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Forums - Gaming - The human cost of Red Dead Redemption 2 (Eurogamer)

Mr Puggsly on 27 October 2018
LuccaCardoso1 said:
o_O.Q said:
no one is forcing these people to work at rockstar, they can quit and work at another company that respects their employees more

It's not that easy to switch jobs. Some people really depend on what they're being paid by Rockstar and there's no guarantee that they'll find another job if they leave.

I guarantee they will find jobs, just might not be in the industry.

There are plenty of people who work many hours in their job, multiple jobs, or whatever their situation is. These aren't the most miserable people on the planet, they aren't being forced to work there, so I don't have THAT MUCH sympathy to be honest.



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Mr Puggsly on 27 October 2018
Cerebralbore101 said:
DonFerrari said:

I'm pretty sure salaried employees doesn't earn the same in all jobs even within the same state. And it is breach of contract to contract someone for a certain hourly wage and pay for just half the hours worked, easy lawsuit. And on a country like USA with 3% unemployment rate I find it very hard to believe you can't find a job.

Salaried and hourly wage are not the same thing in the USA. If you are salaried here, that means you don't get paid extra for working extra hours. 

Yeah, a job is easy to find. A job that pays well enough to pay back your insane student loan debt on the other hand is hard to come by. And video-game schools are extra expensive, since they are almost all private for-profit schools. 

College in general has become a greedy institution. I won't even bother getting into the brainwashing.



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fatslob-:O on 27 October 2018
Azzanation said:
I respect RDR2 and thank the employees for the masterpiece they created but human rights should never be broken. A happy work place is a good workplace.
Things some people tend to miss. Its acts like this that ruin companies. MS already poached the lead director from Rockstar to work for there newly created studio. Staff will jump ship and Rockstar could possibly fall if they continue this method on making games.
Reason i bring this up is i saw the exact same thing happen to Rare in the N64 days. During the development of Perfect Dark, Rare staff were leaving the company. Rare were also guilty of doing the same thing in the past by overworking there teams, and look how that panned out for Rare in the long run.
Quality should never be a human sacifice.

Rare suffered because of poor management, not because of employee turnover. The former Rare employees who went on to form Free Radical Design didn't last all that much longer with a release like Haze and being acquired by Crytek who are also now in trouble ... 

@Bold The statement you make is nothing more than a platitude. To create quality products one must simply invest in many man-hours towards it. Just as it may be unjust for an employee to be exploited it is absolutely unjust for the consumer to accept sub-par goods and services for their own hard earned work. You can not have both pro-consumerism and employee welfare ... 



GoOnKid on 27 October 2018
fatslob-:O said:
Azzanation said:
I respect RDR2 and thank the employees for the masterpiece they created but human rights should never be broken. A happy work place is a good workplace.
Things some people tend to miss. Its acts like this that ruin companies. MS already poached the lead director from Rockstar to work for there newly created studio. Staff will jump ship and Rockstar could possibly fall if they continue this method on making games.
Reason i bring this up is i saw the exact same thing happen to Rare in the N64 days. During the development of Perfect Dark, Rare staff were leaving the company. Rare were also guilty of doing the same thing in the past by overworking there teams, and look how that panned out for Rare in the long run.
Quality should never be a human sacifice.

Rare suffered because of poor management, not because of employee turnover. The former Rare employees who went on to form Free Radical Design didn't last all that much longer with a release like Haze and being acquired by Crytek who are also now in trouble ... 

@Bold The statement you make is nothing more than a platitude. To create quality products one must simply invest in many man-hours towards it. Just as it may be unjust for an employee to be exploited it is absolutely unjust for the consumer to accept sub-par goods and services for their own hard earned work. You can not have both pro-consumerism and employee welfare ... 

I don't believe that. This is no golden rule. Companies should change their methods and management in order to become more efficient. Shrugging your shoulders and putting it off as something that nobody can ever change is too easy of an excuse. Everything can become better if the people involved really want to.

In the article there are some things that the Rockstar employees themselves suggested as improvements, I remember better communication is one of those things. There are solutions to everything, you just have to work on them.



GoOnKid on 27 October 2018
contestgamer said:
I hate the complaining about this. They should be worked like they are, because that's why their games are so good. I want to enjoy the very best game that's possible to make, and if there are a few casualties along the way to make that happen then that's just the nature of the beast. They're not forced to have this job and they can quit if they don't like it. People should be more concerned about getting the absolute very best product possible than about the working hours of strangers they'll never even meet. Strangers that can get another line of work if they dont like their current one.

I remember that you touted something similar in another thread and asked for more games that you can enjoy even if costed some developers' health. I asked you about your own profession back then and you still haven't answered yet. So tell me about your job, please.



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Azzanation on 27 October 2018

fatslob-:O said:

Rare suffered because of poor management, not because of employee turnover. The former Rare employees who went on to form Free Radical Design didn't last all that much longer with a release like Haze and being acquired by Crytek who are also now in trouble ... 

@Bold The statement you make is nothing more than a platitude. To create quality products one must simply invest in many man-hours towards it. Just as it may be unjust for an employee to be exploited it is absolutely unjust for the consumer to accept sub-par goods and services for their own hard earned work. You can not have both pro-consumerism and employee welfare ... 

Poor management can also lead to employee turnover. When a company starts to bleed staff, the questions must be asked, why did they leave Rare? They could have left for reasons we wont know for sure however with most jobs, people leave for better money, better facilities, better treatment, better opportunities etc.

Example would be why did Rockstars lead Director leave to join MS? Why would he leave such a fantastic company with a huge branding name and a success rate not matched by many?

Humans have learnt how to make good things without the risks of human sacrifice. We don't need slave labour anymore to create amazing things. Invest in many man hours doesn't have to be 1 man does more hours but more men to do less hours but achieve the same goals. Rockstar isn't poor, they can afford to treat there staff better especially with there long term dead lines.



StreaK on 27 October 2018
Baddman said:
One quote I've heard from multiple people is from a manager telling staff who did complain: "If you don't like it, fuck off and work down Tesco's."

I would've quit on the spot

And that's exactly what they should be doing. But guess what? They're not doing it lol. I'd boycott these games and then see what these companies would do without their employees. 

If these stories are true, that's brutal. I mean, I sometimes complain enough in my own job of working 50 hour weeks but I still get weekends at least. This news makes my own working life PALE in comparison to this hell story.



JSG87 on 27 October 2018
CuCabeludo said:
They are lucky to be able to work under shade and air conditioning. there are people on other places working as much time as them but under the heat of the sun, making huge physical effort and receiveing a much lower pay.

And that makes it OK?



vivster on 27 October 2018
CuCabeludo said:

If you buy or not a product based on the human working conditions that led to its production, then you should know that 90% or more of the components of electronic products are made in China under really, really bad working conditions.

 

You shoudn't have bought your console or PC in the first place.

No, it's fine, there are people in much worse working conditions than in China. They must feel great at work knowing that.



If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.

the_dark_lewd on 27 October 2018

The one problem I had with the Kotaku article is that the various anecdotes are all quite different. There is no common agreed on facts about how much they were forced to work.
The only common agreement seems to be that it was very stressful and they DID work overtime. But I still don't think we know if it was actually mandated or just encouraged by peer pressure.

Last edited by the_dark_lewd - on 27 October 2018