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Can the broken game credits system be fixed?
IMAGINE WORKING on a presentation for a couple of weeks and it’s a great success, but, the accolades stop with your boss. Wouldn’t you feel wronged? Of course! Now imagine how you would feel if you had invested a year and didn’t get any credit for it. That is exactly the situation most video game creators find themselves in every day. And it’s not because they are lowkey and prefer to remain out of sight. It’s because the video games industry is woefully behind in awarding credit where credit is due.
“The video
games industry is woefully behind in awarding credit where credit is due”
Maya Rand, founder and CEO of TheXPlace, billed as a new way to connect and find work in the gaming industry
CREDITS ARE AT THE MERCY OF STUDIOS OR AGENCY NEGOTIATIONS Giving credit is a grey area in our industry and is dependent on each studio. Bad apples have set devastating precedents for how studios can regard workers in giving credit. This includes setting unattainable expectations for temporary workers who won’t be credited in the final launch of the game unless they are able to get their contracts extended to completion of the project. Some studios even use credits as leverage to keep talent on the game through to its launch. For example, Rockstar Games previously stated that only workers that finish games would be credited and then retracted the statement after public backlash. But, the nature of game development makes it ambiguous when someone has “earned” the right to be credited for a launched title. AAA game development often works in multi-year phases, so contract workers who engage for six months and then are let
6 | MCV/DEVELOP July 2022
go before the project is complete, or even full-time employees may burn out mid-cycle, can potentially go totally uncredited in the final launch of a game.
CAREER STOPPER
It should be quite straightforward: the talent that developed music for a game should be credited for their work. Just like the credits to a movie. Some studios will give credit to their talents, but they do so in one long list without specifying the actual roles each professional performed. Search the credits for Fortnite: Battle Royale, a perfect example. Is this mere laziness or a tactic to prevent other studios from poaching their talent? Game credits is an incredibly painful subject in the industry because of the severe inequity between studios and professionals. Especially today, with remote workers who deliver from afar, outside the clear visibility of office walls, it is even easier to exclude their names. This approach can clearly be exploited further with more teams going partial or fully remote. In an industry where specialty, portfolio and specific credentials are the key to getting your next opportunity, the broken game credits system is a career stopper.
During my time at EA, I worked closely with multiple game teams including DICE, BioWare, PopCap Studios and others, and I received dozens of credits that appeared in the games. Recently, I went looking for those credits in MobyGames, IGDB and several other data sources. To my surprise, the credit information
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