[game_edu] Internship question

[Ben Chang]

Thanks!  That was my thought as well, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't 
giving poor advice.

TBF the non-compete wasn't for all game development work; it applied to 
games with a similar topic and target audience, though to my mind that 
doesn't make it any better.  The company is a new startup that looks 
like it's also primarily people just out of school.  All of which tells 
me this is something I need to start covering in class.

--Ben

On 1/27/15 4:34 PM, Ian Schreiber via game_edu wrote:
> Unpaid internships, regardless of anything else, are illegal in many 
> states and are sketchy to begin with. Minimum wage is cheap, and a 
> handful of paid interns isn't going to be the thing that makes or 
> breaks a company's bottom line. They also have the down side of 
> perpetuating a social class gap: students from disadvantaged 
> backgrounds are less able to take an unpaid internship to begin with. 
> I would tend to steer students away from unpaid internships in general 
> (at least the good students; let the terrible students work for the 
> company for free, as punishment to both the student and the company 
> ;-). As for "you'll get great experience" - you know what else gives 
> great experience without pay? Working on your own game. Have the 
> interested students do that instead. As for "we might hire you if you 
> do great work as an unpaid intern," if they underpay interns, I'd 
> assume they don't treat you any better as a permanent employee, so 
> that's not exactly a selling point either.
>
> Non-competes are another red flag, ESPECIALLY at the intern level. To 
> the extent that non-competes are okay, it's mainly to prevent someone 
> like a team lead or director level employee from leaving the company 
> and pulling half the dev team with them to start their own studio. 
> (One could argue that a better defense against this situation is to 
> treat your employees well enough that they wouldn't want to leave, 
> rather than just sticking a legal poison bomb in their work contract, 
> but whatever.) Telling a student that they can't work in the industry, 
> though? I can't see any rational justification for this. Also, worth 
> noting that non-competes are unenforceable in many jurisdictions.
>
> Both of those things together? Not normal, definitely unethical, 
> possibly illegal. I would stay far, far away. Definitely NOT the kind 
> of place I would want my students to go.
>
> If a student had other reasons that outweighed the negatives that made 
> them really interested in this particular internship for some reason, 
> I would have them research the labor laws in the state that the 
> company lives in to see what their rights are.
>
> - Ian
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Ben Chang <changb3 at rpi.edu>
> *To:* game_edu at igda.org
> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 27, 2015 4:05 PM
> *Subject:* [game_edu] Internship question
>
> Hi all,
>
> I have a student who's been offered an unpaid internship. The contract
> has as non-compete that would bar him from doing game dev work in a
> related field for one year after completion.  Is this normal for unpaid
> internship?  It seems disadvantageous.  The only value he receives from
> performing the work is experience to use towards future employment, but
> he would be prevented from seeking employment doing the thing he'd
> gotten experience doing.
>
> thanks,
>
> --Ben Chang
>
> -- 
> Benjamin Chang
> Associate Professor, Department of the Arts
> Director, Games and Simulation Arts and Sciences
> Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
> 110 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180
> changb3 at rpi.edu <mailto:changb3 at rpi.edu>
> 518.276.2366
>
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-- 
Benjamin Chang
Associate Professor, Department of the Arts
Director, Games and Simulation Arts and Sciences
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
110 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180
changb3 at rpi.edu
518.276.2366

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