6 ms·

There are some serious bad actors in the game industry, Rock Star being one of the worst. Where I've worked we valued work/life balance as much as possible. Di

There are some serious bad actors in the game industry, Rock Star being one of the worst. Where I've worked we valued work/life balance as much as possible. Did we have a bit of crunch close to a release? Yep, but it was short and a few weeks at max. Most of us enjoyed it due to the extra camaraderie. If there were a unionization effort that focused on 1) a hard 40-50 hour cap on work hours (or with paid overtime) and 2) enforced profit sharing plans, I could support it. The current main unionization effort basically says "things will be better for everyone" on their FAQ. Total bullshit.

fzeroracer 8y ago
Saying that 'most of us enjoyed crunch time' seems like a bit of projection, especially for people that might have families or other social obligations outside of work that crunch time eats into.
- hesdeadjim 8y ago
  We were sane about it, family obligations always took priority. There is a difference between a sprint to the end and a death march like Rock Star.
  - vvanders 8y ago
    Just so you know, this is the knife edge that leads you down to crunch. Literally every time I had a 3-4mo 80-100hour crunch it always started out with "we're going to push for a week or two" which just transitioned into "just one more week" for the next 3 months. Also, shame for celebrating a crunch. You may have enjoyed it but there's a high likelyhood someone else went along just to not "rock the boat". I don't care who you are putting in more hours puts stress on other parts of your life. I just don't understand how that industry has their head up their ass from top to bottom for such a long time. There's some interesting problems in that space but after my 6 years I'd never go back.
    - hesdeadjim 8y ago
      Shame for celebrating a crunch? I'm talking 50 hours a week instead of 40 for a period of a few weeks. It is possible for a company and project to need that extra work and not turn into a sweatshop afterwards. I am 100% against the crunch that is par for the course in so many studios, but I am also disappointed by an attitude that work is always just work and god forbid it ever intrude on life outside. I worked for five years at early and late stage startups before transitioning to games, and I cannot recall there ever being a time when extra work was not needed to get over the finish line. If a union ends up being the only way chronic overwork can be addressed in the industry at large, so be it. Perhaps the real solution though is a legislative one, as suggested below.
      - eropple 8y ago
        Did you compensate your people for the extra work? Because otherwise it had certainly best not be intruding on life outside of work.
      - vvanders 8y ago
        > but I am also disappointed by an attitude that work is always just work and god forbid it ever intrude on life outside. Fuck yeah it's "just work". I want my employees and coworkers to be happy, healthy and well actualized so that when they're at work they're focused and giving it 100%. Plenty of hard business data there shows that when you make sure someone's time outside of work is well respected they'll perform much better on the job. Burnout and turnover can have a brutal impact on an company/organization's ability to execute, the list goes on. You're also self-selecting for a workforce that has the flexibility, which means your viewpoint is a lot less diverse. This is the same crunch bullshit I got fed before in that industry.
        hesdeadjim 8y ago
        I've got a kid, wife, friends, and hobbies that I place very high value on. Can I do a few weeks of extra hours? No problem.
  - watwut 8y ago
    Family obligations are quite clearly not taking priority when you are crunching. By necessity, the partner is doing all household and kids related work at that time. Obviously missed deadlines happen outside game development too and the partner is likely to have period where she/he has more work to do too and the other one takes it. But crunch is normally defined as sustained overtime - articles I seen it require it to be over 6 weeks. So it is quite a lot of time.
    - hesdeadjim 8y ago
      Yea exactly. The difference between crunch and extra work to hit a deadline is entirely one of frequency and duration. My wife couldn't work in a more different industry than I do, but she is also subject to the occasional bout of extra work. We support each other and it's no issue. If I wanted a predictable job that always has upfront hours, I suppose I could go back to making hourly minimum wage with zero benefits.
vvanders 8y ago
Some? Hah. In my ~6 years in the industry I don't know of a single coworker in the entire Seattle area who didn't run into a project that underwent serious crunch. Sample size of ~400 people or so. I've also got longtime friends who broke in separately from me(and worked on some high profile stuff) in the SF/Bay area that say the exact same thing.
pflats 8y ago
>If there were a unionization effort that focused on 1) a hard 40-50 hour cap on work hours (or with paid overtime) and 2) enforced profit sharing plans, I could support it. >The current main unionization effort basically says "things will be better for everyone" on their FAQ. Total bullshit. What is your familiarity with how a union works? An industry-wide unionization effort cannot effectively state what the future will hold. When employees decide to try to organize a union within their company, they decide what the issues are. Their task is to convince their coworkers to join the union, so they will be focusing on the pain points unique to their own employment situation. Maybe in one company, it's crunch time, while in another, it's keeping a more consistent labor force despite project sizes changing wildly over time. The new union will then negotiate a contract on behalf of its members. Each new union will be focusing on different things. An industry-wide organizational effort that focuses on work hours and profit sharing would not catch the interest employees at a shop with good hours, good pay, but zero job protections and inadequate health coverage (for example).
- hesdeadjim 8y ago
  Well my brother worked construction in the northeast where it is unionized, and it was an absolute nightmare for a variety of reasons. He was unable to work without a union card, getting that union card was very difficult without knowing someone because union jobs are highly coveted and thus kept artificially scarce, and once a member of the union he was forced to work with many lazy workers hiding behind the job protections afforded by the union. What's to stop the same thing repeating itself in a game developers union?
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    The same thing that stops it from happening in Hollywood. Even the best actors and directors choose to join SAG and the DGA even though they don't need to.
  - pflats 8y ago
    I also worked for a construction union in the northeast, and our employer sent the worst employee's pay check to the job site via same-day courier to ensure that, once duly compensated, he could be immediately dismissed. The rest of the crew was thrilled to see him go. Construction is dangerous work, and none of us wanted him around. At the same job, another employee, young apprentice, was found napping. He popped awake and was apologetic. Partied too hard the night before. The foreman sent him on a coffee run to get his head together. He wasn't fired, presumably because the foreman never reported him, and (at least for the rest of that job) it never happened again. Almost 20 years later, he still probably gets shit for it. Bad employees can coast by in any job, especially hourly ones where the upper management is rarely onsite with the workforce. First dude got fired in short order despite the job protections. Second dude didn't, but (to my knowledge) not because of any union regs. Anyway, I digress. There is, of course, nothing preventing some union horror story from taking place. There is also nothing preventing even worse labor exploitation from taking place (and we're already at 80+ hour weeks in some cases). The biggest difference, though, is the labor market itself. The laborers in construction unions are temporary hires for a specific job. At the same time, most construction unions are craft unions with apprenticeships, where each new employee represents a risk/investment to training that person for many years. Nepotism abounds, because if you train a new hire for, say, two years, then they wash out of the program or leave to study engineering, they could have spent that time and energy training someone else. By contrast, I would expect most gaming unions to look more like a public employees' union. It would represent permanent employees of a company, likely salaried. Not much would change in the hiring process outside contact negotiation. You get the job? Congrats, you can join the union.
anth_anm 8y ago
Properly paid overtime would probably be sufficient. If 100 hour weeks make your labour cost quadruple then companies actually have an incentive to avoid it.

fzeroracer 8y ago

Saying that 'most of us enjoyed crunch time' seems like a bit of projection, especially for people that might have families or other social obligations outside of work that crunch time eats into.

hesdeadjim 8y ago
We were sane about it, family obligations always took priority. There is a difference between a sprint to the end and a death march like Rock Star.
- vvanders 8y ago
  Just so you know, this is the knife edge that leads you down to crunch. Literally every time I had a 3-4mo 80-100hour crunch it always started out with "we're going to push for a week or two" which just transitioned into "just one more week" for the next 3 months. Also, shame for celebrating a crunch. You may have enjoyed it but there's a high likelyhood someone else went along just to not "rock the boat". I don't care who you are putting in more hours puts stress on other parts of your life. I just don't understand how that industry has their head up their ass from top to bottom for such a long time. There's some interesting problems in that space but after my 6 years I'd never go back.
  - hesdeadjim 8y ago
    Shame for celebrating a crunch? I'm talking 50 hours a week instead of 40 for a period of a few weeks. It is possible for a company and project to need that extra work and not turn into a sweatshop afterwards. I am 100% against the crunch that is par for the course in so many studios, but I am also disappointed by an attitude that work is always just work and god forbid it ever intrude on life outside. I worked for five years at early and late stage startups before transitioning to games, and I cannot recall there ever being a time when extra work was not needed to get over the finish line. If a union ends up being the only way chronic overwork can be addressed in the industry at large, so be it. Perhaps the real solution though is a legislative one, as suggested below.
    - eropple 8y ago
      Did you compensate your people for the extra work? Because otherwise it had certainly best not be intruding on life outside of work.
    - vvanders 8y ago
      > but I am also disappointed by an attitude that work is always just work and god forbid it ever intrude on life outside. Fuck yeah it's "just work". I want my employees and coworkers to be happy, healthy and well actualized so that when they're at work they're focused and giving it 100%. Plenty of hard business data there shows that when you make sure someone's time outside of work is well respected they'll perform much better on the job. Burnout and turnover can have a brutal impact on an company/organization's ability to execute, the list goes on. You're also self-selecting for a workforce that has the flexibility, which means your viewpoint is a lot less diverse. This is the same crunch bullshit I got fed before in that industry.
      - hesdeadjim 8y ago
        I've got a kid, wife, friends, and hobbies that I place very high value on. Can I do a few weeks of extra hours? No problem.
- watwut 8y ago
  Family obligations are quite clearly not taking priority when you are crunching. By necessity, the partner is doing all household and kids related work at that time. Obviously missed deadlines happen outside game development too and the partner is likely to have period where she/he has more work to do too and the other one takes it. But crunch is normally defined as sustained overtime - articles I seen it require it to be over 6 weeks. So it is quite a lot of time.
  - hesdeadjim 8y ago
    Yea exactly. The difference between crunch and extra work to hit a deadline is entirely one of frequency and duration. My wife couldn't work in a more different industry than I do, but she is also subject to the occasional bout of extra work. We support each other and it's no issue. If I wanted a predictable job that always has upfront hours, I suppose I could go back to making hourly minimum wage with zero benefits.

vvanders 8y ago

Some? Hah. In my ~6 years in the industry I don't know of a single coworker in the entire Seattle area who didn't run into a project that underwent serious crunch. Sample size of ~400 people or so. I've also got longtime friends who broke in separately from me(and worked on some high profile stuff) in the SF/Bay area that say the exact same thing.

pflats 8y ago

>If there were a unionization effort that focused on 1) a hard 40-50 hour cap on work hours (or with paid overtime) and 2) enforced profit sharing plans, I could support it. >The current main unionization effort basically says "things will be better for everyone" on their FAQ. Total bullshit. What is your familiarity with how a union works? An industry-wide unionization effort cannot effectively state what the future will hold. When employees decide to try to organize a union within their company, they decide what the issues are. Their task is to convince their coworkers to join the union, so they will be focusing on the pain points unique to their own employment situation. Maybe in one company, it's crunch time, while in another, it's keeping a more consistent labor force despite project sizes changing wildly over time. The new union will then negotiate a contract on behalf of its members. Each new union will be focusing on different things. An industry-wide organizational effort that focuses on work hours and profit sharing would not catch the interest employees at a shop with good hours, good pay, but zero job protections and inadequate health coverage (for example).

hesdeadjim 8y ago
Well my brother worked construction in the northeast where it is unionized, and it was an absolute nightmare for a variety of reasons. He was unable to work without a union card, getting that union card was very difficult without knowing someone because union jobs are highly coveted and thus kept artificially scarce, and once a member of the union he was forced to work with many lazy workers hiding behind the job protections afforded by the union. What's to stop the same thing repeating itself in a game developers union?
- gamblor956 8y ago
  The same thing that stops it from happening in Hollywood. Even the best actors and directors choose to join SAG and the DGA even though they don't need to.
- pflats 8y ago
  I also worked for a construction union in the northeast, and our employer sent the worst employee's pay check to the job site via same-day courier to ensure that, once duly compensated, he could be immediately dismissed. The rest of the crew was thrilled to see him go. Construction is dangerous work, and none of us wanted him around. At the same job, another employee, young apprentice, was found napping. He popped awake and was apologetic. Partied too hard the night before. The foreman sent him on a coffee run to get his head together. He wasn't fired, presumably because the foreman never reported him, and (at least for the rest of that job) it never happened again. Almost 20 years later, he still probably gets shit for it. Bad employees can coast by in any job, especially hourly ones where the upper management is rarely onsite with the workforce. First dude got fired in short order despite the job protections. Second dude didn't, but (to my knowledge) not because of any union regs. Anyway, I digress. There is, of course, nothing preventing some union horror story from taking place. There is also nothing preventing even worse labor exploitation from taking place (and we're already at 80+ hour weeks in some cases). The biggest difference, though, is the labor market itself. The laborers in construction unions are temporary hires for a specific job. At the same time, most construction unions are craft unions with apprenticeships, where each new employee represents a risk/investment to training that person for many years. Nepotism abounds, because if you train a new hire for, say, two years, then they wash out of the program or leave to study engineering, they could have spent that time and energy training someone else. By contrast, I would expect most gaming unions to look more like a public employees' union. It would represent permanent employees of a company, likely salaried. Not much would change in the hiring process outside contact negotiation. You get the job? Congrats, you can join the union.

anth_anm 8y ago

Properly paid overtime would probably be sufficient. If 100 hour weeks make your labour cost quadruple then companies actually have an incentive to avoid it.