Rockstar employees were working "100 hour weeks" for RDR 2 [UPDATE: Rockstar's response]

Rurmelly · Oct 16, 2018

To be honest, if I'm nearing the end of a big project, timelines are tight, overtime pay is enough for me to put in the extra mile. They said themselves they don't mandate it. Poor project management can lead to crunch, but so can unexpected bugs/issues.

I personally do overtime hours here and there and DON't get paid for it (public sector), ERA needs to get used to the idea that work isn't a ball and chain, and respect goes both ways.

crazillo · Oct 16, 2018

Anyone still remembering when Crytek posted that pic with empty pizza boxes at the launch of Ryse? They had such a backlash, deservingly so. We video game fans should actually support developers a lot more. But then we are impatient, waiting for the new release, and in the end don't care about 12 hour working shifts when buying this game at launch yet again.

That being said, it's not only in this industry that it happens, big projects at crunch time will always face these kind of situations. I just wonder how long they've been doing those 12 hour shifts....

Also, Rockstar sold 70 millions or what of GTA V. They CAN hire enough staff to handle this. It's different from smaller developers possibly. We should even be more critical of them.

Yamatake · Oct 16, 2018

Datajoy said:
Yeah, I'm not trying to comment on the situation in any way, since I know nothing about what the conditions at Rockstar are or what goes into the decision making process for people choosing to stay at their jobs even in these circumstances.

I was just commenting that for me personally, no amount of money would be enough for me to work 17 hour days 6 days a week. At that point you are essentially giving your entire life force to your employer, which would be a deal breaker for me no matter what. Just not worth it...

I hear ya, it's a personal choice.

DryCreek · Oct 16, 2018

Confused Cheeseburger · Oct 16, 2018

Darknight said:
It's a double edged sword. Sure hitting Rockstar in thier bottomline may send a message, but they have to somehow know that the reduction in sales is because of this stance. Even if that was clear to them, you're risking the employees who did work hard and long on this not getting their bonuses as expected because the sales goals fell short. So you'd be hurting those people still. I don't think it's as clear cut to boycott without realizing it may make things worse to the people who you're trying to stand up for.

This is one of the things I'm thinking of as well. If we just don't buy the game, then people could get layed off, results culture could become worse, etc. Just not buying the game to protect the workers is a little near sighted. I think public accountability and pressure to change crunch is a realistic piece of defiance.

daninthemix · Oct 16, 2018

daninthemix said:
Incoming clarification from Dan Houser in which he says that was "just a few key people during a few crunch weeks" in 3, 2, 1...

Link

Dan Houser said:
After working on the game for seven years, the senior writing team, which consists of four people, Mike Unsworth, Rupert Humphries, Lazlow and myself, had, as we always do, three weeks of intense work when we wrapped everything up. Three weeks, not years..

Steiner_Zi · Oct 16, 2018

It's disgusting how this guy equates 'working hard' to 100-hour slave weeks..

Shapes · Oct 16, 2018

Monkeyball said:
This means most people on this forum will boycot the game right?

Not that I expect Rockstar to care, but I actually will avoid buying this game due to this.

Stryder · Oct 16, 2018

Did anyone read that he was only talking about senior writing staff for three weeks when talking about 100 hours? These are people who agreed to do this and think the concept is effective. 4/5 dudes?

This is what everyone is mad about?

Ceerious · Oct 16, 2018

Sorry but consumer's action wont change a thing. It's up to the workers

Mifec · Oct 16, 2018

Valentus said:
You know that's going to happen here too.

Page 1 of 17. This was always such a shit pic that never helped the argument.

MaximusPayne · Oct 16, 2018

It's a privelidge to work on a game like this. Also, more than likely they are paid for their services.

It would be appalling if it's not the case, but I doubt it.

Deleted member 28386 · Oct 16, 2018

daninthemix said:
Link

Oh the mob has already wasted 40 pages of doing everything possible to bitch about this. Now that there's clarification they just want to handwave it and say it was just made up to cover Rockstar's asses. There's no way to win on ERA.

Zem · Oct 16, 2018

formatnone said:
why there isn't a update on this? https://kotaku.com/we-were-working-100-hour-weeks-red-dead-redemption-2-h-1829758281

lol, that whole "clarification" is basically this:

There are even quotes in the Eurogamer article from people that worked at Rockstar that says the crunch was real and lasted forever.

Mifec · Oct 16, 2018

MaximusPayne said:
It would be appalling if it's not the case, but I doubt it.

Read the thread then.

Dan Thunder · Oct 16, 2018

Heyrule said:
Oh the mob has already wasted 40 pages of doing everything possible to bitch about this. Now that there's clarification they just want to handwave it and say it was just made up to cover Rockstar's asses. There's no way to win on ERA.

That would mean people admitting that they A) were wrong and B) got worked up over something they knew nothing about beyond the possibility that an unspecified amount of people apparently worked long hours for an unspecified length of time.

tenderbrew · Oct 16, 2018

Heyrule said:
Oh the mob has already wasted 40 pages of doing everything possible to bitch about this. Now that there's clarification they just want to handwave it and say it was just made up to cover Rockstar's asses. There's no way to win on ERA.

It's really the most perplexing place. Working conditions are so awful that out of the thousands of employees it took the top guy freely offering the information to get the real truth out! Slave labor! Anti-consumer! Me mad!

It's pretty concerning how often this occurs.

mindsale · Oct 16, 2018

A friend works for MLB on software and he understands that every March / April he will be in crunch for a month. It's part of the gig.

Software developers are no different. 100 hours is excessive, of course; it's deleterious to health, sleep, and family life. But I'd be shocked if much of the staff didn't understand this when accepting hires from a AAA gaming studio. They're smart people.

ckareset · Oct 16, 2018

Heyrule said:
Oh the mob has already wasted 40 pages of doing everything possible to bitch about this. Now that there's clarification they just want to handwave it and say it was just made up to cover Rockstar's asses. There's no way to win on ERA.

Or because we've already had employees tell us the crunch was real....

DryCreek · Oct 16, 2018

Salty Rice · Oct 16, 2018

tenderbrew said:
It's really the most perplexing place. Working conditions are so awful that out of the thousands of employees it took the top guy freely offering the information to get the real truth out! Slave labor! Anti-consumer! Me mad!

It's pretty concerning how often this occurs.

Heyrule said:
Oh the mob has already wasted 40 pages of doing everything possible to bitch about this. Now that there's clarification they just want to handwave it and say it was just made up to cover Rockstar's asses. There's no way to win on ERA.

Its clearly damage control for something people already came out and said that its real.

Zem · Oct 16, 2018

Heyrule said:
Oh the mob has already wasted 40 pages of doing everything possible to bitch about this. Now that there's clarification they just want to handwave it and say it was just made up to cover Rockstar's asses. There's no way to win on ERA.

Dan Thunder said:
That would mean people admitting that they A) were wrong and B) got worked up over something they knew nothing about beyond the possibility that an unspecified amount of people apparently worked long hours for an unspecified length of time.

tenderbrew said:
It's really the most perplexing place. Working conditions are so awful that out of the thousands of employees it took the top guy freely offering the information to get the real truth out! Slave labor! Anti-consumer! Me mad!

It's pretty concerning how often this occurs.

Did any of you even read the Eurogamer clarification? Houser trying to downplay this and the only people buying his bullshit are those that don't want to read or apply a critical thought.

https://twitter.com/somebadideas/status/1051985753503350785

BassForever · Oct 16, 2018

mindsale said:
A friend works for MLB on software and he understands that every March / April he will be in crunch for a month. It's part of the gig.

Software developers are no different. 100 hours is excessive, of course; it's deleterious to health, sleep, and family life. But I'd be shocked if much of the staff didn't understand this when accepting hires from a AAA gaming studio. They're smart people.

Yeah I work for a cpa firm, tax season we work 55 hours a week. It sucks but the firm tries it's best to make things as painless as possible for us with stuff like free meals, flexibile hours, ability to work from home, "everybody leaves at 5 on friday's to enjoy themselves", and having reduced hours in the summer to try and offset.

100 hour a week crunch is insane, even at my own firm they dropped from 65 hours a week to 55 hours a week during tax season a few years ago and found it increased productivitiy and reduced errors.

Deleted member 6730 · Oct 16, 2018

It's just a prank bro.

Keikaku · Oct 16, 2018

Zem said:
Did any of you even read the Eurogamer clarification? Houser trying to downplay this and the only people buying his bullshit are those that don't want to read or apply a critical thought.

https://twitter.com/somebadideas/status/1051985753503350785

Houser is full of shit. Nothing but a slave driver who collects all the profits to his dirty pockets.

Dan Thunder · Oct 16, 2018

Zem said:
Did any of you even read the Eurogamer clarification? Houser trying to downplay this and the only people buying his bullshit are those that don't want to read or apply a critical thought.

https://twitter.com/somebadideas/status/1051985753503350785

Yes I did read it. I also saw all those tweets from people who've worked on previous R* games. THIS story specifically relates to RDR2. No-one has offered proof that those widespread practices have been occurring during the development of this game so I don't think it's anyone's place to slate current R* based on pure speculation or previous issues without proof.

The Azn One · Oct 16, 2018

Mifec said:
Page 1 of 17. This was always such a shit pic that never helped the argument.

What you can't see the hypocrisy which is happening in here too? Dann well majority of the posters in this topic will be loading up the game come next week.

Deleted member 4034 · Oct 16, 2018

Dan Thunder said:
Yes I did read it. I also saw all those tweets from people who've worked on previous R* games. THIS story specifically relates to RDR2. No-one has offered proof that those widespread practices have been occurring during the development of this game so I don't think it's anyone's place to slate current R* based on pure speculation or previous issues without proof.

Because they're likely current employees.

Mifec · Oct 16, 2018

The Azn One said:
What you can't see the hypocrisy which is happening in here too? Dann well majority of the posters in this topic will be loading up the game come next week.

I'm not gonna call people out on buying a game because of issues they can't fix.

Unions and stricter regulations are the ways to fix this.

Dan Thunder · Oct 16, 2018

Bobo Dakes said:
Because they're likely current employees.

That's pure speculation though. As I said, without proof I don't think it's appropriate to lynch Rockstar over this story when what we've been told so far equates to 4 senior people (out of how many, 500? 1000?) spending 3 weeks working long hours.

If you can show me something, anything that shows R* have been routinely forcing great swathes of employees to work ridiculous hours on RDR 2 I will be the first to say that they've once again been shitty. Until then though I'm not going to drag them over the coals purely because of previous issues when there's been no evidence that it's still occurring.

Deleted member 4034 · Oct 16, 2018

Dan Thunder said:
That's pure speculation though. As I said, without proof I don't think it's appropriate to lynch Rockstar over this story when what we've been told so far equates to 4 senior people (out of how many, 500? 1000?) spending 3 weeks working long hours.

If you can show me something, anything that shows R* have been routinely forcing great swathes of employees to work ridiculous hours on RDR 2 I will be the first to say that they've once again been shitty. Until then though I'm not going to drag them over the coals purely because of previous issues when there's been no evidence that it's still occurring.

Even if it was voluntary, there's nothing okay about allowing people to work 100 hours a week. Get that through your head. Even if it was just one employee, for one week.

Admitting that isn't raking anyone over coals. A simple, that's fucked up, would suffice and go on with your day and buy the game if you want.

DryCreek · Oct 16, 2018

snausages · Oct 16, 2018

The "where's the proof" people remind me a little of Ryanair the other day when asked about why their pilots were sleeping on the floor.

When a company has an already proven track record for treating its employees poorly then where does the burden of proof lie, really.

It's not just Rockstar though, it's an industry problem.

Dan Thunder · Oct 16, 2018

Bobo Dakes said:
Even if it was voluntary, there's nothing okay about allowing people to work 100 hours a week. Get that through your head. Even if it was just one employee, for one week.

Admitting that isn't raking anyone over coals. A simple, that's fucked up, would suffice and go on with your day and buy the game if you want.

That's bullshit. Your previous post clearly implies that you think it's a widespread issue at R* without any proof. At no point have I said it's an acceptable practice I've just taken issue with comments like yours that imply it's far more widespread than reported with nothing to back it up with beyond, in most cases, looking at their past working practices.

Dan Thunder · Oct 16, 2018

Hodgy said:
if you keep giving companies plausable deniability liek this things will never change, the onus is on them to prove that people dont work insane crunch, they have then umbers, they can publish them to clear their name if they want to

Why is it though? Should I be able to go to one of our competitors and simply say I've heard from a couple of your former employees that you treated them poorly. You now need to prove to me that you don't?

Deleted member 4034 · Oct 16, 2018

Dan Thunder said:
That's bullshit. Your previous post clearly implies that you think it's a widespread issue at R* without any proof. At no point have I said it's an acceptable practice I've just taken issue with comments like yours that imply it's far more widespread than reported with nothing to back it up with beyond, in most cases, look at how their past working practices.

The proof is Rockstars own quote and the quotes of previous employees which is a lot more than you have to work with.

FancyPants · Oct 16, 2018

Zem said:
Did any of you even read the Eurogamer clarification? Houser trying to downplay this and the only people buying his bullshit are those that don't want to read or apply a critical thought.

https://twitter.com/somebadideas/status/1051985753503350785

None of the tweets in the Eurogamer article is from current employees. They all were part of Rockstar from before the 2010 letter, and there is no indication that the horrible practises weren't fixed back then.

Bobo Dakes said:
The proof is Rockstars own quote and the quotes of previous employees which is a lot more than you have to work with.

The previous employess quoted worked at the company in like 2008...

BassForever · Oct 16, 2018

Bobo Dakes said:
The proof is Rockstars own quote and the quotes of previous employees which is a lot more than you have to work with.

You can't argue with people who keep moving the goal post

FancyPants · Oct 16, 2018

Hodgy said:
if you keep giving companies plausable deniability liek this things will never change, the onus is on them to prove that people dont work insane crunch, they have then umbers, they can publish them to clear their name if they want to

This is fucking insane. People making the claims that they are working insane crunch should back it up with evidence. Asking someone to prove their innocence is ridiculous.

Dan Thunder · Oct 16, 2018

Bobo Dakes said:
The proof is Rockstars own quote and the quotes of previous employees which is a lot more than you have to work with.

I genuinely don't know how many times I can repeat myself! I'm not referring to RDR1 or GTA5. Where is the evidence of these practices during the making of THIS game? Show me proof where these 100 hour weeks were widespread been beyond this isolated instance. Show me quotes from people who have worked on THIS game that say R* are a shitty employer and I will gladly agree with you.

None of what you refer to is anything approaching proof of widespread issues for THIS game.

Deleted member 2840 · Oct 16, 2018

Are people really expecting that the CURRENT EMPLOYEES, THE ONES -STILL- WORKING ON RDR2, GO ON TWITTER AND TALK ABOUT THEIR CRUNCH ON ROCKSTAR?

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?

Jesus Christ. The reason we got ex-employees talking about their crunch is because, well, they're ex-employees. Expecting currently employed people to jeopardize their own job like that is being fucking delusional. Fucking ERA holy shit.

Kenzodielocke · Oct 16, 2018

"He did deny it heavily, he didn't do it" - Trump/random resetera poster.

liquidtmd · Oct 16, 2018

Past employees: "Yeah these stories are true. Crunch is immense"

Stories surface: "100 hour working weeks for RDR2"

Internet: "YEAH BUT WHERE ARE ACTIVE EMPLOYEES SHOWING ME PROOF NOW PUBLICLY"

It kinda stands to reason that if employees need their job and standing so much they acquiesce to 100 hour weeks, it kinda stands they aren't going to come forward en masse on the record right now whilst still employed...

Internet: "LOL well that's on them then"

We have a big issue

In other news: Amazon floor workers don't get realistic toilet breaks but it's ok, they can hold it

Skux · Oct 16, 2018

saci said:
Are people really expecting that the CURRENT EMPLOYEES, THE ONES -STILL- WORKING ON RDR2, GO ON TWITTER AND TALK ABOUT THEIR CRUNCH ON ROCKSTAR?

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?

Jesus Christ. The reason we got ex-employees talking about their crunch is because, well, they're ex-employees. Expecting currently employed people to jeopardize their own job like that is being fucking delusional. Fucking ERA holy shit.

They could reach out anonymously to reputable news outlets.

The thing is, news outlets wouldn't consider it newsworthy.

Slev · Oct 16, 2018

FancyPants said:
None of the tweets in the Eurogamer article is from current employees. They all were part of Rockstar from before the 2010 letter, and there is no indication that the horrible practises weren't fixed back then.

The previous employess quoted worked at the company in like 2008...

FancyPants said:
This is fucking insane. People making the claims that they are working insane crunch should back it up with evidence. Asking someone to prove their innocence is ridiculous.

I assume little with suffice to either of you, but you should look at the glassdoor reviews of rockstar. Plenty from this past couple of years including this year...(I know their anonymous and yes in theory could be doctored but who is really taking the time?)

They may not have all their employees actively working 100 hour weeks but its not a hard jump in conclusion to see that they follow industry practice of "crunch" with minimum 6 day work weeks @ more than 8 hours a day.

Additionally it is brought up in said reviews about a culture of fear.

There is a reason the summary Con of the place is about long hours...

Here's an albeit cherry picked quote for ya:

The Hours- Brutal and unforgiving. 6-7 days a week, 9-14 hours a day depending on your deadlines or which upper changed their minds at the last minute and called for a redo on your project, causing your entire team to stay long hours (sometimes overnight) to meet your already tight deadline. - Dec 11, 2015

FancyPants · Oct 16, 2018

saci said:
Are people really expecting that the CURRENT EMPLOYEES, THE ONES -STILL- WORKING ON RDR2, GO ON TWITTER AND TALK ABOUT THEIR CRUNCH ON ROCKSTAR?

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?

Jesus Christ. The reason we got ex-employees talking about their crunch is because, well, they're ex-employees. Expecting currently employed people to jeopardize their own job like that is being fucking delusional. Fucking ERA holy shit.

So then we just jump to the other side of the scale and drag the entire company over the spikes, because we for some reason think they are crunching people? Where is the proof for any of this???

Maxim726x · Oct 16, 2018

FancyPants said:
So then we just jump to the other side of the scale and drag the entire company over the spikes, because we for some reason think they are crunching people? Where is the proof for any of this???

Gee, I don't know... Maybe multiple former employees saying this was common practice, and the fact that it was openly admitted during this interview?

Are they all lying? Does that make sense to you?

Deleted member 198 · Oct 16, 2018

If you need any more proof that we're fucked as a collective society, look no further than people bending over backwards to defend horrible working conditions so they can play a video game quicker. 50 hours a week is excessive and strains the body and mental health, almost doubling that is fucking insane and unacceptable.

Deleted member 4034 · Oct 16, 2018

FancyPants said:
So then we just jump to the other side of the scale and drag the entire company over the spikes, because we for some reason think they are crunching people? Where is the proof for any of this???

Dragged over spikes, that's the hyperbole we're going with?

We're somehow worse than the people accused of making employees work 100 hour weeks because we're going off actual quotes from former employees.

Okay.

FancyPants · Oct 16, 2018

Maxim726x said:
Gee, I don't know... Maybe multiple former employees saying this was common practice, and the fact that it was openly admitted during this interview?

Are they all lying? Does that make sense to you?

As already stated by multiple people on this very page - the quoted employees worked during the bad period around RDR1 dev, before the letter. We have no indication that many people are being forced to work long crunch periods on RDR2... Are we just going to jump to conclusions on todays working conditions based on 10 year old reports?

Rockstar employees were working "100 hour weeks" for RDR 2 [UPDATE: Rockstar's response]

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