Games Workshop, creator and publisher of games and other products in the Warhammer 40,000 setting, has had an excellent run with its video game releases in recent years. The last, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, seems to be in full steam of reviews and impressions filled with positive comments. Meanwhile, notable titles such as Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Demon Hunters And Warhammer 40,000: Darktide have also made a name for themselves in their respective genres. But all three games have done this without directly crediting the employees of the Nottingham-based company who actually do the work.
It's a trend Nazih rateshead of localization at game developer The 4 Winden entertainment, would like to see changed. He is an elected member of the board of directors of the International Association of Game Developers and the vice chairman of the Game Credits Special Interest Group (SIG), which published updated developer credit guidelines earlier this year.
An example of this is the credits page for A rogue trader, available from the start menu when you start a game. Nearly every member of Owlcat Studios who has touched the ball is listed on the tab. The same goes for outsourced CGI and animation studios. Even middleware developers were allowed to credit individuals from their companies for their contributions. But here's what you'll find if you click on the Games Workshop tab on that page.
Image: Owlcat Studios via Polygon
About the same goes for Chaos Gate And Dark tide, two other games that rely heavily on content created by Games Workshop employees and licensed to video game developers. Neither game directly mentions anyone by name at Games Workshop. It might make sense if you take a look at the cold reality of intellectual property rights; perhaps no one at Games Workshop had anything substantive to do with the project. But the same cannot be said of Creative Assembly Total War: Warhammer 3a game that now features two all-new factions designed from the ground up with the help of designers in Nottingham.
So what gives? Fares explained that crediting in games is rife with inequality, and that inequality works against younger workers and workers in the Global South – especially those involved in quality assurance, outsourcing and localization. But even in developed countries, studios big and small are used to doing things their own way. When he worked at Blizzard, Fares said, virtually everyone who worked in the building was in the credits, including the Starbucks barista in the lobby. In the meantime, Valorant creators Riot Games are doing things very similar to what Games Workshop has done here, crediting the entire organization at once – even for first-party titles.
“I don't think it's right,” Fares said, “but I also think (how, from) a project management perspective it would be hell to even tell about every single person who has left, who is still there. , which has been promoted, and so forthto provide an accurate attribution and listing of the names working at Games Workshop.”
Owlcat confirmed to Polygon that the credits page attributed to Games Workshop will appear as requested by the company in the final game. Polygon reached out to multiple parties at Games Workshop for comment, but no response was provided before publication.
Fares said having a big IP on your resume, whether it's the Warcraft IP, a Disney IP or a Games Workshop IP, can help developers in their careers. But studios around the world have very different guidelines for how they credit their teams. He said some studios withhold credits for another reason: to prevent other studios from poaching their talent.
The latest guidelines from the IGDA, a document titled Game credits guide 10.1contains updated guidance for dealing with licensed games and live service games, a genre that simply did not exist when the document was last revised in 2014. It is available as a free download and serves as a resource for developers looking for more robust credit policies .
Ultimately, however, employees have very little control over how or even whether they are credited for their work in video games. Fares said union representation, such as the way SAG-AFTRA members' credits are contractually protected, would go a long way toward enforcing some kind of standardization in the industry.