Excited_48r Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 No wonder we don't have info read this really insightful article scroll down to R* http://kotaku.com/5940672/pissed-off-emplo...eo-game-company Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audiophile Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 The part I am sure everyone is most interested in: Rockstar Games Company Overview Average Rating: 3.3 ("OK") "Organized chaos," written by a former employee on July 9, 2011. Cons – * There is a feeling of "perpetual crunch". Lots and lots of milestones with fancy names. Each one is treated like it's the most important milestone ever. Except it's not, and when one is over, it's on to the next one that is coming up in a month's time. * Very muddy vision. The higher ups probably know what they want, but it is communicated very poorly to the staff. * Management works late, and think that others follow their schedule too. No, we don't. People have lives. Don't dump work on us an hour before the end-of-day. * Chaotic production pipeline. Changes are often made on things that you thought were already done, resulting in old work being scrapped. This can be very demoralizing. * Rockstar likes to focus on one game at a time. That means if you're working on a project that's not coming out soon, it is left to meander aimlessly for 2 to 3 years. When whatever other focus game is released, attention will finally be brought to your project. * Work environment can sometimes be too casual. You can disappear for a 1 hour smoke break and no one would care. Very rarely do people get called for it, and bad habits are left to grow worse. * New York controls everything. If they want something changed, you have to do it. Decisions made by local management will get overruled. Something that was approved by your boss 6 months ago will all of a sudden have to be redone because of New York. * Multiple bosses on one project. Too many cooks in the kitchen with clashing opinions, resulting in work having be redone over and over again. * The game engine is buggy, and lots of things can and do go wrong. When they do, it can tack on 2 or 3 extra hours to your workday. Advice to Senior Management – * Invest in a pre-production period. Hammer out everything you want. This will prevent changes having to be made right in the middle of production, and cut your 7 year production periods by at least half. * Develop a real-time game editor. The way game levels are being created right now is simply too time consuming. * Encourage a good work-life balance. Set realistic schedules for workers and follow them. * Stand up to New York when they make inane decisions. They are not always right. * Recruit senior staff. Stop relying on junior hires just because they're cheaper. Some of the departments are under-performing because of lack of experience amongst the workers. "Work for RockStar to feel like a looser [sic]," written by a former employee of Rockstar's NYC HQ on December 27, 2008. Cons – * This place is a real drag on your health, confidence and personal life. * You can like it for being a real challenge but be prepared to hate what you love doing. * Half of the people don't know what they are doing, which makes it difficult to work and express yourself as a real professional. * Your chat logs are being scanned and read by live personnel and your managers in real time. Security cameras are all over and management is known to abuse such resources. * Full-time employees get run down and pressured to work 50-80 hours on the weekly basis. People start to smoke, get fat and start loosing [sic] hair 2 months into the job. The place is really stressful. Intel i5-4590 3.3GHz | EVGA GTX 1080 SC 8GB | 16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM | MSI Z97 G-45Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD and Samsung 850 EVO 500GB SSD | Audioengine A2 Speakers Corsair K70 RGB Rapidfire | Corsair M65 Mouse | Fractal Design R5 Case | EVGA G2 850WAudio-Technica M50x Headphones and Sennheiser HD 558 | LG 34UC88 1440p Ultrawide Curved Monitor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hvitdverg Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 interesting read! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
police rights Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Rockstar Games Company Overview Average Rating: 3.3 ("OK") "Organized chaos," written by a former employee on July 9, 2011. Cons – * There is a feeling of "perpetual crunch". Lots and lots of milestones with fancy names. Each one is treated like it's the most important milestone ever. Except it's not, and when one is over, it's on to the next one that is coming up in a month's time. * Very muddy vision. The higher ups probably know what they want, but it is communicated very poorly to the staff. * Management works late, and think that others follow their schedule too. No, we don't. People have lives. Don't dump work on us an hour before the end-of-day. * Chaotic production pipeline. Changes are often made on things that you thought were already done, resulting in old work being scrapped. This can be very demoralizing. * Rockstar likes to focus on one game at a time. That means if you're working on a project that's not coming out soon, it is left to meander aimlessly for 2 to 3 years. When whatever other focus game is released, attention will finally be brought to your project. * Work environment can sometimes be too casual. You can disappear for a 1 hour smoke break and no one would care. Very rarely do people get called for it, and bad habits are left to grow worse. * New York controls everything. If they want something changed, you have to do it. Decisions made by local management will get overruled. Something that was approved by your boss 6 months ago will all of a sudden have to be redone because of New York. * Multiple bosses on one project. Too many cooks in the kitchen with clashing opinions, resulting in work having be redone over and over again. * The game engine is buggy, and lots of things can and do go wrong. When they do, it can tack on 2 or 3 extra hours to your workday. Advice to Senior Management – * Invest in a pre-production period. Hammer out everything you want. This will prevent changes having to be made right in the middle of production, and cut your 7 year production periods by at least half. * Develop a real-time game editor. The way game levels are being created right now is simply too time consuming. * Encourage a good work-life balance. Set realistic schedules for workers and follow them. * Stand up to New York when they make inane decisions. They are not always right. * Recruit senior staff. Stop relying on junior hires just because they're cheaper. Some of the departments are under-performing because of lack of experience amongst the workers. "Work for RockStar to feel like a looser [sic]," written by a former employee of Rockstar's NYC HQ on December 27, 2008. Cons – * This place is a real drag on your health, confidence and personal life. * You can like it for being a real challenge but be prepared to hate what you love doing. * Half of the people don't know what they are doing, which makes it difficult to work and express yourself as a real professional. * Your chat logs are being scanned and read by live personnel and your managers in real time. Security cameras are all over and management is known to abuse such resources. * Full-time employees get run down and pressured to work 50-80 hours on the weekly basis. People start to smoke, get fat and start loosing [sic] hair 2 months into the job. The place is really stressful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alenko Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Place must be killing the R* employee's mentally, and physically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gevans81 Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Am I the only one who thinks this is more bull sh*t? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excited_48r Posted September 5, 2012 Author Share Posted September 5, 2012 I could never work there it's like burgerking they don't give a sh*t about employees but consumer love to eat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theworldfamous Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 ye olde news... they took that from the Rockstar spouse blog. Rockstar sounds like one of the better ones.. poor management means more freedom and at least you can take one hour smoke breaks like I'm used to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rere1love Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Wow dude went in on R* but hey no matter where you work there are always going to be issues whether you like them or you don't at the end of the day you have to dew you what can you dew to be more productive during the day get your job done then go home complaining that work loads get tossed to him before he goes home well that happens all the time working in different enviornments only thing I can say is good luck find what works for him.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
police rights Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 didn't they have problems when they were working on red dead redemption as well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZAZEL Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Sounds like any other company. Hell, things are quite much like that at my workplace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rere1love Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Sounds like any other company. Hell, things are quite much like that at my workplace. "hello" aint that the truth it happens every where Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alenko Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 I could never work there it's like burgerking they don't give a sh*t about employees but consumer love to eat High class burger kind, sir. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theworldfamous Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 I don't get how a workplace can be too casual.. ? If that's a problem, wear a suit to work and it's fixed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeJoeMcTwist Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 doesn't explain why we don't have info. Just explains thats its stressful to work for rockstar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stoic Intrusion Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 You called for me my son? how can i help? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excited_48r Posted September 5, 2012 Author Share Posted September 5, 2012 The Security camera and live Management monitoring explains alot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MosquitoSmasher Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 The article claims people don't know what they are doing and what not. If that were the case, i don't think Rockstar's games would always be top notch....but they are...weird, really weird. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kj2022 Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 The article claims people don't know what they are doing and what not. If that were the case, i don't think Rockstar's games would always be top notch....but they are...weird, really weird. I think they're just saying that with so many inexperienced workers, the more experienced get asked for help more often so their own work takes more time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xUSMC SSGTx Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 ummm excited? You're aware you spelled "Jesus" with a "Z", right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IM_YOUR_GOD Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Things have gotten much better. RDR was a big steak that had a lot of fat. Gta v is the prime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daley86 Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 who cares Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MosquitoSmasher Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Things have gotten much better. RDR was a big steak that had a lot of fat. Gta v is the prime. I sure hope so man. Cause this article ain't anything to be happy about. I was aware of the very angry Rockstar employee's spouses and the letter they wrote around the time of RDR. But i didn't know it was still going on, you'd think there would be some kind of board who goes to check out how the working conditions are there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stoic Intrusion Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 The article claims people don't know what they are doing and what not. If that were the case, i don't think Rockstar's games would always be top notch....but they are...weird, really weird. it really depends what you mean by top notch in terms of gameplay/programming R* is not top notch what so ever. It kind of changed with RDR and Max Payne tho before that programming was really not a strong asset of the R* studios in particular R* north they were always inferior to many other devs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johan Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Holy crap, this is extremely different of what I thought it was like over there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theworldfamous Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Things have gotten much better. RDR was a big steak that had a lot of fat. Gta v is the prime. I sure hope so man. Cause this article ain't anything to be happy about. I was aware of the very angry Rockstar employee's spouses and the letter they wrote around the time of RDR. But i didn't know it was still going on, you'd think there would be some kind of board who goes to check out how the working conditions are there? This was all taken from that letter and the comment section on that blog. So if anything represent the situation at R* San Diego a couple of years ago seen through the eyes of a bunch of disgruntled employees. The low pay, impossible hours and incompetent (and possibly drug-addled) middle-management are a given in any part of the entertainment industry. A lot of kids these days want to be designers and artists, but they can't stomach the work. Working on the lower rungs of production is not something you want to do for a long time. You either move up or you move out. But again.. this is all taken from that one blog. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cidamelo Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Maybe Zee was right, they drink too much whisky! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyfa Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Well yeah obviously it's going to be stressful working for one of the only game developers that introduce something revolutionary and original to every project they create. You think this is Treyarch son? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MosquitoSmasher Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 The article claims people don't know what they are doing and what not. If that were the case, i don't think Rockstar's games would always be top notch....but they are...weird, really weird. it really depends what you mean by top notch in terms of gameplay/programming R* is not top notch what so ever. It kind of changed with RDR and Max Payne tho before that programming was really not a strong asset of the R* studios in particular R* north they were always inferior to many other devs. I wasn't aware of that. I always considered the GTA games and Bully as top notch products. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wwinterj Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Interesting read. One thing I don't get though is if R* work on one project at a time how can they have a game out every year for the past 3 years? They must be working on more than one project at a time. As for the rest this just boils down to employees moaning about there job. A job that they wanted and still want. A job they are lucky to have. Not many people like there job so that's nothing new. Sorry but if you don't like the heat get out of the kitchen! To many employees moan about there job, that they work all the time and have no life and how the boss stands over them with a whip. Many are out of work so they would be happy to take your place if you can't handle it. My heart bleeds for them. First world problems. -end rant- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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