The human cost of games

This needs to stop.

I came across the article today and believe it is a good read for anyone interested in what goes into making a game. It is a bit lengthy but it is detailed and well written.


To summarise the main points are:


1. "The fear is those at the top have seen how profitable this is working at 150, 200 per cent."

2. "It got to the point where I was napping under my desk. I wasn't the only one."

3. "I see Red Dead Redemption 2 developers putting in 70 or 80 plus hours a week being taken advantage of."

4. "You make billions of dollars. The people at the bottom are being overworked on minimum wage."

5. "It's completely optional but you'll probably be putting your colleagues out if you don't help." (Voluntary overtime that really isn't)


As I am sure everyone and their dogs knows that RDR2 is out today and everyone is excited to start playing it over the weekend. However, how often do we actually sit back and think about the hours and sacrifices that went into making the game?

Crunch is a term that has been used a lot lately due to Telltale's collapse and Dan Houser mentioning last week and from a mental standpoint, i am surprised more suicides haven't been reported because of it.

I would be okay with a game I am anticipating to be delayed by a year if it means that the people working on it don't have this "voluntary overtime" enforced on them and can work normal hours over the course of a week. I understand the need for all hands on deck come the month of release but in RDR2's case this seemed to have happened for an entire year of crunch.

What do you guys think can be done to address the issue? People say boycott the games but the people working on the games sometimes have their salaries and wages attached to how successfully a game sells and the review scores so its a catch 22 situation.

Probably awareness and naming and shaming those devs that do treat there QA teams like dirt. It's not just R* as Naughty Dog, CDPR and EA have all have had accusations of poor working conditions.

Incidentally I live down the road from Rockstar Lincoln in the UK which is where they do the QA.

You want your games to make the street date, be of quality, keep the cost on par, and please the masses? This is how you do it.

This is nothing out of the ordinary in most salaried, non government positions. For management, it’s practically part of the job.

Have you ever visited them? How did it look like?

Agreed, nearly all major developers do this to their employees and until the masses and the media begin to call them out on this nonsense, sadly it will continue. Are game developer workers unionised?

I stated I am fine with the game coming out a year later if it means they don't have to go through these pathetic working conditions. Its not like Rockstar are suffering financially that releasing it a year later would have been fatal for the company.

To answer the second point, it shouldn't be normal. Sleeping under your desk? 80 hour week? There is nothing ordinary about that at all.

I'm sure the employees were well compensated for their overtime work. They likely have incentives in their contract for bonuses when the game hits certain review scores and sales milestones. No one forced them to work 80+ hours a week. They voluntarily did it because they thought the pay was worth it.

I'd be willing to bet 99% of the people who worked on the game are extremely proud of what they accomplished right now. Instead everyone will focus on the 1% that speak out anonymously pretending that they were held hostage by R* against their will until the game was finished.

Spot on.

@Netret0120: work exploitation is by no means exclusive to the gaming industry. Happens everywhere.

How do you keep the cost on par if you got to pay for lots of overtime? Even their productivity decline as well. So you pay more to get less done, just because you have set an unrealistic date.

This is why labor unions were originally formed. Unfortunately, today's unions have become just as overbearing and oppressive as the thing they're supposed to combat.

Agreed, nearly all major developers do this to their employees and until the masses and the media begin to call them out on this nonsense, sadly it will continue. Are game developer workers unionised?

Would the mainstream media and public care about the plight of video game developers than say the plight of factory workers in sweat shops? Also, even if the workers are unionized does not mean they are protected from abuses from their employers, as some unions make things worse for the workers and the company they work for. Teachers' and public service unions are notorious for what they have done to public education and government. Fortunately, most unions are not like that.

I'd be willing to bet 99% of the people who worked on the game are extremely proud of what they accomplished right now. Instead everyone will focus on the 1% that speak out anonymously pretending that they were held hostage by R* against their will until the game was finished.

Beware of annoymous sources as we do not know whether they are credible or not. The fact that there is no transparency in the sources tells that we should take them with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, many people take them for gospel truth.

Let's get children to do it, then. They don't tend do whine as much.

I really have no sympathy for game developers, the profession they are in is their choice for good and bad. They may occasionally do long hours but have you ever been in a game development studio? They are fantastic places to work and they get paid a lot more than minimum wage for it.

I regularly work 70+ hours a week and more often than not I also need to be away from my home and family for many weeks, sometimes months, at a time. On top of that I can guarantee that I get paid a lot less than a wuss in an office moaning about not getting the right amount of cream in his Venti, sugar-free, non-fat, vanilla soy, double shot, decaf, no foam, extra hot, Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha with light whip and extra syrup.

I work in an industry that revolves around budgets and deadlines and it is not fun all the time. The crunch can be real. I can't imagine what developers go through when the stakes are much higher... but i think they all understand what they are getting into. Also between the crunch, work life cant be that bad.

That said, I do see the current game development model not sustainable moving forward. All gamers do is clamor for more power, but that is only as good as the development team that takes advantage of the extra power. With that comes more work and more polish more budget and more hours.... and a lot less risk with new ideas.

Look at FF13 as an example.. the 1st HD FF. The game had a fraction of content of the games that came before it. I remember the developers saying they wanted to add more content to the game... but spent too much time polishing rocks.

The article states that this "voluntary overtime" wasn't really voluntary at all. If you didn't do it, you would be singled out and if you did, you would end up sleeping under your desk.

I am sure they are proud of the review scores as they should be. They need to know these long hours resulted in something good. The article states they earned basic wages but seeing as it is an anonymous source, it could be bogus but I understand why they wouldn't come out publicly.

You wouldn't complain if you worked 80 hour weeks?

Agreed. We gamers are too blame as well. We complain and moan when a game gets delayed to the point social media becomes toxic so more game developers will enforce crunch.

These workers obviously chose to be in the profession but there is nothing ordinary or normal about sleeping under your desk and working 80 hour weeks for a year.

First of all, I know it's been said - but it's the gamers that are to blame. Read through these boards - people completely write off a game if it's not 60fps at top resolution without even giving it a chance The stakes are high. Games used to be a few hours in length. Now we are expecting huge, impactful campaigns with incredibly deep multiplayer, and people don't seem to believe that this stuff takes time to produce. Look what happened with Cyberpunk a few weeks ago. News broke that they stare sticking with a Fp and not developing third person as an option, and people were pissed and said they won't buy it. This stuff takes time and resources, and they have deadline. But people keep asking for more and more.

That being said - I really don't care. I've worked manual labour jobs and have taken on 80 hour workweeks before.

Sad. Developers should look after their own. If that drives the price up or makes games smaller scale, so be it. Breaking the rules/the employees is not the way to go. Where does it end?

I think number 1 in OP is something that happens in all for-profit companies over time. Maybe it happens faster in development studio's. If a company aims to make as much money as possible they will push their employees to the limit. And that is not humane.

If the people in charge/responsible push their employees so hard that they get overworked/burnout/overstressed, they should have the leeway/be sure to lessen the workload because that is not sustainable. And I know some companies found a way around this by cycling through employees so that when they get burned out you simply hire new ones... that is not humane either.

Well, not that I don't think the work conditions suck, but just imagining what their games would be like if their workers only did 40 hour weeks, I mean, people already foam at the mouths over petty stuff even when games are pretty decent, I think today's entitles shitheads would probably have a stroke.