airmangataosenai
Member
Japanese entertainment industries are notorious for having environments like this. Animators in particular, you hear horror stories about them living at work.SoulPlaya said:
Manga artists...
-
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Are working conditions at Square Enix getting really bad?
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Manga artists...
Four years isn't that short of a time... And CDProjekt is a whole different deal from Square Enix since they are based in a country where the workforce is probably much cheaper than in Japan. They can likely have a relatively big team that will not cost nearly as much as it would in Japan and other richer countries.Billychu said:
Just like most things said by SE nowadays, that was taken ridiculously out-of-context. What they meant was that with the kind schedule they had for XIII, they just couldn't spent the time needed to make proper cities with tons of people to talk to, shops to visit etc., especially when the couple of city-like environments in XIII were just places you go through once and never return to. The development of XIII was delayed enough as it is with the problems with the Crystal Tools, so after they had that somewhat sorted out, they needed to get the game out as quickly as possible. So HD towns WERE impossible for them, but only because of their deadlines/need to release XIII ASAP at that point. Versus pretty much shows what they can come up with when given the proper time (and no, that's still not 6 years).
Just means you lack extra data. Both gamedev mag postmortems for FF12 and FF13 indicate the same problems already existed, and both imply the same thing, that their management and design methods have been unchanged since the SNES days and that worked in the past but once projects and teams go over a certain size (the tipping point is during the PS2 era) it just produces poor communication, development lag and feature creep. Consider that until the HD era development teams at Square and then S-E didn't even share their tech with each other, and when the R&D division (created for FF11, and now basically in charge of organizing the whole S-E production pipeline) put a system to do just that in place many project leads actively resisted the idea, saying it'd devalue their work.djplaeskool said:
Duxxy3
Member
Anyone else think that the way games are being made right now, worldwide, is not going to be sustainable?
Huge development budgets, huge teams and longer development cycles - all of that seems to translate into poor employee conditions and a make or break atmosphere for sales.
This has also choked out any risk taking developers have been willing to go for in the past, hence the shooter being so prevalent on consoles. Portables, so far, have been less affected because of considerably lower costs and development time. Hopefully that continues in the 3DS and PS Vita generation.
Huge development budgets, huge teams and longer development cycles - all of that seems to translate into poor employee conditions and a make or break atmosphere for sales.
This has also choked out any risk taking developers have been willing to go for in the past, hence the shooter being so prevalent on consoles. Portables, so far, have been less affected because of considerably lower costs and development time. Hopefully that continues in the 3DS and PS Vita generation.
Do they not have legislation to stop this kind of abuse in Japan?
I know that in any jobs I start here (the UK) I'm always asked to sign a form saying that I want to opt out of EU working hours legislation. I always refuse responding to the inevitable funny looks with the reasoning, "Why would I want to abandon my rights? They must be there for a reason."
I know that in any jobs I start here (the UK) I'm always asked to sign a form saying that I want to opt out of EU working hours legislation. I always refuse responding to the inevitable funny looks with the reasoning, "Why would I want to abandon my rights? They must be there for a reason."
Well, I bought this: http://store.jp.square-enix.com/special/dq25th
That should fund some R&R time for at least a few people.
That should fund some R&R time for at least a few people.
electroplankton
Banned
I loved Square during its heyday and I tried to see what good put on the shelves later on BUT as a videogamer I can totally see how it's sinking:
-Versus XIII announced in 2006 and we still have cryptic information about it, few screenshots, no release date, nor even a launch window.
-Final Fantasy XIV has been a total failure and the company is unable to fix it in some way.
-Agito XIII is now Type-0 after 5 years of development, and it's been delayed AGAIN.
-Few efforts on other series than Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, at least some years ago they put some efforts to create new IPs on DS, but now? Seriously, no Mana, no Saga, no Chrono, and Fron Mission is crap now.
-Where's Chocobo Racing on 3DS? It should have been a quite interesting game for the few months of the platform in Japan, it was announced during 2010 E3 and now it seems to be disappeared in favour to Heroes of Ruin, already a failure.
Bah.
-Versus XIII announced in 2006 and we still have cryptic information about it, few screenshots, no release date, nor even a launch window.
-Final Fantasy XIV has been a total failure and the company is unable to fix it in some way.
-Agito XIII is now Type-0 after 5 years of development, and it's been delayed AGAIN.
-Few efforts on other series than Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, at least some years ago they put some efforts to create new IPs on DS, but now? Seriously, no Mana, no Saga, no Chrono, and Fron Mission is crap now.
-Where's Chocobo Racing on 3DS? It should have been a quite interesting game for the few months of the platform in Japan, it was announced during 2010 E3 and now it seems to be disappeared in favour to Heroes of Ruin, already a failure.
Bah.
While I agree it was a commercial failure, and the game is still free-2-play, YoshiP is turning the game around in huge ways, and the huge fixes to the game are coming. He communicated with the community, posts on the forums, and writes "Letters from the Producer". Overall, the game is being turned around, and the next few patches seem to be huge for the game, the first big one of which should hit this month.electroplankton said:
Yes, I'll also agree with the statement that it was released too soon. Please don't ignore what this man is doing to turn around the game though. He really cares.
I don't think the conditions are terrible for everyone, but I have a feeling the management positions are getting pushed around more, if anything. Their morale is probably a little low as a recent, but until I hear about some other statements concerning the working conditions, I wouldn't say it's that bad.
electroplankton
Banned
Thoraxes said:
BUT it's a failure, and the company should take it in account, also considering the fact the PS3 should have been out some months ago and now it's desaparecido somewhere. S-E surely made its expectations considering also FFXIV on PS3, a lack in this sense may be dangerous for the company itself, with so few games for other platforms.
Riposte
Member
electroplankton said:
Pretty sure a "rerelease" campaign built around the PS3 release and maybe an expansion or expansion presentation is what they are banking on. Releasing the PS3 version now would not help their situation in the slightest. But after they add PvP, raids, materia, chocobos, magitek, and modify the world? There is a chance.
electroplankton
Banned
Riposte said:
A re-release campaign means more money, and there's always the doubt the PC version won't encounter a success as the XI chapter.
samus4ever
Banned
airmangataosenai said:Japanese entertainment industries are notorious for having environments like this. Animators in particular, you hear horror stories about them living at work.
Manga artists...
I'd rather take a bullet between my eyes. I thought my old job was bad.
If you read the letters from the producer, press releases, and in general news about the game, you'll understand that most of your complaints and responses have been acknowledged and addressed by the XIV team, SE, and YoshiP. You'll also understand the state of the PS3 version as well as when to expect it, and the state of their feedback to criticism and how they move forward by listening to the fans.electroplankton said:
There's also an exhaustive list of everything pertaining to the game that will be changed, is being changed, and that is being discussed to be changed, and that is being developed, as well as user feedback polls and responses off those too, some of which are influencing the game design and the direction it's going to move in next.
Seriously, read some of the news sometime.
Anyways, sorry for going off-topic. Back to ADVENTURE!
Basically what Dunan said.
I also live in Japan and work here. I work doing 3D stuff and basically my schedule is:
9:00 - Wake up and have breakfast.
9:30 - Get everything ready and go to work, by bicycle.
10:00 - Work starts
13:00 - Lunch break. Most people here take a break at around 12:30, I like it at 13:00.
14:00 - Back to work.
19:00 - Dinner break.
20:00 - Back to work.
22:00 - Go back home. But some people are still working. I think staying 12 hours in the company is enough for me. If they wanna fire me, I will not cry over it.
22:15 - Back at home, get shower. Then just either do 3D for personal projects, play games with my gf or watch some movie or something.
01:00 - Go to sleep (around 7-8 hours of sleep which is fine).
And even then, staying 12 hours in the company, 10 of those working in front of the computer can get quite exhausting. I can always see other co-workers fall asleep but I don't like to sleep here. For the work we are doing, we would probably work more efficiently if we worked from 9AM to 6PM or so. After the dinner break, as Dunan said, is basically a fight against falling asleep or just working at about 10% of the speed you would usually work. And that's not because that day we worked X hours, but because the tiredness accumulates during the whole week and the weekend isn't enough to "reset" yourself, so you go back on Monday already kinda tired.
I will stay in this company for a max of 1 year though I'll be sending my resume to the US, Canada and Europe soon (been here for 3 months and a half, already, working 12 hours everyday). I know most companies here are the same, and there are many other things I just don't like, even if I love the country as a whole. But company management is a mess.
I also know some game companies in the west are slightly close or the same during crunch time, and that can last for over half a year. But what I'm doing now isn't game-related, so I just don't have the same motivation to spend my whole day in the office and ignore all my friends and my girlfriend.
I also live in Japan and work here. I work doing 3D stuff and basically my schedule is:
9:00 - Wake up and have breakfast.
9:30 - Get everything ready and go to work, by bicycle.
10:00 - Work starts
13:00 - Lunch break. Most people here take a break at around 12:30, I like it at 13:00.
14:00 - Back to work.
19:00 - Dinner break.
20:00 - Back to work.
22:00 - Go back home. But some people are still working. I think staying 12 hours in the company is enough for me. If they wanna fire me, I will not cry over it.
22:15 - Back at home, get shower. Then just either do 3D for personal projects, play games with my gf or watch some movie or something.
01:00 - Go to sleep (around 7-8 hours of sleep which is fine).
And even then, staying 12 hours in the company, 10 of those working in front of the computer can get quite exhausting. I can always see other co-workers fall asleep but I don't like to sleep here. For the work we are doing, we would probably work more efficiently if we worked from 9AM to 6PM or so. After the dinner break, as Dunan said, is basically a fight against falling asleep or just working at about 10% of the speed you would usually work. And that's not because that day we worked X hours, but because the tiredness accumulates during the whole week and the weekend isn't enough to "reset" yourself, so you go back on Monday already kinda tired.
I will stay in this company for a max of 1 year though I'll be sending my resume to the US, Canada and Europe soon (been here for 3 months and a half, already, working 12 hours everyday). I know most companies here are the same, and there are many other things I just don't like, even if I love the country as a whole. But company management is a mess.
I also know some game companies in the west are slightly close or the same during crunch time, and that can last for over half a year. But what I'm doing now isn't game-related, so I just don't have the same motivation to spend my whole day in the office and ignore all my friends and my girlfriend.
Mik2121 said:
Out of interest, are you legally contracted to work so many hours or are you bound to an eight hour day (for example) and then feel obliged to work unpaid overtime?
Also, if you decided to work strictly 9AM-6PM as you suggest (whilst still getting all your work done) do you believe you would be fired?
I know this is a cultural thing but I'm wondering how people who work outside 'the norm' are treated? As I understand it, in Germany it's normal to work to the clock exactly (could be wrong, but that's what I've been told about the working culture there), whereas here in the UK there's a lot of pressure to work unpaid overtime (to the point that it gets written into your contract a lot of the time).
I feel like the Japanese work environment could make a lot of improvements if they just re-worked how the communication takes place and put less importance on the concept of seniority. It's not going to suddenly fix everything, but there's certainly a lot of inefficiency that comes just from familiarity and insistence on a needlessly complicated working environment.
I am in Japan myself, but not at all involved in the game industry. I haven't yet been in a job where I was worked to the bone, so my quality of life isn't suffering as I work no more than 10 hours in a day (though like most everyone else in Japan, working extra hours doesn't mean extra pay).
However, this isn't at all exclusive to video games, and certainly not Square. That said, you'd expect a company with the kind of resources at S-E have to be researching and implementing the most effective man-management strategies from successful companies around the world. Other (huge) Japanese companies such as SoftBank, Rakuten and Uniqlo are moving to a westernized work environment, and you have to imagine S-E would benefit from a similar direction.
I am in Japan myself, but not at all involved in the game industry. I haven't yet been in a job where I was worked to the bone, so my quality of life isn't suffering as I work no more than 10 hours in a day (though like most everyone else in Japan, working extra hours doesn't mean extra pay).
However, this isn't at all exclusive to video games, and certainly not Square. That said, you'd expect a company with the kind of resources at S-E have to be researching and implementing the most effective man-management strategies from successful companies around the world. Other (huge) Japanese companies such as SoftBank, Rakuten and Uniqlo are moving to a westernized work environment, and you have to imagine S-E would benefit from a similar direction.
In my contract the working hours state "from 10:00 AM", but it doesn't say at what time it finishes. Their old website says 6PM, the new site doesn't say anything.ruttyboy said:
If I decided to work from 9AM to 6PM, I would not be able to enter the office until 9:45AM, and even if I left at 6:45PM, yeah, I would be fired probably after the second day doing that.
I was working with the guy sitting next to me about how I thought the working hours here were kind of a mess and how they could improve work and just leave the rendering stuff for the nights and then come back in the morning and check out everything. He agreed with me, but apparently "that's how things work here".
I'm a foreigner and I just started working here some months ago. If I propose them to change the schedule, they will just ignore it.
As for the cultural thing.. My girlfriend works 9AM-5PM and that's the norm. When I first started working and told her I'd be getting back home at 10:15PM, she was surprised and said they were exploiting the people working there. But she also admitted many people here work that much, but it's just a waste of time, energy and health. Which I guess everybody can agree with. But "we" are treated just like everybody else. Or seen as hard-working people. LOL!. If only they knew a lot of us spend so much time sleeping or just as zombies doing things slowly.. Though as I said, I don't sleep at work. But a day like today, when I've finished my last work earlier than expected and I have some time before getting serious about the next work, I just take it easy. Hell, I'm at work now
BTW, there's one company here in Japan that in the last few years has gotten quite big. It's called GREE and they make games for smartphones, browsers, etc.. The company owner and boss is some 30something year old guy. He doesn't have a separate office or room, he stays there with everybody, and they go home quite early (about 5PM, and everybody including him, get out of the office at exactly that time). You can see it's working for them. They were featured on a TV show some months ago and talked about how the company worked and everything.
And yet you see companies like mine making people work crazy hours thinking we will work at the same pace all the time. Hahaha...
Lagspike_exe
Member
No sleep for 3 months.Riposte said:
Mik2121 said:
Interesting. I'm not sure you'd be allowed such an open ended contract in this country, it's only asking for trouble.
It's the usual boss logic though, 'if he's at his desk, he must be working and so therefore more work must be getting done'. So archaic, as far as I'm concerned you should be employed to carry out a task(s), if you can complete that task to the level of quality that is required it should be irrelevant how many hours you are sat there. Unless they are actually employing you to 'look busy'.
Castor Krieg
Banned
ruttyboy said:
You know why they work to the clock in Germany? Because Germans go in turbo mode the moment they step into the office. No chit-chat, no making coffee for 30 minutes in the morning, they WORK, they go home. You are seen as inefficient if you cannot finish your work on time.
It works. They don't get distracted, they do their job, and have more time to spend with their families.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
Game development has always been like this. Worldwide.
Crunch is ingrained in the culture, some places enforce it more harshly than others but its always there to some extent. Ideally it only occurs at certain points of the cycle (build days, final-push etc.) but its always there - nature of the beast.
Crunch is ingrained in the culture, some places enforce it more harshly than others but its always there to some extent. Ideally it only occurs at certain points of the cycle (build days, final-push etc.) but its always there - nature of the beast.
Alx
Member
ruttyboy said:
Well that would be the a strength of such a system : if you need to increase the production, you know that a temporary 20% increase of working time would translate to an equivalent increase of production. While if you're already using all your available time, you can still try to increase productivity, but it's harder to predict.
Alx said:
Yeah, it's the 'temporary' bit that would be hard to enforce here I think.
In my experience after a big effort by a team, managers, rather than thinking, "Wow, what a great effort, I should work out some way to reward this team of mine" instead think, "Imagine if we could get them to work like that all the time, my bonus would be awesome!" and the 'expectations' increase.
ScionOfTheRisingSun
Banned
I bet if there is any general rise of dismay lately at SE it is related to the big managerial shakeup that Wada has mandated after management and communications problems led to projects like FFXIV ending as they are and delaying the Crystal Tools leading to SE having almost no home console output this generation.
If you've been listening to Wada's comments this E3 and previously it is clear that he has had his fill with the way things work internally. The thing about huge companies with a lot senior staff who have been there for decades is that people have their routines and ways of working which have been established, accepted as the norm and with which people are comfortable.
Now, if you come in and try to incite any paradigm shift in the status quo then you are sure to get a lot of indignation. This is especially true for developers or creative people as they by nature will shun any form of change, let alone a huge one. Just try and see how a team of programmers will respond to them being forced to use a new, let us say, source control program in their work flow. They will refuse if you give them the choice, even if the program is better at what it does developers have an instinct of sticking with what works and what they know no matter what.
I bet friction borne from a heavy hand needed to turn over SE over the next 2-3 years is what is causing people to feel uncomfortable and unhappy. Especially the senior fellas who after having been with the company for so long now have a sense of entitlement.
If you've been listening to Wada's comments this E3 and previously it is clear that he has had his fill with the way things work internally. The thing about huge companies with a lot senior staff who have been there for decades is that people have their routines and ways of working which have been established, accepted as the norm and with which people are comfortable.
Now, if you come in and try to incite any paradigm shift in the status quo then you are sure to get a lot of indignation. This is especially true for developers or creative people as they by nature will shun any form of change, let alone a huge one. Just try and see how a team of programmers will respond to them being forced to use a new, let us say, source control program in their work flow. They will refuse if you give them the choice, even if the program is better at what it does developers have an instinct of sticking with what works and what they know no matter what.
I bet friction borne from a heavy hand needed to turn over SE over the next 2-3 years is what is causing people to feel uncomfortable and unhappy. Especially the senior fellas who after having been with the company for so long now have a sense of entitlement.
electroplankton
Banned
Thoraxes said:
Bah, the economic background for a failure like this is usually weak, and even if the team can recognize all the problems, they still are part of a company which wants to sell; maybe the reputation is broken, and videogamers won't care a lot about the game in a year.
I think the game will be kept in life in some way, since they cannot canned such projects but I wonder when they can raise money from it.
electroplankton said:
The division at SE responsible for the Mana series is defunct, last I checked. Aside from the issue of outsourcing Front Mission Evolved to Double Helix to turn it from an SRPG into a third-rate Armored Core clone, the fact that Motomu Toriyama wrote for it didn't help (sure didn't help FFXIII or The 3rd Birthday any). Not much to say about Saga from me, but I personally wouldn't trust them with the Chrono series as they are now.
darkhunger
Member
They're hedging on the fact that its an FF mainline game, and that they are releasing to a new and relatively untapped market on the PS3. This is a unique situation different from other failed MMOs, and the FF fanbase is known for its loyalty (ie buying stuff up because of the brand, not whether its good or bad), so they are willing to take the risk that a good recovery will repair the situation.electroplankton said:
The only other alternative is tarnishing the FF brand forever by shutting this game down. FF is their biggest IP, and that's only going to hurt the company more going forward, because the franchise would be forever associated with a failure.
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
Didn't Kawazu promise Romancing SaGa 4 a few months ago? I wonder if he'll use UE3 again?
Seraphinianus
Banned
why do people get so addicted to work? the world is a pretty cool place, particularly when you have money.
Part of it includes the fact that FFXI has probably earned more for them than any other FF, including compilations/sub-franchises. They probably think that if they can get it up to speed and release it on PS3, they can charge a monthly fee again and eventually get their money back.darkhunger said:
beelzebozo
Jealous Bastard
i don't mean to take an emotional perspective on this issue where an intellectual examination would be more productive, but i look back at the company that made FF6, FF9, SECRET OF MANA, CHRONO TRIGGER (in part), FF7, and on and on and on, and i just feel profoundly sad. right or wrong, it feels like i'm witnessing the slow erosion of their prominence and profitability; in addition, it seems ethically they have grown increasingly deficient, for one reason or another. i wish that they were a healthier company, but right now i see clusters of issues that indicate something terminal coming down the line if things continue that way.
Sapphire Dreams
Member
I imagine that is the same for the whole industry, this is why thw japanese companies are slow.
D
Deleted member 81567
Unconfirmed Member
I think Square Enix needs a.....
reboot.
reboot.
gatotsu911
Member
On a slightly related note, I wish Hiromichi Tanaka would leave Square Enix and join, I dunno, Monolith Soft or something. He got Xenogears and Chrono Cross made, then spent the rest of his career forced to work on MMOs. I'm surprised he hasn't jumped ship already.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Yeah, I also thought Yoshida's work schedule was unnecessarily harsh.
The dev team always talks about being very overwhelmingly busy, but I suspect there is lots of room for efficiency tweaks. I mean, Yoshida said that it takes 6 months to create one full set of equipment.
I thought easy equipment design was one of the points of their touted "polygon shaving" system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc0ilSksWBQ
To be fair, he's probably talking about all new models, along with new stats that have heavy game balance implications, but still....6 months. Seems a bit long.
The dev team always talks about being very overwhelmingly busy, but I suspect there is lots of room for efficiency tweaks. I mean, Yoshida said that it takes 6 months to create one full set of equipment.
I thought easy equipment design was one of the points of their touted "polygon shaving" system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc0ilSksWBQ
To be fair, he's probably talking about all new models, along with new stats that have heavy game balance implications, but still....6 months. Seems a bit long.
Mr Killemgood
Member
It sounds like video game business culture hasn't developed management skills that can be utilized to make significant improvements to the QoL of its workers, and ensure proper flow of game management.
It'd almost seem like Wada needs to shut down game production for a week or two, and just meet with workers and managers to attempt to increase efficiency/productivity by identifying and correcting issues that increase the amount of time needed to implement fixes on projects.
Plus as others have said, a lack of engines and other products that can speed up development time by having a library of existing tools could be a major problem - yet why would this be an issue of SE developed their own White Engine/Crystal Tools? But on second look, it seems that their Crystal Tools has nothing to do with the bulk of work needed on a game - it just processes physics and integrates CGI/cutscenes into games. Where are the shaders, lighting tools and the like that most western engines focus on?
It'd almost seem like Wada needs to shut down game production for a week or two, and just meet with workers and managers to attempt to increase efficiency/productivity by identifying and correcting issues that increase the amount of time needed to implement fixes on projects.
Plus as others have said, a lack of engines and other products that can speed up development time by having a library of existing tools could be a major problem - yet why would this be an issue of SE developed their own White Engine/Crystal Tools? But on second look, it seems that their Crystal Tools has nothing to do with the bulk of work needed on a game - it just processes physics and integrates CGI/cutscenes into games. Where are the shaders, lighting tools and the like that most western engines focus on?
Spokker
Member
If it's bullshit, then I don't know that it is.TheSeks said:
I presume they are not working their employees to the bone for the sake of hurting them and that they want to release games more quickly in order to keep costs down and make more money.
While I am confident that the hours worked past 40 are not as productive as the previous hours worked (you can't double the hours worked and halve the time it takes to complete a game), they probably do count to help get games released more quickly.
If the entire industry is overworked and the $50-$60 price point reflects that, then I can't imagine how they could maintain that price point without cutting into profits or seeing some companies shut down. Or the games could get better with a 40-hour standard workweek and more people would buy them, but I doubt it.
I would love to see a company making big budget games try. And if one is making it work, they should advertise how they did it for the sake of the industry and its employees.
When it was first stated everyone knew it was a bs excuse. It's not taken out of context at all. It was a bs excuse then and it still is one now. He's blaming lack of towns on the game's resolution when examples then and now make clear HD towns are very possible. It was poor project management that made the towns "impossible", not the fact that they were HD. Had he said "we didn't know what we were doing or what we wanted to make until late in development so including the usual things like we have done in the past to make a more full-fledged FF game - like towns - was impossible due to our incompetence," then no one would called bs.Famassu said: