Game developer abuses

[eastyy]

J. Allen Brack leaving blizzard and likely escape any ramifications https://www.destructoid.com/j-allen-...ent-5480254875

[Asura]

And really what that shows is that they’ll only get away with it if the environment lets them. And that needs to be people at the top or near the top because it’s too much pressure to put on people just hanging on to their jobs or new people who aren’t confident.

This is the thing, "company culture" is really important, it starts at inception and trickles down. It's difficult to maintain a positive culture.

When deadlines get tight, clients get difficult, projects over-run, the easiest thing in the world to do is just let the edges of the culture fray a little bit, here-and-there. Ask (insist) employees to work until 4am "just this week". Ignore that bloke who creeps on the women for a couple of months because the publisher wants the game for Christmas, and he has a degree from Cambridge and no-one else knows exactly how your enemy AI works. Lament when you miss a milestone because one of your staff has had to undergo therapy. Hire someone a bit **** because they're available now and you need them now, even though you know this is going to create a problem later.

These things take discipline. And yeah, every business has good times and difficult times. It's not necessarily the end of the world if you ask your staff to do the occasional bit of overtime. But I've worked at places where "crunch" was literally a column in the planning spreadsheet 2 years out from release. They were planning crunch into the schedule <shudder>.

But if people at the top espouse a good culture in both words and deeds, that trickles down to every level of management.

The issues with the games industry are complex, and facing up to them will be difficult. People talk about it being a "young industry" (employment-wise, the industry as we know it is only ~20 years old, as the conditions in the 90s and before aren't really comparable to everything that has come since), or about it being male dominated, but I'm sure there are other businesses with similar features that don't seem to face quite so many problems. Hell, I've heard people suggest that the industry's problem is that it was, at one point, a way that "socially awkward" people were given money, notoriety and power over others. I don't personally think that's the entire problem but I certainly think it contributes.

A lot of companies are probably going to either fail or go through some restructuring before it gets better.

I was right to object but couldn't go around fighting with people at work and I said that if he doesn't touch me again I won't have to.

I worked with a guy years ago who used to do the same thing, like try on physically bullying people even though he wasn't even a big bloke. I had to tell him at one point to leave it or I'd genuinely smack him, and he let it go, though our HR were also useless when I mentioned he did this to many people who were clearly uncomfortable and didn't have the confidence to stand up for themselves (not that it would be okay even if they did).

Fortunately this came to a head; about a week later we all went to the pub one evening for a work do, he tried it on the wrong person until that person punched him clean in the face, and when he tried to get HR in on it, the whole department stood in solidarity, and insisted they had fostered this atmosphere and it was ultimately their responsibility.

I never saw the bloke physically bully anyone again. We downsized 3 months later. He was high on the axe list.

Point is that people should always remember, a bad (or at best neutral) company doesn't hire HR for the staff, they hire HR for the company to manage staff as a resource. When you meet with HR at a big firm with a grievance, their immediate motivation isn't "how do we help this staffer", it's "how do we prevent this staffer disrupting the company".

[Dogg Thang]

Whatever about creeps, the acceptance of terrible work hours is the main reason I'm not in games. I spent a matter of weeks in the games industry in the PS1 days. A studio in Liverpool. Most people there stayed until around 10pm. Anyone who left earlier was looked down upon and often talked about. And the worst part? Because everyone had it in their heads that they were working late anyway, they had no problem spending half the day chatting about football or other stuff, just hanging around. I was fairly certain they weren't even getting a full day's work done in that time. It made no sense to me. And even then, in my early 20s, I knew that was something you could do at that age but you weren't going to want to do it in your 30s. Or 40s. Or if you had a family. Or wanted to do anything else in your life.

And I had a friend in a studio in the same city and he said things were pretty much the same there. I think I only ever asked about one other person from another studio and that was enough to tell me that this wasn't something for me.

Years later when I became someone with the ability to dictate work hours somewhere else, I booted people from their desks at the end of every day. I didn't want time creeping later and later for any reason. And I certainly didn't want a culture where people would be criticised for leaving on time.

[Asura]

Whatever about creeps, the acceptance of terrible work hours is the main reason I'm not in games. I spent a matter of weeks in the games industry in the PS1 days. A studio in Liverpool. Most people there stayed until around 10pm. Anyone who left earlier was looked down upon and often talked about. And the worst part? Because everyone had it in their heads that they were working late anyway, they had no problem spending half the day chatting about football or other stuff, just hanging around. I was fairly certain they weren't even getting a full day's work done in that time. It made no sense to me. And even then, in my early 20s, I knew that was something you could do at that age but you weren't going to want to do it in your 30s. Or 40s. Or if you had a family. Or wanted to do anything else in your life.

Yeah, this. At one of my priors, they used to buy us food if we were there after a certain time, so sooner or later everyone found themselves there after a certain time. Overtime is useless when you task staff with working 10 days a week for months, even years, at a time. From a staff perspective, you burn out, but "go with it" as a form of malicious compliance, and from a company perspective, you might be getting everyone to work 10 days a week but they're not giving you 10 days of productivity.

Purely from a management perspective it's much more effective, long-term, to make sure everyone has a good work-life balance and is well looked-after. Then, when the last couple of weeks before a deadline comes around, people who can will often voluntarily lift that extra weight, for a short duration. You'll keep staff, everyone will be happier, and ultimately you'll do better.

Years later when I became someone with the ability to dictate work hours somewhere else, I booted people from their desks at the end of every day. I didn't want time creeping later and later for any reason. And I certainly didn't want a culture where people would be criticised for leaving on time.

I have a policy on my team, in particular, of insisting everyone takes lunch, on time, or if they start late, they come back late. I've managed a lot of juniors over the years who, when they start their career, want to look really dedicated to impress you, and it's something you need to (sympathetically) reassure them, very early-on, that it's unnecessary and actively harmful.

[Cassius_Smoke]

I have worked under 'crunch' conditions back in my early 20s. I actually didn't mind it because I was young, was getting paid pretty well and could burn the candle at both ends. But it's not a sustainable way of working. And if you have kids and are in your mid 40s it'll be murder.
Its a ****ty way of doing things. Plus, they always try and put the blame on gamers, but I don't believe we'd give a **** if the game takes 4 years to make, it's the shareholders that are to blame. Money money money, now now now.

[Asura]

I have worked under 'crunch' conditions back in my early 20s. I actually didn't mind it because I was young, was getting paid pretty well and could burn the candle at both ends. But it's not a sustainable way of working. And if you have kids and are in your mid 40s it'll be murder.

What's weird is that I know Ubisoft can pay quite well, and, honestly, I've worked in places where the pay made me put up with bad working conditions - but some of the tell-all dev stuff I'm seeing about ActiBlizz suggests that they don't even pay that well.

Just bear in mind, this is the same ActiBlizz that runs World of Warcraft, a game which at its peak had over 10 million subscribers, and right now, has approximately 5 million (about 3 million people play it per-day). Even now, at this lull period, that's over $20 million a month, and it's ran for fourteen years, during which the first ~8 or so years saw at least four times that figure.

Not that paying well makes it okay, but you can at least understand.

[eastyy]

Always got the impression Crunch was due to poor management though i have not worked in gaming have seen it in companies i have worked for.

Though thinking about some games Anthem had 6 years of development time though from what i remember actual development times was only about two years even though they had been working on the game for much longer and I think something similar happened with Cyberpunk 2077

[Asura]

Though thinking about some games Anthem had 6 years of development time though from what i remember actual development times was only about two years even though they had been working on the game for much longer and I think something similar happened with Cyberpunk 2077

I can tell you that this stuff is a bit deceptive; game development has a "life-cycle".

So while you might see a team of ~200 people in the credits, and the dev says the game took 6 years, that doesn't mean 200 people worked on it for 6 years straight. Projects start with potentially as few as 1-5 people, then grow to maybe a dozen, then a few dozen during pre-pro, and only top out during full production. Similarly, they contract a bit before release, and there are some teams or staff - such as those involved in specialist areas like voice acting - who might only get involved quite near the end, for a short time.

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I believe it comes from poor planning, due to an over-reliance on the waterfall method. This is when people at the top of the hierarchy are too involved in the low-level stuff, and they try to plan their game very precisely, often because one of the top-level people fancies themselves a bit of a Peter Jackson and wants to direct every little element of the game.

The right way to do this is with a more agile method, where you give teams of developers a set of requirements, and let them make what they want as long those requirements are satisfied. You hire the right people and you empower them to create, and if they make the wrong thing, it's because you, the director, didn't give them the right requirements (or you hired the wrong people, or you're too attached to your own vision and don't really want a team, you want a crew of Borg drones).

[Cassius_Smoke]

It's the development part that is the bit the management think can be squeezed for time.
'Heres the game engine, here's a PC. NOW MAKE THE ****ING GAME!'
Then telling the shareholders 'the next product will be making money by November.'

[eastyy]

I can tell you that this stuff is a bit deceptive; game development has a "life-cycle".


Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I believe it comes from poor planning, due to an over-reliance on the waterfall method. This is when people at the top of the hierarchy are too involved in the low-level stuff, and they try to plan their game very precisely, often because one of the top-level people fancies themselves a bit of a Peter Jackson and wants to direct every little element of the game.

It is poor planning, with Anthem hearing the stories that there was no clear goal and there was about several years of pre production but little to no progress and the Trailer which was shown was actually the first time many of the developers saw what the game was actually supposed to be, also the stories where when people would talk about Destiny as it was the closest to the type of game they were trying to do the management would tell them to not talk about Destiny as it was nothing like it.

Also when you mentioned about the Waterfall method reminded me a lot of George Broussard and Duke Nukem where kept insisting on making changes and changing engines and really needed someone to say no this is what we will do.

Star Citizen though I imagine is a example of Waterfall method to

[Neon Ignition]

The only crunch people should need to worry about is getting their work done within 9-5. Anything outside of that is the companies problem and responsibility to staff for, employment law should reflect and enforce it. If the team I oversee has 160 hours of staffing and 200 hours of work to be done it means I need another staff member, not them to stay extra and do it. It's false economy too, it leads to sloppier work, poor morale, no cost savings either. It's just bad management.

[Dogg Thang]

Part of the difficulty lies in the word development. Maybe this will change in the future when the industry has matured further but so much of making a game is discovery and R&D. Figuring out how the game might work, trying all sorts of different things and then having to figure out while making it how to actually make it and, often, that requires getting things wrong. The entire process is development and it’s an accurate term. By contrast, I’m in TV and film animation and we have development, which is figuring out what the concept is - that’s the trial and error. But once we know that, we’re into production and we can break down any production in advance and know how it’s going to work, how long each process will take a d how much it will cost. And usually we’re pretty accurate. Our systems have been used so many times before that they are easy to quantify. Most games studios seem to reinvent everything almost every game. I can’t help feeling that will change at some point.

But right now, people get abused as part of that process. Management can’t figure it out, things go wrong and they expect it to be normal for their teams to go above and beyond on a regular basis.

[Neon Ignition]

Ubisoft have no excuse then, the procedural game generator they use is just freeing time up for them to focus more on abusing the workforce. It'll turn against them one day though

Think this but instead of tickets its open world collectathons and instead of lifetime supply of chocolate it's women

[Brad]

Waterfall and Agilie are both viable if you do them right (rarely are they done right). The issue is usually deadlines that cannot be met. You can’t estimate agile, at all, ever, because you don’t know what you’re going to do and even waterfall estimating is basically trying to predict the future. It’s not like building houses. So, when your estimates turn out to be wrong you either delay the product, reduce the feature set or reduce the quality. It’s the iron triangle; one of those points has to move. Instead what happens is they Chuck more devs at it and overtime and you end up with worse quality anyway.

[QualityChimp]

Always conflicted with crunch stories because although that's a terrible way to treat your staff, is protesting with your wallet the right thing in this case?

If I worked all hours to make something and it came out then nobody bought it, because I'd been working all hours, I'd feel that those hours were wasted. I'd want someone to see the fruits of my labour.

I'd want the company to address the awful working pattern, but is that responsibility of the consumer?

Although there are others, RDR2 is the game I'm thinking of and, quite honestly, it's a masterpiece.
I feel my gaming life is enriched from playing it and it will stick with me forever.
If I had refused to buy it, I would have missed out on what it is quite clearly a labour of love.