Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, by Jing Haoyu

I was so happy the day I left. I feel like getting married, walking into the hall happily and saying goodbye to everyone.

Editor's note: we decided to start making a series of planners called "our 2019-2022". As you can see, this series is mainly about us, the experiences of people in the gaming industry from 2019 to 2022. Our plan is to ask an interviewee to talk about his or her past few years in each issue.

China's game industry has undergone drastic changes in recent years-of course, to be honest, China's game industry is changing dramatically every year, and this series should have been done earlier. We want this series to cover all aspects of the gaming industry-both in breadth and depth. We hope to cover enough people, from managers to grass-roots employees, from planners to marketers, to plug-in studio members, we want to know their lives and ideas. Our best hope is to systematically record the work and life of game practitioners over the years. In the future, maybe these things can help people in another era understand us.

This is the first article in this series. Today's story is about a girl named Xiao Qi and her two cities. At present, we cannot estimate the scale and duration of the series, but we guarantee that as long as there is a good story, the series will not stop.

The following is Xiao Qi's self-account.

2019: newcomer, I graduated as an undergraduate in 2019. In fact, I majored in animation in college, and I taught myself game art. I also have some colleagues who are like this. During the summer vacation of my junior year, I took part in the school enrollment. Later, I was selected by the internship project team. After graduation, I came to Shenzhen to play games.

The project team I joined actually had a rough experience. Before I graduated and went to internship, I felt that the future was bright and bright. In fact, the work intensity was already very high at that time, six days a week, basically getting off work after 11:00 in the evening. It is no exaggeration to say that I even envied the job of selling Spicy Hot Pot by the roadside at that time. At that time, I thought that if I could get off work at 10:00 every night and then have two days off, I would already be very happy.

During my internship, I loved filming days in Shenzhen, but at that time there was always something to look forward to. I thought that this kind of hard life would come to an end. At that time, the game was still in the early development stage. I think maybe after the launch, when the project is stable, it will be less busy. Although I am tired, I feel that the future is bright. And at that time, the leader of our group was also very good. When I came to the internship, I felt that I had made great progress and had a sense of self-identity. I felt that I was not wasting time, so I had the energy to continue to work. However, by the time I went back to work after graduation, a small number of people in that group had already left, and the situation was not as good as before.

In fact, it is still because I failed to get the version number in time. The company has invested a lot of manpower and material resources in the development of our game. After testing for a period of time, and then in early 2019, when I was ready to go online without deleting the file, I suddenly learned about the new regulation on the version number, that is, the "examination and approval of publishing domestic online game works" announced in April. We need to make a lot of changes, but we haven't been able to get the version number. After spending half a year like this, the game took more than half of its life. Because you have to always give new content to players to play, consolidate the existing group of players, but can not charge money. There is a cost to do all this content, and many people leave. Some have left their jobs, and some have gone to other project teams, leaving a lot.

I remember getting the version number at the end of the year. I can't remember the specific days clearly. I felt relieved at that time, and finally I didn't have to go on like this. The game began to charge, but the content of my work has not changed, or continue to do what I am responsible for.

As an art, my daily job is to wait for my colleagues and leaders to arrange the needs for me, and then I will do it according to the schedule. Before waiting for the version number, because there is no revenue, colleagues will find ways to reuse some things as far as possible to save costs. Of course, our art got the demand scheduling, but also as a normal work to do, has its own requirements for quality.

My usual work interface should say that our scheduled colleagues are more reliable. He will play in advance for a long time, so that there will be no special rush. Of course, we are still constantly busy, always trying to produce something. I do not wait for the demand, only endless needs waiting for me to do. At that time, all the special effects were fully responsible and there was no clear division of labor. Everyone can do the UI, characters, scenes, skills and so on. Whoever needs it, he will do it.

The game is still being played and the benefits are still positive, but the cost has dropped a lot. Basically, there will be no more insiders to do it, it will all be outsourced. The project team was not as stable as the internship. I changed four or five team leaders in two or three years until I left the company.

2020: at the beginning of the workplace epidemic, I was celebrating the Spring Festival in my hometown. If you can't rework, you can only work remotely from home. The computer configuration at home is not very good, and the work is very slow. Until I returned to Shenzhen at the end of February, I continued to work from home and didn't start work until the middle of March.

To be honest, I didn't feel anxious at that time. On the contrary, I'm happy. After all, at that time, the epidemic had just begun, and at that time I thought it would be over. Can get a normal salary, but not as hard as the office, every day at home cooking, eating, and then soaking feet. I also bought a foot bucket. Shenzhen is not badly sealed, and I am very happy to go out and walk my dog every day.

I will cook at home when I am free. At the beginning of the epidemic, the game is actually an industry that gets a lot of dividends. Because at that time, everyone was closed at home, they had more money on their hands, and their emotions were more positive. The entire gaming industry made a lot of money in 2020, including our games. Seeing the good data, the KPI of the following year was set very high at the end of the year. At that time, I thought that practitioners generally had confidence in the future.

Around July, I moved to another game project team. It was actually quite painful for me to go to work after the change. At that time, the situation slowly began to become very bad, as long as I stayed in the company, I felt very suffocated. I just want to stay up late endlessly every night, because I only feel that the time in the evening belongs to me. A friend has worked as an intern in our project, and he is more miserable than I am. He even asked me how I could stay so happy every day. I can only say that maybe it is because my personality is relatively cheerful.

To a large extent, this is a matter of the management style of the group. Normally, there is diversity in aesthetics, and work makes this problem very difficult, especially when leaders are more arbitrary. When you do something, you have to do it according to him. If you are a little different, you will be dissatisfied with you. The leader's taste is elusive. If he thinks something is bad, it will make you change endlessly, but you have no idea which direction to do.

For example, there was a leader who saw that the new intern was not satisfied with what he had done, so he called me over first and said, "come and take a look at this special effect and tell me your opinion." When I finished, he asked another colleague to go and asked him to say it again. When we had finished talking, he exclaimed, "what you said is wrong!" When there are a lot of things like this, you feel like you're speculating on the holy meaning when you go to work every day.

I don't think it's a personal problem. It's the employment mechanism that makes the working environment look like this. As far as art is concerned, according to my observation, this is not necessarily the case with many other project teams and companies. For example, some companies and studios that have been developed for a long time will arrange multiple people with the same qualifications in a group, and the power will be more balanced. It's just that for a project team like ours, recruiting people is to arrange for him to be a leader, and he won't recruit anyone with the same seniority, then he must be right.

In addition, there are some systems such as last elimination, which will also affect the state of work. When I first joined the job, I got the last place in the half-year performance evaluation. It's not that I didn't do a good job, but someone has to memorize this ranking. At times like this, the newcomers on the team may be chosen. Taking the last place once will not lead to being laid off, but within six months after taking it, I will not be able to get a promotion or a raise, which actually has a great impact. I was miserable at the time, but I didn't hate the leader for it. I can understand his practice, the system and the environment make him have to do such a thing.

Most of the leaders are actually very good people. One of my former leaders, every time I did something wrong, he would silently help me change it, and then tell me the next day. Really is a very good person, it should be said to convince people with virtue, I always feel that I am dragging his feet. I did it comfortably while he was here. Then he also left and went to Chengdu. Because he got married at that time, he felt that Shenzhen was not suitable for long-term residence. Many people may think so, including me, Shenzhen has not been the place where I want to stay forever.

Sunset in Shenzhen Bay 2021: leaving May Day 2021, I went to Shanghai for a visit. As a matter of fact, I came here when I was a child, but I had a great time this time. I like the atmosphere of this city very much, and there are a lot of good friends from college here. I feel very good. At that time, I thought, why don't we just come here and develop. There are more opportunities in Shanghai, and the work intensity is not as intense as that in Shenzhen. In addition, I think I am still young, why not go to other places?

I told my family at that time. As a matter of fact, I have always had a good relationship with my family, and after that, they were also very supportive, but they advised me to stay for the time being. Because they always wanted me to buy a house in Shenzhen and advised me to wait three years before I left.

When I first started, my first leader told me that you must buy a house in Shenzhen as soon as possible. I thought at that time that I was still an intern, so it was outrageous to buy a house in Shenzhen or something. In fact, there were no restrictions on purchases in Shenzhen at that time. If I had bought it then, I would have made a lot of money now. Many people in the company have experienced such a thing, so everyone is very concerned about buying a house.

I moved for the first time since I came to Shenzhen, so the final consensus with my family was to stay and buy a house. On the one hand, it is to preserve the value of investment, on the other hand, it is also intended for the future. If you will go back to Shenzhen, there will be a house and a place to stay, so you don't have to start from scratch.

I just stayed for another year. It was half a year since I broke up with my ex-boyfriend when I returned to Shenzhen from Shanghai at the end of May Day. I talked to this ex-boyfriend for five years, from college to work: graduating together, coming to Shenzhen together, renting a house together. There are many reasons for breaking up, one of which is their different living conditions. I have a high demand for intimacy, and his work is busier than I am. I was tired when I came back from overtime every day, and I didn't want to play with me, so I slowly separated.

College time is still relatively simple, maybe we can be happy together, can live one day at a time. Now that you grow up, you will think about more things. When the thoughts of two people are out of sync and become more and more different, there will be a feeling that even if two people are together, they are more lonely than one person.

When they came back from overtime, both of them were very tired. as women, they would encounter all kinds of problems in the working environment. This is especially true for 3D art in the game, where there are very few female employees. I don't like eating with members of the group very much these years. On the one hand, they are not interested in the topics they talk about at the dinner table; on the other hand, they occasionally talk yellow, which makes me very embarrassed, and no one around will come out to stop them from doing so. Of course, I don't think this is a problem in the gaming industry, and all women are in this situation more or less.

This state of work has been going on, coupled with some of the problems mentioned before, I actually want to leave. By June and July this year, I had basically decided on the house. A second-hand house near the company, the area is not large, the down payment is mainly from the family, as well as a little money saved by myself. It's easy for me to transfer the house with the lease.

Then I officially offered to leave. Earlier, the company had just experienced a series of large layoffs, so I first asked the leader if there were any layoffs in the group. After a long time, he replied to me, "No, then I can only resign voluntarily and just leave." I didn't sign a competition agreement before I left, and no one mentioned it to me. Later, a HR friend who left told me that the company left a lot of people during that time.

I was so happy the day I left. I feel like I've never laughed so happily in my three years in the company. Just like getting married, I walked into the hall happily and said goodbye to everyone happily. No one organized a break-up dinner, and I didn't invite it. Later, I sent a short video to express my status, which was seen by my colleagues. He commented on me below: "can you really be that happy?"

2022: after resigning in August, I spent some time in Shenzhen, then went home and went to several places, mainly for fun. I like craftsmanship very much. At this time, I finally had time to make some small jewelry and set up a stall to sell it. He always said he was looking for a job, but in fact, he didn't take it very seriously. I was so tired in the past few years that I felt I had to take a break first.

Usually like to do some small handicrafts, these are finished products came to Shanghai some time ago, began to formally try to find a job. The first test was handed in yesterday. I still invest in a game company because I have to repay the loan. In today's environment, I think the game is relatively close to the money of the industry. Although the overall level of consumption is declining, in the case of economic downturn, people will spend less on physical consumption, so they may play more games. Here's what I think.

In the current environment, resignation is actually a very bold decision. I know this very well, but I have nothing to regret. I had the idea of leaving Shenzhen for a long time and thought about it for a long time. In the final analysis, the previous state is so painful that I think I can no longer allow myself to keep on internal friction in an unsuitable position.

It's really hard to find a job, which is completely different from that of a few years ago. In fact, I think what I have experienced in the past few years is a curve, and its turning point may not be just the epidemic. When I came to Shanghai on May Day last year, the game industry was still very popular. The popularity of "original God" at the end of 2020 has led to the development of the Shanghai game industry as a whole, and everyone's salary level is also very high. At that time, I tried to find a job, it was very easy to find, and many people from the company contacted me.

But then the overall environment slowly tightened. Policy control is one aspect. We used to use some red things for special effects, such as tipping points or spikes, which were asked to be deleted one day. The requirement is that there should be no red spatter in the special effects, even if it is not blood, a thorn or a spark. On the other hand, the prolonged epidemic has overwhelmed more and more people, and people are no longer as willing to spend online as they were at first. We set a high KPI for the second year at the end of 2020, but the result was not reached. The year-end bonuses of all companies should be bleak this year. The coming of winter in the industry is a slow process.

In the past few years in Shenzhen, if I didn't go for a walk in Qianhai, I could see the sunset and sunset coming to Shanghai, and I ate and chatted with my former friends. A very powerful friend told me that he started looking for a job in Shanghai some time ago, and it didn't go well. The other company is only willing to give him a salary equivalent to 50% of the original level. The word went out over there that this man was worth so much money that he could come as soon as he could, even if he couldn't come. Not only he but also many other friends have told me how difficult it is now. Many people can't find a suitable job and are resting all the time.

Now that I think about it, I actually regret buying that house. Because the current economic environment makes me very unconfident, the house has been falling since I bought it. I saved some money when I left, and I invested it all at that time. If I don't buy a house, I can take a long rest with this money and do what I want. But now that I have a loan on my back, I must find the next job as soon as possible. The loan will be repaid for the first time this month.

If I can say a word to myself who just entered the industry three years ago, I would like to say, "buy a house now, or don't buy it again."

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