Gaming LA Noire developer responds to accusations of exploiting workers

About 10 years ago, I worked for a small computer retailer as a workshop tech. It started off as being 10-6pm, Monday to Saturday - pretty reasonable hours. Pretty soon that turned into 10am-8pm (store opening hours) - I got paid for the extra time, so that was fine. Not long after, that turned into 10am to 9pm and I got paid overtime for the extra hour. That turned into a 9pm finish with no overtime. Then it turned into a 10pm finish, again without overtime. It wasn't long before I was finishing between 11pm and midnight and coming in at 8am (particularly at Christmas) - without being paid the overtime.

At the time, I didn't really speak up because everybody else working there was in the same boat: two owners and one other workshop tech - we were all working the same hours. I left that place because at the time I felt like I didn't want to do that kind of work forever and felt like it was going nowhere. With hindsight however, I now realise that I was being screwed for all I was worth. The actual work was quite easy and I actually did enjoy it (and still do).

I have no problem in putting in the extra time when necessary - I've done an awful lot of that this year - but I expect that flexibility to go both ways. If my employer wants me to go out of my way to help out, then I expect them to suitably compensate me for it - even if it's only time off in lieu and not actual overtime.

 

Homework for everyone: go and read Chapter 10 of Capital by Karl Marx. It is titled 'The Working Day' and discusses at (great and ponderous) length the reasons why employers are always keen to squeeze as much extra time out of each employee as they can.

Marx was discussing the spinning mills of 19th C England but it applies just the same to a modern software house, to a Foxxconn factory in China or even to anyone of the everyday service industries most of us work in here in the UK. Read it.

 

I particularly like how his own problem was that the Aussie government wasn't cutting him enough tax breaks.

Like I want to subsidise this arrogant *******.

The interesting thing is that we can see how this cycle of *******isation gets perpetuated: McNamara went through **** when he was starting out, and he thinks he's fine, so others have to go through it as well. He even says kids came into Bondi and left as men/women, like this is a rite of passage.

 

Don't like the hours? Quit. Simple.

As a programmer, my hours are never 9-5pm because sh*t happens, and not everything can be put off till the next day to be fixed and taken care of. If a server goes down or someone pushes bad code up and things break, it has to be fixed immediately, no exceptions.

I've pulled all-nighters before, worked through the weekends, worked day/night back to back. It's part of the lifestyle. I'm salaried, but the salary is more than worth the shifting hours and extra work is generally always rewarded with a bonus or something.

 

Yes, but Google don't have the same tight deadlines. Much of what Google is doing is effectively research - it revolves around individuals having good mathematical ideas and putting them into practice.

If you're overworked at a game studio, your output will usually be of a lower quality. If you're overworked at a company like Google, you simply don't have the creative ideas in the first place.