IGDA looking for feedback on L.A. Noire development conditions

@i77ogical


Thumbs freakin' up.

In TV and film, the post FX guys get screwed in just the same way, whereas actors and others on set are protected and compensated for overtime.

And totally true that once you're in a position to organize this kind of thing, you're also in a position of leadership where it wouldn't benefit you as much.

@An Unnamed Mob

This isn't media, it's software development. It's mostly young people who get a big kick out of staying up late hacking away on video game code. If you don't like doing that, then it's not the right career for you.

@Raffi256 Well that's one of the stupidest things I've read all day.

@Raffi256

You know you are probably right.. These people probably don't enjoy sleep and home and don't have lives (not now anyways, that's what work is for). It is really swell of development studios to give them something to do without any overtime compensation or the like.

/s

@Gaddes

Yeah 12 hour days is nothing.

@Gaddes

Well of COURSE you can do something about it. If everyone refuses to come in, they can't just dissolve the company. They need you, and if you organize, then you actually have some leverage.

@An Unnamed Mob If only it were that easy. In this economic climate you aren't going to be able to get a large enough group to be willing to walk out like that. Plus, people are so desperate for work that it'll be easy for them to get replacements. There's a reason this industry hasn't been able to get a union yet.

@Gaddes

I agree, seeing how we are both high profiled game developers. Hell, you've probably done 12 hrs in the snow, uphill, with only Windows Vista to work with. All those millions of spoiled Americanized workers with their 8 hrs a day "I want to see my children" types. I bet those lazy Team Bondai workers wanted to have 30 min lunches and to be paid their hundred of hours of overtime too. The bums.

@Pixel Addict

Wow, aim your ridiculous sarcasm towards someone that deserves it. I'm in NO way condoning their behavior, I'm just explaining why the hell this has perpetuated. I DO work in games, so I HAVE experienced this firsthand. Granted it was only with 2 games, but that's still more than enough to fully experience this kind of crazy work schedule. Would I like the games industry to finally get a union? OF COURSE. Will it happen anytime soon? No freaking way.
All you guys with notions of how easy it ought to be to switch things around obviously don't know how difficult it is to do so. The more these companies keep raking in money, the less likely they're going to be to entertain ideas of treating people fairly. Yeah you have the rare ones that actually give a crap about their staff, and I love them for doing so... but that is always a voluntary thing.

@Gaddes

It isn't that easy to get replacements. Most code, art and design jobs take months of rampup for a new employee to be effective, and that's assuming the more experienced guys are there to train them.

Even if you could find talented people to replace them immediately, it would be bedlam for any project.

In short, your employer needs you... a lot.

@HokieKC

To a point I agree with you. When unions get bloated with a lot of bureaucracy then you see issues like with the Auto Unions. Does this mean when the auto unions started it was severely damaging to the industry? No (imho), it was necessary to keep companies from working their employees to the bone for little compensation.

These devs deserve to either be properly compensated for the overtime they were required to put in ( I am assuming they are salary which usually doesn't get compensation for overtime) or Team Bondi needed to staff properly to avoid over extending their workers. God forbid they take a 1 - 2% hit to their profits for not running their company like its a cotton field.

@TomSawyer187 - Sounds to me like the greed now is coming from the workers. They weren't complaining when they had a job and working the normal long hours prior to a games' release (not abnormal at all) and didn;t know if the game was going to be a success.

Now that the game is released and a huge hit these employees want more than just their salary. They're claiming 'abuse' and other various crap apparently.

And all these 'associations' and quasi-unions do to industries is impose restrictions, fines, mandates, etc. and cripple their own industries long-term. Development studios would be wise to ignore the IGDA.

@HokieKC "Sounds to me like the greed now is coming from the workers. They weren't complaining when they had a job and working the normal long hours prior to a games' release (not abnormal at all) and didn;t know if the game was going to be a success.

Now that the game is released and a huge hit these employees want more than just their salary. They're claiming 'abuse' and other various crap apparently. "

sorry, but this is just factually inaccurate. read the actual IGN article, which states numerous times that many, MANY workers left during the development of the game because the conditions were terrible, and the ones who stayed weren't paid properly for the hours they worked. additionally, there is no profit-seeking from the team bondi workers; they were contacted and agreed to speak anonymously about the conditions.

difference of opinions about unions is fine, but don't attribute motivations to workers that exist nowhere but in your unfounded assumptions.

@HokieKC

You are severely misled in your opinions. Your confident explanations are exactly the abuses of capitalism, and the fact that you are so belittling to workers, so comfortable in saying it's normal to work 12 hour + days for upwards of years and years, check the development time of this game, and in characterizing worker complaints as money-grubbing, when workers are simply not able to speak out while the game is still in development; your harsh attitudes prove the point of media workers everywhere--from gaming, to movie/television, to advertising, to web design--that the company/worker connection is really an abusive one, when creative development becomes "chase the fly from room to room."

Team Bondi's owners, and Rockstar Games, are doing great, on the backs of hundreds of workers. "Too bad," you say. Yeah, it is too bad.

@i77ogical

Exactly, if I could I would have given my 60 bucks directly to the developers that worked on the great game that has been giving me hours of enjoyment. But instead they get pennies on the dollar compared to the suits that did little to nothing for the game.

@HokieKC

I am all for capitalism but like anything in life it needs checks and balances. Unfettered capitalism is just as likely to lead to communism as socialism will.

@chocobox

Bringing the issue out in the open will have little impact, if there is no authority to act on the issues. Team Bondi is in a very small market, if you consider game companies working in Australia. It is not like employees who want to work in game design in AUS have many other options to work on big projects. Team Bondi knows what they have, and if the employees get uppity they can be replaced by other eager workers (permanent or contract).

Same with the US, although there are a lot more options here. Employees ARE expendable. Look at broad teams are disbanded once a project is complete, with only a core component retained for support or to start on the next project. Game design is a project based process. There is an ebb/flow to the staffing needs. There is no need for 100% full time employment in this industry. Add in that we are starting to end one generation and start the next, there will be many more projects cancelled/new ones started there will be the associated changes in staffing. If people want to work in the industry , they will put up with the shit.

And if they try to unionize, well, the big game companies will keep the mgmt and primary design here in teh US and then farm out the development/asset generation to other countries where there are no unions. Those are the facts. And it is just business.

@ryamkajr

Actually shining light on it can do incredible things. Look back at the EA Spouse fiasco from a few years ago.

Just the stories that have come out are going to have an affect on Team Bondi in Sydney. How big is the possible hiring pool there for them? Any prospective employee who googles them will find all these references to abusive working conditions, which will make it likely that future employees will either negotiate better contracts or simply not work there at all.

Finally, there may well be publishers who are not willing to fund a company that has ended up in a public squabble about worker conditions.

Sunshine in dark places is sometimes all the authority or power that you need to make change.

@Dick Socrates

I stopped reading after "naked lust". I'm not sure what you are referring to later in your post, but I'm pretty sure the industry needs more "naked lust" in general - those Leisure Suit Larry games aren't cutting it anymore.

@iceveiled

but how are they going to pay themselves for taking a "business trip" to Bondi, so they can "investigate" the working conditions in a surf community in one of the nicest cities in the world?

@Anticrawl

And legally (in the US) I'm not sure of any big name company that allows employees to even give such feedback without violating their contract and losing their job if not facing litigation.

@eat it

Well, that might make sense if the Team Bondi office was anywhere near Bondi Beach... Not a lot of surfing to be had in inner city Sydney in the middle of winter.

@ChickenSalad

You act as if Central sydney is a cold waste land in the winter.

also Bondi, Coogee, Manly, and Bronte are all 15-30 minutes away from central Sydney by bus or ferry....

@Gaddes
why the hell did this thing double-post outside of my main comment?