At an all-hands meeting on Thursday, Xbox addressed the growing employee concerns about labor conditions at Bethesda Game Studios and its parent company, ZeniMax. Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, said he was “confident” that the studio was not crunching, and that it was “unfair” to attribute crunch culture to only Bethesda.
Kotaku was able to independently verify the contents of this meeting by viewing a recorded video.
“Crunch culture is…if you go back 10 years ago, it’s a little unfair to put that on one studio,” said Booty. “It was just part of the industry. I don’t say that to justify it, I’m just saying it was part of the culture of the industry. I literally slept under my desk early in my career. And we looked at that like a badge of honor.”
Booty said that the working conditions detailed in the report were in the past. “I know from talking to Bethesda leadership that we do not have a situation where people are crunching and we’ve got this bullying atmosphere…I’m confident about that.”
He acknowledged that crunch could still take place without his knowledge, and said that employees needed to trust in Xbox’s internal processes. He said that Xbox’s human resources department would be willing to listen to employee concerns, and that all studios had support groups for individual disciplines. “There’s avenues for them to report that anonymously back to us that goes through HR,” Booty said. “We have to rely on those independent systems of checks and balances.”
Since the Xbox HR department is employed by Xbox, it could hardly be considered an “independent” entity.
Other companies doing it makes it OK, right?
Telling employees to trust HR is a sick joke
Edit:
The Xbox head said that overtime should only be kept to personal excitement and passion, and not a mandatory aspect of production scheduling.
I think even starting with small stakes is notably different. So many games make you out to be the True Hero in the first hour. If it starts out "Save your town" and snowballs, even that is better.
If I'm reading that correctly Matt was still sleeping under his desk when Bethesda were fixing up FO76... *checks watch*
Until this year, if not still? Gotta hand it to him, that's dedication.
I think even starting with small stakes is notably different. So many games make you out to be the True Hero in the first hour. If it starts out "Save your town" and snowballs, even that is better.
I'm not sure I agree?
I mean I guess at the end of the day it depends on how well it's done, but I've absolutely had it feel like a bait and switch for me
Whereas if you go in knowing you're going to be playing a demigod, the stakes feel consistent all the way through
Edit: What I'm saying is that Baldur's Gate II is a better game than the first one
If I'm reading that correctly Matt was still sleeping under his desk when Bethesda were fixing up FO76... *checks watch*
Until this year, if not still? Gotta hand it to him, that's dedication.
I'm not sure where you got that from "Early in my career" This guy used to run Midway; he's been around for awhile.
If I'm reading that correctly Matt was still sleeping under his desk when Bethesda were fixing up FO76... *checks watch*
Until this year, if not still? Gotta hand it to him, that's dedication.
I'm not sure where you got that from "Early in my career" This guy used to run Midway; he's been around for awhile.
The guy said he slept under his desk ~when crunch still existed~, and now does not since it's been eliminated (to his knowledge). I was pointing out that there was an article literally this month about crunch at Bethesda, the very company he's whitewashing.
If I'm reading that correctly Matt was still sleeping under his desk when Bethesda were fixing up FO76... *checks watch*
Until this year, if not still? Gotta hand it to him, that's dedication.
I'm not sure where you got that from "Early in my career" This guy used to run Midway; he's been around for awhile.
The guy said he slept under his desk ~when crunch still existed~, and now does not since it's been eliminated (to his knowledge). I was pointing out that there was an article literally this month about crunch at Bethesda, the very company he's whitewashing.
I understand that your primary goal here is to dunk on him (which is a worthwhile endeavor), but what he said was:
I literally slept under my desk early in my career.
"This year" is not "early in [his] career".
Fortunately, literally everything else he has said is embarrassing horseshit, so we can pick pretty much any other sentence and proceed dunking on him.
Here, I'll pick this one:
“We have to rely on those independent systems of checks and balances.”
Naw dude! You don't gotta! You can just enforce "no crunch", and if studios can't get their shit done in time for your arbitrary deadlines, hire more people and/or train the managers better!
If I'm reading that correctly Matt was still sleeping under his desk when Bethesda were fixing up FO76... *checks watch*
Until this year, if not still? Gotta hand it to him, that's dedication.
I'm not sure where you got that from "Early in my career" This guy used to run Midway; he's been around for awhile.
The guy said he slept under his desk ~when crunch still existed~, and now does not since it's been eliminated (to his knowledge). I was pointing out that there was an article literally this month about crunch at Bethesda, the very company he's whitewashing.
He never says crunch doesn't exist anymore period, he's says it's not a thing at Microsoft, and that the crunch mentioned in that Kotaku article is a thing of the past from prior to the Bethesda aquistion.
Obviously he could be full of shit, but I don't think anything he said was contradictory.
I liked how Breath of the Wild handled the scope thing. You're told straight off the bat that you're the hero who needs to save the world... and then Impa literally asks you* if you're ready to face that responsibility. And if you say no, she tells you that's ok; come back when you are. I loved that moment because it's Impa showing her faith in Link - that once he sees more of the world, he'll come around - but it's also the developers showing their faith in the game they made: "Not onboard this story train yet? Go explore for a while; we think you'll like our world."
Also, very few people know who you are, so they don't have any reason to give you special treatment.
*assuming you follow the game's gentle nudging in the direction of plot, which you don't actually have to do
+2
MalReynoldsThe Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicinesRegistered Userregular
You are truly the only hope for all living creatures on this world! If you fail, we are doomed to an eternity under the boots of the Nighthexen!
Also that sword is 300gp, no discounts.
I'm working on a long form fantasy book outline and I literally used "save the mayor's son from an abandoned town so the mayor will open the gate to let the party progress" as the opening to poke fun at this. No one gets paid anything right because each town values different things, so while the king enforces scrip there's a secondary financial market in each established area based on the their values/what they can create, so for saving the mayor's son they get paid in cobblestone.
Originally it was going to be saving the mayor's son from a snake filled well but ehhhhhh
MalReynolds on
"A new take on the epic fantasy genre... Darkly comic, relatable characters... twisted storyline."
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
+2
Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
Outer Wilds does escalating stakes pretty fucking well
+7
BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
It appears that Niantic is reckoning with the fact that nothing will ever be quite as big Pokemon Go once was. Unfortunately, that means a number of canceled projects and layoffs. https://t.co/wjVc0LeRku
Articles about crunch at Bethesda literally talked about employees being depressed at the lack of change after the MS acquisition
Edit: You can't really talk about being hands off with acquired studios if you want to claim to have actually fixed crunch culture at those studios. Actually fixing it requires being hands on
It appears that Niantic is reckoning with the fact that nothing will ever be quite as big Pokemon Go once was. Unfortunately, that means a number of canceled projects and layoffs. https://t.co/wjVc0LeRku
Wow, this also sucks!
Niantic has made changes to Pokemon Go of late that will make less money because they want the game to be played a certain way ONLY. Their leadership seems stubborn and stupid to me.
Articles about crunch at Bethesda literally talked about employees being depressed at the lack of change after the MS acquisition
Wait, articles? Was there more than one? I only ever found the Kotaku one? While that article states the some things did get better, and the response was "lukewarm" not "depressing", you're right that it's a lot of people saying they don't feel enough has changed since the aquisition.
0
MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
Pokemon Go probably shouldn't have been as big as Pokemon Go once was
KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
Its a moral failing on my part but I will always love pokemon go to the polls
+3
MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
I remember playing a little bit of Ingress back when you had to apply for an invite to it, and it was kind of interesting but also ran like absolute dogshit on my phone at the time
MalReynoldsThe Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicinesRegistered Userregular
I wonder if elevated player count at the start of the pandemic fucked their projections up.
"A new take on the epic fantasy genre... Darkly comic, relatable characters... twisted storyline."
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
I can't blame them for hoping another game might land similarly along folks, because damn do I miss the days when that game was tremendously popular and you could just walk down the block with your pals on a summer night and catch a Gyrados or whatever
I would love for another popular social game to click the way Go did, it was just so nice
It did give us that one summer where you could be ready walking in the street with your phone and some dude would stop you and ask you if you had seen a bulbasaur nearby. That was pretty fun.
I did try the Harry Potter one briefly and it’s kind of a shame that only PoGo has had longevity. I am interested in what could be done in the space (maybe without, you know, a license that gives money to an arsehole of a person). The HP version was a vastly better actual game, where you had a holy trinity class system, levels, skills, different spells. Taking on the gyms was actually a dungeon crawl with friends through a tower with scaling battles. It was still simple but a huge step up from “tap screen a bunch”.
Part of me thinks that there’s got to be space for a game like this that’s got that kind of classic fantasy trappings. Really MMO this up. Like make pubs be places you can hear actual rumours that grant quests. PoGO let’s you apply to be a gym (and pay for advertising from it) and you could tie that in to let people be quest givers. Imagine a card store checking the quest list and sending a group of magic players off to kill some nearby goblins when they were done with a evenings playing. Lemme be well known in my area because I took the time to grind out being a max level wizard.
I only played a bit of PokemonGo in 2020, and I found it supremely embarrassing to be standing in the middle of the lawn of the Lutheran church trying to catch an Electrode or whatever and then, luckily, my barely existent data cap was hit and I closed the game and went about my day.
Niantic took some interesting swings with their projects, bit of a bummer they didn't connect
I had a buddy who, for a couple of years, wrote ARG stuff for Ingress. Ongoing online stories, with "season finale" style real-life immersive theatre events. Really ambitious ideas, with Niantic putting their money where their mouth was on innovating in the mobile game space.
Shame the experiments didn't pan out, but I'm glad they were attempted
Posts
Telling employees to trust HR is a sick joke
Edit: Those are indistinguishable.
Until this year, if not still? Gotta hand it to him, that's dedication.
Not only were they watching, but they had 2 members of the Dev team on a call commentating the run.
I'm not sure I agree?
I mean I guess at the end of the day it depends on how well it's done, but I've absolutely had it feel like a bait and switch for me
Whereas if you go in knowing you're going to be playing a demigod, the stakes feel consistent all the way through
Edit: What I'm saying is that Baldur's Gate II is a better game than the first one
I'm not sure where you got that from "Early in my career" This guy used to run Midway; he's been around for awhile.
Also that sword is 300gp, no discounts.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
if I ask a constructor to make me 6.666~ iron plates per minute, it claims I'll need 9.9999~ ingots per minute.
Last time I checked, 9.9999~ is 10. Does the game understand this?
But, in reality, feed it 120 and just let it back up as your manifold fills.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Hey I got bills to pay too pal
Fortunately, literally everything else he has said is embarrassing horseshit, so we can pick pretty much any other sentence and proceed dunking on him.
Here, I'll pick this one: Naw dude! You don't gotta! You can just enforce "no crunch", and if studios can't get their shit done in time for your arbitrary deadlines, hire more people and/or train the managers better!
He never says crunch doesn't exist anymore period, he's says it's not a thing at Microsoft, and that the crunch mentioned in that Kotaku article is a thing of the past from prior to the Bethesda aquistion.
Obviously he could be full of shit, but I don't think anything he said was contradictory.
Also, very few people know who you are, so they don't have any reason to give you special treatment.
*assuming you follow the game's gentle nudging in the direction of plot, which you don't actually have to do
I'm working on a long form fantasy book outline and I literally used "save the mayor's son from an abandoned town so the mayor will open the gate to let the party progress" as the opening to poke fun at this. No one gets paid anything right because each town values different things, so while the king enforces scrip there's a secondary financial market in each established area based on the their values/what they can create, so for saving the mayor's son they get paid in cobblestone.
Originally it was going to be saving the mayor's son from a snake filled well but ehhhhhh
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
wow, this sucks!
Wow, this also sucks!
Edit: You can't really talk about being hands off with acquired studios if you want to claim to have actually fixed crunch culture at those studios. Actually fixing it requires being hands on
Niantic has made changes to Pokemon Go of late that will make less money because they want the game to be played a certain way ONLY. Their leadership seems stubborn and stupid to me.
Wait, articles? Was there more than one? I only ever found the Kotaku one? While that article states the some things did get better, and the response was "lukewarm" not "depressing", you're right that it's a lot of people saying they don't feel enough has changed since the aquisition.
Just such an incredibly fortuitous success that you'd have to be dumb to even dream of being able to replicate it on command
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
I would love for another popular social game to click the way Go did, it was just so nice
3DS Friend Code: 0216-0898-6512
Switch Friend Code: SW-7437-1538-7786
It did give us that one summer where you could be ready walking in the street with your phone and some dude would stop you and ask you if you had seen a bulbasaur nearby. That was pretty fun.
I did try the Harry Potter one briefly and it’s kind of a shame that only PoGo has had longevity. I am interested in what could be done in the space (maybe without, you know, a license that gives money to an arsehole of a person). The HP version was a vastly better actual game, where you had a holy trinity class system, levels, skills, different spells. Taking on the gyms was actually a dungeon crawl with friends through a tower with scaling battles. It was still simple but a huge step up from “tap screen a bunch”.
Part of me thinks that there’s got to be space for a game like this that’s got that kind of classic fantasy trappings. Really MMO this up. Like make pubs be places you can hear actual rumours that grant quests. PoGO let’s you apply to be a gym (and pay for advertising from it) and you could tie that in to let people be quest givers. Imagine a card store checking the quest list and sending a group of magic players off to kill some nearby goblins when they were done with a evenings playing. Lemme be well known in my area because I took the time to grind out being a max level wizard.
I had a buddy who, for a couple of years, wrote ARG stuff for Ingress. Ongoing online stories, with "season finale" style real-life immersive theatre events. Really ambitious ideas, with Niantic putting their money where their mouth was on innovating in the mobile game space.
Shame the experiments didn't pan out, but I'm glad they were attempted
Pokémon Go was fucking awesome.
That was some high quality late 90s edge right there if you ask me
Kain fucked up the world so bad up to and including weird time travel shenanigans in the first game in the series, it's actually comical.