Really looking forward to the "other angle" on how Transphobia is fine as long as CDPR does it.
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Really looking forward to the "other angle" on how Transphobia is fine as long as CDPR does it.
the EiC of The Escapist is criticizing journalists for being toxic? lol
Jason challenging people discrediting his reporting on Twitter isn't sending a mob after people though. This person mentions "three times over the past week". All Jason has done is defend his reporting and call out people for dismissing and downplaying crunch. Equating this to "sending a mob" is disingenuous.
This seems like someone saying they got called out for being publicly confrontational with Jason's reporting and don't like him defending his reports publicly... not very compelling
The campaign against Jason is so fucking transparent it's hilarious.
This industry really isn't equipped to deal with actual journalists existing in it.
This industry really isn't equipped to deal with actual journalists existing in it.
Yikes these people are acting like clowns. I'll take the side of the investigative journalist exposing abuse in the industry over people who are making false ad homs.
But they shouldn't have to to keep their jobs. I work in an industry where crunch happens year in and year out (accounting) and it's fucking stupid. The people there look so damn miserable, but they are making so much more money so some of them feel it is worth it. The others feel stuck or obligated since (when it isn't mandatory) there is intense pressure by the others crunching.
The gaming press is largely enthusiast media, that generally works to promote publishers and retailers. There's always been a weird and often uncomfortable dynamic going on, with press prize boxes, access etc. Jason's work is one of the few examples of actual journalism about the industry.
Please don't ever use that argument ever again, especially if you just mentioned how normal that overtime is and that we are all living in the same society and same financial system. And there is also a difference between a freelancer/independent contractor and a labour. If the first group of people chooses to do overtime, that is on them. But the others are forced and that is what we are talking about.
Also, as many mentioned here, working 100 hours a week will burn you out, make you less effective and surprisingly you don't need that if you have strict laws like here in Germany. And last time I checked, we were doing just fine
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Pretty much.
And this invalidates the problems at CDPR how? I'm not in love with the man but it's obvious this issue exists at CDPR even without Schreier's reporting of it. This is just deflecting the argument from crunch to Schreier's character. This isn't helping anyone.
He is talking to far more developers than any other journalist though, this is how stories like this work. Any investigative journalism piece you will ever read about any workplace mistreatment, even at large companies, is only going to have a dozen or so sources because it is very difficult to get people who are willing to be whistleblowers due to the risk involved. When you see these influencers or other gaming journos who don't do investigative work talking about "I talked to people there" this almost always means marketing and PR staff because usually those are the only people allowed to talk with media. That or it's a handful of staff given permission to speak by PR, HR, and the higher ups at the company under certain conditions. Whereas in Jason's case, people actually come out of the woodwork to talk to him because he has a reputation for reporting on labor conditions in the industry and a long history of doing investigative pieces.
User Warned - Hostility to fellow member (3 Day Threadban)
I've been to poland, I'm a teacher too, I also put in way more hours than I'm paid for.
But have YOU aver worked a full time job, that is not safe to keep? Where you're working strict time frames that are linked together with the schedules of many other people that work right next to you? Where you can't work from home and choose when to take all your breaks and where you don't have diverse tasks that sometimes require full attention and sometimes can repetitive-meditative where you can put a podcast? Where reading code and looking for bugs needs all your attention all the time and how crushing it can be if your solution didn't lead to the right results and you have to do it all over again, explain to colleagues and superiors why you are taking so long?
Really, get the fuck out with that attitude.
Those defending CDPR sound like the same folks who were passionate about ethics in games journalism.
Also, I've tried to read that Game Informer employee's tweets multiple times and just cannot for the life of me parse what she's actually trying to say.
Also, I've tried to read that Game Informer employee's tweets multiple times and just cannot for the life of me parse what she's actually trying to say.
I can understand and relate with you both.
Thanatos, I had some problems doing crunch too, my mental healthy was a mess, I could receovery after therapy and etc.
I'm not in CDRed side, because I know this shit happens with most companies in the world. This mentality of being compensate, be the "cool" worker or job guarantee only because you work more, this I couldn't agree more to be against. The issue is far from gaming companies, it's all over every market.
One of these main problems is this bullshit contractors being blackmailed, should be illegal to have consequences of not doing crunch. But I think this is mainly because contract agreement by contract.
But let's leave deadline, contractors, and all this bullshit meantality the companies do, aside for a moment, and come back to my example of working more because money or even to rest some specific normal work day... Is still crunch? That's what I'm saying. It's more antecipating my work to rest or receive more because I'm in need of money. It's far from right with myself, depending of how much I'm willing to do so.
About toxic work environment, wIth development, this is literally what companies do:
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I was going to write something but this is exactly what I had in mind, but more articulated. Good post, and I completely agree!
They should take this majority of people that want to work on saturdays, develop a plan and get as much shit done till release as possible. If it comes out buggy then so be it.
Isn't most of the work so shortly before release just fixing as much stuff as possible?
Oh he is the guy who defended corporations saying reporters should honor the marketing of these companies and not to spoil the fun
Kotaku Didn't Get the Cold Shoulder from Bethesda & Ubisoft, They Earned It - OnlySP
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As someone who suffered burnout 5 years ago and still haven't gotten back to how I was before, I'd trade all the money in the world for my energy back.
Most salaried positions in US won't pay for overtime. So say we have an urgent project and I had to work 50 or even 60 hours this week. I would get paid the same as another week where I worked 40.
CDPR mandates crunch ("voluntarily") and Jason likes to sniff his own farts. You can't have one without the other it seems.
Honestly, with how much clout Jason has, defending himself is the same thing as sending a mob. Tons of immature people see Jasons tweets and either attack him or attack the people that crticize him. Comes with the territory of having a lot of clout. He is probably in the right all things considered though. I doubt the crunch "wasnt that bad".
Shout out to Schreier - the absolute best journalist in this damn mess. Dude writes investigative supported articles on crunch culture, trying to point out how it's been going on and the types of physical and mental harms that can be incurred - and gets attacked by other "game journalists" who don't want to be affected by the "negativity." Other hilarious Twitter users who are busy hyping and defending work practices none of us truly know the details of to get free PR swag.
Let the man report on work conditions, and let him be one of the only voices challenging game development teams and companies to be better. We can all be hyped to play the game, but it depends on your own conscience as far as what you support. All these attempts to belittle the crunch reports, or try to attack his character to defend poor company working conditions? Bruh.
Let the man report on work conditions, and let him be one of the only voices challenging game development teams and companies to be better. We can all be hyped to play the game, but it depends on your own conscience as far as what you support. All these attempts to belittle the crunch reports, or try to attack his character to defend poor company working conditions? Bruh.
This. Much of the games press is so reliant on access to multinational developers on their terms that it's embarrassing. I remember years ago when some of the better outlets at least stopped accepting endless hospitality from PR departments, but even then they are barely more than an extension of the marketing department much of the time, plastering sites with art from the £60 toys they are reviewing and with seemingly little interest in holding the biggest players to account when they can take ad revenue from their upcoming products instead. Journalism requires asking difficult questions, something much of the games press doesn't always seem comfortable doing at the same time as they are reliant on the huge ad budgets of AAA studios.
Is that a fact, or an assumption?
I work in big IT-projects and I know that in the end I need to work double hours to finish the job, mostly unpaid.
Crunch is generally caused by a project management failure somewhere along the way in a project, or by a project taking an unexpected curve while its being developed that can lead to a larger than planned workload. It can also be a result of someone higher up in the project deciding to scope creep the project and add more things to it.
Game development is also very similar to making a blockbuster movie - you are never really done, you just run out of time before it goes out the door. Due to this, some projects place priorities in the wrong places as they are being developed which can lead to crunch to get everything else done before a project officially releases. However, the problem with the modern video game industry is that games are never truly done these days. Old games used to be crunched on until they went gold and then oh well, the game was out the door and pressed, everyone else just has to live with it. Then patches were introduced as a regular thing, so now games go out the door and teams crunch on the day 1 patch and then everything else that needs to be fixed after that. DLC and GAAS are now a thing as well, so now when games go gold your teams work on day 1 patches, DLC and content to add regularly at a steady pace to keep player engagement high.
All of this has caused more value to be placed on employees who are willing to "lay down on the line" for the project and sacrifice themselves to get the project done. Except projects are truly never done now and game budgets keep rising, team sizes keep getting bigger and game features keep being added. This is the perfect cocktail for industry crunch to brew.
The other problem is that promotions within the video game industry are directly tied to how much you are willing to lay your life on the time for the project. Hell, at an outsourcing company, an internal game developer can request that anyone within the outsourcing company that isn't willing to crunch be removed from the project and replaced by people who will. This is just one example of how fucked up the balance of power can be in the industry and as mentioned before, someone who has a cushy job making over $75,000 may choose to crunch but then all the teams that work with them and all the employees under them must then crunch as well, because if they don't then the person choosing to crunch will run out of things to work on.
The other thing that makes crunch crunch is that it can go on for 6+ months if not years. I've seen other video game projects crunch for over a year, and its never optional due to the fact that choosing not to crunch will put your career progression and/or job stability in peril. And that's an even bigger problem in the video game industry due to the fact that many lower level employees are working in the industry because they are passionate about it and have been told repeatedly that if they suck it up and pay their dues then they will get promoted, just like one of their friends.
But yes, any sustained overtime can be considered crunch.
CDPR did nothing wrong!
*Gets out of Cyberpunk gaming chair*
*Looks lovingly at Keanu Reeves' framed picture*
*Gets out of Cyberpunk gaming chair*
*Looks lovingly at Keanu Reeves' framed picture*
I feel like they're doing this because they know if they said he was doing this for personal clout, they would get spirit bombed from high heaven for the sheer hypocrisy.
I would assume they are referring to the agenda of reporting on poor labor practices in the industry.
Oh he is the guy who defended corporations saying reporters should honor the marketing of these companies and not to spoil the fun
Kotaku Didn't Get the Cold Shoulder from Bethesda & Ubisoft, They Earned It - OnlySP
Single player video games coverage. Every day.
What a joke that guy is
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