81–90 of 178 posts
I'm a big fan of the series, but I decided to sit this one out until a PS4 / GTA V bundle comes out -- The game doesn't seem to look any better than GTA IV on PS3 and I don't want to feel like I'm playing yet another GTA IV expansion pack for the coming years. (I just recently finished all three GTA IV story lines. I'm not a huge player anymore) Another thing of note about why GTA IV looks so much better than GTA 3 i…
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If you don't know about Rockstar then don't comment. This is a great game and it really appears that the developers have put their everything in building it. Sometimes people want to work hard to make sure their output is a success. It is not always about 40hrs work week. A great company is one which creates a culture to build impressive products and where employees feel motivated to be a part of it. I am not saying…
For Red Dead Redemption, wives of the developers has written several open letters to show the world the horrible condition their husbands were facing. You can easily find this story, like on Gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RockstarSpouse/20100107/4032/...
I can only speak to anecdotal evidence, but I've hired several engineers who previously worked at Rockstar in the UK and haven't heard anything outside of the ordinary.
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I don't know about Rockstar, but from what I've heard from game developers from big studios, they're driven like slaves. Crunch time, unpaid overtime, wages that are not paid on time, etc etc. It's easier to be on time and on budget if you break rules like 8 hour days and proper remuneration of the workforce.
If you don't know about Rockstar then don't comment. This is a great game and it really appears that the developers have put their everything in building it. Sometimes people want to work hard to make sure their output is a success. It is not always about 40hrs work week. A great company is one which creates a culture to build impressive products and where employees feel motivated to be a part of it. I am not saying…
Consider this situation: You've spent most of your life training yourself as a game developer, only to find out that every company you'd like to work for will drive you like a slave. 50+ hours per week is not merely an option, but a necessity if you want to remain competitive. And since everyone wants to be a game developer, that means your salary is less than in other types of compsci jobs.
So, that culture stuff you're speaking of? It's bullshit. Ultimately it's a method of getting you to do the bidding of others. It's not about you at all. No one is looking out for you, and while you may feel like you're part of a team, that team has no loyalty to you. If you stop performing at peak level for even a couple months then your prospects will be severely harmed.
Employees get to feel proud they've literally sacrificed part of their life to help someone else succeed. And you're supporting pervasive lawbreaking in the name of "that's just what it takes"!
If game companies are finding it hard to recruit talent, well, that's probably because people are finally wise to their ways. You won't find anyone who was more in love with the idea of being a game developer than I was, but the reality of the industry is abhorrent. The shared culture has utterly decimated any hope of work-life balance in the gamedev industry in the US. My options were to work elsewhere or to move overseas. And by working elsewhere I get more cash, get to work on problems that are more interesting, and I learn more.
European developers seem to have figured out how to develop next-gen games without any of the bullshit methods of control you've described. Maybe US companies should start caring how.
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For Red Dead Redemption, wives of the developers has written several open letters to show the world the horrible condition their husbands were facing. You can easily find this story, like on Gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RockstarSpouse/20100107/4032/...
So Rockstar San Diego is 100% male then?
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So Rockstar San Diego is 100% male then?
Have you entirely missed the point?
So either it is 100% male OR the female staff are either unmarried or do not have the same complaints.
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If you don't know about Rockstar then don't comment. This is a great game and it really appears that the developers have put their everything in building it. Sometimes people want to work hard to make sure their output is a success. It is not always about 40hrs work week. A great company is one which creates a culture to build impressive products and where employees feel motivated to be a part of it. I am not saying…
For Red Dead Redemption, wives of the developers has written several open letters to show the world the horrible condition their husbands were facing. You can easily find this story, like on Gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RockstarSpouse/20100107/4032/...
I'm a big fan of the series, but I decided to sit this one out until a PS4 / GTA V bundle comes out -- The game doesn't seem to look any better than GTA IV on PS3 and I don't want to feel like I'm playing yet another GTA IV expansion pack for the coming years. (I just recently finished all three GTA IV story lines. I'm not a huge player anymore) Another thing of note about why GTA IV looks so much better than GTA 3 i…
I played GTA IV for about a week prior to getting this game on the same console/TV. I used to play it on a 12 inch SD screen so I thought it looked great but it's the first time I have played it on a 32" HD display and it looks pretty bad. The depth of field makes blurred regions look like a bad painting. It looks horrible. After playing GTA V for a few hours, the graphics are miles apart even if it's not entirely apparent at first :)
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The quoted average salary is not the cost of employing someone though, there are always significant on costs.
Rockstar north is based in Scotland, so it's not going to be that high ;)
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If you don't know about Rockstar then don't comment. This is a great game and it really appears that the developers have put their everything in building it. Sometimes people want to work hard to make sure their output is a success. It is not always about 40hrs work week. A great company is one which creates a culture to build impressive products and where employees feel motivated to be a part of it. I am not saying…
Man, you have swallowed every last drop of the koolaid they're selling you. Consider this situation: You've spent most of your life training yourself as a game developer, only to find out that every company you'd like to work for will drive you like a slave. 50+ hours per week is not merely an option, but a necessity if you want to remain competitive. And since everyone wants to be a game developer, that means your s…
> Employees get to feel proud they've literally sacrificed part of their life to help someone else succeed.
Your tone suggests outrage but you're just describing the nature of competition. You are agreeing to trade your time and skills for money. "Getting you to do the bidding of others" is a cynical way to put it, but if a certain type of team building yields good results why would a company not go down that path? Of course you're going to be replaced if the you aren't producing the results you were hired for, this is the nature of competition. There is no fair or unfair. Employees are not sacrificing part of their life for someone else, they're trading their time to someone else. No one is forcing anyone to be a game developer.
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I don't know about Rockstar, but from what I've heard from game developers from big studios, they're driven like slaves. Crunch time, unpaid overtime, wages that are not paid on time, etc etc. It's easier to be on time and on budget if you break rules like 8 hour days and proper remuneration of the workforce.
Yes, but much harder to create such a strong brand that people are actually willing to be "ripped off" of time and wages. I cannot comment on quality of work for Rockstar tho.
If you're offered a bottom-level job at a great studio, these are often presented as a stepping stone to said dream, so many people end up there and stay until they're drained.
Again, I can't testify that this is the case for Rockstar, but I know it's the case with some other major studio's.