Jaffe needs to grow the fuck up, and realize that the reason he has become irrelevant is in fact *not* because he's just so much smarter than everyone else.
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Want AAA Games? Embrace Crunch, Reject Unions!
- Thread starter Deleted member 8196
- Start date
Persoally i disagree with the video. Maybe i'm wrong since i am no engineer. There are 3 reasons I disagree :
Alongside the above, imo, the greatest advances in the industry normally start in the indie space or in the GPU tech demos. IMO it is rare for AAA games to actually push technology beyond just shiny graphics.
For example why would pokemon require crunch when so many of its features are borderline useless. Why waste time developing dynamax instead of giving time for the employees.
That said maybe i'm completely out of the subject since the AAA games I played were total war, PDS games, pokemon and BFGA2.
- Many AAA games are mismanaged. Anthem comes to mind. I don't think these games the ammount of crunch would change the end result much.
- A lot of games have yearly launches. These are just "pure" greed as the restrictive timetable will lead to crunch. COD and fifa comes to mind
- AAA always push for bigger and prettier, which while fine is probably putting a lot of pressure. For example do GTA/RDR really need to grow bigger?
Alongside the above, imo, the greatest advances in the industry normally start in the indie space or in the GPU tech demos. IMO it is rare for AAA games to actually push technology beyond just shiny graphics.
For example why would pokemon require crunch when so many of its features are borderline useless. Why waste time developing dynamax instead of giving time for the employees.
That said maybe i'm completely out of the subject since the AAA games I played were total war, PDS games, pokemon and BFGA2.
Rich bosses aren't like you or me. Workers suffering for their benefit is desirable and natural, to them.
Jaffe is an asshole but he is right about one thing. The Publishers and developers wont ever play ball on this shit until someone can find a way to put pressure on them. There were a lot of games that still went forward with scab voice actors after the strike in 2016.
I know. 70% of the people who worked on UN4 were outsourced. I was wondering if everything can be outsourced especially stuff like writing for studios like ND and CDPR. Basically can they find outsource studios that can provide them with the same level of quality or not, or stuff like that have to be done in house to ensure their games continue to live up to their reputation.
The point he makes is something along the following: 'unionisation won't work, because it is easy for publishers to move the job to a different country where the push for unionisation is not nearly as strong.'
Can someone discuss the truth value of that point? Is it a real situation? Is there a way to counter this situation? If the answer to both is yes, then there doesn't like there's anything concrete that can be done about it, unless the publishers themselves go lawful good on the issue.
Please don't be angry with me, I'm just trying to understand the issue. This is the first time I've heard a counterpoint to the game dev unionisation, and I can't really find a way to refute the case he made myself.
From what I've read about Nintendo, they apparently have a good relationship with crunch (i.e., little of it). Is there perhaps something that we can extract from their process management? They make games with incredible gameplay, so they would fit the category that Jaffe called "making masterpieces" and used to explain why crunch is not just due to mismanagement, only their graphical work is less intensive due to less powerful hardware they work with (which, to me at least, should not be the main qualifier that determines whether something is a masterpiece).
Can someone discuss the truth value of that point? Is it a real situation? Is there a way to counter this situation? If the answer to both is yes, then there doesn't like there's anything concrete that can be done about it, unless the publishers themselves go lawful good on the issue.
Please don't be angry with me, I'm just trying to understand the issue. This is the first time I've heard a counterpoint to the game dev unionisation, and I can't really find a way to refute the case he made myself.
From what I've read about Nintendo, they apparently have a good relationship with crunch (i.e., little of it). Is there perhaps something that we can extract from their process management? They make games with incredible gameplay, so they would fit the category that Jaffe called "making masterpieces" and used to explain why crunch is not just due to mismanagement, only their graphical work is less intensive due to less powerful hardware they work with (which, to me at least, should not be the main qualifier that determines whether something is a masterpiece).
OP
OP
COD despite being a yearly series, up to 7 studios are busy with the games and every entry has at least 3 years of development time.
FIFA studio is MASSIVE (both EA Romania and Vancouver have over 1000+ devs for FIFA) and they also recycle a lot of stuff so that's helps as well.
I'm still not even convinced that crunch gets a game done faster, except in short bursts. Productivity drops when people work too long.
Good games need crunch and hard work, if you don't want that to happen to people who chose to work on them, by all means, stop playing them.
May I ask what qualifies you to make such an assumption?
May I ask what qualifies you to make such an assumption?
I would be curious to see his actual points refuted by someone that knows the industry, namely that:
--unions won't work because publishers will outsource to non-union regions or countries
--unions won't work because there's just a large portion of passionate and devoted people who willingly sacrifice work/life balance for the honor of making a AAA-status game
To me it seems like we will be stuck with crunch for the forseeable future. Your working conditions and salary are largely determined by what sort of conditions/salary your peers are willing to accept, and a lot of people are okay with crunch. Even if there were a union for game developers, who is to say that they would abolish crunch anyhow?
--unions won't work because publishers will outsource to non-union regions or countries
--unions won't work because there's just a large portion of passionate and devoted people who willingly sacrifice work/life balance for the honor of making a AAA-status game
To me it seems like we will be stuck with crunch for the forseeable future. Your working conditions and salary are largely determined by what sort of conditions/salary your peers are willing to accept, and a lot of people are okay with crunch. Even if there were a union for game developers, who is to say that they would abolish crunch anyhow?
What should we listen to exactly? If the AAA market is not sustainable it is the job of the companies making AAA games to fix it, not the public.
If your a market that cannot sustain itself without the overt exploitation of workers and consumers alike, you deserve to collapse. This is the capitalist hell we find ourselves in, a majority of our markets propped up by this sentiment
The assumption that productivity drops when people work too long? Isn't that a basic fact? Rest is important.
Yes, that title for his video is really doing him a disservice. There's something to discuss here, but he just ruined it with an inflammatory title like that.
Last year was a very good year for me finding some really spectacular games that weren't necessarily "triple-A".
Between stuff like Plague Tale, Greedfall, Gris, Celeste, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, Hellblade, and even Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, I was pretty content with what I tried out last year.
Between stuff like Plague Tale, Greedfall, Gris, Celeste, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, Hellblade, and even Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, I was pretty content with what I tried out last year.
I agree with you, if you don't care about what you work on sure, When I used to work in Humanitarian I used to work 5am to 11pm without giving a shit about my health or anything, now I work at a cement factory and I couldn't be bothered to work 1 minute past 4:30pm and if I am tired I wouldn't even work someone else can make the damn DPR, it is all about how much you care about what you work on
100% its real next time you beat your favorite AAA game look at all the small studios credited in the credits. A lot of companies outsource a lot of the real grunt work like art production and a lot of times those studios can be foreign studios.
Oh boy, "I went to high school, not you, so let's me explained how this work by ... going full rant on a girl's tweet".
Comparing the gaming industry to the situation of visual effects studio is BS. Of course you can outsourced some parts of your game / project, but you can't outsourced everythings.
The end of his video is weird. I don't think anyone is shaming poor devs who crunched, seriously, what is he talking about. !!!
The problem of the video is that he doesn't understand the difference between working PAID extra hours and forced to work extra hours by company cultural pression.
Comparing the gaming industry to the situation of visual effects studio is BS. Of course you can outsourced some parts of your game / project, but you can't outsourced everythings.
The end of his video is weird. I don't think anyone is shaming poor devs who crunched, seriously, what is he talking about. !!!
The problem of the video is that he doesn't understand the difference between working PAID extra hours and forced to work extra hours by company cultural pression.
There's quite a few studies out there that show productivity drops considerably after 40 hours, and it drops exponentially.
I love the rant he goes on at the end. If you want to win and be the best, there's going to be blood, sweat and tears. And like he says, you DON'T have to do this, you can work on smaller or safer shit too.
If aaa games stop existing, I will essentially be done with games because indies just don't do it for me personally.
Its not an assumption there have been multiple studies indicating that people are generally more productive in a shorter work week. Some places have even moved to a 4 day work week as a result.
Yeah I hope CDPR will adopt this study, we will get Cyberpunk 2077 in 2077.
David Jaffe can eat a dick. I'm glad he is not in charge of any game companies anymore.
He is wrong, software development is not a commodity and you can't easily find replacement. Good developers are rare and they do have enough leverage to negotiate.
He is wrong, software development is not a commodity and you can't easily find replacement. Good developers are rare and they do have enough leverage to negotiate.
Learn to like them there's a lot of good indie games, and games like xenoblade 2 are considered AA not AAA so stuff like that could still be around
indie doesnt have to mean 2D if you don't like 2D games
One bad thing does not make all things bad. Quoting this tells me that you have no valid response to his original point.
The video basically says AAA games currently require exploitation or are unsustainable.
Hate to say it but he has a point. Gamers are already freaking out and crying when a game gets delayed by a few months, now imagine if it gets delayed a year or two. Also devs are easily replaceable sadly.
I don't like xenoblade. You can't just learn or force yourself to like something. The huge majority of games I like are aaa.
crunch isn't the problem. sustained crunch is. like sometimes shit happens and you got to come in on the weekend to fix it. a union could enforce a monthly or pay period hour cap. the problem about unions is you cant think of video game unions as film unions cause that shit wont work.
AAA production values are great, but I don't understand how games still remain so massively over-scoped. Devs and publishers can look at Achievement/Trophy data and see that nobody is even finishing half of the campaign most of the time......so why are campaigns still so insanely bloated? Why does it take 60 hours to beat Assassin's Creed or Death Stranding?
I feel like a lot of the problems with budget and crunch could be solved simply by making smaller and more compact games.
I feel like a lot of the problems with budget and crunch could be solved simply by making smaller and more compact games.
Here's a Stanford University webpage that discusses that assumption:
It doesn't have to be xenoblade was just using as example, I mean games of that kind of scale can still be around and not be AAA
Here you go buddy, Jafee's a dipshit
yup
Of course, the scope of the games we're used to, even the top-budget ones, could be done without crunch if it weren't for the pursuit of infinite growth.
That's fine. Who cares? I'd rather the people who work on the games I enjoy are in better mental and physical health while doing it. It leads to an overall better project and there are fucking hundreds of goddamn games anyways waiting an extra 8,12 or even 20 months doesn't matter.
Nintendo is part of it too. Did botw need to have 120 shrines and a million korok seeds or odyssey having 1000 moons.
Pretty sure it's because consumers demand bigger and bigger. Only the small minority want to pay full price for a game that is only 5-7 hours long. This is partly why open world games have exploded in popularity.
I understand that it just seems (for me)little. For example fifa as had at least a campaign + 1-3 new/reworked mechanics + FUT support + new visual stuff (like stadiums/leagues/managers) every year for the last 4-5 years. It seems an extremely hard task to do every year without crunch even if you had like 2000 employees. Again i'm no engeneer but wouldn't the code be extremely hard to understand after doing this? wouldn't there be a crunch pressure since you already know the game is releasing this year? for example let's image they are doing something and frostbite tools don't allow it; can they afford to wait for tools, Is it necessary to make the tools alongside the features?
Also despite having all those employees Fifa manager mode is heavily stagnant. I doubt that mode would linger behind if the devs hadn't the year release date.
Again maybe i'm wrong but for me 2000 employees sound very little for a game that releases every year.
Call of duty despite having 3 studios certain titles clearly feel rushed/undercooked. For example i was playing COD WWII and the guns sound awful. I can't believe the sound guys listen to the m1 shooting and are like, yeah that sounds really good! For me the only explanation would be they didn't had the time to get those sounds improved. For me COD WWII sounds like call of duty 3 and not like a game from 2017. For example if you listen the guns in games like red orchestra its completely different.
Again maybe I am wrong that the game purposely uses very tame very arcady sound design and maybe things that i think are under-cooked/rushed are just design decisions i don't like. Again i'm not an engineer so take everything with a grain of salt.
User banned (permanent): trolling over a series of posts, accumulated infractions, account in junior phase
they should give you the Nobel peace prize, seriously you are a hero.
There are people that are hard to replace (game designers, writers, tech guys, i.e. people who basically define the game for what it is) and then there are a lot of easily replacable workers like programmers, 3d modelers, animators, artists etc that are basically no-names. If you don't get them from country X, you can get them from country Y (basically Eastern Europe, Near East, Africa). A lot of work is already outsourced.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was apparently made by 3 023 developers. You think anyone would notice if any one of them (or even most of them) would be replaced by a non-unionized (and probably much cheaper) guy from India, Poland, Ukraine etc.
If crunch is to stay, it should always be compensated and really-really well, no-one should be scrubbed from credits for quitting a company at any time, crunch-time included. Accommodations have to be made for people to feel as comfortable at work as possible - from furniture to fitness, to dress code, to food and and drink - make it as comfortable as possible during the hardest time. And after crunch is over people must have a certain period to unwind - the opposite of crunch with more relaxed hours and workload. Is it done? Will it be done? I sure hope so, if crunch indeed is such an unavoidable practice.
What about shrinking games down a little? Like botw having 60-80 shrines, and 500 korok seeds and the world being 75/80% of the size.
This is as typical an anti-union sentiment as there is, nothing new.
"We can't let so-and-so unionize, otherwise the consumers will pay for it!"
It's just as BS then as it is now. Don't let the fact that he used to make games fool you into thinking he might know what he's talking about. As others have pointed out, he's also an alt-right defender
"We can't let so-and-so unionize, otherwise the consumers will pay for it!"
It's just as BS then as it is now. Don't let the fact that he used to make games fool you into thinking he might know what he's talking about. As others have pointed out, he's also an alt-right defender