Epic Games Boss Responds to Criticism

[Michael Grimm]

Epic Games Boss Responds to Criticism

Epic Games President Mike Capps recently sat down and defended his company's business practices against International Game Developers Association (IGDA) claims that suggested programmers are forced to work 60 hours a week.

The argument stems from statements Capps made during a 2008 IGDA panel in which he implicated that employees only willing to work 40 hours a week at Epic Games would not fit in at the company. Capps is himself a board member of the IGDA, a group whose main goals include establishing and maintaining a "Quality of Life" standard for game developers. Many frustrated IGDA members have seen his comments as a promotion of unfair business practices. Independent games designer Greg Costikyan took particular offense to the comments:

"The notion that a fucking board member of the IGDA should defend (and indeed, within his own studio, foster) such exploitative practices is offensive [...]"

Capps responded to the allegations in a recent interview, defending the extra hours as nothing more than an indicator of the developer's passion and personal investment in the project.

"Honestly, I'm not sure which of the various things that got everybody so upset. I think the main one was that if someone walks into the door and says, 'I refuse to ever work past 5pm, I'll never work more that 40 hours a week and you can't make me,' they're probably not a fit for us. Just the same way they wouldn't be a fit, I assume for you, if they said, 'Well, I'll do E3 but I'm out at 5 and I'm not writing any articles till the next morning.' [...] So to have someone walk in and say they refuse to ever crunch for an E3 demo, it's kind of silly. It just shows that they're probably not passionate about what they do. That's very different from saying that we force people to work hard all the time."

Capps focuses on explaining his belief that the longer hours are usually only during the last 2 months of development, and for the most part, he has more trouble getting people to go home at night rather than having to convince them to stay.

While there's no problem with an individual putting in a little extra time for something they're personally invested in, it becomes a problem if that "passion" becomes an unspoken excuse for only hiring devs who agree to atrocious hours. Capps makes some good points in the interview, and the incentives the developers see from launching a successful game on time seem to justify the extra hours. Even so, it's a sensitive issue with good arguments on both sides. What's your take on it?

Source: <a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/22/joystiq-interview-epics-michael-capps-responds-to-accusations/"
target="_blank">Joystiq.com

Image [http://www.file-extensions.org/imgs/company-logo/250/epic-games-inc.jpg]

Permalink

 

[kawligia]

So what?

They choose to work there and they are compensated for their hours. If they want to work for someone else, they are free to leave.

 

[Rack]

A 60 hour crunch week wouldn't be too bad, nature of the beast and all that. But if you say someone has to be willing to work more than 40 hours a week then you'd expect them to have to work more than 40 hours every week.

 

[Doug]

So what?

They choose to work there and they are compensated for their hours. If they want to work for someone else, they are free to leave.

I believe the source of the argument is this:

The argument stems from statements Capps made during a 2008 IGDA panel in which he implicated that employees only willing to work 40 hours a week at Epic Games would not fit in at the company.

Implying that "Everyone has to work more than 40 hours aweek all the time" rather than what he meant to say "Everyone should be willing to work more at the crunch times before big releases".

Basically, after EA effectivity enslaved there workers into pulling 12 hours shifts daily under threat of losing their jobs and being black balled, people are warily of comments like these.

 

[Jadak]

Yes, so what? It's not like they're not getting paid for their time, and personally I work 66 hours a week on average, and if I was doing 40 I'd be asking for more hours, as 40 hours is fuck all and I want to actually make some money

 

[Doug]

Yes, so what? It's not like they're not getting paid for their time, and personally I work 66 hours a week on average, and if I was doing 40 I'd be asking for more hours, as 40 hours is fuck all and I want to actually make some money

40 is 8 hours a day, i.e. half of your waking life during the week if we assume 8 hours sleep on average. Whilst you might not have a problem with that, some people have wives and children they might want to occasionally see

 

[Doug]

A 60 hour crunch week wouldn't be too bad, nature of the beast and all that. But if you say someone has to be willing to work more than 40 hours a week then you'd expect them to have to work more than 40 hours every week.

40 hours is 8 hours a day. Not too bad. As long as they are appreciated, and get input, are are not treated like expendable pieces of crap.

And under EU law, its the maximum normal hours a week you can assign. Overtime is allowed, of course, but that has to be optional.

 

[John Funk]

You can't really justify forcing a 40 hour minimum week at all times on workers, when someone in the same industry, working at arguably the same level, is called one of the 10 best companies to work for in America.

And Epic has ~1% annual voluntary turnover (when the usual rate is ~10-15%) and is constantly voted one of the best places to work in North Carolina. They must be doing SOMETHING right.

Capps is absolutely right.

 

[Doug]

A 60 hour crunch week wouldn't be too bad, nature of the beast and all that. But if you say someone has to be willing to work more than 40 hours a week then you'd expect them to have to work more than 40 hours every week.

40 hours is 8 hours a day. Not too bad. As long as they are appreciated, and get input, are are not treated like expendable pieces of crap.

And under EU law, its the maximum normal hours a week you can assign. Overtime is allowed, of course, but that has to be optional.

Really? I thought there was a higher working week than that.

Well, having a lookie at it, seems there is no Europe wide law, BUT... I did find this link with a few examples of average working week, and legal maximums on a country by country basis.

http://www.fedee.com/workinghours.shtml

None are greater than 50 hours, and most are around 42-ish hours a week.

 

[Jadak]

A 60 hour crunch week wouldn't be too bad, nature of the beast and all that. But if you say someone has to be willing to work more than 40 hours a week then you'd expect them to have to work more than 40 hours every week.

40 hours is 8 hours a day. Not too bad. As long as they are appreciated, and get input, are are not treated like expendable pieces of crap.

And under EU law, its the maximum normal hours a week you can assign. Overtime is allowed, of course, but that has to be optional.

Yes, so what? It's not like they're not getting paid for their time, and personally I work 66 hours a week on average, and if I was doing 40 I'd be asking for more hours, as 40 hours is fuck all and I want to actually make some money

40 is 8 hours a day, i.e. half of your waking life during the week if we assume 8 hours sleep on average. Whilst you might not have a problem with that, some people have wives and children they might want to occasionally see

Not quite, 40 is 8 hours a day minus weekends. That leaves 8 hours a day (minus travel time) during the week, and all day on weekends to spend with the family (if they wanted to, personally, that much family time would probably drive me insane). That's a quite a bit more than "occasionally".

Besides which, there are labour laws, people can't be fired for being unwilling to work over a certain number of hours anyways. So if they are working more than that number, and don't want to, it's their responsibility to say something, and stand by it.

 

[Cousin_IT]

If they sorted out their development practices, they wouldnt need to CRUNCH in the first place

 

[Doug]

A 60 hour crunch week wouldn't be too bad, nature of the beast and all that. But if you say someone has to be willing to work more than 40 hours a week then you'd expect them to have to work more than 40 hours every week.

40 hours is 8 hours a day. Not too bad. As long as they are appreciated, and get input, are are not treated like expendable pieces of crap.

And under EU law, its the maximum normal hours a week you can assign. Overtime is allowed, of course, but that has to be optional.

Yes, so what? It's not like they're not getting paid for their time, and personally I work 66 hours a week on average, and if I was doing 40 I'd be asking for more hours, as 40 hours is fuck all and I want to actually make some money

40 is 8 hours a day, i.e. half of your waking life during the week if we assume 8 hours sleep on average. Whilst you might not have a problem with that, some people have wives and children they might want to occasionally see

Not quite, 40 is 8 hours a day minus weekends. That leaves 8 hours a day (minus travel time) during the week, and all day on weekends to spend with the family (if they wanted to, personally, that much family time would probably drive me insane). That's a quite a bit more than "occasionally".

Personally, I don't include travel time in my working hours - if so, then I typically work around about 9 hours a day then. And ok, maybe alittle over the top to say 40 hours a week == half your life at work.

Still, the legal maximum in the UK seems to be 48 hours a week [http://www.fedee.com/workinghours.shtml] (so, around 9 and abit hours a day).

 

[John Funk]

If they sorted out their development practices, they wouldnt need to CRUNCH in the first place

A myth. Epic handles crunch time far more responsibly than 95% of the gaming companies out there - part of the issue with Capps' comments is that while Epic's philosophy works well for Epic, since they handle it so naturally anyway, other companies that don't have it as under control point to them as an example - and yet, they still have crunch.

It's a fact of the industry.

 

[level250geek]

I never work over 40 hrs. and I never bring my work home. Then again, I'm not passionate about what I do. If I were passionate at what I do, my employer wouldn't have to ask me to go the extra mile.

My point: as long as you do your job well, your employer should never ask you to be passionate. Do your job, get paid, go home. Award those who go above and beyond without expecting everybody to do so.

 

[John Funk]

You can't really justify forcing a 40 hour minimum week at all times on workers, when someone in the same industry, working at arguably the same level, is called one of the 10 best companies to work for in America.

And Epic has ~1% annual voluntary turnover (when the usual rate is ~10-15%) and is constantly voted one of the best places to work in North Carolina. They must be doing SOMETHING right.

Whats the turnover rate with game developers? With a (ussually) long creation period of the product and a ussually relatively small staff, I would think the rates would be different than the average (especially in this economy).

That ~10-15% figure is the voluntary turnover for people in this industry: Developers, programmers, artists, etc.

Epic is waaaaay below the average here. Not just in this economy; Capps' quoted figures go back to 2006 before things started tanking.