Because people being treated as second class citizens in their workplace is indicative of the other shit they have to suffer through while they are trying to do their jobs?
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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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There isn't much exploration of the labor laws because it would take away from Schreier's story. Same as explaining the HVAC protocol or the relationship of the QA testers and Treyarch. He is appealing to our sense of morality and fairness. Not whether it is lawful or common practice.
I don't know what kind of culture you're used to, but it's pretty rare here that even 15-20 year old interns don't get invited to a party of a company.
I have a suspicion that they have full-time embedded QA, and that this article is all about their secondary external contract QA, that happens to work in the same building. We have internal QA and they come talk to us all the time. Our external QA though, I have no idea, as they're in a different location altogether.
This is actually a thing but you're limited by the kind of tests you can do. Network tests can and are being done from home, though the dev / publisher usually are aware of the security risk. What I've also done is focus tests at home. There are a few possibilities but you can't entirely replace in house tests.
They are not interns. They are subcontractors for an agency that Treyarch contracts with. They are not Treyarch employees. There is no relationship between the two parties outside of shared office space and the QA testers providing a service to Treyarch.
Seriously lol. Sure the company's not technically obliged to do so, but it just makes sense to have decency in this case.
Except if you start treating them as employees then you potentially expose the company to liability. There are a lot of stupid written and unwritten guidelines around contractors. The QA testers are not their employees. They are the employees of the agency.
Most desirable jobs have crunch, but a lot of other industries compensate their employees for it. My partner is a marketing research analyst and she consistently works 12-14 hour days and brings work home over the weekend, but she also gets ridiculous bonuses and has a shockingly good base salary. It's not something she wants to do forever, but they at least pay heavily for the time they're stealing from her.
I'm not at all saying that makes it acceptable, but it at the very least makes it much better. The only time I've seen this happen in the games industry is with Epic.
Probably. And that A/C issue he spent a lot of time on, yeah it shouldn't have dragged on, however I looked up Treyarch's address and they don't own that building. It sounds like the building owners probably turn off the climate control for the entire building by default.
Also what's the big deal about the parking lot? It's Santa Monica. There probably isn't enough room for everyone to park seconds away, so is Jason advocating that many of the full-time employees should deal with the inconvenience of parking farther away so that QA contractors can park closer? That sounds very egalitarian, though not exactly practical.
The HVAC issue is simpler than that, if you have ever worked in a large office building there is a HVAC email that goes out for for late nights or weekends. Some companies have an automated system instead of email. You simply respond that you plan to be in the office during such and such time. That assures the AC or heat will be on. I suspect as contractors they either don't get these emails or their employer (the agency) doesn't respond to them in a timely fashion.
The relationship of them working months or even years on the same project is a pretty big relationship isn't it? They are legally not working for Treyarch, but simple human decency sees through that kind of bullshit and should make the managers invite the contractors. I've literally never heard that a contractor isn't invited to a party of a company he works for at that moment. It might just be the culture here though.
It's fairly common in the US, at least in certain fields. Contractors often are not allowed access to the cafeteria or coffee machines which is a bit much if you ask me but they are trying to make it clear that you are not their employee.
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The former technical director of Call of Duty wrote a rant about this article on Twitter and then deleted it.
Being a contractor for big corps suck ass. I was initially a contractor at Google and I was treated like a second class person - not really invited to certain events and flyers would have the disclaimer - "no contractors allowed".
It sucks and angers me how contractors do a lot of hard work and the upper dudes feel like hot shit about it.
It sucks and angers me how contractors do a lot of hard work and the upper dudes feel like hot shit about it.
Incorrect. Treyarch's external QA is in Wisconsin (and I think a few might be down the street at Activision HQ). This article is about their internal QA.
LOL. This LITERALLY happened to me last year when I was a contractor for my company. (now Im full time).
Being a contractor this day and age sucks and companies will abuse every inch it gives them. Its not exclusive to video game companies.
But I would say I work in a different industry in Europe and we have unions and laws. We raised a lot of issues with our union and a lot of them got addressed. it took time, a lot of good people quit out of frustration waiting, but eventually the corporate machine moved.
Dude, I was mostly joking.
I mean, yeah, I don't really hate capitalism all that much, but god Canada does it better
When subcontractors are working under the company's roof there is shared responsibility for providing an acceptable working environment. Sure, maybe their internal system screwed over the response time, but that doesn't explain the general disdain shown.
Treating them as colleagues is not the same as treating them as fellow employees. I don't buy your first line when there are developers saying it's frowned upon to even be friends with a QA person.
I don't know about your experiences, but in my line of work if management can afford to get lunch for the salaried workers they can spend a tiny bit extra to get some for the agency workers too, without feeling the need to go "oh wait sorry, you're unworthy". The crux of the issue here is that "the company" and some people within the company don't seem to value its subcontracted workers and their contributions.
It may be true that there's an oversupply and QA workers are easily replaceable, and yes the pay should rightly reflect that, but it shouldn't embolden the company to bully them.
Probably for legal reasons? If the contractors can show a pattern of, "See, we're just like full time employees and were treated as such.", then there may be concern about lawsuits to demand the benefits (bonus plans etc.) which employees have.
With how bad leadership seems to be across so many companies it's a miracle that anything get's done in the first place.
Seems sensationalized to me. Nothing in this article is any different than contractors working for virtually any company in this country. They aren't company employee's it's not exactly shocking that they don't get invited to company parties, that they don't give up full-time employee parking, or don't cater their lunches. Pretty standard stuff, actually.
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I think we need some more context for these though.
If these "party invites" are something like days out to some event paid for by the company then it can't be expected to cover all of its non-employees.
I work in AAA games as a dev and honestly I feel like this article could apply to a large number of AAA game studios. The conditions at Treyarch sound more extreme than what I've experienced personally, but the undercurrent of treating contractors and (especially) QA like mud isn't unique to this studio unfortunately.
Not any different than being an IT contractor for a large company. Was a contractor for 2 years at a Fortune 500 doing internal IT. The floor I worked on was also shared with the cafeteria. There were events and parties for different departments all the time, if I do much as made myself seen in the room I got effectively yelled at just without the raising of the voice.
Being a contractor is fucking rough and you're ultra disposable. To my understand the company that contracted me wanted to make it as firm as fucking possible that I wasn't their employee therefore not owed shit.
I never do contract work as a principle now. I will say, QA for video game development sounds like an absolute nightmare compared to QA for regular software companies. At least my current pays very competitively and it's 100% remote work.
Being a contractor is fucking rough and you're ultra disposable. To my understand the company that contracted me wanted to make it as firm as fucking possible that I wasn't their employee therefore not owed shit.
I never do contract work as a principle now. I will say, QA for video game development sounds like an absolute nightmare compared to QA for regular software companies. At least my current pays very competitively and it's 100% remote work.
Contractors in any working field aren't given benefits since they're not part of the company. They work for a different one that is contracted to provide staff for positions not filled internally.
It's on their company to provide said benefits, not on the company contracting them.
As such our contractors aren't entitled to bonuses, benefits, use of some employees only facilities and so on and has little to do with « evil corporation treats contractors as second class citizens »
It's on their company to provide said benefits, not on the company contracting them.
As such our contractors aren't entitled to bonuses, benefits, use of some employees only facilities and so on and has little to do with « evil corporation treats contractors as second class citizens »
Don't Activision feel, like... Embarrassed by this?
This isn't just grossly unfair and needlessly classist. It's just straight up embarrassing.
This isn't just grossly unfair and needlessly classist. It's just straight up embarrassing.
We need Coder Jesus to appear and gather his flock to Unionize game development. Every week a new story about how shitty game development is. It really sucks. I think though with how widespread studios are right now that a Union would never happen. Coordinating a global strike would be tough.
Why would they?
Stuff is still making money and they'll prepare the PR statement about how they're "looking into this" and blah blah blah and wait for it to blow over
Rinse and repeat
Feels very disingenuous that the article doesn't mention the reasons why contractors are treated the way they are. There is precedent that if you treat a contractor like a full time employee, they can sue (and win) for compensation.
Believe me, I love Unions but there's no need for a QA union because they can be replaced in a minute.
Like if the NFL goes on strike they have no product because, I want to see Sam Darnold and Julio Jones play not some guys off the street.
We play so many games every year that get released no matter how poorly QA goes/get ignored like Fallout 76, Bloodstained, Anthem it has no impact. Especially if there are a few million other people kicking down that door. That's why QA is a temp entry level job.
You keep saying how things are. We keep saying how they should be.
This. There isn't a legitimate answer of why we can't do better.
Fair enough, but it doesn't half sound like they treat them like external test. If they can't interact directly with dev, then why are they on site at all? Other than there being a spare floor to rent in their building. Internal in the sense of proximity, not in terms of functionality.
At least in California, this is true and also very strict. Other things you're not allowed to do with contractors include things like training and mandating specific work hours. If you get caught in violation by EDD, they can fine you and then suspend your business license.
This is why companies like Volt exist. They are not outsource QA vendors, per se, but rather they provide temporary contract employees and manage things like payroll and taxes for them. This is why the testers are employees of Volt and not independent contractors.
Sounds like my experience working as an IT contractor at Exxon.
Thousands of people all working at the same location, working together to make business happen, regardless of whether or not you're doing the work or making sure others can do that work. But a percentage of those people get literally treated like second class citizens. It's just as simple as that. We were "othered" on a daily basis.
-Not allowed to park in certain areas. Not fancy parking spots or anything, just the generic parking areas. If it fills up you're required to go park in a hot (TEXAS) gravel lot and walk to the building.
-Not invited to or allowed to attend any departmental company parties or events.
-Not allowed to take any time out of your day to attend important things like a Pride event (which is open to contractors) or Earth Day (which yeah I know, is funny considering the company). I had to lie and sneak out to those events because they were more important to me than setting up a desk for an employee that isn't supposed to start for another 2 weeks.
-If a full time employee that isn't even in your department doesn't like you, they can LITERALLY complain and make something up to your supervisor, who is required to contact your contract agency and you will likely be let go. Your supervisor is not allowed to speak to you directly. They can only report the issue to your agency, who almost always will simply terminate you. This happens constantly and contractors in all departments are constantly cycling in and out instead of sticking around, learning from mistakes, building experience and knowledge, etc. and it an endless cycle.
-You're paid pathetic wages proportional to the work you're doing, and that's before even comparing said work to that of the FT employees in your department with similar roles.
-Insurance so bad you're better off paying the fine for not being insured and just going to an urgent clinic so you can pay $2k for a bag of saline.
-Systematic avoidance of overtime by making sure we are forced to not come in if we were previously forced to work longer hours. We were OT eligible but they made sure there was no chance we'd be in a position to get any. If Exxon accidentally blew it's contractor budget we were forced to take unpaid days off because they literally "didn't have the money for us".
-Squeezing more work out of less workers on a constant basis. My team grew smaller and smaller and they managed to ADD work to everyone's plates on top of the slack we had to make up.
-NO PTO AND NO VACATION AT ALL. IF YOU DON'T WORK YOU DON'T GET PAID.
Instead the way it should be is:
-Everyone parks wherever they can park. First come first serve. Sorry. Us contractors don't have the pay and luxury to work whatever hours we want but the FT folks sure do.
-Let us attend parties and events, and if it's a conflict with work hours just put effort into planning around it. We had no comradery with our team and FT colleagues because we didn't get to be around them much. Being able to be at the social events and such would address that.
-Allow direct feedback/mentoring/management by our superiors so that we can operate like normal fucking human beings instead of this weird agency middle man situation. We're humans just like you, treat us as such.
-Pay us living wages and if we're asked to work longer hours or after hours, give us OT and not force us to stay home. Give us the dignity of some PTO.
-Circumvent the agency and offer insurance to us directly.
The picture Jason has painted here brings up painful memories of my time there and other companies I've had to be a contractor for. Don't get me wrong, I understand there's valid reasons for hiring contractors instead of full time workers due to project schedules and the moving targets that certain needs can be. I'm not saying to just hire everyone on FT. I'm saying that if you're a contractor and your time there is limited, at least treat these people like they're part of the family too. It's the decent, moral, ethical thing to do. They're helping your company make the games get done and tested and put out on shelves even if they're not the ones punching in the code or modeling the characters. I'm sure there's plenty of other perspectives that employees and contractors there can offer to paint a bigger picture, but I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with what Jason is shining a light on. All of the different perspectives can be "right".
Thousands of people all working at the same location, working together to make business happen, regardless of whether or not you're doing the work or making sure others can do that work. But a percentage of those people get literally treated like second class citizens. It's just as simple as that. We were "othered" on a daily basis.
-Not allowed to park in certain areas. Not fancy parking spots or anything, just the generic parking areas. If it fills up you're required to go park in a hot (TEXAS) gravel lot and walk to the building.
-Not invited to or allowed to attend any departmental company parties or events.
-Not allowed to take any time out of your day to attend important things like a Pride event (which is open to contractors) or Earth Day (which yeah I know, is funny considering the company). I had to lie and sneak out to those events because they were more important to me than setting up a desk for an employee that isn't supposed to start for another 2 weeks.
-If a full time employee that isn't even in your department doesn't like you, they can LITERALLY complain and make something up to your supervisor, who is required to contact your contract agency and you will likely be let go. Your supervisor is not allowed to speak to you directly. They can only report the issue to your agency, who almost always will simply terminate you. This happens constantly and contractors in all departments are constantly cycling in and out instead of sticking around, learning from mistakes, building experience and knowledge, etc. and it an endless cycle.
-You're paid pathetic wages proportional to the work you're doing, and that's before even comparing said work to that of the FT employees in your department with similar roles.
-Insurance so bad you're better off paying the fine for not being insured and just going to an urgent clinic so you can pay $2k for a bag of saline.
-Systematic avoidance of overtime by making sure we are forced to not come in if we were previously forced to work longer hours. We were OT eligible but they made sure there was no chance we'd be in a position to get any. If Exxon accidentally blew it's contractor budget we were forced to take unpaid days off because they literally "didn't have the money for us".
-Squeezing more work out of less workers on a constant basis. My team grew smaller and smaller and they managed to ADD work to everyone's plates on top of the slack we had to make up.
-NO PTO AND NO VACATION AT ALL. IF YOU DON'T WORK YOU DON'T GET PAID.
Instead the way it should be is:
-Everyone parks wherever they can park. First come first serve. Sorry. Us contractors don't have the pay and luxury to work whatever hours we want but the FT folks sure do.
-Let us attend parties and events, and if it's a conflict with work hours just put effort into planning around it. We had no comradery with our team and FT colleagues because we didn't get to be around them much. Being able to be at the social events and such would address that.
-Allow direct feedback/mentoring/management by our superiors so that we can operate like normal fucking human beings instead of this weird agency middle man situation. We're humans just like you, treat us as such.
-Pay us living wages and if we're asked to work longer hours or after hours, give us OT and not force us to stay home. Give us the dignity of some PTO.
-Circumvent the agency and offer insurance to us directly.
The picture Jason has painted here brings up painful memories of my time there and other companies I've had to be a contractor for. Don't get me wrong, I understand there's valid reasons for hiring contractors instead of full time workers due to project schedules and the moving targets that certain needs can be. I'm not saying to just hire everyone on FT. I'm saying that if you're a contractor and your time there is limited, at least treat these people like they're part of the family too. It's the decent, moral, ethical thing to do. They're helping your company make the games get done and tested and put out on shelves even if they're not the ones punching in the code or modeling the characters. I'm sure there's plenty of other perspectives that employees and contractors there can offer to paint a bigger picture, but I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with what Jason is shining a light on. All of the different perspectives can be "right".
It's ok. I'm rolling my eyes at your comment as well. It's a big world out there.
Except it is important to acknowledge how things are and what sort of labor relations exists presently between QA testers and developers/publishers. Different laws govern each scenario. That will determine what outcome you expect to get from unionization.
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Call of Duty started getting a whole nother year of development but they still end up crunching.
Now Treyarch has to double crunch because of BO4 then turn around and release BO5 in 2 years instead of 3 this time because of Sledgehammer and Raven's failure.
They used to make games every two years so it shouldn't be a massive shock to them.
And those games shipped in a far better state without missing features at launch so I'm not convinced the 3 years has been a good thing
Holy fuck @ "Among other things, the email noted that in order to receive holiday pay from now on, Volt contractors "must work at least 510 straight time hours within the 13 weeks preceding the particular holiday" and "must work continuously for 13 consecutive weeks prior to the holiday week."
That is absolutely insane. It's incredible how lax the labor laws in the US is.
That is absolutely insane. It's incredible how lax the labor laws in the US is.
What insane about that? I don't get what you're trying to say. Some European countries require that you work for at least 6 months before you could get paid for taking holidays.
In Sweden you unlock 2 holiday days per month that you get to use the next fiscal year, so it could mean that you won't get paid holidays for X amount of months depending on when exactly you join a company.
Those laws aren't comparable to this situation though. As it's described, here, someone could even have been working for volt for three years and if they wanted to go on holiday then for the precedding three months they couldn't take a couple of days off because of a family emergency or because they got sick. Surely you think that's a provlem? To me that's toxic and I'm glad I work in an environment that treats me like a human.
Maybe once upon a time but QA is now such a super specialized and skilled role that no, you can't just replace them in a minute. They don't just sit and play the game, they have their hands just as dirty as anyone creating content and features in engine pushing everything to breaking point and beyond.
When I was in QA some... 20+ (yikes) years ago all you could do was have a build of the game and do what you could to break it, now QA work in-engine a lot of the time, testing things on a per-object basis rather than just per-level throughout the entirety of development. They're amazing and should be treated as an essential and integral part of development teams, treating them as disposable does them a disservice and only makes the end product worse in the end.