Pachter Says Team Bondi "Wasn't Entitled to Overtime Pay"

[SemiHumanTarget]

You're honestly missing the point. These guys went through this crazy schedule because they all knew they were working on a game that was going to sell a lot of copies. I mean, come on, it's Rockstar. Bonuses were positively guaranteed.

And you need to be realistic. Developers aren't always in it for the love of what they do, just like people in bands aren't always in it for the music. For every one game that comes out that's great, there's 10 or more half-assed pieces of shovelware.

I have no doubt the people at Team Bondi loved the game they were developing and were doing it because they felt like it was their child they had to nourish and make to the best of their ability. That's all the more reason you should put in the hours and be happy knowing that you've got Rockstar's name on your product and it's something you want to see through to the end.

So do you think they should get paid the overtime but forfeit the bonus? Because I know you aren't suggesting they get both.... oh, you are. That would be just completely ridiculous. What about writers? They work incredibly intense hours with no guarantee of any pay AT ALL. Are they less deserving than game developers?

 

[Fiskmasen]

Answer me this: Would you be willing to work 80+ hours (Remember the general number of hours is 40, so pretty much two weeks in one week) to finish a project or try to push the release date back.

Yes I would.

 

[Fiskmasen]

Let's skip the fact that you completely ignored what he said and look at the bullshit you made up, companies like BioWare are NOT self published, and publisher interference results in less worker abuse and more in shitty games. They were given money not because what they made would sell, but because they could handle it well.

I said basically self-published and I stand by that. And it's cute that you think publishers care about anything but money first-and-foremost.

 

[kebab4you]

So can someone on the inside answer me this, how common is it to work this much overtime? A couple of week I see no problems with, but months will most likely make me commit suicide if I ever get a job as a programmer.

 

[Arehexes]

Answer me this: Would you be willing to work 80+ hours (Remember the general number of hours is 40, so pretty much two weeks in one week) to finish a project or try to push the release date back.

Yes I would.

??? Wait you would do the 80 hours or push back the release date, that wasn't a yes or no question. Do you even bloody read what you quote. I'm going to just assume you would work the 80+ hours, and that said you must have blood of coffee to do that let alone for months on end. No one can work effectively like that for months, remember this isn't a 2 week crunch time it's months.

Either way I'm not going to take you serious because not only did you openly admit to not even bother reading someone else's post, you must have not read what I asked you because I never asked it has a yes or no question. I asked either option A(work 80 hours for months) or option B(push the release date back) question, not "would you do X".

Let's skip the fact that you completely ignored what he said and look at the bullshit you made up, companies like BioWare are NOT self published, and publisher interference results in less worker abuse and more in shitty games. They were given money not because what they made would sell, but because they could handle it well.

I said basically self-published and I stand by that. And it's cute that you think publishers care about anything but money first-and-foremost.

Doesn't matter either way you were wrong about BioWare, and no one is doubting that a publisher doesn't want money for it's project it invests in. BUT a mentally drained worker is not productive(And a programmer has to do a lot more thinking then inputting date from a form into a computer), there is a point where you have to push the release date back to finish a project.

 

[veloper]

I don't see the reason for all the big commotion here.

Pachter is simply stating what IS, or atleast, how it works in the USA: salary means no overtime pay and no say. It means the company owns your ass unless you resign.

They reason that if the company makes you work 24/7 forever, you'll just resign and the net result will be a struggle of supply and demand, between employers and employees with an equilibrium somewhere.
When you're special, you can ask a high salary and the company won't fuck with you because they can't afford to lose you. If you can't freely choose between jobs, you're fucked.

It is capitalism. Maximum profit; don't care about the people.

 

[Monsterfurby]

It doesn't matter how 'common' it is in the industry, it only matters whether it's right or not. It could be common practice for developers to gang together and kick a child on their lunchbreak. That sure as hell wouldn't fly, and neither chould this. Developers are human beings, and thus have every right to spend time with their families, sleeping, pursuing hobbies, and generally not working. If they're being made to do 110 hour weeks, then at the very least they deserve overtime as compensation for being unable to socialise, hang out with their kids, or generally do anything outside the office. Work is not your life, and the minute that starts to be the case is the minute there's something fucked up in the industry.

The fact that you camped out for five weeks in your office only makes the point worse. If you had children, that would be 5 weeks that they had to go without seeing their father/mother, except for maybe once or twice a week for a couple of minutes. Developers have kids. Developers have swives, husbands and partners. They have mums and dads. They have every right to spend time with them away from the office, just like every other working person.

I agree that the status quo is certainly not desirable. At the same time, it is probably safe to say that the titanic requirements of making even a relatively simple game, paired with the unreasonable pressure the publishers pass on to development studios, is a fact that is pretty much impossible to remove from the industry without another video game crash. Overtime during the final few weeks has become part of the industry's prevalent corporate culture, and I don't think that "hard" legislative action would solve any of that - in fact, it would make matters worse for small studios whose only way to compete with larger studios is the willingness of everyone to work together as a team and try to conquer the behemoth that is any project (even the most simple edutainment title is often developed under completely unreasonable time and budget constraints. Early projects often do not earn a single cent for a young development studio). Cynical minds might point out that this "team-spirit" is a euphemism for unpaid overtime, and in fact, it comes very close.

What the man said, is this: you can't change the way the industry works without a tabula rasa financial crash of the entire business. Hence, if you do not like the way it works, don't get employed there. While that is true for any individual seeking employment in game development (and the new media as a whole), I agree that change must happen, but trying to force it through by legislative means is simply the wrong way. There needs to be a change in culture among publishers. And the only way to achieve this would be successful publishers being a good example for others - something that, alas, I don't see happening very soon.

 

[veloper]

[I agree that change must happen, but trying to force it through by legislative means is simply the wrong way.

Change will never happen.

Imagine a game of football (any), but where any and all fouls are allowed. No team will ever stop maiming team players from the other side, because that will put them at a severe disadvantage.
Almost everyone would benefit from having more rules, but nobody will ever volunteer, because it's a competiton.

So you got to have rules that apply to everyone, if you want a nicer game. That is the RL role of legislation.

 

[-Axle-]

Not really, no. Notice how I talk about young people? Junior lawyers at major firms aren't in control of their destiny. Same for junior brokers. And when there is a major case going on or a major deal in the works (which can also last for years), those guys don't get much in the way of sleep, either; not to mention the fact that the senior partners or CEOs of trading firms didn't get to be where they are by being nice and accomodating to their employees. I don't think that a law clerk in Johnny Cochran's firm had much free time during the OJ trial. You want a successful career in a competitive field? Kiss 9 to 5 goodbye. Become a teacher or something. If you want to stay in your field, nobody is keeping somebody with a law, med or econ degree from moving into a rural area and setting up a quiet private practice. By the same token, you CAN have a nice life with lots of free time as a programmer or a graphic artist - but NOT working on an eight-figure AAA title by a major publisher.
But again, if you want to make big bucks at a young age, you have to make a name for yourself. And you do that by putting in lots of hard work on a big project.

This is precisely what people are NOT arguing. Its not whether it happens or not, or whether its commonplace or not. Everyone is on the same page with regards to a.) Unpaid overtime happens b.) People trying to break into an industry are most vulnerable to being overworked.

Can we stop debating the same two points over and over again. The question being argued here is whether it SHOULD be happening. That means, a.) Is this the only way? b.) Is there a better way? and lastly c.) If there is no other way, should it still be allowed to happen?

I mean no disrespect by this but your post reminded me of a scene in Patch Adams where he's arguing with another fellow student. The punch line is what I would say applies here as well;

"You know, I forget how young you are, Mitch...that you think you have to be a prick to get things done...and that you actually think that that's a new idea."

PS. ...and don't think I'm implying you're a prick or anything like that. I'm stating that people need to realize the system isn't perfect, and that there's more than one way to get things done. Its easier to be complacent than to try and formulate a better plan.

 

[-Axle-]

[I agree that change must happen, but trying to force it through by legislative means is simply the wrong way.

Change will never happen.

Imagine a game of football (any), but where any and all fouls are allowed. No team will ever stop maiming team players from the other side, because that will put them at a severe disadvantage.
Almost everyone would benefit from having more rules, but nobody will ever volunteer, because it's a competiton.

So you got to have rules that apply to everyone, if you want a nicer game. That is the RL role of legislation.

...and this is the age old argument of do you legislate or let market forces dictate what happens.

Personally, both solutions can be good and both can be bad in different contexts. In this one, I would argue human rights are at issue, therefore legislation should at the very least be a considered avenue.

 

[kebab4you]

This guy is a fucking wanker.

Here're some more of his pearls of wisdom.

This dude reminds me an awful lot about navgtr
Sorry could only find the retsupurae clip.

 

[Weaver]

Game industry contracts also commonly violate intellectual property laws so that the company doesn't have to worry about their employee making a hit title in their own time and becoming rich off it.

Read what I just wrote again, and then figure out why I went from commercial game programmer to indy programmer/coffee barista.

Ah, the legal weighting of Work For Hire contracts... the reason I gave up freelancing as an artist.

Originally they were to stop the creative talent from challenging the company for ownership of the IP they were hired to produce... but somewhere along the long shit got really, really, really fucked up. Until these days the company who hired you have a pretty good shot of claiming ownership of the IP you worked on during your own hours while in the period you were contracted for.

That sort of shit must be hell on programmers, you mob are bigger packrats/asset recyclers than us digital artists are.

I'm a programmer and our company recently got bought out. I had to get my employment contract specially ammended to state the company doesn't own things I develop on my own that don't compete in our market. For clarification, we make laboratory integration software; something I have no desire to do in my free time. However, the contract was originally worded that bascially, the new company would own all IPs I made. So if I wrote a book or made a free dice rolling program or something, technically the company would have owned it.

I think more people need to stand up and try to get exemptions from these kind of catch all IP clauses.

 

[Weaver]

But so long as the game gets pushed out, everyone thinks 'success'. You even get people to look at it like something normal if enough crappy leads get in charge of enough projects.

Isn't it a success though? Everyone gets a great big bonus, "No hard feelings" all around something you've bleed, sweat and cried to get done is out there for people to play. The last 6 months may have been hell, but at least you have something to show for it.

You're delusional if you think everyone gets a bonus. I've worked in a place (not a game studio) that was in crunch for 8 months. In my employment contract it even said the company pays out bonuses for good performance.

After we got the new software out we met our expected sales for the new fiscal year, in the first fucking month. No one saw a bonus, no one got a raise. Hell, no one even said "good job".

Lol the predictable hate on Pachter.

Saw this on GAF, frankly seems like he is letting his personal politics shine through here, he should stick to predicting the obvious.

He's a registered California democrat; what personal politics?

Has anyone of you knee-jerkers ever stopped to think that he may have a point? It's not just game developers; lawyers, doctors, scientists, engineers, traders, bankers etc, especially those working for big, successful companies, put in bloody arseloads of unpaid overtime, and nobody cries for them. Why do they do that? To get promoted, to get fat bonuses, and to be millionaires by the time they're 35. If you want to make $200k a year at a young age, you'd better be burning the midnight oil.

Which is great, when you're an engineer, lawyer or doctor making 200-300k a year base salary. When you're a programmer making 45k a year and working 110 hours there is very little incentive to stick with it.

Even if you agree with Pachter, Team Bondi had a developer turn over rate of what, 6 months? (I forget the number). This isn't a sign things are running well.

 

[Kilyle]

My experience with unions is limited to stories my mom brings home from her job as a school bus driver. If she drives students to a game, and the game's overtime causes her to go over the 40-hour limit, not only does the school effectively avoid overtime pay by averaging out the hours with the next week, but it punishes her as well.

Unions may have started with good intentions, but by now I think they're harming both employers and workers. From what I hear, they even prevent an employer from firing a worker who needs to be fired! If you're not doing a good enough job to earn your pay, why should the union force your employer to keep paying you??

In many places, like my mom's work, you can't join the company without joining the union. And now some political group is pushing for the right to go to a business that has no union and bully workers into signing a petition to get a union (without even the secret ballot process, which would let workers say "I don't WANT a union here!" without feeling pressured to vote otherwise).

There will always be people who abuse the system, one way or the other. But we're not hearing about the people who are happy with their salaried jobs. There's a reason that our system allows a choice between hourly and salaried work: Salary covers jobs with abnormal hours (a lot this week, not so many next week, but you still get paid), it covers jobs where the workers are content to go past the 40-hour mark on a regular basis, and it allows workers to "bet" on bonuses.

I think the best of both worlds is the combination: A base pay, and a cut of the profits if any are made. I hear it's worked with certain movies, whose stars made a fortune on the bet.

 

[Weaver]

So can someone on the inside answer me this, how common is it to work this much overtime? A couple of week I see no problems with, but months will most likely make me commit suicide if I ever get a job as a programmer.

It depends on what you want to program?

In the business software industry, hours are generally way, way more managable. At my current job a 50 hour week would be "really, really busy" and I've had it only happen once. In the gaming industry, long weeks are incredibly common. I've interviewed at a few game companies that basically told me "There will be overtime, deal with it." Once place even told me their record for hours in programming was 2 weeks at 121 hours a week.

That being said though, it depends on what you want. If you're programming a game and that's what you want to do, then if you do it for 70 hours a week is it really that big a deal? You're doing what you want. Just because you're working, doesn't mean you won't be enjoying your time working; and this is the kind of person that thrives in the games industry. You shouldn't go into the games industry because you want to make money, you should be going into it because you need to make games. It just has to be programmed into your blood as a desire.

If you're like me and you stay up until 6am on Fridays working on stuff (last friday it was a D&D game I DM) then you have nothing to worry about.

 

[kebab4you]

So can someone on the inside answer me this, how common is it to work this much overtime? A couple of week I see no problems with, but months will most likely make me commit suicide if I ever get a job as a programmer.

It depends on what you want to program?

In the business software industry, hours are generally way, way more managable. At my current job a 50 hour week would be "really, really busy" and I've had it only happen once. In the gaming industry, long weeks are incredibly common. I've interviewed at a few game companies that basically told me "There will be overtime, deal with it." Once place even told me their record for hours in programming was 2 weeks at 121 hours a week.

That being said though, it depends on what you want. If you're programming a game and that's what you want to do, then if you do it for 70 hours a week is it really that big a deal? You're doing what you want. Just because you're working, doesn't mean you won't be enjoying your time working; and this is the kind of person that thrives in the games industry. You shouldn't go into the games industry because you want to make money, you should be going into it because you need to make games. It just has to be programmed into your blood as a desire.

If you're like me and you stay up until 6am on Fridays working on stuff (last friday it was a D&D game I DM) then you have nothing to worry about.

70 hours a week I don't mind(not even ~90 sounds to bad), but more those 121 hours a week you spoke about, having a couple of months like that and even if you enjoy it, it sounds doubtful it won't burn you out(but a few weeks before dead line I see no issue with) besides I got other nerd activities to do per week also ^^

And while I would like to be a game programmer I wouldn't mind a software job either since I find both fun to do.

 

[Warachia]

Let's skip the fact that you completely ignored what he said and look at the bullshit you made up, companies like BioWare are NOT self published, and publisher interference results in less worker abuse and more in shitty games. They were given money not because what they made would sell, but because they could handle it well.

I said basically self-published and I stand by *that, *and it's cute that you think publishers care about anything but money first-and-foremost.

"EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM." Saying basically in there does not mean "except for a few." Incidentally, guess what gets publishers more money, fast development cycles, or good games made by good companies (who are good because they get good employees who like working there.)

So yes, most publishers DO care about the quality of a game, and I could go into how smart companies have little to no crunch time, but I already know you won't listen.