Although they only know to ask themselves that because the working conditions have been made public.
Crunch time at Naughty Dog.
- Thread starter Silent_Buddha
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yes. He’s assuming companies will be up front with working hours and overtime/bonus compensation. It sounds like Naughty Dog does make people aware they have a crunch culture. One of the bigger problems with long hours is when people can see it was created out of mismanagement and disorganization versus a necessity of the objective.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
This is something that shouldn't be understated. Most (almost all) corporations and large businesses prohibit negative talk about the corporation, work, work hours, wage, etc. at the workplace. It is grounds for termination of employment if employees do this at work. I've even seen people terminated if they publicly talk about it on a social platform, as talking negatively in any way about the workplace even in public is grounds for termination.
This is why you pretty much only hear about these things from people who have left the job (voluntarily or involuntarily) or under conditions of anonymity. OTOH - you'll see public facing comments refuting this because those are positive views on the company and hence won't get you fired.
That makes it difficult for people at a workplace to truly grasp how things are or can be across an entire company. For example...
- If you are working on a team where you're able to keep up with the workflow with minimal reliance on crunch time, you might have a view that the company is overall great about crunch time culture and there's just some whingers in the company.
- This could be due to the team mostly being comprised of experienced talent and/or having a really good manager.
- OTOH - you may work on a team that greatly relies on long and excessive crunch time. Because you can't talk about it, you may just assume that this is how the rest of the company operates and if you are new, that ALL companies operate this way. So you just accept it without knowing better.
- This could be due to an over reliance on new inexperienced talent and/or bad management.
Some people started discussing how things had changed and how bad it was getting. And next thing you know a bunch of them were escorted out of the building and we had more new hires. It was ugly.
Regards,
SB
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Inuhanyou
Veteran
Jim Sterling did a video about crunch for this game.
Business practices need to change. The human cost of getting games out the door has to be reconsidered and refactored into development in this age of AAA mandatory excellence. You can still make good games without intentionally(or unintentionally) abusing your workforce to create them.
This is the conversation we needed to have back when RDR1 came out.
Business practices need to change. The human cost of getting games out the door has to be reconsidered and refactored into development in this age of AAA mandatory excellence. You can still make good games without intentionally(or unintentionally) abusing your workforce to create them.
This is the conversation we needed to have back when RDR1 came out.
It's not specific to ND and it's certainly not specific about TLOU2, this is a political discussion about labor laws. Are they sufficient in your country? Should you call your congressman? Can you start another thread about crocodile tears and concerns about the gaming industry?
Inuhanyou
Veteran
For your questions, no they are not sufficient, my congressperson certainly wont change a thing, and crocodile tears is not the right euphemism about an valid issue where people suffer when they dont actually have to.
I dont expect things to change on the trajectory capitalism is on, but its nice that there are still people speaking out about how this isnt right.
Its overly optimistic and pretty much silly to expect the game industry to self regulate in the absence of mandatory federal or state regulations, even in the face of public outrage and shaming, but that's the only tool that actually exists in the here and now.
I recall Dyack saying that the industry was flawed and games shouldn't be announced until the game was content complete and just in bug fix phase and then you would do a 6-12 month press cycle while working through bugs.
We've all heard the stories of extreme crunch and we've seen more and more games miss their release targets. Then you have something like Half life Alyx which is the best game of the year and one of the highest rated games ever which was content complete for almost a half a year before release.
We've all heard the stories of extreme crunch and we've seen more and more games miss their release targets. Then you have something like Half life Alyx which is the best game of the year and one of the highest rated games ever which was content complete for almost a half a year before release.
Inuhanyou
Veteran
ND isnt moving their entire staff to switzerland if the US imposes federal union guarantee benefits. Its a standard nonsense talking point on Fox news drafted up by these same industries to discourage supporting benefits. "The best companies will leave America if you even put the slightest pressure on them to treat their workers better!" Absolute nonsense.
Unfortunately based on how the economy functions it is inevitable. We have to reconsider how the economy functions in general.
Everything is a function of profit. Everything has to be released on a specific schedule. We have seasonality that affects sales, we have competition, we have next gen around the corner, we have rents, we have loans, we have salaries, we have bills to pay. When managers and accountants make their decisions they calculate costs and gains in numbers. The human cost is secondary, when all operations and processes must be adjusted to reach those number targets.
Even if the product is perfect, money wise it might not perform satisfactory if not released when it "has to". So there is pressure on everyone to meet those deadlines and those high targets with the least amount of expenses possible.
I agree. Thats the sort of artificial "blackmail" that economics have accepted as a normality and thus interpret employee exploitation as something necessary or "else".
I call it utter bullshit as well.
Companies should incorporate into their culture that employees are also stakeholders that support the company.
Inuhanyou
Veteran
Its a function of how we live now, but it doesnt have to be that way. And in general, it has a negative side where all of those sacrifices will pile up as small losses until it becomes an actual big loss down the line.
Think of the American economy right now. If we continue to sacrifice poor and middle class people at the expense of rich elites, those people who are the backbone of the society in those lower tiered workers and contributors will eventually become less productive and that means everything else stalls. People who have less tend to contribute more because they need to actually do so to live whereas higher up people dont because they can just horde and not feel a thing.
Im sorry its turned a bit political but you cant avoid talking about the politics of how our society runs even when talking about game companies
Well I agree that it doesnt have to be that way. But even if it never materializes in monetary loss it is time we start recognizing other non-monetary loses as equally important damages. We didnt make an economy to circulate money just for the sake of it. The point of an economy is to satisfy human needs and these aren't just material. We are losing track who the economy is supposed to be serving
Inuhanyou
Veteran
Your right.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
Unless somebody develops a near-magical project management technique that can robustly guarantee delivery of creative/engineering projects on time, crunch in many industries is not going away.
I also have less faith in jobs not being shipped abroad. For five decades the West (North America, Central Europe) has been the gradual erosion of assembly, the full manufacturing shift from home countries to Asia, first to Taiwan, the Singapore, then Malaysia, then Korea then China. Then each of those countries has themselves scaled back their manufacturing base. Anybody who says jobs won't go abroad, isn't looking at history. Sony aren't moving Naughty Dog personnel to Asia in the same way Ford didn't more American personnel to Asia. The jobs moves, the people did not. Now creative software that appeals to a certain culture is not something that is easy to shift to another country with a different culture. So you're back to solving the crunch problem.
If somebody can solve this achingly common problem, they would be very rich indeed.
I also have less faith in jobs not being shipped abroad. For five decades the West (North America, Central Europe) has been the gradual erosion of assembly, the full manufacturing shift from home countries to Asia, first to Taiwan, the Singapore, then Malaysia, then Korea then China. Then each of those countries has themselves scaled back their manufacturing base. Anybody who says jobs won't go abroad, isn't looking at history. Sony aren't moving Naughty Dog personnel to Asia in the same way Ford didn't more American personnel to Asia. The jobs moves, the people did not. Now creative software that appeals to a certain culture is not something that is easy to shift to another country with a different culture. So you're back to solving the crunch problem.
If somebody can solve this achingly common problem, they would be very rich indeed.
This is likely getting too political and non-console related for this thread. At the same time the West's jobs have moved to exploited Asians, working conditions have been much improved for the jobs we have had, including paid sick-days, holidays, capped hours, etc. Hard won rights society has fought for since the Victorian times where human value was virtually zilch. If all the Asian's would fight for better QOL the same way the Westerners did, instead of just accepting it, they too would get better QOL. A good work environment is something that everyone needs to support; any mentality that it's better to put up with it means everything eventually collapsing back to worst-case exploitation.
The argument shouldn't be for people to accept life is shit and working it away is all anyone's entitled to. It should be everyone everywhere should have a decent QOL without having to sacrifice everything for a pay-cheque, and that includes the Asians, and the Africans after them. I want the Chinese to enjoy sane working hours and decent holidays the same as I want that for the French and Americans and everyone else, as that's what life should be. Get rid of the economy and you only need work a few hours a day hunting and gathering.
The argument shouldn't be for people to accept life is shit and working it away is all anyone's entitled to. It should be everyone everywhere should have a decent QOL without having to sacrifice everything for a pay-cheque, and that includes the Asians, and the Africans after them. I want the Chinese to enjoy sane working hours and decent holidays the same as I want that for the French and Americans and everyone else, as that's what life should be. Get rid of the economy and you only need work a few hours a day hunting and gathering.
Switzerland!!!
Have you been there? its absolutely the last place to move to if you want to save money on labour costs
theres ~200 countries on the planet to choose from to make your point and you choose switzerland
haha cheers for thatSwitzerland!!!
Have you been there? its absolutely the last place to move to if you want to save money on labour costs
theres ~200 countries on the planet to choose from to make your point and you choose switzerland
I worked I Switzerland, one of the most expensive country and with the highest salary in the world. In IT 6 figures salary is very common.
Inuhanyou
Veteran
Switzerland!!!
Have you been there? its absolutely the last place to move to if you want to save money on labour costs
theres ~200 countries on the planet to choose from to make your point and you choose switzerland
I just used it as general example of place far away. I would love to live in eurozone and esp nordic countries. They seem to have way more aspects of society figured out
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