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NetherRealm (Mortal Kombat 11, Injustice) also has a culture of crunch

XaviConcept

XaviConcept

Art Director for Videogames
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
4,895
It's almost not surprising at this point, however, its still something that needs to be brought up and talked about.



Check out the thread, it goes in depth, another example



nr_01.jpg


Confirmed by Beck Hallstedt who was a contractor for Injustice





nr_02.jpg


And of course Glassdoor reviews tried to tell ya

"Contract workers are disposable, horribly paid, and overcrunched"

Current Contractor - Anonymous Contractor

I have been working at NetherRealm as a contractor
Pros
  • The only AAA studio in Chicago (aka they have a vicegrip on new grads and hobbyists trying to go pro)
Cons
  • $12/hour for associate artists
    Associate employees strung along from contract to contract for years with no benefits
    Too much crunch
  • Advice to Management
  • Treat associate employees like human beings
(Not going to discuss the other thread that was locked since it has unconfirmed information)
 
PlzUninstall

PlzUninstall

Member
Oct 30, 2017
563
UNIONS HELP US, PLEASE.

It sucks so bad and the worst part is that they're silencing it all/trying to brush it under the carpet and it's only at breaking point that people are risking their careers to out them like this. Disgusting.
 
Shelbyville Milhouse

Shelbyville Milhouse

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,378
I dub this, The Gamer's Conundrum
"Oh Crunch is bad, I hate Crunch how horrible"
"Why the fuck haven't they patched this already, where is the next update, where is the new free content they promised"
 
TheBaldwin

TheBaldwin

Member
Feb 25, 2018
8,279
Its always something i wondered, espcially since they are able to have a very tight 2 year time frame to alternate between injustice and mortal kombat

We need unions desperately.
 
Ryce

Ryce

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,281
Unfortunately these experiences are universal across all of AAA game development. Only unionization can change the culture.

To anyone reading this: don't get into game development. It's not a dream job.
 
The Adder

The Adder

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,086
I don't get why more companies don't do it Nintendo's way. Contracting outside employees wouldn't just be good for their inside employees, it would save on overtime expenses.
 
sph3re

sph3re

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Oct 28, 2017
8,395
It's insane to hear this. Like, they know that there are diminishing returns for working long hours? Working past a certain point means the productivity will drop significantly. Telling someone to work longer than they're capable of being productive is borderline sadistic.
 
scare_crow

scare_crow

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,305
That sounds like a bad work environment. There must be a more effective way to go about this than a zero-punctuated, grammar-free tweet storm, no? Maybe there's not. Maybe that's part of the problem.
 
hikarutilmitt

hikarutilmitt

Member
Dec 16, 2017
11,397
Gunslinger said:
Damn $12 dolllars an hour what's the minimum wage in Illinois?
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$8.25 I kind of wish folks would understand, before complaining about wages, that not everywhere in the country(or even in each state) has the same COL that somehow 12/hr is unlivable.

Also, this doesn't surprise me. I would, once again (as with all of these threads), like to know the actual work that gets done at what times from start to finish. How much of it is waiting around for one team to get something done for another team to work on. How much of the time is spent effing around doing nothing of value to the game? How many times do things get changed later in development because they scrapped an idea that was done, or close to it, to do something else?
 
fade

fade

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
3,510
I want to say glad I held off on MK11 but then I'm sure if I knew the full story behind every dev my game purchases would be closer to zero.
 
eraFROMAN

eraFROMAN

One Winged Slayer
Member
Mar 12, 2019
2,874
Every single studio has crunch, every single one. Some handle it better than others (Nintendo, apparently,) but anyone in game dev is guaranteed to experience crunch on every single project.

The industry is a mess behind the curtain, and that starts waaaay back at companies like Atari.
 
badboy78660

badboy78660

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,737
Those conditions of being crammed together like hamsters in a cage sounds horrific. And wtf @ $12/hr.
 
Shelbyville Milhouse

Shelbyville Milhouse

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,378
Every time a thread like this pops up I'm reminded of that one thread about Valve where people were like "Yeah well, maybe if they didn't get to have a day off when they are sick Valve would finally put out a game again"
 
JaegerDeus

JaegerDeus

Banned
Jan 25, 2018
647
User Banned (1 Month): Sexism
Everything in here is shameful and terrible, except the unisex bathroom thing.

It's a penis ladies. It's natural, it's not going to hurt you, you won't turn to stone if you accidentally see one, you're an adult and you can handle it.
 
JINX

JINX

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,472
That sounds fucking awful, I hope Jeff takes Ed Boon to task during E3. If he isn't too much of a coward to show up.
 
SlickShoes

SlickShoes

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,769
The contract works sounds like the same stuff that happened when I worked in QA(not netherrealm), temp contracts for abysmal money with the constant carrot Ona stick of maybe one day getting kept on.

The people I worked with either ended up making it to a higher up position or bailing out entirely because the hours are too brutal to consider doing long term.
 
ThatMeanScene

ThatMeanScene

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
9,844
Miami, FL
This shit is nightmarish. The games industry desperately needs unions.

Fantastapotamus said:
I dub this, The Gamer's Conundrum
"Oh Crunch is bad, I hate Crunch how horrible"
"Why the fuck haven't they patched this already, where is the next update, where is the new free content they promised"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's not the audience's fault that the employers want to save money by enforcing unpaid overtime instead of hiring more staff.
 
Cordy

Cordy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,314
I got the game because I wanna show respect to those who work there. Forgot who said it but didn't one dev in one of the other threads say buying a game at least shows those who work that their working wasn't for nothing?

With that said, this shit is crazy. They gotta fix this quick. Man, we need a list of the great studios because this stuff is insane.
 
mbpm

mbpm

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,524
The Video Crunch Industry

NRS sounds terrible on other levels too, their treatment of women ugh



 
Thrill_house

Thrill_house

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,598
That is absolutely disgusting. All that hell for a measly 12 bucks an hour?! I don't even know how to respond to that. Fucking shameful.

I understand how much of a pain it is to hire new people. I get it, takes time getting them adjusted, trained, weeding out bad eggs etc, but once you get them straightened out its a better long term investment. This...is damn near slave labor. Cheap as possible and the hell with the human cost.
 
Alucrid

Alucrid

Chicken Photographer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,409
JaegerDeus said:
Everything in here is shameful and terrible, except the unisex bathroom thing.

It's a penis ladies. It's natural, it's not going to hurt you, you won't turn to stone if you accidentally see one, you're an adult and you can handle it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

how many women have "accidentally" seen your dick?
 
headspawn

headspawn

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,605
PlzUninstall said:
UNIONS HELP US, PLEASE.

It sucks so bad and the worst part is that they're silencing it all/trying to brush it under the carpet and it's only at breaking point that people are risking their careers to out them like this. Disgusting.
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I don't think unions are the cure all that everyone seems to think, they come with their own set of issues. Imo, change needs to come from the top and across the board.
 
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