My boss told me that ”Maya is basically the same as Max“. Ummm — yeah, they’re both “3D software” — that doesn’t make them “the same”.

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I was pretty clearly overstepping my bounds, but there were a lot of things that were simply not being done that I thought were standard at computer gaming studios — and communication is the most important thing.

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something about designers and artists being in the same loop was a bad idea — I suspect it was because the lead buildings person and the lead designer didn’t get along and really didn’t want to have anything to do with each other.

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When I pointed out that he wasn’t producing work using the same standards as everyone else, I was told “yes, but he’s fast” — completely disregarding the fact that all of his work would have to be “addressed” later on and that it would be harder and take longer for anyone else to fix his work than to have him do it right the first time.

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Dachande said:

This is the one of the "top 5" studios voted by Gamasutra. How sad.

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Dachande said:

This is the one of the "top 5" studios voted by Gamasutra. How sad.

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Dachande said:

This is the one of the "top 5" studios voted by Gamasutra. How sad.

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trinest said:

Just think how worse off the ones not on the list are.

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Amir0x said:

I'm not sure if I'm missing a joke with his opening paragraph about making shit up and being a untrustworthy source and such. If that's even remotely true the entire article is worthless.

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Stink said:

I certainly don't run Sunny Studios like this.

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bishoptl said:

Ain't loading for me.

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Visualante said:

His linkedin profile features 11 recommendations from Rockstar staff. It's not a fake, he could have probably just put that at the top and it would have pre-empted any "phoney" comments.

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bishoptl said:

Ain't loading for me.

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Amir0x said:

It's not a "fake" so much as there may be entire segments that are false or made up or exaggerated. If any aspect of the opening is true, then the entire article is called into question. How much of it is true? How much of it is exaggerated? How much of it is there to make himself look good?

It's just a really silly way to open up an article.

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Let me just say before I start this — and to clear up any potential misunderstanding as to why you should question my credibility here — because for obvious reasons I have to say this — as far as working at Rockst*r goes:

I was totally incompetent. Lazy. Disruptive. A rebel. An instigator. Disrespectful, not only in general, but of authority as well.

Not only was I totally clueless and had no real understanding of the actually going-ons at the company, I was basically an all-around trouble-maker. Oh yes, and an ignorant know-it-all. In fact, most of what you are about to read is probably lies or the work of a totally delusional person.

Also, not only do I clearly have my own agenda here — I am also trying to make myself look good, as if I am a model employee, but I am not. I was a bad, bad employee.]

The following is most likely a complete fabrication — unless it’s all true. Who knows, right? Any reference to anything resembling actual people, places, or events is purely coincidence.

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Shito said:

It's loading through google cache, albeit very slowly.
I can copy/paste the whole thing here if needed.

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[Let me just say before I start this — and to clear up any potential misunderstanding as to why you should question my credibility here — because for obvious reasons I have to say this — as far as working at Rockst*r goes:

I was totally incompetent. Lazy. Disruptive. A rebel. An instigator. Disrespectful, not only in general, but of authority as well.

Not only was I totally clueless and had no real understanding of the actually going-ons at the company, I was basically an all-around trouble-maker. Oh yes, and an ignorant know-it-all. In fact, most of what you are about to read is probably lies or the work of a totally delusional person.

Also, not only do I clearly have my own agenda here — I am also trying to make myself look good, as if I am a model employee, but I am not. I was a bad, bad employee.]

The following is most likely a complete fabrication — unless it’s all true. Who knows, right? Any reference to anything resembling actual people, places, or events is purely coincidence.

You have been warned.

It was summer 2007 and I’d been interviewing at various places around the country.

I received a job offer at Vigil Games (Austin, TX — to work on the game “Darksiders“) which was the first offer that I really considered. The game looked great — and it was right up my alley — but a couple things about my interview concerned me. For one thing, it is customary that if a computer gaming company takes you out to lunch — that they at least offer to pay for your lunch (these aren’t my rules, this is just how it typically is) — and Vigil didn’t. That was odd.

It certainly wasn’t the 10 bucks that bothered me — hell, they flew me from Los Angeles to Austin and put me up in a nice hotel — it was the lack of the gesture by those who should know better — like how do you forget that? It shows a lack of “connection” and I considered it a red flag (among others). I wanted to make sure I picked the right company — a place that isn’t out of touch with its employees.

And honestly, I really just thought that this (and the other things) was their way of showing they weren’t interested — so I didn’t really think too much of it — until I got the job offer.

So I was still considering the offer when I was invited to Rockst*r Games in San Diego for an interview. And this was something I was excited about. I mean, what gaming enthusiast hasn’t heard of “Rockst*r Games”? I figured that if I was lucky enough to be hired there, my experience would be nothing short of extraordinary — working on great games with talented people who inspired me! Is there anything better than that!?

So I was pleased when my interview went well — they’d said all the right things (I should’ve known better).

I was hoping I’d get an offer, but it would have to come quick — my other offer from Vigil Games was going to “expire” soon (I think they gave me 10 days to consider) and I didn’t want to miss out — Darksiders looked like it would be fun to work on and I was willing to overlook what were probably just some silly red flags.

So I wasn’t sure I wanted to gamble on waiting to get an offer from Rockst*r. To be honest, I’d sent my resume to a bunch of places and had already been interviewing for a couple of months. I figured that I’d heard back from everyone I was going to hear from (Blizzard Entertainment, as usual, completely ignored me for like the 6-8th time in 7 years) — so I felt like I’d need to accept something soon — or run out of options and have to start over by sending out another volley of resumes.

It was the final day of the Vigil Games offer and I was about to call them and say “I accept!” when I got the call from Rockst*r — they offered me a job. And I accepted. It seemed like a no-brainer. I was in love with the idea of working at Rockst*r.

And thus began my life as a Rockst*r employee — Oh man, this was going to be awesome!

Except it wasn’t.

I immediately sensed something was “off” on my first day when they failed to give me a tour of the facilities or really explain anything — I mean, was the food in the kitchen for employees? How does the coffee machine work? Where are the supplies? When did people take lunch? And so on. Simple stuff that most people don’t think about — because they are never an issue — they just sort of “happen” at other places. It’s customary for someone to watch out for new employees to make sure they’re comfortable and that they have a clue what’s going on.

Heck, “team bonding” is usually an important (and recommended) part of bringing new people on board at most places I’ve ever worked at. Well, not in my case. I worked until 3:30pm on my first day before I decided that I should ask someone if it was “ok” to go to lunch.

Yes, I realize it appears as if I was expecting people to “do things” for me — I suppose you could say I was, but only in the context of what’s considered customary based on previous experience.

And while Rockst*r was gracious enough to hire me to learn Maya on the job — this was the only non-3DS Max Rockst*r studio at the time — (I was a 3DS Max user), they provided absolutely no reference materials that helped me to do so — no manuals, no tutorials, no videos, no reference — and this seemed strangely odd & inefficient. I mean, how was I supposed to learn the ins and outs of Maya — let alone do it quickly?

My boss told me that ”Maya is basically the same as Max“. Ummm — yeah, they’re both “3D software” — that doesn’t make them “the same”.

When I asked about learning materials I was told that “maybe” something could be done and there “might” be something in the budget to buy some Gnomon instructional videos (my suggestion) — nothing ever came of this. I bought my own resources and watched the videos and practiced at home (we weren’t working 12 hour days back then).

Basically, I was on my own. In fact, that became a running theme from day one.

So disjointed were the teams at Rockst*r that no one seemed particularly interested in anyone else. Whether that person was on your project, on your team, or 4 feet away in your cubicle! Yes, clearly people who’d been there a while had made friends — but deliberate team bonding? Non-existent.

This not only happened at a personal level — it happened at the work level. No one had a clue what anyone else was working on in any detailed sense and there was no feedback loop. So many “obvious” things were missing — I thought this had to be some kind of joke — how did this studio function!?

By the end of my first month I wrote an extensive document to my “boss” explaining several ways in which communication between team members (and teams) and steps in the pipeline could be made more efficient. I was pretty clearly overstepping my bounds, but there were a lot of things that were simply not being done that I thought were standard at computer gaming studios — and communication is the most important thing.

Honestly, things were so weird there that I thought it was just as likely that I’d be “fired” for writing this document as I would be “praised” — because I was suggesting things that were the equivalent of “runny soup is best eaten with a spoon — not a fork”.

But I was also so frustrated at this point that I figured if I was “let go” for that, then it would be a good thing and an obvious sign that I needed to move on.

To be frank, I’d already been thinking about leaving the company on my own anyway — less than a month in! — but I thought, “This really has to be an issue with me“. Maybe my expectations were too high and I just didn’t have the right perspective. I really hadn’t been there that long. There’s no way it’s really this ‘bad’ — and I liked the paycheck and the fact I was working for Rockst*r-Effin’-Games! — Yeah — I’ll stick it out.”

So I wrote this document — It was a list of “issues” and the consequences caused by each and next to each issue was a clearly explained (and often very simple) solution. And they were obvious —suggestions like “email groups” to facilitate communication between teams so that people working in a particular area of the game could communicate with each other without leaving others out of the loop (and those were a big hit — what a surprise!).

I also suggested there should be a group linking designers and artists — because if you think the disconnect between artists was bad, the disconnect between artists & designers was worse. We were worlds apart — and there was a lot of friction between the teams because each made the others’ work life more difficult anytime we made significant changes to existing assets or gameplay — and no one seemed to care enough to fix the situation. And sadly, this suggestion was shot down — something about designers and artists being in the same loop was a bad idea — I suspect it was because the lead buildings person and the lead designer didn’t get along and really didn’t want to have anything to do with each other.

I worked around this issue directly by personally talking to designers any time I was working in an area that I thought changes to structures in the area might affect design. I learned which designers worked in which areas — and if I didn’t know, I found a way to track them down. I came to find out these guys were pretty damn cool! In fact, that’s how I got to inject some of my own design ideas into the game — such as riding mine carts in Gaptooth Breach or the gameplay elements involved in going down the mine-shaft bucket into the mines (if that bit actually shipped — I still haven’t played RDR) — that was me. I also worked with designers to design buildings in certain ways to increase the number of gameplay elements and “fun-factor” in different scenarios — something that just wasn’t deliberately being done by others.

I also suggested that perhaps it was a good idea if people on the same team reviewed & provided feedback to each other — so that we could make sure that everyone worked in a relatively consistent fashion and so we could maintain the same quality across-the-board.

Sadly, this was never consistently implemented — but I tried — it basically fell apart because people who’d been there longer than I had didn’t like to receive “constructive criticism” — and all the necessary changes that came from these reviews “slowed down production”. Um, ok — but wait — that makes no sense. Shouldn’t we be doing things “right” and consistently?

Much to my relief, rather than getting fired or reprimanded, I was privately praised, and most of my initial suggestions were implemented (or attempted).

This process repeated itself many times over several months — I “annoyed” my boss (I mean — how could this not be annoying?) by discreetly making suggestions that were so obvious that they were difficult to “deny”. But eventually — much later in the process — I was finally told to stop doing that. I’d expected to hear that sooner — as I knew from the start that — under normal circumstance — I was totally working beyond my role & responsibilities.

And yes, I completely understand the “issues” with this at any “properly functioning” company. The last thing I want to be at a company is a troublemaker — but this was the Twilight Zone.

I was just happy that it seemed like we were making improvements to the process and there was a lot less time wasted — sort of. It was around month 7 or 8 when I finally realized that all I’d really been doing since I started was “cleaning up” or completely re-doing the work of another employee (who was still working there) because it didn’t meet the standards for quality we were shooting for. This person was producing work in such a way that it was actually a full-time job for me for almost a year to go in behind him and “fix” it.

Now, it’s not like his work was “horrible” on the surface — at a casual glance it looked pretty good — and because of our lack of feedback or peer work reviews no one ever really took a close look at anything. This is in stark contrast to anywhere else I’ve worked. Basically, the guy was a “hack worker” — someone who, at a casual glance, appears to be producing work on par with everyone — but at a deeper level is doing his job in a way that creates more work for others later on.

[Things like floating props & architecture, structures that obviously defied the laws of physics (not in the normal "gaming" sense — I mean things that would really stand out to gamers), cracks between geometry, designs that impeded navigation and gameplay, stretched or unmapped textures, the list went on and on.]

Like I said — my primary job for a year was to fix stuff that he’d created in the time leading up to before I was hired. When I delicately mentioned this to the powers-that-be, I was told “well he’s very fast”, that’s just how he works. When I pointed out that he wasn’t producing work using the same standards as everyone else, I was told “yes, but he’s fast” — completely disregarding the fact that all of his work would have to be “addressed” later on and that it would be harder and take longer for anyone else to fix his work than to have him do it right the first time.

“Make it nice or make it twice” – Big Huge Games “Building Team” mantra

And this was the sort of place where that sort of thing was the norm — the building process and the pipeline was inefficient to the extreme, yet no one who directly managed such things seemed to care — or was competent enough to recognize it. And actually, it was because of the how things were managed that caused these problems to begin with. The people “in charge” of such things were actually responsible for the break-downs.

It felt like a very unreal situation — working for a supposed “top-notch” company only to discover that some of my coworkers (including senior artists and management) wouldn’t even have been hired as interns at other companies I’d worked at. I’m not exaggerating.

Coworkers that I talked to about it thought that the inefficiency was “great job security” because “we’d always have work to do“. I thought that was a terrible way to look at it — I hate waste.

We talked about how “the schedule was a joke” — how the schedule on paper came nowhere near reality — no matter how hard we worked or how many corners we cut — it just wasn’t going to happen and that it was just “for show”. It seemed like everyone knew that — but no one cared enough or was brave enough to speak up and say anything about it.

In any case, I continued playing “clean-up” for a few more months before finally shuffling into areas where I got to deliberately create stuff from scratch — or had the confidence to suggest “Hey, it’d be easier to rebuild that than to work with what’s there”. The response I often got was, “Well, if it’s “ok” with Design.”

I’m not sure anyone ever expected it to be “ok with Design” — building artists and Design didn’t get along, remember? — except, well we did. Clearing something with Design was often as simple as “Hey, I’m thinking about totally overhauling this building to make it more gameplay friendly and it will look better, too — is that cool with you?” — and “Is there anything I can do to it for you while I’m making changes?”

Yeah, that was easy and one of the more rewarding parts of my job.

It really wasn’t until after my first year at the company when people (higher ups) started freaking out about how long the project had been in development, how much money was being wasted, and — and this is the big one — release dates.

And that’s when the increase in the deception and manipulation by management began — slowly at first — and then over time it got totally “nuts” (by my standards).

Some folks didn’t seem to have an issue with it (yet) — hell, they were happy to be working at Rockst*r—Effing—Games! —(just like I was initially)— it’s AWESOME!

Some people that I spoke to about it told me, ”It doesn’t get any better than this anyway — all game studios have their sh*t — there’s no sense in looking elsewhere”. Even though their only experience at a gaming studio was the one they were working at — they’d simply “heard things”. I mean, “remember that EA thing?”

And besides, no matter how bad it was in reality, it was still worth bragging rights — riiiight? And Rockst*r Games would always look good on a resume, right?

The “mother company” had just made over a billion dollars on Gr*nd Theft A*to — but they blamed the sudden cut-backs at the studio on the economy. Suddenly many things that had been “free” (soda, etc) at the studio were being subsidized instead. And cutting back on the bagels & donuts to every other week was obviously going to save the company a ton of money!

So it was at this time that I thought about jumping ship — I mean, this is a running theme at this point. And now things were getting really ridiculous — and this was only the beginning! The way things were going, it was almost like it was a parody of how things should be done.

Seriously, if the going-ons at the office had been filmed, it would’ve been a great “comedy” from a viewer’s perspective, I’m sure. Sadly, it was real-life and hell for a lot of people — people talked about wanting to leave, but couldn’t because “they had kids”, or “a mortgage”, or “the economy is so bad”, and “no one is hiring”.

When things started getting really bad, many employees started to joke about how transparent some of the manipulation was. No one really liked what was going on, and yet we all played along — well, most of us.

I sent out my resume to a few places and interviewed with two. One was overseas (phone interview). — the other was in the western US.

I got a job offer at the west coast company — which came with a 5% increase in salary over my current job. But after much consideration, I turned it down — granted, I really didn’t like certain aspects of my job (mostly anything dealing with leads or management), but I really loved the work. And I had great art directors who were good people and fun to work with — although apparently powerless to actually do anything. Titles at this company really didn’t not mean what they typically meant at other places and they did not come with the same level of “power”.

And I’ll admit, I was comfortable — and also, I really wanted to be there ’til the end. I wanted to be there when the game shipped. I figured if I sucked it up I could basically ignore the bullshit — we were supposed to ship in months — surely I could last that long. (The game was actually delayed over a year).

Well, I have a pretty high tolerance for most things — but injustice I do not. I should’ve known better.

The situation at Rockst*r only got worse. Hours increased from 8 to 12 — and days increased for 5 to 6. Anyone on a salary was not compensated for the additional hours — as far as our paychecks were concerned, we were still only putting in 40 hours per week.

What’s funny is that a junior artist hired the same day as me — who was paid hourly — repeatedly joked about how “the extra hours are great because Rockst*r is buying me a Porche”. And maybe that was true — because although his base salary was significantly below mine, he was being compensated for his extra hours (time and a half) — and I wasn’t.

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Dabanton said:

What kind of opening is this? :lol

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Morale continued to deteriorate as the lies increased. And everyone was on edge. And we were being spoken to in meetings like incompetent 10 year olds. There were actually a couple times where I spoke up against what was being said against the team — because everyone else acted like it was ok. And then I was privately thanked by some afterwards — “Thanks for doing that, I’m glad someone had the balls to say something”.

At one point in development, after another team at the studio shipped “Midnight Club: Los Angeles”, several employees from the other project started to come over to help on RDR, Senior Environment Artists (there were 4 of us) were made “team leads”. I thought, “Finally, something good — I can use this.”

My status as a team lead lasted for about 6 weeks — I think — until I sent what I thought was a private email to 3 people on my team. I talked about how “I knew everyone was working hard, but that it was probably unwise to be watching Youtube videos or browsing websites unrelated to work while at work — especially when we were under such intense scrutiny. I mentioned how I knew the schedule we’d been given was unrealistic, but…”

Well, a few minutes later I was called into a meeting and was subjected to a complete fit of swearing & screaming at for about 10-15 minutes by a “I’m obviously in charge here” higher up (who was — let’s just say “not very popular” amongst some — or maybe most — employees I ever came in contact with).

About what? About that email, of course! — I mean, who would’ve guessed — all email was monitored. Clearly, there was a lot of trust here.

How the f*ck dare I say the (obviously unrealistic) schedule was unrealistic to 3 people in a private email! I was abusing my responsibilities as a Lead (how ironic)! It went on and on. I felt like I was being dressed down by a drill sergeant — I mean in the most realistic sense. I felt like I’d somehow been transported to the military at that moment.

So by trying to motivate my team to focus on their responsibilities and not watch funny Youtube videos or do things unrelated to work and by admitting something everyone in the studio already knew — I’d “questioned authority” and it was obviously an offensive gesture that made my superiors look bad.

And for that I was nearly fired on the spot for “appearing as if I questioned anyone senior to my position”.

Now, let me also state the original purpose of the meeting, in case anyone wants to question “events” — or if I come off sounding a bit too “clean” & “model employee” here…

The meeting was originally scheduled as a result of my team falling behind in the schedule. We were going to talk about why my team was behind — even though the obvious reason was that the area of the game that we’d been handed (Mexico) was the least developed and also in the worst shape of any (Guess who “built” it? — I’ll give you a hint — he was the fastest guy on the buildings team).

But he’s not the only reason we were behind. Mexico is very stylistically different from any other area in the game — we just didn’t have certain things worked out like other areas of the game. For example, we didn’t know how we were going to create decent looking terracotta roofs until I created them. And stucco — determining how that was going to be done within the constraints of our system was hell. Ultimately, it turned out looking great — I had nothing to do with that. In fact, I supported a different way of doing it.

In any case, somebody needed to be responsible for our team falling behind in the schedule! And clearly, as team lead, that was supposed to be me — and as silly as all of this seemed, I was ready to take responsibility for it.

Only I sent that email — and that changed everything.

Don’t get me wrong — I know how healthy hierarchies are supposed to work. I understand chain of command and I’ve even studied the 48 laws of power (I own the book) so I can recognize when they are being used. I know why certain information is best withheld from employees at certain times — and I know the value of respecting people’s positions.

I also understand the need to stay positive and not let negatively spread through a company. Focusing on solutions is much more productive than bitching about problems. But ignoring reality is also an issue — so I did clearly state that I thought the schedule was unrealistic in this case. And it obviously was.

But you cannot apply this situation at Rockst*r to other situations that are not rotten from the core.

Rather than being fired —

(They’d only a few months earlier given me — based on my performance and peer reviews — in their words: “the highest employee review and salary increase we can give” — “We don’t give “5′s” out of principle — no one can be perfect and we want people to try harder”. And that was a surprise — not because I didn’t think I deserved it, but because, um, well — I just don’t know how that happened.)

— I was immediately stripped of all responsibilities and made the equivalent of a “junior artist”, but with a Senior title. “But we won’t embarrass you by telling anyone what happened.” — Ha. Ok, so no one will notice that I’m no longer a team lead for 1/4 of the RDR world. Riiiiight.

Needless to say, this was the exact opposite of what I wanted. I’d wanted more responsibilities so that I could start making a positive difference in the workplace and help make people’s lives easier. Because it was hell for many. But that didn’t happen.

And who immediately took over my responsibilities as team lead? The junior artist who was hired on the same day as I was. To his credit, he really did a great job with what they handed him. In fact — I’ll admit it — he may have been a better person for that particular job than I was.

The irony is, when all my responsibilities were taken away from me, I just got to focus on production and work — and my “punishment” was actually a reward — it took me away from a lot of the craziness going on. So I came in to work, I created cool stuff for 12 hours — was mostly ignored. I didn’t even get invited to “Senior Artist” meetings about things that I had the most experience with or things that I’d actually been responsible for — and I went home.

So I rolled with the punches for as long as I could — but it became really difficult to ignore how ridiculous things were getting — not just for me, but for everyone. And I came to realize that I’d somehow been sucked into thinking that it was all somehow “ok”.

That is was “ok” for me to be working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week without compensation. That is was “ok” to be lied to and manipulated in the workplace. That it was “ok” to be spoken to by management as if you were child. That it was “ok” if management screamed at and abused people while their peers looked on (I wasn’t the only one). And that is was “ok” I was letting “real-life” pass me by as a result of all this.

It wasn’t “ok” — It was actually far from “ok”.

But it wasn’t until my boss took credit for my work — and politely argued with me about who had actually created it (I had the original documents on my desktop) — that I went back to my desk and started “cleaning” it — and then I realized I wasn’t cleaning it. I was packing.

I was pretty upset with him over that for a while — but I realize now he deserves my thanks — he pushed me out of hell.

And thank you Rockst*r. You taught me exactly how I don’t want to run a business or treat employees (or human beings) ever.

And thank you to all my great Rockst*r co-workers who gave me the 11 recommendations on linkedIn.

—

Excerpts from the letter released to news organizations on Jan 7, 2010 titled:

Wives of Rockstar San Diego employees have collected themselves

Admittedly, the way the letter was written clouded the intended message… but here are some of the more significant parts…

“The managers at Rockstar San Diego continue in their dishonesty, pushing their employees to the brink promising temporariness fully equipped with the knowledge of another deadline just around the corner. The reigns whip again, and it becomes mandatory to work close to twelve hours a day including Saturdays, regardless if an employee has finished all his duties prior.”

And…

“Initially, as work pressure in the office increases, so do the stress levels of employees. Recently, with the amount of stress that has been built up, there have been physical manifestations caused by stress making health a concern. It is known that some employees have been diagnosed with depression symptoms and at least one among them is acknowledged to have suicidal tendencies.”

And…

“Working harder, longer, faster, yet there was never a guarantee of a bonus nor if there was any earned, when they will be received! Moreover, bonuses could significantly be reduced based on anything management comes up with, while the employee would have no way to know about it. Thus bringing to light, the current Rockstar management has grown a thirst for power as it enables itself to grow in the Rockstar’s structure.”

A comment from someone at the studio in response to the article (which is spot on):

“Oh, how I wish I had written this, as its all true. It includes a bit, but not nearly the amount of detail it should. Where is the detail about people getting performance warnings for not working 11hrs+ a day?

The running joke is that donuts were taken away every other week (about $200 in savings per month), yet Rockstar flies in people from all the other studios (Vancouver, Leeds, Toronto, New England, etc..) and puts them up in a luxurious rental home, give them per-diem, and rent cars for them. At one point, it seemed like half the Leeds staff was in the San Diego studio!

How was Rockstar San Diego able to create great games like Table Tennis and Midnight Club, but suddenly they are utterly incapable of doing the simplest task without the help of people who have half their experience?

How about the temporary appointment of a new studio president who spent thousands at a time on drinking outings, only to give up the position after a few short months?

Please, someone explain why the profitable and very functional Midnight Club team was ripped apart, their technology thrown away (after Midnight Club Los Angeles), and everyone who wasn’t fired or quit was shoved onto a project that has been struggling for well over 4 years?

And why were the people who led said struggling project down its path of waste and destruction the ones who were promoted to lead the studio!?

R.I.P. Rockstar San Diego. You had a tremendous amount of talent. You destroyed the best of it first, firing many and forcing many others to quit with the actions outlined above. Now you’ve gone and made it so nobody still working there looks forward to the next work day.”

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Cartman86 said:

That opening was a joke. I mean it can't be anything else. Maybe him getting out of the way exactly what some will think of him

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Zizbuka said:

Why would anyone want to get in the game development biz?

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Zizbuka said:

Why would anyone want to get in the game development biz? Of all the jobs a comp related degree could get you, why would you choose this?

And if your reasoning is "I love to make games", then do it in your spare time and go indie.

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Coworkers that I talked to about it thought that the inefficiency was “great job security” because “we’d always have work to do“

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Nuclear Muffin said:

It's pretty obvious that the opening paragraph is sarcasm and its pretty obvious that this is real. It matches up with the Rockstar Wives story pretty much perfectly.

Mind you though, that comment about how he has 11 recommendations from Rockstar employees on LinkedIn is pretty foolish. He could be identified pretty easily...

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stuminus3 said:

So working for a videogame company is pretty much the same as working anywhere else?

I still don't get why people in this industry think they're special.

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Solo said:

I don't really care what working conditions were like - they delivered the best game of the year and that is all that matters from a consumer's point of view.

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Solo said:

I don't really care what working conditions were like - they delivered the best game of the year and that is all that matters from a consumer's point of view.

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Cartman86 said:

That opening was a joke. I mean it can't be anything else. Maybe him getting out of the way exactly what some will think of him

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stuminus3 said:

So working for a videogame company is pretty much the same as working anywhere else?

I still don't get why people in this industry think they're special.

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