luck next time, dear arsonist.

I bet Jack Thompson was behind this...

Re:

[jimstapleton]

[sarcasm]
But he doesn't play any video games except Left Behind, he can't be a violent, property destroying jerk!
[/sarcasm]

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Jack Thompson was heard saying: finally, I've put an end to Counter Strike!

Any word on cause?

[192939495969798999]

Can we safely assume it was an extreme-overclocking-to-meet-ridiculous-gameplay-r equirements related fire?

No official word yet

[MintMMs]

I don't think there is an official word yet, but I believe I heard the fire started in a storage area for another tenant in the building. It's sad that the place burned, it was a renovated roundhouse next to the railyards here.

Re:

[BarryJacobsen]

Can we safely assume it was an extreme-overclocking-to-meet-ridiculous-gameplay-r equirements related fire?

It happened on 4/20 - I know one thing that's safe to assume :P

Obligatory

[inviolet]

Human head asplodes?

/terribly sorry
//really
///heh

Re:

[dintech]

/terribly sorry
//really
///heh

Oh dear. Slashies. Got bored of Fark did you?

Upon first glance...

[jojoba_oil]

I thought this was talking about a corporate monster gaining a mind-of-its-own, if you will, and no longer needing executive heads. Oh wait, that never happens.

Quotes from the article

[Peter Simpson]

"protected by a firewall" (of the physical, not logical variety) and "celebrating with a cookout" -- how better to celebrate your company's near brush with disaster? /well, *I* thought it was humorous. //glad nobody was hurt and very little was damaged

Peter

Act of God?

[AbsoluteXyro]

The very instant I saw they were behind the new Mark Ecko game, I couldn't help but wonder...

Strange...

[Cheapy]

I live in Madison and I didn't heard anything about this.

Re:Strange...

[falzbro]

I live in Madison and I didn't heard anything about this.

Madison's local news websites aren't the best. It was the historic Train Roundhouse building:

http://www.nbc15.com/home/headlines/7118931.html [nbc15.com]
http://wkow.madison.com/News/index.php?ID=10980 [madison.com]

Human Head simply rents space in that building, they moved there a little over a year ago.

Re:

[Cheapy]

Ah, thanks.

Re:

[Bardez]

I was visiting Madison and I, also, heard nothing of this.

'Course ya don't pay to much attention to news when you check into a crummy hotel at 11:30 PM.

Re:

[Neoprofin]

I hadn't heard anything either.

Sucks, a friend of mine is on the art team doing textures or something like that.

Re:

['nother poster]

They are based "OUT OF" Madison because they ship their frigging product OUT OF Madison to the rest of the world that is not IN Madison, got it Grammar Nitwit? It's a term that comes from the physical manufacturing and sales economy the U.S. used to have, and we have not yet seen fit to thow it upon the pyre of "not acceptable idioms".

Not sure why that set me off so badly, but it did.

Re:Grammar Police

[andy314159pi]

So what you're saying is that I'm not actually "straight out of Compton" ?

Re:

['nother poster]

'Course you are, G. Neva said you ain't. Nobody disin' you. Peace.

Noone hurt?

[XenoPhage]

I'm surprised noone was hurt in this blaze... 2:30am on a Friday? That's prime development time..

Re:

[BarryJacobsen]

It was also on 4/20...

Best quote

[EMH_Mark3]

The fire consumed the storage area at the back of the building, but Human Head's area was mostly protected by a firewall, the Madison Fire Department told Next-Gen yesterday.

Re:

[krakelohm]

You know they actually do have these walls that slowdown the spread of a fire... called firewalls. Good luck looking it up on the net though.

Re:

[P2PDaemon]

Obviously it couldn't have been a Windows firewall...

Re:

[splutty]

Windows in a firewall kind of negate the whole advantage of having a firewall to begin with..

Uhm....

It's not 'destroyed'

[Hsien-Ko]

Stupid exaggeration. The fire must've came out from the lower Apex storage floors though

Human Head Offices Destroyed...

[mbone]

... company robots vow to carry on anyway.

Further updates...

[Viceroy Potatohead]

Employees suggest updating your fire insurance before buying any of their games, since the newly patented pyro-realism features are sure to turn the gaming world upside down!

Good luck guys

[mypalmike]

Being an independent developer is difficult at the best of times. Best of luck in finding new digs and getting back up to speed.

Initech

[thetable123]

I can't be the only one having visions of Office Space dancing through my head.

"And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were merry, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swing