This whole thread is weird. Most people here seem to have no idea how game development works at all. Or how businesses are run. There's literally no need to treat QA testers are some scum of the earth compared to the other devs on the team.
Oh come on man. Its not about treating people like "scum" its about accepting the fact that in a business hierarchy seniority tends to be rewarded with additional benefits.
Not getting priority parking and full access to every jolly does not make you a slave.
From the perspective of someone who worked in the business for years I can say the way development staff treat QA is mainly predicated on the fact that segregation is an important consideration in keeping the test process "blind" and firewalled off from contamination bred from personal animus or favoritism.
I'm sure most testers want to feel personally involved and valued, but the harsh reality is that the job is about functionality and performance validation. From the dev's end they just flag more work to be done, making QA is less of a friend and contributor than a sort of necessary evil. When you are looking at a database containing thousands of bugs you really don't want to personalize any part of it, because its all stick and no carrot!
Honestly though, I was reacting more to yet another piece of muck-raking yellow journalism from Schrier trading under a smokescreen of bogus altruism.
Why do you view being able to park in the "Normal" parking lot a perk? Why do you view being able to talk to any full-time employee in the hallways or at the water cooler a perk? Is it really a peak to be able to eat at the company picnic? How segregated are we to believe the average QA tester is at most video game companies? I'm willing to bet Activision (or at least this specific dev house) is at the bottom of quality care for their QA testers.
Except they are not Activision employees, they are Volt employees. Also Activision doesn't own the building so they have to rent that parking space. They are not going to give it to Volt employees. That would be nonsense. They probably don't control the AC in that building too, it's programmed by the building management company.
Why do you view being able to park in the "Normal" parking lot a perk? Why do you view being able to talk to any full-time employee in the hallways or at the water cooler a perk? Is it really a peak to be able to eat at the company picnic? How segregated are we to believe the average QA tester is at most video game companies? I'm willing to bet Activision (or at least this specific dev house) is at the bottom of quality care for their QA testers.
Doesnt matter the position on the company. They work for you, and they are persons like everybody else. Dont treat them like fucking slaves.
“When I started, I was told explicitly not to interact with members of QA, but instead to go directly to the QA leads for any questions that I may have,” said one Treyarch developer. “You could look at that as a way to funnel key information to the appropriate leads for members of the QA department so there aren’t any redundancies, or different people coming to different members of the team with the same request. But the explicit phrasing was that you were not supposed to interact with or talk to them. Which was very strange to me.”
1. I've seen people say this earlier in the thread and it's confusing to me. How small do you think these teams are? What's the likely hood that a QA tester is going to run into the exact person that works on collision detection, because he noticed it had some issues in the latest build? Like a QA tester can't just walk up to random person 145 on the team and expect that person to fix "issue A". That dev could be an artist that's working on all the villains. Or they could be the lead animator and have nothing to do with the broken AI in the game. So this reasoning makes zero sense to me.
2. Why do you feel it neccessary to treat QA testers like some sort of burger flippers at your local McDonalds? Some people get into game design through being a QA tester for a year or two. There's no reason to think they also didn't go to college. Why do you view QA testers are less valuable employees?
This whole thread is weird. Most people here seem to have no idea how game development works at all. Or how businesses are run. There's literally no need to treat QA testers are some scum of the earth compared to the other devs on the team.
I would imagine the conversation might go something like this:
Hey, I'm new here in QA. Are you a developer? What are you working on right now?
Oh yeah, I've been testing that. I don't really like what you did. Let me tell you how you should change it.
What's next?
Janitors upset they're not invited to the launch party?
In this situation, it just sounds like a manager will need to talk to the QA tester and remind him or her to not ask questions like "what are you working on". And to also not give direct feedback in such an informal way. And if they keep doing it they should be fired. But if this same QA tester asked this same developer......"How's your day going today", "You see the game last night", or "Did you get the new iPhone 11 last night" that should be 100% okay.
Do you really view janitors to be on the same level as QA testers?
Do you view janitors as less than QA testers? Why? I don't believe that it's right to disrespect anyone or treat them poorly because of their career or education level, I just don't view everyone not getting the same perks as some sort of disrespect or injustice.
.....the explicit phrasing was that you were not supposed to interact with or talk to them. Which was very strange to me.”
Testers shared anecdotes of only communicating with their developer colleagues through the bug-tracking software JIRA, or keeping friendships quiet so the company can’t find out and let them go.
Quoting epic post for added visibility.Saw the title, thought it would be Screech right away. Article source is always a background disgruntled employee or someone with emotive personal issues. Decorated with some unsubstantiated peripheral remarks. Fear of x with no statistics to back up the fear - still imagining he's on some virtuous crusade.
The human cost. THE HUMAN COST
So basically what happened here was the triumph of finishing a large scale project that likely took years by the development team. A team that went through the blood, sweat andpixelstears of getting a product in a shippable state (or at least ready for QA prior to shipping). An achievement that lacks all context and camaraderie unless you were part of the journey. When it got to this stage the development team wanted an extended celebratory lunch to blow off some steam. The extension to attend the celebration was extended to the QA team, who's work is just really starting. The invitation was for a short time and probably an effort to get everyone together.
Real world context: When an infrastructure team builds up a complex new platform like a large unified compute, the helpdesk don't get invited to the after work drinks.
Next, some bullshit about people are scared for their jobs because of certain things.
Where is this fear from Jason? How many QA testers have been fired or had early terminations on contracts in the last three years? We need context here.
Next, some bullshit about parking a little further away from the entrance
Jason, you're getting worse. Is the main car park for employee's only? Is there a cost for parking and is it garnished from their salary. Are contractor;s excluded from parking in the employee car park etc.
Next some bullshit about catered lunches for teams
Not every lunch is catered (except crunch?), so it's going to be for some milestone being hit, third parties in for the day or a big meeting with the bigwigs. What lunches are catered Jason? And yes, it's common when meetings take place and it is catered, any leftovers are offered to other departments or teams to avoid spoiling or waste.
Next the happy hour event has changed into a raging full on party halfway down the article.
Then he undermines his entire article by confirming the discrepancy in numbers between employees and large numbers of contractors.
Then the flourish of 'I spoke to all these people who wanted anonymity.'
This is interesting because any development house using JIRA will usually be working on sprint cycles so it needs to follow this specific way of working for the hotfix, fork and release management.
Basically it sounds like he's listened to a few office moans and concocted an entire 3 part mini series around it. Why anyone thinks these articles are anything other than self edifying, narcissistic clickbait is beyond me. It is below the level of things like The Express and Torygraph. It's below even the fucking Spectator in terms of craft and honesty. And to take them as the author intends means suspending all reasonable interpretation and intelligence.
Saw the title, thought it would be Screech right away. Article source is always a background disgruntled employee or someone with emotive personal issues. Decorated with some unsubstantiated peripheral remarks. Fear of x with no statistics to back up the fear - still imagining he's on some virtuous crusade.
The human cost. THE HUMAN COST
Do you really view janitors to be on the same level as QA testers?
This is a terrible attitude, and one of the reasons why games consistently launch in such awful states.I still agree with AV that testers aren't the same as the devs themselves though.
For Activision, yeah testing the games and then explaining what's good and bad about it in (in-depth) probably adds to the bottom line profit margin more than a janitor.
Doesnt matter the position on the company. They work for you, and they are persons like everybody else. Dont treat them like fucking slaves.
Comparing "having to walk 10 minutes to work" to slavery? Bro, you should write for Kotaku.
Comparing anything in that article to slavery is totally absurd. Your problem's the same as mckmas, you use hyperbolic language and straight make shit up to make the situation sound worse than it really is, observe:Nice cherry picking. Treating them like underclass employees, or understimating, or not valuing their work and efforts, and not even let them get some rest like the rest of workers, that is, forcing you to continue working while the rest is 'partying', is kind of slavish.
Hyperbole.'Hey, you are here to work, you are not allowed to have fun'.
Lie.not even let them get some rest like the rest of workers
I'm never opposed to reconsidering my opinions on a given topic, especially when given more information. I'm also a believer in the benefit of doubt, even for Activision, which is why I was defending them against the conclusions being made here.
I never read the article itself, but after hearing more details from Yong Yea's video, I agree that some of this is really wrong. Not allowing air-conditioning overnight seems especially messed up. That's just something that would create a miserable work environment. I didn't even reach the point of the video where Yong gives his opinion yet, and I honestly thought going in that I'd disagree with him, but hearing the rest of the details is changing my mind.
I could have done without the "barbaric" hyperbole in the thread title, though.
I think this boils down to a very simple but prolific problem with today's youth in the west. They have been given a false view through their education system about what workplaces are like. They have expectations and an inflated view of themselves and from that don't see why they should have to put in the years/decades of hard work climbing up corporations and bettering themselves and their skill sets in order to achieve things.
QA tester wants the same perks as a Senior level Programming Lead with a PHD in Physics, it's pure delusion.
One of the most common complaints I heard from lower-level Treyarch staffers was that despite putting in night after night and weekend after weekend, they were rarely allowed to offer creative input on the game.