[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 its 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 Id 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 arent my rules, this is just how it typically is) and Vigil didnt. That was odd.
It certainly wasnt 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 isnt out of touch with its employees.
And honestly, I really just thought that this (and the other things) was their way of showing they werent interested so I didnt 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 hasnt 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 theyd said all the right things (I shouldve known better).
I was hoping Id 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 didnt 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 wasnt sure I wanted to gamble on waiting to get an offer from Rockst*r. To be honest, Id sent my resume to a bunch of places and had already been interviewing for a couple of months. I figured that Id 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 Id 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 wasnt.
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 dont think about because they are never an issue they just sort of happen at other places. Its customary for someone to watch out for new employees to make sure theyre comfortable and that they have a clue whats going on.
Heck, team bonding is usually an important (and recommended) part of bringing new people on board at most places Ive 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 whats 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, theyre both 3D software that doesnt 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 werent 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 whod 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 Id 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, Id 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 didnt have the right perspective. I really hadnt been there that long. Theres no way its really this bad and I liked the paycheck and the fact I was working for Rockst*r-Effin-Games! Yeah Ill 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 didnt get along and really didnt 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 didnt know, I found a way to track them down. I came to find out these guys were pretty damn cool! In fact, thats 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 havent 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 wasnt 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 whod been there longer than I had didnt 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. Shouldnt 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. Id 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 Id 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 didnt 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, its 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 Ive 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 hed 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 hes very fast, thats just how he works. When I pointed out that he wasnt producing work using the same standards as everyone else, I was told yes, but hes 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) wouldnt even have been hired as interns at other companies Id worked at. Im not exaggerating.
Coworkers that I talked to about it thought that the inefficiency was great job security because wed 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 wasnt 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, itd be easier to rebuild that than to work with whats there. The response I often got was, Well, if its ok with Design.
Im not sure anyone ever expected it to be ok with Design building artists and Design didnt get along, remember? except, well we did. Clearing something with Design was often as simple as Hey, Im 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 Im making changes?
Yeah, that was easy and one of the more rewarding parts of my job.
It really wasnt 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 thats 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 didnt seem to have an issue with it (yet) hell, they were happy to be working at Rockst*rEffingGames! (just like I was initially) its AWESOME!
Some people that I spoke to about it told me, It doesnt get any better than this anyway all game studios have their sh*t theres no sense in looking elsewhere. Even though their only experience at a gaming studio was the one they were working at theyd 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 wouldve been a great comedy from a viewers perspective, Im sure. Sadly, it was real-life and hell for a lot of people people talked about wanting to leave, but couldnt 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 didnt 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 didnt not mean what they typically meant at other places and they did not come with the same level of power.
And Ill 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 shouldve 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.
Whats 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 wasnt.