3685

Ouch.

Seriously? This is like circa 2001. Sony PlayStation had those very same demands when I started working there back then. Yeah, you don’t “have” to work overtime, but good luck getting a call back for future projects/continued employment. But even they changed their ways so long along.

3686

The 250k number in isolation doesn’t say much. But luckily they released some numbers for all platforms combined in the same time period, saying it was “more than 1 million”. The rule of thumb is that for a game on PC/PS4/Xbox One, the PC sales will be 25%. They seem to be at least close to that, so being exclusive on Epic can’t have hurt their sales too badly.

It probably helped that they are selling it for cheaper on the Epic store than on consoles, but didn’t bungle it with a US-only discount like Metro. (35 vs 40; so the consumer saves 12.5% while the developer makes 10% more after the store’s cut.).

3687

If that isn’t a reason to unionize, what is?

3688

No offense meant for any game developers here, but I have no fucking idea why anyone would want to work in that industry. Horrible.

3689

Well I am talking more than 15 years ago. Shift has happened…If Epic is still running like that, what the hell? I actually hope they fail. Fuck that shit (and especially anyone who demands it from a position of power)

3690

It’s endemic across the industry, Epic’s not a special case in this regard. Schreier just had that piece on EA/BioWare and Anthem a few weeks ago.

3691

I know we all like to complain about the ridiculousness of the big gaming journalism sites, but if I have to tolerate 30 Avengers Endgame Easter Eggs and 40 How to Accessorize Your Funko Pop Dolls articles to get 1 article like this it is worth it. We need to expose this bullshit more in the industry.

3692

No offense taken. I work in the gaming industry because of several reasons: people, compensation, and my passion for games, to name a few. I’ve worked in software at huge corporations and small companies in several different industries (e.g. finance, consumer electronics, gaming, etc.) and they all have pros and cons.

Gaming definitely has a not-undeserved reputation for its challenges around work-life balance, but the definition of work-life balance is subjective (different per person) and is not isolated to gaming. Several of my friends in Amazon make a lot of money (6 figure signing bonuses, huge stock awards, etc.), but they also consistently work 60-80+ hours a week.

3693

You don’t see a lot of that outside gaming and startups. People will do it for games because they’re cool, and they’ll do it for startups because the potential reward is enormous. Outside of that, it’s very rare.

3694

Yeah, I’ve never really understood the violins that continuously get pulled out for highly educated, highly compensated, highly employable white collar employees of game companies who get asked to work long hours. If they don’t like it (I wouldn’t), they should look for other work. There’s a really good chance they’d be able to find it without much effort.

3695

Yeah, but you have fresh-faced college graduates with a dream to work in the game industry, and the industry is happy to grind them into dust and spit out the gristle once they’ve broken them. I agree they should look for other work, but that comes from a place with a lot more life experience than a new college grad with starry-eyed visions of chasing their dream job. Doesn’t excuse the behavior of these companies either, they can afford to treat their employees like human beings.

3696

You also have an army of people knocking down your door trying to get QA and customer service positions just to try and get their foot in the door to game design and other positions for no other reason than “i want to work on games”, and they don’t understand that good QA is more than just “playing games all day”.

3697

It’s not seen to that degree in many other industries with like work. It’s a problem with gaming. And BS words like passion, and voluntary and trying to make great content is just used repeatedly to excuse it. There should be no excuse for something like that.

I don’t care how many times they use the word voluntary. If someone gets fired, doesn’t get promoted or doesn’t get a call-back for not doing it, it’s not voluntary.

3698

If you are working 60-80 hours a week, do you even have time to apply for new positions elsewhere?

3699

Sure! You just have to use one of your unlimited vacation days. ;)

3700

Typically people take a lot of sick days to do it. That’s how I know someone is about to quit, when they start taking tons of sick days (and don’t have a chronic disease).

3701

This is one of the reasons I’m in favor of a 30 hour work week. More time to apply for better positions. If we disconnect healthcare and retirement from Employment, we could more mobility for employees.

Edit: Disconnect, not discount.

3702

It’s definitely not limited to gaming. I’ve seen plenty of forced overtime in US manufacturing facilities, as companies decide that two twelve hour shifts + Saturdays are a cheaper way to ramp up than hiring more people.

I also remember my long-ago days as a young lawyer, where 60-hour weeks were the minimum. Truckers sometimes work ridiculous schedules (I think the current limit is 14 hours/ day). I’ve seen crazy hours in industries from coal mining to commercial fishing.

There’s nothing unique about the gaming industry here. At least none of these exhausted coders are operating heavy machinery (until they drive home). It’s still a terrible idea, as asking people to be smart, creative and efficient is incompatible with that schedule.

3703

Manufacturing gets paid overtime. Truckers get paid more for those hours also, as they can make more deliveries. Young lawyers are definitely another group that works long hours under salary, as are medical interns.

3704

Yeah, there are definitely differences in how (or whether) people get compensated for ludicrous schedules :) But the schedules still wreak havoc with people’s lives, health and the quality of their work-product. I’m just saying that the problem is much broader than gaming.