Called into a meeting to get angrily screamed at? I thought this only happens in bad comedies...
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USgamer: "This Is How They Get Away With It:" Former NetherRealm Studios Contract Devs Reveal a Troubling Studio Culture
- Thread starter Kenzodielocke
- Start date
To be clear I'm not talking about CEOs, I'm taking about senior developers and what not. It's actually an interesting question to me, it would seem like unionization would be great for the "disposable" as you call them to up their wages to livable conditions, but for the senior level non management positions who would also be in the union, what benefit is there for them? Presumably their pay will not go up even with a union and even if they are underpaid compared to other sectors. In fact, there's a likelihood that pay will be based more on seniority and it would equalize their pay with others.
Is that not how it works?
I'm talking mainly about the pay aspect and the conditions for QA testers and the like, not about the bosses screaming at you thing which is absolutely something that is out of the norm and should be shamed.
Yes, temp work is totally legitimate. Even the temp company that is technically employing people here is a real tech temp company. The issue, of course, comes from treating these employees like full time. Basically, we get all of the negatives of contract work without any of the positives- namely the ability to set our own hours, choose what we want to work on, and work project to project as opposed to working as a full time employee.
Contract to hire is also problematic, as it's exceedingly rare and really only benefits the business vs the employee. In fact, in a media company a friend of mine works for, they frequently fire employees after their contract is up for renewel regardless of their work quality. Since he's a manager, he often fights with company heads over training costs and loss of productivity, but they don't care. Keeping head count low is far more important.
It's worse that you think. Quite often the contractors as these companies, especially QA, are those that are high-school educated if even that. Some have other degrees that they haven't been able to find work in, such as art and such. It's really about taking advantage of people who are just happy to have a job because they don't think they can do better.
I was lucky since I had a business degree when I decided to become a QA tester and I was able to leverage the hell out of everything I learned to move up in the company rather fast. But just because I had that privilege does not make me blind to the hordes of other people at the company who didn't have my background or luck.
Many people enter the meat grinder that is the video game QA department each year with a hope that it will lead to the department they truly want to be in at the company. Often that doesn't work out and some aren't even given the chance to get their foot in the door because of luck. For instance, it wasn't uncommon for my old company to ramp up by 20 freshly hired testers for a game about to release that is causing people to crash and burn from overtime then let go of almost the entire team once the game ships one or two months later.
This is why quite a few QA testers dread the words "being put on call". It means a lot of times that you will never be called in again unless the company gets desperate. Hell I've known companies that put underperforming or problematic workers on call with the intention of never calling them in so they don't have to fire them or deal with the HR side of things. One of my older companies actually cancelled people's insurance while they were on call and those that filed for unemployment were given side eye when some of them returned.
Explain to me how my viewpoint that NRS is shitty for its crunch and exploitation practices but whoever leaked NDA-signed information is also shitty is shortsighted.
Nope.
Once, as a full-time employee of a small company now out of business, I and a couple of other employees were hauled into a meeting room so that the COO could scream at us for a good fifteen minutes. I can't remember specifically why, because "screaming anger" was one of his default states.
The joke was ultimately on him, though. About a year and a half later, he and the CEO were thrown out of the company by the board of directors when the board discovered embezzlement was a afoot. His career in tech was effectively sunk.
If you don't want leaks, don't hire minimum wage temporary contract workers for your game. Some kid making $12/hour with no financial interest in your company is a lot more likely to not give a shit about how much money you lose, or any other negative effect to your buisiness.
Yes and you definitely have a valid point. I have seen it abused often and leading to burnout though, that's why I mentioned it. Gonna stop now so I don't derail the thread more. Also got other stuff to do. Feel free to message me and I'll explain better later if you want.
I wonder if people will start boycotting their games now.
It maybe too late for MK 11, as they've probably made a lot of money from it already.
It maybe too late for MK 11, as they've probably made a lot of money from it already.
Haha, I'm so glad I didn't support this piece of shit studio with my money. Horrible horrible working conditions. This is beyond shameful and disgusting.
Man, I have some CRAZY stories about Team Ninja from former employees....
But that's turning into "No True Scotsman" territory.
That sucks to hear. I hope I don't have to add them to my boycott list as well 😕
Man, I have some CRAZY stories about Team Ninja from former employees....
But that's turning into "No True Scotsman" territory.
Because the people that have these stories to tell are zombified from the work experience and now that it is over and they've had time back in the real world, they realize how messed up the situation was.
I mean, this is beside the point and totally anecdotal, but I bumped into Boon at PAX years ago while he was watching a crowd demo MKX and he was kind of a low-key dick in the "Don't bother me" sense when I just complimented the game's look a bit.
You're making the same mistakes NRS did.
Pretty stupid to assume a full time employee wouldn't leak for their own reasons, while piling all of the blame on the contractors.
I guess the progress the industry is making right now is that these issues are getting more and more reported, which is a good thing and a bad look for the executive branches of those companies.
Reports need to continue flowing in to eventually trigger change.
Reports need to continue flowing in to eventually trigger change.
I see what you & the rest are saying, but if they take that chance, they'll risk getting fired.
And I don't think that they'll want to, especially when there are those that have families & children to feed.
That's really unprofessional.
At this point, is there any major studio that hasn't had some shitty story come out about it? I feel like we should view these studios/studio heads like we should be viewing celebrities. Assume they're shit until proven otherwise.
At this point, is there any major studio that hasn't had some shitty story come out about it? I feel like we should view these studios/studio heads like we should be viewing celebrities. Assume they're shit until proven otherwise.
Considering how much of this shit gets swept under the rug, I'd suggest making a thread about it (if you can source at least once of them, since I guess "rumour" threads will get closed by default).
Man, I have some CRAZY stories about Team Ninja from former employees....
But that's turning into "No True Scotsman" territory.
Would unionizing work if you're just a contract worker? Like if you're a proper employee and you unionize they can't fire you for doing so (although WB could do something like shut the entire studio down and reopen it under a new name), but if you're not fully an employee does that count as organizing?
Yeah this is super fucked and I feel for everyone that has to go through this, but to me it sounds like everyone that works there is under huge amounts of stress. I blame WB mostly.
I'm pretty sure if you're an independent contractor and you unionize, you do your work under your current contract then they just won't renew it after that, unless the union has some deal with the company already because the full time workers are under the same union.
Yeah I'm done too. I won't knowingly support companies that do this.
I dealt with similar (except the guy just couldn't make a sale to save his life, despite having a clearly better product). So glad to be out of that shithole.
Sounds like 99 percent of American job (including mine). We really need better workers rights.
If your response to this sort of thing is "Well I never liked their games anyway," you are setting yourself up for one hell of a nasty surprise later down the line as more and more of these stories come out. Don't assume your taste in games correlates with the devs' scruples.
The ones that do tend to end up having their own skeletons. For most, it's better to be silent than to be seen as hypocrites.
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Wow that's fuckin harsh to be screamed at especially for 12 bux an hour for contract work. I hope the fame industry unionize real soon. I've lost interest in the mortal Kombat franchise since Armageddon and now I don't have interest in supporting future titles made by netherrealm
I'm delighted I held off buying the game now in hindsight. I'll never support shit like this in any fashion.
Nobody thinks this is unique. That doesn't mean it's okay and it shouldn't go under the radar. NRS should have their feet held up to the coals for this behavior.
Hmmm good point. I didn't think about that. That makes a ton of sense.
Having worked at NetherRealm as a contract engineer for 9 months I can also confirm the $12/hr starting wage is correct and is applied to at least to all junior temp positions, doesn't matter if you're an artist, qa or engineer (and isn't a livable wage anyway).
I never faced any of the crunch issues that others had but you did see a lot of temps going in and out of the studio, sort of a revolving door of employment.
I never faced any of the crunch issues that others had but you did see a lot of temps going in and out of the studio, sort of a revolving door of employment.
