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

Odesu

Odesu

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,535
We got a separate Thread for the whole article but I thought this part should be discussed separetely, as Rockstar Co-Founder Dan Houser still seems to think that inhuman work conditions are something you should proudly boast about in interviews:

The polishing, rewrites, and reedits Rockstar does are immense. "We were working 100-hour weeks" several times in 2018, Dan says. The finished game includes 300,000 animations, 500,000 lines of dialogue, and many more lines of code. Even for each RDR2 trailer and TV commercial, "we probably made 70 versions, but the editors may make several hundred. Sam and I will both make both make lots of suggestions, as will other members of the team."
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http://www.vulture.com/2018/10/the-making-of-rockstar-games-red-dead-redemption-2.html

If anyone thinks that this seems familiar, in 2010 an open letter by wives of Rockstar San Diego employees about working conditions in relation to RDR 1 was published by Gamasutra. This is what was said back then:

The reigns whip again, and it becomes mandatory to work close to twelve hours a day including Saturdays, regardless if an employee has finished all his duties prior. These, yes all these are horrendous, yet what makes it unacceptable has yet to come. The fact that these conditions, the same ones that have been proven time and time again to worsen the mental, physical and emotional parts of employees, are also met with further obstruction of employees rights. That of even any effort to retain any health still owned by the employee by seeking medical attention on a Saturday, because on Sundays most medical offices are closed, they must call in sick. Furthermore, not only is it not received with sympathy and understanding rather the must endure an attitude presented to them that they pose a hindrance! No, such core hours step outside the law and will not be accepted as the norm!
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http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/Rock...Diego_employees_have_collected_themselves.php

Related:

It's Time For Game Developers To Unionize

Mod Edit (article with Rockstar response):
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
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Skronk

Skronk

Member
Nov 22, 2017
1,231
Fuck that shit. These horrible business practices need to stop.

Also start that union asap!
 
TheUnseenTheUnheard

TheUnseenTheUnheard

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
May 25, 2018
9,647
Hurray for divorces and not going home for days on end!

And nothing will ever be done.
 
Triggerhappytel

Triggerhappytel

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,993
This is disgusting. Are there no labour laws to prevent this kind of behaviour? I'm sure there are in the UK (I would assume R* North is heavily involved in development too).
 
Rodjer

Rodjer

Self-requested ban.
Member
Jan 28, 2018
4,808
One question, do you get paid for crunch and overtime in the US?

100 hours/week is too much, i can be ok with 1-2 hours of crunch every day, but 100 hours is too much
 
AgainstTheCurrent

AgainstTheCurrent

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,481
United Kingdom
Over 7 days that's 14 hours per day, which isn't too insane.

How much are their salaries? Do they get overtime during crunch? A nice bonus when the game inevitably gets 99 on MC? Good holidays during normal workload times?

You can't really judge what this means without any of that info.
 
SmashN'Grab

SmashN'Grab

Member
Oct 27, 2017
525
When he says 'we were working 100-hour weeks' is he referring to senior management like him and his brother or all staff? It's not clear from that snippet.
 

Vault

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,576
Someone asks me to work 50 hours and I tell them to fuck off
 
Acquiescence

Acquiescence

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
10,257
Lake Titicaca
So in the end, Rockstar learned nothing from the horrendous working conditions employees had to suffer through during the development of the first game and repeated it all over again.

And on top of that, despite working "100 hour weeks," this is the first proper new release Rockstar has put out this gen. WTF! What year would RDR2 come out if there was no crunch culture?!
 
MaitreWakou

MaitreWakou

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
May 15, 2018
13,180
Toulouse, France
And I'm complaining when I must do 45 hours a week... Fuck this shit, 100h a week is fuckin insane.
Those devs better get an insane salary at the end of the month. The proud of having worked on RDR2 is not enough.
 

Zappy

Banned
Nov 2, 2017
3,738
AgainstTheCurrent said:
Over 7 days that's 14 hours per day, which isn't too insane.

How much are their salaries? Do they get overtime during crunch? A nice bonus when the game inevitably gets 99 on MC? Good holidays during normal workload times?

You can't really judge what this means without any of that info.
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I take it you've never worked 14 hours a day for 7 days......

That is insane. And no amount of overtime can compensate for that. Its just totally unacceptable.

They are making a video game, not saving lives. There is absolutely no excuse for this.
 
daninthemix

daninthemix

Member
Nov 2, 2017
5,021
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...
 
AgainstTheCurrent

AgainstTheCurrent

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,481
United Kingdom
Zappy said:
I take it you've never worked 14 hours a day for 7 days......

That is insane. And no amount of overtime can compensate for that. Its just totally unacceptable.

They are making a video game, not saving lives. There is absolutely no excuse for this.
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I've worked 16-18 hours for days at a time sometimes to hit deadlines.

It's not nice but the pay is fucking good and that makes up for it at the end of the day.

That's why I'm saying without knowing what their pay is, and the working conditions usually, 100 hours doesn't mean much.

Working like that bought me my house.
 
Paz

Paz

Member
Nov 1, 2017
2,148
Brisbane, Australia
Very fucked up thing to brag about, especially since in games employees are almost always paid for full time with no substantial bonuses for overtime.

Though simultaneously I am jealous cod they'll have sacrificed to make something amazing and I was working 100 hour weeks at one point to make this https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/stormrise

Fuck that's a bad way to think about it tho, just part of why these practices keep going I guess, I'm part of the problem....
 

FormatCompatible

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,071
AgainstTheCurrent said:
Over 7 days that's 14 hours per day, which isn't too insane.

How much are their salaries? Do they get overtime during crunch? A nice bonus when the game inevitably gets 99 on MC? Good holidays during normal workload times?

You can't really judge what this means without any of that info.
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Oof, I can't believe we would be excusing fucking crunch of all things but here we are.
 
Cymbal Head

Cymbal Head

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,368
I don't think there's any level of compensation that would make me ok with working 100-hour weeks. Good lord.
 
lordg

lordg

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
139
This is why I decided not to pursue a career in game development, these long gruelling work hours is too much for my sanity.
 
Cugel

Cugel

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Nov 7, 2017
4,412
Everyone will buy it anyways and also buy MT when online releases and the game will print shittons of money. Why would they change when gamers themselves don't care.
 
Cenauru

Cenauru

Dragon Girl Supremacy
Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,927
What the fuck. Rockstar already has GTAV as their money generator, they have no fucking excuse to not have delayed RDR2 if they needed that much crunch, they could survive an extra year.
 
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