Jesus christ Americans wake the fuck up and unionize. Also i wonder if Cory Balorg's passion story is a bit messy now the implications there were a bit dicey. Wonderi ifJason has stories about that God of War period
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[Kotaku] The Human Cost Of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 by Jason Schreier
- Thread starter dex3108
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It looks to me like some AAA titles should be scaled down to avoid this nonsense. I know everyone is looking for the best games possible, but it's not worth the human cost involved these days.
Forcing people to work ridiculous hours and then treating them like scum isn't the best way to make great games imo.
Forcing people to work ridiculous hours and then treating them like scum isn't the best way to make great games imo.
Heh. I feel shitty after having read that article, but this made me chuckle.
I may not always agree with his opinions but jschreier does a flat out amazing job. Nice reading stuff from a cat putting in real work for these stories.
This is horrible. After all these stories have been coming out...we need to realize this isn't sustainable. I almost cried when I read the kids working on the new mortal kombat were only making 12 FUCKING DOLLARS AN HOUR. I don't know what the answer is but something has got to give
This is horrible. After all these stories have been coming out...we need to realize this isn't sustainable. I almost cried when I read the kids working on the new mortal kombat were only making 12 FUCKING DOLLARS AN HOUR. I don't know what the answer is but something has got to give
I would take a look at this Volt company more and also examine the correspondence with the dev teams and the QA.
I can understand why the testers may think their feedback is valuable and in some way they should be able to suggest notable things to add or adjust in order to better the game.
BUT I also think testers need to keep in mind what their jobs are and they are technically not employed by Treyarch but a separate entity.
The practices employed could definitely be refined but this is more scathing to me on the Volt side of things. I don't doubt the feelings and animosity towards some Treyarch practices like the AC but on the whole, Volt needs to have dialogue with whatever company and iron out a better deal for their employees (the QA department).
More writings on the wall for some kind of Union or some kind of rules on employee abuses via the long hours.
I agree that the testers should also get a little bit of a bonus even if they aren't part of the main staff. But again, they need to understand what their place is in the overall process.
I have empathy for the people and the whole process needs to improve. I also have respect for Treyarch as well.
We need to continue to expose these things because the gaming industry's treatment and practices and behaviors are pathetic at times.
Thank you for doing the research necessary for this piece, I'm more informed thanks to it.
I can understand why the testers may think their feedback is valuable and in some way they should be able to suggest notable things to add or adjust in order to better the game.
BUT I also think testers need to keep in mind what their jobs are and they are technically not employed by Treyarch but a separate entity.
The practices employed could definitely be refined but this is more scathing to me on the Volt side of things. I don't doubt the feelings and animosity towards some Treyarch practices like the AC but on the whole, Volt needs to have dialogue with whatever company and iron out a better deal for their employees (the QA department).
More writings on the wall for some kind of Union or some kind of rules on employee abuses via the long hours.
I agree that the testers should also get a little bit of a bonus even if they aren't part of the main staff. But again, they need to understand what their place is in the overall process.
I have empathy for the people and the whole process needs to improve. I also have respect for Treyarch as well.
We need to continue to expose these things because the gaming industry's treatment and practices and behaviors are pathetic at times.
Thank you for doing the research necessary for this piece, I'm more informed thanks to it.
Man i sure love capitalism but at the same time it sucks.
I hope QA testers will eventually be treated like human beings
I hope QA testers will eventually be treated like human beings
I agree.
I don't know exactly how to describe it but EA is just bumbling around with this type of shit so all eyes are on them. They're unintentionally giving the rest of the industry cover when they keep doing dumb shit like trying to call lootboxes "surprise mechanics". So everything EA does from buisness practices to employee treatment is under greater scrutiny at the moment.
Here is a question... why do ppl do this? Is it really just for the 'passion' and the hope of being brought in?
If you want a decent paying QA job, there are plenty of those in the IT industry. Learn a bit of automation and get a few certifications and you can get to 6 figures salary.
It's really nuts that they have zero interaction with their QA team... As a developer, the relationship with my testers is vital to getting anything done. I'll need to see the literature the management is reading that led to this decision...
If you want a decent paying QA job, there are plenty of those in the IT industry. Learn a bit of automation and get a few certifications and you can get to 6 figures salary.
It's really nuts that they have zero interaction with their QA team... As a developer, the relationship with my testers is vital to getting anything done. I'll need to see the literature the management is reading that led to this decision...
Why the fuck would you antagonize your workers to the point of making them feel like outcasts? What is the point of denying them of cater or interaction with members from other departments?
This is so fucked up. Fuck Activision. I'm just really glad I don't play their stuff.
This is so fucked up. Fuck Activision. I'm just really glad I don't play their stuff.
I would ask "How is this still a thing?" but then I remember that this is still a thing at some very highly regarded places, even worse than the 20 minutes limited time at parties. :)
What about employee treatment is under greater scrutiny?
What about employee treatment is under greater scrutiny?
Yeah this is how it is in my experience too. The thing is, the way QA testers are hired is different to how the game dev team is hired. For the development team, you have to have an expansive portfolio, and often an education relevant to the area of game dev you want to work in, and experience is a must most of the time.
For QA, that's often not the case. There are no explicit qualifications or experience required for an entry level position, ultimately it's just seen as a role that a human needs to perform, so they hire humans. At the same time though, because they're not qualified like the coders and the animators, or necessarily experienced, they're paid far less than the the rest of the team, and seen as much more disposable.
Really, the inequality should stop there, the reduced salary reflects the reduced value, but it goes far beyond that. There seems to be a sense of exclusion that on the whole, keeps them out of the game dev process. They're often not seen as game developers, and as a result, they're not connected with the games development in the same way as the the rest of the staff.
In contrast, a receptionist who makes no material contribution to the games development, will typically be seen as part of the development team, and shown far more respect than the QA staff.
I'm just explaining what I've seen.
When I speak with them I ask them what they want to do, and it's never the case that they want to work in games anymore. In general, the QA experience has made them want to get as far away from games as possible.
Jesus. Shit has got to change at some point. It's ridiculous how many people in this industry are treated.
Volt needs to be held just as accountable if not more so than Treyarch/Activision. It is Volt's responsibility to ensure their workers are treated properly and all the complaints whether it was A/C, lack of food, etc. should have went directly to Volt. It is Volt's responsibility to have those conversations with Acti/3arch Leadership to make any necessary changes occur.
That opening anecdote about the QA people is bizzarre to me. I don't even know what would happen if the QA people felt they couldn't/weren't allowed to talk to me. A hell of a lot more shit gets done because they can just come to my desk, say "hey is this intended behaviour?", and if it's not then "is this something you can fix?", or "any idea who to give this to then?", etc.
Sometimes there's no choice. The payless gap between one job to another can have serious consequences.
This isn't the first or last we've heard of these kinds of conditions. Honestly, this is what stopped me from pursuing a career in the games industry years ago. I don't blame anyone who runs far far away from games.
Every time I read about these stories, some part of me breaks. No AC while doing tests. The gaming industry is fucked up in almost every regard.
I was also once a tester, but not for a gaming company. Was also working under contract by another company. While we were quite limited and didn't have any input in the development of the product, at least they treated us well. But it was a terrible job and many times I was depressed because of it. Thankfully, found a job as a programmer in less than a year.
Only way I see myself entering the gaming business is being indie and going by my own pace. But AAA? Never.
I was also once a tester, but not for a gaming company. Was also working under contract by another company. While we were quite limited and didn't have any input in the development of the product, at least they treated us well. But it was a terrible job and many times I was depressed because of it. Thankfully, found a job as a programmer in less than a year.
Same here. No point. Besides, I would be dead by now if I had to crunch.
Only way I see myself entering the gaming business is being indie and going by my own pace. But AAA? Never.
Nothing specific to be honest, its just that the company as a whole gets a target on its back when someone within that company or representing the interests of the company says or does something that the general public dislikes.
While I would never advocate for treating people like they're not human beings and they certainly should be allowed to have some pizza, let's not forget that a lot of great careers start in QA, and often times the people hired to work there sometimes have no skills that would get them in the industry, and for an entry level potision making hourly wages is also not unheard of.
While I know this isn't the norm, I know several people personally who are creative directors and EPs on games that started in QA right out of college. I'd wager that none of them would look on their time in QA fondly, but it's disingenuous of Sneak Fuck to cite a designer using a bonus check to buy a car as a way QA is mistreated when they've likely worked their entire lives to get where they are.
QA is a valuable part of the development process, and each member of a QA pool should be treated equally as the rest of the employees when it comes to time off, company perks, etc, but let's not say an executive shouldn't make $100K/yr when someone who just started in their career is making less.
While I know this isn't the norm, I know several people personally who are creative directors and EPs on games that started in QA right out of college. I'd wager that none of them would look on their time in QA fondly, but it's disingenuous of Sneak Fuck to cite a designer using a bonus check to buy a car as a way QA is mistreated when they've likely worked their entire lives to get where they are.
QA is a valuable part of the development process, and each member of a QA pool should be treated equally as the rest of the employees when it comes to time off, company perks, etc, but let's not say an executive shouldn't make $100K/yr when someone who just started in their career is making less.
What the hell, what's the point of segregating them like this?
Is it just elitism or what? And even then why is that allowed to impact on the professional relationship to the point of damaging the end product?
I think they're referring to the mental health stuff & disconnect between management & staff that was reported on at Bioware.
No. This is normal in pretty much every industry and probably normal everywhere in the world. They're temp workers with no skills so why on earth would they be paid bonuses? Not inviting them to parties is bad management and it's not how I'd treat my team, but that's also par for the course. This isn't a video games issue and frankly this is far and away from the worst description of temp worker treatment I've encountered.
Thankfully, my job treats our temps a bit more humanely. We invited a temp worker to our holiday luncheon, a much older guy, and he said that in all his years he'd never been invited to a company party. That made me happy to do something nice, but it's so sad that a holiday party, which I take for granted, was something for him to cherish. He was a great worker and deserved more.
At every studio Ive worked at there have been some rules about QA interactions with developers. If these weren't in place, there could be a lot of distractions happening.
You have to understand that a lot of people hired into QA are kids with not a lot of professional experience. If you just let them talk at any time to developers it would be chaos.
You have to understand that a lot of people hired into QA are kids with not a lot of professional experience. If you just let them talk at any time to developers it would be chaos.
Great article, but I think its important to note that the majority of corporate America functions this way as well.
I've never really understood why the general public rails on EA, when Activision is even more guilty of the by-the-numbers, pay-2-win, annual release, season pass, microtransaction-laden, shit-heap of a model. Hell, I believe that EA (or Dice at least) have a reputation for treating their employees quite well.
The gaming industry is disgusting, and in my eyes Activision has been the posterchild for all that's wrong with it.
The gaming industry is disgusting, and in my eyes Activision has been the posterchild for all that's wrong with it.
They are not employees. They work for a completely different company. As such there needs to be a clear distinction between temp/contract employees and direct hire/full time employees from a legal perspective, even in instances where office space is shared.
This is not a video game industry thing, it is true across most industries.
Maybe once the inhumane conditions are remedied in the industry.
But what people are saying here is going well beyond any legal distinction, it's more like social ostracism.
Remember Bobby Kotick and his CFO fired thousands of people for "saving costs" the year they gave themselves bonuses worth dozens of million dollars.
One of those millions would have paid the lunch for these people for a year.
But they needed that one too. 14 weren't enough.
One of those millions would have paid the lunch for these people for a year.
But they needed that one too. 14 weren't enough.
That isn't how things are done, and for good reason. Part of the process of game development is for a producer or QA lead to manage bugs and rate them accordingly based on severity, and overall disruptive occurrence on the player experience. It's almost impossible to create a completely bug/glitch free game, but without structure for the departments personal priorities would dictate what got fixed over experienced leads, managers, and product owners. This causes segregation typically because most developers and QA folks always want best for the product and those conversations lead to the possibility of wasted development effort to attempt to fix bugs that either don't matter (Possibly because a game system or feature isn't actually finished, or something that is on the chopping block due to scope but hasn't been removed yet). This is why those relationships are not encouraged. Most developers operate under the notion of developers should be developing, and QA should be testing. When bug or glitch hunts happen outside the scope of the project it can sometimes take the form of feature creep, introduce more bugs for a possible band aid fix when the true cause is more complex, or just general discussions that remove focus of what the team should be prioritizing.
The temp labor nature of QA, and the thought that they are expendable from most studio heads, leads to their unfair treatment. It's a sad practice and good studios won't treat any employee unfairly, but not all studios are held accountable.
I don't have any faith that it will change anytime soon. I just don't see people not purchasing games that put devs through crunch when we can't even get people to not go to Walmart on holidays.
No idea if the company I worked as tester had some rules between QA and developers interaction. In fact, sometimes I joined some developers to play Mario Kart 7. It is disgusting how these gaming companies treat the QA teams like they are not people.
"$500 million in its first three days on sale"
Damnn just 3 days. And that's without allll those Microtransactions added a month or two later
Damnn just 3 days. And that's without allll those Microtransactions added a month or two later
Come on, stop with the "they're temp workers with no skills". There's no such thing as unskilled labor. It's just a classist term
I think it's safe to assume that every single Triple A studio is working their employees (not to mention QA) down to the bone.
That's not it. The issue is companies running as lean of an operation as possible in order to maximize profits to please shareholders, everything else be damned. They could easily hire more people in order to alleviate any and all need for crunch, but that would cut into profit margins which makes zero sense for any huge corporation under capitalism.
Remember that Activision is specifically hiring Volt for this. They are most likely just looking for the cheapest possible option. If they were willing to hire a more costly QA operation that would likely also mean better working conditions. This is why unions are so important - you could phase out any and all companies racing toward the bottom via collective bargaining.
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