"Crunch is not a triumph of the workforce, it's a failure of the management and should not be acceptable in any industry", a reminder for modern working mentality

@pixelpassion655

5 жыл бұрын

It's common in many industry no nothing new here

@raymartinez3826

5 жыл бұрын

Meir everyone wants all the rewards with none of the work and socialism will never work and Jim just has to get over it. You want to excel you’ve got to sacrifice. Get over it jim

@renatocorvaro6924

5 жыл бұрын

@Ray Martinez Except Socialism has worked in... the vast majority of modern countries in which is has been implemented. So, y'know, there's that.

@davidth7286

5 жыл бұрын

Honestly who cares? As long as the game is a 9-10/10 then I say that their work was put to it's best ability since they made a beautiful game

@raymartinez3826

5 жыл бұрын

Renato Corvaro name one lol. Is it precious your Venezuela where they’re eating their pets. Funny how there still hasn’t been one socialist country that’s met the productivity of capitalistic society’s. lol who still thinks socialism works lol. Jesus I can’t believe your gonna support socialism so you can complete your mental gymnastic sets lol

"People need rest as much as they need food and water and anime" About time someone gave food the recognition it deserves in the pyramid of needs.

@SidheKnight

5 жыл бұрын

About time someone gave anime the recognition it deserves in the pyramid of needs.

@omegaipodmaniac

5 жыл бұрын

About time someone gave wa-oh, never mind...

@KuroNoTenno

5 жыл бұрын

Pffft. I can go five days without food and I am absolutely fine... Sorry, my liver fell out, I need to stuff it back inside.

@demsterclippy4252

5 жыл бұрын

remove anime from the equation actually.

@thehorse5307

5 жыл бұрын

@@SidheKnight Clearly you didn't get the joke.

40 hour work week: Standard Edition 60 hour work week: Special Edition 80 hour work week: Ultimate Edition 100 hour work week: Collector's Box

@City-Hunter

5 жыл бұрын

you get an employee in a casket

@minimoYT

5 жыл бұрын

120 hour work week: Defnitive Edition, death by overwork included

@schoo9256

5 жыл бұрын

Thats how much you have to work to afford them too :/

@althelor

5 жыл бұрын

110 hour work week: Prepare to die edition.

@theblocksays

5 жыл бұрын

You've unlocked the off-country slavelabor making the collector statues! LOL

As a professional animator, I want to say _thank you for making this!_

@DMC4EVERUCCI

5 жыл бұрын

honestly the animation industry may be just as fucked up regarding overwork as the videogame industry, especially in some places like Vancouver or most of Japan's anime studios

"Crunch isn't a triumph of the workforce, it's a failure of the management." That is perfectly fucking put, couldn't have come up with any better way to describe it. And while this video is specifically about the video game industry, every, EVERY company in any business ever should take it to heart. It doesn't even make sense from a productivity point of view as it's been proven time and time again that happier, healthier, more relaxed workers are also more productive workers who deliver higher-quality products because shock of shocks, it's a lot easier to focus and avoid stupid mistakes when you're not physically and mentally exhausted. Weird, right? So even if you're a greedy fuck who cares only about profit, crunch is counter-productive. Literally.

@minhkhangtran6948

5 жыл бұрын

Before this, I would said that I agree that no company should exist grinding away it’s own employee repeatedly, because some asshole want to “cut cost” and stuff his pocket as much as they can. That’s definitely inexcusable. Often time though, Crunch happen because something happen beyond their’s control, and they have to pick up the slack. Maybe a worker have to return home for family business, maybe a file is lost or corrupted, maybe the customer suddenly want the program to have bilingual option and they have to pick up a dictionary literally days before the deadline. It’s failure of the management, sure, but it’s also accidental, and accident and mishap is unavoidable. Crunch then, is literally the last option possible to fulfilled the demand , and no good person in the company would want this to happen. No good boss would avoid paying overtime , unless they’re also cannot pay them though, so still fuck those asshole.

@chrisossu2070

5 жыл бұрын

Agent 005 Unfortunately, corporate culture pretty much encourages the sociopaths and psychopaths. The only ones who can ascend the ranks are those who are willing to do whatever it takes to tear down the people above them.

@TOAOM123

5 жыл бұрын

"Happier, healthier, and more relaxed workers are also more productive workers" So whats japan's excuse?

@Mernom

5 жыл бұрын

Honor?

@orarinnsnorrason4614

5 жыл бұрын

I argue that it's always down to management. Because good management takes into account accidents and bad situations when making plans, because they will happen. Good management minimizes that, while trying to keep everyone as happy as possible.

When management sets a deadline that they themselves know is impossible to meet given the time and staff available, the management has fundamentally failed at managing. When Rockstar or any game publisher prides itself on "crunch," all I hear is: "We don't know how to run a project." Crunch should never be normalized in any industry, and game publishers can start making things right by setting realistic project milestone goals, hiring more employees, and getting some perspective outside of a shareholder meeting.

@grubbybum3614

5 жыл бұрын

It's been normalized in most industries for decades, the first to throw away crunch was probably Education, maybe News Media (believe it or not, unless you're on air). Game industry 'could' do it, I'm not sure fans would be happy with the consequences, though. Could you imagine RD2 workers simply calling for a strike, fans would lose their shit.

@RJMc819

5 жыл бұрын

Agreed. A tiny bit of last-minute panic is understandable. PLANNING to work one-and-a-half to two times the usual hours is just stupidity.

@TheKrossRoads

5 жыл бұрын

Often those goals are not set at an arbitrary date or time limit; they are set at specific dates: like the beginning or end of a fiscal quarter, holidays, or before a company stockholder meeting. Rather than management saying something like "We could have this game done in 8 months, but we'll set the deadline in 6"; it's more like "We need this game done by Christmas because that's when we double our sales". You could argue that the above situation is also a failure of management, albeit of a different kind. However, it's not like the project managers or leads often set those dates either. Deadlines like the above come from the top, because that's how you run a business: sometimes you debut a product not necessarily when it's done, but rather when it's going to have the biggest impact. This is especially true of the entertainment industry where movies can sit on a shelf, finished, until the guys at the top decide it's the right time for the release. Sometimes, you're handed a game contract and told when the deadline is five years ahead of time. There are no extensions, because that's the date that was specifically chosen for one reason or another. Unfortunately, that often doesn't gel with game development, since there's no real way of telling exactly how long it's gonna take. (The only real rule is that you should expect it will always take longer than you think it will)

@acheron16

5 жыл бұрын

@@grubbybum3614 Don't see how, the majority of comments I see would rather have a delayed, better game than a half-baked mess at launch.

@SidheKnight

5 жыл бұрын

"hiring more employees" = "less money for executives"

"No one is forced"? maybe not, that doesn't mean they won't deliver repercussions for not staying at work. There are indirect ways to force someone into doing something

@csward53

5 жыл бұрын

At my employer, every Monday they auto add 30 min. of OT, then you have to manually go into your schedule and delete it. It's really deceptive to make it opt out rather than opt in by default, but there's one way.

@Iksbrown

5 жыл бұрын

"Forced" might not be the most accurate word, "pressured" is probably better. They may not be explicitly forced but they are absolutely pressured many many ways.

@HippieInHeart

5 жыл бұрын

of course no one is forced to work 100 or 75 or even "just" 50 hours per week on some bs that they might not even care about all that much. everyone is free to become homeless, sleep on the streets and probably starve or freeze to death eventually, if that's what they prefer. in that sense, even slaves weren't really forced to work. they could always just choose to get beaten, whipped or killed, if they really didn't like their work. true freedom.

@redjed100

4 жыл бұрын

He brings that up in future videos on this subject. Basically, he says that employers have the future in their employees in their hands. And said employers introduce ways to make it undesirable, possibly job-costing, to not work the overtime, like falling behind on schedule being a possibility. And it’s not something that they have to specifically call attention to, as the “gun-to-head” defense implies; it’s always in their back pocket.

The problem is that they equate working long hours with working hard as if someone who *only* works 7 hours a day is taking it easy and isn't working hard.

I wonder how often the executive team pulls 100 hour work weeks. My guess is anywhere between “never” and “AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

@maximusmansteel8481

5 жыл бұрын

Maybe a 100 hours a week in one of the five yachts they bought this year. Where they bemoan their inability to buy a sixth because it's such hard times for them.

@JustaGuy_Gaming

5 жыл бұрын

I don't know I am sure it happens quite often. At least in terms of their pay checks and bonus's. What they actually do for those 100 hours is up for debate. I'm sure a lot of CEO's go on nice 2 hour paid lunches, have business trips to say Las Vega's to get a feel for Casino's needed in game. Or you know just hide in their office for 10 hours a day pretending to work. Above all else the dreaded progress meeting they hold to talk about all the work they need to do, that isn't getting done because they keep having meetings about it.

@CrashSable

5 жыл бұрын

I bet there's plenty of paperwork loopholes they exploit to make it look like they exclusively pull 100 hour work weeks.

@RagingRugbyst

5 жыл бұрын

Nobody here ever had a parent/relative high enough in the chain to get a feel for how much work the heads of a company have to do. My father worked as a CPO for 6 years at a fairly big energy company and I assure you he worked upwards of 10 hours a day, business trips not withstanding. Sure there are a lot of fucking douchebag "all branding, nobsubstance" managers that do nothing but exert their power to get a company to grow short term (albeit fucking it up massively) so they can jump onto the next big(er) salary. Thing is they wouldn't be paid as much as they are if the skills required to be a CEO were being an idiot and gurgling jargon and cum. The problem lies in the investors.

@Lightbunny

5 жыл бұрын

"Well, you just don't understand that an executive is really always on-the-clock. You just don't appreciate how hard we work!", says the executive, as he leaves his second 3-martini lunch that day.

Quick nitpicky point: Buggy games are almost never because QA didn't catch the bugs. QA catches 10x as many bugs than are ever fixed. It's up to the QA lead, producers, and lead devs to prioritize and decide which bugs are worth fixing. Source: am working in QA

@donbeverage8359

5 жыл бұрын

You do great work! I appreciate your services as a gamer lol

The part of workaholism being championed rather than treated as potentially causing mental illness is exactly why the suicide rate in Japan is so high (along with pressure on students to excel to such ridiculous heights as to be supergenius), as well as why there's an epidemic of people just dropping dead in the workplace. This is not something to be proud of. Hard work is good. Overworking is deadly.

@ciapatyciapacz5354

5 жыл бұрын

Japan is not even in the "top" 10 for suicide rate atm so they clearly made some progress

@philipsalama8083

5 жыл бұрын

And it negatively effects the quality of products.

@TheSeptet

5 жыл бұрын

Japan is super serious about it to the point that they have a word for it: "Karoshi", meaning "death by overwork".

"need food, water, and anime" shows Jojo Thank god for Jim

@marcellosilva9286

5 жыл бұрын

Amen, brother.

@dragonrider4253

5 жыл бұрын

Fucking Sterling Son.

@royalblue5367

5 жыл бұрын

Make the bad guys cry like an anime fan on prom night.

@moffant4916

5 жыл бұрын

Would have been funnier to have shown SAO.. lol

"You know nothing of the crunch." Mighty Boosh is the best.

@chrisgreen6259

5 жыл бұрын

I love that episode! Much respect Mr. Sterling.

@BosnianAdventurer

5 жыл бұрын

I was really hoping he would use a clip from that episode of Might Boosh as soon as I saw the title lol

@swiggityswank9459

5 жыл бұрын

HAVE YOU EVER DRANK BAYLIES OUT OF A SHOE

@knobbylaad

5 жыл бұрын

hit over head with handbag " that's your first slice of crunch"

@superthorc6894

5 жыл бұрын

Avary Lawliet 😂

It's bad in the U.S. and Europe, but it's worse in Japan. 50-60 hour work weeks are NORMAL. And in many settings you're EXPECTED to go out after work with your boss to get drunk if he wants to. "Oh that sounds great! We get to go out and..." Yeah, no. This means that even if you live in bum-ass nowhere because housing is too expensive near work, you risk missing the train or spending a fortune on a cab at any time because your boss thought it would be "nice" to go out drinking. Thankfully not every workplace is like this, but there's still the 50-60 expectation, with some people pulling those 100 hour work weeks. There is a Japanese word, A SINGLE WORD, for death by overwork (karoshi, if you're wondering) and it's become an actual societal problem. And it's not even "crunch." This is the regular schedule. And it starts when they're children. Schools often go for 6 days a week rather than 5 (though many prefectures are changing this). And the idea of students making it home before dark is downright alien. And you never hear about this shit, because Japanese society expects you to dedicate your life for your work and education. Ever wonder why mobile games really, REALLY caught on over here? It's cuz they're LITERALLY ALL MOST WORKERS AND STUDENTS HAVE THE TIME TO DO. Ever wonder why a lot of grindy Japanese games feel like "a job"? because basically everything here is a damned job. I love it here in Japan, but the culture of overwork is downright disturbing.

@Kaldin0203

5 жыл бұрын

What you and almost everybody forgets about the work there through: These 50 to 60 are usually taken from 7-day working weeks. Which still removes much needed rest, but at lowest makes the work PER DAY less than in Europe or the USA. Still lacking needed rest, but way different than most people think. Through I would imagine that these 7-day working weeks can go even above that. And for the students, that before dark stuff you mention is also down to the "club"-side of their schools, but considering that you're socially expected to partake in these, it doesn't really change your argument much.

@shinobudev

5 жыл бұрын

@Ruffian >by alienation That's not the cause of their problems. I bet you think a naive solution would be to dump immigrants into that country.

@Metanoiance

5 жыл бұрын

Great comment. When I graduated university I submitted a thesis on the topic of "Karōshi". Pretty disturbing stuff. Still planning on moving back to Japan in the near future.

@thinnairr

5 жыл бұрын

@@shinobudev I bet you that corporations, and thus the government, wants more immigration to make up for their over-exploitation of labor. Japan's population decline (as a result of that over-exploitation) is stunting consumer spending prospects but rather than instate labor protections - rushing in replacement immigration is more profitable.

@ParasiteDelta

5 жыл бұрын

Alienation? That's hilarious, since all you have to do is look at America and the UK to see how well that works out when you embrace the other side of the spectrum. Everything requires moderation, and that is something that modern society does not like or embrace; all or nothing, now or never. Which is worse: being more strict on who enters your country and who stays there, or flinging the doors wide open and prioritizing all of the immigrants above the common social standard? You lose benefits, you can't take care of the already-existing citizens, they typically take what they can and then leave, and you become the metaphorical reenactment of the Titanic. You're a sinking ship that everyone still tries to board and you just accept more and more people, longboat by longboat.

The USA and Japan are seen as two of the hardest working nations in the world. Also, the USA and Japan are seen as two of the top nations in the developed world in which mental health and stability are ridiculously in poor condition right now. And I see that sneaky JoJo, Jim.

@irllcd13

5 жыл бұрын

They're also less productive than other nations that have progressive worker's rights laws, despite working longer and harder. Funny how that works. It's almost as if when people are healthy, happy, rested and paid a decent wage they're able to do more in a shorter period of time, and that ruthlessly exploiting workers is not only immoral and unethical, it's bad business.

@mrsuspicious1743

5 жыл бұрын

*splutters* You mean to tell me that providing an optimal environment for the human mind to function at it’s most effective leads to a more effective workforce!?!? Yeah, who’d have thought?

There's an episode of SpongeBob where Krabs forces Squidward and the titular yellow brick to undergo what are essentially crunch conditions, and you know what happened? SpongeBob literlly went insane, hallucinating everyone as krabby patties (burgers) and he was unable to work until he got therapy for it. If even a cartoon aimed at children understands that overworking your employees is a bad idea, why don't actual corporations seem to understand that. Oh wait I remember now, it's not that they don't understand, it's that they just don't fucking care.

As much as the industry praises hard work, they never describe how they reward it. Probably because they reward it with mass layoffs and termination.

@Caitlin_TheGreat

5 жыл бұрын

The notion of "hard work" is flawed anyway. It should be good work that people are looking for, because quality makes a big difference though often employees are forced to do things the hard way rather than the smarter and more efficient way. Usually because someone higher up made some poor, uninformed decisions about how things should be done. The game industry -- and a number of others, for that matter -- don't seem to have ever heard the phrase "work smarter, not harder". Too many like to treat employees as dumb beasts of burden to be worked to exhaustion.

@shotgunmary

5 жыл бұрын

A friend once introduced me to someone he knew and this man worked on GTA V. Now i don't know what this guy did, could have been anything but he did say that as soon as GTA was done they pretty much binned half of the workforce off. He just started working a Codemasters(dirt racing games) and said it's a night and day difference.

@sharpshooter188

5 жыл бұрын

Societal industries as a whole do this. It's like when the baby boomers get on our generations ass about being lazy after the politicians of their time fucked everything. "You're poor because you never worked hard." Okay, well what happens if we put a clear cut DEFINED line of hard work and reward system in place? Well then we are just called entitled when we call out companies for their nonsense.

@josh-rz3uq

5 жыл бұрын

A sense of pride and accomplishment, I bet.

@TheRhetoricGamer

5 жыл бұрын

@@sharpshooter188 And my response is, "No, we're poor because the average millennial makes less money than the average baby boomer working the exact same job AND the average millennial has crippling amounts of student loan debt due to tuition prices skyrocketing."

I actually worked at a game studio myself where not only did the company encourage overtime, not only would you NOT get paid for said overtime, but that the overtime became so stressful that one of the employees actually had a medical incident as a result of stress. You know how at the end of a game's credits they include the 'game babies', infants who were born during game development. Why not also include divorces, mental breakdowns and medical complications as well?

@BlackLegion12621

5 жыл бұрын

I'm pretty sure that last one would count as a HiPPA violation

@galgalimeyes91

5 жыл бұрын

if employee did not pay my ot , i bring the chair to the face to said employee i didnt give a damn

@deathdealer13cat

5 жыл бұрын

I just hate how the phrase "work/life balance" is demonized US society today. What's wrong with actually wanting to enjoy the money you worked hard to earn by spending it with family and friends. Sad thing is I dont think it will ever change. Big businesses have collectively done a great job vilifying unions for years

@aliciafraser1835

5 жыл бұрын

+galgalimeyes91 because that'll get you want you want. Oh wait, no it won't it'll see you in jail and probably make it impossible for you to ever get another job for as long as you live. Oh second though, go ahead do that, I wanna hear about the stupidity.

@Ragnarok540

5 жыл бұрын

If it helps (probably not), is not just in the game industry. I worked in software development at a bank and it wasn't much different. Unpaid overtime, management always talking about going the extra mile, and then when the shareholders didn't got all the money they expected, layoffs.

This is why I am very glad to live and work in Denmark. Whenever I mention to Danes that overtime is constantly expected in other countries they are shocked. Here the workday usually lasts from 8-16, and if you go into most offices at 16:30 they are practically empty. A manager in London once said: "I love and hate hiring Danes. Because when they're here they work more focused than most other workers, but you'll never see them stay late."

@Hebdomad7

5 жыл бұрын

Damn, it's like overtime is actually counter productive or something! :P

@Killicon93

5 жыл бұрын

Seems like the manager wasn't really good at putting 1+1 together :D

I would rather play a game built by well rested and clear-headed developers. I know I suck at being productive when tired. I don’t even like walking when tired. How can someone be expected to perform their best when their health is compromised.

@kahlildozier1397

5 жыл бұрын

I know I would be 100% more than willing to wait longer for a game if it meant the devs could work reasonable hours. I don't give a fuck about a delay. Release it in 2020 for all I care, if that's what it takes to keep your devs at 40 hours a week.

@ironmaiden197

5 жыл бұрын

Kahlil Dozier sadly you and I are in the minority in that way of thinking. Many people want the game as soon as possible developers health and sanity be damned.

The gentle laborer shall no longer suffer the noxious greed of Mr. Krabs.

"Telltale workers should work for free to complete the game" This person has never worked a day in his life.

@Naijiro

5 жыл бұрын

Right? Work for free while your rent goes unpaid and you're homeless. Work for free while you go hungry. Work for free while your kids don't get clothes for school or no gas money to drive anywhere all so some entitled brat could have his video game.

@mega17

5 жыл бұрын

Nah, they probably have but haven't got a fucking clue how much effort goes into game development. Plenty of hardworking folks are fuckwits when it comes to the game industry - They think it's easy just cause it's related to gaming. Same fuckwits offer "exposure" instead of payment to artists and entry-level freelancers.

@ahniandfriends123

5 жыл бұрын

I saw one of these types literally treat amusement parks and Chuck-E-cheeses as though they are goods/services (products) in and of themselves instead of buisness establishments that sell you goods and services (a la conventions like Comic-Con). It's like these types never grew up past the age of six.

@muddymikedd

5 жыл бұрын

TBF in that same screenshot, the OP stated that they were wrong to say that.

@BlackHeart1216

5 жыл бұрын

Hey, it'd be great exposure.

The sad things is... in Asia this shit is EXPECTED. South Korea, Japan, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, parts of India, etc. To Asians, working recommended time (40 hours) is a prerequisite. Working overtime is the norm. You are expected to stay way past midnight to finish up a project and present them immediately the next morning. This shit is the reason why in Asia, suicide rates are higher than the western world. The moment you slip from the company's "requirement" you are fired, and bad word is spread about you. Stress from work and social networking causes many to just kill themselves, and those who try to pull through are just empty husks of humans, passing the torch to their children, repeating this vicious cycle.

@haziqshams

5 жыл бұрын

Preach bro

@drstrangelove307

5 жыл бұрын

Captain Merx this is why a third bomb is needed, we must destroy this shit completely.

@Kermthefrog

5 жыл бұрын

Somehow a third atomic bomb being dropped on Japan will change the toxic work ethic present in Asia.

@THIZZAVELI

5 жыл бұрын

They go to school 6 days a week smh.

@Buddhabebop

5 жыл бұрын

solidarity comrade

I can only think that there is a programmer out there who spent a 100-hour work week for the purpose of making horse testicles shrink in the cold and wondering what he's doing with his life.

@user-jv7gr1jb3r

5 жыл бұрын

@LeaderOfTheStarrySky _Or a comment I thought I would never have to read._

@aliciafraser1835

5 жыл бұрын

And yet, the stress and illness occurred by horse testicle coding man will probably kill him, leaving his only legacy as the testicles which shrank in the cold.

@ogs_Boga1900

5 жыл бұрын

you need to model that shit. and texture it, in detail :-)

@dumbasslive2515

5 жыл бұрын

It could be worse, there's people whose jobs are fitting indicators to Bmw's..

@Dreska_

5 жыл бұрын

I'll do whatever the fuck you want 9-5 but if I've been animating horse testicles for 12+ hours a day I'd probably commit suicide via caffeine

45-60 hours is bad. Everything beyond 60 hours a week isn't "bad" it's straight up insane. How? They would basically have to live at their workplace.

@jordandittman9474

5 жыл бұрын

Lol welcome to a modern day america where 2 jobs and 60 hours a week is commonplace for most people just to pay their bills to live week by week

@MK18aficionado

5 жыл бұрын

My job it's common to see 84 hour work weeks. Sadly the only time it has ever gotten better is when someone took their life over it and when someone passed out driving home and crashed. Both of these times resulted in slowing down to 9 hour shifts until our numbers slightly dropped, causing our leadership to go right back into "oh fuck" mode and back up to 84 hours again. I can say with 100% confidence I've been at work more this year than I have my apartment.

@HelloChief117

5 жыл бұрын

Meanwhile, where I live, it's illegal to work more than 14 hours per day. People who say that you should shut up and put up with it or get out probably have never had to endure such hours or are not smart enough to realize how damaging it is to work like that. Money should NEVER come before your health.

@blazekicker6582

5 жыл бұрын

Live at the workplace. Well feel lucky i do live at my workplace and its a big rig. 70hrs weeks just to pay bills and we dont even get paid by the hour we get paid by the mile. I can work 70hrs this week and get 400 dollars less than i did last week just cause i had to wait to deliver truckload to walmart. Oh yeah i forgot that i can only drive 60 hrs after the rest of the work add up to 70 thats it for 34hrs cant work for 34hrs in my truck 2000 miles away from home. And we dont get overtime. Im more like overtime what the hell is that. Wish we had someone charismatic as Jim to at least give us a voice!

@MK18aficionado

5 жыл бұрын

@@blazekicker6582 I feel that man, if overtime was a thing I feel like I could keep justifying my work hours. At the moment I just feel like a warm body haha.

Some people complain to Jim that he doesn't cover stuff right when the news break. But because he waited until today, he has a pretty good picture of the whole story's development (so far). So it works well as a summary of the news, the consequences and the discussions around it (plus Jim's own take). On a note related to the video's subject, I live in a country where years ago the work conditions were absolute shit overall. It took years of unions fighting to the bone to move them to acceptable standards and shit's only getting slightly better by the year. And we have not lost production at all either, so I can only say "fuck that" to the notion that unions are in any way harmful to work culture or even to the companies. And the longer you wait to start fighting, the longer the fight will take.

@bfrehksdhf

5 жыл бұрын

Shits pretty bleak here in America. We're all tired, angry, confused, over-worked, over-taxed, over-regulated (from a small business perspective like from my job; most of the top corporations here don't even pay taxes), distracted, spied on, separated, divided, sick, drugged, and generally just FUBARed. The suits and spooks have pretty much raked everything into their corner in terms of money and power, so there isn't much keeping things running except inertia at this point. USSR or Rome 2.0. But that's just my opinion. Most people here would probably tell you things are great, and they might be right if you ignore all the bullshit and try to live an easy life, but that's getting increasingly harder too.

@TOAOM123

5 жыл бұрын

"Are ANY way a problem" Eh.....not true.... There are plenty of problems with unions. Nothing is cut and dry

When i was a kid my Dad worked 70hr to 80hr weeks every week and i hated it we could never do anything as a family, i appreciate he worked to provide but it made me miserable still

Overworking people doesn't just lead to reduced productivity. It leads to mistakes which can consume productivity to fix. I remember a body shop foreman once said "There's never enough time to do it, but there's always enough time to do it twice, eh?" Look at pretty much every failed AAA project and what do you find? Tons of work done badly, having to be scrapped, redone, only to eventually be cut altogether because the project is running behind schedule. Hard work is overrated. Any time you're having to work hard, it means either you made a mistake or you're being asked to fix someone else's mistake, far as I'm concerned.

@csward53

5 жыл бұрын

It's something people say so they can get a promotion over their peers. It doesn't imply efficiency at all and that's what they should be striving for.

@irllcd13

5 жыл бұрын

The same thing goes for vacations. Mandatory paid vacations are fought tooth and nail in America and yet they have them in Europe. Guess which one is more productive? When people are healthy, happy and rested with a 40 hour work week they are more productive than an unhealthy, unhappy and tired people on an 80 hour week. It's just sad that one even has to make the economic argument because nobody cares that it's morally and ethically right.

@Mish844

5 жыл бұрын

"fix someone else's mistake, far as I'm concerned" - software development in a nutshell

@carecup809

5 жыл бұрын

@@irllcd13 You just proved to be an idiot when you compared the EU to the USA. USA is better pretty much by every metric. And I am a EU citizen.

Meanwhile (Happily) in Swedens game-companies you can't force your workers to work a hundred hour shift. At max, a worker may work 40 hour week and get a total over-time of 40 hours over a 4 week period, but no more than (I think) 20 hours each week. In addition, you may only work 150 hour total overtime in a year. After this, you must always have at least 11 hour rest between workdays and must always have at least 36 hour consecutive rest every 7 workdays. All of these are non-negotiable as they are printed into law. They can be flexed slightly with agreements by unions, but it is very seldom. After that, there is always the forced overtime pay and Uncomfortable Hours pay (Which can go up to 350% increased pay in those hours).

@TheSkittlesmcgee

5 жыл бұрын

And that's why Paradox Interactive games royally suck. Wait a second....

@rodneyjones1990

5 жыл бұрын

And that's why DICE games are the best in the world...wait what?

@blondbraid7986

5 жыл бұрын

Tor Nordmark Exactly, regulations didn't stop several AAA video games developed in Sweden from being huge cash cows.

@Peasham

5 жыл бұрын

B-but that's socialism! Sweden must be an economic shithole with all those regulations, how do they even keep the lights on, you monsters!?

@4200Felix

5 жыл бұрын

They aren't dirty, they have the free time needed to shower.

How about we call it what it truly is: *EXPLOITATION OF WORKERS* .

@CaptainCharlotte69

5 жыл бұрын

@Lady Wanderer Probably. More people should be, then the workers wouldn't be exploited.

@discocrisco

5 жыл бұрын

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE

@thebigenchilada678

5 жыл бұрын

Crunch Muncher oh fuck off commie. We’re tired of your shit.

@thebigenchilada678

5 жыл бұрын

Captain Davian you’re right, they’d be dead.

@glimpus

5 жыл бұрын

"fuck off commie". Are we back in the 50's?

RockStar To It's Employees: Oh sure, you can talk about your working conditions however you want!.... But just remember if you're honest about how much we're working you all to the bone we'll fire your asses and make sure you don't work anywhere else in the gaming industry ever again!

Holy shit, I just looked up where Rockstar HQ is and the labor laws there (New York), and, well, there's your problem. New York has almost zero protection for employees--no overtime pay requirements, no time off requirements, no minimum time between workdays, NOTHING. Every state I've ever lived in has laws that limit how much a company can work its employees, and all are nearly identical. Overtime for over 8 hours in a day, double time for over 12; minimum 8 hours between shifts. They vary slightly in how many max hours an employee can be required to work in a week, and most have mandatory 24-hour days off. They also require AT LEAST some number of UNpaid days off, if not paid ones. I didn't understand how Rockstar could get away with this, until now. The easiest and best fix would be to fix the laws, since that would affect more than just one industry. You don't need unions if you have decent labor laws, but New York is apparently stuck in the goddamn 18th century in that regard.

@TheyWhoKnow

5 жыл бұрын

Bacteriophagebs Haha! Welcome to my struggle as a New Yorker! I work about 55 hours a week and I still struggle to make ends meet.

@BazzBrother

5 жыл бұрын

where did you find this info? everything coming up on my google searches are saying that New York complies with the same requirements as every other state

@TheyWhoKnow

5 жыл бұрын

Bazz Bro New York complies with all the federal statutes that every other state is subject to, but the state itself has no legislation protecting workers rights. You’ve got to remember that the US has laws at both the Federal and state level.

@Krysnha

5 жыл бұрын

Another thing that i cant beleive a first world country, if you ask for a third world country like mine but a first world country, that is just bad

@randomtinypotatocried

5 жыл бұрын

I want to leave my state so bad.

100h week = You need more employees! Not "You need people to work 100h!"

@shaugh11

5 жыл бұрын

Lobos222 The problem with that is adding staff also has diminishing returns. By the time you know you need the staff and red tape the hiring, you then have a 1-6month ‘bedding in’ period where new staff won’t be very productive (learning etc. And this can be longer in a software/project based role) then add to that multiple people working on the same thing can make it take longer. It’s not building a house, man hours don’t work that way in offices. It ultimately comes down to time. Take twice as long to make it, not make people work twice as long.

@Kwazy-mojo

5 жыл бұрын

Then Rockstar needs to plan managing additional employees and begin hiring for their next game asap.

@captainunderpants200

5 жыл бұрын

Problem is you have to pay for more employees. If they work them 100 hours a week, but pay them for 40, that's money in the bank.

@anonarchist1936

5 жыл бұрын

Yeah, it's why getting overtime pay (ideally at 1.5x - 2x standard hourly rate) is so important. It encourages companies to, in future, hire enough people to make the thing. Rather than hiring the absolute minimum and assuming they can still stick 'em to a schedule by working them to the bone for no extra cost.

@Caitlin_TheGreat

5 жыл бұрын

Either more employees, or they need the publisher (Take2) to chill the f out about their greed for profit. Instead of 100hr work weeks, remain at 40hrs (which is probably "low" for them already) and just have it take longer. Some things could be cut, of course. I mean, showing off the horse genitals seems to indicate a frivolous use of work hours. The nearly 100gbs of storage needed may also signal this same thing. And since we live in the age of games that are always updating, it wouldn't be so unreasonable for some elements to be added in future updates, so that if the greedy publisher is worried about not getting profits as soon as possible (and paying less overall in wages) they can still release at a rather early date. Oh, but nevermind that because they also are making us wait an extra 3 days to access it if we didn't fall for the pre-order nonsense. ... You know I suspect this "get it on time if you preorder, and late if you didn't" practice will probably be pushed to further extremes. Maybe a week difference, maybe a full month if the publisher is particularly cocky. If those practices aren't met with enough resistance it may go much further. Anything to bully consumers into parting with money for a product that doesn't yet exist. And partnered with non-refundable pre-orders, I bet.

A set amount of money comes into the company. The higher ups want as much of it as they can, so they skim it off the workers lower down. There would be enough jobs to go around if crunch was eliminated, you'd simply hire more people and pay them a fair wage. The company can afford it. But the higher ups want their money, so they higher fewer people, pay them a crap wage and demand they work longer hours because the 20 people they hired need to do the work of 50.

@El_Descarriado

5 жыл бұрын

But we NEED literally ALL the money. [Explaination of this statement. 500 YouPoints.] [To buy more YouPoints go to the STORE]

@Sylfa

5 жыл бұрын

I don't need to buy the explanation, I got it from a lootbox.

@sebas8225

5 жыл бұрын

Disgusting especially when they getting billions from microtransactions.

@guitboxgeek

5 жыл бұрын

This comment is quite apt, nowadays. "Crunch" began in the days when talent was much harder to come by and teams were smaller. They had to crunch to meet deadlines. That's where it began, but also how it became a norm in an industry where those at the top live very differently from the labor pool.

@Theo_Caro

5 жыл бұрын

You literally just described the problem with capitalism.

Jim, at around 12:00 you say that games would be less buggy if QA got more sleep. This is not true. Many times QA knows those bugs exist, but the development team rejects them because they have more important things to work on or they don't have the time to fix those bugs. I've had it happen to me. I worked QA before and pressed development to fix a bug many months before release, but they told me they didn't want to fix it since it wasn't important. Come release this bug was all people were talking about and the reviews for the game suffered for it. You said it yourself. QA is one of, if not the most underappreciated field in game development. It's not like they miss these massively obvious bugs that many AAA games come out with. They just don't have the power to do anything about them. All they can do is tell development about them, and if development doesn't want to fix them then they aren't getting fixed.

@tunnar79

5 жыл бұрын

Release is closing in?Better slap a CNR on that bug report and move along!

@reinerw.1012

5 жыл бұрын

Tell that to all 20+ editions of skyrim that have the same identical bugs as the first game from 20xx. I jest, that's just Bethesda being lazy corporate bastards. :D

@avatareternal3204

5 жыл бұрын

Reiner W. Yeah and it would take all of 2 minutes (tops) for Bethesda to include the unofficial patches if they can't be bothered to fix the bugs themselves.

@maninthemists2299

5 жыл бұрын

When a game enters the home stretch, developers tend to enter what I call the FISI mode. "Fuck It, Ship It."

@THIZZAVELI

5 жыл бұрын

So games with remasters and slight updates that still have the same bugs in them. Or different versions/editions still don't get fixed because they just simply..........don't fix them? I'm sure the share holders are causing them to pay more attention to microtransactions, different additions, in game stores, loot boxes, pre order content, shady season passes, reselling cut content as DLC etc etc.

I once worked in the mobile game industry as a QA tester. I was only there for a year. During a crunch period It was 'requested' that we work extra long days for time of in lieu later in the year. A lot of people took up this offer to ensure that we got the product we were all engaged with completed on time. We were then all made redundant when the project was finished having worked an extra 250hrs plus for no pay.

The animation/film industry is verrrryyy similar. Lots of people think putting in free overtime is good and shows that you're a hard worker. Crunch time in films often exceed 70 hours a week. At least most of the time they do get over time but in television a lot of animators do not get overtime.

@KhayJayArt

5 жыл бұрын

Why the hell aren't the art and entertainment industries not being regulation?!

@HunteroftheNorth

5 жыл бұрын

There is regulation... but if people don't say anything no one will know what's happening

@Kermthefrog

5 жыл бұрын

Seems like a big problem in Japan, I've heard that a lot of young animators over there quit their jobs and move back with their parents because they don't make enough money to support themselves.

Yes. I too sometimes wonder how on earth he finds the most hilariously perfect pictures and video clips.

@syyndev2161

5 жыл бұрын

I don't think he does that, that's the editors job

5 жыл бұрын

A lot of time on the Internet.

@mkohanek

5 жыл бұрын

I am going to guess you are referring to the Assy McGee pictures

Sarcastic Statement: "Anyone that complains about working 60+ a week is just lazy and need to work harder!" That mentality is just wrong. Just because one person can work long hours while doing the work of 3, doesn't give these companies the right to make everyone do that!

@csward53

5 жыл бұрын

Liked for the Volus reference. :)

@PositiveBlackSoul

5 жыл бұрын

*Elcor, know your Mass Effect Aliens :P

@csward53

5 жыл бұрын

You're right it was Elcor. haha good catch. I always think of the NPC conversation in ME 1 with the Volus and Elcor, Earth-clan. :)

@carecup809

5 жыл бұрын

Ya it doesn't give them the right nor do they have such right. Employees are free to work somewhere else. What you wanna do is you want to limit by law the guy who wants to work 100hours per week if he so desires because you don't think it's reasonable.

Game developers need to unionize

@ciapatyciapacz5354

5 жыл бұрын

If you want to play shittier games for even more money

@OctEddie

5 жыл бұрын

They do. The problem is management fires anyone who even begins speaking of unionizing. Or they put that fear into them. "You go union and we are forced to bankrupt. You won't have a job."

@NetMoverSitan

5 жыл бұрын

Then they need to do that more covertly, not giving management a chance to target individuals, at least until it's too late.

@damenlapalm5609

5 жыл бұрын

homunyan Why? So they have to pay someone to speak for them, essentially losing their own voice? I'm guessing you've never been in a union before...

@Sonintendy

5 жыл бұрын

Damen LaPalm I’m in one. It’s wonderful. I get guaranteed raises every year because the union negotiated for me. I can’t be forced or scheduled to work overtime (though I can volunteer, and often do). Have you ever been in one? Cuz it sounds like you haven’t.

The video game industry REALLY needs to be better legislated. Video game developers also really need to unionize and strike for better work conditions

@nickwoodward819

5 жыл бұрын

america needs to be better legislated

@heykak

5 жыл бұрын

@joseaca oh yes, the poor starving companies with their destitute CEOs and shareholders...

@jakeunderwood9

5 жыл бұрын

@joseaca You're absolutely right! I never thought of it that way! We should de-regulate everything because America is a business and trickle-down economics is good for the core populace!

@Litintha

5 жыл бұрын

While I can agree with this and, with the information about the work conditions for developers and QA people, a union should be formed, I can actually see the AAA industry attempting to use the union concept as an excuse to raise the prices of games even more. They will say something like, "With longer development times and higher wages paid to our teams, the increase in product price is necessary to compensate for the increase in expenditures." Or, worse yet, they will use that excuse, but it will be linked to the AAA industry introducing more widespread and predatory micro-transactions. Again, I totally agree that game industry workers need to unionize if possible, but I am seeing a jump in pricing and possibly more outrageous micro-transactions if it were to happen. God forbid AAA companies drop from 3 billion in yearly profit to 2.5 billion....

@TheJovian16

5 жыл бұрын

You do realize you can keep the same dev team numbers while spending less per game, right? Just split the team in two, slit the budget in two and just have your 1000 member team (now two 500 member teams) work on two smaller, cheaper, games at the same time. Nobody ever asked for hyper realistic graphics, that was just the execs' inferiority complex when compared to the film industry forcing hyperrealism at the expense of actual game quality. Also as Jim keeps hammering into our heads, if a company can't just make a video game and expect it to turn a profit on its own without additional squeezing money out of their customers then they have FAILED as game devs. There is no contradiction in wanting better paid game developers AND games that don't price gouge their customers, it's called running a decent business. If the video game business isn't decently run then the execs are at fault because they are the ones running the business.

*Alarm Clock goes off* Oh boy 3am! *Takes out computer and works on RDR2*

@Haan22

5 жыл бұрын

More like *Lifts head from desk and continues working*

@aidenmitchell4695

5 жыл бұрын

Is red dead 2 an instrument?

@MrsVincentspike

5 жыл бұрын

@@aidenmitchell4695 No, Aiden, RDR2 isn't an instrument

@subtledemisefox

5 жыл бұрын

@@aidenmitchell4695 an instrument of failure

@nobodyspecial675

5 жыл бұрын

That's too real. More like *crawls out from under desk to work on RDR2*, though.

Got to the love The Mighty Boosh

@cynicritschris4996

5 жыл бұрын

Was hoping I would see this comment somewhere down here XD

@OB.x

5 жыл бұрын

Mighty boof

@theblocksays

5 жыл бұрын

Yeah why can't that show make a return, way better then Eric Andre.

@HRKFUNNYMOMENTS

5 жыл бұрын

i Was Wondering if Anybody Else Remembered The"Legend"😎 "ice-Cold! No Where 2Go"🤣😎

@ReleaseTheBrackin

5 жыл бұрын

You know nothing of the crunch!

I can totally vouch for any time over the 8hrs of the day are mostly useless unless they are spent on repetitive, mechanical tasks. As a programmer in gamedev, when focus 100% on my work I actually start making stupid mistakes after just 7 hrs and often have to spend the first hour of the next day to fix the stuff I've done out of tiredness the day before. Also, I agree that many gamedev companies are stepping waaay beyond what should be allowed when it comes to banning their developers freedom of speech. I've spent the last 3 years in CD Projekt RED and only after leaving them I decided to start sharing my ideas through a blog I intend to start writing. I wouldn't dare doing this when I was in CDPR, as it would most certainly result in huge HR and marketing issues, which I witnessed on couple of occasions with my peers being forced to shut down their online activity even though they did not disclose any of the company secrets. These companies feel like they own your life and it has to stop.

@irllcd13

5 жыл бұрын

I agree, but in CDPR's defense, at least what they finally deliver is incredible. Most devs that do this stuff do it and the game still sucks. Like EA, Activision, Konami, etc. I really don't understand why this is the norm. I know that the executives don't give a shit about it being immoral and unethical, but as you pointed out it doesn't even make good business sense. When people are tired, sick and angry, their work is going to be sloppy at best. The human brain 100% requires sleep. Being sleep deprived is worse than being drunk. Having sleep exhausted coders and animators working can actually be worse than simply having them doing nothing. And still they haven't figured this out. Just goes to show what I've said all along: businessmen are usually idiots. They they had any intelligence, talent or creativity, they would actually make something themselves. I'm glad to hear things are better for you though. I'm sure with CDPR on your resume you can get a job pretty much anywhere now, hopefully somewhere a little less stressful. I don't know about the conditions at Flying Wild Hog but I really liked their games.

@adrianjakubiak9280

5 жыл бұрын

Whether the final product is good or bad should not be a factor in these discussions. No end goal justifies the means. Think about all the expertise industry veterans could bring to the table if they were not burnt out because of these practices. Is it really worth it to lose any of them forever just to ship one good game? Also, think about how good the witcher could have been if the team was not pushed to crunch so hard, or in case on QA literally sleep at the office many times? How better would be the code quality, how significantly less bugs would sneak in when people could keep their focus and not be exhausted?

My dad use to work as a trucker at a oil distribution plant, and the hours were absolutely insane, i grew up most of the time without a father there because they kept giving him these stupid routes that take all day, and if he didnt take a route, he was replaced instantly. After he went through triple bypass surgery, the company put him in a desk job as a dispatcher. [Pretty much a 24 hour job]. I work there now as a warehouse worker for 36 hours a week, 3 days a week. Most of the guys here do mondays to saturdays and i honestly dont know how they do it. Its hell...

@aliciafraser1835

5 жыл бұрын

word of advice. force yourself some spare time, develop a talent, and work it into your living... if it doesn't work out, at least you have yourself a little hobby to destress with, however, if it does work out you can tell everyone of those assholes who over worked you to go fuck themselves.

@therealCG62

5 жыл бұрын

The trucking industry in general is downright criminally bullshit. I was in the same boat as you growing up, my dad was a trucker (not oil, hauling from the mines and such around here back when they were open), and there were times where I wouldn't see him for a month or two. Not like he made a lot, either, we were poor as shit when I was growing up. I was working a somewhat strenuous job doing retail warehousing, driving forklifts and shit, 40 hours a week, and I was actually making more than he was on the road in week-long stints.

@solotaughtme

5 жыл бұрын

robots replacing humans in those types of job may actually benefit workers than hurt them

@therealCG62

5 жыл бұрын

Would do if we could actually agree that, with automation becoming cheaper and more practical, and with productivity skyrocketing, something like a universal basic income and/or more scary socialist benefits that will be required to not have mass poverty and homelessness in a society where labor can be easily automated might be a good idea. Basically the moment we started to see the McDonalds Order Here Pay Here kiosks come around, we should have started to do that.

@condorscondor

5 жыл бұрын

@@therealCG62 amen. We are headed for a post-work society and are completely un-prepared for it.

I can remember doing 60 to 70 hour weeks. Did it for 11 years. Did it effect me? Well, I had no social life, only had 2 partners and neither lasted long, when. I quit, I only had two friends and had multiple suicidal thoughts and had attempted in several ways in the duration. So, kinda...

@schoo9256

5 жыл бұрын

Just a little. I hope you're doing better now, lovely internet stranger.

@haziqshams

5 жыл бұрын

As a doctor, 65hrs a week is the minimum 😌

@faranglao8006

5 жыл бұрын

I feel like that doimg a 37 hour week! Lol. This is not how we are supposed to exist.

@mrtalos

5 жыл бұрын

I do a 40 hour week with voluntary overtime, things aren't so bad. But I'll say this, just quitting a job makes it a damn nightmare when applying for the next one.

@thestwinner680

5 жыл бұрын

Being how doctors are "health experts", that is _quite_ the IRONY. -_-

"Maybe AAA games wouldn't have so many bugs in them if QA was allowed to get some fucking rest" As someone who worked in QA, I can tell you from experience that there isn't a damn single bug in a game that was missed by QA. We found them all, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of them. We aren't the ones who fix the bugs though, the Management looks at the bugs and has to decide if they're important enough to take the time to fix. Every bug from a AAA game you play is there because someone in a management position decided it wasn't worth fixing. They only care about money.

I'm a simple man. I see Tony Harrison. I click like.

@Dabednego

4 жыл бұрын

THIS IS AN OUTRAGE

Perhaps working overtime is "optional" just like having a job at Rockstar is "optional"

@DeathBringer769

5 жыл бұрын

I heard continuing to live on this Earth is "optional" as well, by their standard/use of the word, lol.

@jackojock101

5 жыл бұрын

It's all about "worker choice"

@JoeyFTL

5 жыл бұрын

Andrew Jackson Hysterical You're killing me dude 5* comment

@THIZZAVELI

5 жыл бұрын

Andrew jackson "This is your Odessy"

While not in the video game industry, I have experienced crunch before. I won't say where, but I once worked at a warehouse job where for three months straight to prepare for christmas sales, we had to do 50-60 hour works weeks mandatory. It wasn't optional. If we didn't want the overtime, we had to use our sick time to work normal shifts. Also, vacation was automatically declined during that three month period. Thankfully, the place had a self-imposed rule where you can't work over 60 hours for "safety", though it was probably because workers had to be paid double for hours over 60. Yes, we were fairly compensated for the overtime, time and a half past 40 hours and bonuses for exceeding productivity goals. But at what cost? I know for me, for an entire month afterwards, I had no motivation to even go to work. Even when I did, I was constantly exhausted my entire shift and had no time to relax between getting home and going to bed. I was constantly taking the free time off they offered because I felt constantly burned out. These companies don't realize that mental health is many time more important that physical health if you want things done well.

@condorscondor

5 жыл бұрын

Imma guess amazon. Sure sounds like it. But i guess their are other companies that do the same.

@letshaveya

5 жыл бұрын

Yeah they dont seem to realize they lose lack of productivity by over working employees, some companies are starting to offer incentives that if you can reach a goal in 4 days you get the friday off giving you a 3 day weekend but companies like that are few and far between and im not sure how realistic their 4 day goals are either.

@TheSussiest

5 жыл бұрын

Definitely Amazon

@iglidor

5 жыл бұрын

I had it the other way. I worked for 3 years in company where they posted you a goal and you could leave only after it was done. First year when they started it was fine. We had enough people and their goals were fine. But after that, some poeple left for better paid jobs and were not replaced and on top of that they started increasing their goals by cca 15% every half year. As result of this combination of understaffing and increased goals we were overtime all the time. Luckily in my country there is law that you can work "only" 400 overtime hours per year. It did not stop that company to try and push us over that limit but since they would not be able to pay us for those hours over 400 overtime hours (by law) we simply ignored them at that point. I still find it amazing to this day that our bosses there thought (even after told many times otherwise) that understaffing can be in long term solved by overtiming remaining workers. When I left, so many people were already gone chased away by this mentality that we went from two shifts into only one because there were no workers for second shift. Obviously today that company is already few years closed.

@condorscondor

5 жыл бұрын

@@iglidor labor laws are very lax here in the US, And unions are hard to come by. The ones that do exist have been slowly stripped of power over the course of decades. During the cold war anything that was viewed as socialism was banned, and people in power took advantage of that. Since unions are a left wing idea, they labled it as socialism and there-for anti-american. Stripping them of their power bit by bit. Unions are really only making a comeback now because of how bloody horrible its gotten.

Bonus points for the Over the Garden Wall reference on the wall.

Always bringing a smile to my Mondays, thx Jim! I could use the smiles.

As an employee, the only thing I have of value is my work, that is what I get paid for. If I give my work for free, it means my work is worth nothing, I a worth nothing. Since the company I work for doesn't give away the products and services they offer, why should I do so? I am not against working extra hours, sometimes things don't go according to plan and we all have to pich in. If it is a one off its ok, and if its not, it has to be discussed and rewarded, either in money or time off. If the company expects extra time "by default" with no compensation (more than keeping your job) its a clear symptom of bad management.

@ozonethegreat6948

5 жыл бұрын

Well said. I never minded overtime if it meant getting a project done and getting paid OT for my skills. But if these guys are not going to pay their employees that's pretty fucked up.

That intro at 3am is a great start to my day. BACK TO THE CRUNCH

@FutureDeep

5 жыл бұрын

I had to watch it three times!

@domdon950

5 жыл бұрын

Fishy42 who crunches at 3:00 in the morning...

@grubbybum3614

5 жыл бұрын

Must be New Zealand

@detectivelizard9532

5 жыл бұрын

It's from The Mighty Boosh.

Jim Sterling is the best journalist in America.

My last job had me working 12 hour shifts 5 to 6 days a week. It was manual labor (construction and demolition.) I worked there 8 months. I turned 30 in July and started getting depressed about my shit job. I then played What Remains of Edith Finch and quit my job the next day after playing through the Lewis section of that game. It made me question why I was doing that shit to myself. I dont have kids or any major responsibilities. There's no reason for me to work that many hours and break my body down. Since then I've got a new job where I work 10 hour shifts 4 days a week. Getting a 3 day weekend every week is amazing! I make less money but I'm way more happy. Don't do something you hate just for money. Your time is more valuable. Much love.

@crossface5710

5 жыл бұрын

boo fucking hoo

@mileswilliams4807

5 жыл бұрын

@@crossface5710 Whew you're a fiesty little fuck, huh?

There are people calling this 'fake otrage' because they are ao arrogant that they think that they can read peoples minds over the internet and determine someones feelings and intentions. (edit- as someone pointed out this is an educated guess or assumption on my part, obviously I can't read minds either. I still think I have a valid point)

@Peasham

5 жыл бұрын

This is a fake comment, you didn't actually want to write it. But seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if these were the same morons that also read people's minds to find out whether or not they're SJWs

@extremepostyo5242

5 жыл бұрын

@@Peasham I'm sure there are people that jump on bandwagons regardless of what it is, but to assume that everyone is doing it is moronic.

@chico1342

5 жыл бұрын

Just like your doing by assuming the opposite end of the spectrum, what is this comment

@ThrottleKitty

5 жыл бұрын

People on the internet acting so entitled to their own opinion they think everyone who disagrees with them just has to be collectively lying just to fuck with them? Naw.

@demsterclippy4252

5 жыл бұрын

Not to shit on all gamers since i know all of you must be as well, but a good chunk of the modern gaming fanbase has become so hateful of different ideas, different opinions, or truly critical issues that should be called out; all in the name shitting on "SJWs" or the left. I still remember the outrage regarding cuphead and doom eternal when many went on a tantrum over a few people simply disliking something like in doom eternals case with the trailer jokes (none of the people complaining actually bashed the game, and you could count in one hand the number of tweets like it too so its not like it was a large new movement), or in cuphead's case where people got mad over the game being labelled as racist or ableist when literally nobody did that. Jim's covered another similar case when he made the video on that one school-shooting game on steam that had a lot of dumbass gamers defend it in the name of fighting sjws' and i wouldn't be surprised if they started accusing this of liberal talk too because their heads are stuck that far up their asses.

Preach it Jim. Workers -in the gaming industry- everywhere need to unionise asap

@SpoopySquid

5 жыл бұрын

Amen to that. United we stand and all that

@koriharpoon2476

5 жыл бұрын

BUT UNIONS ARE FOR COMMIES. SOVIET UNION!!!!

@MrARCN7

5 жыл бұрын

Anarcho-Syndicalism with Gamer Characteristics

@lizard81288

5 жыл бұрын

Agreed, IIRC, Retail is the largest sector yet to be unionized. I'd love to see fast food and Retail unionized as well as the gaming industry. Granted, unions open up a whole nother bag of worms, but I feel like it would be better. I have worked for a non-union company before and the anti-union propaganda is hilarious.

@longsun_zhao

5 жыл бұрын

workers of the world unite, dude

I'm starting to come around to the idea of Worker Unions.

@irllcd13

5 жыл бұрын

Why has it taken you this long?

@DexTrraNox

5 жыл бұрын

Why stop at unions ? Lets go full blown Communism, where everyone pretends to work for 8h a day and the state pretends to pay them and nothing is ever getting done ? Everything has to be approved , reviewed , rewritten and censored by the committee. And something that would take a year or two under free market capitalism takes a decade in Communism Because this is what this fat ass is trying to push in the last year , and looks like a lot of ppl are buying in to it :'( Don't like your Job you have .. QUIT !!! Find another .. I did, i make little less , but normal hours, voluntary overtime (well paid), no stress.

@connorschultz380

4 жыл бұрын

@@DexTrraNox how is he pushing for that? Unions aren't some sort of 'entry drug' for a foreign ideology, they already exist in many industries, such as the writer's guild in Hollywood, the video game industry needs one simplely because it dosen't have one yet.

I really want to believe that in Rockstars case the 100 hour weeks was only a choice by the top devs - completely invested in the quality of their own creation - and not something experienced by the guys at the bottom just trying to make a living. I'm hoping that this is really a non-story. But Jim you hit the nail on the head when you said its the Attitude from the devs, to boast about a 100 hour week, which is completely wrong, and not something for anyone to be impressed by or aspire to. 100 or even 50 hour weeks should not be pressured on to any worker in any industry. Delay your game if you screwed up your schedule that badly. Don't make your staff suffer.

@main_stream_media_is_a_joke

5 жыл бұрын

redwest The rediculous schedules and insane deadlines come from these management aholes who mostly have no clue about the resource requirements, task complexity and task sequencing. This is not restricted to the game industry but to most of the IT organizations. Working long hours is like a badge of honor for these hobby less and lifeless programming nerds.

Jim. I can't enjoy my cowboy game if my horses testicles are swinging in the wind like the top sail of a pirate galleon.

@geraltofrivia1599

5 жыл бұрын

My horse roach was a demon out off hell doing all sorts off crazy shit but never the less my game is still a masterpiece

Gotta love KZread sending the video notification while I'm watching the video it's notifying me about

@michaelvanniekerk2104

5 жыл бұрын

KZread does 3 hour work weeks

@Draconicrose

5 жыл бұрын

Pre-notification squad! 🙄

@WorldzMo5t3pic

5 жыл бұрын

Count yourself lucky, some people don't even _get_ notifications.

@gokuxsephiroth4505

5 жыл бұрын

yes, like my facebook messenger app telling me I have a new message on the thread I am already on. Fucking machines.

People need rest as much as food, water and anime.

@Warnut

5 жыл бұрын

dont forget the porn

@Gadget-Walkmen

5 жыл бұрын

Lots and lots of porn!

@balanced2482

5 жыл бұрын

Not just any anime, but jojo is good for the soul

"if you find another job in an already crowded job market." Sterling, I love your videos but you nailed it on the head here. Game developers will never find solace in their current predicament because of the available labor pool. It doesn't matter if a union is formed, there are too many willing bodies to work for nearly nothing. I have seen different numbers, but a majority of 'game developers/programmers' are not fully employed in the industry. Its a simple equation, too much available labor will lead to a cheapening of supply. I'm an architect by trade, we don't have 'crunch times.' I'm also very difficult to replace because of my federally mandated license. My brother is an aerospace engineer, he works 4 days a week and sets his own schedule. My father is an electrical engineer, his work stays at the plant and he chooses to work at home because he loves his work. My mother is a nurse. She clocks in and she clocks out. My professional friends choose to work when they want to and who they want to because you can't go out and find a new engineer, architect, doctor, lawyer, or even skilled labor on a dime. My best friend is a master electrician, he pulls down nearly 100k a year. He is paid that much because he is almost impossible to replace. If you're expecting relatively uneducated easily replaced Q/A testers or even developers to get a fair shake; it will only happen when labor isn't available. If you're expecting the market to change, you can not flood the market with almost as many new worker each year as the entire video game labor market.

Jim ... 12:07 you're buying into the misconception publishers have been pushing silently. QA teams do find the bugs they probably find more than 90% of all bugs and they hand those bugs over to their heads/producers who then take it to the dev teams and the closer the game gets to release is when the management team decide which bugs they have to get fixed and which are ignored and allowed to go because "we can always patch it later" In fact you should get in contact with your QA tester sources and find out just how many games were shipped with infamous bugs they all knew were there but chose to ignore because the price to fix in dollars or time wasn't worth it to hit the release window. Publishers and Development Studios happily let QA take the blame for bugs and never correct the community because then instead of blaming QA we'd be blaming the actual people responsible for a game shipping with bugs and they can't let that happen. Nope better to allow you and all the others out there to curse the QA teams and their incompetence for not picking up bugs and them being the heroes for pulling out all the stops for a day one patch or week one patch when the player base complains loud enough to justify spending the cost of time and money to fix. Just like how publishers are now shitting themselves now you and others are dragging shareholders into the spotlight, they're probably hunkered down hoping no one with enough reach puts the spotlight on the myth that is QA didn't/couldn't test the game right.

@tybraker27

5 жыл бұрын

I couldn't help but read that "patch it later" line an a Jim voice. lol

@alexket3581

5 жыл бұрын

now I want Jim to make a video on this. PLEASE. JIM. that would be so cool to watch.

@maninthemists2299

5 жыл бұрын

As someone who has a lot of years of QA experience, I regret that I can only upvote you once.

@Ihearvoicez

5 жыл бұрын

Well instead send Jim an email with your experiences , the reason Publishers get away with allowing QA to be blamed is because QA teams don't think anyone will listen to them. Most of these KZreadrs who are pissed off at publishers would be glad to have more opportunities to beat them down with a rod of their own making.

If you want to see the long-term effects of overworking, look no further than Japan. Work weeks are often 100+ hours, leaving no personal or family time. Adult suicide and stress complications rates are skyrocketing, while marriage and family raising rates are plummeting. They're actually running out of people at this rate.. And of course, here in the good ol' US of A, this seems to be our end goal. Employers are more than happy to take everything from us, as if squeezing blood from a stone. But if anyone questions the system or asks for better treatment, they're filthy communists. I guess we'll have to wait for the upcoming generations to fix this, because the current ones in power still think the Cold War is going on.

@jamesoleary2476

5 жыл бұрын

Eville Caston yeah but who cares when we can just ramp uni immigration and replace last years workers.

@tybraker27

5 жыл бұрын

Yep, I agree. I quit working at Goodwill only like a week after being hired there because my job stressed me so much from working as a cashier. I have Asperger's Syndrome, so constantly having to interact with customers is downright awful for me (I let them know about it) and the claimed they couldn't let me do other work. The corporate asshats at the top thought it was a good idea to penalize someone for being sick. I dealt with the flu for like 4 days (they fucking knew it too) until one day I wanted to go home. They call that an "occurrence." Stupid thing is, pretty much being a human is an "occurrence," meaning being late for 1+minute (even when you fucking call in to let them know), calling off sick and leaving early. It's a straight up bullshit system to encourage people to be more like machines than people.

@DeViLzzz2006

5 жыл бұрын

@JoshK31 Sorry but capitalism is evil. Even when there was unionization with everything there was huge corruption with it. Mankind though is too small minded to share the world and live in a world where commerce is not a thing. Sad .... and hopefully one day mankind is erased from this world before it is completely destroyed.

@andrewlaporte5477

5 жыл бұрын

@@DeViLzzz2006 Personally, I partually disagree with your points. Capitalism isn't evil per-say, but it encourages prouctivity over quality of life, which to many would be evil. In contrast, a pure socialist system like Star Trek is a world where only those who want to do work do it (though perhaps with social coersion), and though the 50 species aren't as productive as, say, the 1 Klingon Empire, they're apparently a lot happier, living in a post-scarcity economy. As for mankind being too stupid to take care of itself, I have hope. That's it. I've felt for a long time that if it's far easier to destroy than to create, why do we create more than we destroy? But that's just me. Take my words with as much salt as you like.

@pathosfear6290

5 жыл бұрын

@@andrewlaporte5477 Nah, mate. Capitalism is evil, it just makes sure the people reaping the benefits don't see or hear from the people and nations that are exploited. The US may be bad by Western standards, but you live in luxury compared to the countries who are victim to capitalist imperialism. That's how capitalism works, buy cheap sell expensive. You only need to take one look at sweatshops in SE asia, or mining in africa, to see how the "buy cheap" part works out for humanity, or at the US pharmaceutical industry to see how "sell expensive" works. If you do not realise capitalism is evil, there's a high chance you are either bourgeoise yourself, or suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

Reducing the work time might actually speed up game development, because when your tired you make mistakes that have to be fixed later.

@ShadeKirby500

5 жыл бұрын

And when you take a break and rest, you can come up with solutions to problems at work easier

Jim is absolutely right with regards to unions. These guys need them. Honestly when you have them usually you don't even notice them but they quietly protect your rights and usually get you better deals. The US needs them and they need teeth otherwise people will continue to get mistreated and discarded. This isn't about sulking because you don't like working; it's about banding together to ensure FAIR TREATMENT.

@Calvin_Coolage

5 жыл бұрын

I'm genuinely surprised this industry isn't unionized. Practically everything else is.

@mattatat1138

5 жыл бұрын

Unions are crap... been a union member multiple times in multiple jobs, and without a doubt, I've been a far better advocate for myself than some stranger who's never worked a day in my industry, and who I'm forced to pay to represent even the most worthless of my coworkers... we recently voted out our union, and after SIX YEARS of the same pay scale, we've gotten 3 separate raises in less than a year... yeah, fuck unions bro.

@GoTfan-eb8tk

5 жыл бұрын

@@mattatat1138 Uh huh. Sure.

@mattatat1138

5 жыл бұрын

Brandon Korner thank you for gracing the internet with your intelligent reply 👍

@talynhastime9343

5 жыл бұрын

@@mattatat1138 So what do you propose game developers, QA, and coders do, then, to force a change in their work environment? It's obvious that self-advocacy doesn't work in this particular industry.

This just shows yet again that higher ups will gladly treat their workers like shit for as long as they can possibly can get away with in order to boost a few digits on their bottom line. Execs are not your friends and should be treated with suspicion at all times. And no game will ever be good enough to justify the gross abuse of the people making them.

We are born from the crunch. Made men by the crunch. Undone by the crunch. Fear the crunch.

@1SWINZ1

5 жыл бұрын

The blood makes us crunch. Makes us more than crunch. Makes us crunch no more.

@toddlaws2617

5 жыл бұрын

Our eyes are yet to be open.

Somehow, this video was more moderate than what I had expected. In any case, great work!

Great video, Jim! I hope your channel grows even bigger and that your videos will sometime in the future start having bigger real-life results. Keep on going!

It's a proven fact better hours equal better productivity.

@DeathBringer769

5 жыл бұрын

Yes, but just to clarify for people that will get confused, by "better hours" here you mean LESS hours. Like you said, many studies have found working less but more efficiently/energetically to actually be more productive in the end than forcing working more hours like a stubborn fool bashing his/her head into a brick wall over and over, hoping it will budge, instead of just taking a moment, collecting yourself, and realizing you can just walk around it (aka working less hours helping you think more clearly, work more efficiently, etc.)

@TheGeekyAmreeki

5 жыл бұрын

@@DeathBringer769 yeah less hours. I worked at a company where myself as a filmmaker and social media guy and my buddy as the artist worked around 4 to 6 hours a day. We tripled their profits in 2 months with our work. But the finance department complained that we didn't work hard since they knew nothing of what our jobs entailed and we worked in the corner away from others. So the company caved and made us 6 day a week 10 hour a day employees (common in Kuwait) we basically say there half the day doing shit to look busy and ran out of shit to do by mid week. It got to the point here we lost our excitement and motivation and said fuck it. We branched out in our own and their profits plummeted.

Crunch in programming is an issue. If we have to work in weekends or nights, the next day we have a meeting analysing how it got that bad.

@Nuvizzle

5 жыл бұрын

The ironic thing about crunch in programming is that it ALWAYS leads to shoddier code, which leads to more pressure on QA to identify issues created by that shoddy code that then have to be corrected, creating more unnecessary work for everyone involved. Well, in software in general, at least - in the games industry those bugs are just swept under the rug to be cleaned up in a patch, if at all.

If crunch time is a failure of leadership, then we shouldn't expect more reasonable working hours to lead to the same or equal development times unless project leaders are also being pushed to make better decisions. Because while I don't work in video games, I tend to find that whenever big organizations mandate overtime, you will usually find someone at the upper levels who is disorganized or doesn't know (or care) what they're doing. Mandatory OT doesn't happen because the projects need them from the get-go, it happens because someone up top wants their mistaken decisions covered.

I would prefer no one judge me or my family for this, but I would like to share a different perspective. My step dad was raised on a farm in a small town, in a large family, and was taught that you either work or you do not eat. Now, he works on a Christmas Tree farm as a mechanic. I think the slowest work week I've seen from him was 50 hours. At least 60-70 hours and during harvest season (their 'crunch' if you will), he works 100 hours weekly. I grew up with a lot of medical problems, so my mom couldn't work and my step dad was the main provider. To this day, I live with them on disability and my mom forced my step dad to make the earth shattering decision to not work Sundays anymore, due to her failing health and needing him to help care for me. I absolutely have my problems with him, mostly differences of personality, but he has taught me that a good work ethic is a solid trait, that can unfortunately be taken advantage of. If I could find a job that I can manage, I would do my best to ensure that I did not become a workaholic.

@carrieullrich5059

5 жыл бұрын

If the employer your father works for hired another person to do half the work your father is doing, and paid him actual decent wages that allowed him to not need overtime, he'd be spending more time with you and your mother where he is needed most.

What I want to know is, why? What is the big rush? Why can't people *wait* for quality products? Why is it so I N S A N E to wait a few months for artists and builders to work and get paid well so people get stuff that lasts longer? I know the answer is "because then companies won't get as much money" and "because people won't get the stuff they want instantly" but WHY

@C0C0L0QUIN

5 жыл бұрын

Rushing development periods is not usually done thinking on the consumers. Is done because the longer you are developing, the more costs it causes. You can wait three more months for the game, but the company has no intention of paying three more months of salaries and bills if it can avoid it, even at the cost of the people working with them. Why would they care anyway? They are gonna get rid of at least half that people when the product is finished anyway -.-'

@kirbynat493

5 жыл бұрын

oh yeah, that as well. which reminds me of another point jim's made: "if you can't make enough money to stay in business", (which would include mantaining development and whatnot) "then don't be in that business"

@jmarx3943

5 жыл бұрын

@@C0C0L0QUIN I'd imagine meeting a calendar landmark, the Christmas season for example, would have something to do with it as well.

@JoViljarHaugstulen

5 жыл бұрын

Not only calendar landmarks for better sales windows but they can also end up being rushed out the door to get it out before the end of the fiscal year to look better to shareholders/investors/potential partners or such

@zztzgza

5 жыл бұрын

It's all because we live in a capitalist society. Make all the money or as much of it. That's it, the reason crunch, for workers being abused in every industry, for labor unions being demonized, for downsizing, for competition between companies almost not existing, for microtransactions, for people's attitudes toward this topic being toxic. When capitalism doesn't have checks and balances put in place, it runs rampant like this.

Mr. Krabs is unfair! Mr. Krabs is in there! Standing at the concession! Plotting his oppression! Spongebob taught us greed is bad kids. I think it's high time we plop some execs in front a few episodes.

@ZionSairin

5 жыл бұрын

Negitoro Is Best Ship Like this? *KRUSTY KRAB FUNFAIR*

I am a workaholic, I have holiday next week and I'm dreading it. The restlessness, the boredom and the eventual fights it will cause with my wife. I wanted to finish my bloody honeymoon early because of it and used to work 72 hour weeks using the excuse that my children need money for food, heating etc. I now have a job in an industry that legally restricts my work hours and I'm slowly getting back to normal but since it kicked in I have had serious weight gain, serious flare-ups of my (formerly mild) arthritis and I fear it will probably cause the collapse of my marriage sometime in the future... It's not worth it, ever. Your life is far more important than a fucking product you are working on or some cunt boss who only sees you as a number. I'm currently in the best job I've ever had with the best boss I've ever had and whilst I'm acting amazed by all this I'm realising that to some people MY situation is the weird one.

last time you talked about the crunch that mighty boosh clip was all i could picture so glad it was here

i work in the food industry and 60 hour weeks sound almost normal. Along with everything Jim said about diminishing returns, I calculated that after a certain amount of hours (around 44~) working anything more than that is diminishing return. So if overtime starts after 48 hours of work, you're already working almost 4 hours more to earn the money to outweigh the diminishing returns, which also brings diminishing returns after 3 hours again. And then it hits you that you just did 51 hours of work in a week and have no fucking life. Think we need a new labour movement

0:50 But It's missing your super stylish, sexy top-hat 0/10 not enough hats!

@lhfirex

5 жыл бұрын

The top hat was laid off after the crunch.

@tahzib1451

5 жыл бұрын

the hat hath spoken

"optional" overtime, but really it means that if you don't do overtime, you're fired.

Oh my God Jim, thank you for reminding me of Nanageddon. I've got a Might Boosh binge-watch to attend to now.

"Look at this game reporter, thinking developers are people, ha, the working class, *people*, ludicrous. The rich are people, the stakeholders are people, the workers? ha, 'people', smh." -the perspective of every employer in America. This will change if unions come back, or when the violent revolution we all want to avoid happens. hopefully the former.

@jmlkhan5153

5 жыл бұрын

You peacenicks need to come around and admit that we all want the upcoming revolution to be violent.

@ZionSairin

5 жыл бұрын

GMA I think they more want to see the fuckers at the top of the ladder in a pile than anything else. I’m fine with a vast majority of coworkers and such but when it gets to the rich ones they can fuck right off, they don’t even TRY to make other people’s lives better.

@gma5607

5 жыл бұрын

Zion Sairin The violent revolution or your imagination where we only hang the bad ones from trees and pull their intestines out in ground of their children doesn’t exist my friend for this I’d like to cite as my source every successful violent revolution ever. Because they always end the same way, a small revolutionary vanguard drawing up the list of who gets murdered and them murdering the other half of the vanguard to ensure they don’t get any ambitious ideas. What you want will led to many deaths you aren’t planning to bring about and that’s just if you win, God help you if you lose!

@ZionSairin

5 жыл бұрын

GMA Personally don’t wanna hurt anyone. I’m just pretty good at seeing things from several perspectives. Unless they’re part of my ISP fuck these guys they want to throttle everything even after we pay their bullshit monopoly driven prices.

@jamesoleary2476

5 жыл бұрын

Tucker Cobble lol a commie. Your ideology is dumb lol

One thing I always wonder. Is it possible that these companies are managed so badly that they always need crunch? Why can't they just set sensible deadlines on their projects without the need for crunch? You don't see this happening in other entertainment industries, at least not as often as the game industry. I worked for indie devs and I have done some payed overtime but never as bad as this.

@DeathBringer769

5 жыл бұрын

Yup, the obvious truth staring so many managers/executives/etc in the face that they don't want to admit. So many failed business models and so much failed management out there that still gets carried along nonetheless in spite of their actions by their employees working insanely hard and products that still end up making money, despite all the failures at the top level. And then, when the money comes in, the top level guys take all the credit for it even though the success happened IN SPITE of them, not because of them. Then, they use confirmation bias (a logical fallacy) to avoid thinking any problems could ever be their fault, going hand in hand with what I just said about them taking credit for anything positive that does happen (thinking that must be because of them), and move on continuing this shitty cycle. Basically, any good result happens? "That was us, all us." Anything bad happens? "No, that had nothing to do with us."

@Peasham

5 жыл бұрын

It's pretty simple, my dude, they just want more money. There's not much to wonder about, I think that's pretty obvious.

@MR3DDev

5 жыл бұрын

It is. Unfortunately there is no real way to counter this. When you have a huge labor force wanting to get a job in the industry executives can do as they please because every employee knows how hard is to get a job and that they can be replaced easily

@Stolanis

5 жыл бұрын

Also let us not forget the most important people in the equation: *the stockholders*. You think those money-grubbing corporate assholes want to wait any longer than is necessary for their next big paycheck? Do you want to be the one to go up to Mister Moneybags and tell him 'oh I'm sorry sir but you'll have to wait one more month before you can buy your next yacht because we've set back the release of the game so our employees can work reasonable hours'?

@ThrottleKitty

5 жыл бұрын

As a project director myself, I can 100% confirm this problem comes to one thing, and one thing only. Executives cutting corners in the budget to stick more in their own pockets. Making promises to their bosses lying insisting no corners were cut, and then forcing their staff to clean up their mess. My solution is simple... Pay executives what you pay your staff.

"I think we've definitely been able to instill in the culture the skepticism and pessimism and fear that you should have in an economy like we're in today." - Bobby Kotick, Activision CEO

Crunch is not the triumph of the workforce, it's the failure of the management. Such deep and true words.

Maybe Rockstar, making BILLIONS on GTA5 online, could wait to announce games until they're close to finished. The idea that they even need any crunch period is absurd, they're not desperate for money, any deadline they need to meet is self-imposed.

@devilmikey00

5 жыл бұрын

Well they DO have deadlines they have to meet...for shareholders. It's the only reason why this HAS to be released right now instead of say February or March of next year. They promised their shareholders that Q4 2018 would be HUGE and if they don't deliver the CEO's will be replaced or punished by not getting those nice big fat bonuses they like so much. Would it really matter in reality if they made billions of dollars now instead of billions of dollar 3-4 months from now? Not really but fuck the workers because the shareholders want big money NOW god dammit.

@minimoYT

5 жыл бұрын

Shareholders are pretty much boogiemen in any entretainment business.

I think you'd have to be pretty oblivious to think Rockstar 'allowing' social media communication on the subject meant any sort of transparency. No one who values their job, especially at the end of e development cycle, is going to be like "nah this is horrible". I don't know why anyone would expect anything else. But of course there's a healthy contingent of people who look at those mostly positive responses and say "welp it was all a big misunderstanding".

@blastinus3714

5 жыл бұрын

Exactly. They reinstated the social media privileges because they wanted their employees to write glowing reviews and deflect criticism, not out of the goodness of their heart.

@madhatterman01

5 жыл бұрын

It's pretty telling that they didn't allow social media communication to begin with

@tonyuk6396

5 жыл бұрын

Hit the nail on the head Sir. I'm sure unless their employees are complete fucknuggets they'd know damn well their social media accounts would be getting watched and they'd have to be unbelievably stupid to say anything negative about Rockstar as they'd lose their job the following day. What people say about their employers in public and what they say behind closed doors is an entirely different matter. Rockstar are laughing in all this, they know their wheel rats will praise them out of force, and anyone that comes out anonymous can be completely written off as 'trolls' so they can't lose here. It'd be great if gamers showed a bit of morality and hit them where it hurts come RDR2 release time, as the devs will have been paid no matter what so sales won't affect them - but of course gamers don't really have morals, they're fine turning a blind eye as long as they get their shiny new game, sales of Fifa etc show this to be true. EA, Rockstar, Konami and their ilk could kill newborn babies on a live stream and wankers would still be out the next day buying their trash annual updates.

@Hebdomad7

5 жыл бұрын

Like a North Korean village wheeling out their one fat kid every year to prove they are not starving... So they don't get their food rations cut off.

Living in Denmark, where 37 hour weeks are the norm, this is absolutely insane to me

This was a fantastic analysis Jim. I've been really horrified by a lot of the stories we've seen come out (and a few of the responses I've seen from players - one of whom suggested that there should be *more* crunch, as it would result in more complete and (somehow) cheaper games), so thanks for covering this topic in such an accessible way! Your work in this field is much appreciated =)

JoJo is absolutely essential for carbon-based organisms.

@thomasjenkins7506

5 жыл бұрын

jojo is a bitch ass kenshiro knock off.

@goa141no6

5 жыл бұрын

@@thomasjenkins7506 At least jojo has and end, kenchiro wanders around forever. It is a good series for it's time but jojo is better.

@emmastrange5557

5 жыл бұрын

@@goa141no6 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has 122 volumes and counting, Fist of the North Star had 27 and then ended. It's fine to like JoJo more, but to say it's better because it has an end despite being on going is a rather odd argument

@thomasjenkins7506

5 жыл бұрын

i just wanted to make jojo fans mad. seems i failed. oh well. but...fist of the north star is better.

@goa141no6

5 жыл бұрын

@@emmastrange5557 Yes but jojo are 8 ending stories instead of just 1 and every saga has a significant change in combat mechanics and characters (technically it would be 8 series Charing the same art style and themes).

Honestly people have waited like 8 years for red dead redemption 2, hell for a while it was questionable if we would even get a sequel. My point is that no one would really care if the game was delayed or even if it was announced latter than it was because by now we accepted that if the game did come out it would take a while anyway so we could have waited a little longer. Also as Jim rightfully pointed out as funny as shrinking horse balls is it doesn't really add anything to the game so I'm not sure why it really had to be in the game because your only gonna notice that if you spend an awfully long amount of time staring at horse balls.

@TransparentLabyrinth

5 жыл бұрын

This comes back to management problems and poor game design. Seemingly unimportant details actually can be really important for making a game experience seem memorable and enthralling, but you have to pick and choose very carefully. Feature creep is always a danger and when it comes to time required, it's best to assume that any given seemingly "small" feature is probably going to take at least twice as long as your first estimate to implement. Unless you're one of those teams that is working on the same shit over and over and you have a really good idea of how long it takes for each part, which seems to be very rare in the industry.

@anirudhviswanathan3986

5 жыл бұрын

@slimeball supreme Hmm. Then why even leak that detail out to the media?

@theaces3697

5 жыл бұрын

they didnt leak it, a person journalist who was able to play the game did they commented on it then for some reason its all anyone talks about

@codec6979

5 жыл бұрын

I think the only people that really matter to publishers, would care: the shareholders. It's like "so I know we promised you guys some results 2-4y ago, and you waited all this time to october and now we ask you to wait until january". Plus the sales might be better at this time of the year. But I don't really know how it works. Do shareholders invest in a movie, in the stocks? Why do they even matter, but i believe it's them who the date is for as early as possible more than the fans.

@thestwinner680

5 жыл бұрын

Strictly 4 Da Pervz

This was great, Jim. Good work.

You would think that people would realize that overworking employees drives down productivity considering the fact that this is something Henry Ford realized in 1914.

@irllcd13

5 жыл бұрын

And Ford was illiterate. What does that say about the dumbfucks in management of the AAA games industry today? This was shit I figured out when I was 10 and saw my dad coming home exhausted from work every day. I asked him why they made him come in for work when he was too tired to actually do anything in the first place. It didn't make sense to me even then.

The art is neeeeever worth the suffering of the artist, imo.

@OrgaNik_Music

5 жыл бұрын

If an artist WANTS to suffer for their art, they absolutely can. It's just that nobody should be forced into that position.

@Spodo_Komodo

5 жыл бұрын

Fuck the artists, I want my cowboy shooty game right fucking now

@RoyalFusilier

5 жыл бұрын

I'm fine with art at the expense of the artist, if it is an entirely voluntary, willing process. I mean, it's a free country. The way a big company works though? It exerts influence on people who need to avoid starving to death. Almost literally can't have that kind of voluntary thing, though. Because it's Expected, even if nobody ever states it outright to avoid backlash.

@trevordavis6830

5 жыл бұрын

I mean, as long as they aren’t forced to suffer and get proper compensation for said suffering, I don’t think there’s that much of a problem.

@jalpat2272

5 жыл бұрын

the suffering of the artist is the price tag of art, the more insane and depressed even suicidal the artist means more zero behind.

Overtime isn't mandatory... it's just that it might come up on a performance review that you're not giving it your all.

@thelaughingrouge

5 жыл бұрын

@TheHobbitMonster *VERY* strongly.

@Bowiiihowdy

5 жыл бұрын

Like we will fire you black ball you and find a way to sue you encouraged

This is why I decided to not major in Software Engineering and instead go for Mechanical Engineering. I love programming but I cannot imagine making it my full time job especially with terrible work conditions of programmers and how it is actually promoted by programmers themselves. I still like programming and I would probably have lost interest in it had I made it my career. To me, a job is a job. One should not invest their entire life on a fucking job just to make someone else rich. Unless its your own idea/project/business, working 12 hours a day on it continuously does not make any sense. There are countless studies about how 6-8 hours work schedule is optimal for productivity. Managers seem to not understand the concept of quality over quantity. I believe that instead of pushing employees to sit long hours, companies should organize courses and training sessions for employees to be more efficient WITHIN the work hours. Usually people who sit long hours fuck around half the time because they know they are going to be here till late.

"The ends justify the means" mentality is exactly why I won't buy a lot of games that I know have had heavy crunch rotations. I know crunch happens, but as Jim so bluntly put it, it is a failure of management. The excuse in the past was always "game design is an iterative process," meaning that as new ideas came about, or new technologies even, they needed to be incorporated. They don't. If you know an idea is going to take weeks of redesigning things, then it is a choice to "steal" that time from another department, and risk pushing the development time out for the original estimate. Sometimes this is a good idea, sometimes it IS worth it, but now it has become so commonplace, bad management isn't called out until it forces studio closures (look at Telltale). With the greed Rockstar and 2k have shown over GTA and now this... I think I can live with choosing other hobbies than paying these bitches to f**k over their employees.