credits not withstanding..

This morning I had an interesting realization about my roles over the years at Turbine. I flirted with the Creative Director position several times, but each time backed away from the role at some point, sometimes after having the role for a while. For me, it was a naturally attractive position. I’m the type of person who not only has and recognizes good ideas from others, but am someone who can get them implemented either through my own perspiration or the inspiration of others. I always seemed to have the teams ear, and I think it was primarily because they had mine as well.

But what I realized this morning is that in this particular environment the management of the company was more interested in my ability to sell things to the team than my ability to rationalize the correct answer from the team. In fact, there was a repeating pattern of behavior that showed as much. What they wanted out of a CD was someone to sell whatever shlock was tossed down from high above on the mountain regardless of if it made sense or not; a yes man with the teams ear. A CD in this environment would be part used car salesmen, part fall guy. To be able to sell it, they’d need to be someone who had credentials with their team; but inevitably, it would be their credentials which would act as fuel, burned away on a given task. And thus, with each flirtation, an uncompromising position would be forced, and I’d back away from the position rather than compromise my beliefs or relationship with my team.

Now; DDO has shipped. It is what it is, but what it isn’t is a game with a proper credits list. In management’s infinite wisdom, it was deemed that anyone who was not with the company at the moment of ship would have their credit on the game revoked, regardless of if they wrote like half the game code or not. Quite a few of us bailed on that project due to a wide range of very valid reasons, as for myself, I was interviewing with Harmonix while being offered the CD position at Turbine, and when I backed away from the position yet again quickly turned in managements eyes. I was not willing to tote a line of action I didn’t believe in.

The only rational reason for not giving people their rightful credits is that those involved are acting out of petty and spite. In fact, Ken’s post on the matter seems to confirm it. You can reason the whole thing here, but I’ll pull out the poignant part for you:


“And if some of those people who had left did care that strongly, if it was or is that important, *to them*, to get a credit...they could have stayed and finished the game. A fairly simple calculation.”


It’s sad, because many of the people who were not credited were incredibly talented individuals who I loved working with (and some I currently work with again at Harmonix). Many of the things which made that game work at all can be directly attributed back to these people, who worked their asses off for the company. Crediting them doesn’t diminish the credits of those still hard at work on the game.

Perhaps they see it as a way to scare employees into staying, but I think this type of treatment speaks to the type of environment and executives that make someone want to leave a company in the first place, don’t you?