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[Bloomberg] ‘Grand Theft Auto’ Maker Rockstar Games Asks Workers to Return to Office Five Days a Week
- Thread starter Thick Thighs Save Lives
- Start date
- Game Dev
StereoVsn
Gold Member
Yeah, I think one of the issues with working from home is who are the workers in question. Folks who have experience and are older generally shouldn’t have a lot of issues.
New employees coming in don’t get mentorship, proper training and generally Gen Z is somewhat whiny at work. Mind you that obviously doesn’t apply to everyone.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
wfh can be a distraction for many. And that can lead to affecting people at the office.
What happened to many wfh people sinne covid happened, they changed their life style around. Before covid, everything seemed sorted out. But now with one (or both) parents wfh they spend time taking care of their kids or pets and quit paying for babysitting or dogwalking services to save money. So what you get now is some people doing personal life stuff and then they play catch up later on work at odd hours. Or they ask if the meeting organizer can adjust the meeting time because they have to run out and do errands or pick up the kids.
ReBurn
Gold Member
It was and it wasn't.
Some businesses were more profitable but tons of businesses didn't survive. It drove more money to the ones that remained in many cases. Other business saw profits just by cashing in on the home office phenomenon where workers were getting cashfrom their employers to buy office amenities at home.
In the US nearly 20 million people lost their jobs within a week or two of the start of lockdown. The drop in number of people working skewed the productivity statistics. Wage statistics also skewed wildly because of the people still working most of them were higher paid, which caused a salary bubble and a drive by larger companies with more money to snap up all the people they could to get ahead of it any negative effects, which drove tons of people toward jobs that they're now being laid off from.
Nothing really proved that people were more productive working from home, though. Some people say they're more productive because they spend less time commuting, showering, whatever. But they're going to say what they have to because they just like working from home. But the output of individual workers really didn't rise simply by virtue of not going to an office. Their productivity often looked higher because it was being compared to the output of people who weren't able to adapt to working from home. Some people had significant drops in productivity due to lack of structure that made their more disciplined coworkers look like rockstars. A lot of it just came down to perception.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Our company had record growth selling out of so much shit during covid, we were in short supply keeping up some product lines for 2 years. it wasnt till 2023 all product lines were back to normal. Even 2023, we had some shorts. There's only so much product factories and 24 shifts can pump out.
But that doesnt mean the sales reps were godly account managers. They didnt do shit. Nobody in the office could even figure out why purchase orders were ordering double or triple the qtys untl everyone realized it was stores panicking as people were hoarding products loading up their carts. You guys not in the industry dont realize that stores orders are triggered automatically by sales algorithms. If sales jump, the system orders more on its own.
The company even told account managers to lay off dealing with retailers as there's no point to sell in more product at promo deals since we were already selling out of stuff at regular prices!!!!
Check out the typical retailer and consumer goods company's FY 2020 annual reports and you'll sales shoot through the roof. That was no productivity skill set that drive that. It was shoppers going ape shit at stores buying toilet paper, cleaning supplies and food as a lot of restaurants were closed up so they cooked more at home.
Any techie claiming their productivity was godly and that's why sales shot up during covid years is fooling themselves. It wasnt because you guys were the most efficient people on earth. It was due to people stuck at home and playing more games and watching more Netflix and since gyms closed down ordering $3000 Peloton bikes. Since covid peaks, tech stuff has trended down. So going by productivity bravado, your productivity has gotten worse then. And it's not because people's live are back to normal. Cant have it both ways.
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Spukc
always chasing the next thrill
It’s ok dude just stop being lazy
Toons
Member
Spite against people they don't even now, projecting whatever Twitter post that annoyed them onto an entire class of individuals
Meanwhile statistics show that WFH when implemented in a balanced way actually increases productivity and more importantly, quality of work.
Toons
Member
Coulda fooled me the way they're acting in thread.
Upper_Management
Member
I do apologize to you all for being so lazy and watching Netflix while I'm WFH making vidya gamez.
GamesDontSuck
Member
Alotta hate for people working from home it seems to be from reading this thread haha.
If you prefer to work on-site, that's cool, as some dynamics and tasks benefit more from having a physical presence.
Although I don't see the reason to hate on or resent those of us who prefer having the option of working from home.
It just comes off as being petty, and more of a misery loves company sort of attitude.
They both have their upsides and downsides, so I'd prefer having the option in most cases.
Although I don't see the reason to hate on or resent those of us who prefer having the option of working from home.
It just comes off as being petty, and more of a misery loves company sort of attitude.
They both have their upsides and downsides, so I'd prefer having the option in most cases.
StereoVsn
Gold Member
As long as folks deliver I don’t see anything wrong with potentially running out to get kids or walking the dog for 30 min.
We used to have people go for an hour or longer lunches all the time as an example. And now meetings tend to start earlier and sometimes even go through that lunch hour.
So there is a balance there.
Kaleinc
Banned
This thread is wild.
Half of slaves screaming how they can better serve their master from home, the other half how they'll do it from office.
With current level of automation and tech it should be possible to work a tiny fraction of time for the same income. Sending a message used to take the time a pigeon with a note reaches its destination compared to 20 assholes blowing up your phone at the same time - do this, do that, so urgent. Get off a hamster in the wheel mindset.
Now get back to work, bend over, the boss is hard
Half of slaves screaming how they can better serve their master from home, the other half how they'll do it from office.
With current level of automation and tech it should be possible to work a tiny fraction of time for the same income. Sending a message used to take the time a pigeon with a note reaches its destination compared to 20 assholes blowing up your phone at the same time - do this, do that, so urgent. Get off a hamster in the wheel mindset.
Now get back to work, bend over, the boss is hard
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
if someone at home can live with it go ahead.
But shut that home office door closed, and dont distract the people at the office at the meeting with home life on the call.
And no meeting organizer should be asked to reschedule a meeting due to trivial home life issues. Everyone can live with someone doing a doctors or dentists visit or someone needing to go drive to their kids school and watch them in a concert and such. But for basic stuff like everyday life is adjusted so can people work around meetings due to every day kids schedules forget it. We all work together. Do that family stuff on your own. Somehow they figured it all out before covid and they were at the office. If they cant handle it because they saved money on daycare or dogwalkers, then hire them back like before.
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raduque
Member
Right, you sell physical things that you need to physically put into people's hands and test how they work for that person. Makes sense you wouldn't be in a home office/work from home situation.
But if you write code? Graphic design? Video editing? None of that stuff requires you to be chained to a $10 office chair, sitting in a fluorescent lit cube farm hell wearing uncomfortable clothes for 10-15hr a day, on top of driving back and forth in shit-ass traffic, eating fast food or lukewarm leftovers.
Who cares. What's bad for business is good for the employees. Fuck shareholders, and the rich getting richer.
Maybe those people should be in the service industry, and not an industry that works fine remotely?
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FalsettoVibe
Member
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
My love for tits and ass has only gotten larger as I’ve grown up.Have you been in a Stellar Blade or Tifa bikini thread around here lately?
FalsettoVibe
Member
Celcius
°Temp. member
Have you been in a Stellar Blade or Tifa bikini thread around here lately?
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FalsettoVibe
Member
It's not that simple. In the heat of COVID, people were getting sick, family members getting sick, shortages of crap and all kinds issues people had to deal with.
reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
Same. But I don't yell, "lookadeem got damn titties" every time I see a pair.
DannyDanger
Member
So your response to a stereotype is another stereotype?
It's insane to me how you guys think you know better than these companies that are actually dealing with this firsthand, on a large scale.
Like how would you know better? What facts can you present?
Roni
Member
What's truly insane is someone in 2024 operating on the assumption that any company has its employees' interests (fuck, or even its customers' interests) at heart.
How many fucking examples does one need to fucking wake up and smell the fucking smoke?
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FoxMcChief
Gold Member
You have my sword.
genesisblock
Member
That's the problem isn't it?? No wonder we all have these layoffs in the game industry, it's not poor-management, excess budgeting, feature creep, GaaS. No, it's
WORK. FROM. HOME.
The magical answer. Now if if Konami would allow developers to work from home. Kojima would still be making Metal Gear and Silent Hill.
WORK. FROM. HOME.
The magical answer. Now if if Konami would allow developers to work from home. Kojima would still be making Metal Gear and Silent Hill.
Megatron
Member
Just a bunch of minimum wage nobodies cheerleading because people with actual jobs have to go back in like they do.
Griffon
Member
Some jobs don't require socializing in an office and being interrupted by middle management all the time.
Game dev is one of those jobs. And if you have worker who can't be productive on their own, just fire their ass. Because they are the type of people who'd rather play at office politics than actually do their job.
Game dev is one of those jobs. And if you have worker who can't be productive on their own, just fire their ass. Because they are the type of people who'd rather play at office politics than actually do their job.
Bojji
Member
I wonder how many of those "actual jobs" will be replaced by ai.
BouncyFrag
Member
What they need is competition and awards to be won for those who return.
TerribleAtThisGame
Member
Why the hell would anyone stan for...fucking work. From home, the office, anywhere.
Working sucks, remember? Yay Rockstar, yay my tough guy job a forklift can accomplish, yay my job that will be replaced by AI.
This forum is some weird shit sometimes lol.
Working sucks, remember? Yay Rockstar, yay my tough guy job a forklift can accomplish, yay my job that will be replaced by AI.
This forum is some weird shit sometimes lol.
Bernardougf
Member
They should present their case study for Rockstar, they are obviously missing something.
dano1
A Sheep
. 
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Toons
Member
No, we know why Rockstar is doing it lol. It's greed.
There are just some folks here that have a problem with anyone actually scrutinizing a corporation for "some" reason.
NickFire
Member
A lot of people recognize that marketing costs a ton of money. Sometimes there are deadlines that need to be met In life. Maybe if there weren’t so many people crying about stuff like that it would make more people sympathetic on the going to work complaints. But we are still talking about just going to work.
Sleepwalker
Member
I like how Rockstar are "based" for doing this according to people in in this thread.
A nice contrast with literally every other rockstar thread made on GAF about GTA V non story DLC, begging for a RDR2 patch, shark cards, etc.
Better yet the threads on comments made by Strauss Zelnick. In all these threads above its back to R* are assholes, greedy, out of touch etc.
bumpkin
Member
I’m just glad that my employer recognizes we are grown adults who can be trusted to complete our work and satisfy the enterprise’s objectives on-time.
They actually did switch to a one week a month in-office policy last year, but it wasn’t because of any work quality issue. It was because the new hires (during COVID) had yet to meet their team in-person and haven’t been able to network with others outside of their teams.
It’s going up to two weeks in September, but that’s a whole other can of worms.
I really don't understand the venom towards remote work in this thread. The thought seems to be it's impossible to be productive without being in an office. But somehow:
Plumbers
Electricians
Roofers
IT guys who repair your computer
guys who build cabinets/furniture
etc
They all work at home or not in an office, yet no one is claiming they're the problem. Why not? What's the difference? It's just bad management in these big companies, they're just terrible at judging productivity of individual workers, so their only metric is 'they showed up', lol. Not how much they actually got done. These companies don't care about their workers, all they're doing is using their leverage now that the job market has tightened up (because they can). It has nothing to do with production. What I found is that the managers that don't like remote work, you know why that is? It's because they're making a ton of money and they have a stay at home wife with lots of kids and it's annoying to work from home for them, and they assume it's the same for everyone else. Meanwhile for everyone else struggling to get by with two working parents the work from home is a godsend and they don't have the same distractions.
I see people in this thread saying that WFH is the reason game development is suffering now. I'm like when did these companies ever have their stuff together, it's always been like this. And 2023 was one of the best years for gaming in a long time, lot of that work was done remotely on those games. Do you tell your stock broker that you want him to go buy and sell your stock from the NYSE floor because in person is better? Or do you just let E-trade do it remotely instantly?
All EA sports games were awful prepandemic. RTS games had already disappeared a long time ago. Generic open worlds had already taken over. I don't see how where the people were working made this any better or worse. People that want to screw off will do it in the office or at home, it's the manager's job to judge their productivity. If there's anyone you should be mad at, it's middle managers who can't judge productivity. And you think these managers will be better at judging people in the office than remotely? Honestly, I think it would almost easier remotely. With remote, the work is the only output. In office, there's ton's of meetings, etc. that you can use as an excuse.
If you're making the 'work from home is only bad' argument, then you probably should also be arguing that:
buying stuff remotely on amazon is bad, must go to the store to see it
downloading games off steam is bad, must go to the store and buy it and hold it in my hand
any type of learning online is bad (youtube, udemy, etc) because you must be in front of a teacher to learn
etc.
I don't think the 'work from home is bad' argument holds water honestly because everything else has gone remote in the past 25 years for the better, yet this one case is the one people have a problem with for some reason. I'm guessing most of them have never worked in a major office with a job that requires no other interaction...I'd say that 50% of the jobs at these corporations at a minimum are that way.
Plumbers
Electricians
Roofers
IT guys who repair your computer
guys who build cabinets/furniture
etc
They all work at home or not in an office, yet no one is claiming they're the problem. Why not? What's the difference? It's just bad management in these big companies, they're just terrible at judging productivity of individual workers, so their only metric is 'they showed up', lol. Not how much they actually got done. These companies don't care about their workers, all they're doing is using their leverage now that the job market has tightened up (because they can). It has nothing to do with production. What I found is that the managers that don't like remote work, you know why that is? It's because they're making a ton of money and they have a stay at home wife with lots of kids and it's annoying to work from home for them, and they assume it's the same for everyone else. Meanwhile for everyone else struggling to get by with two working parents the work from home is a godsend and they don't have the same distractions.
I see people in this thread saying that WFH is the reason game development is suffering now. I'm like when did these companies ever have their stuff together, it's always been like this. And 2023 was one of the best years for gaming in a long time, lot of that work was done remotely on those games. Do you tell your stock broker that you want him to go buy and sell your stock from the NYSE floor because in person is better? Or do you just let E-trade do it remotely instantly?
All EA sports games were awful prepandemic. RTS games had already disappeared a long time ago. Generic open worlds had already taken over. I don't see how where the people were working made this any better or worse. People that want to screw off will do it in the office or at home, it's the manager's job to judge their productivity. If there's anyone you should be mad at, it's middle managers who can't judge productivity. And you think these managers will be better at judging people in the office than remotely? Honestly, I think it would almost easier remotely. With remote, the work is the only output. In office, there's ton's of meetings, etc. that you can use as an excuse.
If you're making the 'work from home is only bad' argument, then you probably should also be arguing that:
buying stuff remotely on amazon is bad, must go to the store to see it
downloading games off steam is bad, must go to the store and buy it and hold it in my hand
any type of learning online is bad (youtube, udemy, etc) because you must be in front of a teacher to learn
etc.
I don't think the 'work from home is bad' argument holds water honestly because everything else has gone remote in the past 25 years for the better, yet this one case is the one people have a problem with for some reason. I'm guessing most of them have never worked in a major office with a job that requires no other interaction...I'd say that 50% of the jobs at these corporations at a minimum are that way.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
A lot of these jobs involve face to face contact with customers who show up at locations to fix things.
Also, most of the jobbers in those careers arent at an office or building because they are a home based company with zero building they lease out because they are one person. Their office is their home and van full of supplies. And they can do a job without needing to coordinate with 10, 50 or 100 people to get a job done.
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Bernardougf
Member
Sorry but it dosent make sense, if home office gives you the same or better production and is cheaper (as pointed out in this thread).. therefore your company gets more money... so going back to offices cant be greed it can only be stupidity.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Exactly.
Also as someone said to me earlier, Rocketar is big on security as the last leak was done not by a home based worker, but by his dopey kid taking pics and uploading it. I was amazed and googled it and true.
So when it comes to leaks, I think about the typical hackers infiltrating servers or a disgruntled worker secretly posting leaks on reddit to sabotage the company for laughs. Turns out a family member goofed around and leaked secrets. So it goes to show home based workers cant even be trusted to control their living room or home office form confidential info leaking from family.
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Yeah. Wonder what they will think of strong arguments such as: ''but my colleagues distract me with chit-chat at work''.
I WFH 100% but I'm also not an entitled cunt.
I left my previous job because they wouldn't allow me to wfh for 1 - 2 days a fortnight.
If you don't like your working conditions then go elsewhere. No ones forcing you to stay.
Or go start your own business if you don't like working for someone else and their rules of employment.
Toons
Member
Its a strong sign people are talking about pretty much everything BUT the actual subject itself and are making an ideological argument
Toons
Member
No, its greed.
Companies have a vested interest in you being there because they are paying for the office space, can control you easier and can use this as an excuse to fire you. All of which saves them money.
wfh IS cheaper. For YOU. Companies don't give af about that. They want it to be cheaper for THEM.
The leaks argument is a scapegoat. There are way bigger companies that RS that have wfh and don't have major leaks. Thats on them just as much as it is that employee who was reckless with his assets.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Good point.
A key part of R*'s message was security breaches, which not long ago was done by a worker's nosy son who dumped leaked info on the net.
So hey, Rockstars execs said fuck this. You had your chance, but if you guys cant control your own family from leaking info then forget it. Everyone back to the office.
Toons
Member
Yea, and thats a stupid business decision to let one employee f*** over the entire worker base.
The employee should've been punished and they moved tf on. Games have leaks all the time and folks being in an office won't prevent leaks at all lol.
Thats not the reason they're doing this.