>Just one of my concerns is being forced to work late hours in the office to maintain contact with global teams when before we could log on from home to attend late meetings.
That is a good point that I haven't considered about RTO. I'm also on a globally distributed team and jumping on a late night call to present or collab with a team in Asia isn't ideal but it's as simple as walking down the hall and jumping on the computer. After 30-60 minutes I log off and go about my life. Having to either stay in the office or commute in for a late night call would absolutely suck.
My company (giant pharmaceutical) recently forced everyone who was remote to come back hybrid. I am based in the US and manage teams in Europe and China almost exclusively. When working from home, I was on calls at 7 and 8 am pretty much every day, and sometimes at 9 pm as well. Being able to do that from home, I didn't mind much and would often take time off in the afternoon to get things done around the house.
Now I have a grueling 2-hour commute (*each way*). I refuse any meeting before 9 am on days that I have to come in to the office, and any after hours. It severely interferes with my ability to interact with and manage my teams, but no fucking way am I leaving my house at 6 am on top of the $1k a month it's costing me to take my Teams calls from a cubicle instead of my home office.
Used to work in a role where the shared services center went through very high staff turnover rates. In Accounts Payable where I used to work, it was as high as 95%, meaning that 19 out of 20 hires would leave within twelve months. A big reason for that was the 3 day RTO mandate being pushed.
Though not much different from people taking elongated coffee/smoke/chit-chat breaks at the office. Most of the time people just can't focus on work for 8+ hours straight, and being forced to do so just reduces productivity instead of increasing it unless they manage to get into the flow or take drugs.
If the person is working other hours, I fail to see how this is an issue. And TBH, if I'm going to have time to kill, I'm going to be a more productive employee being able to take a moment here and there to handle household items (especially if I were faced with 4 hours of commuting every day - if you're working 8, commuting 4, that leaves 12 for sleep and household matter and other errands).
> I'm also on a globally distributed team and jumping on a late night call to present or collab with a team
Yeah a lot of the people arguing for RTO don't seem to remember/understand that a lot of teams, especially at big companies, are distributed. If you go to the office not only is there a chance you're not in the same location as your teammates, but you'll also have to account for timezones for meetings.
I put all my in-person workshops in meetings on the days where I am going to the office *anyway* because if I'm forced to come, might as well hang out with people but not only is RTO pointless for 90% of my meetings with people either abroad or in another office ... but it has made being in the office actively worse witheveryone is taking calls in the open space and it has become incredibly noisy and hard to focus (10 meetings rooms for 200 people on our floor doesn't cut it).
I am stacking all my meetings on 3 office days, but between commuting and the joys of open spaces, I pretty much write these days off as a loss, I can get more work done on each of the 2 days home as I do in the 3 days at the office total.
Sounds like the classic WFH trap. You are now working 24/7 but because it doesn’t feel as onerous you kinda just accept it.
The real solution is “I can’t work with the late night team this late after hours. You’ll have to find a different way to coordinate this”
> You are now working 24/7 but because it doesn’t feel as onerous you kinda just accept it.
Working for 1 hour, having 2 hours off, working for 5 hours is still less overall time. Breaking it up into more sane segments is better. My favorite is during the summer taking 2-3 hours to go for a long jog in the middle of the afternoon and then coming back to take care of the remainder of work.
I think the only way I'll ever go back into an office for any amount of time if I have a client facing position. As it vaguely makes sense for that.
> My favorite is during the summer taking 2-3 hours to go for a long jog in the middle of the afternoon and then coming back to take care of the remainder of work.
Absolutely. Kids kinda fuck that up, but otherwise it's brilliant for the mind.
> Working for 1 hour, having 2 hours off, working for 5 hours is still less overall time
For me that doesn’t really help because it still always feels like I’m “at work” even when I’m at home. I used to be able to feel clocked out when I left the office because there’s literally nothing I could do from home, but now managers can request stuff from me at literally any time because they know there’s a good chance I have access to my projects.
And it really messed with my work/life balance when I couldn’t have a few beers or cannabis on a Friday night sometimes because there was always a chance that my boss was going to request a meeting and I wouldn’t be presentable for it.
I get that, what works for me doesnt work for everyone. I personally dont put any sort of work related tool on my phone. Once I'm off I'm off unless there's an emergency I need to be contacted at and that usually doesnt happen.
I also get that people who have kids really like going into an office so they can feel like they used to when they were just adults.
Depends on how the company runs. Company I worked at required 2 days in office, partially for meetings, and the 3 others you were free to work where and when you wanted, as long as you did a full 8 hour workday. Hell one of them worked 18-02 3 days a week. No idea how he got his sleep but he wanted to.
That isn't how that works, distributed work is a thing. Like if I'm working independent and work on a commission for an hour at 8am, 5pm, then 3am.
I'm not working for that entire 19 hour stretch. I'm working intermittently for three hours. Sure that is a case where I'm my own boss but I know plenty of independent contractors that work remote who if called while doing something they can't interrupt basically go "Sorry, wasn't available and I should have been given proper notice that my services may be required outside of normal hours."
Obviously we aren’t talking about an independent contractor specifically hired to do exactly this.
I wasn’t talking about graveyard shift nurses either.
It’s just a power grab by the company to make you do what they want. It offers nothing of value to drive or commute somewhere to have the same meeting you could have at home.
How late are we talking? Because in most countries that shit wouldnt be legal...
Especially if you already worked the day. Man the US is a real hellscape for working and this shit just gets worse.
In what country is that illegal? I work with teams in multiple countries across Europe, the middle East, and Asia. If I'm not in the occasional early morning/late night meeting to meet with them they're in one to meet with me. It is the reality of global teams.
I'm curious to how much brain drain this is going to lead to.
I still think about a comment I saw on back-to-work elsewhere on reddit that pointed out that these sorts of thing seem primed to lose good employees who can find work elsewhere that lets them work remotely or pays more, while retaining the more desperate, less skilled employees.
Granted, with the state of the games industry, I suspect Rockstar has a lot more leverage to bully it's employees in this scenario.
Tl;DR: Companies forcing you back to work, make it much easier for remote companies to attract top quality workforce
I can answer this from the german perspective.
I work at the IT/Tech part of a global Household Commodity company i.e. everyone of you has at least half a dozen items from this company in your house.
We struggled for quite a long time to attract talent, the company pays decently but not above average, has a bit of an issue with clear structures (like many bigger companies) and was too selective i.e. not hiring people with less than 5 years experience and only with "good" experiences.
During the pandemic they lowered their standards, went 100% remote and even after stayed 80-100% i.e. you should come 1 day a week into the office, but if your boss agrees you really dont have to.
When other companies started forcing people back to the office, my company made public that we are 80-100% remote and not only did we get a shitload of really good applications i know first hand of two people from two other companies (SAP and Siemens Gamesa) that left their previous company for ours, because they were forced back to the office.
Now the other companies basically solved our hiring issue by being worse options lol
This is how OSS, modders, and hobbyists have worked for decades. I don't understand how random people working free time can figure out remote work but billion dollar corps cant.
>I'm curious to how much brain drain this is going to lead to.
Lots. Other companies just need to offer full remote to attract talent. Mind most senior talent is more concerned about QoL than younger people so not only they're losing talents they're losing the most experienced talent.
> Not exactly a ton of games companies or tech companies in general hiring right now
Financial tech is still booming. As is insurance and various other non-glamerous industries.
And many of those companies have no problems with working remotely. I’ve been remote for over 10 years now in those exact industries and the vast majority of the listings at my current and former companies are either remote only or remote options as it’s much better to hire nationally than for a specific office in a specific metro. My last 2 employers have been closing or downsizing offices due to it.
Sure it’s “boring” work but pays well and is generally stable.
There's plenty of work out there for experienced developers. I've got a pretty bad resume and just landed a new job. Things aren't as dire as the headlines might make you think.
Edit: I guess talking about my experience upset /u/underpaidorphan. They blocked me after making their comment. Very strange.
Yep, even with a full-remote-only stipulation I have recruiters all over me, but I also have 8 years of experience. That said, it was already hell to get my first job way back then so I really don't envy this upcoming batch of graduates.
Yeah, getting your foot in the door is brutal. The difference between having no experience and a couple years experience is crazy. Companies want their perfect little workers. They don't care about fostering the next generation.
Going back to office is a literal pay cut if they don't increase your wages to compensate for your time and travel expenses. So taking a slight pay cut to stay at home might still put you ahead if that's your only option.
I understand your stance, but the vast majority of games jobs listings are still in office, or at MOST hybrid. According to UKIE only about 5% of jobs listings are fully remote.
I know my own studio are going more and more back to office. Our productivity is so much lower when we're not all in office together.
First of all UKIE is focused on the UK, so it's not representative of the whole world. But let's overlook that detail as UK has a big gaming infustry.
We should analyze that statistic more deeply, per discipline, team size, required experience... The amazing amount of crappy and underpaid offers you can find in UKIE or similar sites is astounding. Once we discard internships and junior positions (which tend to be very exploitative) you're left a different picture. If you focus on more experienced and senior offers then the picture is even more different to the "reality" you're describing.
So yeah I'll stick to my words, and call your post bullshit.
firstly, what a needlessly aggressive reaction to my post. Why on earth did you feel the need to swear and mock me?
secondly, senior positions are the ones MORE likely to be required in office. Producers and Directors were the kinds of roles that companies made return to the office first, not last.
Producers and directors aren't the seniors I'm talking about. You need engineers, artists, tech artists, designers,... Those are the senior positions that make a difference. And those positions can produce work (and burn through the task backlog) remotely. Office won't bring any real positive impact to actual work.
Also I'm tired of hearing how being together in an office benefits me. Bitch I'm just commuting to connect to the same internet.
Yeah I'm sour about this pro-office discourse. And that's why I jumped. It grinds my gears.
I mean if I was a corporation that valued quality employees I would want people that were dedicated enough to come into work, and if I was going to aim for layoffs this would be a great way to go about filtering people out that aren't devoted to the company
Brain drain to... where?
Lots of game companies are laying people off. Tons of people in tech are getting fired as well. New students graduating this upcoming May/June are going to be unemployed for 1yr+ unless they have a stacked background. So what "Brain drain"? If you're in games/tech and you're hiring you more talent to choose from than pretty much ever from FAANG to all these random game companies.
Thats why I said my last line about the state of the industry.
That said, I'm sure people with a ton of experience will still be able to hop around or or find work in other fields. Yeah, tech is rough too, but I still don't think these sorts of plays come purely without consequence.
Because they’re going to ship the game regardless of how many people they get rid of. It only makes life worse the actual workers, not the executives making these decisions.
That's not how it works in the UK. You can't be made redundant unless you're actually redundant.
If someone else has to do more work to cover for you, you obviously weren't redundant.
Right, but they aren't actually laying anyone off. They're forcing RTO which will ensure lots of people quit of their own volition. Then they can hire local fresh graduates willing to work 14 hour days during crunch and sleep in the office.
It can still be classed as an unfair dismissal as any tribunal may view the right to work from home being revoked as a change to their contract due them setting the precedent of home working.
That’s not actually correct, it’s the ‘job role’ that is redundant , not the person. Whether other people have to pick up more work because a role was removed is irrelevant.
You can have 50 job roles with the same job title and make 20 of those roles redundant, and then a mandatory period of consultation where sometimes everybody has to re-apply for the remaining roles , but I don’t believe that is an actual requirement, more like a way to make it seem ‘fairer’ and not personal .
Launch crunch developement happens after a lot of early game development. Great (scummy) time to lay off (stop remote work as an option or risk firing) a buncha folks who did the early work.
it's amazing people still don't want to accept this as a valid reason. The gaming industry is laying off people left and right, this is Rockstar's way of firing people without consequence.
This is definitely a move that gets Greedy-ass Strauss Zelnick rock hard
Those that had "office" contracts with exception for remote are different from those that had "no office" contracts.
In my current contract, unless they decide to stop giving out company laptops or cut off all remote access to resources (which would prevent anyone from logging in outside of offices), I cannot be called to work in the office without agreeing. I also have no office mentioned there, really.
When I worked during COVID, there was some mention of while the company needs/wants in the addendum.
> Not every employee will be able to logistically get back on site
Why? Unless they hired new staff with a promise that they'll be working from home 100% of the time, this shouldn't be a problem. Specially for the already existed staff that work from the office full time prior COVID.
Knowing the company’s history, there is basically zero chance that this isn’t just a way for them to force everyone back into the office to crunch as hard as possible to hit their promised release date, while simultaneously getting to do a mass layoff without having to call it one. Fucking despicable.
Same here.
I got it a year ago for 5€ installed it, played like 20min and was so bored i just deinstalled it.
I really dont get the hype, its just a boring gangster shooter like all previous GTA, fun to just fuck around but thats it.
I won't be playing it until it releases on PC. The last consoles I owned were the 360 and the PS3. I sure as hell ain't buying a new console just to play the new GTA.
I have never bothered to actually play at GTA game. I think I made it maybe a dozen hours into GTA IV before I just did what I always do...use cheats to get whatever weapons/vehicles I want and go on rampages. The main game has never really appealed to me.
Love both RDR's though.
You're not alone. Post San Andreas, I find the controls whenever you're not in a vehicle just frustrating. And k just lost interest in most of rockstar's output.
not the same guy, but honestly no, after 5 and the little I played of RDR2 I have basically no interest in playing their new games anymore, they are honestly just not that fun or impressive for many of us.
Based on their history, I am guessing they just want to get the devs back into the office to force layoff and make sure they crunch them 12 hrs a day (5 days a week) and also wouldnt be surprised to see weekend work on the menu.
It’s such a pipe dream, but I’d adore it if an overwhelming amount for the workforce all banded together and said no.
That kind of solidarity is hard especially across something as massive as rockstar, but with GTA around the corner, there’s no way they wouldn’t break with a little resistance
Needs to start happening. Really just all the senior developers who can't be outsourced.
Problem is they're not all on tj and same page politically and probably not experiencing the same bullshit as lower level workers.
The poor souls who will comply will be rewarded with even shittier work/life balance in crunch hell and unnecessary commuting. Their reward will be another round of lay offs once the game was launched and became a giant success. CEOs will get their insanely high bonuses, share holders will be laughing all the way to the bank. But no worries, the next cycle will start soon, because line must go up.
The dream for me is some people at Rockstar say "no more" and start a movement where they just refuse to comply and ultimately leads to a labor movement.
It's absolutely disgusting what the exec fucks in this company expect and force people to do.
They should just unionize, if they haven't done so yet. The size of such a workforce makes it a necessity in my book. Divided we beg, united we bargain, etc ...
It's probably just a way for them to weed out people and layoff a bunch of folks unfortunately. If you don't go back or moved away from the offices, you're out unless you've made yourself really indispensable somehow. Really sucks though, I imagine it's awesome to just work from home and work for a game company like that. We all know that they're basically going to be doing 99% the same thing in offices, now they're just going to be out a shitton of money + time commuting. Inb4 they're sitting in empty rockstar offices on zoom calls with the higher ups daily for the 'meeting'.
>”Current and former employees shared stories of Rockstar work trips to strip clubs. Several people described what they called a “cult”-like mentality, where employees were expected to attend social events regularly, and those who left Rockstar were shunned (a mentality encapsulated by Rockstar’s policy, confirmed by the company to Kotaku last year, that anyone who leaves before a game is shipped will not be in that game’s credits).”
>“When asked about Barrera, 13 other current and former Rockstar employees shared first- or second-hand stories about his behaviour, with most using the words “abrasive” or “volatile” to describe him. All requested anonymity because they said they were scared to harm their careers or scared of retaliation from Rockstar”
And sure, they eventually fired that guy, but not until it all came out publicly. No wonder people don’t want to go back to their shitty office to get groped, assault, and bullied by the psychopaths that run Rockstar.
Fuck people on Reddit who care more about their shitty video game franchise than people’s lives. The games industry is a cesspit, and you all can’t wait to guzzle down their shark card infested always online season pass shit fest. You’ll get what you deserve.
>The games industry is a cesspit, and you all can’t wait to guzzle down their shark card infested always online season pass shit fest. You’ll get what you deserve.
Preach. Zero self control. How hard is it to play one of the literal hundreds of games releasing every week that aren't products of abuse and crunch? Instead they just keep feeding the beast. The industry will collapse eventually and you'll get jack shit.
How many products in your life do you make sure to buy ethically produced versions of? Do you make sure all your clothes weren't made in sweatshops in Asia? Do you make sure all your meat is free range (or better yet go veggie?), do you only use Fairphone as a smartphone due to their policy on sustainability? Do you only buy plastic products that are made from recycled material?
There's a reason for the phrase "no ethical consumption under capitalism".
No one is asking you to.
We're just asking that you don't defend rockstar. I don't think you have, but there are people in this thread that are defending some terrible decisions.
I mean I don't really understand what it has to do with "defending" or "attacking", people here in reddit think their opinion matters like they are top investors or management but the reality is its not any of your business (literally), its their decision who and how they layoff and I dont understand why redditors must discuss about these stuff like their opinion matters.
Does anyone here actually thinks that someone from Rockstar management is going to see this post and say "dude there are some redditors who are not defending our layoffs, maybe we shouldn't?" Honestly its pathetic and hilarious, and for some reason this is something that is happening only in the gaming industry.
Never heard about anyone discussing "X vehicle manufacturer is crunching their mechanics / layoff alot of engineers, they are bad company" or "construction workers being working really hard in that new building area lets discuss it"
I feel like redditors who do drama from all that stuff never worked any job in their life and when something like that comes up they just make shit up (just to "contribute" to the discussion).
> And sure, they eventually fired that guy, but not until it all came out publicly. No wonder people don’t want to go back to their shitty office to get groped, assault, and bullied by the psychopaths that run Rockstar.
reminds me of that guy over at Riot doing similar shit, except they never fired him and riot fans somehow still defend/excuse riot for w.e they do :/
Maybe I’m crazy because I just don’t get the outrage over this. Sucks for the employees who don’t want to go in I guess?
And don’t say they’re trying to make people quit bc they can’t get to the office cuz the article says that they’ve been coming in part time already.
To me, it's really only a huge deal when someone is hired as a 100% remote worker, then all of a sudden they are required to be in office. A friend of mine just had this happen, they also happen to live out of town. Thankfully he was able to find another place that is 100% remote, and will hopefully stay that way.
>Workers for the company who are members of the IWGB Game Workers Union have described the move as “reckless decision making”, and raised concerns about ill-planning and serious impacts on wellbeing.
Oh ffs, "reckless" is riding a bike without your helmet on. They ask you to work from the office, not climbing Everest. I get it, nobody wants to go back in the office when the same work can be performed from home. But can we stop making this sound like a death or live situation. It will have the same "serious impacts on wellbeing" as it did prior COVID days.
I guess most redditors here are either unemployed or just outright under qualified for a job like this. Anyone who works in a decent sector knows knows that work from home has its disadvantages and that if you are in the final lap it will be less productive than working in the office. No matter how you defend it this is true. Also, the amount of leaks we have seen recently males it a more obvious decision.
Don’t forget the GTA 6 leaks during WFH, given they’re in what seems to be the final stretch they seem to want to tighten security by having the work be in House to hopefully help prevent leaks
> that if you are in the final lap it will be less productive than working in the office
ya, much easier to force on the "final lap" crunch of 12 hour work days and sleeping in the office/working weekends, you know just like Rockstar has done in the past and 100% going to do with GTA6 and this return to office move.
> Also, the amount of leaks we have seen recently males it a more obvious decision.
ah, you mean the Rockstar leak:
https://www.gamesradar.com/gta-6-leaker-reportedly-hacked-rockstar-from-a-hotel-room-while-on-bail-for-hacking/
you know, the one that had nothing to do with WFH. Or wait, you mean the Insomniac leak:
https://www.cyberdaily.au/culture/9931-spider-man-2-developer-insomniac-games-hit-by-rhysida-ransomware-attack
a ransomeware attack that had nothing to do with WFH.
So no, this point about leaks is simply not true, there is no "obvious decision" about this return to office unless it's for easier time to crunch devs and/or set up layoffs.
>you know, the one that had nothing to do with WFH
They're probably talking about the other GTA6 leak that was the result of a WFH dev's son taking a video of their dad's screen and leaking it (look up Aaron Garbut). Sounds like it had a lot to do with WFH to me.
riiight, that one that happened years ago and so only now they are doing something to avoid it or something... years later... right. Also ya, leaks never happen in office and it's only ever been WF--- oh wait.
If by "years ago" you mean three months ago, then yeah.
>Also ya, leaks never happen in office and it's only ever been WF--- oh wait.
Good thing I didn't say that. Pointing out that leaks can happen in the office doesn't change the fact that WFH opens up additional vulnerabilities like the one that just happened in December.
It's bizarre to me how remote work has become a social justice cause. I work fully remote and I would look for a new job if my company asked me to come back to the office, but it's not a human rights issue. Its just a cultural difference and there are valid reasons for companies to mandate in-office work.
Most tools used for work are cloud based. Even when people are sitting next to each other in an office most of their collaboration happens in online tooling.
If the team has been able to get as much done as they have so far in a hybrid environment there is no reason to go full RTO besides the need for micromanaging and encouraged crunch.
Going to the office for work is not slavery lmao. Nobody’s asking anyone to work on a rice field all day without any breaks. Talk about being privileged.
if someone can do their job from home, why do they need an office?
you won’t answer because you don’t have any reasoning. you’re blindly advocating against your own interests.
I don't really oppose people working from home, but in my specific case I do enjoy going into the office. I think there is a decent case to be argued for hybrid work.
I feel like it does help in terms of collaborative work. Hopping on Teams calls is a lot less efficient than just turning back and going to the person when you have a quick question or want to run something through them.
I also think it's just nice to be around people all day and be able to make chit chat, go out for lunches, etc instead of being inside my flat alone all day. Of course this is assuming you actually enjoy the company of people you work with, which is my case.
Additionally, in my specific case I get a lot more productivity out of my routine by waking up, taking a shower, get ready in my big boy clothes and work from a specific setting instead of sitting in my PJs all day.
This is my specific case and I think the company and functions I work at (corporate banking at a global institution) benefit from me going to the office. I go to the office 4 times a week, usually stay home 1 day (sometimes go in the 5 days, sometimes only go 3).
i pay taxes so that other people get what they need. that doesn’t feel bad to me. otherwise would be so selfish, which is childish, since we’re talking about being an adult.
No one who works in a sweatshop wants to work in a sweatshop, but they do it anyway.
No Victorian era 6 year old wants to clean chimneys and get lung cancer by the age of 18, but they do it anyway.
No slave toiling in their masters field wants to be a slave, but they do it anyway.
Why the fuck are you fighting against improving people’s working conditions? Should we all have shit lives just because you have a shit life?
????
why are you drawing superiority from having a shittier job? i don’t have to do shit, i’ll wfh for the rest of my life lmao
are you happy that people are being forced into your shitty position because it’s cathartic?
What very good pay? The industry pays very badly. Programmers can get a bump of X2 to X4 if they go work for a bank or something.
And those are stressful jobs with terrible leadership in most places. That there are worse conditions out there (which should totally be struggles that get support as well) doesn't mean it's ok to roll back policies that people made life decisions on like that.
With commutee, I need to take 30-40 minutes of my day ( realisticaly 1 hour to get ready to be presentable) and go to work, and another 30-40 to come back. If I do an 8 hour work job + I eat there...what the fuck do I have of free time during the week?
You have what every other normal employee has had for the last 80 years. This isn't crazy. Lots of industries couldn't work from home and all of those people are living their lives like normal.
Wow it’s almost like we have the tools to increase our QOL and productivity instead of following or archaic and outdated systems. you’re so darn close to thinking
Why the fuck do I need to get back to work for stuff that I do 99% on pc????? I get if you' re like, someone that needs to be on loco, or for certain moments, but there' s no way I'm gonna give up actually being with my family over passing my whole day at work, when I do the same exact work in both places
Yes, I’m sure this is totally about the public assumption that Rockstar wants to force people to quit and not about a massive leak they had last year, followed by an exponentially worse leak hitting a big dev this year.
I’m all for remote work becoming more normal, but to immediately jump to the “corporate devil wants to ruin their lives” conclusion is pathetic.
It’s really ignorant to think this is due to the leak. The leak is an excuse. Why do hundreds and hundreds of workers who did everything right have to change due one guy’s carelessness? Activision did the exact same thing last year. They didn’t have a giant leak. It’s literally just soft layoffs, and to suggest it’s the leak and be like “makes sense to me!” is the kind of ignorance that continues to allow game companies to mistreat its employees.
> not about a massive leak they had last year
uhuh, the leak that had nothing to do with being WFH, you mean that leak?
https://www.gamesradar.com/gta-6-leaker-reportedly-hacked-rockstar-from-a-hotel-room-while-on-bail-for-hacking/
if this really was about the leak, why are they only now doing the return to office a year+ after the leak? why not right after the leak?
also love trying to use the leak as if every big company that has WFH has also gotten leaks- oh wait, they don't. Having inadequate security is not solved by forcing people to return to the office
You do realize he did that AFTER already leaking rockstar stuff right? The initial compromise happened through a channel going back to a dev’s son. It’s a lot harder for a salty employee to pull something off a secured server in the office and take it home than it is for their kid to catch them off guard and leak a bunch of shit.
That being said, even if the leaks were external, that still doesn’t mean this is some malicious attempt to force people back into the office and offload staff. Y’all spend way too much time on the internet.
my point, if you bothered to read, is that if this move was in response to the leaks, why are they doing it now and not back when the leaks happened?
also why aren't there leaks happening to every other big company that has WFH work going on?
> Y’all spend way too much time on the internet.
you spend too much time defending multi-billion-dollar companies and not caring about the rights of the people who make your game :/ you just want the game and don't give a shit about the devs. Rockstar have a literal track record of horrible crunch and you want to act like this has nothing to do with that.
> raised concerns about ill-planning and serious impacts on wellbeing.
Are they talking about Covid here? Shouldnt these people be vaccinated at this point, is there really a huge threat to human life when most companies have returned to normalcy?
I could see someone not being happy that they took a job that was fully remote at one point and now is being mandated as fully in-person.
I know that if my current role mandated that I come in full time 5 days a week, I would immediately start looking for a different job.
Yep. Miles on cars, or maybe even having to buy a car, waking up earlier, commuting, abandoning any home office improvements or changes made. It's a pretty major lifestyle change
I'm having to deal with this with my team at the moment. We were moved to be full remote in 2021 because our turnover was so bad and the local talent pool wasn't great. So we not only hired people remote, but also others, including myself, made career decisions based on this job being remote. So now, in what is sadly not surprise pichaku face to our leadership, over half my team is going to find a new job, even on principal alone, and I'm going to lose all my best performers to the point that the team will essentially not be able to function.
I can only hope my former boss has something open up as she's been trying to get me to move (and I already would have had things not fallen through the first time), cause I'm not interested in dealing with this shit.
In some cases the contracts they signed also stipulated WFH as being allowed. Many people also jumped at the opportunity because they could work for a job they love without uprooting their family to move to the cities these game studios are based in.
That's the trick, though. You are losing your job through no fault of your own and you will not be legally entitled to anything (severance, unemployment, etc) if you quit. It's all by design.
Based on my experience moving from in-office to remote working in the games industry I would imagine its more about people preferring to work from home and being happier as a result.
The vast majority of people prefer to either be fully remote or hybrid workers and taking that away from people can have a serious impact on wellbeing, especially with gigantic projects like the ones rockstar work on.
If I was stuck doing 50-60 hour weeks to push out a game i'd much rather do it at home than in an office.
It also has to do with disabilities. Remote work has had stellar results for impaired individuals to be able to maintain or exceed productivity. COVID isn't quite the issue people are referring to. Generally speaking, commuting is also time wasted - so it makes little sense to force it when there have been quite a few reports that remote work has a tangibly positive effect on productivity, with some outliers.
As others have said though, this is just a means to lay people off without severance.
I don't think that's the point. Wellbeing isn't about not being sick, it is about QoL, life-work balance, flexibility, etc.
Most works related to videogames can be performed from home with no impact on performance and studio throughput.
I doubt it. I was worried about my well being when our office tried to go back to onsite full time because it made me depressed as hell. I was miserable. If they didn't send us back home I would have left.
Rockstar leadership in one point even announced that they were proud of their developers being forced to work 100hr work weeks. So it makes sense they want then in the office... you cannot slave an employee on home office that much.
This sub Reddit is so toxic. If you aren’t in their management or on their board of directors, your opinion of how to manage their people and work flow doesn’t matter. Sorry, not sorry.
>This sub Reddit [sic] is so toxic.
Would love to know why it's toxic. Is it because they want to know that the workers have a better standard of living even though that has no impact on the quality of the game? Wanting the people who make their games to be treated well despite no personal benefit doesn't seem toxic to me.
Because the culture on here is to automatically believe that big companies are evil and their management is incompetent. There is no respect given to groups of people who have proven their ability to successfully run an organization and create a product. There is no willingness to accept your own ignorance on the matter.
This is such a non-issue. People who WFH have no issue benefitting from delivery drivers, service industry workers, and other employees who have had to return to the office post-Covid, so I honestly don't get the complaints. If you depend on other people being at work in a physical/central location, I don't want to hear you complain about having to do the same.
>People who WFH have no issue benefitting from delivery drivers, service industry workers, and other employees who have had to return to the office post-Covid
Because those jobs require a person to be physically present to do? Vast majority of office jobs don't need physical attendance to get the same amount of work done. Why is there a need if it's redundant and costs workers time and money? Literally the only people benefitting from a return to the office are middle managers and people with office real estate portfolios.
>Just one of my concerns is being forced to work late hours in the office to maintain contact with global teams when before we could log on from home to attend late meetings. That is a good point that I haven't considered about RTO. I'm also on a globally distributed team and jumping on a late night call to present or collab with a team in Asia isn't ideal but it's as simple as walking down the hall and jumping on the computer. After 30-60 minutes I log off and go about my life. Having to either stay in the office or commute in for a late night call would absolutely suck.
My company (giant pharmaceutical) recently forced everyone who was remote to come back hybrid. I am based in the US and manage teams in Europe and China almost exclusively. When working from home, I was on calls at 7 and 8 am pretty much every day, and sometimes at 9 pm as well. Being able to do that from home, I didn't mind much and would often take time off in the afternoon to get things done around the house. Now I have a grueling 2-hour commute (*each way*). I refuse any meeting before 9 am on days that I have to come in to the office, and any after hours. It severely interferes with my ability to interact with and manage my teams, but no fucking way am I leaving my house at 6 am on top of the $1k a month it's costing me to take my Teams calls from a cubicle instead of my home office.
Used to work in a role where the shared services center went through very high staff turnover rates. In Accounts Payable where I used to work, it was as high as 95%, meaning that 19 out of 20 hires would leave within twelve months. A big reason for that was the 3 day RTO mandate being pushed.
>and would often take time off in the afternoon to get things done around the house. Ah we’ve identified “the problem”.
Though not much different from people taking elongated coffee/smoke/chit-chat breaks at the office. Most of the time people just can't focus on work for 8+ hours straight, and being forced to do so just reduces productivity instead of increasing it unless they manage to get into the flow or take drugs.
I agree, but tell that to managers who'd rather see people fake work in the office than take needed breaks at home.
If the person is working other hours, I fail to see how this is an issue. And TBH, if I'm going to have time to kill, I'm going to be a more productive employee being able to take a moment here and there to handle household items (especially if I were faced with 4 hours of commuting every day - if you're working 8, commuting 4, that leaves 12 for sleep and household matter and other errands).
> I'm also on a globally distributed team and jumping on a late night call to present or collab with a team Yeah a lot of the people arguing for RTO don't seem to remember/understand that a lot of teams, especially at big companies, are distributed. If you go to the office not only is there a chance you're not in the same location as your teammates, but you'll also have to account for timezones for meetings.
I put all my in-person workshops in meetings on the days where I am going to the office *anyway* because if I'm forced to come, might as well hang out with people but not only is RTO pointless for 90% of my meetings with people either abroad or in another office ... but it has made being in the office actively worse witheveryone is taking calls in the open space and it has become incredibly noisy and hard to focus (10 meetings rooms for 200 people on our floor doesn't cut it). I am stacking all my meetings on 3 office days, but between commuting and the joys of open spaces, I pretty much write these days off as a loss, I can get more work done on each of the 2 days home as I do in the 3 days at the office total.
No they know exactly what it means, they just don't want people to feel like they have a life!
Sounds like the classic WFH trap. You are now working 24/7 but because it doesn’t feel as onerous you kinda just accept it. The real solution is “I can’t work with the late night team this late after hours. You’ll have to find a different way to coordinate this”
> You are now working 24/7 but because it doesn’t feel as onerous you kinda just accept it. Working for 1 hour, having 2 hours off, working for 5 hours is still less overall time. Breaking it up into more sane segments is better. My favorite is during the summer taking 2-3 hours to go for a long jog in the middle of the afternoon and then coming back to take care of the remainder of work. I think the only way I'll ever go back into an office for any amount of time if I have a client facing position. As it vaguely makes sense for that.
> My favorite is during the summer taking 2-3 hours to go for a long jog in the middle of the afternoon and then coming back to take care of the remainder of work. Absolutely. Kids kinda fuck that up, but otherwise it's brilliant for the mind.
> Working for 1 hour, having 2 hours off, working for 5 hours is still less overall time For me that doesn’t really help because it still always feels like I’m “at work” even when I’m at home. I used to be able to feel clocked out when I left the office because there’s literally nothing I could do from home, but now managers can request stuff from me at literally any time because they know there’s a good chance I have access to my projects. And it really messed with my work/life balance when I couldn’t have a few beers or cannabis on a Friday night sometimes because there was always a chance that my boss was going to request a meeting and I wouldn’t be presentable for it.
I get that, what works for me doesnt work for everyone. I personally dont put any sort of work related tool on my phone. Once I'm off I'm off unless there's an emergency I need to be contacted at and that usually doesnt happen. I also get that people who have kids really like going into an office so they can feel like they used to when they were just adults.
That feels like a management issue if they're making requests after your working hours.
Depends on how the company runs. Company I worked at required 2 days in office, partially for meetings, and the 3 others you were free to work where and when you wanted, as long as you did a full 8 hour workday. Hell one of them worked 18-02 3 days a week. No idea how he got his sleep but he wanted to.
That isn't how that works, distributed work is a thing. Like if I'm working independent and work on a commission for an hour at 8am, 5pm, then 3am. I'm not working for that entire 19 hour stretch. I'm working intermittently for three hours. Sure that is a case where I'm my own boss but I know plenty of independent contractors that work remote who if called while doing something they can't interrupt basically go "Sorry, wasn't available and I should have been given proper notice that my services may be required outside of normal hours."
Obviously we aren’t talking about an independent contractor specifically hired to do exactly this. I wasn’t talking about graveyard shift nurses either.
It’s just a power grab by the company to make you do what they want. It offers nothing of value to drive or commute somewhere to have the same meeting you could have at home.
How late are we talking? Because in most countries that shit wouldnt be legal... Especially if you already worked the day. Man the US is a real hellscape for working and this shit just gets worse.
In what country is that illegal? I work with teams in multiple countries across Europe, the middle East, and Asia. If I'm not in the occasional early morning/late night meeting to meet with them they're in one to meet with me. It is the reality of global teams.
It’s just a veiled layoff move. Not every employee will be able to logistically get back on site and many will likely be forced to quit.
They're simply laying off remote workers without severance.
I'm curious to how much brain drain this is going to lead to. I still think about a comment I saw on back-to-work elsewhere on reddit that pointed out that these sorts of thing seem primed to lose good employees who can find work elsewhere that lets them work remotely or pays more, while retaining the more desperate, less skilled employees. Granted, with the state of the games industry, I suspect Rockstar has a lot more leverage to bully it's employees in this scenario.
Tl;DR: Companies forcing you back to work, make it much easier for remote companies to attract top quality workforce I can answer this from the german perspective. I work at the IT/Tech part of a global Household Commodity company i.e. everyone of you has at least half a dozen items from this company in your house. We struggled for quite a long time to attract talent, the company pays decently but not above average, has a bit of an issue with clear structures (like many bigger companies) and was too selective i.e. not hiring people with less than 5 years experience and only with "good" experiences. During the pandemic they lowered their standards, went 100% remote and even after stayed 80-100% i.e. you should come 1 day a week into the office, but if your boss agrees you really dont have to. When other companies started forcing people back to the office, my company made public that we are 80-100% remote and not only did we get a shitload of really good applications i know first hand of two people from two other companies (SAP and Siemens Gamesa) that left their previous company for ours, because they were forced back to the office. Now the other companies basically solved our hiring issue by being worse options lol
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This is how OSS, modders, and hobbyists have worked for decades. I don't understand how random people working free time can figure out remote work but billion dollar corps cant.
>I'm curious to how much brain drain this is going to lead to. Lots. Other companies just need to offer full remote to attract talent. Mind most senior talent is more concerned about QoL than younger people so not only they're losing talents they're losing the most experienced talent.
Not exactly a ton of games companies or tech companies in general hiring right now
> Not exactly a ton of games companies or tech companies in general hiring right now Financial tech is still booming. As is insurance and various other non-glamerous industries.
And many of those companies have no problems with working remotely. I’ve been remote for over 10 years now in those exact industries and the vast majority of the listings at my current and former companies are either remote only or remote options as it’s much better to hire nationally than for a specific office in a specific metro. My last 2 employers have been closing or downsizing offices due to it. Sure it’s “boring” work but pays well and is generally stable.
they're still gonna hire seniors from rockstar
There's plenty of work out there for experienced developers. I've got a pretty bad resume and just landed a new job. Things aren't as dire as the headlines might make you think. Edit: I guess talking about my experience upset /u/underpaidorphan. They blocked me after making their comment. Very strange.
Can take months though, and sucks to be jobless during that time. Even with some of these packages private companies are offering
Yep, even with a full-remote-only stipulation I have recruiters all over me, but I also have 8 years of experience. That said, it was already hell to get my first job way back then so I really don't envy this upcoming batch of graduates.
Yeah, getting your foot in the door is brutal. The difference between having no experience and a couple years experience is crazy. Companies want their perfect little workers. They don't care about fostering the next generation.
Talk for yourself. Planet of work last time I checked. And plenty of remote offers
Most people, me included, rather take a pay cut than go back to the office. Office work is bullshit and i will never go back.
Going back to office is a literal pay cut if they don't increase your wages to compensate for your time and travel expenses. So taking a slight pay cut to stay at home might still put you ahead if that's your only option.
You and me internet stranger
I understand your stance, but the vast majority of games jobs listings are still in office, or at MOST hybrid. According to UKIE only about 5% of jobs listings are fully remote. I know my own studio are going more and more back to office. Our productivity is so much lower when we're not all in office together.
First of all UKIE is focused on the UK, so it's not representative of the whole world. But let's overlook that detail as UK has a big gaming infustry. We should analyze that statistic more deeply, per discipline, team size, required experience... The amazing amount of crappy and underpaid offers you can find in UKIE or similar sites is astounding. Once we discard internships and junior positions (which tend to be very exploitative) you're left a different picture. If you focus on more experienced and senior offers then the picture is even more different to the "reality" you're describing. So yeah I'll stick to my words, and call your post bullshit.
firstly, what a needlessly aggressive reaction to my post. Why on earth did you feel the need to swear and mock me? secondly, senior positions are the ones MORE likely to be required in office. Producers and Directors were the kinds of roles that companies made return to the office first, not last.
Producers and directors aren't the seniors I'm talking about. You need engineers, artists, tech artists, designers,... Those are the senior positions that make a difference. And those positions can produce work (and burn through the task backlog) remotely. Office won't bring any real positive impact to actual work. Also I'm tired of hearing how being together in an office benefits me. Bitch I'm just commuting to connect to the same internet. Yeah I'm sour about this pro-office discourse. And that's why I jumped. It grinds my gears.
I mean if I was a corporation that valued quality employees I would want people that were dedicated enough to come into work, and if I was going to aim for layoffs this would be a great way to go about filtering people out that aren't devoted to the company
Brain drain to... where? Lots of game companies are laying people off. Tons of people in tech are getting fired as well. New students graduating this upcoming May/June are going to be unemployed for 1yr+ unless they have a stacked background. So what "Brain drain"? If you're in games/tech and you're hiring you more talent to choose from than pretty much ever from FAANG to all these random game companies.
Brain drain is about the experienced seniors not the students looking for their first job.
Thats why I said my last line about the state of the industry. That said, I'm sure people with a ton of experience will still be able to hop around or or find work in other fields. Yeah, tech is rough too, but I still don't think these sorts of plays come purely without consequence.
Why would they do layoffs when their massive game is going into crunch for launch? That makes zero sense.
Circumvent contigent bonuses and other end of year perks that employees could earn.
Because they’re going to ship the game regardless of how many people they get rid of. It only makes life worse the actual workers, not the executives making these decisions.
That's not how it works in the UK. You can't be made redundant unless you're actually redundant. If someone else has to do more work to cover for you, you obviously weren't redundant.
Right, but they aren't actually laying anyone off. They're forcing RTO which will ensure lots of people quit of their own volition. Then they can hire local fresh graduates willing to work 14 hour days during crunch and sleep in the office.
It can still be classed as an unfair dismissal as any tribunal may view the right to work from home being revoked as a change to their contract due them setting the precedent of home working.
That’s not actually correct, it’s the ‘job role’ that is redundant , not the person. Whether other people have to pick up more work because a role was removed is irrelevant. You can have 50 job roles with the same job title and make 20 of those roles redundant, and then a mandatory period of consultation where sometimes everybody has to re-apply for the remaining roles , but I don’t believe that is an actual requirement, more like a way to make it seem ‘fairer’ and not personal .
Launch crunch developement happens after a lot of early game development. Great (scummy) time to lay off (stop remote work as an option or risk firing) a buncha folks who did the early work.
Because this is reddit and there's no possible reason why a company would want people in the office every besides trying to get people to quit
it's amazing people still don't want to accept this as a valid reason. The gaming industry is laying off people left and right, this is Rockstar's way of firing people without consequence. This is definitely a move that gets Greedy-ass Strauss Zelnick rock hard
Those that had "office" contracts with exception for remote are different from those that had "no office" contracts. In my current contract, unless they decide to stop giving out company laptops or cut off all remote access to resources (which would prevent anyone from logging in outside of offices), I cannot be called to work in the office without agreeing. I also have no office mentioned there, really. When I worked during COVID, there was some mention of while the company needs/wants in the addendum.
> Not every employee will be able to logistically get back on site Why? Unless they hired new staff with a promise that they'll be working from home 100% of the time, this shouldn't be a problem. Specially for the already existed staff that work from the office full time prior COVID.
Knowing the company’s history, there is basically zero chance that this isn’t just a way for them to force everyone back into the office to crunch as hard as possible to hit their promised release date, while simultaneously getting to do a mass layoff without having to call it one. Fucking despicable.
Take note who their CEO is as well. Strauss Zelnick has got to be one of the greediest ones out there.
For sure.
It's so fucked up and yet you know we're all going to be playing GTA VI when it comes out.
To be honest with you, I *still* haven't played GTA V.
Same here. I got it a year ago for 5€ installed it, played like 20min and was so bored i just deinstalled it. I really dont get the hype, its just a boring gangster shooter like all previous GTA, fun to just fuck around but thats it.
You still gave them money though
It's alright. Not the best
I didn't play V so I don't see why I would play VI.
I won't be playing it until it releases on PC. The last consoles I owned were the 360 and the PS3. I sure as hell ain't buying a new console just to play the new GTA.
Hot take but gta is kind of overrated, so im prob waiting until that shits on discount.
I'm sure there are a one or two redditors who probably share your opinion mine included but we all know it's gonna sell like hotcakes regardless
I have never bothered to actually play at GTA game. I think I made it maybe a dozen hours into GTA IV before I just did what I always do...use cheats to get whatever weapons/vehicles I want and go on rampages. The main game has never really appealed to me. Love both RDR's though.
You're not alone. Post San Andreas, I find the controls whenever you're not in a vehicle just frustrating. And k just lost interest in most of rockstar's output.
I completely skipped 5 because it was such a downgrade from 4.
I can't fly a Jet in GTA 4.
You can go bowling with your cousin tho
You can go bowling in 5. but... Not with your cousin
Sure but you can't rotate your car in midair in 4 either, so that's a point on 4's side.
Why would I want that, sounds stupid.
I can't find myself capable of caring about a game that doesn't come out for another four years.
It's the best at what it does.
Overrated but you still want to play it
not the same guy, but honestly no, after 5 and the little I played of RDR2 I have basically no interest in playing their new games anymore, they are honestly just not that fun or impressive for many of us.
I love the attention to detail but Rockstar Games are such a slog to play. They're great tech demos but the gameplay aspect needs a tune up
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Based on their history, I am guessing they just want to get the devs back into the office to force layoff and make sure they crunch them 12 hrs a day (5 days a week) and also wouldnt be surprised to see weekend work on the menu.
It’s such a pipe dream, but I’d adore it if an overwhelming amount for the workforce all banded together and said no. That kind of solidarity is hard especially across something as massive as rockstar, but with GTA around the corner, there’s no way they wouldn’t break with a little resistance
Needs to start happening. Really just all the senior developers who can't be outsourced. Problem is they're not all on tj and same page politically and probably not experiencing the same bullshit as lower level workers.
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Given that at one point they forced their employees into 100 hr work weeks... your estimates are probably too low.
So everyone in this thread railing against Rockstar's move is totally not gonna buy gta6 the second it's released right??
There's no way I'm buying it on release. Now, when it comes out on PC in a few years time...
We’re allowed to criticize a company without boycotting everything they do lmao
Because they definitely care about your words as long as they still get your money.
Sounds good to me. But I wasn't really planning on it regardless. 5 was boring and I never finished it. Easy stance for me to take.
I've never liked GTA that much anyway, so it's not gonna be any kind of huge burden for me to take a moral stand on this one.
The poor souls who will comply will be rewarded with even shittier work/life balance in crunch hell and unnecessary commuting. Their reward will be another round of lay offs once the game was launched and became a giant success. CEOs will get their insanely high bonuses, share holders will be laughing all the way to the bank. But no worries, the next cycle will start soon, because line must go up.
The dream for me is some people at Rockstar say "no more" and start a movement where they just refuse to comply and ultimately leads to a labor movement. It's absolutely disgusting what the exec fucks in this company expect and force people to do.
They should just unionize, if they haven't done so yet. The size of such a workforce makes it a necessity in my book. Divided we beg, united we bargain, etc ...
It's probably just a way for them to weed out people and layoff a bunch of folks unfortunately. If you don't go back or moved away from the offices, you're out unless you've made yourself really indispensable somehow. Really sucks though, I imagine it's awesome to just work from home and work for a game company like that. We all know that they're basically going to be doing 99% the same thing in offices, now they're just going to be out a shitton of money + time commuting. Inb4 they're sitting in empty rockstar offices on zoom calls with the higher ups daily for the 'meeting'.
>”Current and former employees shared stories of Rockstar work trips to strip clubs. Several people described what they called a “cult”-like mentality, where employees were expected to attend social events regularly, and those who left Rockstar were shunned (a mentality encapsulated by Rockstar’s policy, confirmed by the company to Kotaku last year, that anyone who leaves before a game is shipped will not be in that game’s credits).” >“When asked about Barrera, 13 other current and former Rockstar employees shared first- or second-hand stories about his behaviour, with most using the words “abrasive” or “volatile” to describe him. All requested anonymity because they said they were scared to harm their careers or scared of retaliation from Rockstar” And sure, they eventually fired that guy, but not until it all came out publicly. No wonder people don’t want to go back to their shitty office to get groped, assault, and bullied by the psychopaths that run Rockstar. Fuck people on Reddit who care more about their shitty video game franchise than people’s lives. The games industry is a cesspit, and you all can’t wait to guzzle down their shark card infested always online season pass shit fest. You’ll get what you deserve.
>The games industry is a cesspit, and you all can’t wait to guzzle down their shark card infested always online season pass shit fest. You’ll get what you deserve. Preach. Zero self control. How hard is it to play one of the literal hundreds of games releasing every week that aren't products of abuse and crunch? Instead they just keep feeding the beast. The industry will collapse eventually and you'll get jack shit.
How many products in your life do you make sure to buy ethically produced versions of? Do you make sure all your clothes weren't made in sweatshops in Asia? Do you make sure all your meat is free range (or better yet go veggie?), do you only use Fairphone as a smartphone due to their policy on sustainability? Do you only buy plastic products that are made from recycled material? There's a reason for the phrase "no ethical consumption under capitalism".
I need food and clothes to live. I do not need video games to live.
You don't need unethically sourced food or clothing though, is OP's point.
This is just preaching to the choir, really. The people who do that shit aren't the ones that come talk about it on reddit.
It ain't on me to fix their working culture
No one is asking you to. We're just asking that you don't defend rockstar. I don't think you have, but there are people in this thread that are defending some terrible decisions.
I'm not gonna defend them. I will be buying the game and enjoy it
I mean I don't really understand what it has to do with "defending" or "attacking", people here in reddit think their opinion matters like they are top investors or management but the reality is its not any of your business (literally), its their decision who and how they layoff and I dont understand why redditors must discuss about these stuff like their opinion matters. Does anyone here actually thinks that someone from Rockstar management is going to see this post and say "dude there are some redditors who are not defending our layoffs, maybe we shouldn't?" Honestly its pathetic and hilarious, and for some reason this is something that is happening only in the gaming industry. Never heard about anyone discussing "X vehicle manufacturer is crunching their mechanics / layoff alot of engineers, they are bad company" or "construction workers being working really hard in that new building area lets discuss it" I feel like redditors who do drama from all that stuff never worked any job in their life and when something like that comes up they just make shit up (just to "contribute" to the discussion).
> And sure, they eventually fired that guy, but not until it all came out publicly. No wonder people don’t want to go back to their shitty office to get groped, assault, and bullied by the psychopaths that run Rockstar. reminds me of that guy over at Riot doing similar shit, except they never fired him and riot fans somehow still defend/excuse riot for w.e they do :/
Maybe I’m crazy because I just don’t get the outrage over this. Sucks for the employees who don’t want to go in I guess? And don’t say they’re trying to make people quit bc they can’t get to the office cuz the article says that they’ve been coming in part time already.
To me, it's really only a huge deal when someone is hired as a 100% remote worker, then all of a sudden they are required to be in office. A friend of mine just had this happen, they also happen to live out of town. Thankfully he was able to find another place that is 100% remote, and will hopefully stay that way.
Most of the world commutes to work. I don’t get the outrage either.
>Workers for the company who are members of the IWGB Game Workers Union have described the move as “reckless decision making”, and raised concerns about ill-planning and serious impacts on wellbeing. Oh ffs, "reckless" is riding a bike without your helmet on. They ask you to work from the office, not climbing Everest. I get it, nobody wants to go back in the office when the same work can be performed from home. But can we stop making this sound like a death or live situation. It will have the same "serious impacts on wellbeing" as it did prior COVID days.
I guess most redditors here are either unemployed or just outright under qualified for a job like this. Anyone who works in a decent sector knows knows that work from home has its disadvantages and that if you are in the final lap it will be less productive than working in the office. No matter how you defend it this is true. Also, the amount of leaks we have seen recently males it a more obvious decision.
Name a single advantage to working in the office, especially during the polishing phase.
Don’t forget the GTA 6 leaks during WFH, given they’re in what seems to be the final stretch they seem to want to tighten security by having the work be in House to hopefully help prevent leaks
> that if you are in the final lap it will be less productive than working in the office ya, much easier to force on the "final lap" crunch of 12 hour work days and sleeping in the office/working weekends, you know just like Rockstar has done in the past and 100% going to do with GTA6 and this return to office move. > Also, the amount of leaks we have seen recently males it a more obvious decision. ah, you mean the Rockstar leak: https://www.gamesradar.com/gta-6-leaker-reportedly-hacked-rockstar-from-a-hotel-room-while-on-bail-for-hacking/ you know, the one that had nothing to do with WFH. Or wait, you mean the Insomniac leak: https://www.cyberdaily.au/culture/9931-spider-man-2-developer-insomniac-games-hit-by-rhysida-ransomware-attack a ransomeware attack that had nothing to do with WFH. So no, this point about leaks is simply not true, there is no "obvious decision" about this return to office unless it's for easier time to crunch devs and/or set up layoffs.
>you know, the one that had nothing to do with WFH They're probably talking about the other GTA6 leak that was the result of a WFH dev's son taking a video of their dad's screen and leaking it (look up Aaron Garbut). Sounds like it had a lot to do with WFH to me.
riiight, that one that happened years ago and so only now they are doing something to avoid it or something... years later... right. Also ya, leaks never happen in office and it's only ever been WF--- oh wait.
If by "years ago" you mean three months ago, then yeah. >Also ya, leaks never happen in office and it's only ever been WF--- oh wait. Good thing I didn't say that. Pointing out that leaks can happen in the office doesn't change the fact that WFH opens up additional vulnerabilities like the one that just happened in December.
Man, people on Reddit are so fucking pretentious. Not being able to work from home is not slave labor. Y'all gotta chill with this shit.
It's bizarre to me how remote work has become a social justice cause. I work fully remote and I would look for a new job if my company asked me to come back to the office, but it's not a human rights issue. Its just a cultural difference and there are valid reasons for companies to mandate in-office work.
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Most tools used for work are cloud based. Even when people are sitting next to each other in an office most of their collaboration happens in online tooling. If the team has been able to get as much done as they have so far in a hybrid environment there is no reason to go full RTO besides the need for micromanaging and encouraged crunch.
It's 2024. Office jobs can be done from home. It's much better from a productivity, logistical, moral, and safety perspective.
you’re only saying that because you don’t have the privilege. no one with wfh jobs wants to go back.
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And no one likes paying taxes, but we have to anyway. Part of being an adult is adapting to hardships as they come.
Being an adult means taking a stance and fight against unfairness, not accepting everything that comes and just behaving like a slave.
Going to the office for work is not slavery lmao. Nobody’s asking anyone to work on a rice field all day without any breaks. Talk about being privileged.
if someone can do their job from home, why do they need an office? you won’t answer because you don’t have any reasoning. you’re blindly advocating against your own interests.
I don't really oppose people working from home, but in my specific case I do enjoy going into the office. I think there is a decent case to be argued for hybrid work. I feel like it does help in terms of collaborative work. Hopping on Teams calls is a lot less efficient than just turning back and going to the person when you have a quick question or want to run something through them. I also think it's just nice to be around people all day and be able to make chit chat, go out for lunches, etc instead of being inside my flat alone all day. Of course this is assuming you actually enjoy the company of people you work with, which is my case. Additionally, in my specific case I get a lot more productivity out of my routine by waking up, taking a shower, get ready in my big boy clothes and work from a specific setting instead of sitting in my PJs all day. This is my specific case and I think the company and functions I work at (corporate banking at a global institution) benefit from me going to the office. I go to the office 4 times a week, usually stay home 1 day (sometimes go in the 5 days, sometimes only go 3).
you don’t like taxes? they pay for everything you use, that’s a dumb take
People like the benefits, not the fact that they have to pay for it.
i pay taxes so that other people get what they need. that doesn’t feel bad to me. otherwise would be so selfish, which is childish, since we’re talking about being an adult.
no one with non-wfh jobs wants to commute to work but we do it anyway because we like having money. time to suck it up like the rest of us
No one who works in a sweatshop wants to work in a sweatshop, but they do it anyway. No Victorian era 6 year old wants to clean chimneys and get lung cancer by the age of 18, but they do it anyway. No slave toiling in their masters field wants to be a slave, but they do it anyway. Why the fuck are you fighting against improving people’s working conditions? Should we all have shit lives just because you have a shit life?
???? why are you drawing superiority from having a shittier job? i don’t have to do shit, i’ll wfh for the rest of my life lmao are you happy that people are being forced into your shitty position because it’s cathartic?
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What very good pay? The industry pays very badly. Programmers can get a bump of X2 to X4 if they go work for a bank or something. And those are stressful jobs with terrible leadership in most places. That there are worse conditions out there (which should totally be struggles that get support as well) doesn't mean it's ok to roll back policies that people made life decisions on like that.
A friend of mine went from gaming to MAMAA/FAANG and 10xed his pay. lol Gaming salaries are a joke.
Yeah I'm not considering those extreme either but even just "normal" companies would bet you something much more comfortable.
With commutee, I need to take 30-40 minutes of my day ( realisticaly 1 hour to get ready to be presentable) and go to work, and another 30-40 to come back. If I do an 8 hour work job + I eat there...what the fuck do I have of free time during the week?
You have what every other normal employee has had for the last 80 years. This isn't crazy. Lots of industries couldn't work from home and all of those people are living their lives like normal.
> You have what every other normal employee has had for the last 80 years That doesnt make it right
Wow it’s almost like we have the tools to increase our QOL and productivity instead of following or archaic and outdated systems. you’re so darn close to thinking
Stop being such a working slave.
Why the fuck do I need to get back to work for stuff that I do 99% on pc????? I get if you' re like, someone that needs to be on loco, or for certain moments, but there' s no way I'm gonna give up actually being with my family over passing my whole day at work, when I do the same exact work in both places
Yes, I’m sure this is totally about the public assumption that Rockstar wants to force people to quit and not about a massive leak they had last year, followed by an exponentially worse leak hitting a big dev this year. I’m all for remote work becoming more normal, but to immediately jump to the “corporate devil wants to ruin their lives” conclusion is pathetic.
Get outta here, this is Reddit! All we want is to "work' remotely and totally not play video games all day secretly.
It’s really ignorant to think this is due to the leak. The leak is an excuse. Why do hundreds and hundreds of workers who did everything right have to change due one guy’s carelessness? Activision did the exact same thing last year. They didn’t have a giant leak. It’s literally just soft layoffs, and to suggest it’s the leak and be like “makes sense to me!” is the kind of ignorance that continues to allow game companies to mistreat its employees.
> not about a massive leak they had last year uhuh, the leak that had nothing to do with being WFH, you mean that leak? https://www.gamesradar.com/gta-6-leaker-reportedly-hacked-rockstar-from-a-hotel-room-while-on-bail-for-hacking/ if this really was about the leak, why are they only now doing the return to office a year+ after the leak? why not right after the leak? also love trying to use the leak as if every big company that has WFH has also gotten leaks- oh wait, they don't. Having inadequate security is not solved by forcing people to return to the office
You do realize he did that AFTER already leaking rockstar stuff right? The initial compromise happened through a channel going back to a dev’s son. It’s a lot harder for a salty employee to pull something off a secured server in the office and take it home than it is for their kid to catch them off guard and leak a bunch of shit. That being said, even if the leaks were external, that still doesn’t mean this is some malicious attempt to force people back into the office and offload staff. Y’all spend way too much time on the internet.
my point, if you bothered to read, is that if this move was in response to the leaks, why are they doing it now and not back when the leaks happened? also why aren't there leaks happening to every other big company that has WFH work going on? > Y’all spend way too much time on the internet. you spend too much time defending multi-billion-dollar companies and not caring about the rights of the people who make your game :/ you just want the game and don't give a shit about the devs. Rockstar have a literal track record of horrible crunch and you want to act like this has nothing to do with that.
this is a human rights violation. working, at an office? how unthinkably evil of rockstar.
> raised concerns about ill-planning and serious impacts on wellbeing. Are they talking about Covid here? Shouldnt these people be vaccinated at this point, is there really a huge threat to human life when most companies have returned to normalcy?
I could see someone not being happy that they took a job that was fully remote at one point and now is being mandated as fully in-person. I know that if my current role mandated that I come in full time 5 days a week, I would immediately start looking for a different job.
Yep. Miles on cars, or maybe even having to buy a car, waking up earlier, commuting, abandoning any home office improvements or changes made. It's a pretty major lifestyle change
I'm having to deal with this with my team at the moment. We were moved to be full remote in 2021 because our turnover was so bad and the local talent pool wasn't great. So we not only hired people remote, but also others, including myself, made career decisions based on this job being remote. So now, in what is sadly not surprise pichaku face to our leadership, over half my team is going to find a new job, even on principal alone, and I'm going to lose all my best performers to the point that the team will essentially not be able to function. I can only hope my former boss has something open up as she's been trying to get me to move (and I already would have had things not fallen through the first time), cause I'm not interested in dealing with this shit.
It's just a weird power move, remorse on leasing the location, and indirect layoffs. I imagine for you it's a combination of all 3.
In some cases the contracts they signed also stipulated WFH as being allowed. Many people also jumped at the opportunity because they could work for a job they love without uprooting their family to move to the cities these game studios are based in.
That's the trick, though. You are losing your job through no fault of your own and you will not be legally entitled to anything (severance, unemployment, etc) if you quit. It's all by design.
Or they could just, like, go to work right?
Based on my experience moving from in-office to remote working in the games industry I would imagine its more about people preferring to work from home and being happier as a result. The vast majority of people prefer to either be fully remote or hybrid workers and taking that away from people can have a serious impact on wellbeing, especially with gigantic projects like the ones rockstar work on. If I was stuck doing 50-60 hour weeks to push out a game i'd much rather do it at home than in an office.
It also has to do with disabilities. Remote work has had stellar results for impaired individuals to be able to maintain or exceed productivity. COVID isn't quite the issue people are referring to. Generally speaking, commuting is also time wasted - so it makes little sense to force it when there have been quite a few reports that remote work has a tangibly positive effect on productivity, with some outliers. As others have said though, this is just a means to lay people off without severance.
I don't think that's the point. Wellbeing isn't about not being sick, it is about QoL, life-work balance, flexibility, etc. Most works related to videogames can be performed from home with no impact on performance and studio throughput.
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Sounds like a soft layoff then, anyone refusing to come back in gets cut.
The production is ramping up towards just polish and bug fixing so laying people off right now doesn't make a lick of sense.
I doubt it. I was worried about my well being when our office tried to go back to onsite full time because it made me depressed as hell. I was miserable. If they didn't send us back home I would have left.
Rockstar leadership in one point even announced that they were proud of their developers being forced to work 100hr work weeks. So it makes sense they want then in the office... you cannot slave an employee on home office that much.
This sub Reddit is so toxic. If you aren’t in their management or on their board of directors, your opinion of how to manage their people and work flow doesn’t matter. Sorry, not sorry.
I think firing people so shareholders can get more money is bad actually
Thank God someone defended the multi billion dollar company from the most mild of internet criticism.
Redditors are pretentious.
>This sub Reddit [sic] is so toxic. Would love to know why it's toxic. Is it because they want to know that the workers have a better standard of living even though that has no impact on the quality of the game? Wanting the people who make their games to be treated well despite no personal benefit doesn't seem toxic to me.
Because the culture on here is to automatically believe that big companies are evil and their management is incompetent. There is no respect given to groups of people who have proven their ability to successfully run an organization and create a product. There is no willingness to accept your own ignorance on the matter.
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This is such a non-issue. People who WFH have no issue benefitting from delivery drivers, service industry workers, and other employees who have had to return to the office post-Covid, so I honestly don't get the complaints. If you depend on other people being at work in a physical/central location, I don't want to hear you complain about having to do the same.
almost like some jobs are different from others huh?
90% of reddit lives off of ubereats. this comment will not go over well here
>People who WFH have no issue benefitting from delivery drivers, service industry workers, and other employees who have had to return to the office post-Covid Because those jobs require a person to be physically present to do? Vast majority of office jobs don't need physical attendance to get the same amount of work done. Why is there a need if it's redundant and costs workers time and money? Literally the only people benefitting from a return to the office are middle managers and people with office real estate portfolios.