Game studio layoffs mean a hellish race against the clock for immigrant developers

"The stories we don’t hear are even more frightening"

[Christopher]

They know the risks and have to accept them. This is no different for anyone working outside their country.

It's also not like this doesn't affect people in the U.S. like when Disney hires cheaper H1B people, had the people with the jobs train them, and then fired them once the new people were trained.

https://www.nytimes.com/201...

If you don't want to take risks, then don't. This is the same for any IT industry now. Expecting only benefit in a relationship like this is ignorant and dangerous in this day and age, especially considering the involved companies have a long history of mass layoffs.

[lodossrage]

Yeah I remember when Disney did that crap.

That's why I never trained anyone at any position I had. I mean seriously, why should I train someone when I know you want to force me out the door so you can pay my replacement less money? All because you don't want to pay the tenured employees what they deserve.

The problem is the general worker doesn't know that they aren't obligated to train people. That's Human Resources job.

[senorfartcushion]

If you have to fault the victims then it’s safe to say you’ll never understand the context of the situation.

[Christopher]

I currently only work for international companies on a contract basis. I'm pretty familiar with how this stuff works.

If I lose a contract I'm not faulting the hardship of such a life. I know what it is.

My wife just helped close a business with tons of French H1B employees. It isn't great, but they understood the risks.

There is no victim here. Expecting a job to always be there for you is ignorant, to say the least. Always plan for the loss of employment. Always.

[esherwood]

Well said Christopher. It’s amazing how democrats (radical) like making people victims

[frostypants]

@SenorFartCushion your comment is an empty platitude. This worldview that people never have any amount of accountability for their own actions is so juvenile. If a person takes a work visa, then obviously they are taking a calculated risk upon themselves. Sure, it sucks...but it's like saying you're a "victim" if you lose a hand of poker. Grow up.

[Christopher]

@esherwood I'm way more "Democratic" than I am "Republican." I am 100% not Libertarian.

A lot of people on both sides have varying feelings on this stuff but the way our system works you have to toe a party line.

[senorfartcushion]

That’s your problem, Christopher. You and the others trying to make your point over me is sticking too closely to your central project. You say you’re way more Democratic than you are Republican or Libertarian, which is just a roundabout way of saying that you do not know who you are and you can only think of yourself as an individualist that ignores the concept of collectivism. It’s not your fault, you’re on neither side, you’re on my side, but my side requires an eye that has to exist outside of the status quo, outside of the rules written to preserve a system that values both you and I a lot less fairly than it does those who naturally write the rules.

It’s as if you want to make your face blank in order to gain some kind of independence, when in fact you’re literally destroying who you are and basing your whole life around this fake identity.

How can you possibly be familiar with how your profession works when you haven’t thought about how it fits in to the political systems currently being implemented to govern you. You’re saying that you’re lost within the spectrum and do not have a place within a party, but you haven’t thought about what came in the past, or what changes can be implemented in the future; changes that will ultimate affect your career as well as your political ideology.

[Christopher]

***Christopher. You and the others trying to make your point over me is sticking too closely to your central project. You say you’re way more Democratic than you are Republican or Libertarian, which is just a roundabout way of saying that you do not know who you are and you can only think of yourself as an individualist that ignores the concept of collectivism.***

This isn't about my thoughts on how Capitalism is bad (it is due to government treating it like socialism). This is about an employee, in this day and age, taking a job without understanding the risks and then people complaining about those risks as if it's not what everyone is dealing with.

This is the same argument people label against Green New Deal peeps by asking why they drive cars or take planes. Because you can't do what isn't in effect, but that doesn't mean you act ignorant of how it works and don't just act like it's not the way it is and complain when it doesn't go your way.

You see my words speaking out about complaining about specific H1B visa employees and think I don't want better? That's on you. But, regardless of what I want, you can't plan your hopes on what could be and live life on what it is.

***How can you possibly be familiar with how your profession works when you haven’t thought about how it fits in to the political systems currently being implemented to govern you.***

Find me where I promoted this and didn't say that it is how it is and that any person taking a job in the environment needs to know this and can't act ignorant when it doesn't go their way.

In fact, if you scroll down to frostypants comment further down in this submission, you'll see where I completely understand this issue and where it needs to be fixed.

[Godmars290]

"People understand exploitative conditions they have no control over yet must accept for a slim opportunity."

Companies such as Disney, shifting workforces as self serving profit measures, should be as aware of the moral ethical and economic implications of their actions as those trying to legitimizing them. Is much of the reason why the world is as it is.

[frostypants]

I don't like Disney's behavior but it's on the legislative system to address these issues. If what they are doing is objectively wrong, make the process illegal. The reality is that there is bipartisan opposition to what that would mean. It's why the issue never goes away regardless of the party in power. But it is on them. Otherwise, what...we're just gonna wag a finger at Disney and say "you shouldn't do that"? Good luck with that.

[Christopher]

Frostypants gets it.

[Godmars290]

"I don't like Disney's behavior but it's on the legislative system to address these issues."

???

Disney has had lobbyist effecting the legislative system for decades. Are the primary reason why things have gotten to where they are.

In the 80s and into the 90s corporate hawks tanked established businesses, emptied their pensions, and because they had political contacts the only thing that happened to them as such became standard practice was finger wagging.

[senorfartcushion]

Both Frostypants and Christopher, like us, operate within a very narrow system. Unlike us, they are perpetuating its rules and regulations back at everyone in an attempt to try and provide solutions for the issue at hand. In saying that this should be a legal matter, they’re right, but they haven’t taken into account the behaviour and allegiances of the proper legal representatives involved. It sounds like it is some sort of philosophical point, but it has about as much depth as the Nike tag line.

“Just Do It.”

[Christopher]

***Disney has had lobbyist effecting the legislative system for decades. Are the primary reason why things have gotten to where they are.***

And continuing to fight such things is what will lead to better results, not complaining about H1B visa workers online. There are still people pushing for unions, removing corporate lobbying from the government, requiring limitations and transparency on corporate donations, and more.

If you don't do that, then it doesn't matter how much you complain about how you are affected by the system. You're not changing the system, just talking about how unfair it is.

***Unlike us, they are perpetuating its rules and regulations back at everyone in an attempt to try and provide solutions for the issue at hand. ***

I'm not going to sit here and cry about people who are in the same system as everyone else and how those specific people are affected any differently than anyone else. But don't think that means I don't fight for what I think should be changed.

The reality is you have to deal with what we have now and being ignorant of it isn't on anyone but the individual. Does that make it fair? Nope, but that's life in general. We can strive to make it fairer, but it's not just going to happen because you tell someone it's not fair nor is it suddenly going to change your work options or results.

[Godmars290]

How can you admit - at least I hope you do - that the system is rigged yet insist that victims of it only accept it?

No, I take that back. You'll never admit companies tip things in their favor even with the recent example of Amazon from preventing a union from forming.

[Knightofelemia]

You knew a visa was only temporary and only good for so long you could either try and extend it, apply to immigration, or pull some 90 Day Fiance bull shit to get the green card then get a divorce.

[esherwood]

These nut jobs will be the first ones crying when immigration actually effects them. I’m an electrician and I’ve seen first hand what uncontrolled immigration does to the quality of life for amaricans

[senorfartcushion]

Just making you angry apparently. You do know the wealth gap has only increased over the years and both you and the immigrants you resent are the victims of this. You both play for exactly the same football team and you don’t even know it, meanwhile you’re losing a game you don’t even know you’re playing with a team that cost billions more to create.

[esherwood]

Hey the top 1% in this country pays over 30% of are taxes, I know u morons are brainwashed to hate them but I’m more worried about the bottom 50% of this country that only contribute 3% of this countries taxes. The wealthy are doing there part, we have to many leeches in this country and we keep letting people in that are going to be more of a burden

[frostypants]

@SenorFartCushion geez man do you have anything other than mindless Marxist talking points? You're ignoring the practical realities at play here. Yes, wealth gap bad. But that's only a fraction of this particular issue. Go take an introductory global econ course.

[frostypants]

@esherwood honestly H1B's wouldn't be tax burdens. They're skilled labor. And other immigrants in general don't come to the US to be burdens...they come for the opportunity. But they've often been sold a vision of the US (often by human traffickers themselves) where it's easier to find opportunity here than it actually is. Or they're simply trying to escape hellholes. It's a tough situation.

[senorfartcushion]

@frostypants

Read what Marxism is. I’m not speaking in Marx, you’re in the wrong century in terms of your citation.

I’m a former working class person who knows that you take the same beating that I do, and I don’t even know who you are. I don’t blame you, you just aren’t rooted in the subject. You don’t have to care, so you don’t. Your kids will suffer as did you, but you won’t be to blame. This is if you even want kids.

What I am saying is that the wealth gap I has grown over the past few decades, there are more millionaires, billionaires and soon there will be the first trillionaire. They pay 30% of taxes apparently. They dodge more. They are escaping paying what is actually, legally demanded of them.

There isn’t meant to be a single trillionaire, because it that means that some underprivileged families are guaranteed to be killed by the gap springing back. Poor people of all colours starve and/ or freeze to death due to simple unfairness. Unfairness that you do not even like.

The parties are to blame. In most ways, the Democrats are making this situation worse than even Trump did, but Trump also did what he did and it has led to the more corporation-friendly party gaining power.

Remember the vote that ended the $15 minimum wage? Over one million Americans were left in poverty that day. Ignore Marx, ignore my pointed language, just concentrate on that number?m, because it’s actually something that’s happening in your country.

[randomvoice]

Do you even know how visas like H1B work or are you just spouting the rhetoric you've read elsewhere? H1B visas are company sponsored and have a high income caps. You can't just enter the US and decide you wanna become an electrician and get a visa. I've rarely heard an electrician being on H1B.

Most H1B visas go to IT tech jobs and are high paying. I know people like to throw a 7 year old Disney article of how cheap labor replaced Americans but that was literally 7 years back and there have been so many strict restrictions applied to companies post that. Currently, any H1B worker hired needs to at least make 75K+ (in many places 100K+) and their visa sponsorship costs mean a company actually pays more for them in the long run. It is no longer a 'cheap' replacement visa.

Also, the amount on entitlement in your post is evident. Why do you think you're guaranteed a job just because you were born in a place? If someone more talented comes in and works for cheap, then they are bound to replace you. That is Capitalism 101.

[DoubleYourDose]

You clearly aren't an English professor. It's a good thing your profession doesn't require you to pass a basic literacy test.

[amazinglover]

When are you going to stop blaming those just trying to survive and start blaming the company that hires them.

Immigrants didn't send your job overseas wall street did and you continue to let them.

[justadelusion]

try to make an article not politically charged and that doesnt pander verge, i dare ya

[respekanize91]

i didnt even go to the article. straight to the comments on this one. That site is visual aids

[senorfartcushion]

You lack the ability to address these issues in the proper way. You shrug off things like talk of immigration because you’re frightened and would rather hear something unrelated. I don’t blame you, but I don’t think you should go on believing you’re some kind of higher force. You’re the weakest person involved.

[fitofficial]

Funny, my risk is based around how many H1bs the anti-citizen US Government allows at a time. Just got laid off a few months back for that exact reason. Half my team got the axe for cheaper foreign labor and the newest hires making less were kept.

So yeah, going to get my small violin for these poor, poor devs.