Gameloft Pushing Staff into 120-hr Work Weeks?

[exfileme]

Contractors and employees are pushed into working 100 to 150 hour weeks claims a former head studio programmer.

Gameloft Pushing Staff into 120-hr Work Weeks? : Read more

 

[Guest]

First thing they need is a good lawyer. Second is to all just walk out when they were scheduled to.

 

[Guest]

This is why unions are formed

 

[bustapr]

Shows those people really dont know how to run a business responsibly. Tired and depressed workers lower quality, and everyone knows that. Theyre just asking for a boycott, or (if like usa) government intervention.

 

[Necroline]

Since there is only a total of 168 hours in a week I find it rather hard to believe that someone has actually worked close to 90% of that time (and lived to tell about it).
/Necroline, Denmark.

 

[bystander]

This is not surprising. I've talked to a number of game programmers, and it's generally expected for them to work 80 hour weeks. It's easy to see some companies going even further.

There was a time I considered the field, but not after hearing how tough it is.

 

[Khimera2000]

well, that's a sing of a dead company. They can push there talent all they want, they can say they can leave all they want... my question is what will the company do when its found that no one will work for them except desperate crappy talent?

 

[killerclick]

That's why I run my own business. If clients need something yesterday, I tell them to call me two weeks ago. As for my employees, I don't want them working overtime, I want them being awesome at their jobs.

 

[spentshells]

80 hours a week of coding ? Wow I'm spent after 8 minutes

 

[dgingeri]

I'm certainly going to boycott Gameloft. Of course, I already was because they make crappy games. I'm just advising it to others now because of work conditions. Companies who mainly contract in order to abuse employees (I've had major experience in this) shouldn't be given business.

 

[Guest]

Well, Time to boy cott

 

[aaron88_7]

This is another reason why ALL US BUSINESSES should be required to have a union.

If republicans could have their way all businesses would treat their employees the way Gameloft does to theirs.

 

[killerclick]

[citation][nom]aaron88_7[/nom]This is another reason why ALL US BUSINESSES should be required to have a union.[/citation]

And it's a good thing they can't hire offshore Indian programmers... oh wait they can.

 

[zambonithug]

These working conditions go a long way explaining why Assassin's Creed was just 15 minutes of the same gameplay looped over several titles, endless missions.

 

[dgingeri]

[citation][nom]aaron88_7[/nom]This is another reason why ALL US BUSINESSES should be required to have a union.If republicans could have their way all businesses would treat their employees the way Gameloft does to theirs.[/citation]

Are you kidding me?!?! Unions support the lazy and the incompetent. They solve nothing. If anything, a union would just cripple the company until it collapses.

As for the Republicans supposedly wanting all companies to treat their employees this way, think again. Republicans, like me, believe people should get what they work for, and work for what they get. If someone is not getting what they're working for, they should quit, like I did when I was in that situation. If someone is not working for what they get, they should be fired. Plain and simple. a company can't treat people that way if they can't keep people around. Any company will collapse if they can't get employees to actually do the work. That's the biggest power you have over them, if you do the job well.

(You can ask The Duchossois Group about their local computer support problems. When I worked for them back in 1998, I was the only one answering the phones for 100-130 calls per day, constant with a queue of 4-5 calls on the phone, for their helpdesk. I had just enough time to take down a description of the problem and forward it on to the one person working on the problems, Granted, most of the problems were linked to very, very substandard hardware, such as the desktop machine they were using as a Lotus Notes server, being down nearly every day. I got sick due to the stress and went into the hospital for a week, to come back and find the helpdesk manager had attempted suicide in his cube while doing my job, and nobody had been answering the phones for the last two days of the week. They even left the blood on the carpet for two weeks after I got back because they were too cheap to get it replaced. a smell complaint by the senior management finally got that done. I walked out a month later. They went through 14 more people in the next year doing my job, and had gone through 6 other people in the 4 months before I took the job. I lasted 6 months. Talk about an evil company to work for. I got yelled and insulted at by senior management multiple times per day, for things that were the fault of their lack of spending on correct equipment and software. I got yelled at multiple times a day by senior management for them doing things I specifically told them NOT to do, like switching around PCMCIA cards on their laptops, and thus creating IRQ conflicts. I bet they still have major problems with staffing their computer support positions. I had similar situations with IBM and a couple other small companies. I boycott their products to this day.)

 

[secolliyn]

[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]And it's a good thing they can't hire offshore Indian programmers... oh wait they can.[/citation]
did you read the article? I'm guessing not as they mention nothing about this studio being in the US at all. I'm just saying if you are really going to comment on an article please read it. And for gods sake if you don't understand it don't comment

 

[laur3ooo]

[citation][nom]v4nquish[/nom]Your logic is laughable. No offense (seriously), but it is. Generalizations like that do nothing productive, and sadly it's become more and more common amongst the multiple 'political' parties. These employees should've left this place of employment long, long, long time ago. Dissatisfied where you work? You have 2 feet, use them. If the job market sucks, having terrible employment is better than no employment. Your employer isn't holding a gun to your head.[/citation]
Actually Germany, and probably a few other (democratic) countries have an almost mandatory union system. And about an employer not holding a (figurative) gun to your head tell that to the people assembling your iPhone at 25-50% the price you would pay if it were manufactured in the US.

 

[theoldgrumpybear]

[citation][nom]Necroline[/nom]Since there is only a total of 168 hours in a week I find it rather hard to believe that someone has actually worked close to 90% of that time (and lived to tell about it)./Necroline, Denmark.[/citation]

Ok quick math 90% of 168 is 151 not 120.
120hours a week is roughly 17hr/day.

I have worked 17hr days for a week or two in a strech (when in startup mode), you can easely loose focus in a weeks time. You deffinetly loose efficiencey well within a week and after two the efficiency loss is to the point where going back to normal working hours is higher efficiency. Of course all this is individual. Some people cant handle a 14 hour day and others can do 2 weeks like this easy. Been there done that...

As employers they are stupid since they probably pay OT for less than regular time efficiency.
Some countries it is illegal to do this (for white collar workers), but if I am not mistaken even Denmark allows for 120hr weeks for short time periods as long as you pay correctly and not pass 2500hr/yr (could have changed since I did business there).

 

[badaxe2]

"Whaaaaawhaaaaaa more more more faster faster faster I want my game now whaaaaa!!!"

That's why they have those kinds of hours.

 

[RabidFace]

[citation][nom]Necroline[/nom]Since there is only a total of 168 hours in a week I find it rather hard to believe that someone has actually worked close to 90% of that time (and lived to tell about it)./Necroline, Denmark.[/citation]
After doing a little bit of math, if working 120 hours a week, that leaves 48 hours for the week in sleep, downtime, etc. Divide that by 7 and you come out with 6.86 hours of non-work time per day. Yes, if there is a day off, that might be a 20 hour work day with 4 hours of sleep, but people do do it. Please tell you are not serious with your comment?

Also, coding is not manual labor, but still very tiring for long periods of time staring at a screen and being on the verge of passing out. I could definitely see it being an issue if you were working construction, etc. for 17 hours a day, but even then, it's done ever day and people live to tell about it.

As for GameLoft, it's simply unacceptable to "force" your employees to meet deadlines and work 20 hour days that bring the quality of your products down. If said person WANTED to stay and keep coding, I don't see a problem with it, as long as it's not affecting his work and gets an extra day off, or compensated in some way. But, there is no compensation for a sub-par game that is made with overworked people, and won't sell well to begin with.

Maybe this is the exact same situation that happened to Socom 4 Over worked people making stupid suggestions to the mic system, gun mechanics, and "hey, lets not release it with a party system. The game will be GREAT".