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News Rockstar requiring employees to work at the office for 5 days a week to finish GTAVI and employees are not happy

Soft layoffs for people who refuse to return 5 days a week

Crunch for everyone who comes in

Actual layoffs after the game releases and only sells 20 million copies in its first month and not 40 million as projected.
 
BassForever said:
Soft layoffs for people who refuse to return 5 days a week

Crunch for everyone who comes in

Actual layoffs after the game releases and only sells 20 million copies in its first month and not 40 million as projected.
Click to expand...

Pretty much nailed it sadly.
 
5 days is normal....unless there is crunch which knowing Rockstar there is a very high chance there is.
 
BassForever said:
Soft layoffs for people who refuse to return 5 days a week

Crunch for everyone who comes in

Actual layoffs after the game releases and only sells 20 million copies in its first month and not 40 million as projected.
Click to expand...
I'm already dreading the inevitable number of layoffs.
 
Umm, don't most people work in offices 5 days a week?

also lol at Schreier's clickbaity "(Employees are not thrilled.)" because the rest of the headline isn't interesting enough.
 
Djehuty said:
A lot of places where I live don’t do that anymore, and only have 1 office day a week and 4 at home for example.

It’s works out better for everyone 90% of the time.
Click to expand...

Ok but a lot of places in the world, the majority i would suspect, still do have 5 days in office. It doesn't sound permanent, it's because they're in the final stretch of development.

It's a nothing story.
 
If this brings crunch, that sucks. If this is just the regular five day work week, oh well? My profession was forced back into work full time in 2020 when people started getting bored of having their kids at home. I can't really feel bad for this.
 
To me this very obviously reads as another "company walks back work from home because it's run by out of touch control freaks" story in a sea of them. Am I crazy? Why is everybody pretending that angle isn't there?
 
BassForever said:
Soft layoffs for people who refuse to return 5 days a week

Crunch for everyone who comes in

Actual layoffs after the game releases and only sells 20 million copies in its first month and not 40 million as projected.
Click to expand...
Additionally it's a way for these corporations to more easily undermine any attempts at employee unionization by being able to more easily monitor workers.

For these demonic executives it's not just about productivity/profit. It's specifically about the cruelty as a means of keeping the workers subordinate.

To me this very obviously reads as another "company walks back work from home because it's run by out of touch control freaks" story in a sea of them. Am I crazy? Why is everybody pretending that angle isn't there?
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Of course it's about control. With game dev unionization rapidly increasing this is the executives saying "don't even fucking think about unionizing".
 
Guaraná said:
I mean, that's how people usually work.
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We use to cut people's arms and legs off if you got certain kinds of wounds

We don't do that anymore because society and technology have advanced

No reason to revert back to unga bunga micromanaged to death if you don't have to
 
browneyes84 said:
Ok but a lot of places in the world, the majority i would suspect, still do have 5 days in office. It doesn't sound permanent, it's because they're in the final stretch of development.

It's a nothing story.
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if you don't know how it's more than just a 5 day work week then I don't really know what to tell you.

Like it's a nothing story if you choose to be ignorant.
 
BassForever said:
We use to cut people's arms and legs off if you got certain kinds of wounds

We don't do that anymore because society and technology have advanced

No reason to revert back to unga bunga micromanaged to death if you don't have to
Click to expand...
I get where you're coming from but I don't think this comparison is quite there. There are many good reasons to offer remote work, but it's not an unquestionable improvement over in-person work. Then again, it's hard for me to say because I teach and the powers that be will be damned if we ever work from home again.
 
ngpdrew said:
I get where you're coming from but I don't think this comparison is quite there. There are many good reasons to offer remote work, but it's not an unquestionable improvement over in-person work. Then again, it's hard for me to say because I teach and the powers that be will be damned if we ever work from home again.
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yeah it definitely depends on the industry lol. But there are so many jobs where people don't need to be in the office so much and it's shown that production doesn't really take a hit. In some cases it goes up because the employees are less miserable. And we know happy employees produce more in our society.
 
Hocot8 said:
yeah it definitely depends on the industry lol. But there are so many jobs where people don't need to be in the office so much and it's shown that production doesn't really take a hit. In some cases it goes up because the employees are less miserable. And we know happy employees produce more in our society.
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True! I think there are a lot of factors at play. Rockstar has a pretty bad track record with morale so this move is probably not for the best, at least as far as employees' well-being is concerned.
 
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I don’t think I’ve ever been more productive and creative than when I work from home now. I go into the office one day a week and schedule any essential face-to-face meetings then, but they get fewer and fewer. Meetings waste less time digitally when there’s less room for showboating and people tend to get to the point and have them start and finish on time, plus I can work up to the second it starts rather than need to physically go wait at the agreed place. There’s various team chat platforms that make everyday project work upkeep doable in seconds. I spend most of my work day in front of a computer with headphones on, there’s absolutely no reason I need to be in an office to do that.

In terms of quality of life and mental health, I’m able to drop my kid at school before starting work rather than expect my wife to do it every single day, and don’t have two hours wasted time commuting. If overtime is necessary, it’s being done in the time I would otherwise be commuting rather than expecting me to just not see my children for weeks on end as I leave home when it’s dark and get home when they are asleep. These things have an effect on my work as I’m less exhausted and my family is under less pressure to support the office by sacrificing family time on a whim when the reverse is rarely an option.

At this point I won’t take a job that requires me to be in an office 5 days a week again. I did it for 20 years and sacrificed a lot for it, only to be laid off and my team sold off as soon as it was convenient. Fortunately I landed with a firm that has a way healthier attitude as they realised that, by having people WFH 80% of the time, they didn’t need such an oversized corporate HQ where pointless layers of management can wander around and feel important. I am in no doubt that they also considered the savings in electricity, rent, security, facilities etc, and that there are better ways to check projects are on track than ‘bums on seats’ (which is essentially presenteeism and leads to unhealthy cliques based around who is most visable after 6pm, not who does the most or best work in reasonable time). But the visable benefit to me and my family is absolutely massive and I’ve never been happier at work.
 
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browneyes84 said:
Umm, don't most people work in offices 5 days a week?

also lol at Schreier's clickbaity "(Employees are not thrilled.)" because the rest of the headline isn't interesting enough.
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I don't think so, in a post-COVID world
even in Italy (among the most conservative countries in Europe in terms of working welfare) we are working 1/2 days a week from home, for those jobs that are compatible
and lack of smart working offered from a Company already IS a differentiatior in being attractive or not, in hiring people (or keeping actual workers without them resigning)

a US based software development company SURELY is more expected to allow people working ALSO/PARTIALLY from home than a small Italian workplace
 
I'm mixed. WFH is a huge win for many people, and companies try to revert it back, we need to work against that.

At the same time: it's a luxury that other professions don't have, and in critical times (pre release) where a lot of minute details need to be communicated, individual works need to be in the final assembly, communication loops need to be shorter...yeah, software projects definitely benefit from it. In my own experience.

No, not everything can work just as fast over teams. No, not everybody can stream huge amounts of data over his network, while offices can. No, it's not as easy to get a hold of another department as if you just move 3 rooms, and if there is a problem with your tools, it's easier and faster to fix it in person then online, and if it's a hardware issue it's not even fixable.

WFH should be here to stay, but release time is one where I'm understanding the call for office hours... Or at least a reduction for WFH.

BUT: there needs to be som leniency for people that can't (kids, health...) And it can't be for to long (2-3 months I get, 6 is pushing it hard and needs a proper explanation)
 
It sucks honestly, five days a week sounds normal on paper but when they say it’s for productivity, you know it means they’re gonna crunch. Also some people probably based their lives around the possibility to work remote, and know they have to adapt again to a new situation. And probably see their families less, spend more time commuting, etc…
 
Please refrain from calling others “hysterical” when it comes to caring about the well being of employees. -xghost777, Party Sklar, meatbag, MissingNo, Dardan Sandiego
Hocot8 said:
if you don't know how it's more than just a 5 day work week then I don't really know what to tell you.

Like it's a nothing story if you choose to be ignorant.
Click to expand...

I'm not being ignorant, I'm just also not being hysterical. It's presumably a temporary measure now that they're at the end of the development, they want all their staff in one place to be more efficient. I'm amazed they were allowed to work from home so much prior to this tbh. There's plenty of awful practises in the gaming industry, this is not one of them.
 
Beelzemontheworld said:
Just because things have been a way for a while doesn’t mean they can’t change for the better or that we need to return to those ways
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I work in automotive industry and we just started a new project with full force 3 weeks ago. Some of us (including me) actually decided to come back to office for initial weeks on our own accord just because we are perfectly aware that information flow while in office in person is way quicker. There are mini meetings constantly forming by themselves while we iron out some specific details. Work is just quicker and there is actually less risk for us to stay more than 8h in office if we are on the same page constantly.

Home Office is prefered and more comfortable when work becomes more and more standarized/repetitive and very little is changing all the time but at the start and at the end of a bigger project it becomes too frantic for online communications. (and we are a relatively small team of 10 people, I don't even want to imagine communication delays beetween bigger teams)

I think that for the most part what Rockstar has decided might actually minimize risk and amount of crunch if they will even need it.
 
If that's for a regular 40 hour work week, seems fairly reasonable? People forget that communication takes a massive hit when you do WFH, especially if you have high turnover and a lot of juniors (who often need that amount of communication/feedback for a combination of confidence and oversight reasons - except for Valve, the games industry has too many juniors for reasons that amount to "nobody but juniors want to work under the overall conditions of the industry"). A lot of it becomes very "formal" and has to be planned vis-a-vis a quick snap check to see with someone else if everything is still on check because you walked past their desk.

Especially in the final stages of a project, good communication is probably the most important thing possible.

Granted, this is Rockstar, so crunch is almost certainly on the menu too. A good reminder to avoid working in this industry like the plague.
 
BassForever said:
We use to cut people's arms and legs off if you got certain kinds of wounds

We don't do that anymore because society and technology have advanced

No reason to revert back to unga bunga micromanaged to death if you don't have to
Click to expand...
Analogy is your passion
 
0
Working in office is a thing of the past if working from home is possible. No one should have to be forced to come to office.

People will lose their job if they refuse, and need to crunch if they accept. And Rockstar's timing is 100% intentional with all the mass layoffs we're seeing the past weeks. Everyone is afraid of losing their jobs, so bigger chance they'll just give in to their demands.
 
Party Sklar said:
It sucks honestly, five days a week sounds normal on paper but when they say it’s for productivity, you know it means they’re gonna crunch. Also some people probably based their lives around the possibility to work remote, and know they have to adapt again to a new situation. And probably see their families less, spend more time commuting, etc…
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It’s this. It’s way easier to guilt people into staying late when management can eyeball them when they leave according to their contracted hours, rather than when working at home and just switching off the work computer at the agreed time. Contracts work both ways but toxic companies like it to be flexible in one direction, backed by implied threats that conveniently aren’t written down that are easier to have management enforce in person.
 
Ahmed said:
Working in office is a thing of the past if working from home is possible. No one should have to be forced to come to office.

People will lose their job if they refuse, and need to crunch if they accept. And Rockstar's timing is 100% intentional with all the mass layoffs we're seeing the past weeks. Everyone is afraid of losing their jobs, so bigger chance they'll just give in to their demands.
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The old ‘not only should you feel grateful to have a job, you should feel grateful to work for a big company! Now get in and do some mandatory overtime for months, and we’ll be watching for when the inevitable layoffs come after release. Enjoy making our games about anarchic rejection of the rules, peasants!’
 
I work in Software development and only go in the office once every couple of weeks, we have a mix but very few people go in more than a couple of days per week. Productivity has absolutely not dropped and people are happier.
This "back in the office" push is such a pointless dick move by wankers in management.
 
Wiencek said:
I work in automotive industry and we just started a new project with full force 3 weeks ago. Some of us (including me) actually decided to come back to office for initial weeks on our own accord just because we are perfectly aware that information flow while in office in person is way quicker. There are mini meetings constantly forming by themselves while we iron out some specific details. Work is just quicker and there is actually less risk for us to stay more than 8h in office if we are on the same page constantly.

Home Office is prefered and more comfortable when work becomes more and more standarized/repetitive and very little is changing all the time but at the start and at the end of a bigger project it becomes too frantic for online communications. (and we are a relatively small team of 10 people, I don't even want to imagine communication delays beetween bigger teams)

I think that for the most part what Rockstar has decided might actually minimize risk and amount of crunch if they will even need it.
Click to expand...

Key word above being of “your own accord” that’s not what’s happening here. So good for you glad you’ve found a workflow that works for you and glad you’ve been given the choice. Here Rockstar is taking that ability to choose away and I don’t think it should be mutually exclusive with “minimizing crunch”.

I think they should all be able to work from home and not have to experience crunch
 
Man...I hope that game developers can get more of a union together. I know that companies are doing everything in their power to stop it, but that's the type of thing that can stop things like this from happening. I imagine that these guys just don't really have a choice right now.
 
This sounds like layoffs are coming. They're doing this to get people to walk before they're pushed. Even Zoom did this. And if this means 12 months of heavily monitored crunch before release day all the better.
 
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Beelzemontheworld said:
Key word above being of “your own accord” that’s not what’s happening here. So good for you glad you’ve found a workflow that works for you and glad you’ve been given the choice. Here Rockstar is taking that ability to choose away and I don’t think it should be mutually exclusive with “minimizing crunch”.

I think they should all be able to work from home and not have to experience crunch
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It's not a key word, this is only a formal option we don't want to use because it would cause us more problems and potential crunch on project. It's an illusion of choice existing only because of high trust that we will work in efficent way and WFH is not efficient in frantic moments. (and we also value this flexibility because if somebody really needs to stay at home for whatever reason then there is less issues with deciding that)

And FYI: WFH does not protect from crunch, people can do overtime even from home if there is need.
 
Over the last 5 years I have worked fully in office, fully remote and hybrid. All have their advantages and disadvantages. For a project like this, I think higher level people should absolutely be in the office 5 days a week. There is just something different about being together that makes it easier to get stuff done.

People doing repetitive tasks or coding or programming, I feel like they could benefit more from hybrid or remote. Maybe a 3 WFH and 2 in office day schedule. Enough to keep them in the loop, but enough WFH time to focus on their work.

Either way, it's just a job and there is a million of them, so if they don't like it, with Rockstar on their resume I'm sure they will be fine.
 
Armoured_Bear said:
I work in Software development and only go in the office once every couple of weeks, we have a mix but very few people go in more than a couple of days per week. Productivity has absolutely not dropped and people are happier.
This "back in the office" push is such a pointless dick move by wankers in management.
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Eh... We get way faster to the solution when standing together in a room and discussing it then over teams, and fast questions are easier to do and show if you are sitting next to a colleague. If I have my stories and know what to do, then home office can even be more efficient (less distractions). It depends on team/organisation structure, type of work, etc. It's totally unnecessary if you get your tasks from top down or everybody has a well defined field where he's best left on his own and some trams will klick in a way where a slack chat is all they need.

But It's short sighted to look at WFH and see it as the be all end all.

-----
By the way, many of the worries here are cause the worker rights and unions are non existent in the us. Our 2 days home office are in the contract since the pandemic negotiations, and they could not take that without some other compensation that we are accepting.

Overwork time just cause I'm in the office? Nah. I can't clock in more then 10h simply cause the system only allowed that if I add it as overtime pay because of regulations. If my boss would start such shenanigans like "work without clocking in", that's the day I send my first application letter to another company, no way I would accept that here.
 
browneyes84 said:
Ok but a lot of places in the world, the majority i would suspect, still do have 5 days in office. It doesn't sound permanent, it's because they're in the final stretch of development.

It's a nothing story.
Click to expand...

Productivity falls if you have to work in office instead of WFH. Time lost commuting, and there are tons more distractions at office.

This sucks for Rockstar employees, I hope it's an actual thing where they felt the general increase in productivity WFH types normally see isn't going to cut it for GTA6 dev, not an idiot manager/director trying to flex his/her managerial muscles for no good reasons.
 
Wiencek said:
It's not a key word, this is only a formal option we don't want to use because it would cause us more problems and potential crunch on project. It's an illusion of choice existing only because of high trust that we will work in efficent way and WFH is not efficient in frantic moments. (and we also value this flexibility because if somebody really needs to stay at home for whatever reason then there is less issues with deciding that)

And FYI: WFH does not protect from crunch, people can do overtime even from home if there is need.
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If anything working from home can perpetuate the idea of always being on the clock. If your office is right there, you can always get something done! Right?

darthdiablo said:
Productivity falls if you have to work in office instead of WFH. Time lost commuting, and there are tons more distractions at office.
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For some, I'm sure this is true, but let's not pretend a home is necessarily free from distractions.
 
Aether said:
Eh... We get way faster to the solution when standing together in a room and discussing it then over teams, and fast questions are easier to do and show if you are sitting next to a colleague. If I have my stories and know what to do, then home office can even be more efficient (less distractions). It depends on team/organisation structure, type of work, etc. It's totally unnecessary if you get your tasks from top down or everybody has a well defined field where he's best left on his own and some trams will klick in a way where a slack chat is all they need.

But It's short sighted to look at WFH and see it as the be all end all.

-----
By the way, many of the worries here are cause the worker rights and unions are non existent in the us. Our 2 days home office are in the contract since the pandemic negotiations, and they could not take that without some other compensation that we are accepting.

Overwork time just cause I'm in the office? Nah. I can't clock in more then 10h simply cause the system only allowed that if I add it as overtime pay because of regulations. If my boss would start such shenanigans like "work without clocking in", that's the day I send my first application letter to another company, no way I would accept that here.
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IME any benefits from in-place discussions rather than Teams with screen sharing pale into insignificance compared with the huge benefits in concentration and productivity in a comfortable, silent environment with less interruptions plus no commute.
I am in mainland Europe though and from what I understand, American working culture is quite different.
 
ngpdrew said:
For some, I'm sure this is true, but let's not pretend a home is necessarily free from distractions.
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YMMV
If you have kids, no dedicated working space etc. then the office has many advantages.
I sit at my comfortable big desk with tons of nature light, silence (if I want it) and my partner is only sometimes at home and in the other rooms.
When we have Teams meetings I hear everyone perfectly from the Jabra speaker whereas in the office I'm stuck with an annoying headset with people around me talking and distracting me.
 
Armoured_Bear said:
YMMV
If you have kids, no dedicated working space etc. then the office has many advantages.
I sit at my comfortable big desk with tons of nature light, silence (if I want it) and my partner is only sometimes at home and in the other rooms.
When we have Teams meetings I hear everyone perfectly from the Jabra speaker whereas in the office I'm stuck with an annoying headset with people around me talking and distracting me.
Click to expand...
Yeah, definitely. I have kids and when they are in the house I can't do anything.

I also don't have the personality for a setup like that. I think I might lose my mind (more). I'm glad it works for you though!
 
Wiencek said:
It's not a key word, this is only a formal option we don't want to use because it would cause us more problems and potential crunch on project. It's an illusion of choice existing only because of high trust that we will work in efficent way and WFH is not efficient in frantic moments. (and we also value this flexibility because if somebody really needs to stay at home for whatever reason then there is less issues with deciding that)

And FYI: WFH does not protect from crunch, people can do overtime even from home if there is need.
Click to expand...
If it’s an illusion of choice then why say you chose to go in? And then again you mention flexibility here which is seemingly not given to those at rockstar with this mandate. So did you choose of your own accord to go back but have flexibility to still work from home (not the situation here) or were you forced back like just said with this illusion of choice?

Anyway sounds like you a victim just like the Rockstar employees. Why must timelines always be frantic and high priority, especially for non essentials like video games and cars, unsustainable and unconducive to good work when everyone’s under high stress.

Also do not misread and misinterpret what I said, I did not say WFH avoids crunch I said they should be able to work from and also not be subjected to crunch.


If you never stop and think of ways in which the world can be a better place you grow complacent in the mediocrity we live in, things don’t need to remain stagnant in collective suffering.


This is obviously nefarious tactics from a greedy evil corporate entity that has little care or respect for their workers as humans and not profit maximizing tools, like please come on people.
 
darthdiablo said:
Productivity falls if you have to work in office instead of WFH. Time lost commuting, and there are tons more distractions at office.

This sucks for Rockstar employees, I hope it's an actual thing where they felt the general increase in productivity WFH types normally see isn't going to cut it for GTA6 dev, not an idiot manager/director trying to flex his/her managerial muscles for no good reasons.
Click to expand...

Time spent commuting is outside of work hours.
"tons of distractions" like people you need to collaborate and work with being right there in the same room instead of on the end of e-mail or a chat window?

Nintendo/Japanese devs were quite open during the pandemic about working from home being disastrous for their productivity. I get that Western studios might be set up for it better, but let's not pretend that WFH is unequivocally "better".
 
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