Mythic Resolves Warhammer Crediting Controversy
According to the latest International Game Developers Association newsletter:
The Mythic team is also taking the following steps to address credit policies:
- In-game and manual credits will be reserved for the launch team.
- Mythic will create an online database listing the name and title of everyone who contributed to a project, regardless of current employment status. Additionally, the studio will make best efforts to provide this information for its previous online games
"I applaud Mythic for taking steps to address this issue," stated IGDA chairperson Jen MacLean. "Fair and accurate credits and transparent standards for crediting remain a pervasive problem in the industry."
In addition, Mythic will work alongside the IGDA to "promote fair and accurate credit reporting across the industry," with studio VP Mark Jacob offering consultation on the crediting challenges of massively multiplayer games, such as Warhammer Online.
Though hundreds contributed Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning across the course of its development, Jacobs previously said that crediting the launch team was "good enough" due to the limitations of a game manual and the issue of updating the credits with post-release contributors.
At the time, Jacobs commented: "If we set that [all-inclusive] precedent right now, that anyone who worked on the game at any point in time is going to be in the credits, the credits will be 20 pages long within a couple of years. And nobody does that."
MacLean--who previously labeled Mythic's former accreditation policy as disrespectful and misleading--today noted that she is "personally looking forward to Mark's involvement with the Credit Standards Committee, not only because of his depth of experience in online games, but because, more importantly, his personal commitment to fair and accurate credits sets an outstanding example for industry leadership."
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And it's so likely to have someone come in for the final 1% of the game while someone who worked for 99% of the game quits the day before launch! Yay hyperbole!
I think the solution covers 80+% of the cases and is a good compromise. After all the primary reason people want credit is for their resume. It's certainly not for the gamer's benefit.-
You miss the point. People who work on games in the initial and sometimes middle of development aren't retained to the retail release. Not because they've "quit" or "seen it through to the end" as wytefang said, but because there are stages to game development, and the final team is often comprised of late-hires and positions which have some function until the end.
Say you're a storyboard artist who worked on a movie and you laid the groundwork for everything that was to come after. You finished your contract before the movie had wrapped and gone to post-production. Wouldn't you want (and need for your career) to see your name in the credits once it arrived in theatres?
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