
Wives of Rockstar's San Diego office are up in arms over engineer treatment - rantfoil
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RockstarSpouse/20100107/4032/Wives_of_Rockstar_San_Diego_employees_have_collected_themselves.php
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patio11
_I have taken the liberty of distilling the contents of the letter. I haven't
substantially innovated on the content or structure, so it is still poorly
organized, but hopefully it will be easier to read. Don't be too harsh on the
writer: she may be ESL or have an English degree._

Dear Rockstar Management:

We wives of Rockstar employees are contacting you to address poor conditions
in the San Diego office.

Working conditions have deteriorated since March 2009, to the point where
employees' lives and families are affected by them. The fault lies with
management, though it is probably a result of ignorance rather than malice.
Immediate steps must be taken to improve the office.

Employees have suffered stress-induced illness caused by pressure from work.
Several employees have been diagnosed with depression; at least one with
suicidal tendencies. Rockstar has provided a full-time massuse: this will not
address the causes of the stress and is insulting to employees.

We understand that the video game industry experiences periodic crunch.
Traditionally, teams were offered time to decompress after milestones. This
policy has been abandoned. Managers at the San Diego office have instituted a
de-facto policy of permanent "temporary" crunch. Employees currently work 12
hour days, including on Saturday, regardless of the status of their projects.

This infringment of our rights is unacceptable.

Employees seeking treatment for stress-induced illnesses have been forced to
use leave to do so, because most healthcare providers are not open on Sunday.
Management is dismissive of complaints.

In addition to pervasive crunch, the last year has seen benefits cut. Comp
time and a week of post-Christmas vacation have been eliminated. Medical
benefits have also been cut, which has exacerbated the stress-induced
illnesses. Non-exempt artists and designers have had overtime pay eliminated
on the excuse that they are "too senior" to be non-salaried employees. One
manager cusses.

Our children miss their fathers.

Rockstar customarily pays employees predictable bonuses. The bonuses have
become unpredictable and, when not eliminated for specious reasons, are not
actually _paid_ in a timely fashion after being awarded. Raises have been
below inflation for each of the past four years. Employees have been told that
this is due to Rockstar not being profitable, however, Grand Theft Auto had
over a billion dollars in sales. Rockstar should share the wealth with its
employees.

If working conditions are not improved immediately, we will be forced to sue
Rockstar.

Sincerely,

The Wives

~~~
Estragon
Thanks, that was a lot easier to read.

~~~
phaedrus
The original author would do well to read Strunk & White's
_The_Elements_of_Style_. Using many words does improve communication.

Edit: Sorry, I meant, "using many words does NOT improve communication." (I
guess using few words does not improve communication either if you mistype
them.)

Organizational issues aside, I am moved by the sentiment behind the original
author's words. Fred Brooks compared large programming projects to tar pits,
wherein the thrashing of the largest beast only serves to sink it farther. It
must be terrible to be constantly commanded "thrash harder!"

~~~
InclinedPlane
You know, you could use the edit functionality to actually remove the typo.
I'm pretty sure that's what it's there for.

------
dlytle
In regards to the poor English, I'm fairly confident the author may have been
deliberately attempting to obscure their writing style.

It's very possible that the author feels her husband would not approve of (or
consent to) publishing a criticism of his employers. I can fairly easily
recognize the writing styles of several dozen of my friends, and I'm not
married to any of them.

In any given essay/blog of that length, without employing _deliberate_
obfuscation, someone looking for it would likely be able to spot a
saying/phrase/crutch word that could identify the author.

The excessive use of the thesaurus is a pretty solid indicator that the author
wrote their original draft, then went through and replaced words and phrases
with ones of similar meaning.

For example, I wrote the above naturally, without trying to hide my writing
style. Glance over the above and you'll probably notice; I have a habit of
using indecisive adjectives in statements where I'm not confident that I'm
100% accurate. (Hell, I reflexively did so while writing the sentence talking
about the habit!)

That kind of thing can be as good as a signature. When that signature could
hurt your marriage or your husband's career, looking like a 6th grade poet is
a small price to pay for some insurance.

~~~
lucifer
That sounds like a niche market opportunity: textwash.com?

------
bdr
I really don't understand why they don't quit. Maybe making games is their
dream, but obviously it's not as good as they imagined. Switch to web dev and
find work instantly.

~~~
city41
Or go make their own games? If word got out a bunch of Rockstar employees
broke off and started their own deal, it'd get loads of free hype and press.
Maybe even enough to make it viable. Isn't that pretty much what the original
Diablo team did with Torchlight?

~~~
potatolicious
This phenomenon is actually responsible for practically all of Vancouver's
game industry presence - nearly every shop in town is formed by pissed off ex-
EA employees. It is now almost expected for a junior dev to cut their teeth at
EA, and graduate to one of these studios where they will be treated like human
beings.

------
wallflower
The husband of the EA wife founded <http://gamewatch.org> (a forum for open
discussion of the gaming industry)

The 2004 EA Spouse LiveJournal:

<http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html>

~~~
dws
I'm wondering whether some of the Rock Star Games management got their start
at EA.

~~~
Dobbs
This is standard fare for jobs in the video game industry. The only company
that I've heard of that doesn't do this sorta of crap is valve where it is
limited to about two months before release (The valve information is 2nd
hand).

I know when I worked in the video game industry about 60% of the year we
worked 12+ hour days. We were just testers not even the programmers who were
often there longer.

------
jcnnghm
You should know the score when you go into games programming. There is a lot
of demand for those jobs, so the employers can push harder than they would
otherwise. This is kind of like moving next to an airport then complaining
about the noise.

~~~
cabalamat
> There is a lot of demand for those jobs

Indeed. The problem is that lots of young programmers want ot be game
developers, thinking its a really cool job. The games companies know this, and
fully exploit it, wringing as much work of of employees as they can, while the
employee is still naive and doesn't expect management to be utter cunts. When
the employee wises up, there's always the next generation of mugs to exploit.

How to fix this? I guess the important thing is to get word out that employers
like Rockstar are scum who should be avoided at all costs. (caveat: I've no
direct experience with Rockstar, my impression of them is based on a friend
who used to work for them).

~~~
gaius
_The problem is that lots of young programmers want ot be game developers,
thinking its a really cool job_

There surely must be a limited supply of people who can do the really serious
physics modeling or AI stuff. Are they subject to the same conditions?

I mean, if you can do that, you can quit and go work for a hedge fund as a
quant... Same long hours, 10x the pay, treated like a prize racehorse.

~~~
NikkiA
"There surely must be a limited supply of people who can do the really serious
physics modeling or AI stuff. Are they subject to the same conditions?"

Yes, they are, because there are still more available than needed, and 'the
best' is rarely a trait that games studios look for in hiring.

That said, someone with a SIGGRAPH presentation, or equivalents in AI or
physics, WILL be treated with more respect in the industry. But at the end of
the day, you'll still be a very disposable cog, that works the hours that
management decries, or you're gone.

------
gaius
Having your wife contact your boss does not a strong negotiating position
make.

~~~
berntb
I rather think about the little understanding of game theory I have.

" _Factors outside my control will make me look for other employment in a
short time, unless you give me a better deal._ "

Think of it as the other "player" seeing you throw the steering wheel out of
the car window, when playing Chicken. He knows you can't turn...

~~~
mechanical_fish
Indeed, this very strategy is recommended right up front in _Secrets of Power
Negotiating_ , where it is called the _Higher Authority gambit_.

"You should always have a higher authority with whom you have to check before
you can change your proposal or make a decision. A negotiator who presents
himself as the decision-maker has put himself at a severe bargaining
disadvantage. You have to put your ego on the back burner to do this, but
you'll find it very effective.

"...When the other person knows that you have the final authority to make a
deal, he knows that he only has to convince you... Not so if you are telling
him that you have to answer to a higher authority. Whether you have to get
approval from a region, head office, management, partners, or board of
directors, the other person has to do more to convince you... He knows that he
must completely win you to his side so that you want to persuade your higher
authority to agree to his proposal."

You also buy time to review any proposal that is made, or look for
counteroffers, because that proposal has to be taken away behind the scenes
and shown to the higher authority for approval.

Note, however, that your family isn't the best choice for this: "be sure that
your authority is a vague entity, such as a pricing committee, the people back
at corporate, or the marketing committee. If you tell the other person that
your manager would have to approve it, what's the first thought that they are
going to have? Right: 'Then why am I wasting time talking to you?'..."

Of course, the flip side of that is that a company might find it exceedingly
awkward to demand that your wife come in to work and participate in the
negotiations. Such things are just not done. So the "wife" version of the
gambit does work better than the "manager" version, though nowhere near as
well as the "ambiguous corporate overlords" version.

People often allege -- correctly, I fear -- that some companies prefer to hire
single people rather than people with families. And here we have the reason:
Having a family automatically, perhaps even unconsciously, puts you in a
stronger negotiating position with your employer, not just at the beginning of
the job but day-to-day. "Oh, how I would love to spend the entire weekend
fixing my co-worker's bugs, but my child needs me." If you are a single person
and your employer knows it I encourage you to invent some fictional relatives.
For an astonishingly relevant guide to this, see Wilde, Oscar: _The Importance
of Being Earnest_.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I don't know if I want to get caught inventing fictional relatives, but your
general observation about higher authority is dead on.

Negotiation tactics exist in order for both parties to be able to pressure the
other ones and find out more about their true position without the use of
force. It's a dance -- sometimes a complicated dance, but a dance. You resort
to higher authority, I pull a previously-made concession, you ask for a price,
I give you one, you flinch, etc.

There are lots more tactics than just higher authority, although that is a
good one.

BTW, great book and set of tapes _Secrets of Power Negotiating_. I used to
read/listen to a lot of business books and tapes, and it was one of the few
that really made a difference in my work.

------
motters
This is interesting, because it's working conditions like these which preceded
unionization of workforces in the early 20th century.

When I was made redundant last year they asked if I wanted to have a union
representative present. It's just part of the standard text they have to say
for legal reasons, but as far as I'm aware there are no unions related to
software engineering. This is probably because the industry is still fairly
young.

~~~
jcnnghm
And probably because it's easy to see how thoroughly unionization has thrashed
other industries.

~~~
raganwald
While simultaneously the American economy grew and grew and grew in the
greatest era of prosperity in the history of the world.

Point: Unionization distributed wealth across the economy, building a consumer
society and accelerating growth.

Counter-point: The economy was growing so much for other reasons that it
succeeded in spite of unionization.

 _Discuss_.

~~~
Alex3917
Because of the teachers union the general population is dumb and uneducated.
Because of the automotive unions, we have no decent public transportation. And
because of the doctors union, large swaths of the population have no access to
healthcare and doctors have so little critical thinking ability that it takes
on average seven years to diagnose a disease.

Is it possible that unions made wealth more equally distributed and thus
increased growth? Yes. However, using unions to increase distribution of
wealth is pretty much worst imaginable way to do it.

------
johnyzee
<http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/04/06/>

------
hipsterelitist
You'd think after the EA wives scandal, that some action more meaningful than
a strongly worded letter would be taken.

~~~
potatolicious
The only company that took the EA wives scandal to heart was EA - from what I
hear from people inside it's now a _much_ better place to work than before.

Well, much better than slave work is still kind of shitty, but...

------
malkia
Please read this:

<http://www.indievision.org/?p=1504>

------
blackguardx
Why only wives and no husbands?

Are we still in the '50s? (I mean the 1950s)

~~~
city41
Perhaps because that just happens to be the make up of the company? Nothing
wrong with female devs, but if Rockstar happens to only have male devs, then
yes the wives are going to be the ones complaining.

~~~
chipsy
Game developers(slightly less so publishers) are almost uniformly male-
dominated. Some of it is the internal culture of most companies; some of it is
external motivations and expectations that filter out women at an early stage.
There are occasional efforts to seek a balance in hiring, but the market
really doesn't make it easy.

------
dnsworks
Should we expect anything better from an industry that exists merely to make
us stupid, and further increase add and reduce ability to focus?

------
falsestprophet
It makes my day whenever an intellectual lightweight gets together with a
thesaurus.

~~~
mike463
What's clear to me is like you're inexperienced in life, she's inexperienced
in english.

~~~
falsestprophet
Whomever wrote this is fluent and has idiomatic English. That is the best part
about this: she believes she a gifted poet, but she really should know better.

I stand by my snooty comment.

------
weirdkid
Oh boo hoo. Really. Sounds exactly like every programming job back in the
90's, except these lucky bastards somehow found the time to meet girls, date
them and get married.

