Well, as I've predicted, it has happened, and it's for the better of everyone looking for work in the digital content field.

http://www.theedgedaily.com/cms/content.js...696c20-af7b1aa0


Net Value: Codemasters creates a stir
By Toh Mei Ling

The digital content development industry in Malaysia is in upheaval as the tussle for talent has been getting rougher in recent months. However, this situation is not widely known outside the industry. Still, for years, the unresolved problem of insufficient skilled talent has been looming over digital content developers, be they animation studios, design houses or gaming companies. Although an estimated 1,500 multimedia graduates enter the industry each year, there is still a huge disparity between supply and demand.
This is largely why Codemasters Studio Sdn Bhd, a UK-based online games publisher and developer, was harshly criticised by smaller local players for talent poaching following its recent entry into the domestic market. The impact has been severe, with some companies closing shop and others losing up to 40% of their head count.
The company, which is a joint venture between Codemasters Software Co Ltd and leading local media group Vision New Media Sdn Bhd - has been offering local computer modellers and programmers remuneration packages that are too attractive to turn down. The incentives include a pay rise of up to 50%, nine-to-five work schedule and five-day week, which are unheard of in the fledgling industry.
But Vision New Media Sdn Bhd's CEO Low Huoi Seong brushes aside such criticism. "We will be developing games for Playstation 3, a next-generation game console that isn't on the market yet, at Codemasters Studio. These games are very complex as the technology allows real-time rendering as opposed to that of Playstation 2. Because of this, we need to hire the best and pay them better salaries. I don't see this as spoiling the market," he says.
According to him, most animation and gaming studios in Malaysia offer very low wages, not because they want to but because they cannot afford to. These studios are based on the "sweatshop" model, where they live from one project to another. They often scale up or down according to the projects they receive and because of the inconsistent income flow, the studios need to keep their overheads low.
"Because 99% of the industry is in this field [producing outsourced work], they cannot afford to pay employees well because they need to cover for downtimes. At Codemasters, we will be providing content exclusively to our parent company. Our pipeline is 100% full, with no downtimes. We are not overpaying our staff because they will have work lined up throughout the year," Low explains.
The digital content industry is known to be a demanding one. Content developers need to work way beyond their contracted working hours, weekends and public holidays included. Which is why industry observers are doubtful Codemasters will be able to live up to its promise of a nine-hour, five-day week schedule and still deliver the goods on time. When asked this question, Low laughs: "We are trying to be enlightened employers here and we get criticised for it!"
Citing the court case filed by an employee against US-based computer and video games company Electronic Arts for lack of quality of life, Low says it was a conscious decision by Codemasters to encourage its staff to live a balanced lifestyle. "If you're really after quality, you shouldn't make employees work 24/7. It really helps that our parent company and main stakeholder is based in the UK, where they don't work weekends. We hope to create the same culture in the Malaysian firm."

Working with MDV
Bringing Codemasters into Malaysia was not easy, says Low. Working with Malaysia Debt Ventures Bhd (MDV), the joint venture finally came through after two years of negotiations.
As gaming companies are very possessive of their intellectual property (IP), the contract to be an exclusive supplier is an attractive proposition, Low points out. It eliminates the need to source for jobs, which, in turn, allows the company to focus on building the industry and training skilled people.
"Codemasters holds the larger share of the JV because it is providing the technology that our company will be using. [Vision New Media] has taken the smaller stake because this is an important deal for the country if it wants to grow the local industry. We opened on June 5 with 35 employees, comprising mainly computer modellers because our focus for now is high-end modelling. Currently, we have 40 employees, of whom only two [the general manager and technical director] are foreign," Low says.
Setting up a 40-seat modelling studio would have undoubtedly cost an arm and a leg. "Let's just say MDV's funding is substantial," Low says when asked the question, declining to reveal the amount. MDV too would not disclose the figure.

Graduates with no industry relevance
The lack of skilled talent and appropriate environment has been hampering the development of the Malaysian digital content industry for years.
On this, Low says: "The problem with the local industry is that there are just not enough good people. We have between 200 and 300 graduates per year from each university or college offering creative courses. The problem is, the fresh graduates don't have industry relevance. University curriculum gives them basic knowledge skills but these are not relevant to what the industry wants."
Debunking the myth of insufficient graduates, Low says the problem is lack of trained and experienced human talent. "If there is no real industry to work in, there is no way to provide any form of proper training for employees, right?" he asks.
Low has his reasons for criticising the academia-industry linkage in Malaysia. Vision New Media's 3D animation studio, Persistence of Vision (POV), was started as a joint venture with Multimedia University (MMU). Housed in the MMU campus, POV's operations were built by the university. In return, POV contributed 120 hours per year to training MMU's students. According to a source familiar with the arrangement, MMU made sure that POV kept its end of the bargain initially, but after a while, it stopped asking for industry involvement and the programme just fizzled out. POV moved out last December.
This comes as a surprise because MMU's president Prof Datuk Ghauth Jasmon has constantly stressed academia-industry linkages.
Anuar Berahim, manager of Unitele Multimedia Sdn Bhd, the wholly owned subsidiary and commercial arm of MMU responsible for coordinating joint ventures between the university and industry, says: "Right now, there is no linkage between POV and MMU. I understand that POV hires MMU students as employees. It is true that at the beginning, there was coordination but after the first few years, problems started to crop up. We definitely see the benefits that come from industry collaboration but there have been problems in terms of business set-up and operations. We are now focused on project-basis collaboration and short-term partnerships rather than the long-term business deal we had with POV."

Attracting world-class players first
Low says a lot of international jobs have been going to India, while China, Vietnam and Thailand are slowly gaining market share. Interestingly, job flow to Singapore has been slowing because of lack of human capital and higher costs. Despite this, Malaysians are still heading south.
"Singapore has been taking our top talent by offering more attractive packages. With the exchange rate, these people are earning double what they could earn here. We have lost a good number of our best character animators to Lucas Studios. Aside from that, even if our local talents have a great idea, they won't be able to create intellectual property [IP] just yet because they lack the skills and experience. That is why we need to attract world-class industry players to learn from. This way, we can concentrate first on creating a pool of world-class talent and after that point create IP," says Low.
He elaborates: "Everyone seems to think that with the creation of IP, we will be able to grow a pool of skilled human talent, which will lead to a robust industry. It should actually be the other way round, where we build an industry to grow a world-class talent pool. From there, creation of IP can happen. We must learn to crawl before we can walk."
Clearly, Malaysia has a long way to go in digital content development. If the government is serious about making this industry a key one under the Ninth Malaysia Plan, it is vital that these problems are nipped in the bud.

There is another interesting thread I read here. Check this out.


http://www.igda.org/Forums/showthread.php?threadid=23852

What to do , those are Ah Pek companies mah, too used to abusing/exploiting their employees. Their attitude are like 2nd hand car dealers. hehehe.

Anyway, this is not the end of the problems, more MNCs could be coming, and more poaching is going to happen. Lets see the MNCs compete with local game developers for outsourced projects too, THEN you will see some sparks flying.

Yup, not to mention the fact that cost of living in Malaysia completely does NOT tally with wage levels, due to inflated car prices as well, and especially property prices for KL.

To hell with passion if you're starving. Money first.

Good Luck. I heard almost their entire veteran staff got wiped out from mass resignations/poaching by other companies and more to come. With them being the local game developer with the craziest hours of 12 hours a day from 7:30 am, most likely will be the biggest casualty from MNC poaching.

This post has been edited by bman: Sep 15 2006, 02:21 AM

For the same reason we don't need a Made in Malaysia car.

You guys are funny. The simple reason is we don't need them, doesn't mean we must not make games. Even if all the local game/creative content companies die, life will still go on and nobody will give a shit.


We don't need Malaysian made games, because we have so many other choices of games to play with. rm 5 dvd/games are here to stay and consumers are spoilt for choices.

We don't need Malaysian made cars, because we also have other choices of cars if not for the tax. If Proton and perodua dies, so be it, we still have imported cars to choose from.


The simple reason is, we're spoilt for choices. Why need to turn this so political?

This post has been edited by bman: Sep 16 2006, 07:16 PM

Yea man, as if codemasters put a gun at their head 'Work for us or die!'

All they probably did is 'We have openings for so and so, and here and here, spread the word!'

The employees themselves went to codemasters and accepted the offer. What is so wrong about that ? Capitalism at it's best people!

All lame companies need to be criticized, not because they're local game developers. *LOL*

You seem to be very defensive over this issue. You must probably be running your own game development studio or have friends who do.

But really, if RIM died, I probably don't care, because I have choices of other songs and music to choose from.

Err, it's working fine, I know you're not being serious. I was agreeing with you actually.

Examples of abuses in public funds have already exhausted our hopes. It's not we're not giving you chances.

It is not up to us. You want chances, you make your own chances.

We don't decide if you get the funds or not, or if you succeed or fail. We're just not large enough as a market to sustain your products. You want to make money from local market ? Sure go ahead, but you got piracy to worry about. Don't blame us, because your government buddies aren't even interested in cleaning out the pirates because they probably have interests/investments in these areas as well. So if you fail, is it because we never give you a chance? Or you government people don't bother to make chances for yourselves and the people you invested by at least cleaning up piracy ?

Your market is overseas. You want chances, you get those people to give your products a chance.

Malaysians have been conned for too much, too many years.

Everyone's who's lived through the policies in this country will be cynical unless you prefer to live in fantasy land.

You guys already have our tax money to start doing Saladin, games etc whatsoever.

Whether you succeed or not, it's not up to us.

It's up to yourself, whether you truly want to finish/ship the products or just abscond with the funds.

For me, I am tired of all that's happening in this country, and whether I give you a chance or not, it does not matter, since I am not your target market anyway.

So, don't ask us for chances, you guys, MDEC, game developers, 3D content/animation companies, have been given many, many, many chances using our tax money.

What have you achieved so far compared to other countries, especially compared to Singapore ?


Sure, assuming, we all support you morally, ok GO AHEAD, do it. Show something to the world.

But what good will us cheering you on, if you keep screwing it up ?


It's not right for you to ask for chances from us, because we can't do anything about that. We cannot decide your success or failure. Only you can.

Many of you local game developers, 3d animation companies, etc etc, can't even make use of the chances you received and many of you absconded with the money.



You can keep singing until the cows come home but what's the point if you people are always screwing up ?

How many chances do you think you deserve until you exhaust it ?

Chances always given to the same bunch of people, same group of f*ck ups.

What do you want from us ? Sympathy ? Sure I give you a benefit of a doubt now, what can YOU achieve ?

Look at yourselves first before accusing us of not giving you a benefit of a doubt or chances. You're not even giving yourselves chances, and you come to ask that from us. You screw up, steal the money, then go bankrupt.. all from our tax money.

Why come to us ? Ask yourselves first, if you're properly making use of the chances you received so many times from somewhere with the help of our tax funds.

We pay taxes, and for sure you will continue to get money from our taxes because of your connections. But if you keep repeating your corrupt ways and keep failing, what do you want from us ? Have we not given you chances by paying our taxes so you can play with the money or run away with it ?

Go lah, go, go do what you want. As long as you people continue your incorrigible ways, you'll never make it. No point coming and begging us for 'chances' or benefits of a doubt again.

Go and beg Pak Lah for more funds until you succeed. We have other things to worry about like putting food on the table while living costs are sky rocketing.


This post has been edited by bman: Sep 17 2006, 02:24 AM

It is really not up to us you know. These guys have been very lucky to keep getting money all the time from tax payers to start their various projects.

And of course, they will continue to get the money no matter how many times they screw up, and nobody will be prosecuted for absconding/stealing the money.

They're not even giving themselves chances. They really should look at themselves.

I can support them 100 percent every time but what's the point if they're incorrigible and don't change their ways ? Might as well save the time/optimism for myself instead of being disappointed every time.

This post has been edited by bman: Sep 17 2006, 02:32 AM

Hear Hear !

Exposure may not just necessarily be knowledge/technical wise.


It could be people management. Exposure to how they manage the company, treat the staff, run it etc... very valuable insights that can make you stand out from the other cina companies. Staff retention, etc... those kind of knowledge.

Exactly.


And for everyone's info, my source told me, gamebrains lost 2 more employees this month. Veterans, not noobs.

This post has been edited by bman: Sep 20 2006, 01:15 PM

I think the games sample you posted is contracted work.


Not a full 100 percent Malaysian made game, and not Malaysian IP. ;-)

So that probably doesn't count.


Heck, even FungWan isn't Malaysian IP.

So basically speaking, Malaysian has not done any own games yet, just being contract/subcontractor only so far.

There're probably more if you count mobile games. I find that the output rate is higher for mobile j2me games.

If you remember, MDV did something similar before, for Terra. RM 61 million ringgit loan was given to Terra ICT sdn bhd.

The money was never properly accounted for.

Terra ICT sdn bhd then changed name to eGames Global sdn. bhd.

Whatever debts racked up will only be liable by Terra ICT sdn bhd. Because it is a 'sdn bhd' I guess the directors are off the hook.

Remember, loans or no loans, there're ways to NOT pay back the loans.

I've heard of a few people planning to do this once they get their loans approved by MDV, etc, start a new company, channel funds to that new company and let the old company that got it's loans approved, to take the fall legally because it is a sdn bhd.

I am not accusing codemasters of plans to do this, I know nothing about them. I do know and heard of other Malaysians planning to cheat the MDV this way.

Once the money cannot be obtained back, what is MDV going to do ?

Write off the debts ? At whose expense ?