One story that has been dominating the narrative of Red Dead Redemption 2 in the last two weeks is the reported workplace culture over at Rockstar North. Backlash was quick to follow an interview with Rockstar Co-Founder Dan Houser where he noted “100-hour weeks” were had a few times in 2018 to help get Red Dead Redemption 2 where it needs to be at for launch.
Since the original reporting, news has come out on both sides of the equation. On one hand, Dan clarified the specific quote in an interview with Kotaku:
[W]e obviously don’t expect anyone else to work this way. Across the whole company, we have some senior people who work very hard purely because they’re passionate about a project, or their particular work, and we believe that passion shows in the games we release. But that additional effort is a choice, and we don’t ask or expect anyone to work anything like this. Lots of other senior people work in an entirely different way and are just as productive – I’m just not one of them! No one, senior or junior, is ever forced to work hard. I believe we go to great lengths to run a business that cares about its people, and to make the company a great place for them to work.
Meanwhile, previous employees have taken to social media platforms to hurl similar complaints about Rockstar’s labor practices when they were tenured.
However, in a very rare move for the generally secretive Rockstar North, the company seems to have lifted Non-Disclosure requirements on employees. With this out of the way, many have been hitting Twitter this morning to openly discuss the workplace culture of Rockstar.
The collection of Tweets can be found below, but it does definitely paint an interesting picture. Comments from the staff seem to showcase Rockstar North as fairly standard workplace with supportive management–albeit one with various crunch times. No one speaking out currently has ever been asked to put in a hundred hours (like the original report suggested), however they were no stranger to overtime. Phil Beveridge (programmer at Rockstar North) emphatically stated that he has “never worked a 100 hour week” and that it is a “frankly ridiculous number.” Instead, he mentioned that he tends to average about 40-45 hours per week, with it sometimes stretching as high as 60 hours. But when doing that it was out of his “own accord… part of [him] being a perfectionist with the work [he does].”
Vivanne Langdon, a tools programmer, reiterates a similar tone. Within her role, she has “never worked more than maybe 50 hours a week (and that’s a rare occurrence), but [she] generally work about 2-6 hours of paid overtime per week.” Vivianne also makes a note that she is non-exempt, meaning she is paid extra for taking part in that.
Senior Graphic Designer Bean, J, goes as far to say that “tales of enforced 100hr weeks are completeley untrue” in his experience.
On the other side of things, not everyone is entirely happy with the pressure. A script writer at Rockstar notes:
Normal crunch for me nowadays is more like 50-55 hours, and I’ve not personally had it as bad as other colleagues I know. I have several friends who have recently worked until the early hours of the morning many times.
While there tends to be small quips about crunch time when it comes to Rockstar employees, the ones who have come public seem to underscore the same message: Rockstar never forced them to work 100 hour work weeks, overtime is generally expected and compensated, that “crunch” has severely improved from past projects, and that it remains a problem in the industry worth addressing.
However, based on the public accounts of current employees, it would seem that much of the narrative — including Rockstar forcing people to work more than two times the average work hours — was largely drummed up because it remains a big industry problem. With Rockstar employees taking a moment to help unmuddy the waters, maybe we can get back to being hyped about Red Dead Redemption 2 and look to change the industry for the better across the board.
Red Dead Redemption 2 will be available for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on October 26th. For those who want to pick the game up, Red Dead Redemption 2 is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.
You can check out a selection of the employee Tweets below:
Will preface this with a note about how this is my own personal experience at North, and things might not be the same at other studios or departments. I'm not part of those teams, so shouldn't try to speak for them. But overall, my experience working at Rockstar is a good one.
— Phil Beveridge (@philcsf) October 18, 2018
Case in point: I know plenty of people who never do overtime, and leave on time every day to spend time with their family. One of those people has been working here for over 15 years.
— Phil Beveridge (@philcsf) October 18, 2018
In the time that I've been at the studio, work practices have definitely improved. Crunch on Red Dead Redemption 2 has definitely been a lot better that it was on GTA V, where I was pulling a month of 70+ hour weeks (while being told by my boss at the time to go home…)
— Phil Beveridge (@philcsf) October 18, 2018
They catch issues before we notice, help us out by spreading workloads, and make sure we're all okay. Game dev is a very fluid thing, and things deviate and break. If something goes wrong, we work with them to develop workflows and pipelines to make sure it doesn't happen again.
— Phil Beveridge (@philcsf) October 18, 2018
Crunch is a terrible thing, and should not be glorified by anyone. I'll admit that Rockstar isn't perfect. While feeling disheartened about some of the opinions online over the past few days, I'm hoping this discussion continues so we can fix issues across the whole industry.
— Phil Beveridge (@philcsf) October 18, 2018
I am asked, encouraged and expected to work overtime (both nights and weekends) when coming up to a big deadline. The most I've ever worked in a single week during my nearly-five years here has been 79 hours, but that was not recently.
— Tom Fautley (@noodle6491) October 18, 2018
I do still enjoy my work, and I'm happy enough working here. But I think it should be better. I should stress that these are my personal feelings on the matter only.
— Tom Fautley (@noodle6491) October 18, 2018
R* has granted permission for us to speak frankly about this issue on social media. I want to stress that this is is my uncurated personal opinion, I am not being compensated for this post in any way and am making it voluntarily. I'm only going to speak to my personal experience.
— Vivianne Langdon 🏳️🌈 (@viiviicat) October 18, 2018
I'm "non exempt" so my overtime pay starts at 1.5x salary and scales to 2x after 8 hours of OT in a week or 12 hours in a single day, in accordance with California law. Also, I have only been asked to work on weekends once or twice in my entire time at R* on the Tools team.
— Vivianne Langdon 🏳️🌈 (@viiviicat) October 18, 2018
(as an aside, everyone at R* has been incredibly kind and supportive of me as I continue on my own personal journey. I have always felt listened to, valued and respected by the team and this was not changed by my transition.)
— Vivianne Langdon 🏳️🌈 (@viiviicat) October 18, 2018
This project has of course been a lot of work for everyone. I am extremely proud of the work that I and the rest of the team have done and am incredibly excited for release day.
— Vivianne Langdon 🏳️🌈 (@viiviicat) October 18, 2018
It is getting better, but it still absolutely happens. Normal crunch for me nowadays is more like 50-55 hours, and I've not personally had it as bad as other colleagues I know. I have several friends who have recently worked until the early hours of the morning many times.
— Hall🎃wain (@Ploddish) October 18, 2018
I still love my work. I was admittedly surprised by how kind everyone here was when I joined – I guess I expected something else? Everyone here is lovely. But I hate when I hear colleagues tell me they stayed until 3am the night before, and feel the need to speak out about it.
— Hall🎃wain (@Ploddish) October 18, 2018
Quite simply, I've loved working on #RDR2 more than any other project we've made. It's astounding. We work hard, but these tales of enforced 100hr weeks are completely untrue in my experience.
— Bean, J. (@B_3_A_N_) October 18, 2018
My name is on Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2. Lots of hard work and tough days went into both, but that's me pushing myself to do that. If it ever felt forced and expected, i'd just go contracting for one of the banks.
— PepsiPunk (@Pepsi_Punk) October 18, 2018
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