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Jason Schreier: As Naughty Dog Crunches On The Last Of Us II, Developers Wonder How Much Longer This Approach Can Last
- Thread starter Deleted member 8196
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Yeah what the fuck? Some shit is wrong if your own employees want your games to fail.
It's amazing to me looking at some of the responses and takes on other careers as well that it further enforces the fact that technology was supposed to be a means to make jobs easier to do and more efficient, but with social media and the "immediacy" of delivery it's only resulted in a culture that expects 150% of work to be done in 50% of the time 100% of the time.
The fact that other industries "do it too" shouldn't be a factor in stating that it's stupid that the structure is built this way, but that's the joke of the "competitive free market" I guess. "I work more so my boss makes more money off me and I can make a little more money than the other guy I'm telling off, even though I'll never have a C or V title." It's just a shame to watch technology breed a world where you're just expected to be working...all the fucking time.
The fact that other industries "do it too" shouldn't be a factor in stating that it's stupid that the structure is built this way, but that's the joke of the "competitive free market" I guess. "I work more so my boss makes more money off me and I can make a little more money than the other guy I'm telling off, even though I'll never have a C or V title." It's just a shame to watch technology breed a world where you're just expected to be working...all the fucking time.
No wonder they crunch like hell and their culture is like this when their policy is basically "everyone is their own producer". That may work for a 12-person indie team, but not when you're a behemoth like ND. That's just hilariously bad project management.
The turnover is insane too. The piece mentions that they hired a ton of contracters to just throw bodies at the problem. I really hope they realize this won't keep working.
The final 'graf is depressing too. Devs hoping the game fails so that management realizes they can't keep running the studio into the ground like this. I recall Bioware employees saying the same thing about Inquisition and its hellish development. Awful stuff.
Anyway game devs should unionize.
The turnover is insane too. The piece mentions that they hired a ton of contracters to just throw bodies at the problem. I really hope they realize this won't keep working.
The final 'graf is depressing too. Devs hoping the game fails so that management realizes they can't keep running the studio into the ground like this. I recall Bioware employees saying the same thing about Inquisition and its hellish development. Awful stuff.
Anyway game devs should unionize.
This. This. This.
You literally have to be the last one to leave the office for any kind of career progression. That's why unionization is so important.
If developers/publishers are so insistent on having these games worked on around the clock, the simple solution is to have a day shift and a night shift. Employees would work sane 8-hour days and publishers would have their games worked on for 16 hours a day.
Oh wait, that would mean hiring more people instead of taking advantage of salaried employees working unpaid overtime. Forget I said anything.
Oh wait, that would mean hiring more people instead of taking advantage of salaried employees working unpaid overtime. Forget I said anything.
Its a difficult situation. Sony leadership don't put pressure on studio employees and are generally relaxed. They've delayed games when the products weren't ready (GoW, TLOUptII, Ghost, Dreams etc). Some studios just have an unspoken culture of crunch. I see it myself in a different field - education. We ARE unionised, heavily so, but most of my colleagues and I work 60hour+ weeks even though we are paid for 40. That pressure doesn't come from leadership.
I work in construction and i have to agree here. Still terrible in any laboral space, but what can i say to you... that's what the world is. And i dont know if not buying the game is the solution, because for the higher ups, the reason of the underdeliver will never be "people are protesting for your crunch", the answer will be "the game was not that good in the end"
Delay it again and again and again until Management can pick a reasonable date.
Honestly them sounding workaholics sounds like their being super scummy, and taking advantage of people who like to spent more time working, and basically burn them out and repeat with someone else.
Naughty Dog should hire Rudy Gobert. The guy got rid of the crunch time in the NBA. I am sure he can do the same for sony's most renowned studio.
Construction doesn't crunch for extended massive periods of time. Like you're not gonna see 12 hour shifts for 3 months straight.
What a kicker. If you want your hard work to fail to make a statement, then just how fucked up is the communication out there.
In terms of the "voluntary crunch" issue, a lot of people are missing one of the key parts of the article:
Sometimes you have to protect people from themselves (especially when your hiring process selects for perfectionist workaholics). At Naughty Dog, there isn't a job for that role.
Kotaku said:
Sometimes you have to protect people from themselves (especially when your hiring process selects for perfectionist workaholics). At Naughty Dog, there isn't a job for that role.
The latter being definitely true does not mean the former may not be true either.
Twelve hours is that bad. Just like anything over eight.
That would only devalue work, and game devs already don't get paid as much as they should. It's a cultural and management problem.
Key thing here: having fun doesn't mean they're not crunching and essentially burning out.
There's also a very good chance of them not being included in the credits if they leave before release, or lose bonuses. It has happened before.
Going by his previous tweets people would think otherwise...
Maybe thats the problem, if instead of praising the current work place and instead shit talk the current conditions the companies would be more inclined to make changes.
Just delaying the game does not address the root cause of the issue.
This is issue needs a top to bottom change of culture and commitment from management all the way up to the heads of Playstation / Sony. It's likely too late to make things better for the TLOU2, but they can commit to change and institute new work practices and culture improvements for their future projects - this is what I hope occurs.
Then you delay it so much that Sony would likely consider it a monumental waste of money and release it as is.
It's less about the release date and all about the culture.
you will soon see the good that Anthem and Fallout 76 does to their studios.
if TLOU2 was like this games, shit would change at some capacity.
Spoiler alert: it's not different. Their is crunch in every creative profession where billions are at stake. You hear about gaming because.....well...your on resetera.
Why are so many people arguing that this may not be the worst case of crunch out there, or that it's similar in other industries?
That doesn't make it okay - it means things are just as bad for them too. It's a significant problem that is not exclusive to games.
The studio shouldn't be enabling this. They shouldn't allow people to work this kind of overtime. This is a failure of management.
Forcing this kind of extended crunch is not an acceptable solution.
That doesn't make it okay - it means things are just as bad for them too. It's a significant problem that is not exclusive to games.
They are pressured to do it - whether that is directly or indirectly.
The studio shouldn't be enabling this. They shouldn't allow people to work this kind of overtime. This is a failure of management.
Scale up the workforce or scale down the games.
Forcing this kind of extended crunch is not an acceptable solution.
This is part of why I want to see a push for lower fidelity games that are smaller in scope and target high frame rates - to limit what can be done.
Honestly this one of the industries top problems that they need to solve. 70% of your staff leaving is way too huge a number. I mean those people worked at ND, they at least have to be good at their jobs right? Thats a big loss of talent + now you have to educate all the new hires on how things work at the studio.
Naughty Dog can do better. The entire industry can do much better.
This is a top-down management and executive decision. There have been examples of team leads making people go home, essentially saying "Screw the culture." It's what needs to happen more often.
Unfortunately, consumers won't force developers to make this change any time soon. We prioritize the arms race of graphical fidelity and mountains of content too highly.
This is a top-down management and executive decision. There have been examples of team leads making people go home, essentially saying "Screw the culture." It's what needs to happen more often.
Unfortunately, consumers won't force developers to make this change any time soon. We prioritize the arms race of graphical fidelity and mountains of content too highly.
I knew some people left in the past year at ND, but i didn't realize it was 70%. That's quite a bit.
I don't really know what to think. From what i gather, It seems like the people working there enjoy what they're doing so they don't mind the crunch. However, i'm pretty sure there might be people working there that probably don't enjoy the crunch, but they kinda have to do it since the others are doing it and it might make them look bad if they don't crunch like the others.
I don't really know what to think. From what i gather, It seems like the people working there enjoy what they're doing so they don't mind the crunch. However, i'm pretty sure there might be people working there that probably don't enjoy the crunch, but they kinda have to do it since the others are doing it and it might make them look bad if they don't crunch like the others.
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Interesting article Jason. Sounds like Naughty Dog can be both a fantastic and horrific place to work.
What resonated with me most though is how the studio doesn't "force" employees to work evenings/weekends - it's all voluntary by the developers and therefore clearly part of the culture of the company.
Something clearly has to change in the future as it can't continue - it destroys health and relationships. But where does it come from? Does Naughty Dog say that nobody can work weekends or evenings? What about the people who want to come in and make the game the best it can be. It's a difficult situation.
What resonated with me most though is how the studio doesn't "force" employees to work evenings/weekends - it's all voluntary by the developers and therefore clearly part of the culture of the company.
Something clearly has to change in the future as it can't continue - it destroys health and relationships. But where does it come from? Does Naughty Dog say that nobody can work weekends or evenings? What about the people who want to come in and make the game the best it can be. It's a difficult situation.
Maybe Naughty Dogs next self congratulatory attempt when shipping a game would be to place Joel in this movie instead:
What? Surely with the coronavirus in full swing surely now is the perfect time to release it? Everyone stuck at home with nothing to do but watch movies and play video games.
Here's the reality of things, everyone wants their high production AAA game in a timely manner. Obviously they could extend the development process to four years, which also means time equals money.
Everybody's expectation is that Naughty Dog will create two games per generation console(aka every two years). Every time there's an increasing hardware for the consoles that means that there's more increase development time on AAA console games. This is a hard one to resolve in the long run.
Everybody's expectation is that Naughty Dog will create two games per generation console(aka every two years). Every time there's an increasing hardware for the consoles that means that there's more increase development time on AAA console games. This is a hard one to resolve in the long run.
The article states it pretty clearly, a delay doesn't mean no more crunch, it can just mean crunch for another few months.
Delaying the game = spending money = less profit margin. Not going to happen. Crunch is sadly just an expected and accepted part of game development. After personally going through it, I've dropped whatever hopes and dreams I have of working in games.
If you really don't want to support the developer, buy the game used.
Corporate might be a boring slog, but the better pay and work life balance is worth it.
If you really don't want to support the developer, buy the game used.
Corporate might be a boring slog, but the better pay and work life balance is worth it.
But it's not mandated. It really means jack shit if this kind of culture gets fostered through peer pressure instead and no one being there telling people to go the fuck home. Also pretty shocking to read that ND doesn't have a traditional producer department.
i mean, what can you do if a big part of it is a culture thing at ND? they really need to get together and figure something out after they ship TLOU2, from what i gather sony has been giving them the time they need if it needs to be delayed they delay it though i also understand the extra pressure launching a new console brings as well meeting expectations or goals set by sony and themselves
Also this article implies ND has been crunching almost non-stop from the end of 2018. That means by the time the game is out they will have crunched for 1.5 years...
The 70% number is specifically the people with the task of 'designer', as the article says it's 14 of 20 people in that area. Not 70% of all developers there.
(Still wild and unacceptable though!)
(Still wild and unacceptable though!)
I saw some petty furious people on the internet that Media Molecule took 7 years to release Dreams. People who were of the opinion that they wanted the game, were excited for it, but it took too long so no thanks.
I understand thankfully not everyone feels that way, but that petty sentiment was shared a lot, to the point that some people were gleefully hopeful the game would fail.
Don't know what my point is really. Some gamers are assholes and shame on you if you felt this way. I have massive respect for the people that make these sacrifices and I hope somehow it can be gotten under control.
I understand thankfully not everyone feels that way, but that petty sentiment was shared a lot, to the point that some people were gleefully hopeful the game would fail.
Don't know what my point is really. Some gamers are assholes and shame on you if you felt this way. I have massive respect for the people that make these sacrifices and I hope somehow it can be gotten under control.
