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At least one of the studios under the aegis of Rockstar Games held a meeting Friday to tell its employees that overtime is not mandatory, said Rockstar Games Variety.
While overtime at Rockstar Lincoln was not mandatory, it was requested and scheduled, said Jennifer Kolbe of Rockstar.
"Our team could let management know when they could not work the requested overtime so we can plan accordingly," she said. "Some people said they thought it was mandatory because that was what was expected of them. In light of the discussion around this issue, we have assembled the team today to make it clear to them that occupational therapy work is not mandatory.
"We also strive to make the schedule of each occupational therapist more flexible (ie," Work when it suits you "). However, since Lincoln is the only place where we have a meaningful work model, we need to coordinate more schedules than for other teams. "
The Lincoln schedule required employees to work 38.4 hours from October 9 to May 13 (standard working hours were 37.5 hours), 45.4 hours from May 14 to August 5 and 53.1 hours. hours from 6th August to 1st October in Kolbe. I said. She added that the Lincoln studio was working the longest hours at the time of the final submission of the game, but that meant that 18 of the 18,432 weeks worked by employees had more than 70 hours and 248, more than 60.
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"We are very grateful to our Lincoln team and the rest of our team around the world for all that has been done to create RDR2," she added.
The comments come after Flik Green, Animation Development Assistant at Rockstar North, noted the meeting.
"HR called me to let me know that Rockstar had told their quality assurance teams that overtime was no longer mandatory," Green wrote on Twitter in a discussion thread on the quality of Rockstar North's company and studio. "In my opinion, the people and the people at North and Lincoln are incredibly caring and I honestly believe Rockstar cares a lot about its staff. Is this business perfect? No. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely."
Part of this improvement, she wrote, came today in the form of this internal announcement.
Green's comments came after Rockstar Games informed their employees that they were allowed to comment on working for the company on social channels, a policy change that had been stalling for a long time. This policy change came in response to an interview with co-founder Dan Houser, in which he stated that "we worked 100 hours a week". Variety that he was referring to the overtime done by himself and three other members of the editorial team.
Despite this clarification, the statement sparked a discussion on the state of the game working conditions in the game industry. Specifically, developers of a number of gaming studios have addressed the history and the use of Crunch, a term used to define long hours worked by developers over the days, weeks or months leading up to the launch of the game. Other recent concerns include the sudden closure of studios and the lack of stability of the industry. Some called for unionization.
In her Friday article, Green pointed out that when she was working for Rockstar Lincoln's quality control team at night duty, she was sometimes working overtime on Saturdays, at the approach of the launch, but that they were paid for overtime. These Saturdays, she added, became mandatory as the launch approached.
Green went on, though, that his time at Rockstar North was very different.
Kolbe added that Rockstar will continue to communicate with his team on how to "create the best possible games in the best possible environment".
"We have evolved and will continue to evolve over time," she said. "Today's clarification with the Lincoln team is an example. All in all, what we believe and what our teams tell us is that people are largely happy and excited about the launch of the game. Of course, we will always continue to respond to individual concerns as we go along. as you go.
"We believe we have the best teams in the industry and know that it's the only way to get a great environment."
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