Xbox |OT|

[G2ThaUNiT]

jason1637 said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pawoRkReqlU
Shocked to hear MS is still doing their 18 month dev hires to avoid paying benefits. This type of structure wont work for a live service game thats meant to be continually worked on for years.

IIRC it started around 2000 when MS lost a court case when it came to contractors with perpetual contracts. The court ruled that MS had to make contractors Full-Time Employees after 18 months as there were contractors that would be with MS for 5+ years. So that was something MS just did as standard practice for lower level contractors. But Satya Nadella expanded on it in 2014 when he took over that locked out all non-employees from MS buildings and network after 18 months with a 6 month freeze before a contractor could return in the name of protecting Microsoft IP from external sources. And it's had a large domino effect since then. 

While a very common practice in most industries, Nadella took it to a whole other level. So it's not something that will really get fixed with Nadella in charge, let alone completely removed as all large companies rely on contractors to save some money.