Sony has updated their office politics about artistic conflict of interest

[Asbsand]

I shared the news earlier about the relatively high-profile Jonathan Cooper (Former Mass Effect/Uncharted animator, Writer of the GameAnim book) left Naughty Dog and how I felt that was a pretty big loss. In the back of my head I also thought it was strange. Any company obviously has turnover and people have times in their lives where they feel it is time to move on, but in today's tweets from the same person I feel it's a bit more obvious that this isn't some opportunistic venture to something better, or actually, maybe it just is.





And to be clear, I believe this corporate mandate against conflicts of interest is very, very common in this industry.

Chances are if you begin to corporately restrain your employees ability to create art in their spare time or run side-projects, that's when really good talent is driven away from the games industry.

 

[Jegriva]

The re must be a point after which NDA are illegal.

 

[Asbsand]

The re must be a point after which NDA are illegal.

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Could be another area where unions would be useful. Unionized rules about employee rights including the right to create work outside of competing products for your employer. But that would depend on the union. I don't know what kinds of current "human rights" legislation we have on this, tbh.

 

[Toumari]

And to be clear, I believe this corporate mandate against conflicts of interest is very, very common in this industry.

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It is. The majority of big tech companies will have the same policy or something similar. The likes of Microsoft, Google and Apple will.

 

[Deleted member 27751]

So essentially employee creates an art book on the side, gains prior permission from Naughty Dog and then a new Sony initiative in regards to NDA content is enacted that stipulates all content created no matter job-related or not is now company owned. Nice, way to deteriorate any personal chances at success or growing ones capabilities.

When I worked for Zero Latency the policy was that any work I created in relation to VR games or software I had to gain specific permission but it was allowed if it wasn't in direct competition to their product or using similar/blatant copying of tech. Really most companies need to start opening up their content protection because it just gives those who want to flex their creative muscles that actual chance to do so, rather than being constrained purely on working restrictions of talent use.

 

[Yuntu]

Seeing how common this seems to be is kinda messed up tbh.

 

[modiz]

Thats some bullshit.
Sony why are you letting amazing developers leave over stuff like this

 

[Kyoufu]

I was wondering why he left ND. Damn.

 

[Imitation Of Life]

Thats some bullshit.
Sony why are you laying off amazing developers over stuff like this

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Seems he resigned, not fired.

 

[TP-DK]

If you work at Apple and work on an app in your spare time you are not allowed to put it on the app store.

These shitty practises are very common in the software business.

 

[Deleted member 8196]

dp

 

[Deleted member 8196]

That's really shitty, god damn.

Seems he resigned, not fired.

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He had no choices tho, resign or getting fired later on

 

[Oldmario]

If you work at Apple and work on an app in your spare time you are not allowed to put it on the app store.

These shitty practises are very common in the software business.

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i guess it's because every 1 in 50 people would probably abuse their position to get it higher in the app store, not saying it would happen but i'm also saying it wouldn't happen

 

[Sausage_Poison]

Oh boy. I think the early PS3 arrogant Sony is back...

 

[Imitation Of Life]

That's really shitty, god damn.



He had no choices tho, resign or getting fired later on

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Or sign over all of his IP rights, which I would be very reluctant to do as well.

Oh boy. I think the early PS3 arrogant Sony is back...

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You have very poor comprehension skills then if that is what you take from this.

 

[RestEerie]

Oh boy. I think the early PS3 arrogant Sony is back...

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Learn to read first???

 

[Le Dude]

If you work at Apple and work on an app in your spare time you are not allowed to put it on the app store.

These shitty practises are very common in the software business.

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Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but isn't this situation a bit different? In the Apple situation it's sucky, but understandable as there could be a conflict of interest. The tweets in OP makes it sound like this is restricting any creative enterprise outside of work.

 

[Ostinatto]

edit : nevermind, i read the whole thing wrong.

 

[Slime]

Looking at his book, I can't even conceive of a universe in which something like that should be a conflict of interest.

Corporate politics can be super fuckin dumb.

 

[Spacecowboy]

Wow, that's incredibly shitty

 

[Richter1887]

This truely messed up.

I hate this kind of bullshit. When will the suits learn that this only destroys goodwill?

 

[Damn Silly]

That seems real shitty. Like he said, if he was creating another fully-fledged game on the side, it might be understandable that they would want a piece of it, but any creative work is some bullshit.

If you work at Apple and work on an app in your spare time you are not allowed to put it on the app store.

These shitty practises are very common in the software business.

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I mean, that one is to avoid any impropriety and a definite conflict of interest. It still sucks on a creative level, but is at least logical.

 

[shinken]

Wonder what the reasoning is. Not like Sony are gonna release books now...

 

[jett]

"Working full-time for a major studio in games usually means signing away your rights to any creative output you might produce outside of work hours."

This shouldn't be legal, really.

Wonder what the reasoning is. Not like Sony are gonna release books now...

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The reasoning is fuck you.

 

[Kolx]

That sounds dumb and anti-ethical. Fuck this shit.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

This truely messed up.

I hate this kind of bullshit. When will the suits learn that this only destroys goodwill?

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when a loss of goodwill translates to a loss of money. But even then they won't "learn". They'll just respond in someway to regain enough goodwill to recoup the losses, then it's back to business.

Isn't capitalism great?

 

[Arex]

Unfortunately this is common with larger companies. Basically they wanna cover all their bases. In my experience I haven't really seen it enforced but I've never done some big freelance or side projects so idk. Indies give more freedom for sure :b

 

[Deleted member 30005]

Dumb, counter productive policy.

Just leave it be with competing products. I hope ND fed the message back to the people upstairs.

 

[Richter1887]

when a loss of goodwill translates to a loss of money. But even then they won't "learn". They'll just respond in someway to regain enough goodwill to recoup the losses, then it's back to business.

Isn't capitalism great?

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I mean I understand this but the thing is that their policy before was to let the developers do their thing as long as they gain money. This made a lot of developers happy to work for them as they get the freedom to do what they want.

Them doing this is just pissing them off for no gain.

 

[Mg.]

Had something similar happen at my job. New contract landed, stated something along the same lines. This was luckily quickly changed after quite an uproar through the studio.

I understand forbidding to work for direct competitors; but limiting or even preventing any creative output from a creator's own time is a fucking evil, bullshit corporate thing to do.

 

[shinken]

"Working full-time for a major studio in games usually means signing away your rights to any creative output you might produce outside of work hours."

This shouldn't be legal, really.


The reasoning is fuck you.

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I guess that is the reasoning lol. He got prior permissions for fucks sake. At least let him release the book he was working on. Now a talented employee left. Is it worth it?

 

[LumberPanda]

Make sure your employees have nothing on the side they're passionate about so they feel obligated to work overtime.

 

[SigSig]

This should be illegal. Fuck Sony.

 

[Shakerovic]

Who cares if he makes a book in his free time what the hell Sony? how does this affect them if someone makes a book or anything else

 

[eonden]

That NDA about "everything you make outside of work is also partly owned by the company" is also quite common in the engineering field (at least in Sweden, where I was told to be careful and have an exemption make for it in the contract if I wanted to tinker / develop stuff by myself during the uni). It is one of the most reprehensive things.

 

[EvilBoris]

It really sucks. The technology company I worked for had the Same type of things in regards to inventions.

 

[asd202]

Good on him anyone should say "fuck you" to such corporate bullshit.

This seems like some thing that would come from the continued Sony Globalization process and extension of policies to all fields even if they make sense or not.

 

[Arebours]

That seems real shitty. Like he said, if he was creating another fully-fledged game on the side, it might be understandable that they would want a piece of it, but any creative work is some bullshit.

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I don't think that's understandable at all.

 

[Mars People]

So if I work for Sony and go home and build a table, Sony now owns that table?

 

[ScatheZombie]

And to be clear, I believe this corporate mandate against conflicts of interest is very, very common in this industry.

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So, retired AAA developer here...

Almost every major studio/publisher has some version of this clause in their contracts. Some are more robust than others. I have worked for companies that have had this exact type of non-compete agreement in place - basically you can't do any 'creative works', even outside of company time, without expressed permission or the company owns it.

A lot of developers don't even know they exist because... who really reads all the fine print?

That said, I have never once seen this actually enforced to the letter. I have had coworkers create and release comics, novels, short films, board games, and more while under these contracts. Some of them got authorization to do so, some of them didn't until after the fact. I have also never seen anyone denied authorization to work on something else outside of work.

The worst example I can remember is when one of the writers tried to release, by himself, a comic that was clearly about the unreleased game we were working on. And, IIRC, what happened is that it was brought in-house and released alongside the game and he was compensated for it.

What this actually sounds like... Is that this developer wanted justification to leave the company, used the 'new' contract stipulations and his refusal to sign as a catalyst to bail out, and used the fallout of said decision to promote his book.

I cannot imagine a situation where Sony told a Naughty Dog developer to sign over the rights to his book or be fired. That doesn't happen. Unless that book is about a man named Joel and a girl named Ellie in a quasi-zombie apocalypse.

 

[Deleted member 1589]

That's a terrible NDA

 

[Deleted member 5028]

So if I work for Sony and go home and build a table, Sony now owns that table?

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If you wanted to sell it. Yeah.

 

[TsuWave]

Oh boy. I think the early PS3 arrogant Sony is back...

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Arrogant Sony is right up there with Nintendoomed in terms of annoyance for me.

These posts are always so ridiculous.

 

[Deleted member 5621]

Ah, the oldschool comic book industry model. Great to see it still is alive and well. /s

 

[Deleted member 43]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems the updated non-compete was unrelated to him leaving the company.

Such clauses feel wrong, and add a layer of bureaucracy, but I can't say I have ever seen someone unable to get permission for a non-competing product.

 

[Damn Silly]

I don't think that's understandable at all.

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I mean, I'd still think that it's crap, for what that's worth. But I can make sense of it.

 

[elenarie]

The re must be a point after which NDA are illegal.

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NDAs are valid while you are employed at the company. And you could get fired for breaking them.

After you are no longer employed, if you break an NDA, a company can sue you, but the courts would usually side with you rather than a big corporation, in a non corrupted legal system, that is.

One reason why people usually don't break NDAs is professional courtesy and respect towards the company and its employees.

 

[Deleted member 2625]

waaaaay back in '95 i encountered this "we own all your ideas while employed, even off work hours" thing. and non competes. Turns out a lot of this shit isn't necessarily enforceable – BUT they count on you not wanting to shell out for a lawyer to defend it. Kind of like an employer SLAP suit. It's bullshit. this is why people hate lawyers. They are the avatars of the worst human impulses in many ways.

 

[Samanyolu]

This is 99.9999% of all tech companies. What exactly is surprising about this? Sure, it's shitty, but not surprising at all. Even small firms do it.

 

[MegaSackman]

There goes Sony buying Koji Pro speculation.

I wonder why they do this if they didn't have it until now.