Buy Buy Buy! Sell Sell Sell!
If you follow the video game press (or any press at all) you may have spotted, tucked away in a corner, that we (Anonymous Surrey Based Game Developer) got bought by Microsoft yesterday.
Yay i guess. To be honest i can't really see any negatives for us, as employees, at this stage at least. Obviously it was hugely positive for the directors as they got a decent bit of cash out of their shares in the company (and no, i don't know the sum we went for, but anything between $50m and $100m seems reasonable). For those at the coal face, life continues as normal.
We had a party last night (ironically it was a leaving party thrown by a bunch of (ex)staffers for the people who were leaving as a result of the consultation) and as such the numbers in the office are somewhat diminished - and for those who are in, it is many people's last day.
There are many tangible benefits from now being a tiny cog in the proverbial clockface of Microsoft productivity (you like that? I just made it up. Bet you couldn't tell, could you?). We get free xbox 360s (woo!) and now we are a first party developer, free copies of all first party games. Also we can get massive discounts at the microsoft store (as one designer put it, in front of many senior MS honchos, he was eager to replace his "questionable" copy of Office), and access to the Microsoft libraries. If you don't know, MS has their own printing company, Microsoft Press, which produces a lot of stuff which isn't seen by the outside world - so this is a definite plus.
Microsoft were firm that they wanted to retain "the culture" of our place of work, which can only be a good thing. However, how much this will remain true a year or so down the line is of course yet to be seen. Somebody asked "will their be permanent Microsoft people on site" and my friend remarked quietly, "Yeah, us".
I suppose it hasn't quite sunk in yet in that respect.
Photo diary of skiing trip part 3:
Took this from the balcony of my apartment, i thought it came out nicely.
Yay i guess. To be honest i can't really see any negatives for us, as employees, at this stage at least. Obviously it was hugely positive for the directors as they got a decent bit of cash out of their shares in the company (and no, i don't know the sum we went for, but anything between $50m and $100m seems reasonable). For those at the coal face, life continues as normal.
We had a party last night (ironically it was a leaving party thrown by a bunch of (ex)staffers for the people who were leaving as a result of the consultation) and as such the numbers in the office are somewhat diminished - and for those who are in, it is many people's last day.
There are many tangible benefits from now being a tiny cog in the proverbial clockface of Microsoft productivity (you like that? I just made it up. Bet you couldn't tell, could you?). We get free xbox 360s (woo!) and now we are a first party developer, free copies of all first party games. Also we can get massive discounts at the microsoft store (as one designer put it, in front of many senior MS honchos, he was eager to replace his "questionable" copy of Office), and access to the Microsoft libraries. If you don't know, MS has their own printing company, Microsoft Press, which produces a lot of stuff which isn't seen by the outside world - so this is a definite plus.
Microsoft were firm that they wanted to retain "the culture" of our place of work, which can only be a good thing. However, how much this will remain true a year or so down the line is of course yet to be seen. Somebody asked "will their be permanent Microsoft people on site" and my friend remarked quietly, "Yeah, us".
I suppose it hasn't quite sunk in yet in that respect.
Photo diary of skiing trip part 3:
Took this from the balcony of my apartment, i thought it came out nicely.
posted by Jonny Hopper at 10:51 AM
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