Forum Announcement, Click Here to Read More From EA_Cade.
The Sims: Assistant Producer Reed Pake Leaves Maxis
catmando830
Posts: 9,117 Member
Reed Pake, Assistant Producer to The Sims 4, announced today that he is leaving Maxis to move on to his “next adventure”. Reed to to Twitter to announce his departure.
"Reed Pake #BLM
@Reed_Pake
Today is my last day at EA/Maxis. It has been an honor to learn from & work alongside such an awesome team. Working on The Sims 4 has been a dream come true & I’m so grateful to have had this experience. Onto the next adventure! 🙂"
Reed’s announcement comes just a day after SimGuruDuke bid farewell. Some of the more eagle eyed community members also noticed that SimGuruSarah has updated her Twitter profile to reflect that she is now a “former” Associate Producer to The Sims 4. Unlike the others, Sarah has not made an announcement, so it is unclear whether she moved within EA/Maxis, or if she too has left.
"Reed Pake #BLM
@Reed_Pake
Today is my last day at EA/Maxis. It has been an honor to learn from & work alongside such an awesome team. Working on The Sims 4 has been a dream come true & I’m so grateful to have had this experience. Onto the next adventure! 🙂"
Reed’s announcement comes just a day after SimGuruDuke bid farewell. Some of the more eagle eyed community members also noticed that SimGuruSarah has updated her Twitter profile to reflect that she is now a “former” Associate Producer to The Sims 4. Unlike the others, Sarah has not made an announcement, so it is unclear whether she moved within EA/Maxis, or if she too has left.
6
Comments
I don't get this way of hiring. It takes them about 1 year to create a pack, what sort of continuity do they have in the development of their products if teams keep changing? Things get lost on the way and you waste a lot of time training and supervising new people all the time.
Personality,depth,humor,consequences,lore,customization.
My partner works for a corporation and they just had some people leave as well. The company is doing just fine. This is actually standard practice. He's actually been on a contract himself when he started his position and after a couple of renewals they made him permanent. But his company shifts around all the time, letting people go, hiring new ones. It's really just about business tactics.
It's also possible that it could be a sign that Sims 4 is winding down a little and going into "coasting" mode. They could possibly have enough content in development now to get them through the next year or two before deciding where the game goes, so they wouldn't need as many people. I believe this has been the practice in previous games. I guess at this point, only time will tell.
I agree. How much passion can you have for your work if you're only scheduled to work at a company for a year? That's why we end up seeing better work done in indie games, because they're actually passionate about their art. I don't think temp workers ever replace good long-term workers. But that's corporate life in America, money over creativity as usual
This game needs way more work with the amount of bugs it has. No one can afford to be "coasting." IMO
My Plumbob is GREEN today
Duke probably had a better offer somewhere else. Doesn't mean that he was or was not actively looking for a new job, headhunters recruit for companies all the time. I've had several contact me for various positions at other companies. It's really not unheard of for people to change jobs after a long period of time. I left my job at a hospital after 12 years to go work at a private practice doctor's office setting because the benefits and atmosphere and other perks were better for me personally.
And I agree with LiELF that contract work is very, very common in companies. Sometimes they are interns and gaining experience in the industry which helps to beef up their resume and when the contract is over, the people leave if there's no longer a need for their particular skill. When I worked at the hospital we hired temps all the time, it would stink to have to train them to do the job and then 3 months later they would leave, only to have a new temp hired a few weeks later and the same process would happen all over again.
So yeah, I'm not too worried that something bad is happening at Maxis or EA.
The question is, which is which in this case? We may never know.
I was referring to content creation specifically. The bug team is a separate team and I don't think anyone there has left.
The way Sims 4 content has been created (as we've been told) is that they've had several things in production at once. The closer it gets to the release of a pack, they switch team members around to put more focus on that pack to make sure it's completely finished for the deadline. But there have always been multiple things in development. In past games, we've usually seen a sudden barrage of content released in the last couple of years because a lot of the core development has been done, so suddenly multiple things gain momentum at once. It kind of becomes easier to continue at that point. Remember that Sims 4 has over 200 devs and many, many different positions and types of work within this game. Engineers, coders, artists, audio producers, designers, writers, animators, project management, etc... and then there are subgroups within each category. Cutting a few people here and there isn't going to cripple game production, especially if certain work departments have dwindled because they already have a substantial amount of product done. We've heard before from devs about how sometimes one department is sitting around waiting for another department to complete something for a pack because their part is finished already, and no company wants their employees being idle for too long. So they cut a contractor. Then, in several months, if they need more ramping up, they'll hire someone else to contract in for a few months or a year or however long they predict the work will take. Then the cycle starts again.
It should also be noted that they have currently put out ads for two audio editing positions. So while they have let go of some people, they are still hiring others.
That is not always the case though. I guess it remains to be seen if this will lead to any larger changes or not. I don't know what exactly these people worked on.
I was about to say this. A lot of people (especially in this industry) work under a timed contract. I'm sure it's nothing big.
it'd be fun to investigate
for science
*dramatically puts on monocle*
🏡 Gallery 📖 Stories 🌍 World Project 🥔 MOD/CC Free
Every single bug is never going to be fixed, especially with the root of the problem being the engine itself....