Rockstar Employees Badly Overworked, Say Wives 633
juicegg writes "Wives of Rockstar Games employees in San Diego recently published an open letter on their Gamasutra blog. The authors say that Rockstar employees are seriously strained by unending crunch periods of 12-hour work days and 6-day weeks. High levels of stress are leading to serious psychological and physical problems for some of the employees. They charge that studio management uses arbitrary, deceptive and manipulative practices to get employees to work more unpaid overtime hours at greater intensity — despite over $1 billion in Grand Theft Auto revenue. Among the blog comments, some current and past Rockstar employees are confirming problems with the studio. 'Ex Rocker' writes: 'What makes R* crunch periods different then any other studio is that they tell you the game has to be finished in 6 months, so let's start our final push to get this awesome game out there! 6 months turns into 1 year, 1 year turns into 2.' Other comments reveal worker hopelessness and general mismanagement at the San Diego studio. This turmoil is affecting development on upcoming games as well."
Read on for responses from Rockstar itself and other members of the industry.
An anonymous reader adds, "Everyone is talking about the fact Rockstar Games has addressed the accusations that it has forced developers at Rockstar San Diego into unpaid overtime to finish imminent titles. But I've noticed that a former GTA3/Manhunt designer (Chris Kruger) has a comment in this piece published Thursday about crunch in studios, suggesting the problem goes beyond Rockstar San Diego and is company-wide.He says in Develop's Jury-style debate that the damage caused by excessive overtime can upend the out-of-work relationships developers have: 'Crunch is totally damaging, but much more so to the individuals involved. An almost failed marriage in my case. To the company the cost of crunch is very hard to define but any benefit at all is easy to measure. That's why it's such an easy decision to make for most companies. Unless there is a push back and the cost is made clear, it won't change. In my view self regulation doesn't work, and the only real solution is external regulation or utter agreement from the vast majority of staff on how to approach the matter.'
There's no easy way around the topic, but crunch is clearly damaging. When will the management at game studios address this troubling issue properly?"
This is ridiculous. (Score:5, Informative)
'What makes R* crunch periods different then any other studio is that they tell you the game has to be finished in 6 months, so let's start our final push to get this awesome game out there! 6 months turns into 1 year, 1 year turns into 2.' Other comments reveal worker hopelessness and general mismanagement at the San Diego studio. This turmoil is affecting development on upcoming games as well."
He could be describing Electronic Arts. Look, the game industry has been run this way for the better part of thirty years. I worked as a coder for a couple of game companies back in the mid-eighties ... and I left for the reasons described in the summary. Never looked back. As much as I enjoyed that line of work, management practices were abusive even then. The irony is that there's no real reason for it other than poor management. We know how to manage software projects well, we know that pushing programmers too hard does not result in any real savings. The problem is managers that use simple metrics like lines of code written per day to determine a developer's value. That's how you treat piece workers in a factory ... and guess what, piece work is generally illegal. There's a reason for that.
Jam up your development staff the way these outfits do, and you get poor quality code. It is inevitable, Mr. Anderson. The usual chain of events involves increased QA costs, continual rework, missed deadlines and lost customers. Yet they persist in this obviously defective approach, which to me indicates that upper management is hiring sadists to run their development teams.
How to get management to listen (Score:5, Informative)
When will the management at game studios address this troubling issue properly?
They'll address it when people stop standing for it. If their developers quit, and they can't find replacements, then things will change.
Unfortunately, my experience in the industry has taught me that most developers are willing to put up with enormous amounts of crap so as "not to rock the boat".
This is why I left the games industry. (Score:3, Informative)
I worked in games for years before I finally managed to get out and get a job as a freelance contractor. The last company I worked for was the worst - not through malice; just incompetence.
Now, one particular time we were overloaded with projects. I put in my hours. I put in extra time when I decided it was needed. The result was that I got criticised at appraisal for not putting in stupid amounts of overtime.
They did apologise for the heavy workload and promised they'd do somethign about it for futiure projects. Next project there were demands to work every weekend and work late every night.
They gave lip service to work-life balance, but if anyone actually wants to apply this policy, they get nervous.
Re:How to get management to listen (Score:5, Informative)
Most places require some reason to fire people. Not working overtime for free isn't a valid reason. Nor will most managers be willing to have to go to the effort of finding a replacement and dealing with ramp up time.
Re:How to get management to listen (Score:5, Informative)
Unions are about power-struggles. Unions are great in industries where workers have no way to answer the power of the boss. It gives them a chance to end on equal footing. In the programming industry, I DO have a way to answer the power of the boss: I find another job. And it works way better for me than a union ever would.
Now, you may not like that solution and would prefer a union; that's fine. But some of us have our own reasons to not want a union, and just because we disagree with you doesn't mean we are brainwashed | chickenshit | dysfunctional.
Re:How to get management to listen (Score:0, Informative)
Unlike auto construction or teaching*, video games can be done by tiny independent self-owned teams, and there's nothing stopping people from quitting and forming their own game studio.
The coding team's size can be small, but to be competitive you're still going to need an army of artists.
Re:Easy problem to solve (Score:3, Informative)
Only one of those over stressed people would need to report that to the DOJ. The laws on over time pay are laid out pretty clear, and this if true is not at all legal.
Except that those laws unfortunately don't apply to programmers [flsa.com].
Re:How to get management to listen (Score:2, Informative)
Saying unions are bad is like saying government is bad, or society is bad, or bosses are bad, or fat/sugar is bad... or any other binary worldview statement ...
The bad stuff is found in the extremes. Too much unions = total focus on employees = bad. No unions at all = total lack of focus on employees = bad.
Re:This is ridiculous. (Score:0, Informative)
I was once part of a project where six teams had each developed their own printer drivers for their modules because management neither thought of it or noticed the duplication. Team isolation prevented sharing as well, so six freshly re-invented wheels.
Noticing that duplication isn't a job for "Management", it's the job of your project's "Architect" (a decidely technical, non-management position). The *only* way this could be the fault of "management" is if you had a six-team project and *didn't* get an Architect.
Re:This is ridiculous. (Score:5, Informative)
piece work is generally illegal. There's a reason for that.
Piece work is legal in the UK, so long as the worker is still paid the minimum wage.
It was easy enough to find that the same applies in the USA: Employers may pay employees on a piecerate basis, as long as they receive at least the equivalent of the required minimum hourly wage rate and overtime for hours worked in excess of 40 hours in a workweek. (Link) [dol.gov]
Re:How to get management to listen (Score:1, Informative)
Re:How to get management to listen (Score:2, Informative)
I was responding to your comment that
anyone who thinks that unions have anything to do with good products, good business, or sane long-term strategies is a fucking moron
Union electricians (or many other trade unions) are an example of how your statement is possibly deadly wrong.
In electrical work the only real "technical competence certificate" is your journeyman card that shows you've completed the union apprenticeship (currently 5 years of both school and on the job training).
Re:How to get management to listen (Score:5, Informative)
Most programmers in the US are classified as "Exempt". That means they are exempt from labor laws that require things like overtime pay.
Re:This is ridiculous. (Score:4, Informative)
It's NEVER management's fault. If they hire the wrong person, hire an incompetent or (as you say) simply fail to hire a necessary person THAT PERSON's still responsible. That's why they get the big bucks and the stock options, and the rank-and-file are lucky to get health benefits.
FTFY
Re:How to get management to listen (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is ridiculous. (Score:3, Informative)
At least in the US, Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) [dol.gov] explictly exempts people delivering newspaper from both minumum wage and overtime laws.
Re:This is ridiculous. (Score:5, Informative)
I refuse to work in an industry which has a history of abusing its own employees up to levels where it becomes dangerous for your live.
Parent post replied:
Are you serious? Dangerous to their lives? [...] THEY ARE DESK JOCKEYS, get some fucking perspective people, for fucks sake.
The author of the parent post clearly gets out too much. :-) Lucky him.
For the benefit of those who've never had the experience, I'll explain. After you've done a 390 hour month followed by a 340 hour month followed by a 370 hour month, in an effort to complete something that will save your employer hundreds of millions of dollars (don't ask, please), you are tired enough that yes, your well-being and possibly your life is at risk.
This isn't an over-dramatic comment, just reality. It's difficult to eat well, it's impossible to sleep well, and the combination wears you down. You start doing things like misinterpreting traffic signals when crossing the street, your physical systems go into overdrive (high blood pressure, heart racing, etc.) because your body doesn't have the chance to adequately recover at night, and sometimes you aren't the best judge of whether it's safe enough to try to get yourself home from the office or whether you'd better crash on the floor for a few hours before navigating roads.
I've done the 90-100 hour weeks for months at a time. I've done the 72+ hour weeks for years at a time, after the 90-100 hour weeks, with no break in between. And I haven't been in the game industry since 1984. Sometimes it's just part of the job. The trouble (as is mentioned in the article) is when it doesn't end in I've had the distinct pleasure of having management srecommend to me that I go out on disability if I wanted a break from the 72+ hour weeks and months of 90-100 hour weeks, because they simply weren't going to assign me only the amount of work I could get done in 40 hours.
[ FYI, I lost significant golden handcuffs when I left that employer. I wonder if that's at all a factor at Rockstar. ]
And for those of you who think this is just another sign of how screwed up the US is, the Japanese have coined a term, karoshi, for death-by-overwork in their country.