Laid Off Dev Accuses Codemasters Of "Unlawful" Conditions

[veloper]

I don't know the laws in the UK, but the situation described is unreasonable.

Employees like code monkeys and artists don't have any say into how many features and content go into a finished game. As such they shouldn't only get paid a fixed amount to get the job done, because the job may never be considered done.

A coder who doesn't make enough production per hour can still be fired. Refusing unpaid overtime is entirely reasonable, when you work fast and good. The management should have set more realistic deadlines; that's part of their job.
Easier said then done ofcourse, but when you have little love for the company, their unrealistic project should be expected to fail and your position will disappear anyway, 8 hrs is exactly what you should do. Let them try and hire a replacement for you, during cruch.

Fixed salary without overtime makes sense only for higher positions, such as lead designer, because with that position comes responsibility and choice.

 

[LorienvArden]

Here are the companies choices-
Allow them to not do overtime-> risk not finishing the game on time, guaranteed failure. Increases cost because of increased time. With money they may not have. Decreases chances that the game will sell as well do to lost interest

Paid the workers overtime-> Substainally increases cost with money they may or may not have, needs to sell more copies. Risks being a commercial failure

Don't pay the workers overtime through "optional" unpaid overtime-> Don't increase cost of development. Game gets out on time. Less risk of being a commercial failure.

Actually, it is by far more costly to delay the release of a product then to pay overtime.
The best way is to actually manage the project professionally and adjust the budget ahead of time. I haven't worked on software development, but from all the talk surrounding it, "crunch time" is a certainty that you better prepare for.

A company like codemaster has no excuse NOT to have the experience and manpower to have proper project management.
I can understand that developers like cerberus (Sword of the stars I&II) have huge problems releasing a AAA title on time and are forced to release a buggy piece of software at the end of their deadline. They are a tiny studio working on their second title.
Codemaster has been around for AGES.

Extorting your developers is a common practice, but for the wrong reasons. Loosing experienced developers hurts your company. If you risk not getting paid for your work, would you sign a contract if you had a chance ?
I believe that from the vast numbers of programmers that want to get into game development only a percentage actually is experienced and talented.
Alienating them actually hurts companies because the uncertainty and cost of future projects is significantly higher then if you kept them in your company.
Why ?
Because they gain specific experience in working with the company, enabling them to translate that knowledge into a more streamlined and efficient development of future titles.

If you lay off programmers with every project and hiring staff to fill gaps later on, you never build up that experience and get an unmotivated workforce that WILL never ever finish ahead of time. Think of it like comparing experts to a bunch of chained slaves. The slaves will propably build you a nice building someday, but a group of experts will do it faster and cheaper in the end.

Why is it still beeing done ? Because quarterly reports look way better if your project is not hogging human resources and instead just sports a nifty bill for contracted labor.

Shareholders in those companies lack the knowledge to realise that by forcing profitmargins to maximise their gains they effectifly gut the company and increase the risk of failed projects.

OT:
Afaik it is acceptable for companies not to pay overtime for managers etc. if it is agreed upon in the contract. Those contracts usually provide incentives for those jobs like bonuses based on success.
Unless specified in the contract, employees have to be paid for overtime. The employee CAN agree on not beeing paid, but not speaking out against a statement from management can't be construed to agreeing to those conditions if a written contract contradicts those terms. The employee can always demand payment as promised in the original contract.

 

[Jadak]

Be realistic, if he had refused to work overtime, wouldn't he have been canned sooner? Optional unpaid overtime is really not optional at all.

Realistically, I'm not sure "optional unpaid overtime" is legal anyways. My understanding had always been that if you work it, it counts. Doesn't matter if you were "officially required" to work those hours so long as the company allowed it. Which is why my last job made a point of explicitly telling you to "get the fuck out" at the end of your shifts for that exact reason.

 

[Royas]

I guess I'm curious as to how the fellow refusing to return the money will subject him to bankruptcy proceedings. I can see a civil suit to get the money back, but what does that have to do with bankruptcy? Is Codemaster's trying to force this man into declaring bankruptcy, is Codemaster's declaring bankruptcy? I'm a bit confused on that part.

That said, if they sent me a check when I felt I had already been underpaid, I'd refuse to give it back too. Screw them, they want it, they can try to come and get it.

 

[Monsterfurby]

Perfectly normal in the video game business. If I was paid for all the extra hours I worked and compensated for the nights I slept in the office, I could probably bankrupt a small country.

 

[EvilPicnic]

Unpaid overtime has its place, but it relies on the goodwill of the workforce and shouldn't be abused by management. In the UK workers cannot be forced to work more than 48 hours a week, and if they refuse it is illegal to penalise them in any way.

Therefore, as crunch-time is such an accepted part of the game development cycle, then good management should anticipate and budget for it by offering TOIL or overtime. That they obviously haven't in this and other cases means management is either incompetent, or is actively taking advantage of their workers ('why budget for overtime when we can just pressure them into working for free...')

A happy workforce, fairly compensated for their labour, leads to more creativity in highly skilled professions such as game development. And it's the obnoxious working environments that lead to rushed work and bland games. No wonder Bodycount failed.

 

[Monsterfurby]

Unpaid overtime has its place, but it relies on the goodwill of the workforce and shouldn't be abused by management. In the UK workers cannot be forced to work more than 48 hours a week, and if they refuse it is illegal to penalise them in any way.

Therefore, as crunch-time is such an accepted part of the game development cycle, then good management should anticipate and budget for it by offering TOIL or overtime. That they obviously haven't in this and other cases means management is either incompetent, or is actively taking advantage of their workers ('why budget for overtime when we can just pressure them into working for free...')

A happy workplace, fairly compensated for their labour, leads to more creativity in highly skilled professions such as game development. And it's the obnoxious working environments that lead to rushed work and bland games. No wonder Bodycount failed.

I agree with this entirely. The problem is not in overtime per se or compensation alone. In fact, I would argue that these are secondary factors and workers' attitude towards them is more of a symptom rather than a cause of workplace dissatisfaction. The problem is that the games industry is full of people who may be great coders, but only know the words "management" and "leadership" from a dictionary. Many companies demand overtime from their employees without providing an environment that makes this reasonable or sustainable.

Even worse, the disconnect between publishers and developers leads to publishers forcing developers to operate in a manner that is stressful and detrimental to a creative work atmosphere. It's not even in the selection of projects but simply in the demands publishers have in a high-supply environment. Dev A can't be done with this million dollar project? Fair enough, let's just turn it over to another Dev, screw them. Contracts do most of the time give publishers that right.

 

[Dogstile]

I absolutely love how if lots of companies do it, its acceptable. It really isn't, its still illegal.

 

[zefiris]

Berenzen: Everything, literally everything you say is wrong. Both morally wrong, and against the law wrong. ILlegal.

The videogame industry is in such a shitty place precisely because of failures like you who think it's in any way acceptable for companies to act in illegal behaviors.

As others mentioned: These are crappy business practices. Well run companies do not have such absurd hours for their developers. Time management is important, any any company worth their salt knows this.

The reason so many games are terrible these days are business practices like this: They screw the developers over, increase fluctiation in the workforce due to burnout and aggressive firing/pressure tactics, which in turn hurts the product.

The reason companies do this is to appease shareholders. It is harmful for the product, and harmful to future sales, to developers - in other words, everyone. It's one of the cases where a company burns its long term proposals for short-term gains.

And as we see in this case: It usually fails.

 

[koroem]

Codemasters have been a shitty and shady publisher for 10 years or more now. Especially their MMO/Online gaming division, if there is anything left of it. Not surprised by this at all.

 

[Treblaine]

For the people who bought the game, can they also sue Codemasters for a waste of £45?

Seriously, these people made Black. BLACK! That late 6th gen classic. How did they screw it up?!? Did they spend so much time on graphics they forgot to actually make a good game?!?

Then again, if the top brass demands a certain graphics standard and short deadlines then there is really no room for the innovation and refinement that you need. The problem I think is that although graphics come secondary and can only enhance a gameplay experience, the problem is that the reality of development is the graphics (engine/level) do have to come first and then the gameplay.

I think more studios should be willing to use off-the-shelf engines and even game assets, and remix them to make a truly unique and compelling game in terms of gameplay.

COD has really basic graphics (engine is coming up on half a decade old and already based on one 12 years old) but it has really deep gameplay of all the class creation with a cottage industry of advice and guides on how to best exploit the game. Though it has certainly fallen short recently its still a winning formula.

 

[sir.rutthed]

Looks like someone didn't know what he was getting into. I see no reason to feel sympathy for the guy (other than for him getting fired). It looks like all this was laid out in his contract before hand, so he's probably just venting some frustration.

 

[Monsterfurby]

I absolutely love how if lots of companies do it, its acceptable. It really isn't, its still illegal.

It is not acceptable, not by a long shot. The problem is that even if individual cases occasionally crack the surface, if governments and the media took the business seriously and started cracking down on those work practices as they do in most other industries, I can guarantee you that about 90% of all small to medium-sized studios would be going down. The problem is systemic, not isolated.

In other words, to reference current news: The industry would need to try a hard reset.

 

[Dogstile]

I absolutely love how if lots of companies do it, its acceptable. It really isn't, its still illegal.

It is not acceptable, not by a long shot. The problem is that even if individual cases occasionally crack the surface, if governments and the media took the business seriously and started cracking down on those work practices as they do in most other industries, I can guarantee you that about 90% of all small to medium-sized studios would be going down. The problem is systemic, not isolated.

In other words, to reference current news: The industry would need to try a hard reset.

The big studios would, smaller ones would not. I'm actually all for that, so I stand by my point.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Why does it only seem to be the games industry that pulls shit like this on such a regular basis? You don't hear this kind of thing from hollywood, and music industry complaints are only ever artistic ones.

Strong Unions. The VGI crushes unionization movements whenever possible, for just this reason.

 

[Treblaine]

[snip description of exploitative practices]

Why is it still beeing done ? Because quarterly reports look way better if your project is not hogging human resources and instead just sports a nifty bill for contracted labor.

Shareholders in those companies lack the knowledge to realise that by forcing profitmargins to maximise their gains they effectifly gut the company and increase the risk of failed projects.

Maybe the whole problem here is quarterly and annual reports? It seems the computer game industry is not a good fit with modern accounting and financing practices, treating game development as if they were growing potatoes on a yearly cycle they HAVE to sell SOMETHING every year.

Shareholders don't know from looking at a half finished game if it is going anywhere in the right direction. They can only judge it by sales, I think even if the shareholders are gamers they tend to be a bit like Michael Pachter, they don't have the best eye to judge games anyway. They jsut measure the numbers.

Valve have to be the company that has most consistently delivered quality products, I don't think they have released a game in the past decade (and they've released a lot) that scored less than 88% metascore, even the non-PC ports! And their mantra is to take their time and release it only when its done, they pushed back HL2's release a whole year and have sat on Episode 3 for 5 years. But it's worked for them and I think they can get away with it partially because they are also a major online retailer with Steam.

But what about everyone else?

Minecraft of course sold a half finished version for half the price (with promise of upgrade to full version, eventually) but that had a rather low graphics budget, though it certainly took a lot of work over time with endless tweaks on the code and balancing side (by god, the SCALE of the game even in simple block polygons).

But that must look good for investors or if you're just trying to get a lone from the bank. Income. I remember my dad commenting that in the financial world a steady predictable and reliable income is far more valued that irregular spurts of income. I've heard it elsewhere, shareholders would rather take a strategy that would likely earn less money over all as long as it came in at a steadier rate.

That's the hing for shareholders. They cannot consider the steady sales of Bad Dude 4: Bad Dudder to justify the expense of project Bad Dude 5: Chronicles.

Maybe this is what Gabe Newall is talking treating games as services and not products.

See it takes so long to build a new game, it's like prospecting for oil. You search so long and then it is a massive effort to actually build a rig to drill down there. Except you can rather reliably predict that SOME oil is going to be there. And how it is often done is a small scale project and once drilled they find its a high capacity one they then invest in a larger drill rig to pump it even faster.

Maybe that approach is needed to prevent disasters like Bodycount. Otherwise it is just too hard to justify shareholders wait another 4 quarters before there is any income. The industry needs to find a way that games can make a steady stream of money and very soon after the project starts to help further investment. I think part of that is selling games for a lower price and paying more for more content like later levels and so on.

 

[Royas]

I guess I'm curious as to how the fellow refusing to return the money will subject him to bankruptcy proceedings. I can see a civil suit to get the money back, but what does that have to do with bankruptcy? Is Codemaster's trying to force this man into declaring bankruptcy, is Codemaster's declaring bankruptcy? I'm a bit confused on that part.

That said, if they sent me a check when I felt I had already been underpaid, I'd refuse to give it back too. Screw them, they want it, they can try to come and get it.

In the UK you can make a petition for bankruptcy to the Court for any debt over £750, so yes, they could issue proceedings. Whether they will get anywhere doing so is another matter entirely!

Edit: To be clear, it would be Codemasters petitioning to get the developer declared bankrupt

Ah, thank you. Figured it was a difference between the two legal systems. Hopefully the courts will acknowledge that there is a difference between actual bankruptcy (I can't pay) vs. disagreeing on the debt (I won't pay).

 

[Arizona Kyle]

Be realistic, if he had refused to work overtime, wouldn't he have been canned sooner? Optional unpaid overtime is really not optional at all.

Here are the companies choices-
Allow them to not do overtime-> risk not finishing the game on time, guaranteed failure. Increases cost because of increased time. With money they may not have. Decreases chances that the game will sell as well do to lost interest

Paid the workers overtime-> Substainally increases cost with money they may or may not have, needs to sell more copies. Risks being a commercial failure

Don't pay the workers overtime through "optional" unpaid overtime-> Don't increase cost of development. Game gets out on time. Less risk of being a commercial failure.

The guy was in the game industry, he should have known that crunch time happens. It's part of how game development is. If the game is ahead of schedule, you won't have as much crunch time to do. But it will still happen, even if it's just to squeeze out some bugs, or to add content that they didn't have time to implement during the main dev period, but would help sell more in the game.

WOW! I am so glad someone is thinking about the poor companies. Those damn employees expecting to get paid!

Haha just what i was thinking if you dont have the money then dont develop....

 

[Sylveria]

Be realistic, if he had refused to work overtime, wouldn't he have been canned sooner? Optional unpaid overtime is really not optional at all.

Here are the companies choices-
Allow them to not do overtime-> risk not finishing the game on time, guaranteed failure. Increases cost because of increased time. With money they may not have. Decreases chances that the game will sell as well do to lost interest

Paid the workers overtime-> Substainally increases cost with money they may or may not have, needs to sell more copies. Risks being a commercial failure

Don't pay the workers overtime through "optional" unpaid overtime-> Don't increase cost of development. Game gets out on time. Less risk of being a commercial failure.

The guy was in the game industry, he should have known that crunch time happens. It's part of how game development is. If the game is ahead of schedule, you won't have as much crunch time to do. But it will still happen, even if it's just to squeeze out some bugs, or to add content that they didn't have time to implement during the main dev period, but would help sell more in the game.

Hey I have some job openings for you. It's 80 unpaid hours a week, but you seem to be for slave labor, so come on Toby, there's work to be done.