There's No Security

The port would fain give succor

When I first started my career in games, beyond typically high pay and premium benefits, job security stood out as perhaps the best perk the industry could offer. My first serious games job was at Riot Games , where in the early days (and maybe still to this day, I’m not sure), the studio ran as a meritocracy. You were fairly rewarded for your individual skills and contributions at any level. Showing up and checking boxes wasn’t enough, and while it was mostly fair, it was often pretty ruthless. Sink or Swim. It could be brutal, but there was a sense of individual control — or at least the perception of control.

There was comfort in holding your destiny in your own hands. Work hard, be creative, and your career and its progression were secured. The perception wasn’t that you were a figure in a spreadsheet, balanced and calculated to provide the most efficient value. Instead, the belief was that the most talented or hardest working climbed. You were an individual and your individual contributions punched your ticket.

This isn’t to say this was a flawless system. It often guided young professionals, myself included, towards burnout. I allowed the system to make me competitive and unconcerned with my personal life and health. But I relished the opportunity to take control of my own destiny because only about a year prior, my employer at a small startup shuttered the place with no notice. We arrived that morning to cardboard boxes beside our desks and were ushered out of the building by our investor’s personal assistant.

It was the first time in my life I’d lost a job because of factors outside my control. Every other gig I was fired from was because I didn’t show up to my shift or argued with a customer. But here I’d given all of my creative energy and grinded away long hours simply because the work demanded it, and I was happy to oblige. Yet there I was walking home with a cardboard box stuffed with desk toys because we simply didn’t fit in the budget anymore.

I swore I would never let it happen to me again, and the meritocratic culture of young Riot Games offered a chance for my contributions and talent alone to secure my place at the studio.

I believed this to be true of the entire games industry up until pretty recently. Maybe it was na?ve, but games always stood out to me as layoff-proof. They seemed too cutting-edge, too corporate 2.0 to give into demanding bottom lines and nervous shareholders.

Yet at the time of writing this, 6,100 games jobs have been impacted by layoffs this year. As the wave continues to crash, that number will surely rise, and in doing so, perhaps signal the end of perceived ironclad job security in games.

But even so, when we set out to create SUMMONER , this, or some version of this, was the most common refrain from friends and even family:

What about your steady salary? Your benefits? Your healthcare? Your free lunches?

What about your job security?

What job security? I’d ask. The same job security promised to the 6,100 people laid off in games this year? Beyond building a modern agency with a modern approach to game marketing, we started Summoner as a direct solution to the job security problem, for us and for the partners who collaborate with us.

I’m trying to keep the promise to myself that I’d never get caught in the cold again.

Internally we call it “grabbing destiny.” It sounds new age, but there’s no greater job security than when you hold that job in your own two hands. It is a powerful moment when you realize that your destiny is yours alone to define, and sometimes that means removing yourself from the grasp of higher ups and antsy boards.

To anyone wrestling with the same dilemma, I’d just ask you to consider the question that if your role and benefits and 401k are tied to the earnings and internal machinations of billion dollar companies — factors astoundingly outside of your control — is your security truly secure?

With Summoner, we live or die by our own effort, our own sweat. For us, there’s no greater job security. It’s ironclad. We’re holding our own destiny for once, finally.

And because my two best friends are some of the biggest Moby Dick fans out there, I’ll drop a little Melville quote that once hit me like a fast ball to the chest. It remains incredibly relevant to my Summoner journey.

“The port would fain give succor? the port is pitiful? in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy? she must fly all hospitality? one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore? in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward? seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness again? for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril? her only friend her bitterest foe!”

I'll be using this space to speak about our agency’s journey as much as possible and as transparently as possible. Any thoughts, feedback, or whatever you can throw my way is greatly appreciated.

You can also learn more about the agency, Summoner, here.

This is a cross-post from the Summoner Substack, which you can sub to here.

-Matt