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The Dark Side of Making L.A. Noire
JameskPratt writes "Long-time readers have no illusions of how awful the video game industry can treat its workers. Eleven ex-employee of Team Bondi, who made LA Noire, have now cited 60- to 110-hour work weeks, unusual compensation rules, and the 7-year development cycle as reasons for frustration and discontent. They claim their boss, Brendan McNamara, crushed office morale with verbal abuse and unreasonable goals. As the saying goes, the two things you don't want to see being made are law and video games."
The International Game Developers Association will be investigating the matter.
Asshole bosses and ridiculous work hours? In the software industry? Say it ain't so!
This seems to be the standard at Rockstar games, wasnt this the same with Red Dead Redemption. Probably one of the reasons
why Rockstar closed its vienna office, they could not get away with such abuse there, due to the strong labor laws.
the three hours I spent on duke nukem are lost forever.
-- Flame me and I will happily flame you back. Bring it!
... at least, this matches my experience at an Australian game development company. At least we didn't have to suffer this for seven years before shipping, though.
Sure enough, after shipping, the company lost 70% of their coders and they were reduced to producing shallow clones of their original (good) game.
The game industry is, basically, sick.
You knew the job was dangerous when you took it Fred.
These days is anyone surprised that working for a games company is something that's best done by the young and unattached? And asshole bosses exist everywhere. Learn from the experience and move on. From all accounts I've seen, you guys produced a pretty darn awesome game.
G.
The problem is that it's destructive to society. There is a halo to the Film and Game Industries. They seem like they're super exciting and people invest a lot of time and money on training to be able to get a job doing it--and then a year in discover that the reality of 10 100 hour weeks back to back is very different than the idea of it.
So yes, they do eventually quit. And a whole new batch of young and naive fools fall into the meat grinder. The normal market forces where you run out of talent just don't exist.
Another problem is expectation. As it said in TFA most of these people were told it was a 12 month job and that they would get bonuses/overtime if they stuck around to the finish. You get into the Gambler's fallacy pretty quick. "I've already put in 6 months. I can tough out another 6 for a huge fat bonus." And then 12 months promised turns into 5 years so they quit having put in longer than they had hoped but gotten less than promised.
The real tragedy is that it doesn't need to be that way. As was pointed out in multiple interviews with ex-staff you have huge waste. You don't have to run a 24/7 crunch for 8 years. That's just poor management excusing their incompetence. I've seen it before many times. The leadership treats the people as dispensable. The people quit. They fall behind. They treat the next people like shit. They quit. They fall further behind. If they had paced themselves at the beginning and been honest that they couldn't match their deadlines then ultimately they would be more productive and finish sooner. But they also have the publisher breathing down their neck and they know that admitting to needing a 100% larger budget will end the project. Asking for 10 10% extensions to not "let the work done so far go to waste so far" keeps their death spiral alive.
Eventually the game gets released. Eventually if it's halfway decent it'll probably make its money back. The whole fucking fiasco looks like it was the right decision and they do it all over again.
They are the sort that bang their heads against wall and whine about headache.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
The first time somebody pulled something like that I would find them alone and tell them point blank that I'm not going to take that. Ever.
The second time I would pull my prepared letter of resignation out of my desk, sign and date it, and hand it to him right in front of everybody.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Blah blah want to get in the industry blah blah need a job blah blah. If he was hired at a gaming company he's got the resume to get a job doing something different.
Being treated reasonably is not something I'm willing to give up. You know that "Animal House" initiation scene? "Thank you sir, may I have another!" Well, if they keep doing that to you after pledge week it's time to quit the fraternity.
Every time I hear a sob story like this, I can't help but wonder why employees tolerate this kind of abuse. If the job is going to shit, LEAVE! If you have any saleable skills, you can take them elsewhere. I'm not saying they need to unionize, but almost... If game developers stood shoulder-to-shoulder and said no to hostile work environments, the industry would be forced to adapt. It sounds very much like these people are afraid to say no. You'll say "but what about the house" ? Fuck the house! What good is a house when you spend every waking moment at work, eating advil by the handful ? Fuck the house, and fuck the job. You have better things to do in life than pad some greedy sociopath's stock options.
Conversely, if Rockstar needs 110 man-hours a week for every coder, they should hire 2 extra coders to meet the demand. If that breaks the budget, fuck the project, it's an unprofitable project. If it can't be profitable while adhering to reasonable work conditions and timelines, then it should not be undertaken in the first place. If a guy called me tomorrow and said he wanted a Facebook killer for $50, I'd cheerfully invite him to die in a fucking fire. No, scratch that, I'd go to his house and beat him to death with a Chia Pet for even proposing such a ridiculous venture. Game devs need to learn to do the same thing. Democracy only works if you have the brass balls to stick to your guns.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Apparently it didn't work. Wisdom says treat your employees badly, and they'll do shoddy work. What happened after several years of poor product management, treating employees like dirt, Rockstar had to seriously cleanup a lot of the code, which is why the game was delayed. Rough stuff.
As a programmer that makes me feel happy. I like to hear that their is an advantage to treating employees well.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Making games has to be one of the most barbaric, ass-backwards forms of software development. The worst crunch times, the longest hours, the greediest publishers, and the most amateur media covering it all. Other entertainment mediums such filmmaking or writing have veterans who keep creating for decades, but the game industry burns out its stars and drives them away; e.g., Will Wright.
Based on just the stuff in the linked articles I do have to wonder why the employees didn't seek legal advice and pursue constructive dismissal action. I fucking would have.
You cant move coding offshore for game development. You can do it for generic software/website/enterprise system which is brain dead boiler plate coding for some huge bank that they can milk for maintenance contracts. But making a game requires very rapid prototyping, a huge variety of technical skills, creativity and honestly? a bit of love. Knowing what you are making and being passionate about it will be lost when transferring code oversees where there are no designers and no beta testers to fix it. How can u explain a level or gameplay mechanic through a requierment spec?
India is already a source for artwork for games and film but programming? no way. I know, ive looked for jobs here (a lot of art studios) and there are very few end to end game studios.
What if you actually want to have that game on your resume, because it might help your career in the long term? How much would an employee tolerate for that?
Back in the 80s we worked 60 hour weeks then the pace picked up. The last time I can remember working a 110 hours a week Bush was still President. Since then the pace has picked up even more.. My eldest was starting high school when we started the last project. My wife says she starts college in the Fall. I hope to see her before she graduates but we will be at deadline so I may not be able to make her graduation. I've asked for time off for her wedding but since she isn't even dating it's hard to lock down a date. Since I'm working on the next installment of Duke Nuke Em I'm hoping to have a day off when the release date is announced but my grandkid's graduation from high school may have to happen without me. They say that if the demo version goes well we can of Christmas Day 2020 off but I don't like to get my hopes up. Sorry but I need to get back to making tiling textures. We're shooting for an Alpha by Spring 2015 but it's not likely. My supervisor says I can take a sick day in 2014 so I'm pushing for New Years Eve but half our team is asking for a sick day New Years Eve 2014 so I'm not likely to get it. On the bright side I still get my extra day off leap year in February but once we hit deadline we can kiss that day goodbye.
They're young, naive, and afraid of rocking the boat.
I think the main complaint about "unusual compensation" was that they were expected to work huge amounts of overtime, but weren't paid for it unless they stuck with the project until 3 months after it's release date ; this pretty much encourages management to treat people like shit so they will leave and forfeit their (huge) overtime bill.
I hardly think it's "prima donna" to expect to work the time you are contracted for, get paid for your overtime, and have the truth told to you by management (unlike one guy who worked 3 x 100 hour weeks back to back to meet a deadline for a press demo release that never occurred, and was probably just a fabrication to get shitloads of work out of him). Most of these guys are not coders either - the majority of work effort on a game like this is content production.
And as for the Ferraris? To date, LA Noire has sold 1.94 million copies on combined PS3 and Xbox360 sales, on the back of 5 weeks of sales. With a used Ferrari running to about $300,000 I think they could afford a few.
You pay peanuts, you get monkey's. And in India they won't fall for the glamor of working for a US company, they care only about the money.
I have seen game projects shipped to India from the EU. They still ain't up and running.
One thing to remember, the people working in the coding factories in India and China are NOT the brightest minds. Not because they are Indian or Chinese but because the brightest of China and India got better options.
Why do you think creative content has not yet been shipped abroad? Why do you think Hollywood and its million dollar actors and multi-billion directors have not been completly replaced by cheap asian productions? Japanimation tried and failed (anime doesn't count, it is horribly expensive and produced now in a country with just as high if not higher labour costs as the west). The simpsons is animated with cheap labour but only the boring part, the actual content is still from the US.
It sounds so easy to offshore, go ahead try it yourself. I make my living from recovering the disaster and if you think hiring a US team of developers is expensive, you haven't seen my bills. (If you can stand the bad code, being a project saver is a good way to make a living wihere you don't always have to be on the cutting edge of tech competing with the young kids).
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Now that's a retarded gamble. Why would you possibly want "that game" on your resume before it's made? It could turn out to be an industry laughing stock, and even if you did a great job on your part, it would be a stain on your resume if you included it. If an employee "tolerates" those conditions for that, they deserve it.
This is about standing on principles, not about betting against the house in misguided longshots at success.
and those that arent, know the someone else whos young and naive will take their place. Or you want the credit. Or you want to make teh game, and are so emotionally invested in it taht you just... have to do it.
Great, so you get a reputation for working on projects that later come up in the news for how much you were walked over because you didn't want to rock the boat. Any employer would be happy to see that on your CV.
Additionally, I think "I left that HUGE project to pursue other ventures" would be interpreted correctly by anyone who's heard the horror stories about such places, and actually proves you have balls and care about your career whereas "Yeah, I worked on that horror-story project and got nothing to show for it" doesn't have the same effect.
Additionally - if you're doing something "just for your resume (CV)", then your employers will hate you, your colleagues will hate you and, eventually, people who read your CV will laugh at you. I don't think I've *ever* done anything just to put it on my CV. Hell, I actually leave more out of my CV than most people would put in - it's just not necessary and doesn't make that big a difference - a quiet confidence, well-written CV and the *ability* to demonstrate industry experience is a million times more important than "Oh, yeah, I was vaguely associated with Project X at some point in my life", especially if you have ZERO idea how well that project will turn out (e.g. Daikatana, DNF, etc. - I would deliberately REMOVE those from my CV if I were associated with them).
After being in a couple of startups on both ends of the org chart, I am constantly surprised by one simple thing - bosses don't appear to understand that the incentives of their employees are not the same as their own. Here we have McNamara talking about his employees only worked the same work week as he did, but why should they do even that? He presumably owns this game studio and stands to make a lot of money from a successful product. He is completely invested in this product, so its hardly surprising that it trumps almost any other priority in his life - health, family, entertainment, none of that matters to him as much as this product succeeding and making money.
His employees, though? They make fixed income, they are unlikely to have stocks in the studio, and at worst the product will fail and they will have to get a new job. So why should they neglect their lives for a product in which they have so little personal stake? Either give them some financial incentive, or accept that any of them who do share your passion for your product are loyal above the call of duty and treat them appropriately well.
If only there was some sort of way the employees could group together to increase their bargaining power with employers to avoid these situations.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
If workers want to have a say in their conditions and want to retain the value of what they produce without bosses and investors taking most of it away in profits, than we need to organize a union. The time is long overdue for an IT industry union.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
And why *shouldn't* you unionize? It's not like a programmer is a top of the line job nowadays. It doesn't pay that badly, but I would not advise anybody to take on the job if they have the skills to be a lawyer, banker etc. I've been treated pretty badly by my current company (try working with a 30 year old airco if you are allergic), and I'm now joining the union because of it.
I'm a developer, but I'm trying to move on while staying somewhat on the technical side of things.
Well lets sum it up, very prominent gaming company, people hired fresh out of college who dont know better. The funny thing is that if you dont do crunchtime then people are usually more productive than by such crunchtime death marches (face it people can die over such work ethics there is even a japanese word for it)
After 5-6 hours of coding the productivity goes down the gutters and after 8 hours you wont get any decent results anymore. Managers who dont know that either never worked as coders or are just plainly ruthless so that they can show the management the working hours.
I am pretty sure it would have taken the game 1-2 years less to produce if Rockstar games would have stuck to labor laws and rules.
In the end no one wins by such work ethics.
I had an internship that certainly taught me a lot but burned me out. I was in college and I would work up to 70 hour weeks. I went a few months with no weekend; my days off were class days. Occasionally I didn't sleep for a couple days. My girlfriend nearly broke up with me. I cut off most of my friends and roommates. I hated programming for 6 months afterwards and hated my life for quickly hurling me towards graduation with a compsci degree.
I've recovered and resparked my passion, but never again. Not playing the bitch role and throwing everything away for money. Not going into debt because you overextend yourself due to spending money you think you have but isn't in your hands. Not going into debt because buying shit is the only fun thing you can do anymore and you mistake your new grown-up-ish salary with endless riches.
Starting a new job in a few days. Now the stakes are higher. Real life. Leased apartment. Bills. Utilities. Let's cross our fingers; these guys seem cool so that is good :) But I can sympathize with the nightmare that is endless work weeks for months, maybe a break promised but nope we need you this weekend so sorry come in at 9 I hope you don't have homework
If only there was some sort of way the employees could group together to increase their bargaining power with employers to avoid these situations.
If you consistently work over 40 hours a week your employer must compensate you for it even if you're salaried.
The problem isn't that they aren't unionized, the problem is they're too chickenshit to stand up to their boss, or to take the time and effort to report labor violations to the Wage and Labor commission. If the employees demanded the compensation they are already legally entitled to, and go to the proper authorities if it isn't provided, then the problem would solve itself rapidly when the boss realizes he's paying more in OT than he'd pay for doubling his staff size.
That pretty much encapsulates the whole problem neatly there. It might also be a good descrition of the internal environment of many web 2.0 companies.
Conversely, if Rockstar needs 110 man-hours a week for every coder, they should hire 2 extra coders to meet the demand. If that breaks the budget, fuck the project, it's an unprofitable project. If it can't be profitable while adhering to reasonable work conditions and timelines, then it should not be undertaken in the first place.
Shorter work weeks or hiring more coders to do the work will likely make the project more profitable, not less. I can't believe for a moment that prolonged 60-110 hour work weeks are really more productive than a 40 hour work week. Of course, the first week of crunch you get a bit more work out of your people, but it comes at a cost. Soon, productivity will drop despite the extra hours. Demanding more hours will just tire them even more. A healthy, well-rested work force is far more productive.
One or two weeks of crunch before a real actual deadline can work, but after that, you'd better give them a week off to rest. If you can't afford to give them a week off, it's not worth it to demand that amount of overtime.
Considering these stories, it doesn't surprise me at all that LA Noire took 7 years. I bet a competent development house could do it for half the cost in less than half the time.
I know a few people that work in the industry in the UK and their stories horrify me. Not so much the hours - they do work reasonable hours but that probably Euro law kicking in - more the stupid shenannigans the publishers pull. So many games have been coming along nicely then the publisher's marketing people start demanding wholesale changes, killling the game's playability.
They also pull stunts like demanding a rewrite on an impossible deadline then use the failure to deliver it on time as a reason to cancel the contract.
There also seems to be a trend to make dev teams redundant just before Christmas as the development houses finish the game for Christmas but can't keep ticking over waiting for the revenue so end up folding. He's lost his job 6 times as 5 were in November. Happy Christmas.
All jobs have good and bad but the games industry seems particularly badly run on the suits side by people that just don't get the end product and just know SKUs.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Is anyone curious about acting out the association's investigation L.A. Noire style?
McNamara: "Do you think that I'm going to voice my opinion? Absolutely. But I don't think that's verbal abuse." *shifts eyes*
Cole: "Screaming is verbal abuse, and we've got vivid testimony from 11 of your coworkers saying you did just that! Now stop lying!"
You learn very quickly how not to develop software: deluded, unrealistic, underfunded expectations from the get-go; lies, concealment, finger pointing and circling the wagons in every tiny fiefdom; turds eternally rolling downhill; perpetually moving goalposts; two-jobs-for-the-salary-of-one; demanding that each fresh noob immediately picks the job of the burned out vet that they're replacing; and beatings that will continue until morale improves.
But hey, that one Saturday back in 2007, when we only worked 10 hours and then had pizza? Dude, that was awesome.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Since the game isnt that great, I suppose you can say that Team Bondi wasted a long term oportunity with Rockstar, since a bad work environment usually affects initiative and creativity, crucial to develop a game beyond "meh".
Why not an axe?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Now that's a retarded gamble. Why would you possibly want "that game" on your resume before it's made? It could turn out to be an industry laughing stock, and even if you did a great job on your part, it would be a stain on your resume if you included it.
Having something to show is much better than not having anything. And the pros who have a lot of CV material already probably also have the experience to recognize a bad working environment and get out quick.
Also, finishing the current project before switching jobs demonstrates that you have (at least once had) capability of actually completing things. There are enough people in the world who lack that (and they usually blame it on "stuff outside their control").
A company I worked for in the past had some crunch times but abandoned the idea after we lost more time to debugging than we gained with the extra work hours.
The problem seems to be that many managers think of tech work as just like an assembly line and have no idea of the actual work involved.
Nothing in LA Noire was particularly fun to do. The chase scenes were tedious, the clue hunting was boring and monotonous (this coming from a guy who loves adventure games), and the inability to retry things and skip through dialog just made the conversations painful and annoying.
In fact everyone I've talked about it tends to agree. The problem with the game is there's no fun in it. Nothing to look forward to, or ever care about.
Reading this article, at least now I know why.
You can do it for generic software/website/enterprise system which is brain dead boiler plate coding for some huge bank that they can milk for maintenance contracts.
Actually it usually doesn't work at all, except for very, very standardized processes (i.e. credit card processing). I have never seen a successful software implementation, where the software was created by off shoring. It's just impossible to create specs, which are so specific that there's absolutely no ambiguity. In addition: domain knowledge is basically non-existent in offshore coding sweat shops.
Example needed? Our awesome time reporting system. I just know what one line of the spec said:
Must be able to enter hours
That's exactly what you can do. Unfortunately you're not able to enter minutes or even fractions of an hour.
I totally agree with you. I just wanted to point out that it's actually worse.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Honestly, reminds me of some lab i have seen up to now.
Far too many programmers want to be "game programmers". All will tell themselves, that will not happen to me. There still seems to be something romantic/cool about game programming in the heads of younger programmers. I tend to categorize it under the "I could do that better, those people are such idiots, just wait until I show them" attitude.
First I would never suggest organizing under a union, especially not professional level skills. All you will end up with is no position anyone could ever want. You will end up working with those very same dummies that many decry when they use large software packages (games or not) and realize there is no way that these people could ever be forced to change.
It comes down to this, if the treatment was not enough to warrant actually leaving the job then it obviously wasn't as bad as they made it out to be. The whole idea that he could not get a job to replace it only means two things, he was in the wrong field or wrong area. Obviously the alternatives were not to his liking. I have had friends work two manual jobs while trying to get back into programming.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
What this all stems from is too many programmer types want to get in to it "To make games." They are interested in being programmers, they want to be GAME programmers. Well, that creates a ready supply of labour and thus lets companies do more of what they want. Why should they care about you when they can just get someone else? So the developer types, particularly the younger ones, feel lucky to have a job working on games, doing their "dream" and so on.
Not saying that is the only problem, but it is no small part of it.
Simply because, as Duke Nukem Forever is an excellent example of, assets have a short shelf life. Once you have things ready to assemble in to a game, you have to do it fairly expediently, like a year, so that things don't get stale.
Now that doesn't necessarily result in crunch time and sure as hell should be all the time crunch time, but you can see why it is a situation that can favour it for a bit on a project.
However that said there's a real difference between "The game ships in a month, we need you to do what it takes to get the final testing and polishing done in that time," and a perpetual, 80+ hour a week crunch.
So long as you don't want up front pay/benefits. You can't reasonably expect a company to give it to you both ways. If you are willing to be a part of the financial risk of a project, meaning your pay, or lack thereof, depends on how well it does then sure you can have part of the profits. That is basically how it works for all small business owners. How much they get depends on how well they do. However that means you have to accept that you only get paid when it makes money and that if it bombs, you don't get anything.
On the other hand if you want the company to front the risk, to put up all the cash for something, to pay you a regular salary and so on while you work, then you need to accept that they get to reap the rewards if there are some, because they'll also eat the failures. They need the reward from successful projects to cover the costs from unsuccessful ones (if you think ever game makes money, you are dreaming).
You can't have it both ways where they are expected to pay you up front, to bear all financial burden, and then to give you the profits when something succeeds, yet not to dock you when something fails (which they cannot legally do).
Brendan McNamara expects his employees to work as long as him. Was he paying them as much as he made out of this? Doubt it.
Even if the International Game Developers Association is investigating can they do anything? Doubt it too. Gaming is like Fashion modeling and competition is fierce for jobs. He'll find another batch of programmers eager to take his abuse for a shot at doing what they love, or at least think they will love. Best solution for an A$$hole boss is to quit.
What bothers me isn't just the shitty treatment (and subsequent brain drain) of programmers.
It's the focus on hours.
Profitable companies force their employees to get the job done. Stupid companies force their employees to work 100 hour weeks. The employees very quickly sense that their boss is an abusive shithead, and take their revenge by lowering their profitability-per-hour. They don't get the job done, they just screw around doing busy-work (pretending to be productive). Why should they bust their asses to ship, when all the profits and credit will go to the shithead boss?
Don't know about you, but where I am IT staff fall into the same category as firemen and electricians in that they can work infinite hours with no overtime if paid on salary because they are critical to the operation of the public infrastructure. Which is BS, and the fact that IT is vaguely defined to easily include software developers is also BS, but legally the companies can screw us over in quite a few areas.
Like all the $100+ movies you buy?
So they work like graduate students, just with more pay.
Then why do they complain after the fact?
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
we have old ladies getting their depends removed by the TSA at the airport and it's just tolerated
I'd give up too many individual freedoms in the workplace. All my experience with unionized workplaces is that you cannot do anything outside a narrowly defined set of roles and responsibilities without drawing the ire of staff with more seniority.
There's also the general tendency to reward seniority higher than merit; there should be some value in having more seasoned employees but merit should also be there; I've seen firsthand people be openly threatened because they work more efficiently than the "acceptable" rate.
In general, unions are no longer the appropriate solution to the problem; the problem is the same age-old one, specifically the way property ownership is granted (the way zoning works is related as well; for instance, in many rental properties the rental contract disallows running a business from that location). Unions address a symptom, not the problem.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
The real tragedy is that it doesn't need to be that way. As was pointed out in multiple interviews with ex-staff you have huge waste. You don't have to run a 24/7 crunch for 8 years. That's just poor management excusing their incompetence. I've seen it before many times. The leadership treats the people as dispensable. The people quit. They fall behind. They treat the next people like shit. They quit. They fall further behind. If they had paced themselves at the beginning and been honest that they couldn't match their deadlines then ultimately they would be more productive and finish sooner. But they also have the publisher breathing down their neck and they know that admitting to needing a 100% larger budget will end the project. Asking for 10 10% extensions to not "let the work done so far go to waste so far" keeps their death spiral alive.
People leaving / burning out is the big problem, you just can't drive people to do any kind of non-mechanical work for those kinds of hours over an extended period of time. When they do leave, they take most of the knowledge they've gained about the project with them (regardless of the documentation procedures you have in place), which puts the development even further behind, driving management to crack out the whip and feed the cycle some more.
The absolute worst thing you can have is staff turnover in software projects, if you had 30% more workforce and your turnover was low, you'd gain more than those wages back in compression of delivery schedule and hence less wage duration (i.e., maybe it wouldn't have taken them 7 years to finish the game). That's without even thinking about if the 80th hour of a programmers work week is as productive as the 40th (it's not).
The problem is that game dev managers; see a willing workforce out there that they can abuse because of the industry, have stupidly optimistic deadlines and budgets set to even get the project approved and a general distain for project management as a task (it's all about getting people to tap keys as long and as quickly as possible).
Yep, it perfectly describes a couple digital agencies that I have worked for in the past. I finally quit the consulting path and got a decent job in a large corporate environment with steady 7.5 hour days. Life is much better.
You don't want to see either being made.
At least that's the expression as I always heard it :-)
(And to continue the thought - too much of either will kill those forced to consume them)
--- Mercutio was right.
All I ask for is an income in line with everyone else who spent 6 to 10 years in college to get their job. You know: doctors, lawyers, MBA's, pretty much everyone with a degree not working as a techie or at a university. My hourly rate is a bit more than twice that of a qualified and experienced plumber. I don't think think that's outrageous. A doctor wouldn't blow his nose for that rate.
I don't need a Ferrari every single time I finish a project (though a doctor or lawyer could afford one...). One every other project would be good enough for me.
New release Blu-rays are $20-30. Movie length is 90-150 normally, depending on the kind of movie (2 hours is the norm, comedies are usually more like 90 minutes, some action movies are more like 2.5 hours). So let's say $20 for 2 hours of entertainment, $10/hour.
Even a very short game is likely to give you 10 hours of entertainment, and 30+ isn't uncommon. Looks to me on the movie scale of pricing, games would easily be $100+.
There's a reason I own a ton of games, and few movies. Part of it is I just plain enjoy games, but another part is efficiency of my money. Let's take Mass Effect, since that game tracks hours played. I've spend 45 hours playing the current game of it, so that is 45 hours for one playthrough. For that I spent a total of $55: $50 for the game, 4% for DLC. So $1.22/hour of entertainment. That isn't replays, that is one single play through.
Now I'll grant you, that is one of the examples you get an awful lot from. Ok well let's take the sequel, again it tracks hours played but it doesn't have as much random exploration so the gameplay is less padded. For that it is 38 hours for the current playthrough. That was a little more expensive, $50 for the game, $31 in DLC. Still, $2.13/hour of entertainment.
Of course that doesn't even consider that the games have more repeatability since they can be at least somewhat different on subsequent playthroughs, you choices can affect what happens. Movies are, of course, always the same.
Even a fairly "inefficient" game like Metro 2033 is better than movies. It is linear, no different on playthroughs and not that long. I don't have a log of how long it was but it took me in the realm of 10-12 hours to complete it. At $50 (I actually got it on sale for $25, but we'll call it at full retail) that is still $4.17-$5.00/hour.
We won't even compare to multiplayer games, which have rather a lot of playability (I've logged 271 hours on Bad Company 2 so far).
So ya, seems to me movies are rather expensive, entertainment wise.
If you look at the article you'll see that they didn't stand for it and did leave, but people rarely read the articles anyway and you're just unlucky that your point was answered in it.
I've seen this sort of pointless death march approach to management in a few companies, not just software companies, that I can only assume have the management that the USA threw away. They keep on doing it and keep on having ridiculous levels of staff turnover until the whole thing implodes. Clients or customers notice and get sick of the difficulties produced by never having a stable point of contact or continuity on projects and just give up on such basket cases.
60 to 110 hours a week for seven years? Yeah. I'd be gone after a month of that. It's hard to have too much sympathy for a guy who declines to make use of his option to simply quit.
But first, say no and mean it.
Check out the book Clean Coder. (There's a review of it on here somewhere). The author compares the IT department to the legal department at a company.
The result - people feel like they can ask the IT department to work weekends and "do whatever it takes."
But, on the same task, people feel uncomfortable asking the legal department to work through the weekend.
Why are we allowing them to do this to us?
Because we all know lawyers can get up and leave? These guys just did leave. So why do we think it's acceptable to allow them to ask us to work weekends, to go above and beyond the call of duty?
The only answer is that we must feel we're not working as hard as we could be.
Think about it.
Even shipping a bad game is better than shipping no games.
In the game industry, the number and quality of games you've shipped is generally the only part of your resume that actually matters.
I don't see any shifty looks at all on these programmer's faces, so I think they're probably being honest.
And that says a lot, because you should NEVER choose truth unless you're absolutely sure.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
As the saying goes, the two things you don't want to see being made are law and video games
An interesting and apt variation, but the old saying is
"Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made."
Though often attributed to Otto von Bismark, this is actually a quote from John Godfrey Saxe.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
"Must be able to enter hours"
That is a shit requirement, and you really can't blame the off-shore software group for the end result. I'm not saying they didn't deliver a crap product, but I am saying your example is essentially negative. i.e. that YOUR company was the weak link.
Movies can be $20 to $30 because they're a secondary channel, with the box office being the primary. There is no secondary channel for games.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Gotta love working in IT. Work 110 hours, get paid for 40. Abandon your family, and social life, and suffer serious psychological issues. If you make it to the ripe old ago of 35, without having to train your H1B replacement, you will be thrown out in the street soon enough because you are considered too old. At which point you will be considered unhiralbe to many employers. Doesn't really matter, since the entire department is being offshored anyway.
You sir, win One Internets for this excellent and insightful remark. Pity I don't get mod points any more. But I'm now a fan!
you had me at #!
" a bit of love"
no. THAT is what managers use to abuse you.
PPSSSSTTTT: Programming isn't some secret mojo, anyone can learn it and India has smart, educatated and passionate programmers. You are not a perfect little flower.
"How can u explain a level or gameplay mechanic through a requierment spec?"
If you can not do that, you aren't any good at what you do.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but if you can' communicate it, your just guessing your way through it.
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Sounds to me like horrible management is the cause here. That Mcnamara guy sounds like a real pompous ass.
Just because you're willing to sacrifice everything and work 80 hour weeks, it doesn't mean that I should be forced to.
In Quebec, overtime is on a voluntary basis only, so you can politely tell your boss to f*ck off if he's forcing you to stay longer. If you're fired for "not being a team player" or "not performing as per expectations" because you refuse to do 60h+ work weeks, well you can then go to the Work Commission and sue your employer for wrongful termination and win back all of the unpaid overtime plus unpaid wages AND get your job back (I don't see why you would go back though). All you need to do is tabulate hours worked and the over time demands received. Doing this sets a precedent and usually involves an investigation of the employer as well.
FYI, you don't even need a lawyer for this as it's the defendant that has to do the leg work and prove that you were indeed rightfully terminated.
~Syberz
I've had to work with a few Assholes in my time, bosses and collegues. Some of the people in my last contract were particularly obnoxious. I recommend the following books;
The No Asshole Rule A brilliant book that quite clearly sets out how to handle assholes, how to recognise when you are being an asshole and what to do about it
The Bully at Work If you are being bullied at work, get this book now. I can't tell you how much it helped me survive mobbing and abuse from some particularly fucked up people. I took the advice and it really helped.
Coping with Toxic Managers, Subordinates and other difficult people Long term this is a excellent book to help you recognise and identify different types of controlling behavior and what behaviour characteristics you can use to plug into their, fuck political correctness, character flaws to manipulate them to get what you want.
The overall theme in all the books is that bullying, particularly a problem in the U.S because of a lack of bullying laws, can cause long term mental damage. Recently slashdot had a story about how physical pain and emotional pain used the same pathways in the brain. These books mention this and how to start to undo the damage.
For you mental health it's important to burn bridges in a targeted and intelligent way for your own mental health so you can move on. I did this by writing a letter to the board, highlighting the financial damage the bullying caused in terms of staff turnover and training, customer dis-satisfaction and increased contractor rates. That way I wasn't churning over in my head that I shudd, cudda, wudda, done this or that. By using the proper channels professionally (whilst having a new gig lined up) I ensured I could move on and inflict the maximum amount of discomfort on the bullies as possible.
Only one situation is worse than bullying and, unfortunately, I've encountered that to, the Occupational Phsycopath. For this I recommend Working with Monsters. These people are fucked up and *will* scar you, it's what they do. Glib with polymorphic personalities they do so many things they need a whole book to handle them. They cripple workplaces and destroy careers, I was lucky to get away, five years later I'm still dealing with the damage and anger.
Basically these Assholes, and seriously what word describes them better, are so commonplace they are like a disease. I got so sick of them this is what I had to do to build the skills required to handle them. Technology folk who have high levels of empathy, task focused, logical and analytical usually have low levels of Emotional Intelligence and personal interaction skills. What I learned is that this makes us easy target for these fuckers because they can read us like a book.
Good thing about being Intelligent is you can adapt to new scenarios. So as the final whammy I added the Alan Pease book, Body Language so I could turn the tables around. I studied the body language book and then simply went into a public place and observed people. As I practised I got better at recognising the various "assholic" behaviors so I could disarm them (or manipulate them).
I'd also advise you read the books in secret, lest you will make yourself a target for assholes.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
There's a lot worse, but you'll note the people who actually enjoy the work of creating a game don't complain. I was in the industry (and still take some subcontracting jobs) for years and really loved it. Many many times I'd spend 2 days straight at the office - napping on a couch occasionally... there was even a shower and I kept a spare set of clothes. A lot of us loved it, and my compatriots have moved on two big industry names while me and a few others went indi to develop some interesting things (most non-game related). Would I go back to the 100+ hour work weeks, hard crunch time, and sometimes mediocre pay (when our games performed well we had awesome bonuses)? If I didn't have a wife and kids now then yes, I would. Simply because I love programming, I love creating, I love working with other creative people to make something awesome and tangible and neat that people will play and feel what we wanted to express and enjoy it. If you aren't that kind of person you have no business in the industry - your crappy attitude and lack of enthusiasm will show through in the finished product.
Many people build an emotional attachment to what they do, so it's makes them want to stay, even if there are being abused . It's like a form of Stockholm syndrome.
Adding more coders doesn't not mean a faster project. You get more then about 3 on a team and it begins to loose quality. There release date is too soon for what they want.
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Resumes aren't carved in stone.
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That's not true. You are completely clueless about union and have completely bought the anti union lies.
OTOH, you would probably not mind if slave children where whipped to make the game as long as you saved 2 dollars.
I am current in a union, and am a software developer. You know what that means? If they want' me to work more then 40 I either get paid or I get come time. It also mean reasonable vacation.
That's it.
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I am in a software union.
I work outside my 'defined' role regularly because ti is recognized that my position may require reasonable amount of unexpected work. I have never seen the 'ire' of senior staff from it.
The few times there is anything in the budget for a raise, it has been done on merit. I regularly get a bigger raise then many senior developers.
I have never been threatened, harassed, singled out and I get along great with other members.
Software union work well; assuming your goal is a reasonable work week, getting paid for your work, and having reasonable protections. A union is why I can tell a manger in a meeting precisely why they are wrong and not fear reprisal.
Union give workers a voice and some power.
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The more I read about this story, the more I think "This sounds an awful lot like grad school."
That's the point, though. When a shit spec is received, outsourced developers won't request clarification of the requirements. They'll do exactly what the spec says, regardless of how awkward or incorrect it may seem. Outsourcing is like to telling a robot what to do.
The only way this can improve is if enough companies with a clue start hiring develoers, treating them well, and still produce AAA titles.
No they don't. Profitable companies cooperate with their employees with the understanding that both need the other to get their money. This plays nicely with human instincts to belong to a society, breeding goodwill, loyalty, and unwillingness to defect.
Companies that treat their employees like enemies to be forced get just that - enemies.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
They DID leave. That's one reason why it took 7 years. RTFA.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
That's true, but union abuses do exist. We're paying for GM's bailout that was mostly due to ridiculously generous pensions given to union workers.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I probably won't buy the game. And I was planning to, previously; because I think GTA IV is an incredible piece of work. A sweatshop is a sweatshop. I won't support assholes like McNamara.
you had me at #!
The Animation Guild. They represent animators and digital effects artists at almost all the Hollywood-based studios. They have an organizer and are actively trying to sign up the remaining non-union studios. Union animators get overtime. 1.5x pay after 40 hours. Double time after 6 days.
Hollywood accepts that there will be crunches during production, but by long tradition and union rules, management has to pay extra for them. That's why "film scheduling" is an accepted discipline in the film industry.
The Animation Guild makes an interesting point - the union studios stay in business longer than the non-union ones. Because the workers can push back against management idiocy, it tends not to go too far.
Did anyone actually traverse the story back to the original article from IGN (http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/117/1178844p2.html) and read it?
Albeit, a quote from McNamara, but if just this holds true, I don't pity anyone working for the company
There was a bonus scheme for working evenings, and people got a month off for that," he said. "And people who worked weekends got paid for it. We brought in a weekend working scheme for that. But contractually, we don't have to do that. Part of the thing is that we pay over the odds, and it says in their contract that if they need to do extra time. I've done 20 years of not getting paid for doing that kind of stuff.
Call me rash if you like but unless it was made damn clear that weekend work was both required only for a couple of weeks and going to be well reflected when it came to payrise/bonus time, I'd be interviewing somewhere else within a week.
I'd stop short of saying "you can shove your weekends up your arse", but if the interviewing didn't work out I'd be leaving anyway after a month or so. There's more to life than work, much more. I'm glad I've always worked for people that appreciate that.
Reminds of the time I worked for this one company for a month before I got the hell out. They worked everyone 60 hours a week - every week. Apparently this was how it always had been and the guys liked it for the extra income. They couldn't see for every two employees they've got on that schedule they could just hire someone else for 2/3s the cost and probably get better performance. But that was just one of the many odd practices they had. Manager liked to hoard blue prints - I never knew wtf I was working on until we received our orders for the day.
Well where I work they get around paying overtime by offering "flex" time. Which is simply a 1:1 time committment. You work 10 hours one day, you can take 2 off on another day. Sucks ass I think, because the ratio should be 1:1.5 or 1:2. They should reward workers for working what really is overtime, instead of simply time shifting your hours.
But thats IT for you!
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
I am in a software union.
Which one?
I don't get why people stay if the working conditions are that bad? They obviously have skills that are very employable.
The only thing sticking with the project demonstrates is that you're willing to work like a dog in intolerable conditions for a bunch of assholes. That ability might be useful to have on your resume, but not for any job I would want.
I've gone above and beyond the call of duty a few times to put something that i felt would add a lot to a game/level. I've always felt a small feedback loop exists between the gamedesigners and the programming team where the programming team will suddenly think of a tweak, implement it and show it to the designer. Usually its something small that takes very little coding but has a noticable effect on the feel of the game. Im not sure how often it happens but i've seen it a few times.
The level design and artwork goes art director -(words)-> concept artist ->(image)> 3dArtist/texturer etc.
you can send the concept image to a different team and expect a near spec output. But try explaining what kind of concept art you are looking for using a requirement spec even without images and you'll see what I mean. Having said that i think most studios retain a few concept artists to send concepts abroad where the bulk of the 3d artwork is done.
No it was because GM's management sucked.
I need a little context before I decide how sympathetic I'm feeling. The obvious one being how much are they paid? Are they paid for this overtime, or do they get back time in lieu?
60 hour weeks are nothing special for someone on a decent salary. Here in UK, bastion of the 6 weeks holiday and subject to EU working time directive, a lot of people regularly pull 60 hour weeks. I spend half my working days at client's premises doing work that includes me seeing the payroll, I'd wager that just about everyone making £30k ($48k ish) works significant unpaid OT. Once you hit that level you're pretty much paid to get shit done and the salary is basically what you get paid to get that shit done regardless of how long it takes (funny how it almost always goes one way though).
I work in accounting practice, it's audit (busy) season and I've been working 50-60 hours since April. Managers more than that - and often enough I'll drop them an email for when they come back from holiday (BTW, you don't get to book holiday's in spring or summer without good reason) and yet get a quick response, and files will come back reviewed. This is a small practice, a colleague left for a big-4 firm and logged 65 hours regularly - and this was outwith the audit season.
This isn't the best bit. Aside from qualitative appraisals based on the quality of your work, the primary performance measurement is hours logged to time budget. Staff are pressurised to make their budget and managers heavily pressurised for the overall budget, that shit rolls downhill. The budget is usually basically the lower of whatever makes the required profit and 5% less time than it took (or rather, what was logged) last year, which basically means you work whatever insanity but log only the contracted hours. Last week was pretty decent, I worked 10 hours unlogged, almost 30% above what I'm contracted and paid for. I don't like to think about the week before that.
Whoring in the hours to meet actual deadlines imposed by clients with valid reasons is one thing, doing it routinely without charging the hours just so your manager can get good stats and your partner can make more profit by not paying you is another. It's not just the amount of work, it's the stress you still get despite (because of?) the absurdity of it.
The really stupid bit however, is the same shit (albeit smaller scale) happens in winter, which is the dead season. Staff with "real work" will be rushing away while staff without sit bored with some silly made-up task. The firm would actually make the same money by letting us have the time off in leu instead of made-up work, but the performance measurement doesn't work that way.
If only there was some sort of way the employees could group together to increase their bargaining power with employers to avoid these situations.
If you consistently work over 40 hours a week your employer must compensate you for it even if you're salaried.
The problem isn't that they aren't unionized, the problem is they're too chickenshit to stand up to their boss, or to take the time and effort to report labor violations to the Wage and Labor commission. If the employees demanded the compensation they are already legally entitled to, and go to the proper authorities if it isn't provided, then the problem would solve itself rapidly when the boss realizes he's paying more in OT than he'd pay for doubling his staff size.
Except most programmers are Salary Exempt, and thus are not guaranteed overtime.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
It won't work in the gaming industry. People spend their childhood playing games and wanting to develop them. Crunch time hours a part of the industry mystique, and are something that is considered a right of passage by people who have already done it and people who want to get into the industry. By the time people burn out on it, they really just want out - they're not interested in raising a fuss over it.
The only way this can improve is if enough companies with a clue start hiring develoers, treating them well, and still produce AAA titles.
And there is simply no incentive for the companies to treat their workers well, because there is a line a mile long out the door of people ready to be exploited.
It's a classic/textbook example of an exploitative industry... the way we fixed these jobs in the past have been to unionize across companies, as well as implement regulation.
Of course, the libertarian answer of "employees can just quit, and eventually the employers will fix what's wrong" is just way easier to say, and implement, because that means no one has to do anything about it.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Aside from "having reasonable protections" which I don't understand in this context, I have all those things and I'm not in a union. Perhaps the only "protection" I don't have is that my employer could terminate me with only minimal notice, and assuming it wasn't due to some strange reason (by that I mean something warranting wrongful termination) I'd just have to look for another job.
I do this all the time and have no fear of reprisal because I'm a respected member of the workplace and because I use data to back up my assertions. It also helps that I do not use language like "why the manager is wrong" but instead "why this course of action has risk," or in severe cases "that viewpoint is not consistent with the physical characteristics of the device on which we're working; here are the basic principles which indicate that is an path which will not lead to success." That subtle difference is extremely important.
So, I feel that I have the same benefits that you get, and I don't have the overhead and, let's be honest, politics of a labor organization.
When it's all said and done, I think it's fine that you have a situation that works and that sounds pretty reasonable. Unfortunately, organized labor as a whole has a very polarizing reputation for very good historical (and continuing) reasons.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Except for movie production has been unionized since (if I recall correctly) before we were buying them for home use. If it had occurred later, they would have demanded more money and prices would be higher. It's no secret that union labor costs more than non-union labor - why else do you think people join unions to make more money? If it costs more for labor, then final product prices go up. If all labor on a game that takes say 3 years to make goes up, then the price of the game is most certainly going to go up from $60.
Then there's the fact that MSRP on movies is actually quite high ($40 for blu-ray) - it's just that stores know that people won't buy many movies at that price and lower it down to a more realistic price.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
If they want' me to work more then 40 I either get paid
And how the fuck do you think you being paid more money won't increase costs to the company, thus resulting in them raising the price of the game to maintain profit levels? You are completely clueless about how running a business works and have completely bought the pro-union lies. With few exceptions, a company will always raise the price of their product when the input prices for making said product increase. That's why fast food prices increased once gas prices went up - because it started costing more to produce it due to transportation costs increasing.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
That's the point, though. When a shit spec is received, outsourced developers won't request clarification of the requirements. They'll do exactly what the spec says, regardless of how awkward or incorrect it may seem. Outsourcing is like to telling a robot what to do.
Amen. That was exactly my point.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Of course, the libertarian answer of "employees can just quit, and eventually the employers will fix what's wrong" is just way easier to say, and implement, because that means no one has to do anything about it.
This industry is very strange in that people want to get into it so badly ... and more, many of them expect poor treatment going into it, and think it's acceptable - worse: they could be said to find it desirable (until they get into it). It's the risk of a buyer's market; still, I do see this changing -- without the dubious benefit of forced regulation or unions. More and more developers actually *are* speaking out, and many smaller companies are beginning to see the light. These companies will/are beginning to attract the higher-talent developers that the big companies depend on.
This industry is very strange in that people want to get into it so badly ... and more, many of them expect poor treatment going into it, and think it's acceptable - worse: they could be said to find it desirable (until they get into it). It's the risk of a buyer's market; still, I do see this changing -- without the dubious benefit of forced regulation or unions. More and more developers actually *are* speaking out, and many smaller companies are beginning to see the light. These companies will/are beginning to attract the higher-talent developers that the big companies depend on.
Well, Marx was a bit of a pessimist and didn't expect to see the western world fixing the problems that they were facing, and thus purposed violent revolt. I'm pretty much a pessimist at heart. I suppose, I should account for the few non-greedy people out there that will actually help change the system... I just find it easier to work under the theories of the people arguing against me. I want to present why libertarianism isn't a good idea, so I make the assumption that all people are heartless bastards who will exploit employees at the expense of profit at every turn.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
the way zoning works is related as well; for instance, in many rental properties the rental contract disallows running a business from that location
That and the fact that console makers don't want developers working from home for fear that the trade secrets embodied in the devkit might leak. (Source: warioworld.com)