Kotaku: Xbox Head Defends Bethesda In Wake Of Crunch Allegations

[Neat]

Earlier this month, Kotaku published an article documenting the difficult working conditions surrounding Fallout 76. The article touched upon QA testers working 10 hour days, six days a week, and developers coerced to work unsustainable amounts of overtime, leading many to exit the company. It also talked about former Bethesda employees frustrated about the lack of improvement to their working conditions following the Microsoft acquisition, attributed to Microsoft's hands-off approach to managing Zenimax.

Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, was asked to address the report in a recent Q&A. He had the following to say:

He said that Xbox took crunch reports about its studios "seriously," but added, "The challenge with a lot of these articles is that they look backwards, sometimes pretty far back in time."

"Crunch culture is…if you go back 10 years ago, it's a little unfair to put that on one studio," said Booty. "It was just part of the industry. I don't say that to justify it, I'm just saying it was part of the culture of the industry. I literally slept under my desk early in my career. And we looked at that like a badge of honor."

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Booty said that the working conditions detailed in the report were in the past. "I know from talking to Bethesda leadership that we do not have a situation where people are crunching and we've got this bullying atmosphere…I'm confident about that."

He acknowledged that crunch could still take place without his knowledge, and said that employees needed to trust in Xbox's internal processes. He said that Xbox's human resources department would be willing to listen to employee concerns, and that all studios had support groups for individual disciplines. "There's avenues for them to report that anonymously back to us that goes through HR," Booty said. "We have to rely on those independent systems of checks and balances."

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More at the link: https://kotaku.com/bethesda-xbox-microsoft-fallout-76-crunch-starfield-1849120084

 

[Helix]

Why did it take so long to make a thread for this?

 

[Pancracio17]

Title should be more like "Xbox head says it isnt happening anymore", shouldnt it?

I was expecting him to say crunch was necessary or their choice or something.

 

[Lant_War]

Why did it take so long to make a thread for this?

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Why didn't you make it yourself then?

 

[Helix]

Why didn't you make it yourself then?

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I was lazy

 

[Caiusto]

I said this in the OT and will say it again: this article is really weird, because it adds nothing.

While the article about the F:76 was really important, the tone of this sounds like they're trying to paint a bad image on Booty for saying what is obvious.

 

[Azerth]

Title should be more like "Xbox head says it isnt happening anymore", shouldnt it?

I was expecting him to say crunch was necessary or their choice or something.

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but clickbate titles get more views

 

[Aerial51]

I was lazy

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Comes of really condescending on your part, behaviour like this doesn't improve the general discussion quality on the forum.

 

[Uncle Sensei]

Title doesn't match the content. Oh kotaku

 

[Rodelero]

Title should be more like "Xbox head says it isnt happening anymore", shouldnt it?

I was expecting him to say crunch was necessary or their choice or something.

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"The Xbox head said that overtime should only be kept to personal excitement and passion"

 

[Lant_War]

I was lazy

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So true bestie

 

[Saladin]

Typical Kotaku. The title has NOTHING to do with the content ffs

 

[Mad_Rhetoric]

Don't give kotaku clicks.

 

[MouldyK]

I said this in the OT and will say it again: this article is really weird, because it adds nothing.

While the article about the F:76 was really important, the tone of this sounds like they're trying to paint a bad image on Booty for saying what is obvious.

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Kotaku would never do that!

Good upstanding member of Society Kotaku!?

 

[Uzupedro]

Title: ''Kotaku: Xbox Head Defends Bethesda In Wake Of Crunch Allegations''
Quote: "I know from talking to Bethesda leadership that we do not have a situation where people are crunching and we've got this bullying atmosphere…I'm confident about that."

Where's the inaccuracy?

 

[Praedyth]

To be fair, he does have a point, the article doesn't say what's happening on Bethesda now. I'd rather have him explain why Bethesda employees didn't get Microsoft's perks.

I also don't think he should just take Bethesda's words that everything is fine, but that's Xbox hands off approach showing.

 

[Forsaken82]

Ahh good ol' Matt Booty... discussing how he slept under his desk.

As someone who worked at Midway when Booty was there, this was no badge of honor.

 

[pswii60]

I also don't think he should just take Bethesda's words that everything is fine, but that's Xbox hands off approach showing.

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Bethesda doesn't report to Matt. Not really sure why they asked him about Bethesda at all.

 

[meenseen84]

I don't get some of these crunch things, I don't think they're good but how many people signed up for it back in the day. I work 80 hours in a week as a RN at times too and that's something we see as normal. I can't believe medical is The only one.

 

[Real]

Absolutely disgraceful. Crunch is absolutely disgusting - and any leader that defends it isn't worth being a leader at all.

Yuck.

Spoiler: Spoiler

[



On the topic, this article is quite clickbaity./SPOILER]

 

[Golbez]

I guess "Xbox Head says crunch was part of the culture 10 years ago, no longer happening at Bethesda" wouldn't get clicks?

 

[Rodelero]

Bethesda doesn't report to Matt. Not really sure why they asked him about Bethesda at all.

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Then he shouldn't be answering as if it is in his remit, surely?

 

[Lumination]

At face value, what he's saying is reasonable. And from recent articles about unions, investigations into Acti-Blizz, etc. MS seems to have enough of a track record here to give them some benefit of the doubt here imo.

 

[pswii60]

Then he shouldn't be answering as if it is in his remit, surely?

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Indeed. Bethesda isn't Matt's responsibility. I guess Phil prepped him.

 

[digitalrelic]

Title should be more like "Xbox head says it isnt happening anymore", shouldnt it?

I was expecting him to say crunch was necessary or their choice or something.

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Yes. But that wouldn't be Clickbait enough.

 

[Zebesian-X]

Hope he's right about current-day Bethesda. Wouldn't be a good look if it came out that they are in fact still crunching like they were for FO76. We need follow-up reporting on the current state of BGS

 

[Sacul64]

Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios

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Didn't he work at betheda during the crunch?

Disregard I'm apparently going crazy.

 

[Arn]

A big load of nothing, blown up into a big load of nonsense.

 

[riotous]

I also don't think he should just take Bethesda's words that everything is fine, but that's Xbox hands off approach showing.

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From the article:

He acknowledged that crunch could still take place without his knowledge, and said that employees needed to trust in Xbox's internal processes. He said that Xbox's human resources department would be willing to listen to employee concerns, and that all studios had support groups for individual disciplines. "There's avenues for them to report that anonymously back to us that goes through HR," Booty said. "We have to rely on those independent systems of checks and balances."

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And this is all being leaked from an Xbox All Hands meeting.. for those wondering why Booty was "asked", he's probably the one that runs those meetings despite not technically overseeing Bethesda. But as the head of MS Studios, I don't think he is somehow totally divorced from Bethesda either way.

 

[Scottoest]

Title: ''Kotaku: Xbox Head Defends Bethesda In Wake Of Crunch Allegations''
Quote: "I know from talking to Bethesda leadership that we do not have a situation where people are crunching and we've got this bullying atmosphere…I'm confident about that."

Where's the inaccuracy?

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The original article was talking about the environment during FO76's development and launch, before Microsoft owned them. Booty's response was essentially to say that he's confident this isn't the case any more. He doesn't even try to dispute whether the reported conduct happened, and acknowledged that "war stories" of sleeping under your desk while finishing a game or whatever were long valorized by the industry.

Now perhaps he's full of shit that it's not happening any longer - I have no idea. He's ultimately a suit so it's always possible. But the original Kotaku article doesn't speak to that either.

The one thing he said that made me raise an eyebrow was that "crunch" hours "should only be kept to personal excitement and passion, and not a mandatory aspect of production scheduling", as we know social pressure can play a role in these situations. Of course, it's also simply true that in the case of creative works people are passionate about, they will indeed often put in work in their personal time - and this extends far beyond gaming.

Didn't he work at betheda during the crunch?

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Pretty sure Booty worked at Mojang before he was elevated to the Head of Xbox Studios, if memory serves.

 

[elenarie]

I don't get some of these crunch things, I don't think they're good but how many people signed up for it back in the day. I work 80 hours in a week as a RN at times too and that's something we see as normal. I can't believe medical is The only one.

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Working long hours is not crunch. I've worked some long hours when preparing for events, but it was not crunch.

Crunch refers to a culture of unsustainable long term overworking to hit unrealistic and immovable deadlines either due to mismanagement or overscoping.

It's okay to work for a couple of hours more for a few weeks as you head into your big E3 reveal. Because you want to push the quality bar a bit more. And there are people across the world to align.

It's not okay to be working 4+ more hours per day for 6 months including Saturdays because leadership overpromised what they can deliver and scoped the project with unrealistic amount of features and content for the deadlines that were immovable. Especially when as an employee you don't have a choice or are peer pressured.

 

[Sacul64]

Pretty sure Booty worked at Mojang before he was elevated to the Head of Xbox Studios, if memory serves.

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I swear I only know his name because of a Bethesda E3 showcase.

 

[JINX]

Didn't he work at betheda during the crunch?

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No, he was the studio head of Mojang. A studio known for its good work culture.

 

[BananasWithGuns]

I swear I only know his name because of a Bethesda E3 showcase.

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Pretty sure Matt Booty has never worked at Bethesda. Are you thinking of Pete Hines maybe?

 

[vixolus]

"Xbox Head says crunching and sleeping under desks a "badge of honor"' !!1!

Hope he's tight or that the leadership at Bethesda are truthful. Also good to see him reiterate about the independent channels to report to if there are problems

 

[JuniperAndSage]

The one thing he said that made me raise an eyebrow was that "crunch" hours "should only be kept to personal excitement and passion, and not a mandatory aspect of production scheduling", as we know social pressure can play a role in these situations. Of course, it's also simply true that in the case of creative works people are passionate about, they will indeed often put in work in their personal time - and this extends far beyond gaming.

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Yall, this is exactly how companies defend and justify crunch.

 

[Rodelero]

Yes. But that wouldn't be Clickbait enough.

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I have no idea how anyone could see this headline as clickbait. In this article Booty does defend Bethesda in the wake of crunch allegations. If your contention is that Kotaku are trying to make something out of nothing, surely they'd highlight one of the more controversial things he said:

1) The suggestion that crunch is okay so long as it's a personal choice
2) The idea that their HR systems to report issues are independent
3) The exaggeration of how long ago this stuff happened
4) The faith in Bethesda's leadership being honest about crunch being a thing of the past, despite the fact that much of that leadership would have been responsible for crunch in the past

 

[elenarie]

4) The faith in Bethesda's leadership being honest about crunch being a thing of the past, despite the fact that much of that leadership would have been responsible for crunch in the past

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This part is VERY interesting from a behaviour point of view. As a failed leader, if your team crunches, you probably don't want to report that because you may be seen as failure. Or you are afraid that would be the case.

Have seen this first hand with some people. Team leads didn't report that they needed more time and people, yet secretly asked their team to work more. What ended up happening is, higher ups found out and told the team leads that the team leads are entirely responsible for not calling out these risks ahead of time and all accountability should go on them. That made it crystal clear that it was not higher ups pushing for crunch, it was the team leads. Things changed fairly quickly after that and team leads stopped hiding such important info from higher ups.

 

[Deleted member 68874]

Kotaku is embarrassing.

 

[Asriel]

Yall, this is exactly how companies defend and justify crunch.

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Huh? They're right in that it extends beyond gaming. Hell, I'm a software engineer and I put in extra hours to learn the functionality of a new Ruby gem/React library, just because I want to. An employee putting in extra time at their own volition is absolutely not crunch.

 

[Fisty]

"There's avenues for them to report that anonymously back to us that goes through HR," Booty said. "We have to rely on those independent systems of checks and balances."

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Ehhh this seems inadequate as hell. Relying on reporting is absolutely not the solution

 

[SunBroDave]

Wasn't the article about Fallout 76? A game that released 4 years ago? And was BGS's last project prior to Starfield? That's what Booty calls "pretty far back in time"?

 

[vixolus]

Ehhh this seems inadequate as hell. Relying on reporting is absolutely not the solution

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What's the alternative

 

[Fisty]

What's the alternative

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Direct monitoring, comprehensive exit interviews and verified check in/out? The problem is literally stated by Booty with his badge of honor shtick, and letting "enthusiasm and personal excitement" determine work hours is exactly the type of culture that enables crunch

 

[CatAssTrophy]

This part is VERY interesting from a behaviour point of view. As a failed leader, if your team crunches, you probably don't want to report that because you may be seen as failure. Or you are afraid that would be the case.

Have seen this first hand with some people. Team leads didn't report that they needed more time and people, yet secretly asked their team to work more. What ended up happening is, higher ups found out and told the team leads that the team leads are entirely responsible for not calling out these risks ahead of time and all accountability should go on them. That made it crystal clear that it was not higher ups pushing for crunch, it was the team leads. Things changed fairly quickly after that and team leads stopped hiding such important info from higher ups.

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This phenomenon occurred on my team over the past few years.

Company wanted certain features/updates by X date.
It was unrealistic.
Instead of saying that, devs held their tongues because they were afraid to say NO.
Found out later some of them had been (as Booty and Naughty Dog put it) "secretly crunching" on their own.
They were burned out.
Burn out resulted in multiple failed deadlines and the complete HALTING of a rollout for one of our services.

I told one of our managers that we all need to commit to being more open and honest when we don't feel confident in ANY plan, because if we build a process and products on top of lies it's an unstable mess and WILL eventually cause more issues. Not only that, but if we are saying we worked X hours but we actually worked double that, we deceive management by making them think X hours = [whatever features we released or update we pushed out] and they'll expect that ALL the time.I don't even work in games, and I can already imagine how those kinds of situations could manifest.

 

[cyrribrae]

This part is VERY interesting from a behaviour point of view. As a failed leader, if your team crunches, you probably don't want to report that because you may be seen as failure. Or you are afraid that would be the case.

Have seen this first hand with some people. Team leads didn't report that they needed more time and people, yet secretly asked their team to work more. What ended up happening is, higher ups found out and told the team leads that the team leads are entirely responsible for not calling out these risks ahead of time and all accountability should go on them. That made it crystal clear that it was not higher ups pushing for crunch, it was the team leads. Things changed fairly quickly after that and team leads stopped hiding such important info from higher ups.

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This is interesting. Thanks for sharing. My impression is that modern crunch probably is less centralized than it was in the past. (Granted, we still get stories like CP2077, so maybe not.) Which means that it's probably both harder to detect and harder to address when found. I'm curious how higher ups found out in these cases? Just eventual catastrophic failure or mass burnout?

Ehhh this seems inadequate as hell. Relying on reporting is absolutely not the solution

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But practically, what additional steps WOULD be the solution to individualized or even small team crunch? Like I think ^ makes a lot of sense, but it's not mutually exclusive with what Booty says here. It's a big team, and you rely on teams to regulate themselves because it's impossible for Matt Booty or even Xbox HR to watch over everyone's shoulder all the time. Note that he doesn't say "we're not working on this at all". He's clearly engaging with leadership.

What ELSE they can do is leave communication open so that people who don't get to participate in those meetings can mention issues on that smaller, less centralized scale. And if those reports contradict what leadership is saying, THEN Xbox HR should be empowered to not only investigate fully but also hold people accountable at the proper level.

 

[JuniperAndSage]

Huh? They're right in that it extends beyond gaming.

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Just cause other industries have similarly abusive labor practices, doesn't mean it's ok.

 

[Asriel]

Just cause other industries have similarly abusive labor practices, doesn't mean it's ok.

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Did you not read my post, or . . . ?

 

[JuniperAndSage]

Did you not read my post, or . . . ?

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...or I recognize that the "fun" "voluntary" crunch that you and the MS guy are defending is still crunch.

 

[Asriel]

Direct monitoring, comprehensive exit interviews and verified check in/out? The problem is literally stated by Booty with his badge of honor shtick, and letting "enthusiasm and personal excitement" determine work hours is exactly the type of culture that enables crunch

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This sounds like more red tape and invasiveness that I doubt employees would want. I think employees just need to feel more comfortable speaking out.