Well for one thing the gamer industry is one of the worst abusers of H1B visa's , more so than Microsoft, Apple, Google, or Adobe. For another they also abuse the "contractor" system to skate on taxes that most companies pay (personally I have seen the contractor abuse gone up all over the place and I can't wait till…

There IS this japanese company in the Bay Area that a month before they made a layoff they passed around paper that straight out said "WHO YOU DON'T WANT TO WORK WITH?" and "WHO YOU WANT IN YOUR TEAM?". Based on this list they made the layoff, which pretty much suck if you do not fit on a team that only cared about…

I didn't miss that part. I also didn't miss "family of five.. no wait, 6, er, wait, now 7."

That's an accident of history, I suspect. Most of the other media you mention are decades older than video games, and date from a time when the country was, if not necessarily union friendly, friendlier than they've been since 1980 or so.

Right. If anything, this story teaches the lesson that maybe the video game industry isn't really the profession to jump into at the entry level if you're trying to raise a family. It's way too volatile. It was like he was chasing a dream that was never meant to be in reach, and she had to seriously be in love with…

Man. This is one of these times where i dont get why anyone would want to work in such an un-stable industry, yet am glad that they do so.

Also, i'm probably the only one that feels like this, but i am finding it so hard to sympathise with the people in the last story. I mean, after the third or fourth layoff, surely…

The guy was actively ruining his children's lives but at least he got to chase his dream! :P

That jumped out at me too.

Attention all workers, would-be workers and future workers of the world: This is what it looks like when you don't have a union.

Those kind of rules sound ridiculous on first reading. But they have good reason behind them. Without rules clearly deliniating jobs, companies start trying to make people do multiple jobs and fill multiple roles. While this works fine at small companies, in bigger ones it gets used as a way to, for example, cut the…

Not to kick the guy when he's down who traveled 5K to take a job in another country, but he should have had some sort of work guarantee in his contract for such a risky transition—like a guaranteed time of work+pay or a stipulation that allowed him to be compensated should said work end abruptly—a "play or pay"…

The last story doesn't break my heart, it pisses me off. Way to fuck over your seven or eight kids because you're too incompetent to realize the same shit you've been doing for the last 10 years ends up with the same results. "Oh I want to make video games." Get a real job, especially when you've got that many kids…

Some people grow up and realize they have to provide for their family, even if the job isn't emotionally or artistically fulfilling. Others live in a state of arrested development, starry-eyed about video games and don't want to give it up. I feel like the guy in the last story never progressed from being that 12…

Like the Simpsons pointed out, unions started out as good ideas but many tended to go to far and became corrupt. Fighting corporate corruption and the like is all well and good, but some union laws like employees not being able to move their own office equipment is just insane and counterproductive.

The software industry as a whole is like this. You gotta build a niche and keep updating said niche to match the new hot thing or your niche and you end up unemployed.

Computer science degrees are usually pretty decent. But I agree in being wary of anything with the words "programming" or "game" in the degree title.

"Even the squirrels and birds picked on him!! And the neighborhood cats and dogs!!"

That last story is horrible but come on. I know it was the guy's dream from childhood but maybe after the third kid and the 5th layoff he should have maybe considered taking his skillset to a different line of work. Maybe learn a trade and just keep video games as a hobby. He faced irrefutable proof that this is an…

A year and a half later, we were told he would be laid off in two months. I was seven months pregnant. Our insurance would end two weeks before the baby was due.

IS THE LAST STORY THE NEW SCRIPT FROM DARREN ARONOFSKY?!?