We live in a society where physical and mental degradation is considered perfectly acceptable and almost expected if its for our work. Which is insane.
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Rockstar employees were working "100 hour weeks" for RDR 2 [UPDATE: Rockstar's response]
- Thread starter Odesu
- Start date
This could literally kill you. In Japan, sometimes people die from over work, apparently the stress is going to make your heart more prone to a heart attack which I guess is obvious but anyway, the point is that these people working on RDR2 have been pushed into a life threatening situation and that's the honest truth. It's not hyperbole, if this leader is boasting about 100 hour work weeks he needs to be taught a lesson or two and hopefully those employees are well rewarded for their efforts.
Who knows, maybe someone did get a heart attack and no one is attributing it to these long weeks which is why you don't hear about it.
Who knows, maybe someone did get a heart attack and no one is attributing it to these long weeks which is why you don't hear about it.
Nah, you say this but then would bitch in every delay thread that ever gets created on this site
Wow I can't imagine anything killing the passion one has for working in their dream industry faster than this. Fucking bullshit.
and nothing is going to change because gamers don't care. We'll be buying the hell out of this game.
And why would Rockstar change when "Crunch" is like the norm around the industry. They need to unionize.
100 hour work weeks is excessive as fuck. I don't know how you live or even want to continue to work. No amount of OT will compensate and I doubt all of them will be getting bonuses.
And why would Rockstar change when "Crunch" is like the norm around the industry. They need to unionize.
100 hour work weeks is excessive as fuck. I don't know how you live or even want to continue to work. No amount of OT will compensate and I doubt all of them will be getting bonuses.
Maybe, just maybe, the will of the consumer shouldn't dictate the motions of the producer.
A lot of this thread reads like "keep labor and work concerns out of my vidya" and it's extremely disheartening and disappointing.
God damn, that's fucking insane to me. I already consider working 40 hours to be too much, let alone 100. I can't imagine that they're working at peak efficiency for all of those hours, or even half of them for that matter. Unless they're offering crazy salaries, I can't imagine it being worth it
The other issue is that the people who make it to management are the individuals that thrived in that environment. They consider it a right of passage for their industry.
Most companies that are strictly development have this issue to some degree. I worked for a startup for 3 years in the auction industry and we were putting in at least 70 hours a week. It honestly wasn't that bad for a while as I love programming and enjoy figuring things out. Once I felt burned out I moved on to a less demanding programming job. Even now that I have a 40 hours a week job I still tend to mess around with programming when I'm not working.
I guess my point is that there are a lot of programmers who enjoy it, and enjoy "the crunch" so I'm not sure a general "this is terrible" sentiment is 100% accurate. Would it be awesome if they weren't forced to work those hours in order to keep their job, sure. But there's also a ton of programming positions available (for the last 5 years at least) in a lot of the US in other fields that are 40 hours per week.
I guess my point is that there are a lot of programmers who enjoy it, and enjoy "the crunch" so I'm not sure a general "this is terrible" sentiment is 100% accurate. Would it be awesome if they weren't forced to work those hours in order to keep their job, sure. But there's also a ton of programming positions available (for the last 5 years at least) in a lot of the US in other fields that are 40 hours per week.
I really, really hope reviewers touch on it too. Imagine a world where IGN and Polygon actually discussed the real life cost of the medium they cover?
A bunch of jokers who never had a jod that required crunch complaining about an issue they don't understand, while the Rockstar employees are living their dream...
Is this in reference to a complain of any sort from them? Why don't we ask them what they think?
" On no, the y can't complain!! Even anonymously!""
Guys, Rockstar is not North Korea. Get a grip on reality
Is this in reference to a complain of any sort from them? Why don't we ask them what they think?
" On no, the y can't complain!! Even anonymously!""
Guys, Rockstar is not North Korea. Get a grip on reality
Working 100+ hours a week is not LIVING. You can't live a dream if you are literally not living, but only working. Don't be disingenuous. The North Korea "comparison" is probably one of the worst takes I've seen on this forum lol.
Game development is terrible. This has been happening for years. Why all the sudden outrage? A quick google search will lead to many articles over the years about various studios and their insane crunch work hours.
The "journalist" didn't press them on anything. It was a terrible article. Instead it was a good PR piece.
If even one person on that team feels like there's no good way to decouple from that situation, it's a terrible outcome. Fear of speaking up, saying you're sick, losing out on a job from such a prestigious dev and what that could mean for your future, ect. If just one person is made to feel like they have to do it or they are letting the whole project down, it's bad management and a fucked situation. This team out of all of them in the entire industry does not need to ever have to do this.
gggggggrrrrrrrrrooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
You literally have tweets from a former employee talking about Crunch at Rockstar in this thread.
We've heard many stories from former employees detailing crunch. We have quotes from studios explaining why they don't do crunch.
You say that as if this is the first time ever anyone has ever commented on this issue.
This comes up several times a year.
100 hours per week? Is this even legal in the United Kingdom? Or do only the people at Rockstar San Diego work like sweatshop employees?
The people working in this industry and complaining about crunch(with some of them working or having worked at R*, you got an guy that worked with them 3 years ago in a tweet a coupel of pages behind) are actually living the dream.
There's truly a defense force of everything, even for abusing workers.
And that without saying that the best game of all times (whatever that game is), is not even close to "people worked 100hs a week to make it" levels of good. It's not even worth it because at the end of the day it's probably just extra content. What Rockstar is doing here is exploitation to make GTA V levels of money.
RDR 2 can exist without all this, and I'm sure it can be even a better game. What couldn't probably happen is that it wouldn't make you money for an eternity. Well, I'm sorry, figure something out that is not exploitation.
That only happened "several" times. They have normal working hours.
I hate this. I hate that this level on crunch needs to be done in order to get a game done. But at the same time, there is no way, now for me, that I will not support the people who sacrificed their own lives providing entertainment for me.
But the practice does need to change.
But the practice does need to change.
People are actually waving their pom poms at 100 hr work weeks because it's RDR2 and looks good. Disgusting. Rockstar gets too many free passes and the games aren't even that good.
Smdh. Good world building and presentation doesn't mean the game plays well.
Oh well. I'm sure the game will be the best selling game of the next two years and get 95 aggregate scores because Timmy in elementary school doesn't know what goes into making a video game.
Smdh. Good world building and presentation doesn't mean the game plays well.
Oh well. I'm sure the game will be the best selling game of the next two years and get 95 aggregate scores because Timmy in elementary school doesn't know what goes into making a video game.
I have worked 24h shifts, I have occasionally worked 100h weeks. Have you?
Because if you did, you'd realize that nothing is worth working those kinds of hours. It breaks you. It's unacceptable.
Living my dream? You best be fucking joking.
I can't even fathom working 100 hours a week.
I don't know who's dream it is to work 2.5x the amount of a "regular" work week in one week. Power to them I guess. Seems like a nightmare instead of a dream to me.
There are tweets in this thread from employees. What companies like Rockstar actually do is overwork and burnout employees and then grab some more people fresh out of college who don't have experience and know how this works. And they just keep repeating that cycle over and over.
They were always working far more than 40 hours a week. It's just their extreme crunch times were 100 hours a week.
I would have found it more respectable if you admitted you want the game so bad you don't care about work condition rather than trying to defend it like its okay.
Have you tried the combat and driving in GTA games? Or played any missions?
This is only for a short period of time though. I've worked in investment banking clocking 80hrs regularly, sometimes towards the 100s. True, you dont have a social life during that time, but its also not the end of the world. Think of it as working on an oil rig for a month or 2, only you get to sleep at home.
It almost feels like Dan Houser wears this like a badge of honour. He probably gets home and at dinner tells his family "This week my people are working more than 100 hours. This call for a celebration, bring the champagne!"
I agree people need to get a grip and fast before they keep posting nonsense. So I recommend you start as soon as possible.
I agree people need to get a grip and fast before they keep posting nonsense. So I recommend you start as soon as possible.
That's not what I am reading. A lot of people are saying "unionize" and that's probably the closest thing to a solution we can contribute with. Dozens of us not buying a game that's going to sell 100 million (give or take) certainly isn't going to have any effect whatsoever. Developers really will have to do something about it themselves.
You can also apply this to pretty much every other product in life and end up with a whole lot of things you can't touch out of ethical consideration. Are you doing your part in everything you do, from food to clothes and electronics? Or are only video games a worthy cause?