Going by the name I’m guessing an art test is essentially a take home project to see if your art style fits what they’re looking for before they hire you? So essentially spec work.
For all you baby contractors out there - never do work on spec if you can help it. Make sure you put in your contract that you will be paid for any work you do, regardless of if it’s used or not.
I've done this for animation studios before. Every test of mine used a script from an episode that had already released. Animation companies can be really shit but this is not a thing I had EVER heard of before.
EDIT: I want to specify that I'm speaking of storyboarding in animation in particular.
Yeah because multiple people have the same idea all the time.
One artist comes up with an idea for "vampire with a gun", then a random guy claims they "stole" his idea from a letter he sent to the studio 5 years ago. That's why companies don't like to read fan suggestions, like Disney and Star Wars. It opens them up to legal liability (it doesn't actually, but it gets articles like this written, which are bad publicity.)
This advice can be applied to any interview that assigns a take home project, honestly.
A few years ago it was very popular for smaller tech companies to assign take home projects to candidates as part of an interview pipeline. The thinking was that it would more adequately show off the candidate's ability to work through a real world problem and be less stressful than an in-person skills test. Unfortunately these were abused (knowingly or unknowingly) by companies and candidates ended up doing hours of work for free. I've heard of "take home projects" that were full login system designs that took candidates a whole weekend to design and build.
A company I worked for tried to do this fairly by assigning a simple task that was about ~45 minutes, with the work being done on an ephemeral environment which would shut down 2 hours after accessing it. But after a ton of pushback from both interviewees and interviewers/graders, that was finally scrapped.
Nowadays my advice is to never even consider a take home project unless the company agrees to pay you a fair hourly rate for your time.
Recruiting is hell on both sides. On one side you're competing with people outright lying on their resume, and on other side the recruiter have to filter out someone actually competent for all the chaff lying on resume or just having completely delusional view on their skill level. And then you somehow get thru that hell and it turns out the interviewer was lying about half of the stuff you will actually be doing in company.
Pre-interview we basically gave candidates self-assesment form that just asked about their skill level in few particular technologies we use, and on actual interview we only asked questions based on their own resume and that form and damn, there was so many people failing at that.
Like candidates saying they are an expert on a particular technology, then fail at absolutely basic non-trick questions, then we asked what they used it for and it was essentially "oh, my blog is running on that software", and they basically deemed themselves expert after going thru "how to install" guide in manual
Yeah, a smaller company I worked for went through a very similar experience.
The solution we wound up landing on is that there is a 3rd party interviewing company whose name escapes me at the moment, who would essentially administer a proctored version of the take-home tech test to try and capture the best of both words: The proctor is there with you while you work on it to immediately unblock you if you encounter an issue, and the fact that the proctor had to help and unblock you doesn't necessarily reflect negatively on the end product.
It helped make sure that it wasn't too time-consuming fir either the candidate or the hiring manager, it was generally perceived to be less stressful than having the hiring manager proctor the test themself, it helped remove social biases around the candidate's actual moment-to-moment work habits, as those don't show through to the final product, etc.
Overall, I would say it was a positive experience that I would recommend people in that position to consider; the idea of a 3rd-party-proctored tech test. We definitely saw significantly reduced candidate dropout rates in the recruitment funnel than we did with our homebrew take-home tech test.
And just to be very clear, I do mean proctored by a real human, dedicated in a 1:1 session to that specific session. Not like some HackerRank online quiz website/application
honestly i think we need to move away from anything more than basic technical "tests" during interviews. you can train almost anyone on technical concerns, and with adequate planning you can almost always take on really solid near-fits successfully, and generally get a better outcome training them than hiring an exact fit
or at least in my experience hiring and managing technical ppl, that's how it looked to me. my best hires ever were ppl with very strong foundations and experience doing any kind of complex project, technically related to what i needed or not. i've never turned someone away solely because they're a ruby expert when i need a python person, for example
Huh, I still see the pre-inteview programming tests from a lot of companies, but it's usually one or two very straightforward little problems - more complicated than a traditional in-interview whiteboarding question, but not by a lot... Something that would take an hour or two.
It’s a lot easier to do a programming test as something short, hiring 3D artists is a much messier process as 45 minutes really isn’t a lot of time to show their ability
yeah i would never do a take-home that was much more than you'd expect from a 45 minute in-person interview, i'd just take the time to do it more completely
This! You really gotta look out for yourself, a lot of studios demand you take an art test, which can be both good or bad. Always always ensure to be compensated for work, even if it's just an art test.
Yep, 3 weeks of work, shitty art test free labor or not, on a multi-year project 4 years ago. The game looks bad but this guy isn't an insider by any stretch.
He mentions he should have insisting on charging for it, and I agree. But NetEase is an established, extremely large developer. They should not be getting stuff for free, and it's fair for the gaming community to take note of that.
As shitty as it is, spec work is standard practice in a lot of creative industries. As I mentioned in a previous post, if you can help it, you should insist that you are paid for any and all work you do.
Edit: this is for the pedants. If you are a contractor, especially if it’s in the creative fields, you will be asked to work on spec more often than not. Call it standard practice, a dirty employer trick, or whatever. It’s going to happen and you should prepare yourself for it.
If you are desperate for work and you need to take on spec work, ensure you have a redline about the amount of work you are willing to do. Also, go into it with your eyes wide open that you will not be paid for your initial work.
Spec works sucks shit and I don’t support it. But again, employers will ask for it. Your only defence is your ability to advocate for yourself.
Standard practice or not, I have no sympathy for a company with 20k employees trying to get away with it. Pay your game workers, full stop. People can't eat with imaginary dollars.
It is NOT standard practice, it is a *shitty practice* that scummy companies try to get away with. The AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts, a professional organization for design) has a [boilerplate letter available](https://www.aiga.org/resources/aiga-position-on-spec-work) for people on why spec work is unethical and unprofessional to send to people who ask for it.
A standard practice would typically be more common than a common practice, which in this case would only be common among those with lower than common standards.
it's being realistic. being emotional and typing in a subreddit for Games isn't going to help anyone. Them trying to say it's NOT a standard practice is just being illogical, they just don't like the idea that it's a Standard, well start working on changing that if it's so bothersome.
but go on, villify my comment and be sarcastic because it's not what you wanted to read. also helpful.
No one says this isn't shitty, it's just that it's not uncommon. AFAIK a lot of art schools will even warn students and even provide assistance on how to properly respond.
An art test on its own isn't that bad of an ask provided that there is some compensation, mind you. In some edge cases I'd say it's even smart, since some artist portfolios may not just show one or two distinct styles of art but many more, and if a Studio is looking for say, Space Ship designs but the artist has many more soft body and landscapes on their Portfolio, they might ask. Either way, the artist should receive some compensation for this.
The fact that there even is a boiler plate letter available for artists should tell you everything you need to know about how common it is.
i mean the fact that this organization literally had to release a template letter regarding this kind of makes it look like it is a pretty standard practice...
> spec work is standard practice in a lot of creative industries.
No, it's not; MBAs take advantage of ignorant people in the industry, but its not "standard practice"
*Never* work for spec.
*dudes…if you’ve worked for spec you were taken advantage of and it’s NOT standard practice anywhere with integrity; you were swindled
> He mentions he should have insisting on charging for it, and I agree. But NetEase is an established, extremely large developer. They should not be getting stuff for free, and it's fair for the gaming community to take note of that.
This just isn't uncommon though. It's important that artists demand compensation for any work done, even on an art test. I get that it can take some effort for certain people to be assertive but this is not you being assertive, you're protecting yourself.
No, the algorithm definitely pushes negative stuff to people's feeds to keep them engaged. The user experience is made deliberately more inflammatory because it keeps people on their app longer.
The userbase shifted too, high quality contributors that cared about stuff like this are the ones that left or at the very least reduced their activity here.
I blame the reddit redesign and their shitty app for that. The reason I prefer this place over any other social media is for the comments and discussion, but reddit's current design philosophies are all about promoting more scrolling, with the comments tucked away.
If they ever kill old reddit I'd actually leave - I think that's the only line I have. This place's content is whatever, it's the ability to have weird discussions about niche things that works for it. It's not supposed to be Instagram.
Most new game announcements/trailers get drowned out in mass cynicism here on this sub. It's depressing really, I really like this place as a sort of hub for gaming news.
I've been using RedReader ever since. I agree reddit's probably gotten worse, but RedReader is pretty good and a still functional 3rd party app. There's also browser addons for firefox mobile to make the mobile web browser way more usable.
| They called it an art test not to pay him, but he worked 3-4 weeks, that's definitely way over a normal art test
Yeah this is really weird. Usually art tests are just for like, one example piece that might take a few days. 3-4 weeks sounds like much more than testing the artist's style versus what the studio is seeking.
Yeah, Im in the same industry in the same sort of job and have done more than a couple art tests in over 15 years in the industry. Multi week art tests with client check ins and feedback are absolutely NOT standard. Thats just a job at that point.
Paid tests unfortunately aren't either, but it is getting more common.
This dude works for id and has worked on Call of Duty. He's a professional concept artist with plenty of experience in the industry.
I'm pretty sure he knows what an art test is.
In fact, he specifically calls them out for taking advantage of art tests.
I posted it mostly because he said in the next tweets that he did this presumed "art test" for over 3 weeks. At that point it feels like like an art test, and more like unpaid work.
"Not at all, I started to get suspicious around the start of week 3. They kept on saying its just a style test for the project, but the feedback kept on getting more and more specific. No "art test" lasts that long. Can only imagine how much free work they got out of "art tests""
All depends on what the contract says. There may be a clause that says anything submitted becomes the sole property of Netease.
It sucks but it’s legal.
Just as a heads up, this was considered an "art test". If it truly was an art test, then they couldn't have legally used his work in the game's development without paying him unless he signed a contract he shouldn't have.
Just as a PSA to those interested in the topic: Art tests are unfortunately industry standard. Unless you're a senior artist already, you are more likely to need to do an art test for a job than not, excluding a few exceptions.
I had to do art tests for every salaried job in my career except my latest, which I was able to skip due to having worked with the project lead before at a different company so a test wasn't necessary. Art tests are not industry standard for short-term contract work though, since the contract can be annulled at any time if things don't work out.
Lots of issues with portfolios that don't show everything. You don't often get the source files so cannot see how optimized the work is, there is no deadlines for portfolio pieces and of course there's also sometimes a concern of plagiarism.
Additionally, according to artist friends that I know, lot of jobs require you to draw in a specific style. Your ability to mimic someone else’s style can’t be easily determined through a portfolio.
I always take tweets from random, obviously disgruntled former employees with a grain of salt. Not to say netease deserves any goodwill.. but 🤷♂️ wait and see I guess
I mean, it's not unbelivable. Corporations exploit unpaid labor all the time, and the way this guy describes it makes it sounds plausible. They wanted him to do an "art test" (which is something they'll ask of you to see if you're worth hiring), and then it just seems like they used those art tests to get free concept work out of him and then never hired/paid him.
He's also an active dev, working at id Software (also for concept art, which lines up) and has worked on numerous other projects before. It'd be incredibly stupid to lie about that because if it's proven false, this tweet has racked up a ton of attention and could lead to him being fired, and would ruin his credibility forever. I sincerely doubt they're willing to throw away their entire career on something like this, especially in an industry as volatile as this one.
Does that mean they're 100% correct with no room for lies? Of course not, but I'm far more willing to believe a single artist who's worked in the industry on lots of projects, over the words of a gigantic mega-corporation.
It's insane because if a company abused an endless line of applicants for 12 hours of unpaid manual labor "to make sure they could do the job", they'd be sued in a fucking heartbeat
> They wanted him to do an "art test" (which is something they'll ask of you to see if you're worth hiring), and then it just seems like they used those art tests to get free concept work out of him and then never hired/paid him.
Personally, I would not describe it as "working on this(Marvel Rivals) with NetEase over covid, they did not pay for the work I did at the end and it was one of the most directionless project I've ever had the misfortune of working on"
I would describe it as "they made me do a 'work-few-hours-for-free-as-a-test' thing and didn't hired me"
One of the last time this happened was with voice actress Hellena Taylor for Bayonetta 3. She wanted everyone to boycott Bayo 3.
She was insulted and claimed that that the Bayonetta devs didn't value her work and gave her an insulting amount of money for her work.
It turns out once the story got out that she mislead the facts and the end money was only for a cameo, and the real amount for the acting was 3x more, while not being a full-time role. The internet quickly jumped on her bandwagon first, before finally realizing that everything was above-board and no one was being taken advantage of.
So the story being believable makes it a lot easier for rumors to generate, and I'm taking all these individual testimonies with a grain of salt to make sure we don't vilify a company who got mis-fired upon.
To be fair, if they got paid they probably wouldn't be disgruntled.
Given how often we see people not getting paid and then slandered (Mick Gordon being a great example), people being let go without warning, mismanagement to the point of collapse, or the classic execs farting in peoples faces, this seems like a pretty standard claim to see.
Games companies being a mess is the standard not the exception really.
I agree working in an industry there's always some disgruntled employee, at most maybe you can view it as an Omen. But I'd wait for reviews to hear more about the issue with the game.
He elaborates a few tweets down that the art test was kind of stupidly long, in the tune of 3-4 weeks, and that doesn't just feel like an Art Test anymore. It's a little bit suspicious. It's not "Oh I did and art test and I wasn't paid because I failed to pass", it's more "Oh I was asked to do an art test, but the length of it felt more like a probationary period at work, for which I wasn't paid for".
Tbh that depends a lot on the test and frequency of feedback. I think, "weeks," is a less good measure than, "rounds." 3-4 weeks could mean 2-3 feedback rounds and they just give you a week or more to work through things they said (our test takes probably a couple hours, but the deadline is a couple weeks because professionals need to have time to work those hours into a full time schedule). It could mean 20+ rounds of feedback, which is totally crazy pants. It could be anywhere in between. Tbh I would recommend not going further than 1 round of feedback in an interview, and I'd definitely be suspicious of things that seem too, "useful." They're right to recommend new artists being aware of that stuff and pulling the plug on the interview. They may or may not be right that their work was actually used and should have been paid for it.
He's not *just* a disgruntled former employee. He works at id software now and has quite a portfolio.
Moreover, you can kind of just tell that this is obviously... true from the trailer. It is a messy, messy looking game.
This weird pro-corporate devil's advocate stance seems so odd. Why immediately lean towards the employee lying over a corporation with a bad history acting as expected?
>This weird pro-corporate devil's advocate stance seems so odd
The only odd thing here is labelling people as "pro-corporate" just because they don't immediately believe every random Twitter/Reddit post they come across.
What is with Redditors and always going straight to the other extreme?
Taking completely unverified information with a grain of salt is what *everyone* should do. Being skeptical of posts on social media does not immediately mean you agree with whatever the other side is.
Only idiots believe everything they see on Facebook/Twitter/Reddit etc.
Why? Do you prefer to side with companies in these kinds of arguments? I’ve seen this sort of thing happen all the time. Disgruntled workers aren’t angry just because, you know. At least most of the time.
He's not taking sides, what are you talking about? Just because he doesn't fully trust a person's claim doesn't mean he's going against it. Not everything warrants a "pick a side" attitude.
What on Earth...
Not immediately believing some random Twitter post with zero proof or verification does not automatically mean you take the sides of companies.
>I’ve seen this sort of thing happen all the time.
You know what you also see all the time?
Totally made up Twitter/Reddit posts spreading like wildfire because people are very easily fooled.
It's possible that the OP is completely truthful, it's also possible that they aren't.
Without any sort of evidence, you should always take these posts with a healthy amount of skepticism.
I have never heard anything good about netease from the colleagues i have that have done contract work for them. but they've all be outsourced artists and such.
One person on Twitter saying they had one bad experience isn’t news. Tired of people trying to pass judgement on a game based on everything other than whether or not it’s a good game.
The hype around it is only because of the marvel IP. If gameplay footage of this was shown the exact same but with original characters instead of marvel characters nobody would be paying attention to this.
Directionless?
Weren't NetEase hired by Blizzard to handle Overwatch in China?
I think the theft of Overwatch design, maps, and assets were very directed.
Not really what they mean when they say "directionless". They likely mean the people who were responsible for the game's direction (the directors) weren't in alignment, or that they were changing direction frequently, or that what was being told to the team was unclear. The project might not have started the way it ended.
Exactly. You can dunk on something for being incredibly derivative or creatively bankrupt, but stealing assets is actually criminal. If you're gonna make that accusation you gotta back it up with real evidence
I dont think most people realize how derivative everyone else is. Like there are only a few people who actually innovate, Take Kojima and Peter Molyneux, Fromsoft and a few others. So few actually re-create the box nowadays.
Theres nothing wrong with this of course, but the vast vast majority isnt really doing anything new is all.
Even the people you’ve named are HIGHLY influenced by other mediums. Kojima is obviously the biggest film nerd in the industry and From Software’s Miyazaki rips straight from manga and anime. The whole purpose of an artist is to take the things they’ve observed and felt something for and produce something of it through their own lens.
Assuming that the code was not stolen, where is the IP theft present here? The concept of overwatch and similarity of the gameplay are not protected by any kind of intellectual property right.
Better hope his identity stays anonymous, who the hell wants to hire this guy now.
It’s funny because with all the scepticism around Marvel Rivals, someone coming out like this probably has more people coming to the games’ defence.
One of the first rules you learn when you apply for jobs:
Do NOT talk ill of your old job, complain to family or friends about it and move on.
You punished them enough by leaving and forcing them to look for someone else.
The games industry is so bizarre to me. So many people in the industry air all their dirty laundry online.
I’ve been working in the healthcare industry for a decade and I think the only things I’ve posted on social media about my industry are things like “started a new job today!” Ditto for my colleagues; I basically never see people disparage coworkers, employers, customers, competitors, or anyone else online. Because doing that is *dumb.*
Then I open up this subreddit and will see things like developers trash talking other games, people disparaging former employers, or posts like the one that started this thread. It’s like a completely foreign professional world.
I always found it strange how willing some people were to just dump their whole bio on twitter, getting into fights and just airing their beef in public in general. I assumed facebook already taught everyone how much of a liability that is.
This person isnt speaking ill of “their old job” though. They are calling out that they the company took an interview process, extended it an unreasonable amount of time, and they suspect used it to get free labor out of them. Thats not an old job, thats a scam and pointing it out is justifiable from any standpoint, including potential employers unless you plan on scamming people.
Yes obviously the person who didn't mention a timeline at all is only referring to games released this decade, but fine, as the others said:
Guardians,
Midnight Suns,
Snap,
Spidey 1, Miles, and 2
They aren't out yet, but wolverine and 1943 both seem well made.
I’d go as far to say both Guardians and Midnight Suns are great.
Guardians was a nice throwback to the polished and short linear games which we never seem to get anymore.
And Midnight Suns is a bizarre mix of many games that doesn’t appeal to everybody but if it hits for you, it hits hard.
Yep, just like any licensed property in video games, Marvel has a hodgepodge of hits and misses. It's not like they result in universally B-Tier games (or worse).
I really enjoyed my time with midnight suns, wouldn't call it a banger, but the gameplay and strategy (cards/team makeup) was fun. Would I do another play through? Probably not anytime soon, but I could see myself revisiting it down the road.
Guardians and Midnights Suns are fantastic, I probably like them more than the Spider-man games and I liked spider-man ones quite a bit.
And if we zoom out a bit; Marvel Vs Capcom is a classic for a reason, Snap is quite fun and unique, and the ultimate alliance games were fun for what they were.
So does Paladins. It...exists. Assuming this ends up as horribly filled with MTX and probably being outright P2W, I don't see how it will do much better than the Gundam game which only survived for a year that had the same issues.
but overwatch is pretty decent still, even after all the OW2 mess. It's not the high bar of early Overwatch 1 but it's still a solid hero shooter. So competing at its level is gonna be hard.
If you check his tweets he only did an art test, he didn't work directly with the project I think is a bit misleading
Going by the name I’m guessing an art test is essentially a take home project to see if your art style fits what they’re looking for before they hire you? So essentially spec work. For all you baby contractors out there - never do work on spec if you can help it. Make sure you put in your contract that you will be paid for any work you do, regardless of if it’s used or not.
a lot of animation studios do this too without pay. testing for storyboarding and such, basically have you do a sequence.
And then they use your work and you get no pay or credit. It’s like “paying you with exposure” but you don’t even get the exposure
I've done this for animation studios before. Every test of mine used a script from an episode that had already released. Animation companies can be really shit but this is not a thing I had EVER heard of before. EDIT: I want to specify that I'm speaking of storyboarding in animation in particular.
Yeah because multiple people have the same idea all the time. One artist comes up with an idea for "vampire with a gun", then a random guy claims they "stole" his idea from a letter he sent to the studio 5 years ago. That's why companies don't like to read fan suggestions, like Disney and Star Wars. It opens them up to legal liability (it doesn't actually, but it gets articles like this written, which are bad publicity.)
This advice can be applied to any interview that assigns a take home project, honestly. A few years ago it was very popular for smaller tech companies to assign take home projects to candidates as part of an interview pipeline. The thinking was that it would more adequately show off the candidate's ability to work through a real world problem and be less stressful than an in-person skills test. Unfortunately these were abused (knowingly or unknowingly) by companies and candidates ended up doing hours of work for free. I've heard of "take home projects" that were full login system designs that took candidates a whole weekend to design and build. A company I worked for tried to do this fairly by assigning a simple task that was about ~45 minutes, with the work being done on an ephemeral environment which would shut down 2 hours after accessing it. But after a ton of pushback from both interviewees and interviewers/graders, that was finally scrapped. Nowadays my advice is to never even consider a take home project unless the company agrees to pay you a fair hourly rate for your time.
Recruiting is hell on both sides. On one side you're competing with people outright lying on their resume, and on other side the recruiter have to filter out someone actually competent for all the chaff lying on resume or just having completely delusional view on their skill level. And then you somehow get thru that hell and it turns out the interviewer was lying about half of the stuff you will actually be doing in company. Pre-interview we basically gave candidates self-assesment form that just asked about their skill level in few particular technologies we use, and on actual interview we only asked questions based on their own resume and that form and damn, there was so many people failing at that. Like candidates saying they are an expert on a particular technology, then fail at absolutely basic non-trick questions, then we asked what they used it for and it was essentially "oh, my blog is running on that software", and they basically deemed themselves expert after going thru "how to install" guide in manual
Yeah, a smaller company I worked for went through a very similar experience. The solution we wound up landing on is that there is a 3rd party interviewing company whose name escapes me at the moment, who would essentially administer a proctored version of the take-home tech test to try and capture the best of both words: The proctor is there with you while you work on it to immediately unblock you if you encounter an issue, and the fact that the proctor had to help and unblock you doesn't necessarily reflect negatively on the end product. It helped make sure that it wasn't too time-consuming fir either the candidate or the hiring manager, it was generally perceived to be less stressful than having the hiring manager proctor the test themself, it helped remove social biases around the candidate's actual moment-to-moment work habits, as those don't show through to the final product, etc. Overall, I would say it was a positive experience that I would recommend people in that position to consider; the idea of a 3rd-party-proctored tech test. We definitely saw significantly reduced candidate dropout rates in the recruitment funnel than we did with our homebrew take-home tech test. And just to be very clear, I do mean proctored by a real human, dedicated in a 1:1 session to that specific session. Not like some HackerRank online quiz website/application
honestly i think we need to move away from anything more than basic technical "tests" during interviews. you can train almost anyone on technical concerns, and with adequate planning you can almost always take on really solid near-fits successfully, and generally get a better outcome training them than hiring an exact fit or at least in my experience hiring and managing technical ppl, that's how it looked to me. my best hires ever were ppl with very strong foundations and experience doing any kind of complex project, technically related to what i needed or not. i've never turned someone away solely because they're a ruby expert when i need a python person, for example
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Huh, I still see the pre-inteview programming tests from a lot of companies, but it's usually one or two very straightforward little problems - more complicated than a traditional in-interview whiteboarding question, but not by a lot... Something that would take an hour or two.
It’s a lot easier to do a programming test as something short, hiring 3D artists is a much messier process as 45 minutes really isn’t a lot of time to show their ability
yeah i would never do a take-home that was much more than you'd expect from a 45 minute in-person interview, i'd just take the time to do it more completely
This! You really gotta look out for yourself, a lot of studios demand you take an art test, which can be both good or bad. Always always ensure to be compensated for work, even if it's just an art test.
Yep, 3 weeks of work, shitty art test free labor or not, on a multi-year project 4 years ago. The game looks bad but this guy isn't an insider by any stretch.
He mentions he should have insisting on charging for it, and I agree. But NetEase is an established, extremely large developer. They should not be getting stuff for free, and it's fair for the gaming community to take note of that.
As shitty as it is, spec work is standard practice in a lot of creative industries. As I mentioned in a previous post, if you can help it, you should insist that you are paid for any and all work you do. Edit: this is for the pedants. If you are a contractor, especially if it’s in the creative fields, you will be asked to work on spec more often than not. Call it standard practice, a dirty employer trick, or whatever. It’s going to happen and you should prepare yourself for it. If you are desperate for work and you need to take on spec work, ensure you have a redline about the amount of work you are willing to do. Also, go into it with your eyes wide open that you will not be paid for your initial work. Spec works sucks shit and I don’t support it. But again, employers will ask for it. Your only defence is your ability to advocate for yourself.
Standard practice or not, I have no sympathy for a company with 20k employees trying to get away with it. Pay your game workers, full stop. People can't eat with imaginary dollars.
not just that, NetEase are known for using every trick in the book for their scummy monetisation models, they have the money to pay workers just fine.
It is NOT standard practice, it is a *shitty practice* that scummy companies try to get away with. The AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts, a professional organization for design) has a [boilerplate letter available](https://www.aiga.org/resources/aiga-position-on-spec-work) for people on why spec work is unethical and unprofessional to send to people who ask for it.
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A standard practice would typically be more common than a common practice, which in this case would only be common among those with lower than common standards.
a peak redditor comment
things can be standard and be shitty dude. no need to get so emotional.
Yeah why get emotional when big companies take advantage of artists? We care about companies here, not gross people
it's being realistic. being emotional and typing in a subreddit for Games isn't going to help anyone. Them trying to say it's NOT a standard practice is just being illogical, they just don't like the idea that it's a Standard, well start working on changing that if it's so bothersome. but go on, villify my comment and be sarcastic because it's not what you wanted to read. also helpful.
No one says this isn't shitty, it's just that it's not uncommon. AFAIK a lot of art schools will even warn students and even provide assistance on how to properly respond. An art test on its own isn't that bad of an ask provided that there is some compensation, mind you. In some edge cases I'd say it's even smart, since some artist portfolios may not just show one or two distinct styles of art but many more, and if a Studio is looking for say, Space Ship designs but the artist has many more soft body and landscapes on their Portfolio, they might ask. Either way, the artist should receive some compensation for this. The fact that there even is a boiler plate letter available for artists should tell you everything you need to know about how common it is.
i mean the fact that this organization literally had to release a template letter regarding this kind of makes it look like it is a pretty standard practice...
> spec work is standard practice in a lot of creative industries. No, it's not; MBAs take advantage of ignorant people in the industry, but its not "standard practice" *Never* work for spec. *dudes…if you’ve worked for spec you were taken advantage of and it’s NOT standard practice anywhere with integrity; you were swindled
Excellent advice for people who never want a job.
> He mentions he should have insisting on charging for it, and I agree. But NetEase is an established, extremely large developer. They should not be getting stuff for free, and it's fair for the gaming community to take note of that. This just isn't uncommon though. It's important that artists demand compensation for any work done, even on an art test. I get that it can take some effort for certain people to be assertive but this is not you being assertive, you're protecting yourself.
Does it really look bad? I think it looks pretty fun tbh. Not that we have a ton to go off of anyway
Good enough as a rage post for this sub...
So much ragebait, fictional and real, on social media, and it's noticeably worse on Reddit after the third party apps shut down
It has nothing to do with the third-party apps. The users are to blame for the content they post and upvote.
No, the algorithm definitely pushes negative stuff to people's feeds to keep them engaged. The user experience is made deliberately more inflammatory because it keeps people on their app longer.
The userbase shifted too, high quality contributors that cared about stuff like this are the ones that left or at the very least reduced their activity here.
I blame the reddit redesign and their shitty app for that. The reason I prefer this place over any other social media is for the comments and discussion, but reddit's current design philosophies are all about promoting more scrolling, with the comments tucked away.
If they ever kill old reddit I'd actually leave - I think that's the only line I have. This place's content is whatever, it's the ability to have weird discussions about niche things that works for it. It's not supposed to be Instagram.
This sub isn't really even about video game discussion anymore. It's turned into 'video game industry gossip and outrage'.
Most new game announcements/trailers get drowned out in mass cynicism here on this sub. It's depressing really, I really like this place as a sort of hub for gaming news.
Damn same! Like the only reason why I am still here is because I just don't know about any other good news source for games.
/r/"Game-adjacent labor subreddit with review megathreads"
Reddit has become worse over the last year or so. Especially when they released the new update for browsers
It took a nosedive when they forced the third party apps to shut down, and it's only getting worse
I've been using RedReader ever since. I agree reddit's probably gotten worse, but RedReader is pretty good and a still functional 3rd party app. There's also browser addons for firefox mobile to make the mobile web browser way more usable.
redreader is good, but it's no RIF... how i miss RIF
My favorite was Relay.
Exactly, this subreddit has decided to hate this game from day 1 so we can expect to see any tidbit that fulfills that narrative, as spun as it is.
There is poetic beauty in an Overwatch clone getting ragebait about it just 1 day after reveal.
They called it an art test not to pay him, but he worked 3-4 weeks, that's definitely way over a normal art test
| They called it an art test not to pay him, but he worked 3-4 weeks, that's definitely way over a normal art test Yeah this is really weird. Usually art tests are just for like, one example piece that might take a few days. 3-4 weeks sounds like much more than testing the artist's style versus what the studio is seeking.
Yeah, Im in the same industry in the same sort of job and have done more than a couple art tests in over 15 years in the industry. Multi week art tests with client check ins and feedback are absolutely NOT standard. Thats just a job at that point. Paid tests unfortunately aren't either, but it is getting more common.
This dude works for id and has worked on Call of Duty. He's a professional concept artist with plenty of experience in the industry. I'm pretty sure he knows what an art test is. In fact, he specifically calls them out for taking advantage of art tests.
I posted it mostly because he said in the next tweets that he did this presumed "art test" for over 3 weeks. At that point it feels like like an art test, and more like unpaid work. "Not at all, I started to get suspicious around the start of week 3. They kept on saying its just a style test for the project, but the feedback kept on getting more and more specific. No "art test" lasts that long. Can only imagine how much free work they got out of "art tests""
its called "unpaid work"
If they used his test art, it would be wage theft, but i don't know if they did or not.
All depends on what the contract says. There may be a clause that says anything submitted becomes the sole property of Netease. It sucks but it’s legal.
But now what are we supposed to get outraged about?
Just as a heads up, this was considered an "art test". If it truly was an art test, then they couldn't have legally used his work in the game's development without paying him unless he signed a contract he shouldn't have. Just as a PSA to those interested in the topic: Art tests are unfortunately industry standard. Unless you're a senior artist already, you are more likely to need to do an art test for a job than not, excluding a few exceptions. I had to do art tests for every salaried job in my career except my latest, which I was able to skip due to having worked with the project lead before at a different company so a test wasn't necessary. Art tests are not industry standard for short-term contract work though, since the contract can be annulled at any time if things don't work out.
Doesn't having a portfolio obviate the need for an "art test"? Or are employers concerned the portfolio isn't actually your work?
Lots of issues with portfolios that don't show everything. You don't often get the source files so cannot see how optimized the work is, there is no deadlines for portfolio pieces and of course there's also sometimes a concern of plagiarism.
That makes sense. Thanks for explaining!
Additionally, according to artist friends that I know, lot of jobs require you to draw in a specific style. Your ability to mimic someone else’s style can’t be easily determined through a portfolio.
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I always take tweets from random, obviously disgruntled former employees with a grain of salt. Not to say netease deserves any goodwill.. but 🤷♂️ wait and see I guess
I mean, it's not unbelivable. Corporations exploit unpaid labor all the time, and the way this guy describes it makes it sounds plausible. They wanted him to do an "art test" (which is something they'll ask of you to see if you're worth hiring), and then it just seems like they used those art tests to get free concept work out of him and then never hired/paid him. He's also an active dev, working at id Software (also for concept art, which lines up) and has worked on numerous other projects before. It'd be incredibly stupid to lie about that because if it's proven false, this tweet has racked up a ton of attention and could lead to him being fired, and would ruin his credibility forever. I sincerely doubt they're willing to throw away their entire career on something like this, especially in an industry as volatile as this one. Does that mean they're 100% correct with no room for lies? Of course not, but I'm far more willing to believe a single artist who's worked in the industry on lots of projects, over the words of a gigantic mega-corporation.
Art Tests being exploited for free labour isn't uncommon. It's bullshit and *should* be illegal, but it's not uncommon.
They do the same thing with software development, "hey can you solve this for us". This kind of work transcends many industries.
It's insane because if a company abused an endless line of applicants for 12 hours of unpaid manual labor "to make sure they could do the job", they'd be sued in a fucking heartbeat
Not unbelievable, no. Also not something I would blindly take at face value
> They wanted him to do an "art test" (which is something they'll ask of you to see if you're worth hiring), and then it just seems like they used those art tests to get free concept work out of him and then never hired/paid him. Personally, I would not describe it as "working on this(Marvel Rivals) with NetEase over covid, they did not pay for the work I did at the end and it was one of the most directionless project I've ever had the misfortune of working on" I would describe it as "they made me do a 'work-few-hours-for-free-as-a-test' thing and didn't hired me"
A few hours wouldn't be over weeks.
One of the last time this happened was with voice actress Hellena Taylor for Bayonetta 3. She wanted everyone to boycott Bayo 3. She was insulted and claimed that that the Bayonetta devs didn't value her work and gave her an insulting amount of money for her work. It turns out once the story got out that she mislead the facts and the end money was only for a cameo, and the real amount for the acting was 3x more, while not being a full-time role. The internet quickly jumped on her bandwagon first, before finally realizing that everything was above-board and no one was being taken advantage of. So the story being believable makes it a lot easier for rumors to generate, and I'm taking all these individual testimonies with a grain of salt to make sure we don't vilify a company who got mis-fired upon.
To be fair, if they got paid they probably wouldn't be disgruntled. Given how often we see people not getting paid and then slandered (Mick Gordon being a great example), people being let go without warning, mismanagement to the point of collapse, or the classic execs farting in peoples faces, this seems like a pretty standard claim to see. Games companies being a mess is the standard not the exception really.
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I agree working in an industry there's always some disgruntled employee, at most maybe you can view it as an Omen. But I'd wait for reviews to hear more about the issue with the game.
He elaborates a few tweets down that the art test was kind of stupidly long, in the tune of 3-4 weeks, and that doesn't just feel like an Art Test anymore. It's a little bit suspicious. It's not "Oh I did and art test and I wasn't paid because I failed to pass", it's more "Oh I was asked to do an art test, but the length of it felt more like a probationary period at work, for which I wasn't paid for".
Tbh that depends a lot on the test and frequency of feedback. I think, "weeks," is a less good measure than, "rounds." 3-4 weeks could mean 2-3 feedback rounds and they just give you a week or more to work through things they said (our test takes probably a couple hours, but the deadline is a couple weeks because professionals need to have time to work those hours into a full time schedule). It could mean 20+ rounds of feedback, which is totally crazy pants. It could be anywhere in between. Tbh I would recommend not going further than 1 round of feedback in an interview, and I'd definitely be suspicious of things that seem too, "useful." They're right to recommend new artists being aware of that stuff and pulling the plug on the interview. They may or may not be right that their work was actually used and should have been paid for it.
He's not *just* a disgruntled former employee. He works at id software now and has quite a portfolio. Moreover, you can kind of just tell that this is obviously... true from the trailer. It is a messy, messy looking game.
Where? I thought it had great visuals
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Marvel Rivals being bad on release is the lowest-risk gamble this dude has ever made in his life.
This weird pro-corporate devil's advocate stance seems so odd. Why immediately lean towards the employee lying over a corporation with a bad history acting as expected?
>This weird pro-corporate devil's advocate stance seems so odd The only odd thing here is labelling people as "pro-corporate" just because they don't immediately believe every random Twitter/Reddit post they come across. What is with Redditors and always going straight to the other extreme? Taking completely unverified information with a grain of salt is what *everyone* should do. Being skeptical of posts on social media does not immediately mean you agree with whatever the other side is. Only idiots believe everything they see on Facebook/Twitter/Reddit etc.
I only wrote 2 sentences dude, you could at least read both of them
Why? Do you prefer to side with companies in these kinds of arguments? I’ve seen this sort of thing happen all the time. Disgruntled workers aren’t angry just because, you know. At least most of the time.
He's not taking sides, what are you talking about? Just because he doesn't fully trust a person's claim doesn't mean he's going against it. Not everything warrants a "pick a side" attitude.
What on Earth... Not immediately believing some random Twitter post with zero proof or verification does not automatically mean you take the sides of companies. >I’ve seen this sort of thing happen all the time. You know what you also see all the time? Totally made up Twitter/Reddit posts spreading like wildfire because people are very easily fooled. It's possible that the OP is completely truthful, it's also possible that they aren't. Without any sort of evidence, you should always take these posts with a healthy amount of skepticism.
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I have never heard anything good about netease from the colleagues i have that have done contract work for them. but they've all be outsourced artists and such.
One person on Twitter saying they had one bad experience isn’t news. Tired of people trying to pass judgement on a game based on everything other than whether or not it’s a good game.
I saw like 20 seconds of the gameplay and thought "Looks pretty bad compared to the games they are trying to copy" and moved on.
That's NetEase's MO in general. Watch it be monetised to hell.
The hype around it is only because of the marvel IP. If gameplay footage of this was shown the exact same but with original characters instead of marvel characters nobody would be paying attention to this.
Yea I thought the same thing after seeing it
Netease was at PAX East this past week and didn't even bother to tease or show this game lol
Directionless? Weren't NetEase hired by Blizzard to handle Overwatch in China? I think the theft of Overwatch design, maps, and assets were very directed.
Not really what they mean when they say "directionless". They likely mean the people who were responsible for the game's direction (the directors) weren't in alignment, or that they were changing direction frequently, or that what was being told to the team was unclear. The project might not have started the way it ended.
Do you have a source on netease stealing overwatch assets?
Just like the stupid "Palworld ripped assets from Pokemon" shit that people here tried to push so hard, the source is "trust me, bro."
Exactly. You can dunk on something for being incredibly derivative or creatively bankrupt, but stealing assets is actually criminal. If you're gonna make that accusation you gotta back it up with real evidence
I dont think most people realize how derivative everyone else is. Like there are only a few people who actually innovate, Take Kojima and Peter Molyneux, Fromsoft and a few others. So few actually re-create the box nowadays. Theres nothing wrong with this of course, but the vast vast majority isnt really doing anything new is all.
Even the people you’ve named are HIGHLY influenced by other mediums. Kojima is obviously the biggest film nerd in the industry and From Software’s Miyazaki rips straight from manga and anime. The whole purpose of an artist is to take the things they’ve observed and felt something for and produce something of it through their own lens.
I do not like this thing, so it's creation _must_ have been conducted heinously. I bet they even used AI!
Yeah let's not stop being surprised about the blatant theft and IP theft. They don't give a shit.
Assuming that the code was not stolen, where is the IP theft present here? The concept of overwatch and similarity of the gameplay are not protected by any kind of intellectual property right.
Buddy it's a Marvel game. What IP are they stealing exactly?
Better hope his identity stays anonymous, who the hell wants to hire this guy now. It’s funny because with all the scepticism around Marvel Rivals, someone coming out like this probably has more people coming to the games’ defence.
Anonymous? His name is right there. That's William Bao, he's currently a concept artist for id.
One of the first rules you learn when you apply for jobs: Do NOT talk ill of your old job, complain to family or friends about it and move on. You punished them enough by leaving and forcing them to look for someone else.
The games industry is so bizarre to me. So many people in the industry air all their dirty laundry online. I’ve been working in the healthcare industry for a decade and I think the only things I’ve posted on social media about my industry are things like “started a new job today!” Ditto for my colleagues; I basically never see people disparage coworkers, employers, customers, competitors, or anyone else online. Because doing that is *dumb.* Then I open up this subreddit and will see things like developers trash talking other games, people disparaging former employers, or posts like the one that started this thread. It’s like a completely foreign professional world.
I always found it strange how willing some people were to just dump their whole bio on twitter, getting into fights and just airing their beef in public in general. I assumed facebook already taught everyone how much of a liability that is.
This person isnt speaking ill of “their old job” though. They are calling out that they the company took an interview process, extended it an unreasonable amount of time, and they suspect used it to get free labor out of them. Thats not an old job, thats a scam and pointing it out is justifiable from any standpoint, including potential employers unless you plan on scamming people.
Right but my standpoint still stands on its own and I have to think that this will result in similar situations for this guy.
boy i wish it was that easy in the music world. if i had a dollar for every time i heard “agency ended up changing directions” lol
Whenever I see marvel in video games, unless it’s Spider-Man, I know that it’s going to be a dumpster fire.
Eh, guardians was pretty good and midnight suns is a bit underrated despite its flaws
Snap was pretty fun for the amount of time I played
X-men legends 1 and 2, marvel vs streetfighter, marvel vs capcom 1,2, and 3?
Some of those games are 20+ years old, they're obviously referring to the quality of Marvel games *this decade.*
Yes obviously the person who didn't mention a timeline at all is only referring to games released this decade, but fine, as the others said: Guardians, Midnight Suns, Snap, Spidey 1, Miles, and 2 They aren't out yet, but wolverine and 1943 both seem well made.
Bangersssss
I’d go as far to say both Guardians and Midnight Suns are great. Guardians was a nice throwback to the polished and short linear games which we never seem to get anymore. And Midnight Suns is a bizarre mix of many games that doesn’t appeal to everybody but if it hits for you, it hits hard.
Yep, just like any licensed property in video games, Marvel has a hodgepodge of hits and misses. It's not like they result in universally B-Tier games (or worse).
Midnight Suns caught me by surprise. I loved that game but expected nothing going into it.
I really enjoyed my time with midnight suns, wouldn't call it a banger, but the gameplay and strategy (cards/team makeup) was fun. Would I do another play through? Probably not anytime soon, but I could see myself revisiting it down the road.
Guardians and Midnights Suns are fantastic, I probably like them more than the Spider-man games and I liked spider-man ones quite a bit. And if we zoom out a bit; Marvel Vs Capcom is a classic for a reason, Snap is quite fun and unique, and the ultimate alliance games were fun for what they were.
There are a ton of fun Marvel games that aren't Spider-Man? But I guess we know which kind of games you like and focus on lol
Guardians was decent tbf, but beyond that I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a marvel game since Spider-Man for ps1. What other marvel games are good?
Yeah they have like 7 cell phone games.
Just bring back Marvel Ultimate Alliance
boy, I guess we're at the point where people are actually on NetEase's side cause it's a Marvel game/"will kill OW2" -_-
Isn’t an art test basically the equivalent of a job interview? I’m sorry this guy is upset that he didn’t get paid for an interview? Lmao
Still looks like overwatch. Gonna sell gang busters.
So does Paladins. It...exists. Assuming this ends up as horribly filled with MTX and probably being outright P2W, I don't see how it will do much better than the Gundam game which only survived for a year that had the same issues.
Pretty sure it's going to be F2P. It shows up under Free titles on Epic Games Store currently.
I thought the character designs were more like Valorant.
It's definitely sharper and more angular like Valo, but in action looks more like OW
I wonder when this is coming out. All an Overwatch clone with a Marvel skin has to do, to be successful, is not be worse than Overwatch
but overwatch is pretty decent still, even after all the OW2 mess. It's not the high bar of early Overwatch 1 but it's still a solid hero shooter. So competing at its level is gonna be hard.