[lusr]

Why a contractor?

I'm a contractor for two reasons: (1) money and (2) because I don't buy into the corporate PR. People who work in these places have to buy into the corporate values system.

I look at corporate values with great skepticism; perhaps I'm just cynical but in big companies it always seems to end up (in performance reviews) as being a way for the company to come back and justify why your bonus, increase, etc. will fall short of expectations this year.

[praptak]

> People who work in these places have to buy into the corporate values system.

Nope, it doesn't really go beyond some lip service. For most guys who do the actual work it's not even that - not shouting that the emperor has no clothes is absolutely enough to get by.

[pandaman]

There are few high paid contractors in games, usually brought in to save a failing title. All these I know are engineers, not artists, high profile artists are usually commissioned (i.e. they sell their art without ever showing on site and probably don't even know what studio is buying their work).

Normally a contractor is a "employee -1" - same low pay but no benefits and even less job security. They don't get invited to meetings and are less privy of the internal politics. Most of them are working hard to become an FTE.