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Discussion Metroid Dread's MercurySteam discredits employees who didn’t work at least 25% of the game's total dev time

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lemonfresh

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MOD EDIT: Removed additional text copy-pasted from Era.

"I would like to sincerely congratulate the Metroid Dread team for putting out such an exceptional game. I am not surprised by the quality of the game, as the amount of talent on that team was through the roof," he wrote on October 12 in his LinkedIn Roberto Mejías, 3D artist . "I know it first hand because, despite not appearing in the game's credits, I was part of that team for about eight months."
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Another different source, who prefers not to spread his name to avoid "problems", who worked at MercurySteam and was involved in the development, tells us by email that he was working for more than 11 months and does not appear in the credit titles of Metroid Dread . "Not accrediting the work of the team that puts all the love in the project, and the effort, is a very ugly practice , " he says.

Regarding the clause mentioned by the MercurySteam representative, he comments: "the 25% issue sounds like an invented one to me and that it suited them well for the above case ... but hey, neither 25% nor 1%, if I have participated you should put [ in credits] ".
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The developer says that he left the Madrid studio to fill a position in another company, but that when he left MercurySteam before the 42 days mentioned, they imposed a financial penalty . "I know that they did the same to another colleague," he adds. Another person in a similar situation, who did not give notice of his departure with those 42 days notice required by the study, reported in human resources that according to the Collective Agreement it is only necessary to give 15 days notice and managed not to receive an economic sanction, although neither appears in the game's credits after working on its development for 11 months.
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Orignal Article
https://vandal-elespanol-com.transl...auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=nui

Translated
https://vandal-elespanol-com.transl...auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=nui


Original Thread from era: https://www.resetera.com/threads/metroid-dreads-mercurysteam-discredits-employees-who-didn’t-work-at-least-25-of-the-games-total-dev-time.499911/
 
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Not the first time MS has gotten itself in labour issues. IIRC there were other issues back when they were developing Lords of Shadows.
 
Well, looks like MercurySteam still has problems like this. They seriously need fix this.
 
Well that's a really shitty policy! These employees put time and effort, even if it was "25%" into the game. They should be rewarded and credited.
 
This is fucked up. Not giving credit is super malicious and just a way for the company to make you dependent on them. The financial penalty sounds straight up illegal and if it isn't, it should be.
 
If I remember it right, same thing happened to Lord of Shadows development.

Kinda weird that they did it again.
 
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Besides the ethical ramifications of not giving the proper credits to someone who has worked on a game for eight freaking months there's also the fact that having such a big release on one's portfolio would be extremely beneficial in so many ways in a entertainment industry like the game one is. That's a incredibly shitty policy that frankly should just be illegal.
 
That's so shitty even if someone worked 1 hour or less on a game they should be credited. Hopefully Nintendo forces them to update the credits since they funded the game.
 
Yeah this sucks. As someone who works in a similar industry and having credits to one’s name can make/break careers, this is EXTREMELY weak. It’s free to credit people! More credits does not cost anything!
 
Why not credit everyone? Is it to make credits shorter to flex something? No one cares if a game ha 300 names or 1.000 in the credits.
 
Oh for fuck's sake, they just delivered an incredible game but of course there has to be a catch.
 
Hentz said:
Why not credit everyone? Is it to make credits shorter to flex something? No one cares if a game ha 300 names or 1.000 in the credits.
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If I had to guess, the policy is like to help them retain people on a project. If you know that there is a possibility your name won't be put into the credits, you might stay on longer than intended. It's a shitty policy but that's probably the mindset of it. It likely has nothing to do with how long the credits in the game are.
 
If a person has done work on a project, no matter how minor, they should be in the credits, what the heck.
 
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HockeyBird said:
If I had to guess, the policy is like to help them retain people on a project. If you know that there is a possibility your name won't be put into the credits, you might stay on longer than intended. It's a shitty policy but that's probably the mindset of it. It likely has nothing to do with how long the credits in the game are.
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Yeah, that makes sense. Still shitty tho!
 
This sucks. I will probably never understand this issue. How hard is it to list someones name? It costs the studio nothing and it only helps people who in the future want to put it on their resume.
 
GJ said:
This sucks. I will probably never understand this issue. How hard is it to list someones name? It costs the studio nothing and it only helps people who in the future want to put it on their resume.
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Some companies see it as people ‘freeloading’ clout from them for no work. Which is bullshit of course.
 
Quoted by: GJ
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Reports from the LoS era said that one of the studio owners was quite heavy handed, I can imagine he tries to build this culture of "either you commit to us or you're out". Quite a shame Nintendo is indirectly promoting this kind of thing.
 
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GJ said:
This sucks. I will probably never understand this issue. How hard is it to list someones name? It costs the studio nothing and it only helps people who in the future want to put it on their resume.
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It's about staff retainment by holding a figurative gun to their head, as opposed to the option of treating them like they have value and ensuring job satisfaction. Some companies are simply pretty upfront about how they value their staff. I've been presented with a similar contract myself before but I ran a mile. Really shitty for these former staff members to not have their work recognised.
 
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NarohDethan said:
Some companies see it as people ‘freeloading’ clout from them for no work. Which is bullshit of course.
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I’ve clapped my hands in the studio once for a song and I’m still listed in the credits. It’s better to credit absolutely everyone than to ‘forget’ people for dumb reasons. 25% is waaay too high on a 4-year project.
 
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That's really messed up. I'd imagine working on a Metroid game was a dream project for many involved. Every single one of them deserves recognition.
 
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this is very common,theres even companies that dont credit anyone whos not currently an employee even if they worked for 2+ years on a project
 
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I know it will never happen, and I’m usually against companies just buying up developers, but makes me wish Nintendo could just buy them.

I remember there was a lot of fuckery within Retro studios including insane crunch and mismanagement and then almost every single employee said when Nintendo took over, the culture just changed immensely.
 
I hope Nintendo can do something about this, it's not a good practice and it taints what otherwise is an incredible game (along with the rest of the games they have made).
 
mazi said:
that's a terrible policy, nintendo should pressure them to change the credits.
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I agree
not trying to diminishing this issue, this is seriously an honest question: what in the blue hell is the "pro" for MS with this "policy"?
It' s not that they didn't pay those developers, right? So...I can't see any kind of point about it
 
lemonfresh said:
To make matters worse, it appears that MercurySteam has a clause in their employee contracts stating that employees need to give 42 working days notice if they intend to leave their positions (Spain's workers' statue defines 15 days notice as a minimum), and those who don't honor their 42 day policy incur a financial penalty.
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What kind of contracts do they have for developers in Spain? I work in IT in Italy and we regularly have 30 and 60 working days notices in contracts, they are regulated by the national contracts. I have a 30 working days notice for example, my supervisor a 60 days working notice. The financial penalty is basically being detracted they notice days not served from the last paycheck.

They should be credited however , no spin around it.
 
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Really gross, just add them to the credits. Comes over incredibly petty.
 
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They should at least have a “part time contributor” section in the credits or the like. This is an unfortunate (and completely unnecessary) blemish on an otherwise great game.
 
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That sucks. If they worked on the game they should get credit for it. Its espicially harmful in this case because having Dread on your resume would mean a lot given the game's reception. The staff could stand to gain so much career progress from this.
 
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Hey man, if you're gonna wholesale copy and paste my thread from the other place you could at least make some mention of it.
 
Aostia82 said:
I agree
not trying to diminishing this issue, this is seriously an honest question: what in the blue hell is the "pro" for MS with this "policy"?
It' s not that they didn't pay those developers, right? So...I can't see any kind of point about it
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It's employee retention and making them dependent on you as employer. This way you ensure that people don't leave your project unless they want to go uncredited and it also makes it more difficult for them to apply at other companies, giving you more bargaining power.
 
This sucks. It doesn't matter how much you helped/worked, your name should always be in the credits.
 
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How hard would be for them to find some space for those employees in the credits of the game? Gezzzz, what a stupid decision...
 
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