If you know anyone with starry-eyed fantasies of working in a utopian video game industry where everyone spends all day tightening up the graphics on level three, I have just the thing you need to bring them back to earth.

Gamasutra ran an announcement that EA was canning Tiberium, a first-person shooter based on the Command & Conquer universe. What follows in the comments section is an orgy of anonymous airing of dirty laundry.

Here, check out this little gem.

Yes I;ve worked with these guys personally, and can personally tell you that seeing them get high on drugs during lunch time is not personal time when you have to come back to a meeting and make a million dollar decision. Some cock high on cocaine thinking he’s making sense is no way to becoming the #1 company in the world…no wonder ATVI has surpassed!

The majority of these drug addicts stuck together in a cabal on and off of company time. In other words it was their dirty little secret and they;ll back each other up in meetings even if its to the destruction of the product and company.

When it comes to anonymous gossip, I follow the “pics or it didn’t happen” rule. Look at it this way, though: If you go to work for EALA, you either have to work for alcoholic drug addicts, or you have to work with some crackpot who calls his bosses that over the Internet.

Nice, huh?

There are some good stories in the thread from people willing to put their name up. Search for “Jacek” on the page for a good yarn about “the sleeping giant” of development teams.

I guess the take-away lesson here is that big game companies or even small ones aren’t immune from the ineptitude and mismanagement that can characterize any other corporation. Your job sucks and you’re trapped in a cubicle? Get in line.

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