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Former 343i Employee speaks out about Halo Infinite (Crunch, game over ambitious, cut content...) and Schreier has a story about 343i coming up

Crunch fucking sucks and I don't understand why anyone would defend it. Stop sucking off billion dollar companies who couldn't care less about you.

Btw. the 2 or 3 times a month where you work an hour overtime is not crunch....

Just so you know, depending on the kind of job, you may always run into those cases where you feel you might have to put in a lot of extra time. It may not be some mandate from higher ups that you do so either. I, for example, am not an asshole of a boss where I work, so paid leave for family time and emergencies is something I basically pushed upper levels for everyone to have, because I have serious banked capital at work, and rather than use it for myself, I used it for better work conditions and better pay. I also push for reasonable time to get a task or project done, even longer than I expect it will take to get the job done a lot of times, usually telling corporate that a portion of that time is why each of the things we do never meets with problems and are consistently done to spec or client needs.

Then... I tell our team the REAL time for completion, which is often 3 or 4 months, sometimes more, less time than what I told corporate it would take for us to get the job done. So when it gets done corporate looks at my management and my team's execution as excellent and "milestone beating." Even with all of this I will still find a few people still doing more than they need to late into the hours. I'll ask where they are, how many more do they plan on doing for the night. If I think it's a little too much I'll ask if there's a reason they want to get it done faster. Some family stuff coming up? Some personal chill or relax time they need to kick back a bit? Depending on the answer, I'll use my discretion and say okay, or I'll say "No way, don't want you burning yourself out, we got plenty of time to get this part done. Others are more up against it than you are with your part of the job, so you can afford yourself a little extra time." Sometimes even after I say all this, they'll still ask if they can stay and work.

Shit, sometimes people don't want to be at home for whatever reason. I don't pry. I just say okay, cool, and keep it moving.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
I' m not sure why you decided that he was talking about "occasional overtime", because the only thing that I read is people working till early in the morning in a period of time of a few year. I can see nothing about how occasional or common this situation was, so I don't see how define if this was crunch or not .
Sure.. which again, jumping to calling it "crunch" like the people spreading the click-bait rumor are doing has no real bearing.

"Some people experienced overtime in the last few years"...that's all their statement said. We don't know why, whether they volunteered, etc.

Need way more context/info before anyone should jump to the "crunch" conclusion.
 

NullZ3r0

Banned
If you want to read takes by disgruntled ex-employees, Glassdoor should satisfy your fix. I couldn't care less.
 

Miles708

Member
I've been working as an electrician on F35 hangars and 2 fuel farms all on the same military base for the last 6 years, towards the end of every project, we've had to ramp up production to get it delivered. This "crunch" shit isn't relegated to only videogames, it's part of any production job that has timelines/deadlines to meet. Things pop up last minute that MUST be addressed. And yes, it sucks, pulling 60 hours weeks for a few months, but I know I could quit and go get another job anytime as my field is high demand, but I(and I assume most production-based workers) like to see my work finished through and feel proud when it's all done. It's not the bosses fault completely that we have to put in the extra time, it's the fact that things(specs, requirements, expectations) shift in the process of making something and they can't all be planned for ahead of time. It's just a natural part of the job. You or others can get mad at it, it won't change anything. The only way you could mitigate ANY kind of crunch is to literally get rid of delivery dates. Which would then lead to HUGE production problems.
First of all, dude that's an awesome job.
That said:
I can get it if it's occasional, but as you say you have to crunch for months on every deadline. That's part of the job.

What I'm getting at is the thought that your bosses are either bad at estimating deadlines (which is kinda sorta their job) or account for your crunch from the start, like some big companies account for the price of "fines" as the cost of doing business.
That's what I don't like.
 
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clarky

Gold Member
I also work as an electrician (site manager) like Krappadizzle, and whilst I'm not defending long working hours (they suck of course) sometimes there's really nothing you can do about it. Alot of work generally comes towards the end of a contract or when unforeseen issues crop up and simply throwing more bodies at it to keep the hours down simply doesn't work. You need the people who know the job and give a shit to unfortunately go the extra mile. Nobody is ever asked to do something I wouldn't do (or haven't done in the past ), but if the firm is facing a hefty fine for missing a deadline then I'd hope everyone onsite would be willing to muck in when needed. After all, if you do well, then the firm does well, then that means more contracts and more work for everyone involved thus more money and security. It's not rocket science. Is it Ideal? obviously not.


Sounds like making a game is a nightmare, and making a good game is almost impossible. Hopefully the crunch is real and 343i bring the goods come September.:messenger_winking:
That's not normal, i'm sorry. I also love my job and sometimes i have to do these crazy stints. Ignoring that is bad practice doesn't really make you look good or a fantastic worker either. Either is you fucking up or management, if you need to work overtime, something is not right.

I find it very hard to justify especially in this business line (gaming), people can wait for the game, that or grow up and behave like adults, because everyone knows it's not the 12 year olds taking to the forums, twitter etc. to cry and complain because a game is late, leading to this crazy crunch stints easily avoidable.
 
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Loope

Member
I also work as an electrician (site manager) like Krappadizzle, and whilst I'm not defending long working hours (they suck of course) sometimes there's really nothing you can do about it. Alot of work generally comes towards the end of a contract or when unforeseen issues crop up and simply throwing more bodies at it to keep the hours down simply doesn't work. You need the people who know the job and give a shit to unfortunately go the extra mile. Nobody is ever asked to do something I wouldn't do (or haven't done in the past ), but if the firm is facing a hefty fine for missing a deadline then I'd hope everyone onsite would be willing to muck in when needed. After all, if you do well, then the firm does well, then that means more contracts and more work for everyone involved thus more money and security. It's not rocket science. Is it Ideal? obviously not.


Sounds like making a game is a nightmare, and making a good game is almost impossible. Hopefully the crunch is real and 343i bring the goods come September.:messenger_winking:
You might've quoted my post again by mistake. See, your situation, Krappadizzle and mine i can easily understand the need for crunch, after all we're talking about essential stuff. Gaming, much like smartphones etc. i see as luxury stuff, so i don't see the need to constantly overwork people, because of bad management. I think it's the way we perceive the product. I will work this weekend because monday, this shit has to be on site so the construction team doesn't sit on their ass. And i spent sometime of the day waiting for the latest revision from the architect, which has his team overworked. But this is absolutely necessary, i just don't see gaming like that. :)
 
I also work as an electrician (site manager) like Krappadizzle, and whilst I'm not defending long working hours (they suck of course) sometimes there's really nothing you can do about it. Alot of work generally comes towards the end of a contract or when unforeseen issues crop up and simply throwing more bodies at it to keep the hours down simply doesn't work. You need the people who know the job and give a shit to unfortunately go the extra mile. Nobody is ever asked to do something I wouldn't do (or haven't done in the past ), but if the firm is facing a hefty fine for missing a deadline then I'd hope everyone onsite would be willing to muck in when needed. After all, if you do well, then the firm does well, then that means more contracts and more work for everyone involved thus more money and security. It's not rocket science. Is it Ideal? obviously not.


Sounds like making a game is a nightmare, and making a good game is almost impossible. Hopefully the crunch is real and 343i bring the goods come September.:messenger_winking:
I work long hours a lot as well, this is common for successful companies and is often the reason they’re successful. Half the time people aren’t required to do so, but there are usually incentives for working long hours.
 

Wimbledon

Member
It's always good to be reminded to never have faith in 343i. Don't get me wrong I'd like them to get a WIN! Jason Statham is there, he sings praises for this game so if im going to believe anybody on that team it's him.

But I feel like it's always one step in the right direction but then 5 steps back because of bad decisions. I will always give 343i a thumbs up for what they've contributed to the Halo extended universe but beyond that I really am just tired.

They can never get it right the first time, it takes an uproar from the community to get their attention and it's tiring and it's just frustrating.

Honestly Halo Infinite doesn't need to be a masterpiece but it absolutely needs to be a great or an amazing game! IF ITS NONE OF THOSE THINGS, then a lot people's heads need to be on the chopping block! STARTING WITH THE PERSON BELOW........

iu


Frankie and Kiki included
 
As a big Halo fan I'm really concerned about Infinite. The gameplay looks good, but there's just been a lot of negative talk and rumors about this project. Sadly in most cases when problems occur it tends to be a bad outcome (experiences and just bad gut feeling) But I really do hope that it turns out good and that the game be successful.

Do you guys think we will get a beta before the release? Didn't they say it was going to be one?
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
We have to see more from Halo Infinite there were times last year we thought it was getting released Sony smells blood in the water with every delay with their relationship with gurellua games they could reposition Killzone has the halo killer.
 

stickkidsam

Member
I would agree with you but your initial sentence is the problem. Where are these horrible abuses? Where are these shitty working conditions?

like I said it’s not a factory job. Usually software projects are very light at the start and only get heavy at the end. These people are not tied to a desk 24 / 7. Lots of meetings about how things are going to go. So you have months of doing very little and months of having to really work.

I’ve been In software development for over 25 years now and I have yet to see any sweat shop situation like you guys believe is going on.
The issue here then might be what we see as shitty work conditions. You're right that you're unlikely to find any sweat shops in the games industry. To my mind however, shitty work conditions include the mental and emotional toll being put on devs, QA in particular. I don't have a ton of experience in the industry. Hell, the experience I did have was with a fantastic company that worked to ensure we didn't suffer from crunch. However hearing other game devs talk about the expectations put on them and the toll it takes on their personal lives is enough for me. Working some extra hours here and there is one thing, but when you have industry vets like Marty O'Donnell (who admits that SOME crunch is necessary) talking about seeing lives break down due to the unspoken but very real expectations of crunch I just don't see how you can disagree that there needs to be some change.

It's great that you're doing so well. Nevertheless, passion should not be abused and this is a field ripe with people who want to put forth their best to makes games that are great. It's especially shitty for contract workers in QA. I worked with a solid company and even they had to let us know that we might have massive lay offs due to our contract not being renewed despite our best efforts. Yeah you need to meet deadlines, but maybe deadlines need to be reexamined so devs can reasonably meet them.
 
In little over a month we will see exactly how far Halo infinite has come since July last year, I'm hopeful we will see a big improvement across the board. I'm also confident they'll show some big setpiece moments from the campaign, instead of showing some run of the mill combat we saw back in July. Even if you disregard the fact that the footage was pretty rough visually. Who decided to show that segment of gameplay? It was literally a normal Halo firefight you'd find hundreds of times in previous Halo's. Let's see multiple vehicles, marines, ODST vs 20 to 30 enemies.
 
So it's no longer open world?

Halo probably should have quit while it's ahead, when I replayed Halo 3 last year it felt like just about the most conclusive ending to a story in video games I've ever seen seen and yet they kept going.

For me it felt like a series that was finished which is why I've yet to play anything beyond 3 save for Reach, I hope Infinite really is a comeback for the series though and makes continuing it worth it.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
So it's no longer open world?

Halo probably should have quit while it's ahead, when I replayed Halo 3 last year it felt like just about the most conclusive ending to a story in video games I've ever seen seen and yet they kept going.

For me it felt like a series that was finished which is why I've yet to play anything beyond 3 save for Reach, I hope Infinite really is a comeback for the series though and makes continuing it worth it.

Where are you getting that its no longer open world?
 
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