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Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

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Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#61

Post by jplayer01 »

ta987654321 wrote: post #50
jplayer01 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading stuff a year ago about how the engine was originally written by the CEO and a large reason for its persistence until today is that it's basically his pet project. Do you happen to know how accurate this is?

Yes that's why they stuck with it for so long,. Not only was their engine just barely squeaking by, what also compounded the issues were the insane levels or micromanagement involved that were costly and overworked their staff to insane levels. Imagine having to reanimate gravity by hand due to the lack of a physics engine, now imagine that happening over a scene change that happened during a management review shortl…

Wow, nightmare.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#62

Post by slg »

avip wrote: post #47
slg wrote: post #15

The worst part for many of these people is that our country still links health insurance with your employer. It is bad enough to suddenly lose your job and primary source of income, but that type of thing is often unavoidable when a company goes belly up. However only getting a week's notice before all your health insurance benefits disappear is the type of thing that just shouldn't happen in this country.

What happens in the US if you leave your employer when in a degraded health state (let's say cancer)?

You have a few options. Here they are in descending order of preference

* Hope your employer is compassionate and keeps you on their plan. I have no data on this, but anecdotally it is surprisingly common. Companies can be heartless when dealing with large groups of employees, but it is much harder to rip away Karen from accounting's health insurance as she is going through chemo.

* Hope your spouse (or parents if you are young enough) has insurance and they can add you to their plan.

* Buy in to your current insurance plan through various government programs (COBRA is one program that a lot of other comments are mentioning) . I don't have all the details on how this changed after Obamacare, but there were generally limits on how long you could do this and the costs were much higher than what your plan previously cost you and your employer.

* Buy a new insurance plan on the open market. This would have been obscenely expensive for someone with cancer before Obamacare's preexisting condition protections, but even with those reforms it still is a huge expense.

* Pay for your medical care out of pocket, which in the case of cancer will almost certainly result in you going bankrupt. Depending on where you get your statistics, there is something like 500,000 - 1 million bankruptcies in the US a year that are related to medical expenses.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#63

Post by skh »

bb88 wrote: post #36
skh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an ideal world this would be feasible. Few people have the pricing power for their labor to do this. I'd classify what you call a failed business transaction as a failure of government to enact necessary labor laws.

So in a world where there's a glut of labor, you're absolutely right. We, however, are not in a glut of labor for software engineers and game designers. And besides, if you explained to the employer the risks you forsee in joining their company, they will most likely understand that reason for asking for a higher salary than the norm.

I’m thinking beyond software engineers. I’m thinking about people who don’t have pricing power for their labor and are not at all in a position to negotiate. They have to rely on government to help them with unequal balance in power when it comes to pricing for their labor.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#64

Post by tyingq »

avip wrote: post #47
slg wrote: post #15

The worst part for many of these people is that our country still links health insurance with your employer. It is bad enough to suddenly lose your job and primary source of income, but that type of thing is often unavoidable when a company goes belly up. However only getting a week's notice before all your health insurance benefits disappear is the type of thing that just shouldn't happen in this country.

What happens in the US if you leave your employer when in a degraded health state (let's say cancer)?

The Affordable Care Act did stop the practice of refusing coverage for preexisting conditions. So you can get insurance. The cost is high getting it on your own, not due to the condition, but because the employer isn't subsidizing it.

See https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/about-the-aca/pre-existing-co...

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#65

Post by DanTheManPR »

avip wrote: post #47
slg wrote: post #15

The worst part for many of these people is that our country still links health insurance with your employer. It is bad enough to suddenly lose your job and primary source of income, but that type of thing is often unavoidable when a company goes belly up. However only getting a week's notice before all your health insurance benefits disappear is the type of thing that just shouldn't happen in this country.

What happens in the US if you leave your employer when in a degraded health state (let's say cancer)?

You go bankrupt and die.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#66

Post by dragonwriter »

d357r0y3r wrote: post #54
WillPostForFood wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting to note though, employer provided health insurance is a direct outcome of govt policy: Most insurance in the first half of the 20th century was bought privately, but few people wanted it. In 1942, with so many eligible workers diverted to military service, the nation was facing a severe labor shortage. Economists feared that businesses would keep raising salaries to compete for workers, and that inflation…

Rarely discussed but yeah, that's how employee provided health insurance became a thing. It makes no more sense than company-provided housing or groceries or life insurance. You're already at risk of being let go by the employer at any time. Why tack on more risk by trusting the employer to take care of important insurance coverage? The answer in 1942 would have been, "don't subsidize employer-based health insurance.…

> The answer is 2018 is...well, kind of like replacing the engine mid-flight. An entire tumor-like system has grown around various market incentives and it can't just be 'removed' without putting the host at serious risk.

Sure it can; the ACA marketplaces were the first step. If they hadn't been systematically undermined, the next step after they were established and stable would be shifting tax incentives to avoid favouring employer-based insurance, and the final step would be removing employer mandates and maintaining the individual mandate.

The problem is that it's not a cancer, it's an active parasite that protects itself against the host.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#67

Post by zemo »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #59
zemo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

game industry workers don't have the same bargaining power that people in other industries have. > "Cash Up Front" ... or immediate stock ownership to offset your personal risk so a grant with no vesting schedule? please enlighten us as to what employers are actually giving out such favorable deals.

Why have game industry workers not unionized? If now isn’t the time, I don’t know when is. EDIT: I stand corrected.

Only 7% of private sector laborers are in a union of any kind in the US. That rate has fallen sharply for several decades, and the political apparatus of the United States, especially the Republican party, has been deliberately eradicating labor unions since WWII. That's the whole "Right to Work" thing.

umm, maybe start here and just ... I dunno, click around a bit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_Sta...

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#68

Post by bargl »

slg wrote: post #15

The worst part for many of these people is that our country still links health insurance with your employer. It is bad enough to suddenly lose your job and primary source of income, but that type of thing is often unavoidable when a company goes belly up. However only getting a week's notice before all your health insurance benefits disappear is the type of thing that just shouldn't happen in this country.

There is some small amount of protection involved. They have to offer COBRA (I'm not sure about a company going belly up) at the same rate they pay. Which means you get a negotiated rate. I've done this and it's fucking expensive but it works. The shit part is that small companies are exempt, which makes sense but can still suck. I am also not sure what happens if the company is filing bankruptcy or not. So maybe they can get out of it.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#69

Post by riffic »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #59
zemo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

game industry workers don't have the same bargaining power that people in other industries have. > "Cash Up Front" ... or immediate stock ownership to offset your personal risk so a grant with no vesting schedule? please enlighten us as to what employers are actually giving out such favorable deals.

Why have game industry workers not unionized? If now isn’t the time, I don’t know when is. EDIT: I stand corrected.

Some organizations for the curious.

https://www.gameworkersunite.org

https://techworkerscoalition.org

https://techsolidarity.org/events.html

https://siliconvalleyrising.org

https://www.iww.org/pt/unions/dept500/iu560

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#70

Post by c3534l »

ta987654321 wrote: post #19

This studio closure hits a little close to me, since I know a few former employees: - They really did not see a full studio closure coming so suddenly. Yes, they were aware that they were struggling, but the 25% staff reduction was supposed to keep the studio sustainable. - They were in the planning stages for an original IP, their new leadership realized too late that expensive IP licenses were unsustainable. - Thei…

There were people who moved to accept a job at that company a few months ago who got fired. Imagine uprooting your entire life, moving across country for your dream job, for the sole purpose that management can keep up appearances that they're a functioning company so people won't jump ship. The company was scummy and ran into the ground because of incompetence.
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