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Kotaku R* QA Studio With Hardest Crunch Told Today That Supposed Mandatory Overtime Is Optional
- Thread starter Dinobot
- Start date
I mean I'm salaried employee in the US so I don't get overtime pay. Still choose to work overtime occasionally when I'm enjoying the task or helping out.
Yup. I work overtime because I want to. I enjoy my job and sometimes I just like to stay behind and make sure I'm ahead. I'm salaried so I don't even get paid for it but it doesn't bother me.
Nobody seems to be arguing against enjoying your job, or working overtime. I can't get overtime pay either, but I dont mind working overtime when things are busy - in exchange I can take hours or days off at other times - of course that often never happens. I very much like that flexibility. It would obviously not fit all types of jobs though.
It is a matter of degree. If your working hours gets unhealthy, then it shouldn't matter anymore if you (or your company) claim it is driven by love and passion. Too many hours are too many hours regardless of the excuses.
It is a matter of degree. If your working hours gets unhealthy, then it shouldn't matter anymore if you (or your company) claim it is driven by love and passion. Too many hours are too many hours regardless of the excuses.
That one guy was shocked that some people choose to work overtime. That was telling:)
Most places I know never allowed OT just because you wanted to. I can understand having to work OT because a job needs to get done, but if I ever offered the excuse I worked OT because I wanted to, I bet there would be trouble. Hell, I think the only time I worked OT was mandatory OT at the fire department and let me tell you OT on an ambulance is not something you want to do, at all.
The low-rung QA jobs in poor work environments that are the target of criticism here are known for having very little autonomy. So yes, in a way, this is accurate.
My cousin complaint was that the poster couldn't comprehend why people work overtime because they feel like it. :)
Those defending Rockstar over the fact that overtime is "optional" clearly have never worked. No boss puts a gun to your head, and none can fire you for not staying in another 6 hours. But when a company printing money has people doing 12-18 hours workdays on a regular basis it means they'd rather have their employees fucking kill themselves working than paying more people to divide the work better. I can understand (not justify, important distinction) smaller companies living on the edge that risk going bankrupt if they don't deliver a good game on time using crunches. Rockstar has no excuses, and it's sad that people stand up for them because they've made excellent games.
Just to be clear I'm not defending Rockstar. I'm shocked by all the posts where people are clearly working jobs they hate.
Guys, Rockstar have assured us everything is above board and they're emblematic of being an institution that treats its workers well. Let's move on and enjoy Red Dead Redemption 2, please. Any thought of the conditions under which this game was created is off putting and the last thing I want to do is acknowledge exploitation in the workplace.
It wasn't directly referred at you, in fact I've only read the first pages. It was my view on many comments between all the threads on this. Where I work, people have 40 hour contracts. Many of them do 45-50 regularly. They are not forced to do so, but let's say they are warmly encouraged.
i don't hate my job
i hate having to sacrifice my few free hours to keep working because if i don't i will lose my job (which i don't hate)
the problem is not my job or what i do. the problem is this corporate normalization of crunch as a scare tactic
If you are thinking this you CLEARLY hate your job. They are basically exploiting you WITHOUT your agreement. Some people would be able to balance this. But in your case this isn't healthy.
I'm not entirely sure what you're asking here.
It's not uncommon for companies to hire short-term QA through temp agencies. Their sole job is to play-test a game and file bugs against it while on the clock. The working hours are rigid because they're hourly temps, and they will not be allowed to work overtime if it isn't deemed necessary to finish a project. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about that.
Regardless of whether QA is working overtime or not, the responsibilities of these temp roles generally follows the pattern:
1. Verify fixes to previously filed bugs in the latest test build.
2. Test whatever your QA manager tells you to test. If they say "Test Level 2 for the next two weeks", this is what you're doing.
3. Clock out for lunch, then back in.
4. Continue step 2 until it's time to clock out, whether that be at 5, 6, 7, or 11 PM.
Of course it isnt healthy. But its not just my job. The company next door does the same thing. So does the agency on a town nearby. Hence the problem is not the job but those who are in charge of them. And this is a widespread problem far beyond a single company so leaving it solves little
That's not what I meant. Is everyone who complains about their job in this thread working QA? Like, why are all of people in this thread keeping their jobs if they hate them.
If you don't see what the big deal is about these horror stories, imagine this:
You want to work full time as a video game tester. On average, you generally don't have anything past a high school diploma or maybe 1-2 years of university, possibly not complete yet. "Starting off" you are given 10-20 hours a week, mostly late and evening shifts at minimum wage. But you want 40 hours a week in the industry because you need the experience to work at a Ubisoft, a Square-Enix, a Warner Brothers or a Rockstar. So you beg your bosses constantly if there are any 40 hour openings on the day shift, HR comes in to meet your 50 person team each week and asks you all to pick a number between 1 and 75. Those that guess the number they are thinking of? congrats! You are given the 40 hour shift on a big project that'll last a long time.
Then you get on that project and you find out that the project regularly has an "optional" overtime shift coming up that weekend. You say "while I wish I could, I already have plans because it's my family member's birthday" and it's your anniversary with your significant other so you mark yourself down as not available. Before that weekend even happens, your project senior (a boss of sorts) pulls you aside and says that while you can freely skip the weekend, you shouldn't because "it might look bad because the team needs you".
You stick to your guns though because you already had plans that weekend. They might let that slide. But miss the next weekend of OT too? Be ready to be either A) put on call, only to be called in for work when the company is desperate because in all likelihood you might never be called in again or B) told that the project parameters have changed and they'll be moving you back to the 10-20 hour night shift.
It might sound like an exaggerated story, but that was the reality I and many others lived in our first year or two in the video game industry. And that expectation to break yourself for the team permeates the whole industry.
I got out of of that meat grinder rather fast and I was lucky, but even when I became salaried leadership (a job where I was still underpaid compared to some my peers by about $5000 a year or more despite being the one in charge) there was still an expectation that if your client said they had a last minute patch or last minute cert pass, sorry, you were going to have to do extra 4 hours or so a day that week unpaid for all that extra time. Oh wait, their patch fix for their broken patch failed? Well now your team needs to do 12 hour shifts on the weekend (and your boss expects you to be there because they don't want to call in someone else from another project).
You might get OT for that, but be ready to fight with your boss about it because unless you get it in writing beforehand, expect your boss to say "Well I never confirmed it in writing" even if they told you otherwise.
This is all just a fraction of what I saw in my years in the industry, and thats not even the bottom of the barrel. So if you are salaried and occasionally do extra work to go above and beyond? Great! But that is not the reality for many of the people that work within the industry, especially at outsourced companies.
You want to work full time as a video game tester. On average, you generally don't have anything past a high school diploma or maybe 1-2 years of university, possibly not complete yet. "Starting off" you are given 10-20 hours a week, mostly late and evening shifts at minimum wage. But you want 40 hours a week in the industry because you need the experience to work at a Ubisoft, a Square-Enix, a Warner Brothers or a Rockstar. So you beg your bosses constantly if there are any 40 hour openings on the day shift, HR comes in to meet your 50 person team each week and asks you all to pick a number between 1 and 75. Those that guess the number they are thinking of? congrats! You are given the 40 hour shift on a big project that'll last a long time.
Then you get on that project and you find out that the project regularly has an "optional" overtime shift coming up that weekend. You say "while I wish I could, I already have plans because it's my family member's birthday" and it's your anniversary with your significant other so you mark yourself down as not available. Before that weekend even happens, your project senior (a boss of sorts) pulls you aside and says that while you can freely skip the weekend, you shouldn't because "it might look bad because the team needs you".
You stick to your guns though because you already had plans that weekend. They might let that slide. But miss the next weekend of OT too? Be ready to be either A) put on call, only to be called in for work when the company is desperate because in all likelihood you might never be called in again or B) told that the project parameters have changed and they'll be moving you back to the 10-20 hour night shift.
It might sound like an exaggerated story, but that was the reality I and many others lived in our first year or two in the video game industry. And that expectation to break yourself for the team permeates the whole industry.
I got out of of that meat grinder rather fast and I was lucky, but even when I became salaried leadership (a job where I was still underpaid compared to some my peers by about $5000 a year or more despite being the one in charge) there was still an expectation that if your client said they had a last minute patch or last minute cert pass, sorry, you were going to have to do extra 4 hours or so a day that week unpaid for all that extra time. Oh wait, their patch fix for their broken patch failed? Well now your team needs to do 12 hour shifts on the weekend (and your boss expects you to be there because they don't want to call in someone else from another project).
You might get OT for that, but be ready to fight with your boss about it because unless you get it in writing beforehand, expect your boss to say "Well I never confirmed it in writing" even if they told you otherwise.
This is all just a fraction of what I saw in my years in the industry, and thats not even the bottom of the barrel. So if you are salaried and occasionally do extra work to go above and beyond? Great! But that is not the reality for many of the people that work within the industry, especially at outsourced companies.
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Out of everyone I know (live in NJ) very few people actually hate their jobs. One guy has crazy hours but he makes A LOT and doesn't even need to speak English. Most of my coworkers are cool and complain very little. That's the reason I don't mind helping them even if workload is company driven. As much as I hate the fact that there no good safety nets in the US, I do think that most people (at least in corporate world) like their jobs. This thread is opposite of what I see around me. Everyone seems to hate their jobs.
Have you not been paying attention to anything people have said, or what I just said in a post on the previous page? There are people that continue to work these jobs because their current situations don't leave them with much of a choice. It's either kill themselves testing games, or go hungry. There are others that want to use QA as a foot in the door to game development or more steady work, but those opportunities are few and far between. I'm extremely fortunate that I was able to use my experience in game QA to land full-time non-game QA work at other companies with more sane and humane dev practices and policies in place. But a lot of people aren't able to easily escape that cycle of temp gaming QA.
And I'm shocked that it's the case for so many people who post here. That's all I said. It doesn't match what I see around me.
(So yes, it could be because this is gaming industry related, but it's not like these posters are clear what their jobs are)
Yeah i can't believe some of these posts in this thread. Like what do you people do that makes working overtime so toxic for some people in this thread?
The ability to leave your job is mostly just used as a 'capitalist' excuse for continuing bad work conditions. Similar to the ability to not buy a product is used as an excuse for bad products. Sure, I totally can choose not to buy your product, but I'm not thrilled about my neighbors kid getting sick from the chemicals in your product regardless... Choices do not absolve people/companies from bad actions.
Yeah, sometimes the short term answer is to leave your job, but the goal we should aim for is to prevent bad work conditions instead.
Most people probably don't hate their job - but my guess would be that a fair share do not like their jobs either. It is just something they do to get paid.
From yougov
There is not really any contradiction between liking your job AND not liking uncontrollable overtime in any case. I would be very unsurprised if lots of the people working at game developers who abuse crunch, like their jobs, despite hating the crunch. Still not an excuse for too much crunch though.
Yeah, sometimes the short term answer is to leave your job, but the goal we should aim for is to prevent bad work conditions instead.
Most people probably don't hate their job - but my guess would be that a fair share do not like their jobs either. It is just something they do to get paid.
From yougov
There is not really any contradiction between liking your job AND not liking uncontrollable overtime in any case. I would be very unsurprised if lots of the people working at game developers who abuse crunch, like their jobs, despite hating the crunch. Still not an excuse for too much crunch though.
There's a 70 hour week in there too, and we have countless other examples of exdevs reporting similar over the top crunch.
It doesn't suprise me from Rockstar Lincoln, it is basically a testing and localisation studio, so many of the people there are in entry level positions ,from overseas doing the localisation testing or straight from the University of Lincoln, who do several Videogame industry degree courses.
Many media companies and industries become accustomed to people desperately wanting to work in them and normalise abnormal work expectations.
Many media companies and industries become accustomed to people desperately wanting to work in them and normalise abnormal work expectations.
Damn where I work overtime gets you paid.
If there is a project management issue where workload is much more they end up eating the cost by hiring more people you paying for overtime.
But I work at a bank and I guess they have the money to do this.
If there is a project management issue where workload is much more they end up eating the cost by hiring more people you paying for overtime.
But I work at a bank and I guess they have the money to do this.
You know what's fun about a lot of this? In some States/Provinces, IT(in it's all encompassing blanket) is considered essential and does not get paid overtime.
Where are all the people in the previous thread that the topic was done after Rockstar commented on this?
Obviously.
Obviously.
It's all about being a team. There is always 2 or 3 guys in a place that will work more than they should and raise the expectation.
In my previous QA job I worked at a bank. We were getting paid for doing 6 cases a day. However the target was really high and it was a new project. So I set up a small undercover meeting with my colleagues and said guys let's only to 4 cases a day and say we unable to do it. So we all started producing 4 cases a day and made sure no one stayed behind. If we catch a guy doing more we have a go at them lol. Because we were all smart enough to work together and do this they didn't fire anyone as they can't afford to fire the entire team and changed the targets to 4 a day. The target was so easy but we still overexagerated how hard it was to the managers lol. This lead to us having such a easy contract which lasted 2 years. If we continued to work 6 cases and had a higher target we would have likely been working for 1 and a half years instead in a more stressful job.
But I'm a contractor so my work style is different and working with other contractors who are experienced we know how to blag the system and create easy contracts for ourselves.
In my previous QA job I worked at a bank. We were getting paid for doing 6 cases a day. However the target was really high and it was a new project. So I set up a small undercover meeting with my colleagues and said guys let's only to 4 cases a day and say we unable to do it. So we all started producing 4 cases a day and made sure no one stayed behind. If we catch a guy doing more we have a go at them lol. Because we were all smart enough to work together and do this they didn't fire anyone as they can't afford to fire the entire team and changed the targets to 4 a day. The target was so easy but we still overexagerated how hard it was to the managers lol. This lead to us having such a easy contract which lasted 2 years. If we continued to work 6 cases and had a higher target we would have likely been working for 1 and a half years instead in a more stressful job.
But I'm a contractor so my work style is different and working with other contractors who are experienced we know how to blag the system and create easy contracts for ourselves.
When I worked E-Mail service desk, our bosses literally told us to be on target and NOT over it. Because if we did more, our Contractor would raise the targets for the next quarter. It would mean more money at that moment for our company, but it would cost our company more if we didn't reach the new target or customer satisfaction tanked. So we basically opened a bunch of E-Mails, worked on them, set a timer and send them away periodically.
Of course, OT didn't influence the target, because it was a daily target divided by 8 hours. If you did more hours, you could do more contracted work.
Yep. Well in my old job we were not paid by the hour but paid by how many cases are done. There were some people who wanted to kill it by doing a ton of work within the 8 hours to get paid extra. But we always use to have a go and say if you do extra work make sure you do a few extra hours of the target would go up. However it all depends job to job. In my current contract I do 7 days worth of work in 5 days without doing extra time and get paid for 7 days worth of work and they haven't tried to raise my target
Anyways this is me working for banks which gave a ton of money.
Think the gaming industry is different because you have way too many people who wanna work in games so they can take advantage of people.
They can add Rockstar to the list of publishers that hate them for doing their jobs.
I know of several QA from Rockstar Lincoln that have jumped ship due to the crippling overtime. It's very real and very much in the culture to make them work weekends and long weekdays.
Most QA jobs are contracts so if you don't put in the time the others are doing you'll find they won't renew your contract. It's not promotions people are fighting for, it's their jobs.
Most QA jobs are contracts so if you don't put in the time the others are doing you'll find they won't renew your contract. It's not promotions people are fighting for, it's their jobs.
It's already sad state of affairs if outlets are expected to bend over backwards and kiss ass of huge devs and publishers to get review copies of their products.
"Keep fucking quiet about our bad shit or just praise us for anything we do or we will cut you off!"
That dynamic in itself is toxic and outlets shouldn't be afraid to tell devs and pubs to take a hike if outlet has to choose between early copy of some game or e.g. exposing full scope of exploitative work practices.
Imagine if VW blacklisted auto industry outlets for reporting on their diesel scandal. "Yeah you guys totally wrote not nice things about us last year so now we have blacklisted you from reviewing our latest SUV lineup and making us dough by generating sales..."
I think it is really easy to see if overtime is being exploited are not. Is the whole team or a large percentage working overtime? It probably isn't voluntary.
I left a job because work kept getting busier and no matter how many times I told my manager and no matter how many times he told me I would get help, nothing changed.
I work far more overtime now but mainly on stuff that isn't my main job but would improve matters for us. If I tell my manager I can't make a deadline. I get help or things get shuffled around.
Most of my team never works any overtime and we are never asked to.
Having voluntary overtime to meet mandatory deadlines is not voluntary.
I left a job because work kept getting busier and no matter how many times I told my manager and no matter how many times he told me I would get help, nothing changed.
I work far more overtime now but mainly on stuff that isn't my main job but would improve matters for us. If I tell my manager I can't make a deadline. I get help or things get shuffled around.
Most of my team never works any overtime and we are never asked to.
Having voluntary overtime to meet mandatory deadlines is not voluntary.
Damn that's so accurate.
I hope the work culture doesn't borderline the above. If work hours are 'optional', I wonder if quid pro quo is a thing in the company
exactly. i thought there's supposed to be an article?
unless R* got to Jason and told him don't release it until the game is out or smth.
Maybe they like their jobs but like themselves and their personal time more. Not everyone is a loser without a life after 5pm.