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.Crono1973 said:
Laid Off Dev Accuses Codemasters Of "Unlawful" Conditions
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.EvilPicnic said:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.dogstile said:
In other words, to reference current news: The industry would need to try a hard reset.
Strong Unions. The VGI crushes unionization movements whenever possible, for just this reason.Secret world leader (shhh) said:
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.LorienvArden said:
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.
There's also an issue of worker volume and skilled labor. A lot of "behind the scenes" workers in the movie industry are pretty specialized and relatively difficult to replace even if the unions weren't an issue.TsunamiWombat said:
Beyond that, while being a game programmer is very skilled work, there's a huge glut of people willing to do it and they're so desperate to get into a very small amount of opportunities, they'll do it under almost any conditions. Really, if people want this kind of stuff to stop, there has to be some sort of developer union that picks these people up the instant they graduate.
If anything, there needs to start being an emphasis on going to school for something more practical. Game dev work may be your dream, but if most of these people had a lucrative backup career that compliments their skill set, they wouldn't be so willing to work in sweatshop conditions.
When did I say anything about constant unpaid labour? They get paid something like 70 grand a year, not to mention bonuses if the game does well. And it's not like it's year round. It was for <=50 days. Crunch time happens in the game industry, it's not like Codemasters is the only company that does this. The only reason why this has cropped up is because a less than mediocre game failed, the company wasn't able to pay bonus' because it had no more money left, and they accidentally sent him and some other employees checks due to an error in the books. He's not entitled to the extra money- it was a mistake, and typically you're supposed to check any abnormalities with management before you cash it.Sylveria said:
So yeah, it's not a nice story, but the company isn't in the wrong here. He agreed to unpaid overtime, he cashed a check that had an error on it without checking it with management, and now he's bitching about it. It comes off as him being an entitled brat because he didn't know what he was getting into. Maybe the story is different, I don't know what the conditions at Codemasters are, but with the fact that we're given. I feel very little sympathy for the man.
The professional game industry really needs to update its regulations, individual employees are basically powerless because they can be easily replaced by the endless parade of wide-eyed, university students who will do anything for a job in their beloved game industry.
It's probably part of the reason why the indie game community is growing.
It's probably part of the reason why the indie game community is growing.