Pretty much. It's disgusting.
yeah man when i think douchebags i think people calling out unethical workplace practices
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Ryse crunching team served 11,500 dinners by ship date #rysefacts
- Thread starter Wario64
- Start date
Yeah, I'm not surprised though.
Right now studios are trying to walk the line of work/life balance to avoid unionization.
A lot of AAA studios get nice bonuses (if they aren't laid off at the end of the project), which helps somewhat, too.
SAG wants voice actors to get royalties, though, and I think if that happens it'll be the straw that breaks the camel's back. I think pretty much the entire industry will be up in arms if voice actors start getting royalties when most devs don't.
And Hollywood-style royalties don't rely on you currently being employed at the place, and follow you around. Which those bonuses I mentioned before should do, too.
SAG's idea of voice actors getting royalties when developers don't is hilarious btw. They've wanted it for years. So laughable. They go to end of the line. Right before Design, Engineering, Art, Production and Test get theirs.
Yeah, they didn't get it in this last round of negotiations, but you know they're going to keep pushing for it.
So, the studio can fire you after you complete a game and not have to pay your bonuses? And this is a common practice?
PeakPointMatrix
Member
This is so stupid. All studios crunch. It's unavoidable. Even your precious Naughty Dogs and Valves. From TV, to movies to animation, crunch at an entertainment company is just a fact of life, it's guaranteed. Do you know how many studios don't even feed their employees during crunch? The fact that Crytec is feeding them means their also getting overtime, which means their employees will have a nice fat wallet by the end of this, which is much better than the norm, believe me. They should be getting praise for this.
They'll never get it.
Dr. Kitty Muffins
Member
Have they worked most of the bugs out of the game? If not, delay it a bit and maybe these people wont have to crunch so hard.
Steve Youngblood
Member
Hurling insults of "faux outrage" at those who disapprove of long crunch times in development is such disingenuous nonsense. For that matter, if I never saw the word "outrage" used ever again as a rhetorical ploy to describe criticism some disapprove of, I'd be very happy.
SneakyStephan
Banned
haha wut
OT: I hope they're actually getting paid for the overtime...
Boy it sure is nice to live in a country that still has unions.
Sounds like I'm gloating but I genuinly feel sorry for the people who have to deal with this, even if they are making ryse.
I don't have an ounce of pity for the people who defend this shit though, you guys go work yourselves to death for all I care.
Marty Chinn
Member
Well one problem is everyone wants to get into game development but there are so few positions available. Unfortunately, most people are easily replaceable so the thought of a union will just have people get dropped for people who won't unionize.
Most people doing this are doing it for the love of the industry and are willing to work extra hours and make less money to work here. I'm fortunate to have a great company who doesn't like crunch. Also since we contract out, we bill hourly which means the company who contracts us usually doesn't want to pay the extra for OT. So we usually avoid working extra.
No it doesn't. I feed my employees catered meals when we do overtime. Doesn't mean I pay them overtime.
All studios crunch, but some way less than others. We try to be very active about crunch.
But yes. Naught Dog crunches their faces off on Uncharted and Last of Us. It's nuts.
Angry Fork
Member
The anti-worker tirades in here are stunning. LOLOLOL EVERYONE DOES CRUNCH TIME. The point is that they shouldn't.
Unions, unions, unions. Once devs begin to organize they can get some control of their life back. Can't wait for it to happen, but there will inevitably be tons of shithead "fans" and forum dwellers that will chastise them for it.
Unions, unions, unions. Once devs begin to organize they can get some control of their life back. Can't wait for it to happen, but there will inevitably be tons of shithead "fans" and forum dwellers that will chastise them for it.
Yeah, it's a common practice - they treat it as a perk of employment, not a reward for the work you did.
It happened to friends of mine at EA, Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica, etc.
Doc Holliday
SPOILER: Columbus finds America
I bet most people responding are actual devs. Most fanboys have this idea that game development is a glamorous profession, it can be but crunch sucks ass! Esp if you're not getting paid for it and there is a good chance of layoffs after the game ships.
PeakPointMatrix
Member
I guess I've been lucky at the places I've worked at. Then again, different industry.
KaiserBecks
Member
Again: Do we know which team is actually handling the crunch time? People keep referencing American law, German law is different.
That's complete bullshit. Being fed dinner is in no way any indication they're getting overtime pay and I guarantee you they're not getting any.
They'll probably get a bonus in a few month's time after the game is out and has earned some money, but that could be anything from the equivalent $250 to perhaps a few thousand.
Being a contractor seems like a better deal than being a in-house employee. At least you have a contract that guarantees things like bonuses and OT.
You do realize that programmers and a good chunk of artists are salaried and don't get overtime right? These 30 hours are just cut right out of their home life.
Jackson gets it right.
As a software engineer, I agree with the tone of the tweets. I work hard, and take pride in my work. As an employer if you're having to enforce constant "crunch time" to get work done with employees that are salaried, there's a problem in your process. I can't speak for working in the game industry, but I know if that were ever expected of me, I would quit and find another job. By having time to refresh and go home spend time with my family I actually work better and more efficiently.
If there's some guaranteed monetary incentive or bonus tied to it, fine I understand. Otherwise that practice does not belong in the software industry.
Steve Youngblood
Member
This isn't a good argument.
Most people don't want unions because they could destroy the entire industry if left unchecked.
The industry relies on crunch at major studios, it relies on cheap as possible budgets. RoIs are slim.
Unions would tank so many publishers and studios.
I'm ok with that.
Just stating why its hard to rally people to the cause of unions.Doc Holliday
SPOILER: Columbus finds America
This is not true! Before the EA wives lawsuit, a company in california could get away with not paying OT, providing you with dinner has nothing to do with it.
No, most don't get overtime pay at all.
Gentleman Jack
Member
The duration of game industry crunch is what figures into the 'disgusting' judgment. A commonplace meatgrinder is still a meatgrinder. Given the common responses in this thread it's perfectly clear that most consumers don't care and will just take the video games anyway, so I concede that it's unrealistic to hope for change. Nevertheless it doesn't seem right when criticism of the tweet is interpreted as misguided or ignorant. The tweet does not represent something to celebrate.
Is this a joke post?
Angry Fork
Member
Flat out lie. Workers at certain companies have no say in the dev process. If they did it would be avoidable. Are 80 hour weeks unavoidable? 60 hours? Did the sacrifices people made back in the day for a 40 hour work week suddenly disappear? I don't understand you people.
It's all about context. People are getting up in arms about a social media intern who made a silly comment. The 'faux' part comes with people who are willing to yell on twitter but don't try to affect change in the real world. In many legitimate struggles, if you want something changed you have to stand up and do something about it. A lot of people think they can shout their opinion on twitter and that's good enough.
That being said, if the 'faux rage' comments bother you, then look to what causes those. Miss-communication? Ignorance? Then provide knowledge for people to understand. Posting mad comments on twitter will most likely just make people laugh at you for getting upset.
Those are my opinions on the matter anyway.
Most people don't want unions because they could destroy the entire industry if left unchecked.
The industry relies on crunch at major studios, it relies on cheap as possible budgets. RoIs are slim.
Unions would tank so many publishers and studios.
I'm ok with that.
I think I'd be OK with this...although I don't know how my studio would adapt, at the moment.
Maybe if it was contingent on the size of the studio, i.e. studios over 50 employees unionize, etc.
But, yeah, the industry needs to figure out how to function at all without relying on overtime. It just incentivizes poor management and planning, which I would also argue leads to worse product.
A friend of mine at Blizzard told me that they've actually started pretty much paying everyone hourly and giving overtime because they realized their free-wheeling culture was costing them in focus and ancillary costs. They basically want to know what their games actually cost to make, to reign in the schedules and improve management.
I'm Canadian and it's hourly. I do understand that it piss some people off to do annual pay and overtime but most of the time they warn you that overtime is common and that it's reflected in the salary.
All my friends work low level jobs right now because they want to hang out with friends when they can and always complain about the job they have. I dont. I work 28 days straight (no weekend), 10-14 hours a day (more if the day shift do not show up). Then I have 28 days off. I do the kind of job other people refuse to do, and so I get more hours, more overtime and a bigger pay.
I'm saving to be able to buy a house right now.
Askherserenity
Member
Woah, this tweet went pretty viral pretty fast. Anything even remotely close to the Xbone is cursed pretty much.
Let not get crazy and start praising a company for providing the minimum amount of compensation for forcing their employees to miss family time and work late. The companies that don't give their employees food should be shamed instead. Even if crunch time is the 'reality' of the entertainment industry that is a pretty poor argument to keep the status quo.
Bony Manifesto
Member
But wouldn't that make your posts faux-outrage about faux-outrage?
GrizzleBoy
Banned
I agree.
My personal problem is that not a single person has been able to apply any context to their anger in this specific case.
Because they don't know the context.
There are people going on and on about no OT pay when one of the people upset posted a source where Yerli himself stated that the people who spent three months crunching on Crysis 2 got "huge compensation" for doing so.
Everyone is making their own hypothetical/anecdotal argument.
Where are the facts please?
Crunch isn't a symptom of poor planning or management. It's a symptom of small ROIs. Publishers demand blood from stones, so they get studios to sign up for the impossible.
If they don't, someone else will.
Game X really would take 3 years, do it in 2!
You could argue that "poor planning" is due to the leads not knowing what the game is, but again publisher doesn't want to give enough creative time to find that out.
It's all back to ROI.
Angry Fork
Member
Or both, and the socioeconomic system that creates and encourages all of it.
Marty Chinn
Member
For me, I'm both, so it kinda works great. With contract work, the problem is having lined up work after a project ends. Having a lull means no money coming in and then there could be layoffs. On the other hand, being a full time employee means I don't stop getting paid while we're searching for a new contact. Currently I'm working on an internal project while other people are working on a contract, so it's nice.
It's kinda interesting to see how much money is spent on contractors sometime. One game the publisher flew out our team to NY for up to a month and paid for us being out there, our hotel, food expenses, gave us dinner ever night (which was pretty good each night), paid for OT because they wanted us to work more than 40 hours, paid for laundry which was friggin expensive doing it at the hotel, and so forth. We still got one day off a week to do whatever so it was kind of a paid trip to NY. I'm sure despite looking at the high cost, it was a drop in the bucket for the total budget.