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. 

Dick slammed in-door champions for the past 10 years.

The 6 month freeze is part of the law too, to prevent them from laying off a contractor before 18 months but then just rehiring them a month later for another 18 months, 6 month freeze ensures Microsoft can't abuse it because nobody will keep a position empty for 6 months. It's all Microsoft's fault from back in the day abusing contractors.

The only way around it for Microsoft would be to actually suck it up and hire more fulltime employees but that'd cost more money which the poor trillion dollar company can't afford, not sure if they do it outside of America though, I know The Coalition doesn't accept contractors full-stop. The other way around it would be more co-development partnerships.

It's because Microsoft didn't want to give contractors full-employee benefits, maybe it's not an issue outside of America.

You beat me to it because I worked at MS during this time as a contractor when it happened.  Still remember it today when we all got our walking papers and about 3 to six months after they tried to hire everyone back again but you know no one stands still so I already had a secure full time position and told them no.

This was not just MS that did this.  Just about every company at the time hired contractors so that they did not have to pay out benefits it was pretty much standard during that time.  MS was just the biggest company taking advantage of it but it changed the industry as a whole.  After that, contract agencies had to start to pay for benefits for their employees since they were technically really employed by them. In the tech industry and for companies that use contractors, experience is the key and thus you always get jobs because if you are highly experienced you are highly sought, not to mention you get paid more than if you were working at the company full time.  I made my best money during this span.

Ultimate sale seems to be coming but not sure when, this week or next week the 17th?

Anyway picked up

Spongebob Cosmic Shake
Marsupilami Hoobadventure