NRS working conditions - This NEEDS to be discussed

[ZeroSymbolic]

See this is tough because I need to make it clear. I am not trying to take away from your struggles and accomplishments. That would be silly because clearly you worked your ass off and you have every right to be proud of that. Instead my argument is this

1. There are unfortunately tons of people in situations similar to yours. And statistically most of them do not end up having as much success as you. Do you believe that is purely that you worked so much harder than all of them and everyone could be as successful as you if they just tried hard enough? Or is there some level of selection that happens somewhere along the line? Maybe you got one of those jobs over someone else at some point even though you were both qualified but they had to pick one. Maybe they have a mental illness and simply were incapable of working those kinds of hours. Etc etc. Knowing that it doesn't take away from your hard works and your accomplishments, can you see how some arbitrary or random element could have lead to you succeeding over someone else?

2. Even if it is 100 percent merit. You are smarter, work harder, etc than the rest. We have the resources for people to not have to go through that. Why would you look at your shitty situation and not say "I wish other people didn't have to do that"? You fucking kicked ass, beat all the odds, gave everyone the middle finger through sheer force of will. That is incredible. But do we really want that to be something we have to expect of people, while those at the top don't have to do anything of the sort?

1. Yes I do believe it was my work ethic that put me over other people who were smoking pot and crying in the corner while I was at work. Their were a lot of people calling me a "company guy" a "kiss-ass", and all kinds of other stuff, but I just kept my head down and eyes on the prize. The references and relationships I built with the other hard working people and more importantly my bosses are what got me the jobs that came after that. Mental illness- I have insomnia and ADD-Impulsive, but I don't walk around like those are the things that define me.

2. If I'm smarter, and work harder, and then I do better, isn't that how it's supposed to work? The only thing I wish of other people is that they were more hopeful, motivated, and pleasant to be around. I wish that people treated one another better, and cut each other more slack. I wish they complained less, and weren't as irritated as a lot of people seams to be. I wish people didn't get into drugs, I wish people worked out and ate better-treated themselves better. I wish that people understood how powerful they really can be when they take down the walls that are impeding their progress.

It's a wonder to me that people blame the elite class-politicians, big bosses, and so forth, that is paint them up as these mega-evil people (they aren't), and yet expect to sit and wait for those supposedly evil people to "wake up" and start making it better.

"Every man is responsible for his own destiny."
-Liu Kang

 

[Second Saint]

Seriously, people are SURPRISED to hear that workers aren't treated well? It's the way of the world, labor has little to no power or say in the way they are treated. And if you try and fix it, you risk losing your entire source of income.

These things won't get better on their own.

 

[HGTV Soapboxfan]

Life is unfair. Scrutinize all you want, but I take it back to the Fighting Game analogy: You can keep asking and waiting for that patch, but until it comes you got to play the game as it is, so get on your grind!

Completely false analogy. In a fighting game in terms of waiting for a patch, you can just pick the other character. You can't do that in life. And also for 99 percent, and pretty all of the people complaining about the game like that, it is just a hobby. You can walk away if you don't like the game.

"Life is unfair" as justification for anything is complete nonsense. Defeatist and pessimistic. Life is unfair, so let's work to make it as fair as possible. Even if we can't make it perfect, every step helps somebody who needs it and betters things as a whole. Our current system is garbage, as you have witnessed first hand. So we need to fix it so that the next person doesn't have to do what you did. Because nobody should have to do what you did.

 

[NeonGroovyGator]

It's so easy to make little of everyone else's struggle when you somehow made it.
Thank God I didn't turn out like that.

 

[HGTV Soapboxfan]

1. Yes I do believe it was my work ethic that put me over other people who were smoking pot and crying in the corner while I was at work. Their were a lot of people calling me a "company guy" a "kiss-ass", and all kinds of other stuff, but I just kept my head down and eyes on the prize. The references and relationships I built with the other hard working people and more importantly my bosses are what got me the jobs that came after that. Mental illness- I have insomnia and ADD-Impulsive, but I don't walk around like those are the things that define me.

2. If I'm smarter, and work harder, and then I do better, isn't that how it's supposed to work? The only thing I wish of other people is that they were more hopeful, motivated, and pleasant to be around. I wish that people treated one another better, and cut each other more slack. I wish they complained less, and weren't as irritated as a lot of people seams to be. I wish people didn't get into drugs, I wish people worked out and ate better-treated themselves better. I wish that people understood how powerful they really can be when they take down the walls that are impeding their progress.

It's a wonder to me that people blame the elite class-politicians, big bosses, and so forth, that is paint them up as these mega-evil people (they aren't), and yet expect to sit and wait for those supposedly evil people to "wake up" and start making it better.

"Every man is responsible for his own destiny."
-Liu Kang

I don't understand why you consistently insist on moving the goalposts on me with the first one. That is not what I said. No one is arguing that there aren't some people who don't want to take positive steps. I am asking about other people who tried to make those positive steps and it didn't work out. It seems incredibly short sighted to me to see that as "oh I am just better than these other people". For example, you mentioned mental illness, once again you manage to overcome, but can you serious not see any position where somebody would be unable to? Or are you just that much mentally stronger than everyone else and it couldn't be that things effect people to varying degrees and different ways that create different circumstances? Come on you know you are purposefully misrepresenting my argument to fit a narrative. What are you even talking about in response to number 2? Yeah I wish people were overall more pleasant too. What does that have to do with ANYTHING we are arguing?

If you really think elite class politicians and billionares and such aren't taking advantage of people from positions of privelage, I don't know what to tell you. Once again we aren't talking about the people "sitting on their asses", this thread was started because people came out to talk about their experiences and say they were unfair. Don't shift the goalposts. There are people trying to fix things and you defending the system hurts their chances.

Don't fucking quote Lui Kang at me, did you play this mk11 story mode? Did you not notice the numerous references to groups of people being oppressed by individuals with large amounts of power? The tarkatans, whatever Kollector's race is, etc etc. Sure Lui Kang wins in the end but that is because it is a constructed narrative with constructed hierarchies in a game designed to empower the player. So yeah of course the "you control your own destiny" guy will win. It is in no way reflective of reality.


EDIT: I am curious, what do you teach? Not a part of my argument or anything, I would just be curious to know based on your stances.

 

[Convicsik]

It's their fucking job.. Stop being an ideological snow flake. This is how the world works. Every job has stressful deadlines.
This definitely DOESN'T need to be discussed any further.

I worked as a union pipefitter for 10+ years. When there was a maintenance outage at a power plant it was common to work 7 day a week, 12 hours a day for weeks on end.

The major difference was I was being paid $33 an hour, time and a half after 8 hours in a day (not 40 hours in a week), time and a half all day Saturday and double time all day Sunday.

There is a difference between working long hours on a crunch and being compensated appropriately and working a temp job for a little over minimum wage, no benefits, and being treated like garbage and kicked out the door once the project is done, all while the company makes ridiculous amounts of profit.

The wealthy in this country have conditioned the working class to feel shame for asking for fair compensation. If WB / NRS didn’t have employees, they wouldn’t make millions of dollars off of a game, but if those same employees didn’t have WB/NRS they could still go anywhere else in this country and make $12 an hour.

Your grand parents understood this, that’s why they created unions to make sure people were fairly compensated. The older generations understood that if you stick together you could make a decent honest living because big corporations need employees more than employees need them.

My dad graduated high school walked into a job at a steel mill making $15 and hour, and that was in the 70’s. Now you have people going 40k in debt to get a degree so they can make $12 an hour as a temp ...

So no, it’s not being an ideological snowflake to be intelligent enough to realize you are being fucked by the system. There is no shame in knowing your worth and charging accordingly.

 

[Wrenchfarm]

The wealthy in this country have conditioned the working class to feel shame for asking for fair compensation. If WB / NRS didn’t have employees, they wouldn’t make millions of dollars off of a game, but if those same employees didn’t have WB/NRS they could still go anywhere else in this country and make $12 an hour.
...
So no, it’s not being an ideological snowflake to be intelligent enough to realize you are being fucked by the system. There is no shame in knowing your worth and charging accordingly.

Preach.

None of these companies or products would exist without the people who put in the blood, sweat, and time to make them. But for some reason, those are the people who get paid sub-livable wages, work 70+hours a week, and get laid off the moment the wind shifts. Meanwhile someone who lives in a penthouse in a different state adds another zero to their already astronomical net worth thanks to their labor.

If you can't see that the system is completely broken, you're living in delusion.

I'm all for making the most of your gifts and doing everything you can to improve your own situation. But there is no amount of personal accountability that can make up for a fundamentally rigged structure.

Anyway, getting back to the topic, I'm really let down by NRS here. Yes, we'll need to wait for all the facts, but the people who spoke out have nothing to gain by making things up (and lots to lose).

When you think about how incredibly successful their recent games have been (MKX sold over 11 mil copies, and I don't know the exact number for IJ2, but WB bragged it was the top grossing game of its quarter in 2017 and it enjoyed lengthily support/DLC), are we supposed to believe they really couldn't afford to pay the people that made them more than $12 a hour in some cases? That there was no choice but to have everyone work hundreds of cumulative hours of unpaid overtime? Out of all those millions of games sold, all those DLC kombat packs and $20.00 Krypt unlocks, there was just no way to fairly compensate their staff (let alone all the "full-time contractors)? Fuck that.

 

[Zoidberg747]

Tech companies have been using more and more temps in order to avoid paying more full time employees. They also typically treat these employees like garbage, refusing to provide benefits, paying them pennies, and putting off most of the "crunch time" work on them (and not always paying for overtime). No idea what the situation at NRS is, but this is nothing new in the tech industry and could definitely hurt the games industry in the long run.

Once "invisible," America's temporary workers are becoming more permanent

These workers represent the underclass in the U.S. workforce who hold an integral role in the country's ever-growing, on-demand economy.

www.nbcnews.com

Does Silicon Valley Have a Contract-Worker Problem?

An examination of tech's favorite labor model.

nymag.com

The Second-Class Office Workers

Millions of Americans now do jobs for companies that have replaced employees with outside workers who get lower pay and skimpy perks. Their work lives often feel like a series of tiny slights that reinforce their second-class status, bruise their self-worth and keep a real career out of reach.

www.wsj.com

Again, I don't work at NRS so I don't know. But when this thing is common across the tech industry and full time employees and former contractors are coming out saying this stuff, it is definitely enough to raise eyebrows.

 

[CY MasterHavik]

This is becoming a scary trend.

 

[Swindle]

You people are fucking priceless.
Aren’t you the same people that have been jumping down NRS’s throats to “fix this, fix that, patch this, explain that.” Over and over, demanding immediate action and pressuring them to have an emergency kkast to let you know that they’ve heard you, and are working overtime and tirelessly to fix any perceived problem you have with their product?
You fuckers need a self awareness buff.

 

[Son ov Timett]

I am actually a rags to riches story. The system does work, if you are willing to work the system. I'm proof. The young folks today complain about doing the work, and they wait for people to hand them a better situation whereas I was always willing to work HARD to improve my situation. I'd argue that the problem is that the young culture, as you just demonstrated, treats labor like it is beneath them, and treats people who do work the labor like they are idiots for doing it (as you just did).
The gaming equivalent is this; you love a character but they are a little weak. You can work the character or you can wait for buffs. I was always a "work the character' kind of guy.

Hit the nail on the head. Sounds like everyone wants a nice basic income so they can sit on their keisters all day and play emkay.

We live in a free market, if NRS isnt paying an adequate wage, either find employment elsewhere, or work on your own skill set. Ye learn a couple programming languages, and the jobs that pay will be there. People in here talking as if computer engineers are raking in 12 an hr, when in reality its low level entry jobs.

Whats the alternative that NRS can implement? Instead of offering 12 an hr a position, and the opportunity to earn 18 an hr in overtime, scale back hours and hire more entry level workers? So now ye got two workers making 24k a year in Chicago rather than one who is busting their ass to making 40k after grinding in ot.

Ye 20yr olds can cry to the Elders Gods all night, life is hard. Deal with reality, work your ass off, and good things will come to you. Nobody is trapped in their given situation. Very rarely have I seen an unproblematic employee saddled to the bottom if they busted their rump. The cream rises.

 

[OzzFoxx]

I'm a dev and spent most of my career in this type of situation. Everything was so heavily focused on productivity and due dates that it was impossible to avoid making garbage. I was fortunate to have a friend that found a great dev shop and I joined him; I couldn't be happier. My experience has shown me that there are 2 types of profitable dev companies, those that release lots of garbage and those that release a few great things. I imagine alot of the crunch at NRS was less dev and more art, but I imagine the experiences are somewhat similar. I hire for my company and every dev I speak to tells horror stories of the rush to get garbage out. Any devs out there - you can afford to leave shitty companies, devs are needed just about everywhere.

 

[NeonGroovyGator]

I wasn't expecting so many "part of the problem" bells to ring on TYM of all places. Oh well.

 

[Samsara]

This age has made people cynical. Everyone is so desperate for a decent life that that once they get theirs, they dont wanna risk losing it for the little guy.

It's not their fault. If I was a rags to riches success story I'd bend over backwards to defend the system too. Fact is, this is the way the market works, and it works well for most people and EXTREMELY well for a select few.

This won't ever change, but basic decency to your workers should count for something. Dev. labor is exploited at many major studios and no one cares as long as they get their product.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

It’s really sad that they’re in these conditions for such little money, hopefully they can find a better job with their skills.

I’m a student going to college but I make bare minimum $20 an hour waiting tables and that job is never mentally or physically taxing... I can’t imagine actually having to work hard for only $12

 

[Pizza]

lmao for real, people playing fucking advocates for big corps and predatory practices. You are part of the problem.

 

[HGTV Soapboxfan]

You people are fucking priceless.
Aren’t you the same people that have been jumping down NRS’s throats to “fix this, fix that, patch this, explain that.” Over and over, demanding immediate action and pressuring them to have an emergency kkast to let you know that they’ve heard you, and are working overtime and tirelessly to fix any perceived problem you have with their product?
You fuckers need a self awareness buff.

One, this is a website with a fair amount of users so the opinion of the entire site will not be the same. There are different people with different opinions and issues so to speak. Just because some people are complaining like that about the game and demanding they fix it and such, doesn't mean it is the exact same people complaining about this issue.

But even if it was, I think most of us on this side would actually argue that the crunch and poor working conditions caused some of those problems with the game. If you have followed any of the recent scandals so to speak, as well as some of the accounts from some people in the industry who have chimed in in this very thread, devs pretty much all agree that crunch does not improve and often hinders the quality of the product. And mk11 seems like a pretty solid example of that, because the issue with a lot of tower stuff seems to be that it was not adequately play-tested. Even on the Emergency Kombat Kast they mentioned that the schedule was so tight that it made it so that they weren't able to share it with us or really dive into it.

 

[Wrenchfarm]

Whats the alternative that NRS can implement? Instead of offering 12 an hr a position, and the opportunity to earn 18 an hr in overtime, scale back hours and hire more entry level workers? So now ye got two workers making 24k a year in Chicago rather than one who is busting their ass to making 40k after grinding in ot.

Not pay CEOs 8 figure salaries? You know, just a thought.

 

[HGTV Soapboxfan]

Hit the nail on the head. Sounds like everyone wants a nice basic income so they can sit on their keisters all day and play emkay.

We live in a free market, if NRS isnt paying an adequate wage, either find employment elsewhere, or work on your own skill set. Ye learn a couple programming languages, and the jobs that pay will be there. People in here talking as if computer engineers are raking in 12 an hr, when in reality its low level entry jobs.

Whats the alternative that NRS can implement? Instead of offering 12 an hr a position, and the opportunity to earn 18 an hr in overtime, scale back hours and hire more entry level workers? So now ye got two workers making 24k a year in Chicago rather than one who is busting their ass to making 40k after grinding in ot.

Ye 20yr olds can cry to the Elders Gods all night, life is hard. Deal with reality, work your ass off, and good things will come to you. Nobody is trapped in their given situation. Very rarely have I seen an unproblematic employee saddled to the bottom if they busted their rump. The cream rises.

According to a study done by the National Bureau of Economic Research in 2016 : "We find that rates of absolute mobility have fallen from approximately 90% for children born in 1940 to 50% for children born in the 1980s. Absolute income mobility has fallen across the entire income distribution, with the largest declines for families in the middle class."

http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/papers/abs_mobility_paper.pdf

But it's ok because in your experience "cream rises". Or do you think people from lower income families are just inherently more problematic since in your experience "unproblematic employees" are not "saddled to the bottom". Could it be that there are other factors in how our current economic structure is set up that makes it more difficult for people to get themselves out of these unfavorable situations?

I will be honest man I think your argument is classist as all hell. The numbers are not on your side.

 

[Swindle]

One, this is a website with a fair amount of users so the opinion of the entire site will not be the same. There are different people with different opinions and issues so to speak. Just because some people are complaining like that about the game and demanding they fix it and such, doesn't mean it is the exact same people complaining about this issue.

But even if it was, I think most of us on this side would actually argue that the crunch and poor working conditions caused some of those problems with the game. If you have followed any of the recent scandals so to speak, as well as some of the accounts from some people in the industry who have chimed in in this very thread, devs pretty much all agree that crunch does not improve and often hinders the quality of the product. And mk11 seems like a pretty solid example of that, because the issue with a lot of tower stuff seems to be that it was not adequately play-tested. Even on the Emergency Kombat Kast they mentioned that the schedule was so tight that it made it so that they weren't able to share it with us or really dive into it.

Imagine that, we’re both right.

 

[HGTV Soapboxfan]

Imagine that, we’re both right.

Yes because what we said were the same thing and I didn't offer a direct rebuttal of your statement saying that "you people" are complaining. Give me a break

 

[HGTV Soapboxfan]

Remember when I started this thread saying I was no expert or anything? Still not but I didn't realize we dealing with people who use anecdotal evidence and do absolutely zero research.

Gonna be honest going to keep track of this thread but I think most of the arguments we are dealing with now are in bad faith and not based in rational discourse or an interest in the truth so I am not going to spend the emotional energy to refute every little nonsense claim that comes through here. Glad that the discussion is happening at least for awareness though. Hopefully more articles come out and Jason Schreier finds info for us to go off of in regards to NRS.

 

[Swindle]

Yes because what we said were the same thing and I didn't offer a direct rebuttal of your statement saying that "you people" are complaining. Give me a break

High five, amigo.

 

[Zoidberg747]

Remember when I started this thread saying I was no expert or anything? Still not but I didn't realize we dealing with people who use anecdotal evidence and do absolutely zero research.

Gonna be honest going to keep track of this thread but I think most of the arguments we are dealing with now are in bad faith and not based in rational discourse or an interest in the truth so I am not going to spend the emotional energy to refute every little nonsense claim that comes through here. Glad that the discussion is happening at least for awareness though. Hopefully more articles come out and Jason Schreier finds info for us to go off of in regards to NRS.

Welcome to the internet homie lol.

 

[NeonGroovyGator]

I came from a lower income family. Both of my parents were felons. My grandparents raised me with what little money they had to spare. Went to bed hungry on many a night, on some occasions only thing to eat was sugar with melted butter on a piece of white bread. There couldve been more money to eat if my mother and addict Uncle didnt threathen and harass my grandparents into coughing up what little food money we had to score another dime. House was a stye with needles under the couch. Fun discovering them as a kid when youre playing with your plastic army men. Merely tip of the iceberg, please spare me the "woe is me, lower income household," bs.

Guess im in no position to speak, even though I got away from that mess and live a life of contentment in this " timeline." I harbor no resentment from that upbringing. It was what is was. Only way out was to work hard or suffer a similar fate.

Continue to think the world owes you something dear sir. Change comes from within, nothing will be handed to you, a victimhood mentality will simply anchor you to the environment in which youre reared. All I have to say on this matter. I come to this site for tech n tips, not to change the world for aspiring game devs who chose their profession, then woefully regretted it thereafter.

Thank God you didn't need empathy on your 'climb to the top'