Unemployment is Postponed
My internship at THQ for UFC 2009 Undisputed was supposed to last 3 months, and then they decide if they want to hire me as an employee or not. Then 3 months got extended into 6 months. Well my 6 months is up today and, given the economy, I've been a little concerned about my chances. The game industry is generally considered to be one of those recession-proof industries, but THQ has been losing a lot of money over the last year or so. Even a traditionally successful company like Electronic Arts has had disappointing sales recently and laid off 500+ employees as a result. THQ has already closed a bunch of its developer studios and I've been expecting layoffs or at least a hiring freeze where I work.
To make matters worse, even though I'm supposed to be a design intern, I rarely get a chance to do any design-oriented tasks. Given that the game was well into production by the time I joined, I have spent the vast majority of my internship figuratively putting out fires for the production, art, and audio departments. Because of this, I feared that my worth as a game designer has not been adequately gauged.
So the producer brought me into his office today and let me know what was going to happen. And the verdict is (drum roll)... extended for 3 more months! So I've managed to avoid the chopping block... for now. Who knows how many more times my internship will be extended. In the meantime, I hope to prove how valuable I am to the UFC video game franchise.