It's Almost the Season for WOTC layoff!

[MoxieFu]

Playing "dead pool"?

Dead pool - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And Abe Vigoda is STILL alive!

abe vigoda status

 

[Aus_Snow]

It's not very nice to talk about peoples' careers ending from layoffs, even if it will happen. As someone who enjoys the elements of game design, art, and storytelling, I can understand how much it could suck to lose a job like that.

Yes, quite.

 

[James Jacobs]

At present that consists of an Internship. 20 hours a week of totally unpaid hard work with zero contract and few rights. Promises "large workload" and "aggressive deadlines". Makes WotC look enlightened. If they're making as much money as their leader keeps claiming why don't they offer a proper wage for a hard day's work? Pure shady IMO

Incorrect. We've hired several folks in the past several weeks, including customer service, graphic designers, marketing folks, and designers/developers/editors. Our internship program is pretty standard when it comes to how internship programs work (aka: you get paid in experience and college credit).

As for WotC's practice of laying folks off, I can't say that I'm a fan of it (having been one of the folks who got laid off from WotC several years ago), and I really REALLY hope that the yearly tradition doesn't follow through this year.

 

[nedjer]

Incorrect. We've hired several folks in the past several weeks, including customer service, graphic designers, marketing folks, and designers/developers/editors. Our internship program is pretty standard when it comes to how internship programs work (aka: you get paid in experience and college credit).

As for WotC's practice of laying folks off, I can't say that I'm a fan of it (having been one of the folks who got laid off from WotC several years ago), and I really REALLY hope that the yearly tradition doesn't follow through this year.

On the basis of that much of my comment was clearly out of context.

Forgive me

You also confirm (more than lengthy discussions of possible sales figures) how well Piazo/ Pathfinder is doing.

Internships are a different matter - for me. They're standard in the US, but not in the UK. Economic pressures are forcing a move in the same direction which is not welcome. Twenty years ago going to university was free here and our students now leave with debts of $30K+.

Personally, I'd think it fairer to go beyond the standard and offer some kind of subsistence payment or gratuity/ expenses. The result, hopefully, would be a steady stream of even more loyal future employees, who you'd supported when it made a real difference to them.

Or how about The Pathfinder Scholarship? An opportunity to get other people to stick up your posters on careers noticeboards, library walls and students' centres in colleges every year? Add in the press announcements (start and outcome) and . . .

 

[Adso]

At present that consists of an Internship. 20 hours a week of totally unpaid hard work with zero contract and few rights. Promises "large workload" and "aggressive deadlines". Makes WotC look enlightened. If they're making as much money as their leader keeps claiming why don't they offer a proper wage for a hard day's work? Pure shady IMO

As someone who teaches game design at college, I can tell you this is a great opportunity for students. Many are required to find and internship at a game company during their senior year, and not all of them want to make video games. I always direct those students to the Paizo internship program.

I wish WotC offered something like this. They have had interns in the past, but it's been very sporadic.

 

[nedjer]

As someone who teaches game design at college, I can tell you this is a great opportunity for students. Many are required to find and internship at a game company during their senior year, and not all of them want to make video games. I always direct those students to the Paizo internship program.

I wish WotC offered something like this. They have had interns in the past, but it's been very sporadic.

Fully accept that there can be internships and internships. When a games professional happily recommends Paizo I can probably expect a reply from a dozen former Paizo Interns who now work for the company and had the best time of their lives as Paizo Interns.

I just don't see the Intern system as a whole as being an appropriate model. Not on a left/ right political level, but as making mid- to long-term sense.

The dwindling band of young college students is going to be/ is being asked to take the burden of ageing populations with pension deficits, national debts and huge healthcare costs. At the same time they're laden with personal debt and interest payments if they choose to go into college instead of straight into work. Better education is where future profits lie, so economies that wish to be able to pay their way don't benefit from limiting the range and number of able college students.

Heck, I'm thinking of applying for a Paizo internship next year, (I'm sure they'll have me now ), but I remain pretty convinced that the Internship system as a whole doesn't offer a level playing field or long-term economic advantage. If I were a student today, I'd do college and an Internship, then rapidly leave the country for better pay.

 

[Wicht]

If I were a student today, I'd do college and an Internship, then rapidly leave the country for better pay.

I'm not sure that game designers as a whole make a whole lot more in other countries around the world.

 

[Shemeska]

but I remain pretty convinced that the Internship system as a whole doesn't offer a level playing field or long-term economic advantage.

I wish that I'd done more internships when I was in college or even when I was still in highschool. As it was, I did a year of work with an environmental carcinogenesis group with the EPA, though it had ultimately little to do with what I did in grad school or now in the corporate world. Washing dishes and doing solution prep for $9.15 an hour in a lab was good to pay for food in college, but the internships helped out a whole heck of a lot more for direct experience and just getting a feel of a field, job stuff, etc.

 

[nedjer]

Odd turn of events. Dude arrives at my door in a darked-out, black limousine.

Says I've won 'The Scholarship' and I'm to go to a Halloween celebration.

I get in the back with a real skinny guy, avoiding his scythe on the way.

The guy on the back seat's not talkative, but the music's cool - and he just gave me a free spade.

Looking forward to the rest of Halloween

 

[Mark CMG]

What a babe! I want to marry her

You like her. You really like her.