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Vulture: Making of Red Dead Redemption 2 - Interview with Dan Houser
- Thread starter Simo
- Start date
Which is ridiculous considering this will be the defining game of this generation
Rockstar is the best, bar none. Every game developer has crunch times that ruin people, that's unfortunately the nature of the business.
I can't wait to be 100% invested in this world in 2 weeks - Rockstar is one of the few devs in the business that actually cares about EVERY little detail in their game. They're perfectionists
Hey, Dan, 'member when you and your brother grovelled before him, begging him to save the last game, because Red Dead Redemption was turning into a living nightmare and you were gonna get in trouble because the game was completely unplayable?
He sure is a glass half full kind a guy. Some people would look at a developer where devs critical to the game abandon ship "out of nowhere" over and over again, and see some kind of "problem" with the way the company is run, but nope, everything's fine here. Ain't nobody here but us furiously crunching chickens.
Most game companies don't have absolute abysmal scores on Glass Door with new deeply negative reviews as recent as a few months ago, talking about a culture of intense crunch, bullying, unquestioning obedience where anyone who questions the decisions made by management is summarily fired. Something as innocent as going out for drinks is actually intended to loosen people up with alcohol to see whether they'll speak say something that can be reported to HR. This has been known for years. Even the positive reviews flippantly talk about how you'll have to work stupidly long hours.
With quotes like these (and others) its no wonder the Housers rarely give interviews or do the whole PR thing, Dan here sounds quite socially inept.
I will say though the Housers are the sort of people who are talented at what they do and they just don't care what anyone thinks. They focus solely on their craft, I can respect that. This piece was an interesting dive into one of gaming's greatest and most mysterious minds.
I'm doing everything in my power to avoid getting this on console and I can feel my willpower crumbling by the second.
If I thought not buying games would help to improve an industry where people are regularly used and spit out like gum, I would, but I feel like the overall message to these publishers would be that gaming interest is just down, which would result in even higher industry unemployment.
As someone who works in the real estate industry, I've seen dozens of people let go in a single day after putting in years of their life for a company, literally family at that point, but thrown to the wolves regardless. The game industry is incredibly volatile, but unfortunately no more than a lot of others, now more than ever.
As someone who works in the real estate industry, I've seen dozens of people let go in a single day after putting in years of their life for a company, literally family at that point, but thrown to the wolves regardless. The game industry is incredibly volatile, but unfortunately no more than a lot of others, now more than ever.
to think this is only a rockstar problem only shows you have a bias against themHey, Dan, 'member when you and your brother grovelled before him, begging him to save the last game, because Red Dead Redemption was turning into a living nightmare and you were gonna get in trouble because the game was completely unplayable?
He sure is a glass half full kind a guy. Some people would look at a developer where devs critical to the game abandon ship "out of nowhere" over and over again, and see some kind of "problem" with the way the company is run, but nope, everything's fine here. Ain't nobody here but us furiously crunching chickens.
Most game companies don't have absolute abysmal scores on Glass Door with new deeply negative reviews as recent as a few months ago, talking about a culture of intense crunch, bullying, unquestioning obedience where anyone who questions the decisions made by management is summarily fired. Something as innocent as going out for drinks is actually intended to loosen people up with alcohol to see whether they'll speak say something that can be reported to HR. This has been known for years. Even the positive reviews flippantly talk about how you'll have to work stupidly long hours.
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The scale of this thing is terrifying. Also, even though I don't really agree with it (I think games like this have their place, even if they're not really for me), I think this twitter thread is an interesting take:
Particularly later on, with this point:
Though I recommend clicking through and reading the full thing.
Particularly later on, with this point:
Though I recommend clicking through and reading the full thing.
This freaking game and Cyberpunk 2077 will probably be the last bastion of my hobby that I will enjoy as I am waning off from gaming after all these years.
What a time to be alive.
What a time to be alive.
Lazlow has been a writer for a heap of their games. He is credited on IMDB as a writer for RDR2 as well.
I remember when I waited for 2 years to play GTA 5 on my PC. The game was good. But for RDR2, PC might not even happen. So got me a console early to stay in action and become an OUTLAW FOR LIFE!
I mean he seems to want a more minimalist open world which is ok
but his tweet storm seems to be mainly a preference
I had my apartment renovated in late July and they've literally been in a closet since. I almost broke my Pro out today, but I found my Apple TV and settled on that lmao.
I don't want to go back to 30 FPS!!!
Criticize a company for its shitty ways of treating employees (that's normalized, no less) and suddenly you're wishing the game to fail.
EDIT: And don't worry I also criticize Naughty Dog and others when they do similar shit.
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Well it's either that or you're watching this shit on YouTube set to 60fps or something. :P
Who knows when, or if, Rockstar will do a PC release sadly.
I'd probably take a walk into the Potomac if I complete it on console and it gets released on PC 6 months later.
This is not a Rockstar-only problem, but Rockstar is often named among the bigger offenders. Whataboutisms are bad to begin with, and using it to defend Rockstar is just worse.
back in 2010 yes,
there hasn't been any article about current practices from them
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Fixed it for ya.
Could be, I might of jumped to conclusions there but the amount of side content and activities along with how much script and Performance work there is made it sound like the game is much more than 65 hours.
The article mentions the 65 hours while also talking about 5 hours of content cut including a love interest and other missions including a bounty for outlaws taking over a train.
Yikes. Decry crunch all you want, but comparing it to slave labor is really tasteless and indefensible. Those devs are compensated for their labor and they have the freedom to leave their jobs at any time they want.
I feel the opposite, I thought it was a poor article that read more like a puff piece. What exactly did I learn from the article? That Rockstar is pushing themselves and boundaries with RDR2? That it's one of their biggest games yet? Great, every article and video I've read on the game as said that. I got very little insights into the actual development of the game. The journalist didn't press him for details on "the Benz," didn't press about the working conditions within R* despite the original RDR being infamous for helping bringing light to the terrible crunch hours developers have to endure. And, didn't even follow up on some basic stuff like what exactly happened with Chuck D? Why is R* so PR shy? Or how about asking about the criticisms their last game received? You know, dig a little deeper into the problem with women in their games, ask about the fact that GTAV had zero SP DLC, ask about microstransactions.
But no, instead I learned that RDR2 is a beautiful game with tons of contents and thousands of pages of recorded dialogue. Whoopie.
100-hour work weeks is horrifying to read. Assuming they are working 6 day weeks, that's roughly 16 hours a day. The physical and mental strain these devs are under is not trivial; working far less than that a week can lead to serious health issues. It's not just a Rockstar problem, but they've had issues with this kind of labor problem being brought up before, and it sucks that it seems things haven't improved all that much. Seeing folks minimizing the severity of the issue or just straight up saying "I don't care" is very disheartening and kinda gross to see.
Jason Schreier has a great quote from this story: "It's important, when zooming out and taking a lens to game development, to recognize the differences between occasional overtime and crunch. Few would take issue with a boss asking his or her employees to work late for a few days or even a week toward the end of a project. It's when these requests become excessive or even normalized—when standard 40-hour weeks morph into 60, 80, 100 on a regular basis—that it turns into a bigger problem."
Jason Schreier has a great quote from this story: "It's important, when zooming out and taking a lens to game development, to recognize the differences between occasional overtime and crunch. Few would take issue with a boss asking his or her employees to work late for a few days or even a week toward the end of a project. It's when these requests become excessive or even normalized—when standard 40-hour weeks morph into 60, 80, 100 on a regular basis—that it turns into a bigger problem."
We are talking about a company with dozens of Glass Door reviews talking about how working at Rockstar San Diego was the worst experience in their careers. One can definitely point to other terribly run companies such as CDPR, or Team Bondi back when they were a thing. But among AAA developers, Rockstar San Diego is a special brand of awful. Companies like EA used to have massive crunch problems, but they addressed those problems. Rockstar has not. Rockstar has stubbornly refused to even acknowledge that there is a problem.
Do Rockstar make very impressive, very fun games? Of course they do. But that doesn't make how they're run as a business okay.
Ubisoft also deserve to cop more flack for what they did to Patrice Désilets, and how they supposed fired a senior producer at Ubisoft simply because he was close friends with Patrice. But the thing about Ubisoft is that they don't have universally reviled working conditions. Ubisoft may have their share of political backstabbing and dubious working conditions, but it's not some open secret that becoming a professional broken glass chewer is a preferable career choice than working at Ubisoft, is it?
We have the Leslie Benzies lawsuit from a few years back with the stuff about blackmail and revenge firings and strip clubs and photographing employees in sexually compromising positions and all that stuff. Benzies didn't really touch on the crunch, probably because he was 100% complicit in it. We also have Glass Door reviews as recent as 2018 that paint an extremely grim picture of the company's culture. Of course, Rockstar San Diego is the particularly bad branch.
Girl from trailer 3 with the beauty mark and maybe tillie is the cut one
Are you that guy that keeps making alt accounts every time you get banned?
Wait what?! This is the first I'm hearing of this... anywhere I can read up on what's been going down?
Rockstar's goal is to "slip as much art under the hood without players noticing it — but they don't have to notice it," says Dan. If you want, you can bypass much of the story with just a tap of the controller. "It can just be mud, blood, and gore."
Glass Door is bs though. None of it is vetted.Hey, Dan, 'member when you and your brother grovelled before him, begging him to save the last game, because Red Dead Redemption was turning into a living nightmare and you were gonna get in trouble because the game was completely unplayable?
He sure is a glass half full kind a guy. Some people would look at a developer where devs critical to the game abandon ship "out of nowhere" over and over again, and see some kind of "problem" with the way the company is run, but nope, everything's fine here. Ain't nobody here but us furiously crunching chickens.
Most game companies don't have absolute abysmal scores on Glass Door with new deeply negative reviews as recent as a few months ago, talking about a culture of intense crunch, bullying, unquestioning obedience where anyone who questions the decisions made by management is summarily fired. Something as innocent as going out for drinks is actually intended to loosen people up with alcohol to see whether they'll speak say something that can be reported to HR. This has been known for years. Even the positive reviews flippantly talk about how you'll have to work stupidly long hours.
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...auto-producer-sues-publisher-unpaid-royalties
https://www.polygon.com/2016/4/14/11428072/the-great-grand-theft-auto-lawsuit-explained
Benzies says that Rockstar threatened him by "making scurrilous allegations" about his actions while at the company, "a revenge tactic they had used before with other respected employees … in an attempt to concoct false grounds for termination." In response to that, Benzies makes an eye-popping allegation. "Sam Houser … orchestrated and encouraged a company culture involving strip clubs, personal photography of employees in sexually compromising positions, and other conduct grossly in violation of standard workplace norms."
There's also this eyebrow raising bit.
Benzies says he was persuaded to take a nice sabbatical for six months, but while he was away, Rockstar fired his own son as well as a bunch of his best pals, while cutting off his access to company emails.
It's fairly well know that anyone the Housers doesn't like or who questions Rockstar's company culture gets fired. But in this case, they systematically went after everyone within the company who might be loyal to Benzies and fired them, including Benzies' son. A lot of people know Benzies was fired. Fewer seem aware his son was targeted as well.
It doesn't really have to be when it lines up perfectly with what we know about the company from insiders. We know about Rockstar's working conditions. We know about Rockstar firing the Manhunt 2 team, taking their names off the credits, and so on. We know about the working conditions of Max Payne 3. We know about the shitshow that was Red Dead Redemption. Where there is smoke, there is fire, and Rockstar have had smoke billowing out the cracks for a decade now.
I can't believe it's so close, no more delays, I'll be playing a new Rockstar game again soon. The hype is upon me.
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Doesn't fucking matter, it's all subjective. What might take you 50 hours to complete, could take me 30 or 100.
Sounds absolutely nuts. So fucking ready.
Absolutely insane how much they have put into this..9 years :O
Absolutely insane how much they have put into this..9 years :O
Could be to 100%, that would include all challenges, hunting, etc.
The sequel is still coming, one day.....
It'll be part of Bully Online a month after Bully 2 comes out.
Sounds good.
I can only roll my eyes on RD Online. Hopefully it fails so we never get something as bad as and as pathetic as GTA Online because God damn did that mode suck compared to GTA 4 or RDR. Keep it simple.
I can only roll my eyes on RD Online. Hopefully it fails so we never get something as bad as and as pathetic as GTA Online because God damn did that mode suck compared to GTA 4 or RDR. Keep it simple.