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This is a brilliant idea and I'm curious if anyone has any opinions on why it wouldn't work. Paid overtime shifts financial responsibility to the PM who ordered

This is a brilliant idea and I'm curious if anyone has any opinions on why it wouldn't work. Paid overtime shifts financial responsibility to the PM who ordered overtime, because arguably a more competent PM would either push back against unrealistic deadlines or manage the team more efficiently to avoid overtime crunch. It sets the stage for competent management to prevail while incompetent managers are forced out of the org. I think this is great incentive structuring.

makeitdouble 5y ago
Devil's advocate: As paid overtime becomes more common, people start factoring it in production costs, and standard hour salaries are adjusted accordingly. When people negociate they get told "don't worry, with X hours of overtime you'll get a pretty good pay" and we're back to square one. For a real world examole of that, Japanese companies have had these kind of deals for a few decades.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  At least those devs get something back for their crunch time then..
  - eru 5y ago
    The comment you replied to explained that the rates would be the same as now after some adjustment. (Of course, you can disagree with that.)
- hamstergene 5y ago
  There are many countries where not paying for overtime >=2x is illegal, and nothing like that is happening
  - meheleventyone 5y ago
    It can really depend. For example in the UK there is the Working Time Directive which limits employers to a 48 hour maximum working week. Except the employee can opt out of it voluntarily and the power relationship means this is almost never actually voluntary. No doubt some places have strong laws but many have so much wiggle room the laws on the books look nothing like reality.
  - makeitdouble 5y ago
    Most of these countries also have special statuses for skilled workers where the pay isn’t related to worked hours. In France it often was a separated contract you had to sign, but most people above “junior” level were pushed into it. It works pretty well in some companies, and heavily abused in others.
- Uehreka 5y ago
  If that does happen then there was never going to be a way to fix this but no one is worse off. If that doesn't happen then the problem is at least somewhat fixed. Sounds like a good argument to give it a shot. I'm generally all for Devil's Advocate, but when it comes to giving workers reasons to _not_ demand more, I need to see some really compelling evidence of serious harm before I'm willing to tell people to reconsider.
  - onion2k 5y ago
    I'm generally all for Devil's Advocate, but when it comes to giving workers reasons to _not_ demand more, I need to see some really compelling evidence of serious harm before I'm willing to tell people to reconsider. makeitdouble isn't saying workers shouldn't demand more; they're saying that paid overtime doesn't solve the problem of crunch time. It makes crunch time acceptable, and (potentially) gets factored into renumeration packages in the long term. If you want to solve the problem of crunch you need a solution that removes it, not one that pays people to continue doing it.
    - Uehreka 5y ago
      If crunch time continues but workers are making money commensurate with the fact that they're working outside reasonable hours, then I view that as progress. If base pay is depressed to make up for this change and workers make functionally the same amount, that's a bummer. But either way: I don't necessarily view crunch time as a thing that can or will be solved. I just want the game to be more fair than it is now.
      - onion2k 5y ago
        Crunch doesn't really exist in large areas of the software industry. There's no reason why it can't be solved for gaming, especially at large, well-funded studios like CDPR.
  - makeitdouble 5y ago
    To add to onion2k’s point, a better “let’s give it a shot” alternative is to raise the base remuneration to account for the potential overtime. That way if you’re overflown with overtime it’s in your compensation, if you manage to not do any overtime you’ll benefit from it. It’s arguably harder to negotiate, but I think it would be the best way forward. Now, if the choice is between nothing and paid overtime, yes it’s worth it getting paid overtime.
- linspace 5y ago
  Insightful comment. And I will add that we constantly complain about how there are just a few hours daily of truly useful work. Adding more money will not change anything. Paid overtime also can give people the wrong incentives. Edit: what I mean is that we should not plan for overtime. Of course it should always be paid.
- smokey_circles 5y ago
  Just claiming an opposing stance isn't enough to validate it. This is just a silly opinion for the sake of argument. I live in a country with a 40-45 hour max work week. After that, you pay 1.5x rates. Saturdays are 1.5x rates for salaried workers and Sundays and public holidays are 2x. There are very serious legal consequences for trying to skirt the system. As paid overtime becomes the norm, it becomes another metric to track. Project managers that routinely run into overtime are punished. The same as any other expense caused by analysis failures. You seem to think paid overtime suddenly incentivises a company to just up the price of their product. Like it was equivalent equivalent the rising price of materials. It just doesn't work that way. Not everyone is a piss poor planner who can't react to changes in environments. Plenty of projects I've worked for have been pretty close to budget. When overtime is required, we talk to the customer. Their money, their decision ultimately. If your costs unexpectedly skyrocket, you're not keeping customers. I'm getting a little bored of these "qualification by differnce of opinion" reasoning. You've gotta actually qualify your opinion
  - freewilly1040 5y ago
    Your comment is overly dismissive and provides no better evidence than the comment you are responding to. Not everyone is a poor planner, but deadlines become firm when large marketing spends are deployed, as they are in the gaming industry.
    - ryandrake 5y ago
      How do other kinds of software companies with large marketing spend deal with it? Hint: Often not with death march crunch time.
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  Some very badly run (although not unsuccessful) games companies scheduled in crunch as part of their project plan. Disturbingly some still might.
meheleventyone 5y ago
We had paid overtime working on APB at Realtime Worlds across the whole salaried team. I do think it curbed the crunch a bit but did nothing for the project management side of things. There were so many things wrong with that project though it’s probably not a great case study. The other side of it is that people would work extra hours even if they didn’t need to which you might think is great but actually leads to lots of downstream effects because there is more to test that’s been written by people past their best. My personal take is that the overall discipline of managing software projects is so woolly and ill-understood to begin with that the incentives aren’t really there beyond the obvious fairness of actually paying people for the work they do. You don’t need a cost to competently push back against unrealistic processes.
PeterisP 5y ago
Well, CDPR had paid overtime (just as any other company is required by law in Poland and nearby European countries - the USA notion of programmers as exempt from overtime rules is, well, mostly USA-specific) and this apparently didn't work - the argument that "there should be paid overtime" does not seem to be relevant for this article at all.
rebuilder 5y ago
It’s not that it wouldn’t work, it’s that in order for management to put this kind of restriction on their own power in place, they’d have to first admit they need it. People usually don’t like to tie their own hands. Now, if the employees unionised like in the film industry, it might happen.

makeitdouble 5y ago

Devil's advocate: As paid overtime becomes more common, people start factoring it in production costs, and standard hour salaries are adjusted accordingly. When people negociate they get told "don't worry, with X hours of overtime you'll get a pretty good pay" and we're back to square one. For a real world examole of that, Japanese companies have had these kind of deals for a few decades.

GekkePrutser 5y ago
At least those devs get something back for their crunch time then..
- eru 5y ago
  The comment you replied to explained that the rates would be the same as now after some adjustment. (Of course, you can disagree with that.)
hamstergene 5y ago
There are many countries where not paying for overtime >=2x is illegal, and nothing like that is happening
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  It can really depend. For example in the UK there is the Working Time Directive which limits employers to a 48 hour maximum working week. Except the employee can opt out of it voluntarily and the power relationship means this is almost never actually voluntary. No doubt some places have strong laws but many have so much wiggle room the laws on the books look nothing like reality.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  Most of these countries also have special statuses for skilled workers where the pay isn’t related to worked hours. In France it often was a separated contract you had to sign, but most people above “junior” level were pushed into it. It works pretty well in some companies, and heavily abused in others.
Uehreka 5y ago
If that does happen then there was never going to be a way to fix this but no one is worse off. If that doesn't happen then the problem is at least somewhat fixed. Sounds like a good argument to give it a shot. I'm generally all for Devil's Advocate, but when it comes to giving workers reasons to _not_ demand more, I need to see some really compelling evidence of serious harm before I'm willing to tell people to reconsider.
- onion2k 5y ago
  I'm generally all for Devil's Advocate, but when it comes to giving workers reasons to _not_ demand more, I need to see some really compelling evidence of serious harm before I'm willing to tell people to reconsider. makeitdouble isn't saying workers shouldn't demand more; they're saying that paid overtime doesn't solve the problem of crunch time. It makes crunch time acceptable, and (potentially) gets factored into renumeration packages in the long term. If you want to solve the problem of crunch you need a solution that removes it, not one that pays people to continue doing it.
  - Uehreka 5y ago
    If crunch time continues but workers are making money commensurate with the fact that they're working outside reasonable hours, then I view that as progress. If base pay is depressed to make up for this change and workers make functionally the same amount, that's a bummer. But either way: I don't necessarily view crunch time as a thing that can or will be solved. I just want the game to be more fair than it is now.
    - onion2k 5y ago
      Crunch doesn't really exist in large areas of the software industry. There's no reason why it can't be solved for gaming, especially at large, well-funded studios like CDPR.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  To add to onion2k’s point, a better “let’s give it a shot” alternative is to raise the base remuneration to account for the potential overtime. That way if you’re overflown with overtime it’s in your compensation, if you manage to not do any overtime you’ll benefit from it. It’s arguably harder to negotiate, but I think it would be the best way forward. Now, if the choice is between nothing and paid overtime, yes it’s worth it getting paid overtime.
linspace 5y ago
Insightful comment. And I will add that we constantly complain about how there are just a few hours daily of truly useful work. Adding more money will not change anything. Paid overtime also can give people the wrong incentives. Edit: what I mean is that we should not plan for overtime. Of course it should always be paid.
smokey_circles 5y ago
Just claiming an opposing stance isn't enough to validate it. This is just a silly opinion for the sake of argument. I live in a country with a 40-45 hour max work week. After that, you pay 1.5x rates. Saturdays are 1.5x rates for salaried workers and Sundays and public holidays are 2x. There are very serious legal consequences for trying to skirt the system. As paid overtime becomes the norm, it becomes another metric to track. Project managers that routinely run into overtime are punished. The same as any other expense caused by analysis failures. You seem to think paid overtime suddenly incentivises a company to just up the price of their product. Like it was equivalent equivalent the rising price of materials. It just doesn't work that way. Not everyone is a piss poor planner who can't react to changes in environments. Plenty of projects I've worked for have been pretty close to budget. When overtime is required, we talk to the customer. Their money, their decision ultimately. If your costs unexpectedly skyrocket, you're not keeping customers. I'm getting a little bored of these "qualification by differnce of opinion" reasoning. You've gotta actually qualify your opinion
- freewilly1040 5y ago
  Your comment is overly dismissive and provides no better evidence than the comment you are responding to. Not everyone is a poor planner, but deadlines become firm when large marketing spends are deployed, as they are in the gaming industry.
  - ryandrake 5y ago
    How do other kinds of software companies with large marketing spend deal with it? Hint: Often not with death march crunch time.
meheleventyone 5y ago
Some very badly run (although not unsuccessful) games companies scheduled in crunch as part of their project plan. Disturbingly some still might.

meheleventyone 5y ago

We had paid overtime working on APB at Realtime Worlds across the whole salaried team. I do think it curbed the crunch a bit but did nothing for the project management side of things. There were so many things wrong with that project though it’s probably not a great case study. The other side of it is that people would work extra hours even if they didn’t need to which you might think is great but actually leads to lots of downstream effects because there is more to test that’s been written by people past their best. My personal take is that the overall discipline of managing software projects is so woolly and ill-understood to begin with that the incentives aren’t really there beyond the obvious fairness of actually paying people for the work they do. You don’t need a cost to competently push back against unrealistic processes.

PeterisP 5y ago

Well, CDPR had paid overtime (just as any other company is required by law in Poland and nearby European countries - the USA notion of programmers as exempt from overtime rules is, well, mostly USA-specific) and this apparently didn't work - the argument that "there should be paid overtime" does not seem to be relevant for this article at all.

rebuilder 5y ago

It’s not that it wouldn’t work, it’s that in order for management to put this kind of restriction on their own power in place, they’d have to first admit they need it. People usually don’t like to tie their own hands. Now, if the employees unionised like in the film industry, it might happen.