Working in The AAA industry

[radical1412]

http://wccftech.com/hennig-shouldnt-lauding-games-soaked-blood-people-made/

 

Developer of Uncharted 4 was not happy with the work ethics at Naughty Dog. They were made to work For 80 Hours a week.

Edited October 7, 2016 by rdical1412

[patrickjp93]

They can get over it. Deadlines are real; and IBM, Amazon, Facebook, Intel, and Nvidia all demand the same dedication for your first 3 years as you prove yourself. The same holds true at the big financial firms like Morgan Stanley on Wall Street.

[SSL]

4 minutes ago, patrickjp93 said:

They can get over it. Deadlines are real; and IBM, Amazon, Facebook, Intel, and Nvidia all demand the same dedication for your first 3 years as you prove yourself. The same holds true at the big financial firms like Morgan Stanley on Wall Street.

 

In other words, the problem is ubiquitous. Thanks for pointing that out.

[patrickjp93]

1 minute ago, SSL said:

 

In other words, the problem is ubiquitous. Thanks for pointing that out.

It's not a problem. Either you cut it and succeed with them or you can go to another industry or you can start your own competitive studio and put your money where your mouth is. You either accept their working terms or you don't, as long as none of them are illegal.

[radical1412]

But she goes on to say people shouldn't be encouraging those type of games. Its made of developers blood. How do you Feel about it?

[patrickjp93]

1 minute ago, rdical1412 said:

But she goes on to say people shouldn't be encouraging those type of games. Its made of developers blood. How do you Feel about it?

If you don't put your passion and a little sweat and tears into your work, you're not doing something worthy of your time.

[MageTank]

This is a confusing article. "We shouldn't praise games soaked in the blood of people that made them". Okay, so we should instead let their long hours of hard work go without praise?  Working 80 hour weeks sucks, but that's the one downside of salary pay. You earn what you earn, regardless of how many, or how few hours you work. Nobody forces them to work there, and if people cannot handle the long hours, they will go elsewhere.

 

I also find her claims to be exaggerated too. She worked there for over 10 years, and claims "I don’t know if I ever worked less than 80 hours a week.". What in the world has Naughty Dog done in the last 10 years? They made the original uncharted trilogy, remastered (re-released) the Jak and Daxter collection, The Last of Us (Then remastered that too), remastered (re-released) the uncharted trilogy again, and then Uncharted 4. So the past 10 years had 5 titles, and then a remaster of 5 titles. Her role mostly involved the Uncharted series, as she was not involved in the directing or writing of The Last of Us. She was also only involved in two Jak titles that I could find with her credited. So that is 4 uncharted games and 2 Jak titles over the course of 10 years. Roughly 41,600 hours for those 6 titles. Either her role is underplayed, and she does far more than these few titles, or she is over-exaggerating her schedule.

 

Either way, it doesn't really matter. She got paid for her work, and the people that work on the titles deserve what praise the industry is willing to give them. To say we shouldn't praise them just because they work intense hours, is just silly. Regardless of our praise, they are going to work as hard as they are told to, might as well show them its not in vain. 

[SkepticKrab]

If you don't love what you do for a living it will seem like a chore, which is what I'm getting from her whining about 80 hour work weeks. I worked seven days a week as a System Administrator for a company for 3 years (even worked on most holidays, several overnight implementations etc.) and I never complained because I loved doing it so much. 

Again, if you don't love what you do, find something else to occupy your time.

[alexyy]

2 hours ago, patrickjp93 said:

They can get over it. Deadlines are real; and IBM, Amazon, Facebook, Intel, and Nvidia all demand the same dedication for your first 3 years as you prove yourself. The same holds true at the big financial firms like Morgan Stanley on Wall Street.

Expecting people to work 80 hours a week is wrong, period.

[Castdeath97]

A similar topic was covered by Jim before, this was his two cents:

 

 

Also @rdical1412 did you read the posting guidelines?

 

Please fix your post in accordance to this before its locked or moved.

[SSL]

2 hours ago, patrickjp93 said:

It's not a problem. Either you cut it and succeed with them or you can go to another industry or you can start your own competitive studio and put your money where your mouth is. You either accept their working terms or you don't, as long as none of them are illegal.

 

It's a problem to spend all your waking hours on one thing whether it's work or not.

[FloRolf]

1 hour ago, SkepticKrab said:

If you don't love what you do for a living 

I work for Money which I can then spend in my freetime on stuff I like. 

If I don't have any freetime though I also don't need a lot of money because when should I spend it? Only on a nice apartment I'm rarely in because I work all day? Gr8.... 

 

I personally also like my job and what I'm doing there and also most of the people but I'm still not willing to sacrifice and dedicate my whole life to that job. 

That's some massive American bullshit you guys are talking. 

Constantly working for 80hours is just plain wrong! A couple weeks before an important deadline maybe but anything else? Hell no. 

[Deli]

For some emergency situations, unexpected events, fine. Work 80 hours a week for a month or two to get the job done. However it is the responsibility of the manager of a company to make sure they have enough workers for the job long term. .

 

We are human, not machine. We want a life outside of  work. We have friends and families. We want to spent quality time with our kids.

[Misanthrope]

5 hours ago, patrickjp93 said:

They can get over it. Deadlines are real; and IBM, Amazon, Facebook, Intel, and Nvidia all demand the same dedication for your first 3 years as you prove yourself. The same holds true at the big financial firms like Morgan Stanley on Wall Street.

Difference is that if they choose to get an MBA instead and worked the same 80 hours per week on an administrative job they get a much better shot at a higher paying career and probably a much bigger paycheck patrick: The only people who complain about 80 hour weeks are the people that are paid fucking shit for it and get immediately fired after the project is over with no severance checks, no bonuses, nothing.

 

So please don't be disingenuous we all know that people who work hard and don't complain but that's usually because they have a good fucking reason.

[patrickjp93]

5 hours ago, alexyy said:

Expecting people to work 80 hours a week is wrong, period.

No it isn't. You're either a match for the job or aren't. If you agree with good information at your disposal, it is up to you to meet the challenge. Grow up.

 

2 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

Difference is that if they choose to get an MBA instead and worked the same 80 hours per week on an administrative job they get a much better shot at a higher paying career and probably a much bigger paycheck patrick: The only people who complain about 80 hour weeks are the people that are paid fucking shit for it and get immediately fired after the project is over with no severance checks, no bonuses, nothing.

 

So please don't be disingenuous we all know that people who work hard and don't complain but that's usually because they have a good fucking reason.

She got paid 6 figures likely north of 200k. At that point if you want fewer hours you make your skills scarce or you submit yourself to the demands of the labor market. Writers and project managers are a dime a dozen.

[PlayStation 2]

5 hours ago, alexyy said:

Expecting people to work 80 hours a week is wrong, period.

This is probably gonna sound harsh, but shit like this is really demanding. If you aren't ready to throw a lot of time away on developing a AAA title, go indie or bust.

[kuzko]

7 hours ago, patrickjp93 said:

They can get over it. Deadlines are real; and IBM, Amazon, Facebook, Intel, and Nvidia all demand the same dedication for your first 3 years as you prove yourself. The same holds true at the big financial firms like Morgan Stanley on Wall Street.

Ok so exhausting your workforce is considered "common practice" by some... yeah, I kinda get to know why US kinda fucked up...

[alexyy]

23 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

This is probably gonna sound harsh, but shit like this is really demanding. If you aren't ready to throw a lot of time away on developing a AAA title, go indie or bust.

or just set realistic deadlines. 

[kuzko]

23 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

This is probably gonna sound harsh, but shit like this is really demanding. If you aren't ready to throw a lot of time away on developing a AAA title, go indie or bust.

haem, yeah or properly staff yourself maybe?

[patrickjp93]

4 minutes ago, kuzko said:

Ok so exhausting your workforce is considered "common practice" by some... yeah, I kinda get to know why US kinda fucked up...

That's the reality of some industries as a whole. The Video Games industry is known for this in Japan, Canada, the U.S., and even in France. The Finance industry is even worse.

[kuzko]

1 minute ago, patrickjp93 said:

That's the reality of some industries as a whole. The Video Games industry is known for this in Japan, Canada, the U.S., and even in France. The Finance industry is even worst.

And this seems like an acceptable practice because???

on a side note, I've met a few traders here in France and I know these guys are fucked up : no life until they get out... to compensate they drown themselves in almost anything a classical person would be jailed for a long time for.

That's one of the few reasons I don't think I'm fit for this : how to find balance when your life is given to something else to such extent.

[patrickjp93]

Just now, kuzko said:

And this seems like an acceptable practice because???

on a side note, I've met a few traders here in France and I know these guys are fucked up : no life until they get out... to compensate they drown themselves in almost anything a classical person would be jailed for a long time for.

That's one of the few reasons I don't think I'm fit for this : how to find balance when your life is given to something else to such extent.

Because that's the essence of competition. If you can handle the demands for a given price, you're valuable. If you can't, there are less demanding, lower-paying industries for you to work in.

[kuzko]

Just now, patrickjp93 said:

Because that's the essence of competition. If you can handle the demands for a given price, you're valuable. If you can't, there are less demanding, lower-paying industries for you to work in.

yeah, and guess whose competitive in this scenario ? underdeveloped country people ... oh wait, there are better things to work for less : slaves, yes perfect society where we are competitive!. 

You see this reasoning is fucked up right? no? oh well, I'll go fudge myself with notions like "arbeit marcht frei" that seem to be so relevant in those "industries". This kind of mindset is the baseline for abuses in which we can see one here. Let's not forget HR and management not doing it's proper staffing job... 

[Curufinwe_wins]

I mean... I think we all know how much of a joke US labor laws are, so this isn't that surprising.

 

Honestly I don't believe her anyways. As someone who has, by the clock, worked numerous 95+ hour weeks that just isn't something that is done consistently.

 

Even within the financial industry (where my fiancé works as an auditor) 50-60 out of season and 70-80 in season is generally the standard (I'd personally suggest 60+ is expected in my own field, but it's a much less rigorous thing recently due to new competitors offerring better work enviroments.)

 

Look, yea it sucks to work consistent long hours, you should probably read your contract throughally and request stipulations of maximum overtime (this can be done even as salaried employees), and/or find a different place to work with less extreme unwritten expectations for jobs.

 

They do exist... Hell places like google and Facebook have made their huge names within the industry by being, relative to competition, much more about working effectively and efficiently than working tirelessly.

 

 

[dragosudeki]

18 minutes ago, kuzko said:

haem, yeah or properly staff yourself maybe?

Brook's law:

"adding manpower to a late software project makes it later"

 

Moreover, bigger team would require a lot more people to pay, and I would think that budgets are extremely sensitive in the games industry where a long project doesn't necessarily mean profit.

 

All I can say is that you should just appreciate and give respect to every form of art. Games are just an entire compilation of various art forms. Avoiding them because people put hard work into it is one of the most disrespectful things you can do in my opinion.