If You Worked For Less Than a Year on Metroid Dread, You Won't be Credited

For former MercurySteam employees that worked less than 25% of the time (a year or less) on Metroid Dread, they apparently aren't receiving credit for their work.

[phoenixwing]

Kinda bs

[Neonridr]

Kinda bad on the company to not recognize everyone who was involved with the development. Look at some movies credits. Sometimes they credit the dogs of the workers. Zero excuse here.

[LordoftheCritics]

Absolutely. Every input is still input.

[isarai]

Well that's BS, dont see why, it's just text.

[Kaii]

Imagine throwing 80-hour workweeks or more on these projects & these assholes pull this, disgusting trash.
End credits aside, I truly appreciate everyone's contributed efforts on game development.

[LordoftheCritics]

I'm sorry sir but you only worked 364 days.

[boing1]

Well, I worked for a company which didn't put me in the credits because I left 2 months before release, after almost 3 years of work. Date was moved three times and I was sooo sick of it that I said 'I'm not doing this anymore' and quit.

[MaxiPower90]

Who was this?

[boing1]

I don't want to say it, sorry.

[MaximusTKG]

That sounds more like your fault than anything. Are they supposed to feel bad for you because you quit because you couldn’t do it anymore? You were sick of it. Were they paying you to do a job? Then you just quit? Did you give a notice or just walk out? Likely the latter, and likely the reason you aren’t on some credit reel nobody looks at. Hang on, I need to unpack my tiny violin.

[boing1]

Wow, you're assuming a lot. I didn't say I'm sad because of it. I knew I won't be in the credits because that was and probably still is company policy. I wasn't the only one who wasn't in the credits because of this. I would question the fairness of the policy itself, though. Especially after such a long time. Notice was given and we came apart just fine, without any bad blood. The stories I've heard after I left, though? They only re-assured me it was a good decision.

[LoveSpuds]

I am just glad I don't live in the US, your workers rights are utterly atrocious. I guess people like Maximus help that lack of rights continue.

[monkey602]

I've never said this before, because it's typically a meaningless statistic but I'm glad the disagrees are stacking up for your opinion on this. A take like that deserves to be ignored

[dudeOplenty]

@MaximusTKG - Who hurt you to make you this kind of person? I’m sorry for whatever they did to you.

[Shuckylad]

Sadly in today’s society do many of us get credit or recognition for the work we do.

[CrimsonWing69]

Do these jobs have credits?

[Good-Smurf]

With BS like this I hope the game won't be nominated for GOTY.
What kind of rights they have to excluded those who used to worked on the game even though not as much even outsourced companies got their staff names in the credits in many Anime and games hell even fans got their names in crowdfunded games I have mine on Shenmue 3 credits and we basically do jack shit compared to these former employees.

[TheDoomedGuy]

That's not exactly the right take on it...since regardless of the credits these devs DID in fact work on it and removing the possibility of GOTY actually harms them.

[badz149]

so...no credits for the soundtracks I guess?

[MaxiPower90]

Lesson here is don't sign contracts you dont agree with.

[EvertonFC]

God luck with that

[TheDoomedGuy]

Revisions are made to contracts all of the time.

[monkey602]

Absolute BS. It's practically a cost free method of appreciation. Theres no reason anyone who contributed should be left out.

[Inverno]

8 months is still quite a lot of time put in to still be considered "less"

[MetroidFREAK21]

Pretty crappy move

[generic-user-name]

Dirtbags.

[CrimsonWing69]

Wow, how does that make any sense? Freaking caterers get credited in movies.

[TheDoomedGuy]

While true that they won't be credited in the game it does not mean that they can't say they worked on it. It'a part of their work portfolio now regardless of what Metroid dreads credits say

[LordoftheCritics]

I worked on it as well. Also on Last of Us 3 and Mass Effect 4. I also co-directed the new God of War.

But you won't see my name on the credits. It's on the pdf resume. Just in case you wanna check and stuff.

[staticall]

I guess each line in the end credits cost them money or something.
Even if a person worked on the game for a week and did something useful, they should be put into end credits, they spent their time and did something helpful for the project, that's all that matters.

I guess, MercurySteam is still a bad company (for employees), thanks to Enric Alvarez. Remember all the Lords of Shadow 2 controversy? I do.

[whitbyfox]

In a statement provided to Vandal, a MercurySteam spokesperson explained the company's official policy requires developers to have stayed at the studio for 25% or more of a project's development time in order to appear in its credits. "Of course," it added, "sometimes exceptions are made when making exceptional contributions."

As objectionable as refusing to credit employees based on a set of arbitrary conditions may be, MercurySteam is far from the only studio with questionable rules around crediting. A recent report by Kotaku, for instance, revealed a number of developers that worked on Bethesda and Arkane Studios' Deathloop had either been relegated to the game's "special thanks" section or were omitted from the credits altogether.

[monkey602]

Maybe it is standard practice. That doesn't make it forgivable though. A change needs to start somewhere, so why not here?!

[whitbyfox]

Yeah it should change, doesn’t cost anything to give due credit.

[Shinox]

Nintendo is pulling an Activi$ion , ok i see you .. now time for consequences

[Neonridr]

this has nothing to do with Nintendo, they didn't make the game. Simply funded development.

[leahcim]

From the article "....from a developer that never produced a truly excellent game", yeah right, we are talking about Mercury Steam here. If Castlevania Lords of Shadows is not a "truly excellent game" then what it is?.
Nevertheless this is sadly not the first time in wich this spanish team have problems between its members.
Congrats to everyone that had something to do with Dread I don´t care if only for 1 day or the entire period of development!

[megaleo009]

Kinda bad, because that talk for them.

[Dandizzle]

This is not unique and generally how the game industry works and I agree its shitty. I have personally been left out of the credits of games I worked on for more than a year simply because I didn't work there when the final build was submitted. Also some shitty publishers/studios will add credits changes with patches, this means they will remove people that left the studio from the credits of established games with a patch just to punish them.

I know for a fact that Take-two interactive is more than guilty of this, same with Konami.

[LoveSpuds]

That really is pathetic!

I suppose the only small consolation is you have that time accounted for on your CV.

[lucian229]

Typical trashy Nintendo

[ShadowWolf712]

They do stuff like this to have the appearance of having pulled this game off with a smaller team, and all in-house. This way, only the loyal Nintendo employees are credited, thus making them look even better, and the contract employees they brought in to help don't get to "use Nintendo to further their careers with competitors", as I heard one fanboy so eloquently phrase it...

Sucks.