FF 16 actor criticizes industry job security amid mass lay off "Are we going to get serious?"

“An astonishing year for the video games that have been made, but not necessarily for the industry that it reflects.”

[shinoff2183]

But there's layoffs all over. Shop I work at just laid off the entire 3rd shift. We make plastic connectors that go inside electronics. All these companies over ordered during covid cause no one really knew wtf was going on. So we were running 12 to 13 presses now down to 4 if lucky. My point is ismts not just video games. I feel bad for people who've been laid off but I feel worse for people that were machine operators, cashiers, etc.

[jwillj2k4]

That’s a clear reason why the industry YOURE in is suffering, not an industry where some companies are experiencing record breaking sales and still laying off. This isnt about you.

[neutralgamer1992]

Shin

Issue is gaming revenue and profits are at all time high so executives getting huge bonuses yet those actually doing the work get laid off

[shadowknight203]

I swear only 1 disagreeing with u is the already entitled rich snobs who happen to be on here

[Pyrofire95]

If they upsized for an influx of order than it was never going to be sustained.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

There's a lot of companies that are making big profits and still cutting staff, I don't even have enough co-workers to run the departments at the company I work at, and it's a dumpster fire, but they're making bank.

@neutralgamer1992,

I'm sure I'll have someone disagree with me, but no one is worth millions/tens of millions of dollars and bonus on top of that, I suspect a lot of companies are becoming top heavy, instead of spending money on having people on the bottom that actually ensure the business operates on a day to day basis.

[thorstein]

With the industry giants making record profits, layoffs are simply greed. You can't have profits without employees. It is interesting that the developers who treat their employees like humans didn't lay anyone off. As these conglomerates get bigger, it will become even more of a gig industry. Profits over people. And then they have the nerve to raise prices. And there isn't a single publisher that layed people off that didn't make an obsene profit this year.

None of them cut upper management.

[CrimsonWing69]

Can you explain to me how profit margins and dev costs dictate layoffs? Or strategy changes and financial difficulties brought on by inflation, over-hiring, and higher interest rates affect the decision for layoffs?

I’m not taking a jab at you or anything, I’m genuinely asking if you could explain to me how this is corporate greed and the factors that prove it’s absolutely unnecessary to do so for the survival of a company.

[Luc20]

He won't be able to explain because the argument is nonsensical

[thorstein]

It's a good question.

If you look at CEO pay and realize that CEOs compensation is equal to 200-300 times that of the median employee compensation (72k at Take Two - 120k at Electronic Arts), then you can see that those CEOs can survive (somehow) by being compensated by earning 2-3 times as much as the median employee.

That would save 199-299 jobs PER CEO. EA has 12 members of their Executive team. Cutting one of them via layoffs would save hundreds of jobs.

Of course, these are base salaries and don't include bonuses. In 2023, Andrew Wilson took home 20.66 million. Imagine being able to pay for your child's entire four years of college, buy a home, buy two cars and a vacation home with what you took home in half a month.

But we're led to believe that the "survival" of the company is the "in the chair" dev's fault for making 120K?

As I said, none of the small publishers and devs laid people off.

So the question is more of a moral one. Do you reward the people that made you obsenely rich by keeping them employed in lean times, or do you cut them in order to pay for your 4th vacation home?

[Crows90]

I feel bad for CEO's... theyre looked at as entirely expendable by typical gamers who feel they make too much. Even if theyre the ones leading the charge to those horrible profits.

People have no leg to stand on if they are against MTX but then also pro reducing or removing CEO's because of all the profits theyve received from MTX as a reason to state that the company can survive without the indivudals leading the charge to the same profits that should supposedly let them continue to keep employees employed but without the individuals leading the company to make those profits.

CEO makes profits happen through bad practices people disagree with. Inflation occurs and then they lay off employees. People get upset those employees were laid off after getting all those profits from those bad practices that are suddenly the reason for removing the CEO which is the individual who made those profits happen.

Anyone here seen time machine?

[MrDead]

If you think it's bad now just wait and see what happens if MS's gamepass model becomes successful, just like the movie industry everyone but CEO's and shareholders will get f****d because the subscription model lets you cut out the workforce from fair pay... probably why MS is pushing so hard for it

[anast]

Actor criticizing something, but does nothing about it...The story is getting old.

[Pedantic91]

Silence is compliance. Voicing and raising awareness is, in fact doing something.

[anast]

Policy does not really work that way. As Arthur Morgan put it: "you've been sold a false bill of goods." A voice and raising awareness means nothing without doing something. It takes direct action to change things, anything else is just some hippy BS.

*I like hippies, it's just a saying.

[thorstein]

The strike is coming.

[anast]

That would be interesting, as long as, the actors don't back down for a slight bump in pay and some flimsy promises.

[BillyCrystals]

Ben Starr is talented, ridiculously good looking, AND cares about the little man? This guy is the worst!

[anast]

"Ben Starr is talented, ridiculously good looking"

This means he's a jester.

"cares about the little man"

This can mean anything, but it doesn't necessarily do anything.

"This guy is the worst!"

My criticism is not a moral judgment nor do I care if he helps old ladies across the street or not. It's not my place to say if he is a good or bad person. But I can say without action he is just acting, once again there is no way to tell or judge his moral foundation.

Next time I expect a fee.

[VonAlbrecht]

I think the jester here is you. It's easy to sit there and accuse someone of doing "nothing" when the best you can do is make comments like this at no personal risk.

The important thing to note here is that Ben Starr was the ONLY award winner at the Golden Joystick who used that opportunity to talk about the layoffs. That in itself is an action worthy of respect. Ben Starr is already pretty well-known, and has lots of goodwill in the larger community. People love the guy. He doesn't stand to gain much on a personal level from grandstanding and virtue signalling - if anything, using that platform to talk about this kind of thing is inherently risky. It's a power move.

However, if you ever win an award for being a sad, cynical psuedo-intellectual, maybe you can use that to talk about something.

[anast]

"psuedo-intellectual" ;

Prove this. I am willing to bet you misunderstand what it means to be intellectual. If not, then I can actaully learn something from this exchange.

"I think the jester here is you. It's easy to sit there and accuse someone of doing "nothing" when the best you can do is make comments like this at no personal risk."

People can critique things. I am positive you know this since you are about to tell me what an intellectual is.

"The important thing to note here is that Ben Starr was the ONLY award winner at the Golden Joystick who used that opportunity to talk about the layoffs. That in itself is an action worthy of respect. Ben Starr is already pretty well-known, and has lots of goodwill in the larger community. People love the guy. He doesn't stand to gain much on a personal level from grandstanding and virtue signalling - if anything, using that platform to talk about this kind of thing is inherently risky. It's a power move."

If he changes things then he will not only be a jester, he will be a changer. I bet he doesn't change anything, but there is always a possibility.

[VonAlbrecht]

Nah. If you're curious you can go and look it up yourself. The important thing is that you're wrong and your take is mid. You can learn something from that.

[anast]

"Nah. If you're curious you can go and look it up yourself. The important thing is that you're wrong and your take is mid. You can learn something from that."

You do know this reply is actually how a pseudo-intellectual would reply, correct?

You are kind of right, being wrong is extremely important.

[VonAlbrecht]

Do you wanna know how a pseudo-intellectual *actually* replies? With a series of surface level, low-effort observations, conveniently ignoring any kind of context as they use *far* too many words to bumble towards towards a conclusion that, despite all their effort, defies common sense.

And then says, "Next time I expect a fee."

[anast]

"Do you wanna know how a pseudo-intellectual *actually* replies? With a series of surface level, low-effort observations, conveniently ignoring any kind of context as they use *far* too many words to bumble towards towards a conclusion that, despite all their effort, defies common sense."

The fee thing was supposed to be humorous. I guess the joke was looked at otherwise. Next, how am I bumbling toward a conclusion? Can you prove it with some kind of symbolic logic? This way I can learn.
.

Next, you can ask questions to see if I am a pseudo intellectual, just calling someone a pseudo intellectual is a personal attack (yes, there is a technical term for this). Personal attacks are only necessary when the speaker cannot attack the argument itself or feel they have lost power over their own thoughts.

Okay, now moving on. To find out if I am a pseudo-intellectual. You would need to start asking me questions. Actually, I am just a working class joe. I have never said that I am affiliated with any intellectual circles. In reality, I would be considered uneducated among those at the top. Any way, the questions might look like this: "What do you mean by jester?" "Is a jester this or that?" and so on. Another question could be, "How is it possible for something to mean anything but do nothing?" Lastly, "Is it possible to separate moral judgements and actions? if so how?"

Now that we have these question, I can either proceed to answer or just call you some random names. Really, I don't know what an intellectual is, nor do I really care, but I do know to have a productive argument we would have to move beyond calling people what ever random thing we might think that will take the power from one individual to resuscitate a perceived loss of power. This is common sense, not intellectualism, I would think.

[Inverno]

We had our chance during covid, when we were all told that our jobs weren't essential and got laid off. All these jobs begged people to come back, and little by little people went back to that mentality that they need the job rather than the job needing them. Underpaid, undervalued, exploited, and easily expandable. There's no job security across all industries, even when you have a piece of paper and a decade worth of loyalty and experience.

[anast]

"We had our chance during covid, when we were all told that our jobs weren't essential and got laid off. All these jobs begged people to come back, and little by little people went back to that mentality that they need the job rather than the job needing them."

Exactly. all jokes aside, it is impossible to actually be free if someone else owns your right to self determination. What I mean by this, "The person " controls necessary resources will always have the final say on who gets their cookie and who doesn't.

"There's no job security across all industries, even when you have a piece of paper and a decade worth of loyalty and experience.2

I agree. I am seeing an erosion for trust not only affecting work but it is hitting some foundational aspects. The youth sees their parents being used as doormats, which is changing the way younger people see work and the respect for work as well. I don't know what this will lead too, though.

[RhinoGamer88]

It simply is bad leadership partnering with leadership greed. The people responsible for keeping them employed failed them. Those people will rarely be held accountable...if by chance they are (aka fired) a sweet golden parachute will protect them. Great deal!

[Extermin8or3_]

I respect him brining it up but the reality is that games industry like other creative industries has always been this way. Unlike say movies game development is more open ended and doesn't have such clear cut deadlines like a movie's filming process does. A game starts with few developers working on it, has to pass various stages of development and be Greenhithe by those funding it and then it ramps up production for several years with massive teams of people. Once that is over it might take another year or more to get back to the start of thst process again. As a company you can't keep people employed when they have nothing todo... their job doesn't exist. Ontop of thst yes maybe a game sold well and made lots of money but in reality it just helped clear some of the debts many publishers have because of the titles thst don't sell well. Again when interet rates increase and debt repayments become more costly you have to act to save money immediately as acting when you are about to go bankrupt and its become a serious issue is way too late and is irresponsible and will cost even more jobs.

[Rebel_Scum]

Well said.

[Crows90]

With inflation through the roof yeah. In general, at least in the US it is getting far more expensive to keep employees on. Employees that need to be paid more to keep up with the inflation.

Not giving excuses for massive companies with ginormous profits though. Smaller companies will likely struggle to keep employees on.

[Binarycode]

But by definition actors don't have job security in the way that a Normal Job has.

Ask any actor, it's a job by job thing.

Some actors do really well and have long running parts in a series or small parts in ads, games, etc.

Some don't make it at all.

It's got nothing to do with record profits.

Maybe they should just pay the actor more for doing his work?

[mastershredder]

Wow a voice actor complaining about the video game industry’s “instability”. Yeah that’s right folks. Another flipping special Voice over actor gripping about an industry he’s not directly in but gets contracted to do work in. Dude seriously … STFU.

Gamesradar you need to throttle down your voice over actor fetish/worship.

The doof’s voice acting range is what keeps him where he is, don’t try to crush on the industry that paid you for work completed. They contractually owe him nothing for stability (that’s on the actor). I mean wtf is this written by a guestimator and your sticking up for a someone with their shoes tied together. Awesome.

Here’s an industry hack for better money as a voice actor: broaden your range dude