Three weeks after Team Bondi was roasted by former employees for poor working conditions, another developer has leapt into the spotlight. This time, mobile ‘homage’ developer Gameloft has been accused of having “dangerous working conditions” by the former head programmer at its New Zealand branch. Glenn Watson spoke to Games.on.net about the studio’s work practices.
“Some weeks I was working 100 to 120 hours a week. 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,” said Watson. “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. It was after I worked four consecutive weeks of fourteen-hour days - including weekends - that I realized I needed to resign”.
Watson was a high-level employee at the publisher, so he was in a position to see the effect the “unacceptable” working conditions had on the employees. He related one story of forced overtime in order to create a demo for Gameloft’s French HQ. Watson said that management manufactured conditions to create a feeling of constant crunch in its developers.
“It was 11:30 at night. 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,” he said.
“Many of the senior staff were becoming suspicious and wondering why their local producer wasn’t standing up for them.”
Watson has been working within the system to correct the matter: he’s spoken to a New Zealand Department of Labor mediator in an attempt to force 12-hour maximum workdays on the company. Unfortunately, matters have been held back due to “delaying tactics” from Gameloft.
Studies have shown that chronically overworked employees are less healthy, more likely to make mistakes, and not as efficient as their managed counterparts. Creativity and innovation is not the result of excessive overtime. So why does the industry still deal with prolonged crunch time?
