Mindseye Developers Write Open Letter to Management w/ Accusations of Mistreatment - "One of the worst launches this decade"

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Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
www.gameworkers.co.uk

Open Letter to the Executive Leadership at Build A Rocket Boy - IWGB Game Workers

Employees and ex-employees at Build A Rocket Boy (BARB), together with the Game Workers Branch of the Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB), are writing to address the longstanding disrespect and mistreatment of your staff. For years, you have expected them to adapt to your every whim...
www.gameworkers.co.uk www.gameworkers.co.uk



Open Letter to the Executive Leadership at Build A Rocket Boy

Employees and ex-employees at Build A Rocket Boy (BARB), together with the Game Workers Branch of the Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB), are writing to address the longstanding disrespect and mistreatment of your staff. For years, you have expected them to adapt to your every whim, with those in disagreement being shut down or cast aside. We estimate a UK-majority of 250-300 workers across the company have now lost their livelihoods. These layoffs happened because you repeatedly refused to listen to your workforce's years of experience, resulting in one of the worst video game launches this decade.
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Here are just a few of the many issues we have faced under your management:

Lack of transparency and communication. You have consistently failed to effectively communicate with the workers whose expertise the company relies on. Information has been sparse and vague, with you often making radical changes to the way we worked with little or no input from those affected.

Unbearable levels of overtime. In the 4 months leading up to the launch of MindsEye, you implemented a mandatory 8 hours of overtime per week for every single employee. Time Off In Lieu (TOIL) was given at a rate of 7 hours back for every 8 hours worked, but many have still not been able to take this time off due to your continued requests for extra "high-priority" work, even after launch.

Disastrous handling of redundancies. We believe you have consistently mishandled the redundancy process, causing confusion and distress for all staff. Employees have received misinformation, been handed dismissal notices with the wrong notice periods, and been put in the wrong teams so that their performances were scored by the wrong people. These and other errors have potentially resulted in the wrongful dismissal of dozens of staff members.
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These and many other issues, some of which have been made public already, have caused pain and stress for your employees. Our experience at the company has been one of burnout, job insecurity, health issues, and the failure of a game that many of us have put years of our lives into. BARB needs to change. CEOs need to take a backseat and allow the skilled people who remain at the company to forge the path ahead. We demand the following:
  1. A public apology for this mistreatment of employees and proper compensation for laid-off employees;
  2. The option for remaining employees on redundancy notice to either work their notice period or take Payment in Lieu of Notice (PILON);
  3. A concerted, meaningful, and documented effort to improve conditions and processes within the company, including the acknowledgement of the IWGB as a trade union;
  4. A commitment to use official external partners to action any future redundancies and prevent unfair treatment.
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Mark Gerhard and Leslie Benzies, you often refer to your employees as "family". But we ask you to consider; is this really how you treat your own?

In solidarity,

93 BARB Employees and Ex-Employees ︱ IWGB Game Workers
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Meanwhile, in management:
Inspector Gadget Cartoon GIF
 
At the end of the day they delivered a shit game and I wouldn't expect a completely different result if they were respected and treated better. And oh boy, what are they doing in the gaming business if 48 hour work weeks are 'unbearable levels of overtime'?
 
The Cockatrice said:
Depends on their salary/bonuses. If they got rich out if it, yeah no use complaining. If they;re living paycheck to paycheck with those hours, than that's fucking horseshit.
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Game development is an artistic career. Just like ANY artistic career, you should be happy to even make a living doing it, IMO. Pick another profession if you have any other mindset.
 
Embearded said:
You can always go to your employee and ask to work 8 extra hours and get rewarded for 7 of them.

Good for them for exposing management and the company policies. These things belong in the past and it's about time workers stop paying the price of bad managers with fat bonuses.
Fuck em.
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I sometimes worked 60+ hours/week because sometimes shit just needed to get done asap. And it wasn't in some cushy office environment sitting on herman miller chairs. I swear game dev employees are the biggest whiners of any industry. I'll always laugh when I see statements like in the OP
 
Guys, TOIL means they never got paid for overtime. All the overtime goes to a bank of hours that, by the looks of it, they never got to use, because their leaves are never approved. It's a very common way to exploit overtime.

I do wonder if this letter will have any effect, though. At least, it's a good opportunity to update the ignore list.
 
The Cockatrice said:
Depends on their salary/bonuses. If they got rich out if it, yeah no use complaining. If they;re living paycheck to paycheck with those hours, than that's fucking horseshit.
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Exactly. The fact they ARE complaining means they were either overworked or underpaid, or both. I mean, anyone can admit that overtime can suck, but if the pay makes up for it....
 
justiceiro said:
Guys, TOIL means they never got paid for overtime. All the overtime goes to a bank of hours that, by the looks of it, they never got to use, because their leaves are never approved. It's a very common way to exploit overtime.

I do wonder if this letter will have any effect, though. At least, it's a good opportunity to update the ignore list.
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It says they got 7 for every 8 hours pay and then just says "some" have not been able to take off yet due to still high priority. So sounds like many did get to take off those bank of hours. I still dont see 48 hour weeks as anything major. Having 7 hours of PTO to my time off bank would be AMAZING lol that's about a day off every week you earn, and over 4 months or however long, you would have well over 2 weeks paid time.

Why some have not been able to use it? who knows. I thought the game was dead and they are not even trying anymore.
 
Fuck these entitled brats. They worked inefficiently while being paid handsomely, they released a shit game and still complain. I have worked more unpaid hours than all these idiots have worked in their lifetimes.
 
justiceiro said:
Guys, TOIL means they never got paid for overtime. All the overtime goes to a bank of hours that, by the looks of it, they never got to use, because their leaves are never approved. It's a very common way to exploit overtime.

I do wonder if this letter will have any effect, though. At least, it's a good opportunity to update the ignore list.
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Here's the catch: Time Off In Lieu is not mandatory. Companies can't force you to work overtime AND force you to accept TOIL in place of overtime pay. The employee gets to either accept TOIL or reject it and be compensated with overtime pay. And before someone makes this argument: a company cannot fire you or lay you off for refusing to take TOIL instead of overtime pay unless the employee signed a contract that stipulated this. Without said contract, termination for non-acceptance of TOIL would be illegal, and it is absolutely grounds for a wrongful termination lawsuit.

Additionally, terms of TOIL (meaning when they can use that paid time off) are stipulated at the time. The company doesn't just say, "We'll give you TOIL," and then once it's agreed to say, "Gotcha! Now we're not going to let you lose it!" The terms of TOIL are communicated before the agreement is finalized.

This means that the employees are responsible for accepting a retarded deal. Why would anyone work 8 hours for no immediate pay, and the payoff would only be 7 hours of PTO? I'm sorry, but there are 93 dumbfuck employees and former employees.
 
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God damn, in the Marines for 18 years, averaged about 90-96 hours a week. In the field while trainubg 16-20 everyday for two to three weeks. On combat deployments 16-20 hour days for 6-9 months straight.

My wife runs the post offices in our area of Beaufort up to Charleston SC and averages60-80 hour weeks with more during peak starting at the end of October.

Weak sauce gay little bitches.

I volunteered and signed the contract, so did they.

Folks can want to work what ever the hours they want or hell even not work at all. I just don't want to hear the complaints for what you signed up for. Quit and move on with your life.
 
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Angry_Megalodon said:
Fuck these entitled brats. They worked inefficiently while being paid handsomely, they released a shit game and still complain. I have worked more unpaid hours than all these idiots have worked in their lifetimes.
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Why are you working unpaid hours? You should talk to your union rep.
 
Miles708 said:
This is not exactly something to be proud of unless your work directly saves lives, in which case, respect.
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Precisely. What idiot brags about working 48 hour work weeks and gives shit to those that don't have to. 48 hour work weeks aren't normal and I'll be fucked if that's where we are heading as a society. I work 38 hours a week and that's probably 8 too many for my liking.
 
Lucifers Beard said:
Precisely. What idiot brags about working 48 hour work weeks and gives shit to those that don't have to. 48 hour work weeks aren't normal and I'll be fucked if that's where we are heading as a society. I work 38 hours a week and that's probably 8 too many for my liking.
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I think it stems from a simple but quite deep misconception: you don't want a job, what you want is the money the job brings. If you can get the money by working less and living life more, that's a win.
And that's it.

The grind mentality clouds that simple concept, especially after you've been in the deep of it for years of your life.
 
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What's the point of this letter? Public shaming? Shame is dead, last time I checked.

The game sold like ass, everybody got laid off, and the money's spent up. Sorry union, no dues for you.
 
The Cockatrice said:
Depends on their salary/bonuses. If they got rich out if it, yeah no use complaining. If they;re living paycheck to paycheck with those hours, than that's fucking horseshit.
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Nobody is working paycheck to paycheck in places like these.

We have no idea how it was to work there, but in my experience on huge teams like this, there are always some 20 year olds who can't handle overtime and a bunch of 40 and 50 year olds who have no problem doing it.

I would do anything to get to work on a game and I would fully expect to work overtime constantly since it's the entertainment business.

Still, we don't know anything about the situation here, but I would be embarassed to list 8 hours overtime per week for 4 months as an issue.
 
IFireflyl said:
Here's the catch: Time Off In Lieu is not mandatory. Companies can't force you to work overtime AND force you to accept TOIL in place of overtime pay. The employee gets to either accept TOIL or reject it and be compensated with overtime pay. And before someone makes this argument: a company cannot fire you or lay you off for refusing to take TOIL instead of overtime pay unless the employee signed a contract that stipulated this. Without said contract, termination for non-acceptance of TOIL would be illegal, and it is absolutely grounds for a wrongful termination lawsuit.

Additionally, terms of TOIL (meaning when they can use that paid time off) are stipulated at the time. The company doesn't just say, "We'll give you TOIL," and then once it's agreed to say, "Gotcha! Now we're not going to let you lose it!" The terms of TOIL are communicated before the agreement is finalized.

This means that the employees are responsible for accepting a retarded deal. Why would anyone work 8 hours for no immediate pay, and the payoff would only be 7 hours of PTO? I'm sorry, but there are 93 dumbfuck employees and former employees.
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I mean, this very thread is full of reasons. Their job is not valued, so they agree with anything, even if they get exploited, because otherwise they can't get another job, or they believe they can't. But they ended up fired anyway, so it's good that this is coming to light, it's a warning to whoever wants to work there in the future.
 
kpopSuperstar said:
Nobody is working paycheck to paycheck in places like these.
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You would be surprised how many game devs we see on Twitter that get laid off complaining about how they can't make rent now. Some do live paycheck to paycheck, but that is not the fault of the company. That is the fault of the person taking a job at a salary that doesn't match their spending habits, or not getting a second or third job. I literally had 4 jobs while in college to help pay rent at our apartment that I shared with roommates.
 
Kvally said:
You would be surprised how many game devs we see on Twitter that get laid off complaining about how they can't make rent now. Some do live paycheck to paycheck, but that is not the fault of the company. That is the fault of the person taking a job at a salary that doesn't match their spending habits, or not getting a second or third job. I literally had 4 jobs while in college to help pay rent at our apartment that I shared with roommates.
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This comment is insanity. These people aren't fucking students lmao.
 
OMG.

Work at a game company and expected to work extra hard leading up to launch. Who knew this happened in gaming? And the company is willing to give almost all of it back in lieu too.

Employees just sore they made a shit game. If Mindseye got scores of 80 or 90 and sold millions of copies, they'd be loving it. The message would be...... Ya, when you put in hard work, you get good results.

Kvally said:
You would be surprised how many game devs we see on Twitter that get laid off complaining about how they can't make rent now. Some do live paycheck to paycheck, but that is not the fault of the company. That is the fault of the person taking a job at a salary that doesn't match their spending habits, or not getting a second or third job. I literally had 4 jobs while in college to help pay rent at our apartment that I shared with roommates.
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Yup.

If someone cant make ends meet, thats on them. Googling it, they got offices in Scotland, California, Hungary, France, Netherlands.

I dont get a sense video game employees get paid minimum wage. They probably get pretty good salaries. If avg joe schmos making less money than them can somehow figure it out, than a gaming employee should be able to live better. I get a sense a lot of these techie gaming bros blow all their money on dumb shit. I bet just about all of them have a nice car in their 20s on a big car loan. Right away that'll sink the budget and limit how much you can borrow for a mortgage.

Also, I dont think the avg gaming bro even needs to go to college or university getting a comp sci degree making them straddled with a giant student loan on their backs like many other people in other industries. Tech is one of those industries where you can get by with less formal expensive education if you can prove you can do the job dabbling at home on your own time. The avg business or medical student looking for a good job cant walk in with a resume and say.... "Ya, here's my resume. I was practicing at home. Or here's my PT accreditation certificate I did after dinner which cost me $2000". You got to go through the grind and student costs. So right there, many techie people have a leg up with less/no student loan costs too.

So where's all your money going? Probably nice cars, nice condo, funko toys, starbucks runs twice a day and patio dinners every night. lol
 
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