7 votes

Inside Rockstar Games' culture of crunch

5 comments

  1. [5]
    demifiend
    (edited )
    Link
    Singling out Rockstar Games is counterproductive. We knew EA was pulling the same bullshit back in 2004 thanks to "ea_spouse" on LiveJournal. Rockstar does it today because EA wasn't sufficiently...

    Singling out Rockstar Games is counterproductive. We knew EA was pulling the same bullshit back in 2004 thanks to "ea_spouse" on LiveJournal. Rockstar does it today because EA wasn't sufficiently penalized for doing it back then.

    We also know that it isn't just EA or Rockstar doing it.

    Unpaid overtime is wage theft, wage theft is endemic to corporate America, and salaried employment enables corporations to steal from workers with impunity. If you aren't the CEO, you should be getting an hourly wage instead of a salary, your workweek should be 32 hours a week (8 hours/day for 4 days), and you should be getting time and a half for overtime.

    7 votes
    1. [2]
      Pilgrim
      Link Parent
      Thanks. I'm not digging the Rockstar pile-on either. It's endemic of the game industry and corporate America in general.

      Thanks. I'm not digging the Rockstar pile-on either. It's endemic of the game industry and corporate America in general.

      5 votes
      1. demifiend
        Link Parent
        Rockstar is just the latest offender, and they've been a whipping boy for years. It's just that now they're being called to the carpet for shafting actual workers instead of allowing teenage boys...

        Rockstar is just the latest offender, and they've been a whipping boy for years. It's just that now they're being called to the carpet for shafting actual workers instead of allowing teenage boys to shaft virtual prostitutes in a video game.

        4 votes
    2. [2]
      BlackLedger
      Link Parent
      It has come up with RockStar before, with the "Wives of Rockstar" article. Otherwise, I basically agree with your points, save that I would say that salary is appropriate for people who have a...

      It has come up with RockStar before, with the "Wives of Rockstar" article.

      Otherwise, I basically agree with your points, save that I would say that salary is appropriate for people who have a reasonable equity stake in the company (i.e. at least equal to their annual salary). The real issue in the game industry is beyond just wage theft, though. It is a sadomasochistic culture where people strive to out-do one another in terms of hours worked, using it as a way of quantifying "passion".

      4 votes
      1. demifiend
        Link Parent
        Not really relevant to the discussion, but this one time I got drunk and wrote a rant on Medium called "Programmer Passion Considered Harmful". That word has always bugged me; it seems like such...

        The real issue in the game industry is beyond just wage theft, though. It is a sadomasochistic culture where people strive to out-do one another in terms of hours worked, using it as a way of quantifying "passion".

        Not really relevant to the discussion, but this one time I got drunk and wrote a rant on Medium called "Programmer Passion Considered Harmful". That word has always bugged me; it seems like such an obvious weasel-word in that it means, "willing to work for free". It's the same with "culture fit". Whenever I hear either word from some dude in a suit, I know somebody is about to get shafted.

        2 votes