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Rockstar Employees Badly Overworked, Say Wives
juicegg writes "Wives of Rockstar Games employees in San Diego recently published an open letter on their Gamasutra blog. The authors say that Rockstar employees are seriously strained by unending crunch periods of 12-hour work days and 6-day weeks. High levels of stress are leading to serious psychological and physical problems for some of the employees. They charge that studio management uses arbitrary, deceptive and manipulative practices to get employees to work more unpaid overtime hours at greater intensity — despite over $1 billion in Grand Theft Auto revenue. Among the blog comments, some current and past Rockstar employees are confirming problems with the studio. 'Ex Rocker' writes: 'What makes R* crunch periods different then any other studio is that they tell you the game has to be finished in 6 months, so let's start our final push to get this awesome game out there! 6 months turns into 1 year, 1 year turns into 2.' Other comments reveal worker hopelessness and general mismanagement at the San Diego studio. This turmoil is affecting development on upcoming games as well."
Read on for responses from Rockstar itself and other members of the industry.
An anonymous reader adds, "Everyone is talking about the fact Rockstar Games has addressed the accusations that it has forced developers at Rockstar San Diego into unpaid overtime to finish imminent titles. But I've noticed that a former GTA3/Manhunt designer (Chris Kruger) has a comment in this piece published Thursday about crunch in studios, suggesting the problem goes beyond Rockstar San Diego and is company-wide.
He says in Develop's Jury-style debate that the damage caused by excessive overtime can upend the out-of-work relationships developers have: 'Crunch is totally damaging, but much more so to the individuals involved. An almost failed marriage in my case. To the company the cost of crunch is very hard to define but any benefit at all is easy to measure. That's why it's such an easy decision to make for most companies. Unless there is a push back and the cost is made clear, it won't change. In my view self regulation doesn't work, and the only real solution is external regulation or utter agreement from the vast majority of staff on how to approach the matter.'
There's no easy way around the topic, but crunch is clearly damaging. When will the management at game studios address this troubling issue properly?"
He says in Develop's Jury-style debate that the damage caused by excessive overtime can upend the out-of-work relationships developers have: 'Crunch is totally damaging, but much more so to the individuals involved. An almost failed marriage in my case. To the company the cost of crunch is very hard to define but any benefit at all is easy to measure. That's why it's such an easy decision to make for most companies. Unless there is a push back and the cost is made clear, it won't change. In my view self regulation doesn't work, and the only real solution is external regulation or utter agreement from the vast majority of staff on how to approach the matter.'
There's no easy way around the topic, but crunch is clearly damaging. When will the management at game studios address this troubling issue properly?"
This is the same situation as in the American Biotech industry. Most companies are small with high burn rates and the whole industry is built around squeezing every bit of time and energy out of employees and then discarding them. Its easy to just say, "Get another job" but its not always that easy. Some of us have friends and family that we actually like to see and living the gypsy lifestyle moving from one job location to another doesn't make that easy on friends, family or children. Furthermore, some of us got where we are by being specialized, and once discarded its not easy or quick to find the next...
"DENIAL"-How an optimist keeps from becoming a pessimist- \ \
Yes, there is.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Very interesting.
While I certainly can't describe my own city as vividly as you, I wouldn't recommend Phoenix either. It used to be a nice, laid-back town, but it's really gone to the dogs in the past decade, and just seems to be turning into a gigantic ghetto. It also seems to be completely full of scammers and low-lifes, and I suspect this has something to do with the education level being very low. Not coincidentally, it's the car-theft capital of the nation. A lot of the tech jobs seem to be leaving too, except for the ones at defense contractors, which are NOT fun places to work unless you like filling out time sheets to account for every 6-minute block of time in your day and charge it to the right government contract, and you don't mind being absolutely required to be back from lunch at 1PM sharp, every single day.
In your opinion, what are some better places to live? I've been thinking a lot about moving to Portland, Oregon. It seems to be pretty nice up there, with more educated people and plenty of good tech jobs.