Special report: THQ addresses dev tensions as worker says schedule has pushed team to the limit
An embittered and exhausted individual at Homefront developer Kaos has broken silence on the relentless crunch work that, he says, has been underway at the studio for around half a year.
An inside source from the New York-based Kaos said the studio been working on daily ten-hour schedules for “six months”, with the group’s owner THQ determined to release Homefront before the fiscal year-end.
If the studio did not meet certain bug-fix targets, some people “would have to come in one weekend day as well”, the source revealed.
The individual, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that other staff “are now in a 7-day-a-week crunch”, and alleged that “over the holiday many of us were on call and unable to leave to see our family”.
And in a brave act of transparency hardly ever seen by games publishers, THQ has allowed Develop to speak to Kaos general manager, David Votypka, to discuss the accusations openly.
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[The full spread of accusations from the Kaos insider can be found here, and Votypka’s response to each can be found here.]
Votypka corroborated all of the source’s allegations in some capacity, though strongly denied that holiday work had been enforced by studio management or THQ.
Votypka confirmed to Develop that the entire studio has been on ten-hour daily work schedules, for the last six months, because the Kaos team “needed to increase our velocity heading into our final Alpha and Beta phases”.
“If this seems unique or abhorrent, I would have to suggest that any assessment regarding a 10-hour work day would need to consider a much larger segment of the American workforce,” Votypka added.
“Digital media companies, marketers, PR, even accountants in various industries throughout the nation, work 10 hour days regularly, 52 weeks per year.”
Moving to the issue of Kaos staff allegedly having to meet bug-fixing targets to avoid coming in on weekends, Votypka said:
“On many games, and other digital media software projects, when the bug counts start rolling in, a blanket overtime policy is put in place. That type of practice isn’t particularly developer friendly.
“At Kaos, feedback from the team was that they wanted to maintain a level of control over their work schedule, so the policy we ended up using was goal based.”
Votypka went on to detail the process in which targets have to be met in order to avoid overtime. The finer details can be found here.
He said: “I don’t mind sharing [the schedule] because it is much more developer friendly than most, or possibly any, that I’ve seen in over ten years of making games.”
Homefront, set to be published by THQ worldwide from March 8th, will be the packaged result of a three year journey at Kaos.
In a rallying call for his team to emerge triumphant from their arduous final weeks, Votypka said: “All of a team’s work over the lifetime of a project can either be validated, or invalidated, by the outcome of the final beta phase”.
He said that the ten-hour crunch period had made up “less than 20 per cent” of the total project time, and that the team had been working regular hours for around two and a half years prior.
Votypka confirmed that around one-third of Kaos’ 200-person workforce is now at the office seven days a week, though added that “this has only been the case for the last two to three weeks leading into our final submission”.
He said: “Unfortunately, it was misstated that this [seven-day crunch] has been going on for two months. That’s simply not the case. For the record: no Kaos developer has worked 60 days without a break. That will never happen here.”
Votypka was responding to media reports arising from a comment made by THQ president of Core Games, Danny Bilson.
Last week Bilson wrote on his Twitter account:
“At Kaos studios in NY sitting with a team that's finaling on 7 day weeks for a couple of months. Talk about that ‘thousand yard stare’”.
The comment has been criticised by key figures within the games industry and press.
Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski described such overtime schemes as “unhealthy”.
News site Kotaku ran with an article entitled “Employee, Soldier, or Hostage?”
Develop’s source said: “People at Kaos do not want to hear THQ publicly say things that glorify crunch time”.
Votypka responded that “delivering a great game is the best outcome, from a career perspective, for any dev team, and the team here has shown great passion and commitment to delivering a really great game with Homefront”.
He said “it would be unjust not to communicate that Danny [Bilson] has been our most staunch supporter from the outset. He personally brought on talent to the game such as John Milius, and THQ has been fully supportive in giving us additional time and resources to deliver a ground-breaking, AAA experience.”
Develop’s source, who has been confirmed as an employee at the studio, said “a lot of people at Kaos resent crunch time in any form. The longer crunch goes on the more bad will gets built up.”
The only allegation which Votypka flatly denied was that staff had been forced to work over the holiday season.
He did not directly address whether some staff, nevertheless, had to come into the office during this time.
“No staff was asked to work over Thanksgiving or Christmas, and they never would be. Three days off for Thanksgiving were given, and 3-4 days for Christmas,” he said.
He went on to say that Kaos’ management team “worked with a handful of individuals on unique circumstances for their situation and workload surrounding those dates”.
Votypka suggested that staff had to work between Christmas and New Years, yet THQ said "the majority staff were actually able to take a week and a half off" across the Christmas period.
Votypka added: “Generally THQ gives that time off, but it is discretionary based on project needs, and part of the team was needed to work several of those days."
Develop’s source believed that better schedule planning would have limited the levels of crunch the Kaos team is now subjected to.
“Most people at Kaos think that we as a studio should have managed our time and schedule better. The management team shouldn't have put us on a schedule that would have led to this kind of crunch,” the person said.
“Kaos probably had enough time to make the game, but lack of early resources and over-committing on the project led to this situation more than not having the proper length of time.”
It was alleged that “some people have negative feelings because they are forced to stay late for support even if they are finished with all or most of their tasks”.
“In some cases if part of the team was behind, everyone had to stay late or work one weekend day. Management seems to be inconsistent about this though because sometimes we do not have to come in on the weekend when others are behind.”
Votypka had not been given the chance to respond to the comment.
The insider added: “Most of all, I think people just want to feel that their time and hard work is appreciated.”
The Kaos team’s remaining hours and workload “is based on the remaining bug counts, and ensuring we get through those counts so the game delivers on its great potential”, Votypka said.
He also claimed that the studio “will manage this last push closely with the staff on a case-by-case basis, and if anyone feels they are nearing their limits, they should communicate this and Kaos management will find a way to let them re-energise”.
“The goal here is always to balance the challenges of remaining developer friendly, hitting our milestones, and maintaining the high quality project goals we all uphold at this studio.”
He also revealed that bonuses and time off will be awarded to all staff after the game ships, and that the bonuses are “scaled to reward extra effort put in”.
Develop’s source claimed, however, that “many people at Kaos are unhappy about the crunch mainly because they assume there will be not be a good reward for it”.
“THQ does have a bonus program but most people feel that it will not reward the team enough. People assume the way the bonus works it will not fairly reward those that put in the extra time and effort.”
Votypka concluded: “This is a passionate team that’s giving their all to a product that they will all be very proud to have on their resumes, that will benefit their careers, for many years to come.”
[Is your studio demanding too much from you? Do you think that the issue of crunch is overblown? Speak to Develop, either on the record or in confidence, by emailing rob.crossley@intentmedia.co.uk]
I really don't see what the problem is here. We work in a creative industry that has never, ever been a 9-5. The final 6 months of every game I've worked on in the last 20 years has been a slog - not always 10+ hour days (although often more!) but you do what you need to do in order to ship your title. The impact of not doing so usually means you're looking for another job!
This is especially the case for AAA games. Big budgets, massive marketing campaigns etc mean that games have to ship on time otherwise a massive investment (and market opportunity) is missed.
If you're not lucky enough to work for one of the special few developers who truly do finish the game when they are 'done' then maybe this doesn't apply so much.
I'd suggest the guys at Kaos complaining about this might be better suited to working in a bank / supermarket than working in game dev.
Lol, having just spent the entire night coding on one of my games I have to agree... Crunch is part of the development process. 10 hour days I consider reasonable crunch and to be expected given potential slips that could occur in a 3 year project.
I mentioned this earlier - I think crunch IS ok... The only issue is when management are planning "crunch" into dev schedules. If it's just the result of slips and bugs not being resolved in a timely manner then there is very little you can do as a manager once the allocated reserve time has been used.
It is damn near impossible to predict how much "reserve time" you will need at the start... Some projects will inevitabally run over as more un-predictable problems begin to occur than was planned for...
@1: Every year, the real people responsible for getting these games out, are made to suffer for incompetent/irresponsible management decisions. Crunch is factored into a project schedule, and times (and costs) are based on that. It's not a case of "oh dear, we're running late, we'd better start crunching". It's a case of "if we dont't crunch, it will cost too much, so we will incorporate unpaid overtime into the schedule to save some money.". And then of corse, you have the "of course we can make all those unreasonable changes, we will just get the minions to work extra for free, to do them.".
Remember, you work to live... Not the other way round. If you believe otherwise, then your either a naive fool... or one of those people who leave at 5:30 on a friday.
Until the people who swan out of the office at 5:30 on a friday, stop using people's private life, as a company asset, then things won't change. But I guess while every there are people like you in the industry, why should they? If there's always someone to wear the red nose and big shoes, there will always be clowns.
as someone who is currently on this team working on finaling this project, I would say this is an accurate representation of the situation that Kaos' employees are in. Bilson's original "Thousand Yard Stare" quote was obviously exaggerated. I can confirm that to the best of my knowledge no one has worked 60 days in a row. If you know anything about Danny you know that he's no stranger to hyperbole.
This crunch has been difficult and stressful and i'll be glad when it's over - and I certainly don't envy the position that Dave is in. Attempting to manage a team that's on the ragged edge, while trying to finish a new IP in the most competitive genre, while his egomaniac of a boss spouts random countermessaging bullshit on his twitter feed is not an enviable position to be in.
1. games industry has one of the highest numbers of inexperienced unqualified managers. Promotion from within, nepotism.
2. scientific research done at the time of the war calculated the OPTIMUM amount of time people can work and be productive. It's 9-5, 5 days a week for a reason people, it isn't that way to be nice. That is the most productive way of working when you don't have access to slaves.
3. the project triangle, fast + good + cheap - basic management theory, you can have two of those ideals, but NEVER all of them. These guys chose fast and cheap, guess what you'll get as a result.
This is part of the reason behind most games failing to break even at market i.e. they aren't very good. It's not the only reason, but its a big part of it.
“All of a team’s work over the lifetime of a project can either be validated, or invalidated, by the outcome of the final beta phase”
Isn't it all a question of scheduling as was mentioned? To do months on months of 'overtime' just means someone didn't schedule properly.
I'm so glad that someone spoke out about this situation. I'm friends with someone at Kaos Studios, and it's been a NIGHTMARE over there. So many talented people have jumped ship because of the poor way the company is run. It's despicable that a company would expect its employees to work so much with essentially no reward. This is only a recipe for disaster since most people will jump at the first chance they get to leave. From what I hear the completion bonuses are ridiculously small, too. At least at places like Google, the employees are well compensated for giving their lives to the company. From what I know about Kaos Studios, an employee gets a couple of thousand bucks for six months of overtime, while the executives stand to make hundreds of thousands of dollars. OF COURSE people are upset. I know the gaming industry has exploited its workers in the past, but times are changing and game developers are no longer all naive 20 year old kids without families or a life outside work. Things are going to change. I hope Kaos realizes this before they build such a bad reputation that no one experienced wants to join the company.
The comment that really worried me in this article was about people having to meet targets to avoid overtime.
Overtime - especially unpaid overtime - is something a manager should be able to ask for, but should never ever expect. Period. Anything else amounts to victimisation.
It's worse in Japan, I've seen it firsthand ---not just in the game industry. I guess to each his own. @_@;;
...before you deliver your schedule draft, consult your team leads if you are not aware how your team performs, and after you work on it, show the schedule to the team for comments and approval! do not schedule having an ideal scenario in mind, use buffers. discuss and communicate further changes coming from upper managementpublisher. Make sure that in the contract you cover adequately the cases when the publisher decides to introduce new features. Make it clear that additional features means extra development time!
However even this way, there will be things you were not able to anticipate. Things that nobody possibly could. I believe strongly in what i also heard from a blizzard producer in some interview. Promote the mentality of making everything as if this is the final polished version. This way you limit the amount of extra hours that may appear later. The more small things you leave "to fix later" the more small hacks you introduce, chances are they will come and bite you in the end.
These may actually sound like basic things, abc, but it is surprising how many times things like that pop up.
Eventually their game will come out and it will be a great game and we will enjoy playing it thanks to these guys and their efforts!
If you want to push your game out before the financial year ends then HIRE MORE STAFF!!!! Why expect 150% productivity from existing staff? So you can make more profits that will not be shared with the same staff?
So happy and relieved that I got out of this industry!
One point Votypka wasn't asked about (or didn't comment on) was what HIS bonus (if any) was going to be for the team delivering the game on time.
Producers/studio heads/senior execs are often offered financial incentives for on time, on budget delivery, especially of a slipping project.
Perhaps it explains why many senior execs see crunch as an "inevitable part of development" rather than a failing on their behalf.
Sicko: The problem with throwing more staff at a project that's in trouble is that you'll then sap the resources of your leads and experienced staff in training the new guys up - no matter how experienced the new guys are.
Of course, the bosses won't ever give you the budget to hire more staff when they know they can thrash that extra 10% from the people they already have.
I was told not to schedule buffer time into my project by the project director once - we had a blazing row but being the boss he got his way... guess how it turned out?
The only way to stop this is to unionize
Unpaid overtime for ANY reason is morally wring. You know it, I know it and both Kaos and THQ know it.
The really sad thing about this situation is that the title is simply bound to flounder sales-wise anyway.
I always had a soft spot for Kaos - originating as they did as a Battlefield community mod team.
However -
Kaos burned a lot of consumers fingers with Frontlines (un-optimized mess of a game).
Homefront simply can't compete against EA/DICE's Battlefield - they were fools to try first time around and they are fools to try now.
