The Activision Blizzard Situation ¿Any Thoughts?

[dasho]

34 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

 

 

If that article was supposed to generate a modicum of sympathy from me, it's pretty piss-poor.

 

Quote

“Previously, it’s ruined relationships I’ve been in where no one wants to date someone who barely has time for them for months at a time, at least once a year, if not more,” said a current Blizzard Albany employee, who described often working 12-hour days. “It’s affected my health, it’s affected my relationships, both familiar and romantic. It affects my ability to just enjoy things.”

 

Unless she has a 7-day work week, all I'm reading is she had a lot of weeks where she worked more than 40, but less than 60 hours. I was able to have friends, meet a woman, marry her, and start raising a family while working more and certainly earning far less at the time than she does. 

 

The rest of this "journalism" piece seems to be comprised of opinions of people who just don't like their job in general or the now-oft-used "sources familiar with x", aka "complete heresay." 

[LexiMax]

1 hour ago, dasho said:

Unless she has a 7-day work week, all I'm reading is she had a lot of weeks where she worked more than 40, but less than 60 hours. I was able to have friends, meet a woman, marry her, and start raising a family while working more and certainly earning far less at the time than she does. 

 

This is a trash-ass take, and you're not some sort of exemplary human being because you were willing to work 60 hour weeks for peanuts.

[dasho]

5 minutes ago, AlexMax said:

 

This is a trash-ass take, and you're not some sort of exemplary human being because you were willing to work 60 hour weeks for peanuts.

 

Nor did I claim to be, take whatever weird emotions you're having at the moment out of the equation.

[Mr. Freeze]

lol game development crunch isn't like a 4x12 work week, that's just braindead. It's most likely six 10 to 12 hour days minimum, maybe seven depending on how badly the studio in question is run. And considering this is Blizzard, I'm just going to assume the worst and say it's nonstop crunch until launch time. 

Edited December 9, 2022 by Mr. Freeze

[Rudolph]

Coincidentally, on the Majority Report, Brandon Sutton just so happened to coin the term "hustle cucks" to describe the people who are willing to give it all for a cruel and uncaring employer. I guess petite bourgeoisie is not strong enough of a term anymore.

[dasho]

4 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

Coincidentally, on the Majority Report, Brandon Sutton just so happened to coin the term "hustle cucks" to describe the people who are willing to give it all for a cruel and uncaring employer. I guess petite bourgeoisie is not strong enough of a term anymore.

 

Putting food on the table in your early adult life before you realize/improve your earning potential isn't "hustle cucking", but this may be a foreign concept if you've never had any real responsibility.

[heliumlamb]

and on the grim battlefield of internet discourse, to all it is displayed

 

"consider this: you're worth more than what you are paid"

 

"false: gaming journalism was better back in my day"

and "king's field is a doom clone" is what that journalist would say

 

Edited December 9, 2022 by heliumlamb
the ---> that

[dasho]

20 minutes ago, heliumlamb said:

and on the grim battlefield of internet discourse, to all it is displayed

 

"consider this: you're worth more than what you are paid"

 

"false: gaming journalism was better back in my day"

and "king's field is a doom clone" is what the journalist would say

 

 

a curious tale of an internet poet

who could write but not read, and yet didn't know it

[heliumlamb]

6 minutes ago, dasho said:

 

a curious tale of an internet poet

who could write but not read, and yet didn't know it

 

look, i seen you around talking about how happy/amused you get when "certain types of people you like seeing angry, get angry" (this is a neurological-memory paraphrase). honestly makes me sad. wishing for a future where you don't have to find your amusment in the frustrations and misfortune of others, sincerely. ✌️

[dasho]

12 minutes ago, heliumlamb said:

 

look, i seen you around talking about how happy/amused you get when "certain types of people you like seeing angry, get angry" (this is a neurological-memory paraphrase). honestly makes me sad. wishing for a future where you don't have to find your amusment in the frustrations and misfortune of others, sincerely. ✌️

 

Thanks, I'll remember that when I'm getting called a hustle cuck with trash-ass takes for working hard in my past.

[mrthejoshmon]

1 hour ago, Mr. Freeze said:

lol game development crunch isn't like a 4x12 work week, that's just braindead. It's most likely six 10 to 12 hour days minimum, maybe seven depending on how badly the studio in question is run. And considering this is Blizzard, I'm just going to assume the worst and say it's nonstop crunch until launch time. 

I've worked 12 hour shifts, several times in a row, and doing one of the fucking things is absolutely miserable.

4 x 12 is soul crushing, 7 x 12 had me contemplating if I'd sooner dive under the bus than catch it.

12 hour shifts are not healthy for people.

 

Taking this into account, I have absolutely 100% no doubt that Blizzard is running 7 x 12 and feeling benevolent for bestowing upon them the honour of overtime.

 

-

 

Also, Hustle Cuck is probably one of the most dystopian terms I have ever heard, what a wonderful world.

Edited December 9, 2022 by mrthejoshmon

[LexiMax]

22 minutes ago, heliumlamb said:

look, i seen you around talking about how happy/amused you get when "certain types of people you like seeing angry, get angry" (this is a neurological-memory paraphrase). honestly makes me sad.

 

If it's something I've learned about dealing with internet trolls, is that they love it when people who go high when they go low. He's spent his last replies claiming nobody knows how to read and trying to draw distinctions without differences, and he'll probably reply to your post playing a victim card about how people were so mean to him. (And as I was writing this post my assumption turned out to be correct.)  Honestly, you can't even take for granted that he's worked those 60 hour work weeks he's claimed to.

 

Don't waste your empathy on someone who is clearly lacking it.

Edited December 9, 2022 by AlexMax

[Mr. Freeze]

Also I thought Blizzard was badly managed from all the lawsuits, bad office culture and harassment, but now the management has it right concerning work hours? 

[Rudolph]

20 minutes ago, mrthejoshmon said:

Also, Hustle Cuck is probably one of the most dystopian terms I have ever heard, what a wonderful world.

Well, thankfully, we are seeing a rise in unionization and the rebirth of the labor rights movement everywhere, so there is still hope. I guess people getting fed up with the way they are expected to work is one of the very few silver linings of that seemingly never-ending pandemic...

 

And to be fair, the term "hustle cucks" was coined while discussing the comically dishonest Dave Rubin claiming that all his employees agreed to come in to work despite him having COVID-19. Outside of dasho (and that is assuming they are telling the truth about their situation), I have yet to encounter a single worker who is actually fine with working over 40 hours - which is already well over the time period that is considered sufficient to be productive.

 

You are supposed to work better, not harder!

Edited December 9, 2022 by Rudolph

[DSC]

@dasho, you really have to reflect and ask yourself if you're the good guy when you're the one simping and apologizing for the extensively documented horrible working conditions at big, faceless corporations. You've suffered yourself some adversities and yet, instead of that opening your mind to how the people below in the hierarchy suffer at the hands of those above... You continue to support it? After witnessing first-hand how broken the system is? Honestly speaking I'm getting tired of your shit by now, and I'm glad to see I'm not alone.

Edited December 9, 2022 by DSC
grammar

[Redneckerz]

4 hours ago, Rudolph said:

 

Since i love you presenting this without much context or opinion (A staple from your book of posting manners!), i went ahead and (spoilered) have some words to dispense:

 

Spoiler

“We felt very much like he just drove the bus over on top of us,” said a male former “Diablo IV” team lead.

 

If you feel that way then you should speak up against it. Any self-respecting company has Trust people where you can relay these thoughts. Your boss isn't holier than thou, but they do make the decisions. That also means they are suspectible to inner criticism and feedback and a proper boss takes those in stride because that kind of feedback is incredibly valueable.

 

“Previously, it’s ruined relationships I’ve been in where no one wants to date someone who barely has time for them for months at a time, at least once a year, if not more,” said a current Blizzard Albany employee, who described often working 12-hour days.

 

I continue to wonder why crunch by its concept is a negative thing. If the benefits are there (Say: You go into crunch mode, but in the mean time you will get the time off to re-coup/additional bonuses/whatever) than crunch is perfectly serviceable. It is a different issue when Crunch is used as an excuse to finish a game and staff gets no rewards on that.

 

However the ''often working 12-hour days'' gets me. Say you start at 7.00. This means working to 19.00 give or take. Or 20.00. That's hefty, but if there is one day like that, it is still perfectly do-able. It becomes an issue when every single day is like that. But the way this is worded implicates that there is practically no me-time available and even on this set up, i feel there is.

 

“It’s affected my health, it’s affected my relationships, both familiar and romantic. It affects my ability to just enjoy things.”

 

Sorry but i call shoe on this one. The moment this negatively is impacting your health on a consistent level is the moment you need to choose for yourself and get in touch with care teams and request an evaluation. Health is of utmost importance and fit workers deliver a better game in a shorter amount of time. This is literally logistics 101. If some Activision boss says other wise - Raise a flag instead of dealing with it till the end of time.

 

I do not wish to comment on the rest for the sake of repeating. I do see that a lot of the issue is with the idea of working longer hours + tools being not in a great state, which suggests project management is subpar in its communications. This is mildly addressed in the post, but i disagree with the impression that the concept of longer hours should be a deal breaker - It should be adequate, if there are adequate circumstances.

 

In this situation, there aren't. And that's on the Activision head, and not the workers. Again, this is logistics 101. Developer happiness = Better workflow, higher quality, quicker iteration speed. Why any boss would subject its staff to work harder without taking this into account is beyond me yet leads the opposite: Poorer workflow, lower quality work, slower iteration speed.

 

Actually, there is this:
 

Spoiler

In 2019, many Blizzard employees were disgusted by a version of the game’s script that repeatedly mentioned the rape of a love interest and referred to this female character as the raped woman as her primary description. Stępień had spent months working on this script, penning it in Polish and having a translator change it to English, according to several employees. Employees pleaded with leadership to revise his version of the story, saying rape had no place in a Blizzard game. Many expressed discomfort with the idea of adding rape to the game in what they considered to be an effort to make “Diablo IV” feel grittier and tonally darker than the previous game, rather than engaging with the subject in a sensitive way.

 

This to me feels like not willing to deal with a serious subject (rape) because of social media developments, where every aspect of gaming is put under a magnifying glass and no matter how accurate and considerate it would be explained, it would still be shat on.

 

4 hours ago, dasho said:

I was able to have friends, meet a woman, marry her, and start raising a family while working more and certainly earning far less at the time than she does. 

Normally i can stand by your reasoning, but this is pretty piss poor even from you. Hey, i could work 60 hrs a week and still score big at life, so why she complainin' at?

 

That isn't the KO argument i feel you are looking for.

 

27 minutes ago, dasho said:

Thanks, I'll remember that when I'm getting called a hustle cuck with trash-ass takes for working hard in my past.

Atleast a 10 for coining hustle cuck.

 

8 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

Well, thankfully, we are seeing a rise in unionization and the rebirth of the labor rights movement everywhere, so there is still hope. I guess people getting fed up with the way they are expected to work is one of the very few silver linings of that seemingly never-ending pandemic...

I absolutely love the relevancy here to this sideshow. Amazing.

 

But if being fed up with work  is ''I am going to tell my story to a game journo because that has an impact'' then no, i disagree. This story has been told many times before. How often have you heard back of any improvements for these story tellers?

 

The reality in my opinion would more be like:

• People fall into burnout
• People look for a different job because they are aware they can't change the system (Which sucks, by the way!)
• People get distraught at the fact all these 10.000 word articles don't really change the system for them (Which is half the issue here. People tell these stories expecting a radical change once the word is out. The reality is, it doesn't because most companies cannot change on a whim.)

8 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

I have yet to encounter a single worker who is actually fine with working over 40 hours - which is already well over the time period that is considered sufficient to be productive.

The opposite can also happen - I work 36 hours, but it can feel like 56 at times. But where i work there are support systems for just that.

8 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

You are supposed to work better, not harder!

Tell that to every nurse i have to process for the 666th time for the exact same question asked. At some point, you are right: I will work better by putting them in the right place (All while being nice and dandy)

[dasho]

1 minute ago, Redneckerz said:

Normally i can stand by your reasoning, but this is pretty piss poor even from you. Hey, i could work 60 hrs a week and still score big at life, so why she complainin' at?

 

That isn't the KO argument i feel you are looking for.

 

It's not supposed to be a KO argument; it's simply my rationale for that particular article not garnering any sympathy from me, because by the same metric I spent the first half of my 20s in MORE oppressive working conditions than that. This is clearly a subjective take, but was also somehow extrapolated to mean that I am unconditionally in favor of oppressing workers under any circumstances.

[DSC]

9 minutes ago, dasho said:

 

It's not supposed to be a KO argument; it's simply my rationale for that particular article not garnering any sympathy from me, because by the same metric I spent the first half of my 20s in MORE oppressive working conditions than that. This is clearly a subjective take, but was also somehow extrapolated to mean that I am unconditionally in favor of oppressing workers under any circumstances.

Having problems is not a fucking pissing contest, just because you had it "worse" doesn't invalidate at all the pain and suffering of others.

[Rudolph]

38 minutes ago, DSC said:

dasho, you really have to reflect and ask yourself if you're the good guy when you're the one simping and apologizing for the extensively documented horrible working conditions at big, faceless corporations. You've suffered yourself some adversities and yet, instead of that opening your mind to how the people below in the hierarchy suffer at the hands of those above... You continue to support it? After witnessing first-hand how broken the system is? Honestly speaking I'm getting tired of your shit by now, and I'm glad to see I'm not alone.

I believe that is what Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels described as false consciousness.

 

Either way, there is just no defense for what Blizzard is doing. Especially when it is for fucking Diablo 4, a video game that is all about slaying the same monsters over and over again. Even if I still gave a fuck about Diablo's grimdark-so-edgy setting, that is no reason to work your fingers to the bone.

Edited December 9, 2022 by Rudolph

[Redneckerz]

8 minutes ago, dasho said:

It's not supposed to be a KO argument; it's simply my rationale for that particular article not garnering any sympathy from me, because by the same metric I spent the first half of my 20s in MORE oppressive working conditions than that.

Like you say, that's clearly subjective. What i get from most of the replies directed to your end is that 60+ hours isn't a normal figure to score bragging rights over.

8 minutes ago, dasho said:

This is clearly a subjective take, but was also somehow extrapolated to mean that I am unconditionally in favor of oppressing workers under any circumstances.

I am probably reading this wrongly, but you are in favor of oppressing the workforce???

 

If i am not reading this wrongly, then it will appear we will disagree here. A happy workforce is a good workforce. Oppressing said workforce seems dictatorial. What would be good would be that said workforce gets proper direction. (Perhaps you mean't this?)

[dasho]

1 minute ago, Redneckerz said:

I am probably reading this wrongly, but you are in favor of oppressing the workforce???

 

No, my statement was that just because I don't personally consider temporary periods of over 40 hours a week of work oppressive, that doesn't mean that I am in denial of the fact that there are oppressive workplaces or companies that abuse their employees. 

[LexiMax]

24 minutes ago, dasho said:

It's not supposed to be a KO argument; it's simply my rationale for that particular article not garnering any sympathy from me, because by the same metric I spent the first half of my 20s in MORE oppressive working conditions than that. This is clearly a subjective take, but was also somehow extrapolated to mean that I am unconditionally in favor of oppressing workers under any circumstances. 

 

I actually called your take trash under the original circumstances you outline here, just so we're on the same page.

 

To be clear, I have also had to work 7 days a week 9-10 hours a day before.  Sometimes, shit has to be done.  But I can put up with it for weeks, not months on end.  And it's a lot easier to go along with it when I'm not being chronically mismanaged, asked to buy into a toxic work culture, or sexually harassed by some asshole named McCree.

[dasho]

8 minutes ago, AlexMax said:

 

I actually called your take trash under the original circumstances you outline here, just so we're on the same page.

 

To be clear, I have also had to work 7 days a week 9-10 hours a day before.  Sometimes, shit has to be done.  But I can put up with it for weeks, not months on end.  And it's a lot easier to go along with it when I'm not being chronically mismanaged, asked to buy into a toxic work culture, or sexually harassed by some asshole named McCree.

 

That's all valid; just realize that it's the same mindset that led me to consider the posted article a trash take. I don't think either of us in this scenario should be accused of claiming that they are exemplary or better than everyone else, just that they have their own rationale for thinking what they do.

[Doomkid]

You have my sympathy, dasho. Working in that environment clearly squeezed all the empathy right out of you. Your posts in themselves are proof that the 60 hour work week is soul crushing, because the part of your soul that is supposed to feel bad when it sees such a clear case of workers being abused/mistreated is clearly dead. Thanks for being a prime example of why the world will get shittier the more people are forced to work such a schedule/under those conditions.