Mindseye Developers Write Open Letter to Management w/ Accusations of Mistreatment - "One of the worst launches this decade"
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LectureMaster
Has Man Musk
Hey hey hey, at least those hard work overtime delivered the most next gen water physics!
BattleScar
Member
"My work environment sucks, therefore everyone else's must too"
We should all go back to working the mines without HIPAA I guess, because these poor finance professionals didn't have it as hard as miners did back in the day.
CrimsonTide
Gold Member
All that overtime for Devs to trot out a giant paper plate in the middle of town just to put a pile of shit on it. Well done devs, well done. I do not feel sorry for people who suck at their jobs.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Ya sure. Comparing nicely paid gaming or finance jobs working some OT in an office sitting in front of a PC.
And the gaming people even got time off in lieu.
You should have some a bit more work ethic. Nobody is asking the general public to slog in a mine for 100 hours inhaling fumes. You'll feel better and the company will do better too instead of a place like build a rocket boy and mindseye tanking.
That's why some industries are seen as lazy or entitled. And between the two, it's not finance. We're always well respected and are known to do our job on time with deadlines. You just got to be reliable at a job to execute and don't whine.
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Arsic
Loves his juicy stink trail scent
Chuck Berry
make it make sense.falconhoof
Member
BattleScar
Member
Lol. Finance is not as respected as you think it is.
Finance professionals get paid a lot for the hours they work, and yeah its tough, but you get commensurate compensation. Most other industries - gamedev included, do not get paid as well.
Its not really about work ethic. Its about getting an appropriate share of the wealth you are helping to create, and also having good working conditions.
Just because GameDevs after years of crunching and abuse are finally standing up for their own rights, doesn't mean they're lazy and entitled. If your working conditions suck, how about you try and do something about it, instead of lazily painting people you don't know with a brush.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
It's not like avg finance guy works wall st banker hours where they slog it out so they retire at 35. Most work a desk job making comparable money to other depts.
As for a piece of the action, what wealth?
Company tanked, mindseye did and sold terrible, the company I think already laid off 100 people a month ago, and by the looks of it they'll probably go broke unless the company has way more money then we all think to survive long term.
So what blood is left to squeeze at rocket boy?
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Chuck Berry
Gold Member
Im on the phone with Leslie now. Gimme a minute.
SeriousCrayon
Member
This thread is full of a lot of weird takes....I don't understand peoples acceptance to have a business steal your time. Looks like lots of folks here have no idea how bad their own employers are taking advantage of them. Giving a company your time for free is absolutely batshit crazy fullstop. Ask your employer to pay you an extra hour a week for nothing and see what happens? Too expect people to just work overtime and not be compensated for ALL the extra hours just doesn't make sense too me.
falconhoof
Member
There's a lot of pretty retarded takes in this thread.
I can't speak for the Mindseye people but I can maybe give some potential perspective.
Working extra hours on a game is historically pretty normal, but there are two ways it can often come about:
First is centered on that creative push because games can always be better and you can always do more. So when you're driving to increase the quality and content of a product you can be there to put the extra hours in and it will hopefully pull in results. In times like this 80 hours a week isn't mentally all that bad (Speaking personally), you're seeing the pay off and you're pushing forward towards a greater goal. No one needs to mandate extra hours, you're in it because you're trying to make the best, it's what drove you to do the job in the first place.
Second is centered around the mismanaged shit fest, which I don't feel takes Sherlock Holmes to figure out that this is where Mindseye belonged. It doesn't matter how hard you work, you're basically trying to make a cake and management keep chucking dog shit into the mix, then they decide they want a steak dinner, then it's a fucking cake again. Then it becomes a demand for extra hours because the schedule keeps getting updated and the time box doesn't fit any more unless you put in the extra hours. There's no greater goal here, there's no seeking polish, you're just trying to keep the product from collapsing on itself. It's mentally fucking exhausting to deal with. You can't feel proud of your efforts when they're smeared with dog shit. There's likely people leaving the studio left and right causing more issues as you have to take on some half finished piece of work to complete on top of your own. You just hope that management walk in one day and say "Stop working, we're cancelling the game". But what's the alternative? Leave and have no pay, the industry is imploding left and right, so is the alternate any better?
I've worked on games that basically fit both of those camps. Games where I've pumped in 100 hour weeks and happily skipped to work after 4 hours sleep excited to clock in another day and I've worked on games where I've dragged my ass in and I watch the clock till I can leave, and somehow even working less hours I found that I was so much more exhausted and drained. Cause what was the fucking point when you know the disaster in making that can never be fixed. And sure, in some of those positions I've left the company at the cost of losing my salary, but in order to regain my sanity. But that meant that my work was dumped on some other poor chump and the game still came out (and sucked).
There are plenty of shitty workers in the game's industry, many of them also happen to be loud mouth cunts on shit like bluesky. But there's plenty more workers who just go to work and do their jobs as best they can, frustrated at the industry idiots posting on social media, frustrated at stupid exec decisions, hoping that the industry will go through some kind of cleansing ritual so they can get back to just working on fun games again.
I can't speak for the Mindseye people but I can maybe give some potential perspective.
Working extra hours on a game is historically pretty normal, but there are two ways it can often come about:
First is centered on that creative push because games can always be better and you can always do more. So when you're driving to increase the quality and content of a product you can be there to put the extra hours in and it will hopefully pull in results. In times like this 80 hours a week isn't mentally all that bad (Speaking personally), you're seeing the pay off and you're pushing forward towards a greater goal. No one needs to mandate extra hours, you're in it because you're trying to make the best, it's what drove you to do the job in the first place.
Second is centered around the mismanaged shit fest, which I don't feel takes Sherlock Holmes to figure out that this is where Mindseye belonged. It doesn't matter how hard you work, you're basically trying to make a cake and management keep chucking dog shit into the mix, then they decide they want a steak dinner, then it's a fucking cake again. Then it becomes a demand for extra hours because the schedule keeps getting updated and the time box doesn't fit any more unless you put in the extra hours. There's no greater goal here, there's no seeking polish, you're just trying to keep the product from collapsing on itself. It's mentally fucking exhausting to deal with. You can't feel proud of your efforts when they're smeared with dog shit. There's likely people leaving the studio left and right causing more issues as you have to take on some half finished piece of work to complete on top of your own. You just hope that management walk in one day and say "Stop working, we're cancelling the game". But what's the alternative? Leave and have no pay, the industry is imploding left and right, so is the alternate any better?
I've worked on games that basically fit both of those camps. Games where I've pumped in 100 hour weeks and happily skipped to work after 4 hours sleep excited to clock in another day and I've worked on games where I've dragged my ass in and I watch the clock till I can leave, and somehow even working less hours I found that I was so much more exhausted and drained. Cause what was the fucking point when you know the disaster in making that can never be fixed. And sure, in some of those positions I've left the company at the cost of losing my salary, but in order to regain my sanity. But that meant that my work was dumped on some other poor chump and the game still came out (and sucked).
There are plenty of shitty workers in the game's industry, many of them also happen to be loud mouth cunts on shit like bluesky. But there's plenty more workers who just go to work and do their jobs as best they can, frustrated at the industry idiots posting on social media, frustrated at stupid exec decisions, hoping that the industry will go through some kind of cleansing ritual so they can get back to just working on fun games again.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Considering how bad mindseye is and how long Everywhere was in dev for, pretty safe to say the employees stole the money.
Two junk products (related to each other) made for $100s of million I think across 300-400 people. I think those were the studio stats.
If that's not robbery nothing is.
All the while a rock solid game like Clair 33 was made for about $40M by 40 people I think. And the Clair 33 studio was formed during COVID when everything should be in the shitter hard to get things off the ground with everyone at home.
Compare the two and determine which studio is a bigger waste of time.
Hero_Select
Member
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Make a shit product for years, get paid well, then badmouth bosses looking for more. And once they eventually get laid off, they'll get paid severance too. More money for doing a bad job.
That's pretty much theft in my books.
If you're going to get paid, its supposed to be for doing a good job, not a shitty one.
havoc00
Member
Sounds like slave labor.
stn
Member
Funny thing, but I am 99% sure my profession (lawyer) is exempt from union formation and collective bargaining.
Nydius
Member
Correct me if I'm misremembering but wasn't it already known that Leslie Benzies was a piece of shit who treated people at Rockstar poorly, hence why they pushed him into a forced sabbatical then decided to "part ways" with him? I seem to recall "conduct" was one of the reasons they changed the lock on his office and didn't let him back in.
I remember the lead up to the game and people (generally, not here necessarily) fawning over it because "OMG LESLIE BENZIES", and I was just over here wondering why they were glazing this guy who got himself unceremoniously fired from Rockstar.
I remember the lead up to the game and people (generally, not here necessarily) fawning over it because "OMG LESLIE BENZIES", and I was just over here wondering why they were glazing this guy who got himself unceremoniously fired from Rockstar.
JimmyRustler
Member
Working overtime is no joke but for the love of my life I do not understand how someone would go into the gaming industry and expect to work normal hours. I mean, doing extra hours is not exactly something new here, hello?
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
stn
Member
Yup. Its an essential service, in a way. Though, lots of collective agreements contain "no strike" provisions, but unionizing the legal profession would still be problematic.
Reizo Ryuu
Member
Thread just full of miserable people wanting everyone else to be miserable too; glad I don't live in the US where this is apparently some kind of weird flex. If I was forced to work more than 40 hours a week I'd probably wind up killing myself.
MMaRsu
Member
None of this is true.
Its always some sort of weird Rockstar fanboys who seem to hate on Benzies. Super weird.
Nah this game is ass tho. Sad as I did have hopes of it being decent to somewhat good.
Oh well cant win em all
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Embearded
Member
This reaction i understand.
Yes it's true, it's a bad industry for the work - life balance. On one hand, they should not be working more than 40 hours, on the other hand you have to kid yourself if you think you won't be doing overtime or crunching near release.
I think the worse thing here is they are not getting paid the overtime.
In Greece fyi, most workplaces don't pay or give you back days off.
It's completely off the records and workes are exploited almost everywhere.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
wtf. why? are you self employed?
no they did not sign a contract to work overtime. they are salaried employees who do not get paid overtime, so any extra time they put in is uncompensated.
your wife is a federal worker who gets paid overtime on any hour she works over 40. that means she makes 1.5x what she makes during the week. these people are not seeing a single dime of overtime. let alone 50% more per hour they work.
i typically work 10 hour days plus some weekend time because i want to go above and beyond at my work. none of it is compensated. i do it to ensure i get a decent raise every year and for the past four years, ive gotten the standard 3% raises while many dont even get that. the salaried employees are treated like shit nowadays.
you also cant compare them to what you do. you get a lot of perks through your military service that regular salaried employees do not. the people who worked overtime without pay and got laid off will not get the post-job benefits from the firm like you will from the government for the rest of your life.
Tajaz2426
Psychology PhD from Wikipedia University
My wife gets no overtime pay as she is salaried as a Post Master. What perks did I get in the military? The government also gives us no perks when we get out except the VA if you have service related injuries which over 80 percent do not. We also have a GI bill that we pay out of pocket for the first year in service.
They are just fine and don't need to complain.
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Reizo Ryuu
Member
I mean even with any "perk" it's still insane behaviour; 96 hours is like 14 hours every day for 7 days a week, if you cut your sleep down to 6 hours that's still 20 hours of a day gone, then add on top of that 2 hours of commute/getting ready, and there's literally only 2 hours left in the day for yourself, friends, family, significant other... complete lunacy thinking living like this is a flex or heck any semblance of a real "life" at all.
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stn
Member
Partner at a law firm, and we are super busy lol. It pays well but its eating away at my soul haha.
demigod
Member
Don't worry my guy, soon everything will be a Sony game.
March Climber
Member
If the game itself was just a tiny bit more unique, I could see modders jumping all over this game to fix and enhance it with their own additions.
BattleScar
Member
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
I didnt follow the events, but I kinda remembered it too.
I thought what Nydius thought. He was a dickish boss, told him to take a break, so it gave them time to lock him out and build a case against him.
simpatico
Gold Member
The only people in my life that I've heard "too much overtime" is from game developers. And this letter mentions 8 hours a week? That's four 10s and a 8 on Friday and it's commonly seen as the best full time hourly schedule you can have. Short day Friday and it's all time and a half? Shit.
It's going to be harder and harder to get real phenoms into game development. It's become a den of scum, villainy, ugly and sloth. Just gross from every angle, but none more so than the visual angle. These people look medically sick. Turn on one of those studio interview prerelease puff pieces from any AAA dev. It looks like the roster from a mental asylum. Has this happened to any other industry?
It's going to be harder and harder to get real phenoms into game development. It's become a den of scum, villainy, ugly and sloth. Just gross from every angle, but none more so than the visual angle. These people look medically sick. Turn on one of those studio interview prerelease puff pieces from any AAA dev. It looks like the roster from a mental asylum. Has this happened to any other industry?
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
A big game will take years to make too. Ok, the game is launching soon and looks like these guys have an unfinished and unpolished game. So hey, time to work OT to make it right for release. Heck, you've only had 5 years and tons of budget. And games are still buggy at launch. No different than any other job. If you're falling behind then you got to work more to catch up before the deadline. Maybe dont fall behind to start with in the first 4.5 years and things will be more smoothed out near launch.
Game devs have a knack of making it sound like working in software is forever 12 hours days, bad pay, bad bosses, bad coworkers and people bring sleeping bags to the office. In reality, it's nothing close to that and they wouldnt need to crash code if their products were made well and on schedule like every other industry. This comes from the same people who are on Twitter all the time badmouthing their own company, bosses and leaking confidential memos and game info to Reddit or 4Chan.
I'd like to see these coder companies work in traditional companies.... R&D --> testing --> needing to sell in the product before manufacturing approval --> manufacturing after approved --> coordinating local and overseas trucking, boating and ports --> get all the products on time in warehouses, so it can then ship on time again to stores and wholesalers. Even during COVID when transport/fleet service was borked and factory workers had to do all that COVID mandated mask shit and spacing out, I think just about all new products we sold were still made and available on time. As a last ditch (if feasible), the traffic dept will get approval to do air shipping which is the most costly (but fastest from long distances). Somehow they figured it all out.
And you dont get a second chance with patches. And you dont get easy peasy digital downloading where any company can dump their game on Steam or a console e-store. And you dont get to delay the product 6 months, 1 year or 3 years or youre fucked. If the product is made poorly, youre done and will be a reckoning of bad sales, RA requests, and refunded product by the truckload.
Everything has to be coordinated perfectly well because a company cant be too cautious making and shipping everything too early because the company warehouse and customer warehouses arent going to hold onto shit loads of products for 6 months before launch. All companies want it to be as lean as possible. So my companies will get all these new product lines maybe 1-2 months before launch, do a quick QA test, then ship out to stores in 2 months. Then retialers get it, and about 1-2 months later its on store shelves as they need time to coordinate, ship to their own stores, and need time for stockboys to adjust shelves and price tags.
The digital world is so easy compared to other kinds of industries, yet still fuck up and have whiners despite nicely paid staff.
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Danny22
Member
It's like they're all flexing about who gets exploited the most while Microsoft's bald headed CEO earns more in a day doing absolutely nothing than they will their entire life.
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archangelmorph
Gold Member
This thread takes the top spot for most fucked up insanity on GAF in a long time, in terms of the responses.
It's well known the management here were incompetent narcissists, who took in hundreds of millions of dollars in funding based on their names, to try to make an "everything" game, fucked it all up because they had no vision, and then had to scramble back down to earth and try to make a GTA clone in not enough time required to do it properly, with zero regard or leadership skills to run a team that size.
There's no world where the failures of this game are the devs fault, even the fact that it's buggy as fuck is a function of it not having enough time to bake because of pressure to get it out the door after years of wasted investment chasing some weird aimless metaverse concept before they pivoted to this.
Oh and if you think game devs in Edinburgh UK are getting paid anywhere near even game devs in London or any state in the US then I have a bridge to sell you.
I have sympathy for the workers here being burned and mismanagement for years, because most came in passionate and eager to work with Lezlie (because of his name) and to make great games.
I don't really understand the idiots here celebrating long working hours too. Working anymore than 36 hours per week when you're getting paid shit is not something to celebrate. If you're in finance you'll get paid about double what these lot would get even for entry level jobs (I know this because I was a pro games dev for nearly a decade and doubled my salary moving into finance overnight).
Shit money for long hours doing something you love is tolerable, but in a toxic working culture where the leadership are inept and simply won't listen to the team or given them enough space to make the right decisions for the project or let them do their best work, is simply not for many and that's not something that any sane or reasonable person should scorn.
Too many miserable people desperate to project their own misery onto others around here.
Go for a walk or something for fuck's sake
It's well known the management here were incompetent narcissists, who took in hundreds of millions of dollars in funding based on their names, to try to make an "everything" game, fucked it all up because they had no vision, and then had to scramble back down to earth and try to make a GTA clone in not enough time required to do it properly, with zero regard or leadership skills to run a team that size.
There's no world where the failures of this game are the devs fault, even the fact that it's buggy as fuck is a function of it not having enough time to bake because of pressure to get it out the door after years of wasted investment chasing some weird aimless metaverse concept before they pivoted to this.
Oh and if you think game devs in Edinburgh UK are getting paid anywhere near even game devs in London or any state in the US then I have a bridge to sell you.
I have sympathy for the workers here being burned and mismanagement for years, because most came in passionate and eager to work with Lezlie (because of his name) and to make great games.
I don't really understand the idiots here celebrating long working hours too. Working anymore than 36 hours per week when you're getting paid shit is not something to celebrate. If you're in finance you'll get paid about double what these lot would get even for entry level jobs (I know this because I was a pro games dev for nearly a decade and doubled my salary moving into finance overnight).
Shit money for long hours doing something you love is tolerable, but in a toxic working culture where the leadership are inept and simply won't listen to the team or given them enough space to make the right decisions for the project or let them do their best work, is simply not for many and that's not something that any sane or reasonable person should scorn.
Too many miserable people desperate to project their own misery onto others around here.
Go for a walk or something for fuck's sake
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
This.
Talent and dedication are no match for incompetent management. You (the employee) just cannot win.
TheThreadsThatBindUs
Member
Sounds like shitty management with no direction.
I feel for the dev team. Bad games are virtually ALWAYS the product of poor management. Especially in this industry.
I feel for the dev team. Bad games are virtually ALWAYS the product of poor management. Especially in this industry.
Wildebeest
Member
If you want people to work like that they have to believe in the concept of what they are working on and feel that they will be rewarded for giving it everything.
BattleScar
Member
So then what about the executives who run the company and made orders of magnitude more money than these devs who were doing their jobs?
You can't on the one hand lay blame on the workers for a bad job and claim they "stole" their wages/salary because of a bad product, but when a product is good and successful hand all the credit (and the vast majority of the money) to the executives.
Bad products are almost always the result of bad leadership.