• Fortnite devs are reportedly working “100 hour” weeks
    78 replies, posted
https://www.pcgamesn.com/fortnite/fortnite-crunch Epic Games employees working on the company’s smash hit Fortnite have had to maintain brutal work schedules, with many pulling 70- to 100-hour weeks to keep up with the game’s success, according to a new report published today. Fortnite’s rapid content release schedule has come at a cost of employee’s physical and mental health, and some have been fired from Epic for refusing to work overtime hours that the company officially says are “voluntary.”
Unionization when?
100 hours a week on the job is fucking ridiculous. If i was responsible for such a workplace i'd feel like a colossal asshole.
Welcome to most of the AAA gaming industry. I’ve been burned out for the same reason.
This is not what I expected Fortnite to become back when we first got glimpses of it in the early 2010s, way before the battle royale craze...
All for a games as a service platform sludge, while Tim Sweeney argues on Twitter about Valve killing the industry.
oh i love the whole 'voluntary overtime' thing. I have mandatory overtime and my boss's boss still complains that I don't volunteer for overtime regardless of the fact that I'm already working overtime without any say in the matter.
So apparently this is the banner image PCGamesN lead with? https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/111492/2b0cf454-94c6-42f6-8d1a-c4492b0b50a9/image.png
You gotta dab to hide your tears.
I wouldn't be surprised if they have multiple seasons of content always in production, like, art team members making new skins all day every single goddamn day.
https://www.polygon.com/2019/4/23/18507750/fortnite-work-crunch-epic-games Many of our sources said that refusing to work late hours represented a serious impediment to career advancement. Bosses expected workers to stay late, and to not complain. “It wasn’t much of a conversation,” said one source. “It really was just a ‘I hope you didn’t have plans this weekend because this is what needs to be done.’ And if you did have something going on, it had to be serious, otherwise it was going to be a negative experience for that person.”
Fuck Epic with a giant cheese grater up the ass. This will probably come back and bite them hard like it did for ActiBlizzard, but will it change much? Probably not.
Why though? I didn't think the game demanded that much work, it definitely doesn't show it.
Such hypocrites talking like they are saving PC gaming with epic launcher but on the flipside oh yeah we treat our employee's like shit and make them do some slave labor for fortnite. Now I'm just imagining artists crying at their desks while they slave at their 5th fortnite dance animation of the day
They've been doing weekly content releases for a while now and it's become what people expect out of the game. People have been antsy with competitors like Apex Legends for not living up to that standard.
It's all part of their master plan to make 2 years of content in a few months, then set up an automatic release schedule so the whole company can take a year long vacation And by the whole company I mean everyone above junior level because they are always required to commit more time than they have regardless of where they are in AAA
Wow they're not just taking Chinese money, they're also taking Chinese hours too. So much for the "pro-developer" Epic that some devs try to defend.
Crunch time is bullshit and this many hours is basically slave labor
It does not surprise me. I have noticed the unusual fast-paced skin release for a game of the sorts, but also the constant release of new weaponry and features on a weekly basis. It was certainly proof of terrible industry practices behind the scene, and I dislike that Respawn Entertainment is being mocked at for not releasing content faster in Apex Legends. The players have been conditioned to keep interests in a game by constant content release, worsened by Fortnite content who by far has gone beyond any devs when it comes to feature/content implementation. We need to find solution for this.
They're also are reworking and rebuilding the map constantly , even in slight ways. And paying attention to world changes with massive timed events that constantly are coming weekly. They're putting too much work in the game
They're not pro-developer at all. That's just a lie to get brownie points. They're only pro-Epic, they're just keeping their cut low and paying out so much because Fortnite will sustain them and this means they can always undercut and out-deal their competition. They force the consumer to pay fees for any payment methods outside a select few because those fees would mean they definitely aren't making a profit from the store. Especially in countries that aren't heavily westernized. Their entire game plan is to take Steam's crown so they can control the market, they are wanting an actual monopoly on PC gaming because they can charge whatever they want and take whatever cut they want and no one can tell them otherwise. This as said, depends entirely on Fortnite money though. And to best keep the money flowing, they will work their employees like a sweatshop to keep the Fortnite money flowing.
Hasn’t it been proven multiple times over that working over 40 hours a week isn’t even more efficient, outside of maybe a month of it at most? Or if you have a schedule where it balances out?
On every front Epic is trying to poison the industry and drive the standards down because they're ahead of the curve on it and they figure they're in the best position to come out on top in the new environment they are creating.
Fuck over the consumers to wring exclusives oyt of publishers, and fuck over your own devs to force PUBG and Apex out of the market. What a great and sustainable business plan!
Working for more than 6 hours day adds no productivity. 8 hours days aren't too bad since you do get at least one break for lunch but they're not perfect. Working more than 40 hours a week actually causes a reduction in productivity, because people work more slowly and make more mistakes due to exhaustion. If these companies who demand 100 hour work weeks instead shortened their weeks slightly and but more work into organisation they'd almost certainly get more meaningful work done. There are jobs where you can work longer hours without being affected too much, but those are jobs like being a security guard where the biggest issue most days is not dying of boredom.
Heck, there was a study in New Zealand where a company cut a day off their work week, while keeping the same salary, and they found "no downsides". Work was still being done at a similar rate and employees were much happier and less stressed.
Considering how much money they're making I would of thought they'd actually have decent employee perks? It's not like it's an indie game studio trying to make rent. Pretty disgusting, reminds me of Jack Ma.
The fact that this is even legal to do in the US is just awful.
Interested to see his damage control for this one, he claims he LOVES developers so much, evidently not.
incoming PR video with selectively picked people giving all smiles saying the news media aren't accurately representing what goes on at the workplace
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.