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- Feb 4, 2018
Fired Blizzard Employee leaks hilarious insider information - Probably fake but entertaining
- Thread starter JoshPlz
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- May 28, 2019
I would believe a lot of conditions the people are working under, not only because of Rockstar, but also Treyarch and Bioware. Now this was reported by Kotaku, the place thats supposed to be trying to stay on good terms with publishers for access. Which probably means things are worse than they say.
In fact, for those on the lower end of the salary spectrum, getting that overtime money was the only way to live in Los Angeles. Some current and former Treyarch employees shared anecdotes of themselves or colleagues running into financial difficulties once crunch had ended, despite the fact that they had helped make one of the most lucrative video game series on the planet. “Some people have extra jobs,” said one. “After their regular eight-hour shift they go work something else.”
For some on the team, even getting paid double overtime wasn’t enough to make up for the months of sustained crunch throughout 2018. Some described seeing colleagues sleep in the office, while one described a culture of “drinking to cope” with the crunch. “There were weeks straight when I was not taking weekends,” said a former Treyarch developer. They described the effects of these hours: “Panic attacks, burnout, dissociation. You feel like your boundaries are being violated. You lose all passion for what you’re doing and forget why you were doing it in the first place. It’s a nightmare.”
Treyarch has long embraced a culture of crunch to make Call of Duty games (and, before that, Spider-Man games), but for many on the Black Ops 4 team, the last year has been particularly brutal. “I was told crunch would end after we released the game,” that developer said. “Then I was told crunch would end after winter break. Then I was told crunch would end once we got into [the summer].” That developer left the company in hopes of finding a better work-life balance elsewhere.
In fact, for those on the lower end of the salary spectrum, getting that overtime money was the only way to live in Los Angeles. Some current and former Treyarch employees shared anecdotes of themselves or colleagues running into financial difficulties once crunch had ended, despite the fact that they had helped make one of the most lucrative video game series on the planet. “Some people have extra jobs,” said one. “After their regular eight-hour shift they go work something else.”
For some on the team, even getting paid double overtime wasn’t enough to make up for the months of sustained crunch throughout 2018. Some described seeing colleagues sleep in the office, while one described a culture of “drinking to cope” with the crunch. “There were weeks straight when I was not taking weekends,” said a former Treyarch developer. They described the effects of these hours: “Panic attacks, burnout, dissociation. You feel like your boundaries are being violated. You lose all passion for what you’re doing and forget why you were doing it in the first place. It’s a nightmare.”
Treyarch has long embraced a culture of crunch to make Call of Duty games (and, before that, Spider-Man games), but for many on the Black Ops 4 team, the last year has been particularly brutal. “I was told crunch would end after we released the game,” that developer said. “Then I was told crunch would end after winter break. Then I was told crunch would end once we got into [the summer].” That developer left the company in hopes of finding a better work-life balance elsewhere.
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- Sep 26, 2017
OP, I never played a Blizzard game in my life, but I would like to tell you that anon is huffing glue and laughing at your dumb-ass for believing in his bullshit. 
Gravityqueen4life
kiwifarms.net
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Corbin Dallas Multipass
kiwifarms.net
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As real as "Bioware Magic"
Core features, like loading and saving, still hadn’t been implemented in the game, and it became difficult to play test builds because they were riddled with bugs.
“It came time to move from pre-production to production in June,” said one BioWare developer. “June comes, we’re still in pre-production. July, August, what the heck’s going on?”
The Anthem leadership team and some other veterans continued to talk about BioWare magic, but it was clear to a lot of people that something was wrong. They had publicly committed to a fall 2018 ship date, but that had never been realistic. Publisher EA also wouldn’t let them delay the game any further than March 2019, the end of the company’s fiscal year.
Back in Edmonton, as the crunch continued, BioWare employees say leadership assured them that everything would be fine. The BioWare magic would materialise. Sure enough, the game did continue to get better—one BioWare developer emphasised that the improvements were exponential during those last few months—but the stress of production had serious consequences.
“I’d never heard of ‘stress leave’ until the end of Andromeda,” said one former BioWare developer, referring to a practice in which BioWare employees would take weeks or even months off for their mental health. On Anthem, the developer added, this practice just got worse. “I’ve never heard of people needing to take time off because they were so stressed out. But then that kind of spread like wildfire throughout the team.”
There’s widespread worry that the soul of BioWare has been ripped away, that this belief in “BioWare magic” has burned too many people out. That too many talented veterans have left. “There are things that need to change about how that studio operates,” said one former developer.
“There are lessons that need to be learned and the only way they’ll get learned is if they become public knowledge.”
How BioWare's Anthem Went Wrong
Last week, BioWare announced it would be "reinventing" the troubled multiplayer shooter Anthem in a bid to claw back some of its dwindling player base. "We’ll be doing something we’d like to have done more of the first time around – giving a focused team the time to test and iterate, focusing on...
www.kotaku.com.au
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- Sep 11, 2014
Universities are also churning a high supply of talent which means a big pool of labor for companies to easily use, abuse, and replace. Just wait till game publishers outsource their game development to India.
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- Jun 9, 2019
Nah, just wishful thinking and entertaining the thought for fun, as i have mentioned before.
Some people didn't really read my posts and kept jumping to that conclusion.
The mod edit of the title to "OP actually believes this shit" didn't exactly help with that either, I guess.
Ran with it because funny. Changed it now to possibly avoid further confusion. (Feel free to change back if not ok @mods)
There was some discussion about general intentions and practices in the game industry, not unlike the ones alleged in the "leak", too.
And I couldn't resist to keep replying to some especially exceptional posts, shitting up a few pages that way.
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- Jan 31, 2018
You mean I can't print my own ticket at wallstreet with my degree in game design?
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