• Trouble at Gameloft Auckland: Developer Blows Whistle on 120-Hour Weeks, "Dangerous Conditions"
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[release][h2]Trouble at Gameloft Auckland: Developer Blows Whistle on 120-Hour Weeks, "Dangerous Conditions"[/h2] [url=http://games.on.net/article/13193/Trouble_at_Gameloft_Auckland_Developer_Blows_Whistle_on_120-Hour_Weeks_Dangerous_Conditions][b]//Source:[/b] games.on.net[/url] ______________________________ [img]http://gon.cdn.on.net/screenshots/a/0/8054/2011-07-18/feature_gameloftauckland.jpg[/img] Ever heard of Gameloft? Chances are that unless you’re a big fan of mobile gaming you probably haven’t, but mobile games are serious business in this new world of smartphones and tablets, and Gameloft are indisputably one of the kings of the platform. With a list of developed games [b][i]as long as your screen[/b][/i], four thousand employees spread over nearly twenty countries, and a revenue in excess of one hundred million euros per year, Gameloft are a force to be reckoned with - but for some of those employees in the nearby Auckland offices, it seems things may be less than spectacular. [quote][i]"Starting at 9:30 AM, going home at 2:30 AM, and then coming back into the office at 8:30 AM to start work again was not unusual"[/i][/quote] “Some weeks I was working 100 to 120 hours a week”, says Glenn Watson, former Head Studio Programmer at Gameloft’s New Zealand arm. “Starting at 9:30 AM, going home at 2:30 AM, and then coming back into the office at 8:30 AM to start work again was not unusual”. Glenn, who began his long career in Australia’s game development industry with Ratbag Games in Adelaide, spoke to games.on.net about what he describes as “dangerous working conditions” at a company that, it seems, has no qualms about breaking New Zealand’s health and safety laws. “There were other times when I would be called back into the office at 11:30 PM by the studio producer, only to head home again at 2:30 AM,” he explained. “It was after I worked four consecutive weeks of fourteen-hour days - including weekends - that I realised I needed to resign”. [b]High Pressure, Poor Performance[/b] Glenn’s allegations are broad-ranging, and many of them have been independently confirmed to games.on.net by other former Gameloft employees who wished to remain nameless. As Head Studio Programmer at the office, Glenn was privy to high-level observations of poor performance from employees across the studio - performance that he says was directly caused by the “unacceptable” working conditions enforced by Gameloft’s senior management. He recalls one week in particular when the team was working overtime to get a build of the game ready to demonstrate for Gameloft’s French headquarters. [img]http://gon.cdn.on.net/screenshots/a/3/8054/2011-07-18/gameloft_logo.jpg[/img] “It was 11:30 at night,” says Glenn, “everyone had been there since 8:30 in the morning, and even our most reliable programmers were making mistakes. I went up to see the studio manager and the producer and said ‘Listen, these guys are making mistakes, they are tired, and they need to go home’. The producer replied that they needed everyone to be there, and the deadline had to be met. Later, I found out that one of the junior programmers had actually worked a 24-hour straight stint in the office.” These deadlines, Glenn believes, were often falsely manufactured by the French management at Gameloft in order to encourage a frantic sense of constant crunch among its employees. He describes a number of occasions where deadlines would be given to the staff, only for them to discover after working hundreds of hours of overtime that they actually had several more weeks in which to meet them than they were told. “Many of the senior staff were becoming suspicious,” he says, “and wondering why their local producer wasn’t standing up for them.” The process became known as “golding” inside the Gameloft offices, a reference to being constantly told that they were under crunch time to make gold on the game. games.on.net has seen emails which indicate the process of “golding” is sadly still alive and well in the Auckland offices. [b]The Company Line[/b] A series of seemingly authentic email conversations seen by games.on.net between Glenn and senior management in the Auckland studio show a company that asserts its workers are simply carrying out their duties in line with the contracts they signed, and that delivery of projects must take priority over other concerns. “No one is held here against their will if they do not wish to work over their contractual hours,” reads one of the emails, with another stating that “it is more important to deliver a project than worry about possible avenues for future projects”. Glenn, however, points out that these contractual conditions are actually in violation of New Zealand’s health and safety legislation and would be considered “fatigue working” under the 2002 Health and Safety in Employment Act - work that employees therefore have the right to refuse under that same law. [tab]A selection of Gameloft games[/tab][img]http://gon.cdn.on.net/screenshots/a/3/8054/2011-07-18/87-java-games.jpg[/img] The problem arises when those “contractual hours” are defined entirely by the studio. Multiple sources confirmed to games.on.net that staff contracts with Gameloft allow the studio to request staff to work “reasonable hours” without remuneration, with “reasonable hours” being whatever Gameloft’s management decides is necessary. Glenn told us of an occasion when, finding itself in need of a tester one evening, a studio producer approached a junior artist who was working on a completely different project and informed him that he would be staying back that night and testing the game. “But I have plans for tonight”, replied the artist. “Sorry,” said the producer. “You don’t now.” Inspired by recent revelations of constant crunch and bad conditions at Sydney developer Team Bondi, Glenn insists that he and developers like him in the industry should not have to “put up with the crap” any further. Unfortunately, Glenn’s attempt to engage with Gameloft about bringing in a New Zealand Department of Labour mediator to enforce a 12-hour cap on workdays (identical to the work-hour limits which govern the New Zealand film industry) have so far been fruitless, suffering from what he describes as “delaying tactics” on the part of the multinational developer. He firmly believes that if Gameloft were to develop a reasonable work schedule, the lack of employee fatigue would make it in fact more likely to hit the deadlines it so desperately wants, rather than the reverse. [b]Where To From Here?[/b] More than anything else, Glenn claims that he finds himself confused by the issue. During his time there, he witnessed the company amend their employee contracts in order to offer time in lieu for overtime, fixing a previously contentious issue where they simply did not compensate employees at all. “They went in and fixed this,” he says, “so why aren’t they willing to fix the fact that employees are even being asked to work fourteen hour days in the first place?” One reason for this, as speculated to us by other employees, is the fact that the studio is still in its early days. Gameloft Auckland is anxious to prove its viability as a developer, and as such management has been pushing its workers hard and creating unreasonable deadlines in order to deliver a product quickly and keep the studio from being shut down. Staff that we spoke with shared their worries that it may already be too late, with talk of missed deadlines, dropped projects, and many staff anxiously preparing their resumes for the inevitable collapse. [quote][i]"the imminent collapse of Gameloft in Auckland may be closer than many of its employees fear"[/i][/quote] As part of our investigations into Glenn’s claims, games.on.net spoke with one of the Australian games development scene’s most prominent recruiting agencies. Although they were unable to verify anecdotal reports of a company hemorrhaging its senior staff, we did learn that the Auckland office was famous for its willingness to take on junior workers, something that was described to us as “very unusual” but that perhaps lines up with a company who, according to many in the industry, has a reputation for “crunching through” junior staff. The Auckland studio (and the nearby Gameloft Korea studio) currently has a freeze in place on any new recruitment (with the exception of programmers), and with the recruiter also confirming to us that the company is actively working to set up a new studio in Brisbane, the imminent collapse of Gameloft in Auckland may be closer than many of its employees fear. The Australian games development industry is notorious for a culture of anonymity, with the collapse of Krome and the resultant anonymous flame wars scattered across sites like Tsumea proving that many within the industry are unwilling to put their name to their opinions for fear of finding themselves jobless in a rapidly shrinking pool of possible employers. We offered Glenn the chance to remain anonymous, but he refused. Why, then, does he insist on speaking out publicly? “Gameloft asked me to ‘apologise’ for leaving the studio and shouldering others with the burden of my work”, says Glenn, with only the barest trace of bitterness. “I feel the best apology I can give is to ensure that they never get put through the same rubbish conditions again”. Gameloft turned down our requests for an interview regarding Glenn’s allegations, and declined to issue a statement.[/release] Wow, Gameloft sounds like a HORRIBLE place to work... I feel sorry for all their exhausted employees now :/
But. Where am I going to get my clone games that I wont play now?
[QUOTE=Nikota;31227018]But. Where am I going to get my clone games that I wont play now?[/QUOTE] Just play Rovio's Darkest Fear series... probably one of the best games I've played on a cellphone (since I'm not fond of using a cellphone for playing games).
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