Following an open letter published last week on Gamasutra's blog section, containing numerous allegations of excessive crunch time, mismanagement, and unlawful working conditions, an apparent internal Rockstar email response has surfaced, as has an official response from the International Game Developers Association.
Today, a claimed developer going by "Justwanna makegames" posted an alleged internal email to the thread originating from the Rockstar Games headquarters in New York. "We take issues related to working conditions extremely seriously and will look to address any genuine concerns immediately," the email reads.
"We do not agree with the allegations in the Gamasutra post (e.g. there has been no reduction in health benefits or ancillary benefits and perks (such as free dinners and massages etc), wage increases across the studio have kept track with cost of living increases, and anyone who feels they have been overlooked for a bonus for a game they worked on please contact HR to discuss as soon as possible)," it goes on.
The email urges employees with grievances to contact the publisher's human resources department, adding, "We are committed to working through any issues anyone at the studio may have, and to providing support wherever possible."
Today, the International Game Developers Association issued its own public response, which in part reads, "The IGDA finds the practice of undisclosed and constant overtime to be deceptive, exploitative, and ultimately harmful not only to developers but to their final product and the industry as a whole. While our research shows that many studios have found ways to preserve quality of life for their employees, unhealthy practices are still far too common in our industry."
Collectively attributed to an account named "Rockstar Spouse," the original blog post claims to be on behalf of several wives of studio employees who "have collected themselves to assert their concerns" and are calling for "immediate action to ameliorate conditions of employees."
The post alleges that since roughly March 2009, Rockstar San Diego, the developer of the Midnight Club series and the upcoming Red Dead Redemption, has significantly reduced employee benefits, taken away vacation time, exempted various employees from overtime pay, and undergone frequent and repeated crunch periods, with six-day 12-hour work weeks.
"There are understandably times when crunching in work is needed and extended working time is expected," the post reads, but "there must always be an effort for balance.... If these working conditions stay unchanged in the upcoming weeks, preparation will be made to take legal action against Rockstar San Diego," it concludes. "All that is desired is compensation for health, mental, financial, and damages done to families of employees."
Soon after the article was published, numerous comments were posted in response, many of which were written anonymously with claims of firsthand corroboration.
"Where is the detail about people getting performance warnings for not working 11hrs+ a day?" reads a post by user "Bitter PartyOfMany," which continues, "Donuts were taken away every other week (about $200 in savings per month), yet Rockstar flies in people from all the other studios (Vancouver, Leeds, Toronto, New England, etc..) and puts them up in a luxurious rental home, give them per-diem, and rent cars for them."
Erin Hoffman, a game developer who gained notoriety as "ea_spouse" when she posted anonymously in 2004 criticizing Electronic Arts' employee treatment, responded to the Rockstar San Diego blog post, writing, "This has been a long time coming for Rockstar. Go get 'em, ladies. These problems don't fix themselves," and stressing that change must come from within the organization.
Gamasutra has sent requests for comments on the matter to Rockstar Games.
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Is it common only to the USA? or is industry wide?
I work in the Australian corporate environment and I've been seeing articles and blog posts about the culture of voluntary overwork (people not taking their annual leave days and working overtime by choice) here, but the kind of environment talked about at R* would be close to, if not, illegal then certainly grounds for a labour dispute. Of course I could just be hopeless naive due to working for a reasonable employer. So am genuinely interested in hearing if this is as common as this article seems to indicate.
The current state of the economy and large number of people who 'want to make games' contributes to making it a lingering issue.
Please contact me ASAP at (858) 271-1915 or by email.
Thank you for your help.
Moss Gropen, Esq.
As you said, it is all down to the management and thats where the failure occurs.
My advice to those employees in development shops like these: Try your best to always have another job offer in your pocket. That's the only real way to mitigate the risk of saying "no" to such poor working conditions.
@Anwar, things may be worse since the graphics demands have increased, but things to my knowledge have generally always been this way in the industry.
To everyone, QoL is no joke. If we want people to take the industry seriously, we should take ourselves seriously. And that means not treating people like crap and not taking it from anyone else. I think Marxist Communism is a little too much, so let's not go overboard like that. In the Crapitalist (that's short for Crony Capitalism, what we have in the US)countries of the world the workers must take a stand for themselves. The imbalance of wealth, health and QoL is everyone's problem. Why? For starters, because it affects everyone. More importantly and less noticed is that everyone affects it. The 'have-nots' tend to have a less direct effect, but often just as strong because of their numbers.
In the US we have this fallacy that if you work hard enough you will get what you deserve or earned. This 'meritocracy' we used to call the 'American dream.' I'm not sure it was ever so, but it's even less like that now. Just because our harsh reality is people treating each other like crap because they have more money or prestige does not mean that we must succumb to playing by the rules of that stupid game. Be a real person. Man up. (Woman up). Grow a pair and treat yourself and others like a decent human should be treated. Even if they aren't decent humans. The golden rule used to be treat others as you would have them treat you. Now it is treat everyone (yourself included) with a sustainable level of human decency. If you are out of touch with what this means, bone up on it. It means realizing that families and health come before work, not on the side if you've been a good boy/girl. It means enjoying life, not just living to see another day. It means helping people in their time of need and being gracious and thankful when they return the favor to you. It means having a life worth living. Find it. Do it.
One would think that, in light of the recent plunge in stock prices, that companies would start looking hard a these issues and reevaluating how they do business - but mostly that isn't happening.
The solution, as Dave so astutely points out, is to always have a personal safety net (cash) and to always be looking for work elsewhere. There is no loyalty in games and once you're done killing yourself on mismanaged, nightmare project "X, Y or Z" they will fire you without a second thought. Never doubt this.
When a company gets large enough, they lose touch with their true assets, the people. It often requires a mutiny to spark change, even if only to save face in the public opinion. Things will likely improve at Rockstar, as they did for EA, but it's sad that it takes this kind of action to instigate something that should have been a proactive movement on their own part.
It is a complex problem. I'm not sure we can take all overtime out of game development, but I think we can certainly fight for reasonable compensation. With the US federal laws allowing anyone with specialized computer skills making over $27.63 an hour is exempt from overtime laws, we have very little protection. If we can prove that the number of hours required takes our salary below this level, then we might have a case to be converted to non-exempt employees and paid for overtime. But short of that, there is very little legal recourse. Some states, such as California, have much stricter laws and those employees have more protection. But court cases are expensive and there is fear that if one does make such waves, it is the end of one's career.
On the flip side I have worked for a glorious team/developer who treated QA like an equal contributor. Any perk for developers was given to QA. Daily meetings, team building events, lectures, and more was all accessible to QA. Management even took me aside to ask what my career goals were--something never asked by an employer before.
So don't let my doom and gloom paragraph dominate your interpretation of the video game industry. Working in this industry has been the most fun/exciting job I have ever had. Hopefully time will mature the business, and articles like this one will become obsolete.
Glad I'm not the only one who saw that. When heartfelt complaints are made about taking the free donuts away, two thoughts go through my head.
1) This poor guy's gonna be real sour when he gets a job someplace else.
2) "Simpsons did it!" -General Disarray
In a 360 review, you appraise your boss (anonymously) and can be frank in your praise or issues to HR. HR then works with the manager to resolve the negatives. To incentivize the manager to work on the problems, bonuses can be withheld or reduced if the the next 360 review does not show progress.
Contextual clues in Bitter PartyOfMany's original comment about donuts clearly stated that the point wasn't that the company took away $200 per month in donuts, but that they did so while continuing to fly in people from all the other studios (Vancouver, Leeds, Toronto, New England, etc..), put them up in a luxurious rental home, give them per-diem, and rent cars for them.
When a company start to nickle and dime employee benefits while continuing outrageous spending habits, that is a good sign of arrogant or inexperienced(or both) management.
A Rockstar mansion? Are you serious? John Romero, anyone?
The overtime laws are actually worse than that; for salaried employees working in the computer industry, you are only non-exempt (from overtime pay) if you make less than $455/week ($23660/year). $27.63/hour is the rate for employees who are paid hourly. (Source: http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/overtime/info.htm) So all the studios have to do to avoid paying overtime is "promote" you to a salaried position.
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