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Ex-Naughty Dog animator: "ND's games success is due in large part to Sony's deep pocket funding delays rather than skill alone"
- Thread starter Lant_War
- Start date
Read the god damn thread before commenting, and stop looking at only the title for fuck sake.
Well if Jason's piece wasn't damning enough this sure cements things are pretty bad at ND wrt management, that 70 percent turnover figure from UC4 is nuts. When you've got one of the best animators in their field that stayed at the company for five plus years saying these things without the protection of anonymity you know things have gone south (and have been for awhile). I love their games but this shit is unacceptable and I hope the noise this generates between the article and Jonathan's tweets results in a major restructuring of how Sony and ND do things.
Burning out your top tier talent sounds like such an incompetent way to go about things. As sad it sounds you expect that behavior towards less experienced employees as they they know the threat of ruin to their careers for speaking out against the management, but every once in awhile you're gonna get a veteran like Jonathan that gives no fucks and will tell all. I hope this burn sticks and clings enough to Sony/ND for some actual change to occur.
Burning out your top tier talent sounds like such an incompetent way to go about things. As sad it sounds you expect that behavior towards less experienced employees as they they know the threat of ruin to their careers for speaking out against the management, but every once in awhile you're gonna get a veteran like Jonathan that gives no fucks and will tell all. I hope this burn sticks and clings enough to Sony/ND for some actual change to occur.
User warned: Inflammatory drive-by posting.
I don't care about anything else he said, just that quote wich makes no sense.
Valve is one of the lucky ones. They make a lot on Steam, MTX, and hardly have to make games. IIRC they also aren't public so no shareholders breathing down their necks to always make increasing and increasing profits.
Is this clown hour on Era or something? Jesus you are juvenile
That last tweet in the OP...
Yikes.
Some of the replies in this thread. A lot of ND Stan's up in here.
Yikes.
Some of the replies in this thread. A lot of ND Stan's up in here.
aonuma claimed that no staff member was "exerted" during the development of BOTW.
this being said, dunno if we can just take his word for it, especially since in the same interview he stressed a lot about "flexibility", which usually means "you will have periods where you go home early and there will be others where you are going to kill yourself with work", but i don't recall anyone calling it out as bs
I guess people want to work a few years at ND to put it on their resumé so that they can apply at a high profile studio with less crunch. Working at ND for a long period seems to just be folie.
Well yeah, given what he's said it'd entirely understandable for anyone to hold a grudge in those circumstances.
It's your post that makes no sense. You're claiming he said something he didn't say. So calm your tits.
Didn't he? He's talking about how Naughty Dog bleeds talent beacuse of crunch culture but thanks to Sony's deep pockets they can replace people and delay the games if needed and that is a big part of why the games are so good, no just skill. Meaning, anybody with money could do exactly the same. Why they didn't do this with Days Gone instead of shipping a broken game then?
User Warned: Trolling
but Valve doesn't make games anymore so it's easy to have plenty of 'Valve Time'...just check that Steam is functioning and Gabe gets his lunch on time
On first pass you could easily just relegate this to typical problems reflected widespread by the industry but that 70% turnover percentage is pretty rough.
Pretty embarrassing. Fucked up when a lot of people are supposedly always for the little guy until someone says anything about their favorite company.
I didn't read it like that, I read it moreso that they are given the financial backing of Sony to pay for expensive things (such as endless focus testing).
i.e. it has a massive budget that nothing else is afforded.
That massive budget allows for a style of AAA game to emerge that is simply impossible for anyone else.
Not even EA, Activision or UBi.
These people are already convinced that TLOU2 is a GOTY even before playing the game. There's no stopping their hype.
That is honestly one of the most pathetic tweets I've ever read. Going to bat for devs known for shitty practices is never a good look. Like there is no justifying what they do. What would be cool is if Sony spoke out against crunch.
and how is that any different then what has been going on for years? some studios get more time and some don't but just because some got more time it doesn't mean you'll get a better product you still need a huge amount of talent and skill to get a good product regardless.
Read his statement again and then keep doing that until you understand what he is saying.
I've noticed that trend around here. Crunch time is bad unless it's my favorite developer.
The games are very good, which is why I like them
I don't support crunch, I myself in the nursing environment am exposed to 12 hour days but that's a norm as opposed to being extended work hours against my actual will
Bad practice straight up but that's obvious
I don't support crunch, I myself in the nursing environment am exposed to 12 hour days but that's a norm as opposed to being extended work hours against my actual will
Bad practice straight up but that's obvious
I thought crunch was common practice in the gaming industry. Do you have a list of developers with confirmed no crunch so I can only buy their games?
I'm trying to think of a scenario where this sort of work culture, lasting for years, wouldn't result in a grudge. Especially if it inspired someone to outright leave the studio.
Please propose an hypothetical "other side" scenario that would justify what is being denounced by here. I dont care if its the real case or not, I just want to know what could justify such conditions.
Well they seemingly are bleeding talent, the Schreier report corroborates that. Big money does big bombastic games all the time, critical darlings or just big financial successes (like with Days Gone), sometimes both (Red Dead Redemption). Obviously there's talent involved too, like with Naughty Dog (as also Cooper himself says, there's talent), or Electronic Arts and Ubisoft. Money helps to acquire that skill, yes? And you think Naughty Dog could do what they're doing with half the budget, no? The success of Uncharted/Last of Us is large part to it's (cinematic) presentation, polish and attention to detail. All of this is pretty dependant on the size of the production. Smaller studios don't usually have the time and resources to fine tune every single strand of hair. Nor is it's feasible to hire the most profilic and renowned voice actors to do expensive motion capture etc.
Keep in mind, in the tweet you took an issue with, Cooper mentions that they're talented, but it's not talent alone that makes those games. One reason for it is the talent leaving, like Cooper here, Bruce Straley, Amy Hennig or Lucas Pope. And many more due to the heavy crunch and other reasons.
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This site is very pro Playstation. If this was Rockstar or CDPR or some other big studio which has been in the "crunch news" before, their graves would have been dug by now.
On topic, I always find it disgusting when a company tries to silence its employees about the company's work culture. I've worked in places like that in a different field. If you don't have anything to hide you wouldn't try to silence your employees.
Which says it all really.
Yep, saw someone earlier saying they'd just buy the game second hand (yeah right)
Jonathan Cooper on Twitter
“Ultimately, ND's linear games have a formula and they focus-test the shit out of them. While talented, their success is due in large part to Sony's deep pockets funding delays rather than skill alone. A more senior team would have shipped TLOU2 a year ago.”
twitter.com
Jonathan Cooper on Twitter
“There are ND stories worse than this but like everything on my twitter I'm focusing on animation. For TLOU2 fans, the game should turn out great with industry-leading animation. I would just not recommend anyone work at Naughty Dog until they prioritise talent-retention.”
twitter.com
Jonathan Cooper on Twitter
“Those that don't can be at ND for 2-3 projects (with pauses inbetwen) and, while paid overtime, never receive benefits or the security of a full-time gig. This is the way the industry is moving so workers need more protection rather than the carot of a fulltime job "one day".”
twitter.com
Even if you choose to remain ignorant to the full thread of quotes, you did a terrible job of understanding even the single sentence that you did choose to read and comment on.
Hes trying to say the guy in the op is lying, because fanboys cant help themselves.
My statement speaks for itself, and Iam neither justifying or denouncing any of this individuals accusations.
If people seriously cared about crunch, poor industry practices, and the human cost of making electronic toys, they wouldn't play any video games/invest in the industry full stop. Those who are acting holier-than-thou are almost assuredly contributing to other avenues of exploitation too. It's industry, culture wide. Look at the thread stickied at the very top of this segment of the board.
All that said, yeah, this is sad. Naughty Dog's games are some of my favorites, same with Rockstar's, but it's clear that they (and many others) employ incredibly shitty business practices.
The industry, as well as the content produced, is going to have to fundamentally change in order for this to be resolved it seems like.
All that said, yeah, this is sad. Naughty Dog's games are some of my favorites, same with Rockstar's, but it's clear that they (and many others) employ incredibly shitty business practices.
The industry, as well as the content produced, is going to have to fundamentally change in order for this to be resolved it seems like.
You will get more or less degrees of crunch in most companies, really. From what I've heard, Ubisoft is fairly good in this regard, but still not crunch-free really. A couple companies I have heard really good things about are CCP Games (Eve Online) and Monolith Soft (Xenoblade, etc..). And then you have companies like NaughtyDog and From Software that are, within the industry, quite infamous for their working conditions.
No I am saying there are always two sides to a story. If you wish to accept this individuals statements as a complete and accurate account of the truth than that's on you.
User Banned (2 Weeks): Platform Warring and Community Generalizations; Prior Bans for the Same
This thread and the HZD related ones convinced me that Reset Era is the largest Sony fanboy hive on the internet. Standing up for ND practices ffs...