Overtime Now Optional at Rockstar Studio after Allegations of "100-Hour Weeks"

Megalith

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In a New York Magazine article published Sunday, Rockstar Games co-founder and Red Dead Redemption 2 head writer Dan Houser admitted to working “100-hour weeks” this year to wrap up the cowboy title, which features 500,000 lines of dialogue. Being that amounts to 14 hours a day for seven days, it drew a lot of criticism from both fans and industry veterans: a number of Rockstar’s own employees supposedly sent stories confirming the studio’s obsession with overtime. While Houser has clarified his original quote, UK-based Rockstar Lincoln has taken the initiative by moving away from mandatory overtime.

Employees’ stories increased in number in the wake of a remark from company co-founder Dan Houser about working 100-hour weeks at the studio. While Houser later clarified that he was talking about a three-week stint involving himself and other lead RDR2 writers, other current and former employees privately and publicly began sharing their accounts, many of them saying they’d worked well beyond a 40-hour week.
 
100 hour work weeks lol. ive never hit that even during really rocky deployments. you dont have to work like that mr rockstar employee, there are nice companies that want you.
 
100 hour work weeks lol. ive never hit that even during really rocky deployments. you dont have to work like that mr rockstar employee, there are nice companies that want you.

It's also likely not productive work. You only have so much cognitive power until your brain gets depleted and needs to recharge. I know when I work too much and have to think too much in a given period, I start making stupid mistakes or slow down in production.

In a situation where you need that much work to be completed over a compressed schedule, you're better off hiring on more staff and/or adding another shift (if you don't want to double the amount of deskspace/equipment).
 
It's also likely not productive work. You only have so much cognitive power until your brain gets depleted and needs to recharge. I know when I work too much and have to think too much in a given period, I start making stupid mistakes or slow down in production.

In a situation where you need that much work to be completed over a compressed schedule, you're better off hiring on more staff and/or adding another shift (if you don't want to double the amount of deskspace/equipment).
Yup, I've done my stint of stupid long OT and after 12 hours it's a huge diminishing returns result after that. I've done tons of start at 7am and work till 3am to troubleshoot an issue only to give up and come back at 8am and fix the issue in an hour thanks to being able to actually think again.

My record so far is 154 hours in 1 week and never again, spent 6 days on a site never left and only slept in small spurts in my truck to keep going. I now force my company to give me time off/book me hotels instead of working through the night at a job site because you become dangerous to everyone around you if you don't back away.
 
Holy crap that's a lot of OT!

I like putting in extra shifts here and there, but that's just ridiculous. My job prohibits me from working more than 60 hrs per week, but that's another story.
 
So we have a guy that is their LEAD WRITER in a game with an exponentially massive amount of dialogue, who has stakes as a founder of the company working excessive hours. This specific situation/circumstance has been mistaken, misquoted, misunderstood to the point that the peons of the company that work regular weeks/hours are somehow assumed to be working 100 hour weeks. Now the company gets a good on your for instituting the bare minimum acceptable overtime policy of paying their employees for doing their jobs. We are all aware that their are companies killing people to perpetuate their products/bottom line right? how is this trash news
 
Damn, not envying these guys one bit, I stick with my 40 hr weeks (36,25 hrs effective work time not counting coffee breaks & lunchtime, although I do a bit overtime a lot volunteerily so it usually ends up maybe around 42~43 hrs). Flextime is golden I have to say, really enjoy having that and being able to pretty easily decide to go home earlier or go run som errands or whatever in middle of the day. Usually it's not a prob at my workplace, I've even been told to "go home!" numerous times as I tend to work most overtime of our team. :p Every once in a while I can take up to like 3-5 days off due to my racked up overtimes thx to flextime.

Here in Finland we have to take some day offs if we've racked up too many overtime hrs, don't remember exactly what the limit is and how it works precisely. EDIT: seems 138 hrs during 4 months time or 250 hrs yearly and beyond that the employer can allow additional 80 hrs max with agreement.
 
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Damn, not envying these guys one bit, I stick with my 40 hr weeks (36,25 hrs effective work time not counting coffee breaks & lunchtime, although I do a bit overtime a lot volunteerily so it usually ends up maybe around 42~43 hrs).

I stick to 40 hours per week too. If I have big projects with an imminent deadline, I'll put in extra time if needed but that is the exception, not the rule.
 
50-60 is normal. 100 is pretty much bullshit. Sure, the cats might be at work, but no one can do competent work for that long.

Really, maybe the company should be looking at wasted time. I wonder if a few of those hours weren't on an unauthorized nap.
 
At 100 hours your people are useless. Especially in cognitive load jobs like software development. I did them back in the olden days of working myself to death in IT, being outsourced might have been the thing that saved my life looking back. It damned sure saved my marriage and let me build a family with my wife. I build (mostly) log homes now and in construction at 60 hours my people start to make the sort of dumb mistakes the get you maimed or killed. Developers working 100+ hours are going to be spending most of their time making themselves more work fixing the work they already did.
 
I did 3 years of 12 hour days, 7 days a week as a young Engineer with no OT.

I can't fucking imagine why I did that.

I won't do that again, I'll tell you, lol.
You did it to survive to be a senior engineer.
 
100-120 is quite common here per 6 day work week during seeding and harvest
So that leaves 4 hours a day to sleep, eat, shower, poop and whatever else is needed daily. Essentially there would be no way to get more than 3 hours of sleep a day so I think you are exaggerating.
 
No, I went down the table in a Monday morning meeting, told everyone Exactly how I felt about them, and it took them 5 years to find enough to fire me, lol.

I've never felt better in my life. :)
 
At 100 hours your people are useless. Especially in cognitive load jobs like software development. I did them back in the olden days of working myself to death in IT, being outsourced might have been the thing that saved my life looking back. It damned sure saved my marriage and let me build a family with my wife. I build (mostly) log homes now and in construction at 60 hours my people start to make the sort of dumb mistakes the get you maimed or killed. Developers working 100+ hours are going to be spending most of their time making themselves more work fixing the work they already did.
I built a log cabin once. It was fun. I will never do it again.
 
Best part of my job, Union rules disallow mandatory overtime unless we have a emergency order from the City Manager or State Governor. Working that many hours is not productive anyway, your mind will wander. Your always better off to hire people before working someone that many hours anyway.
 
My record was 94 hours at as a software developer. I was productive for maybe 70 of the hours? We slept on the floor of our cubicle for a few hours. We had a major deadline to hit and it was required to get it done. I remember dropping down to 60 hours - felt like a walk in the park.
I got a few nice bonus and a promotion, but it wasn't worth it. I also remember getting really pissed off and morale was dropping. I hope the team at Rockstar gets some bonuses or something out of it. If you are salaried, not guarantees.
To finish my bitch session, I eventually left that job. A year later, our office was closed - you had to relocate to another city if you wanted to remain employed. I don't know anyone that relocated after the closing... My new job, I have been sticking to 40-50 hour weeks so far.
 
An IT department that I worked for back in the late 80's, early 90s tried this on a few of us. Didn't work out too well when almost 40 out of the 50 IT staff found other jobs and left. No need for sweat shops anymore.
 
My record was 94 hours at as a software developer. I was productive for maybe 70 of the hours? We slept on the floor of our cubicle for a few hours. We had a major deadline to hit and it was required to get it done. I remember dropping down to 60 hours - felt like a walk in the park.
I got a few nice bonus and a promotion, but it wasn't worth it. I also remember getting really pissed off and morale was dropping. I hope the team at Rockstar gets some bonuses or something out of it. If you are salaried, not guarantees.
To finish my bitch session, I eventually left that job. A year later, our office was closed - you had to relocate to another city if you wanted to remain employed. I don't know anyone that relocated after the closing... My new job, I have been sticking to 40-50 hour weeks so far.

When I was young, I put in long hours too. I remember one weekend, from Friday to Monday morning, my team and I put in over 40 hours on a large project. One day I woke up and decided I'd had enough and realized bragging about working so many hours is dumb. Yeah, I got good raises, etc. from them but none of it was worth it. So, for the past several jobs, I work mostly 40 hour weeks. Yeah, there have been a few projects where I had to put in a few 60 hour weeks here and there, but those are the ultra-rare exception. My coworkers generally work more hours than me but I don't care - I'm 47 and too old for that. With my skillset, I can leave and find another job if I'm ever told I need to work 60+ hours per week. They can keep their promotions, etc - unless it is my company, or unless I get paid for the OT, I'm not doing it regularly.
 
My record was 94 hours at as a software developer. I was productive for maybe 70 of the hours? We slept on the floor of our cubicle for a few hours. We had a major deadline to hit and it was required to get it done. I remember dropping down to 60 hours - felt like a walk in the park.
I got a few nice bonus and a promotion, but it wasn't worth it. I also remember getting really pissed off and morale was dropping. I hope the team at Rockstar gets some bonuses or something out of it. If you are salaried, not guarantees.
To finish my bitch session, I eventually left that job. A year later, our office was closed - you had to relocate to another city if you wanted to remain employed. I don't know anyone that relocated after the closing... My new job, I have been sticking to 40-50 hour weeks so far.

The last I read, Rockstar is another one of those companies that has a great culling of contract workers as soon as crunch time ends.

Game developers are just about the sleaziest companies there are right now. They're making cable companies look good.
 
So that leaves 4 hours a day to sleep, eat, shower, poop and whatever else is needed daily. Essentially there would be no way to get more than 3 hours of sleep a day so I think you are exaggerating.

He may not be by as much as you may be thinking depending on the type of farm being discussed. It does also last only a couple weeks like that though.
 
When I worked for big blue we had a senior manager come in an tell us that we were expected to work a bare minimum of 50 hours no matter what our contract said because "It was a high performance organisation". Needless to say we all told him to eat a dick.

Of course I did do my fair share of over work in my 20's to prove myself, long done with that now. The culture needs to change to prevent this kind of exploitation.
 
When I worked for big blue we had a senior manager come in an tell us that we were expected to work a bare minimum of 50 hours no matter what our contract said because "It was a high performance organisation". Needless to say we all told him to eat a dick.

Of course I did do my fair share of over work in my 20's to prove myself, long done with that now. The culture needs to change to prevent this kind of exploitation.

At a company I worked for many years ago, the department head said we would need to put in a minimum of 55 hours/week to get the top review rating. I got the top review rating even when I said "screw that" and worked only 40. Companies don't own you - people need to remember that.
 
I worked +10 hour a day ( 5 day ) mixed with 10 hours now and then in the weekend, shortly after i left that job i god a phone cal pleading me to go back, i said sure i do 5-6 hours after i am done with my primary job.
But most regular working Danes wont do that, but i did for 4-5 years.
PS. After i stopped permanent that branch of the factory was laid to rest for a few years as they couldn't find anyone to fill my shoes, still cant so the guy there just fo regular 35 Hour work weeks.

It is not a normal culture for Danish work places, and overtime here are not 1:1 payment, and really we do have something called the 11 hour rule, meaning you got to have at least 11 hours of free time.
But some work places screw that if they can or the people want to.

#2 time i was ENG on a ship ( factory ship on Greenland ) i did 16 hour work days for 3-4 months, i was lucky if i ever got to sleep 4 hours in a row, that was a BS job and BS payment got screwed royally so i said NO when they asked if i wanted to return.
 
He may not be by as much as you may be thinking depending on the type of farm being discussed. It does also last only a couple weeks like that though.

About 8000 acres this year. We have about 1000 left to harvest and im currently typing this on my phone in the middle of a field waiting for my super-b to finish getting loaded.

Been a slow day today due to machines eating rocks and how flat the last bit has been after getting snowed on 3 times.
 
About 8000 acres this year. We have about 1000 left to harvest and im currently typing this on my phone in the middle of a field waiting for my super-b to finish getting loaded.

Been a slow day today due to machines eating rocks and how flat the last bit has been after getting snowed on 3 times.

About twice the size of my families (~3900 acres) at peak under plant. Mostly fallow now since they found oil and they get their royalty cut. At least there is light at the end of the tunnel for you at this point in the season.
 
Not many companies seem to care how hard their workers work. More overtime seems to be the solution, but it's really not.
 
As soon as we are done harvest it will be fall fertilizing and seeding winter wheat lol..

On the plus side i got the air seeders through the shop while there was snow out so they are about 95% ready to go.
 
About twice the size of my families (~3900 acres) at peak under plant. Mostly fallow now since they found oil and they get their royalty cut. At least there is light at the end of the tunnel for you at this point in the season.
Damn my family's farm now seems like a glorified backyard compared to you two at 60 acres :D
 
I think the biggest issue with 100 hour weeks is that there's so much uncertainty in how much time it takes to actually do something, "hey we need to make this code, do that, and you have 2 days to do it" well if it was that easy then they'd all be working 40-50 hour weeks at most. That said for the head writer it boggles my mind that there are 100 hour work weeks, the game has been under development for 7 years it says, how much did he do in those other 7 years?
In mid-September, I talk with Dan Houser for six hours over two days.
Well ok of his 14 hour days 3 hours each day were to give this interview, do they have a Googleesc campus where they have top chefs and relaxation stations that are part of the 100 hour work week? But I'm guessing part of his time is "supervision" work, where he needs to make sure other people are doing their job which seems like they could simply hire another supervisor, but why do that when you can pay one guy for the work of 2.
 
Not many companies seem to care how hard their workers work. More overtime seems to be the solution, but it's really not.

All companies care how productive its workers are. Some are better at motivation than others. Some do the math and figure it's worth the inefficiency from taking a bunch of the lowest bidders.
 
All companies care how productive its workers are. Some are better at motivation than others. Some do the math and figure it's worth the inefficiency from taking a bunch of the lowest bidders.

Not all seem to care, I see more demand for quantity over quality of work these days.
 
Not many companies seem to care how hard their workers work. More overtime seems to be the solution, but it's really not.
Well to be absolutely fair, I don't know if I'd classify one of the people who created Rockstar Games as an "employee"

Now if all the other employees were working 100 hour weeks, then yeah I agree. But this dude literally owns the company, he just happens to be the head writer for the company.
 
Not all seem to care, I see more demand for quantity over quality of work these days.
Productivity is measured in different ways, man. 1000 units per day with crooked labels may easily be more valuable than 700 units per day with perfect labels.
 
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