Ben-DutkaWe heard it with Team Bondi and now something similar has arisen in regards to Crysis developer, Crytek.
The drama started with a Tumblr blog entitled Hire and Fire Crytek ; the post accuses the studio in question of treating its employees "as disposable pieces of meat to be discarded at will." It also went on to describe – in some detail – how Crytek management unlawfully fired employees and squeezed out senior executives who could be replaced by cheaper, less experienced people. Finally, the blog claims some ex-employees have sued the company and won.
But unlike Team Bondi, which never responded to allegations and simply broke apart, Crytek boss Cevat Yerli offered an explanation :
"One thing that will always be the same is that Crytek respects and values its employees very highly, and equally–that's very important. Whether it's an intern, whether it's a director, it doesn't change; everyone is important. It is very distressing for us to think that an individual thinks we have been treating them unfairly. It's very disappointing."
As for those supposed lawsuits that ex-employees won, Yerli claims that didn't really happen and explained a bit about a worker's mindset in Germany. It's not that they "won" anything, it's that the employees believe they deserved more and sued for more.
"Well in Germany it is common sense, if you release someone, sometimes they get bad legal advice and basically think they can make unreasonable requests like huge severance packages. What we offered them they clearly didn't like but it was more than legally required. So they go to court and ask for much more, but in the end they end up getting less or what we offered in the first place, and just go through the pain [of the whole legal process]. 'Won' the lawsuits isn't the right term. I don't want to make glory out of this. We are not proud of 'winning.' This is something sad that happened between us and people we used to work with. We haven't been found to have unlawfully fired these people, but we don't want to go to court with our co-workers either."
Well, Cevat, that doesn't sound much different than the way things are here. In defense of businesses that have to deal with this every day, there's a widespread belief that employees are entitled to a lot more than they're worth. This jams up the court systems and makes things miserable for business owners, especially small business owners. This misplaced sense of entitlement is pretty huge in the US right now, Mr. Yerli. You aren't alone.
Misplaced entitlement is everywhere Ben, and I agree with you what said.
But, I this same sense of entitlement has affected the employers as well. With the state of the economy, I know of a lot of bosses who think they own their employees just because they gave him/her a job.
Man, I wish the economy was in the state it was a 5 plus years ago.
@max
i assure you there is way more of an entitlement attitude going on the employer side of things right now. most employees know the economy is rough right now and they are damn lucky to even have a job. they feel vulnerable right now, not entitled. and yes, i think we have all known bosses who thought they owned their employees.
we have all heard stories about crunch time in the gaming sector and stories about the poor working conditions found in places in like team bondi. ea admitted to taking its on "death marches" to crank out games. frankly, i would not be that surprised to find out that a lot of employees in the gaming sector feel like disposable pieces of meat.
Those bosses also feel entitled to assign rather disgustingly large bonuses to themselves. THAT's entitlement, not Johnny no-life wanting a few bucks because a game broke up his marriage.
+1 – entitlement issues go both ways, and time and time again I see employers wanting more for nothing from their employees, but as soon as the employees want something in return for a couple of hours extra work a week, they're considered self-serving.
That said, there are plenty of people who think they're entitled to have a job that pays well for working at their own pace and at whatever level of quality they feel like, and if the world doesn't give it to them it's all wrong.
I'd say that everyone needs to constantly do a reality check to see where they fit in the scheme of things, to make sure they're not getting lost in their own head – something that humanity seems to have a predisposition to do (in general) without appropriate checks and balances.
I dunno man I've heard some horror stories about developers basically chained to desks. If you don't stay late and keep coding then other people probably can't do test their stuff with yours and blah blah. I love having new games all the time but it really wasn't so bad when you only got a few gems per year. If I heard my enjoying Uncharted 3 came from Naughty Dog making a sweat shop I'd be a sad panda.
They could unionize and bargain, but then legislators would just make that illegal a la Wisconsin
Last edited by WorldEndsWithMe on 9/7/2011 2:25:46 PM
stories like this that make me want to stop my game development course and go do software development instead.
hey ben,
instead of siding with the crytek bosses why don't you try talking to a former employee and get their side of the story.