Mate, please elaborate rather than posting one liners then ducking out; are you saying 'nope' to what Blocks said, or 'nope' to buying RDR, or 'nope' to discussing not buying it?

It's a huge release with a lot of controversy around it, it's going to be discussed.

Reg, stop being a prick, eh.

Andy, stop being instant on stuff when I posted a full response less than a minute later.

See ya.

I wonder how those Japanese working hours are for all them Nintendo games, eh?


FTR I'm all aboard the don't-force-overtime-or-punish-those-who-don't-do-it train.

I discussed it elsewhere with people. It is quite the quandary. There seems to be no way as a consumer you can have a positive impact here because of the way bonuses are earmarked. The fact that opting out harms the people who are already frustrated at the poor workload management that's been dumped on them. It's easy to say you aren't going to buy it because of Rockstar's bad practices, but then you're chipping in to refusing these people a bonus that might in some way make up for their poorly scheduled work.

Also it's only because one of the Houser's bragged that it's been writ so large. The other place I was discussing it had been really sweet on AC: Odyssey, and I thought it was interesting that no one was questioning Ubi's workplace practicies. On Glassdoor, and anecdotally, it seems the devs are well supported, but in-house QA and QC had complained of unpaid overtime being expected and often worked into project plans. 

I liked Chris Thursten's take on it - that people need to remember the plurality behind big games. They aren't made by single monoliths, they're made by lots and lots of people, and we shouldn't be entitled to all of their time. Hopefully the push for unionisation is successful in the industry, because it'll protect workers better than any boycott.

nick_md wrote:

I wonder how those Japanese working hours are for all them Nintendo games, eh?


FTR I'm all aboard the don't-force-overtime-or-punish-those-who-don't-do-it train.

At Nintendo, pulling an all nighter is known as "Mario Time". Cute.

It's all academic in the Matty, which is part of the issue. It'll sell absolute fucking gangbusters, the Housers will likely refuse to change working practices because they'll be drowning in cash. 

When they discussed it on the recent Crate & Crowbar podcast though, they were interested to see that despite checking Reddit for the "worst take" most people were with the devs: they shouldn't be expected to work unpaid like this. I think the culture of entitlement might be slowing in some aspects, but it'll never go away fully because of the way the whole culture around games is built on consumption.

I only buy games whose production caused such extraordinary human despair that the disc glows with a lurid purple light and emits audible moans of woe, like something from a children's cartoon series.

What's this statue of a goat all about then? Some sort of pre-order bonus?

Rockstar are especially cagey about working practices. As I understand it their staff have NDAs built into their employment contracts that prevent them from talking about damn near anything to do with work – not just the creative content of the work (which you’d expect), but things like management structures, tools, working hours, etc. All taboo subjects.

That said, folk I know there are happy in their jobs. They just can’t say why.

Most devs do crunch time, don’t they? It’s not a good thing, but it’s true.

If this part has been done before here, apologies as I've missed it.

Once again, I'm not saying it doesn't need improving.

Construction isn't really all that creative, but mad overtime towards the arse end of a project is definitely a thing. Unions keep it from getting out of hand though.