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[sendit]

There absolutely are jobs that can be effectively be done remotely and I completely support remote work when possible as it reduces employee burnout, saves employees potentially dozens of hours per week commuting, and reduces the environment impact of fossil fuels. But I don't think AAA game development is one of these types of jobs. You're a part of a team all trying to assemble a single product. I feel like in person work is needed to encourage communication and responsibility. If this was an independent studio that consisted of like 10 people, I feel like that's a small enough team that communication and responsibility can be managed remotely. But on a team of hundreds? Not so much.

Why do you think that? Sure their are aspects of game development that require a person to physically be there. Programming/coding is not one of them, which I would assume is the majority in a development environment.

For example, you have a individual that is working on the Menu feature for a game. Deadlines and project goals have been communicated to this person. What improved productivity value does that individual bring if he/she were to show up in the office to do the same work?

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Why do you think that? Sure their are aspects of game development that require a person to physically be there. Programming/coding is not one of them, which I would assume is the majority in a development environment.

For example, you have a individual that is working on the Menu feature for a game. Deadlines and project goals have been communicated to this person. What improved productivity value does that individual bring if he/she were to show up in the office to do the same work?

If things were being more productive or even equally so with people working at home why would these companies pull people back into the office?

Sure seems like someone like Rockstar could save massive amounts of money not maintaining these spaces.

 

[Evil Calvin]

Workers have been spoiled the last few years. No one is more productive at home than at work. They will SAY they are....but they aren't. Too many distractions and things to do at home.

 

[sendit]

If things were being more productive or even equally so with people working at home why would these companies pull people back into the office?

Sure seems like someone like Rockstar could save massive amounts of money not maintaining these spaces.

I can tell you one reason from my current experience. Forced layoffs hidden behind "individual not adhering to company policy". Tech field is experiencing massive layoffs, and someone not willing to come back to the office is an easy cut.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

I can tell you one reason from my current experience. Forced layoffs hidden behind "individual not adhering to company policy". Tech field is experiencing massive layoffs, and someone not willing to come back to the office is an easy cut.

With how gaming companies have been getting rid of people left and right do they really need an easy cut, can't they just start trimming fat?

What if your best people want to stay home and the worst come back?

 

[darrylgorn]

This is outrageous, can you believe it guys ?
They actually need to work from the office & to work......actually

All this time, they haven't been working at all, those lazy bums.

 

[Efren is G.O.A.T.]

It does though.

It's a gradient. People will slack off at different rates based on external stimuli.

Yeah I don't disagree with you but deadlines still have to be met nonetheless so they'll still be in hot water if they repeatedly don't meet them.

 

[sendit]

With how gaming companies have been getting rid of people left and right do they really need an easy cut, can't they just start trimming fat?

What if your best people want to stay home and the worst come back?

There is always an exception to the rule. FE, If the individual was John Carmack, you make that exception. However, your average programmer (which most are) can easily be replaced.

 

[MALpractice311]

Why do you think that? Sure their are aspects of game development that require a person to physically be there. Programming/coding is not one of them, which I would assume is the majority in a development environment.

For example, you have a individual that is working on the Menu feature for a game. Deadlines and project goals have been communicated to this person. What improved productivity value does that individual bring if he/she were to show up in the office to do the same work?

As I said, they're focused on making a single product with a single vision. There needs to regular communication and meetings to keep the team focused, the end goals clear, and progress monitored. And again, I'm not saying NO game development can be done effectively remotely, but when you're on a team of hundreds with millions of dollars on the line, there needs to be structural oversight. Smaller teams with smaller budgets making smaller games can probably manage, but Rockstar and Take Two don't make small games.

 

[sendit]

As I said, they're focused on making a single product with a single vision. There needs to regular communication and meetings to keep the team focused, the end goals clear, and progress monitored. And again, I'm not saying NO game development can be done effectively remotely, but when you're on a team of hundreds with millions of dollars on the line, there needs to be structural oversight. Smaller teams with smaller budgets making smaller games can probably manage, but Rockstar and Take Two don't make small games.

Meetings can be done through remote avenues. What experience or background do you have (outside of your feelings) to state what you're stating? I'm on a team developing projects under multi billion dollar contracts, we do a hybrid model with a few exceptions to people working fully remote. We have project deadlines, individual team goals, s-team goals, teams spread across different continents etc....Customers would drop us if we weren't effective.

 

[bumpkin]

Everyone chiming in saying that having a remote team tanks productivity are full of crap. If anything, my team’s productivity has gone up since we all went remote. People are happier because they have a better work-life balance. Happy workers are more productive.

It’s probably more that R* wants to be able to force crunch on the team to meet their marketing schedule.

 

[MALpractice311]

Meetings can be done through remote avenues. What experience or background do you have (outside of your feelings) to state what you're stating? I'm on a team developing projects under multi billion dollar contracts, we do a hybrid model with a few exceptions to people working fully remote. We have project deadlines, individual team goals, s-team goals, teams spread across different continents etc....Customers would drop us if we weren't effective.

I'll preface this by saying I'm not in the the tech industry, so no my experience is not first hand. But my assumptions regarding remote work being ineffectual in the AAA gaming industry comes from all the buggy, unfinished games that have come out many years late since COVID began.

 

[DannyDanger]

I hate remote work because I have to support idiot users at home, who are unresponsive, unprepared or just plain uncooperative. But are quick to blame IT when they get called out.

I think it's fine in moderation but when progressives act like having ppl come in the office is worst than slave labor, my hate boner gets veiny and erect

 

[GymWolf]

If things were being more productive or even equally so with people working at home why would these companies pull people back into the office?

Sure seems like someone like Rockstar could save massive amounts of money not maintaining these spaces.

Big companies being happy to lose money, being less productive and make people miserable seems to be the most logic and healthy explanation in this topic.

 

[Lord Panda]

I'm a fan of the work-from-home life for all the previously mentioned reasons. My wife is also working from home, which has been a game-changer for us. It's allowed us to cut back on childcare and commute costs, and put that money towards things like food and bills.

More importantly, it's given us more opportunities to spend more quality time together as a family. I'm amazed at how fortunate we've been to have so much more time with our son.

Plus, remote work has the added perk of letting us stay with family interstate and work from there. My dad is unwell in a serious way, so we often spend months each year living with him and mum.

One thing I'd like to say is that my wife and I tend to work noticeably longer hours from home, than we would at the office. We still attend many meetings throughout the week virtually, and we still have KPIs and deadlines we have to deliver on.

While I understand that folks will abuse this flexibility, there are also many folks that don't and are far more productive working from wherever they want. With the rising cost of living, climate change, congestion, costs of maintaining Infrastructure, and the rest of the bullshit, it doesn't make much sense forcing people to drag themselves into the office, if they're more than able to deliver on their responsibilities from home.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Good Games need to get back to the old days of working in the office and a crunch period at the end.
Working from home is a load of bullshit and needs to end in all sectors.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

 

[Fake]

Why people are assuming toxic?

I guess stay too much into home office made them very afraid of office.

 

[JerryinSoCal]

Maybe that guys son shouldn't have leaked that video before the trailer came out huh? lol

 

[Bojji]

Why people are assuming toxic?

I guess stay too much into home office made them very afraid of office.

Yeah, being away from people is not good for mental health in the long run.

We will see hikikomori epidemic in the west thanks to WFH.

 

[Tomi]

This is JUuuuugeee

Gta VI coming sooner than we think

 

[Shifty1897]

What’s with Gaf’s hate boner against remote work lol?

Pure jealousy.

If your boss properly manages you, you lose no productivity by going remote. Set realistic deadlines, hold people accountable if they don't hit those deadlines. If your manager can't do that, they're a bad manager.

 

[ReBurn]

Pure jealousy.

If your boss properly manages you, you lose no productivity by going remote. Set realistic deadlines, hold people accountable if they don't hit those deadlines. If your manager can't do that, they're a bad manager.

In my experience people who need to be managed to get work done typically aren't suited to work remotely. Working from home means being able to focus on your work without direct supervision and getting your job done without needing constant direction. The primary way the manager is the problem in a remote work situation is if they are a micromanager who doesn't know how to properly define and delegate work and trust that the work will get done without constant check-ins.

I am perfectly happy to let the people who work for me work from wherever they want to as long as they're doing their part to help their team reach their goals. It is their responsibility to contact whoever they need to in order to collaborate when necessary. Everyone has an off day or issue and falls behind once in a while. The team is usually willing to pull it in and help with that. But if someone is regularly missing milestones and the team is constantly falling behind because of them I pull them back into the office so we can work together until they can get back on track. Sometimes the problem is me. Sometimes the problem is them. But to work it out we have to work together.

Over the last few years I have had to let a couple of people go because they thought work from home meant go for bike rides or go hiking or sleep in every day or play video games or watch porn on their company laptop during work hours and do work whenever they felt like it. They regularly caused the team for miss milestones that they set for themselves. I don't set their milestones, they do. And when those people wouldn't make the changes they needed to in order to get back on track we came to an agreement that they could do whatever they wanted when they wanted and I would stop paying them.

 

[Dane]

It was during the pandemic lol.

It’s like people forgot that some businesses were running more efficiently and making record profits during that time.

It really depends on the job, but working remotely can be productive. The issues is the idiots who posted “day in the life” videos were they exposed themselves not doing work on company’s time which ruined it people that weren’t abusing the wfh situation.

Yeah these people are ruining for everyone else, such as the "minimum wage, minimum effort" that has become a dogwhistle for "i'm doing a shit job even for minimum wage standards", i've seen people complain about zoomer behavior at work to the point where all other generations (boomers to millenials) reach to an agreement.

If things were being more productive or even equally so with people working at home why would these companies pull people back into the office?

Sure seems like someone like Rockstar could save massive amounts of money not maintaining these spaces.

Rockstar is notoriously ligitious and will come after any leak, that includes from their previous releases, ever wondered why its so hard to track down prototypes from them but not from Nintendo? For them, security is enough reason to put everyone back at the office so no computer at home gets hacked.

 

[CGNoire]

GOOD!

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I hate remote work because I have to support idiot users at home, who are unresponsive, unprepared or just plain uncooperative. But are quick to blame IT when they get called out.

I think it's fine in moderation but when progressives act like having ppl come in the office is worst than slave labor, my hate boner gets veiny and erect

Never mind supporting people at home with IT help.

Just sitting in big meetings where staff are allowed to dial in from home, half the people who show up at the office are fine. And then on the MS Teams call, you always get that one person who doesn't go on mute and you can hear they are watching TV or they are talking to their kids. Then the host has to act like an adult babysitter and say "whomever is on the call can you please go on mute". So you can already see some remote workers have to be treated like children.

And you always get people speaking up or raising their hand saying they cant hear whats going on and for everyone to speak up. Well, I can hear fine sitting in the room. Maybe if you guys at home came to the office like before covid days you'd hear everything the speakers said and Q&A session at the end just like everyone in the room can hear.

 

[amigastar]

I dreamed today i was playing GTA VI. It was glorious, lol.

 

[ResilientBanana]

Not going to lie, games were better when people didn’t work from home.

 

[MatrixReloaded101]

This wfh debate will never end because the truth is alot of people don’t have the option to work from home or they don’t fully understand what goes into working from home so they get jealous about it.

But the people who criticize wfh don’t understand that a lot of these wfh jobs are really just people sitting in front of computer all day. It’s no different than if you were to go into the office. WFH makes life easier because you don’t have to waste time commuting to an office which also costs money just to sit in front of a computer which you can do at home. Also if you need to talk to your co-workers you could just do so through a teams or zoom call.

If rockstar hired these devs and told them they can wfh permanently but now backtracked on that, that is wrong, there is no debating that.

We all want to play GTA 6 but you have to also understand these devs are people too and they shouldn’t be treated like crap just because you want to play a video game, most of them will probably get laid off once’s the game is completed.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

This wfh debate will never end because the truth is alot of people don’t have the option to work from home or they don’t fully understand what goes into working from home so they get jealous about it.

But the people who criticize wfh don’t understand that a lot of these wfh jobs are really just people sitting in front of computer all day. It’s no different than if you were to go into the office. WFH makes life easier because you don’t have to waste time commuting to an office which also costs money just to sit in front of a computer which you can do at home. Also if you need to talk to your co-workers you could just do so through a teams or zoom call.

If rockstar hired these devs and told them they can wfh permanently but now backtracked on that, that is wrong, there is no debating that.

We all want to play GTA 6 but you have to also understand these devs are people too and they shouldn’t be treated like crap just because you want to play a video game, most of them will probably get laid off once’s the game is completed.

I agree that some jobs can be done remotely. I'm pretty sure the data set guy coding pricing lists into SAP can do that job at home as a lone wolfer. All he needs to know from marketing managers is what price goes with which sku at a unit and wholesale case.

But what cant be argued is that being in person brings about more team spirit. And if you're around other people it will make it more fun and now every worker and boss and CEO can put a human face to the role. If everyone is at home invisible where half the people dont even want to go on cam or even upload a pic (all you see on conf call is someone who never says anything and you just see Tom Johnson's TJ initials) then what happens is a lot of people become bored and miserable and then they say the company has zero culture. Especially true for new people who dont know everyone. And its a lot harder to train people online than just asking them to come over to my desk and I'll show them stuff in person. If workers want to be more and more lone wolfers then management will just treat you like a number.

Another thing about wfh vs office is that if everyone gets to do wfh, it's asking for trouble in terms of transparency. If some workers do a bad job where some people say "well, let the good workers stay home and just get the bad workers needing manager help come to the office" then what happens is you got 80 people wfh and 20 people pigeon holed to come to the office, which means everyone will know those 20 are on management watch. It'll basically be a PIP but in plain view instead of confidential.

For those who dont know, a PIP is a Performance Improvement Plan. Big companies will have this as part of their HR system. Basically, youre on probation for being sub-par and got to improve or you'll be gassed in the next 3 or 6 months they give you. I'm not saying someone being asked to work at the office means they are on PIP watch, but it'd already be a warning sign everyone will see that Bob was asked to come to the office now because he cant handle working at home like the past 6 months.

 

[YCoCg]

It's not about productivity, it's about SECURITY. Why are people failing to grasp that Rockstar is super secretive and before WFH they never had any leaks, but since then ether has been TWO leaks because of security faults in the WFH chain.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

It's not about productivity, it's about SECURITY. Why are people failing to grasp that Rockstar is super secretive and before WFH they never had any leaks, but since then ether has been TWO leaks because of security faults in the WFH chain.

Just curious how office vs wfh cuts down on leaks.

If someone is at home and take a pic of GTA on his cellphone and uploads it to Reddit on his personal PC, how would Rockstar track that?

 

[YCoCg]

Just curious how office vs wfh cuts down on leaks.

In the two cases where a leak has happened it's been down to WFH reasons. The first was the hacker exploiting the slack chain set up to link files between home users and the offices, here he was able to recall previous file uploads and redownload them for himself, one of the biggest ones being the progress checks of GTA VI that the home workers recorded to send into the office. The second was due to the SON of a worker getting access to his dads computer and taking pictures and sharing them to his mates for clout which then spread.

 

[sigmaZ]

Bring back crunch!

 

[StreetsofBeige]

In the two cases where a leak has happened it's been down to WFH reasons. The first was the hacker exploiting the slack chain set up to link files between home users and the offices, here he was able to recall previous file uploads and redownload them for himself, one of the biggest ones being the progress checks of GTA VI that the home workers recorded to send into the office. The second was due to the SON of a worker getting access to his dads computer and taking pictures and sharing them to his mates for clout which then spread.

Thanks. Toook me reading the first one like 5 tims before I understood it. As for the second one, haha that makes sense and totally possible. When I think of a leak, I assume it's the worker doing it himself and not someone else like a family member!

 

[Spukc]

Devs are so fucking lazy dude

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

If everyone is at home invisible where half the people dont even want to go on cam or even upload a pic (all you see on conf call is someone who never says anything and you just see Tom Johnson's TJ initials) then what happens is a lot of people become bored and miserable and then they say the company has zero culture.

A lot of the arguments you've been making forever against wfh, boil down to simple mismanagement and can easily be solved; our policy for meetings for instance was that your cam is on, period, if you can't manage that you'd have to come to the office.
None of the things you've been arguing as detrimental have to be issues if your management actually did their own jobs properly.

 

[Interfectum]

Get the fuck out of your home and back to work. Zero sympathy.

 

[soulbait]

I haven't stepped foot into an office since March 2020.

Same. My job employees people from all over the world. We have developers who are in Ukraine and able to keep production up (granted they live in current safe regions). If we can keep projects going correctly and on budget, I am not sure why other companies cannot. We are not special.

Are there benefits in being in office, yes for some there are. But there are also benefits for working from home.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

A lot of the arguments you've been making forever against wfh, boil down to simple mismanagement and can easily be solved; our policy for meetings for instance was that your cam is on, period, if you can't manage that you'd have to come to the office.
None of the things you've been arguing as detrimental have to be issues if your management actually did their own jobs properly.

And if working form home is so productive and a cost saver for companies as they can skip property/leasing costs, every company in the world would have all desk jobbers wfh. Product quality, sales and profits would shoot up. Win win for everyone including bosses. Everyone thinks bosses dont like flexible wfh, saving on commuting time and gas, and avoiding comign to work in bad weather. They'd love to do that too if every wfh jobber can do their job. Not the case.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

And if working form home is so productive and a cost saver for companies as they can skip property/leasing costs, every company in the world would have all desk jobbers wfh.

What are you talking about? Leases aren't a monthly thing, average business lease is 5+ years, even if they wanted to get rid of their expensive empty properties, most can't. And this is just another tired argument for companies that were hit by surprise and botched the wfh transition with terrible management and misguided infrastructure, panic at their own inability to make it work so they force everyone to go back to their old ways; mine was mostly wfh years before covid was even a thing so the transition was almost none existant, and people who want to go to the office go voluntary; everyone is happy.

 

[Imtjnotu]

Get your lazy asses back to the office like the rest of the world

 

[Upper_Management]

Devs are so fucking lazy dude

We sure are. Having to commute to an office to be just as lazy to appease the masses and ship your games.

 

[Shifty1897]

I agree that remote work should be a perk or a privilege, not a guarantee or standard. You come into the office as a new hire, work for a year or two, if you're a rockstar, you test pilot remote work. If you slip, back to the office you go. If you're still a rockstar remotely and can make it work, negotiate it into a permanent thing. That's basically what I did.

 

[Bernardougf]

Workers have been spoiled the last few years. No one is more productive at home than at work. They will SAY they are....but they aren't. Too many distractions and things to do at home.

Yeah... people really want to convince everybody that Home Office is some new post 2020 revolutionary breakthrough for companys and only discovered and possible after the pandemic because "reasons".

The fact is some companies may find better, others dont, workers saying "i prefer to stay home is better trust me" dosent mean shit really.

Is not slavery ...so work dont work.. choose.. stfu

 

[GermanZepp]

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions...g-from-home-policy-for-rockstar-employees#nnn

o: Rockstar Studio Management
From: [Your Name]

First and foremost, we want to express how proud we are to be part of Rockstar Games UK. We feel incredibly privileged to have been involved in some of the biggest and most successful titles in the industry, which continue to succeed and are regularly enjoyed by millions of passionate players around the world. Over the years we have seen positive changes in the way Rockstar Games operates, which have had a big impact on making it a more inclusive, understanding and enjoyable place to work. Together, we feel more can be done to improve things even further.

Over the last two years or so, we have seen one of the largest shifts in the way we work. The move to remote working was a big change for us all. We would like to recognise the efforts and hard work of Rockstar and the teams that helped make this process as seamless as possible. Because of these efforts we have been able to continue working and see the release of some of Rockstar's most successful updates to date. This change has led to many feeling more productive in their work as well as allowing individuals more control to work the way they feel is most efficient for them. Time previously spent commuting is now able to be enjoyed with friends and family which is vital for many peoples mental health and wellbeing. It has also been invaluable in helping manage the personal commitments of employees such as childcare.

We fear, given recent communications, that this flexibility and choice that has brought such positive change for both Rockstar Games and its employees could be greatly diminished or lost altogether. The lack of any significant consultation with employees on the future working arrangements has left us feeling that our opinions and input have been undervalued and ultimately ignored. We feel the removal of what we believe to be a fundamental right for employees to have full flexibility in choosing how they work best be it fully remotely, in office or a combination of both will have a profound negative impact on employee wellbeing and productivity moving forward.

The good news is that this has also brought us closer together, and together we feel empowered to make Rockstar Games a place where employees and leadership unite to create a workplace that truly listens and understands our continued success. We want to open up and maintain lines of communication and have the opportunity to negotiate with leadership on issues that affect us all.

Taking the above into consideration, our appeal to senior management is:

- Continuation on a permanent basis of the current flexible working policy (as of April 2022) allowing for full flexibility and employee choice on where they choose to work in the future.

We would appreciate your support and a reply no later than one week after receiving this letter. Let’s work together to create the best version of Rockstar Games UK we can!

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Workers have been spoiled the last few years. No one is more productive at home than at work. They will SAY they are....but they aren't. Too many distractions and things to do at home.

With anything life, it doesn't matter if it's work, home or government service.

Everyone is self serving. And wfh privilege is one of those grab bag goodies anyone getting it doesn't want to give up once they got it. You got to babysit their asses and stress a million times they know it's a temporary thing and optional by the company. Because if you dont state that, you'll get a lot of dumbasses who think it can never be reversed.

It's like meetings before or after lunch. Sometimes the host will order everyone lunch as a gracious perk. Nobody ever said every meeting near lunch gets an automatic lunch. Some people wont care and if they get fed they get fed. Then you get the whiners asking where is lunch because sometimes other meetings got lunch so how come the host didnt order us anything for this one. "Now I got to buy lunch. Cheap ass host."

It's like pay hikes too. Just about every person gets a pay hike every year of 2-3%. At worst, you get nothing. That's really a one way street of entitlement because if the company shits the bed and losing money because the department sucks, really the company should chopping everyone's wages. But they dont. If a company tries that they'll be facing the labour board and sued. But if a company is in a giving mood and wants to give everyone a 10% raise and a 30% bonus, everyone shuts their mouth and loves it. And then they expect it again and again. And if the company gives shitter pay increases next year the company is a bunch of cheap bastards.

There's a lot of people in the world who expect things can only go up, where once they have something in their hands they arent giving it up no matter what.

 

[Lambogenie]

3 day weeks are a good balance.
Security is security. Even in office things happen, so it shouldn't demand people return.

I do think people are way more careless at home about privacy and security, but that habit can be broken. If I hear kids in the immediate background or see your partner walking behind you, I'll have separate words with you, remind you of confidentiality and _nothing_ should be seen or discussed with your partner, including meetings. This is where I find there's a disrespect to the attitude of work, privacy and confidentiality ("oh, it's just my kid/partner, so what?"). Same for if I suspect you're at the gym or somewhere public.

Other than that, deliver the work and be reachable/responsive during regular hours and I don't care if you take a power nap.

 

[cormack12]

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions...g-from-home-policy-for-rockstar-employees#nnn

I was hoping to get another series of Fuck about and find out this year.

And I think they need to actually read the reddit of those games that had the best updates ever e.g. Halloween pass for rdr o again. And the best GTA V updates were released during covid but developed largely before. Probably the contract was the most interesting in 2021, but the biggest 'updates' fans wanted were offline lobbies for cash and the oppressor nerfing.

 

[NickFire]

I think the bigger issue is the audacity of people to act like the employer is in the wrong for insisting on working in the office. The entitled and ass backwards view of how life works just dumbfounds me. The shortsightedness of these arguments is jarring as well. Look at the news people. These companies are cutting jobs and costs left and right. They have no qualms about using contractors or temporary employees. So in my view arguing passionately against working in office just increases the chances of being replaced by someone who will cost 1/10th as much while working from home in another country,