Never worked in an industry where people get fired?
 

Working in an industry where the failure rate of companies is a lot lower than in the game industry. They are not just firing one guy, they fire most of the people working at that place. The number of game studios having closed down in the last 12 months is staggering.

And my point was that if the original MMO blogger can't hold a job in the game industry, then how can any blogger hope for steady employment there?
 

And my point was that if the original MMO blogger can't hold a job in the game industry, then how can any blogger hope for steady employment there?
What do his out-of-work activities have to do with his (un)employment?
 

If I remember right he was hired on at NCSoft as a game or level designer of some capacity.

I've got friends in the industry that have been working for years without any issues, one having had to relocate to Austin too maybe 5 years ago and still with the company.

There are jobs in the gaming industry that are just as stable as any other work, but picking your location, your company, and your position should be done carefully. Honestly unless you're a superstar in your field, especially creative work, it's unlikely your company can line up work perfectly on schedule to keep the 1/3-2/3 of the team on the payroll after launch.

Or go work in a less 'sexy' game dev environment like mobile, iphone, web.. somehow I doubt popcap has ever run over 'budget' on one of their games and had to let anyone go. ;)
 

Was the project shut down completely?
 

Fascinating though it would be to work on MMORPG development, one can't escape the feeling that the standards of management in the industry are generally very low. I think I've seen more promising games fail through bad project management than the fundamentals. Of the game itself.

Maybe that's the true secret of Blizzard's success.
 

What do his out-of-work activities have to do with his (un)employment?

Read the biography of Lum the Mad.

Was the project shut down completely?

The unnamed project Lum was working on was shut down completely. Dungeon Runners is still on life support. Tabula Rasa is threatened.

Maybe that's the true secret of Blizzard's success.

The quality control part of project management, certainly. But most non-game companies wouldn't survive with Blizzard's time management.
 

Has it been confirmed that the "unnamed project" Jennings was working on has been shelved entirely? From what I read they only cut 21 jobs, over half of which were from Dungeon Runners.

And, to be clear, while Jennings' claim to fame was originally his "Lum the Mad" blog (did they even use that term back then?), he was supposedly doing some sort of real game design for NCSoft. "Blogging" is not a career path, even though Jennings' internet cred may have played some part in his breaking into the industry initially.
 

He's already found a new job...

Some careers and/or countries don't imply a 40 year stay at one company. At least not any more.
 

Perhaps Lum was a crappy employee?
 

He coulda been but I think its far more likely the money just ran out
 

Don't ever work in radio, then. There are only a certain number of stations and when they change ownership and format, everyone gets sacked.
 

From what I read they only cut 21 jobs, over half of which were from Dungeon Runners.

I read it differently. They said that 21 persons in the area of product development lost their jobs and also cutting some positions in Dungeon Runners. That was 13 persons and my bet is that they are not considered product development, being part of the live team.

So it may have been 34 persons that lost their jobs, but looks less severe if one splits it in two parts.
 

The quality control part of project management, certainly. But most non-game companies wouldn't survive with Blizzard's time management.
True, but to win you don't need to be good, just better than the competition.
 

if you would have played any of ncsofts games you can see why SOME people deserved to be fired.

lineage 2 for example has the worst customer support of any MMOrpg ive ever played.

Richard Garriot retired after his Tabula Rasa began flopping. As for this re-focusing, I would assume because they ventured towards online MMO's to be on PSN they may have just put the money there vs in the hands of poorly performing games.. the trickle effect following is of course people losing jobs.

~ten
 

I don't understand why you folk are giving Tobold grief over his comment. I totally understand what he is getting at. The extreme volatility of the gaming industry woudn't attract me either. It's absurd, and it doesn't help that most gamers are so incredibly fickle. It's absolutely unreal how the online community will pick apart a 4-5 year project and toss it in the recycle bin without a thought. I could never work in the gaming world because of that as well. I've seen no harsher customers anywhere outside of the world of PC gamers.
 

Read the biography of Lum the Mad.
I did, and the point still stands. I don't think that blogging was an issue in his (un)employment, nor should it be. Just like one should not be fired for blogging, one should not be kept on the payroll because they blog. Unless that's what you hired them for, that is.
 

Yeah, with a possible recession coming (or already here), a lot of consumer based industries are going to be affected. Congrats to Lum for getting a new job quickly, at least. That's a healthy sign.

During the collapse of the tech bubble, I knew about 5 or so former coworkers who quit tech completely, and went into real estate. I wonder if they got caught by the real estate bubble.