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[Shmunter]

Michael Pachter destroys Jason Schreier on Naughty Dog expose...

The gist..

• Michael knows the people on the inside, never heard of such claims.
• Schreier Is motivated by selling tabloid news
• Not hard to find disgruntled company ex-employees to support narrative
• Company doesn’t take Schreier seriously, no need to change culture
• If you don’t like it work elsewhere

For your entertainment....

 

[EviLore]

Pachter is far better connected to the industry.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Michael Pachter destroys Jason Schreier on Naught Dog expose...

The gist..

• Michael knows the people on the inside, never heard of such claims.
• Schreier Is motivated by selling tabloid news
• Not hard to find disgruntled company ex-employees to support narrative
• Company doesn’t take Schreier seriously, no need to change culture
• If you don’t like it work elsewhere

For your entertainment....

Not news, Pachter mentioned multiple times that he does not think crunch is a problem, he does not think unions are needed, etc... company does not need to take Schreier seriously, but bleeding talent and seeing the one inside burning out should be a wake up call one day.

 

[Virex]

Jason Schreier is a shill. If you need someone to shill for you. He's your man.

 

[martino]

Given his job How i am not surprise numbers matter more than humans.

 

[Geki-D]

Anti-SJWs coming into this thread thinking it's going to validate their TLOU2 leak conspiracy theories by debunking what Jason found out:

Jason Schreier is a shill. If you need someone to shill for you. He's your man.

If Jason is a shill and he was lying about ND like Patcher is suggesting, who was he shilling for? Microsoft? Nintendo?

 

[ZehDon]

"Destroys"? Are we really that far down the clickbait hell-hole? Soon it'll be in capitals and bolded...

Anyway, Pachter has been around the industry a lot longer, so his words carry some weight. With that said, I do wonder if that means he's less in touch with, say, a number of junior animators stuck working 16 hour days for 9 months on animating the same mo-capped cut-scene, and perhaps more connected to the lead animation department supervisor who is heavily invested in the company, and who may have a personal reward bonus attached the success of the game? Because if it's the later, that feedback might be different.

 

[Stiflers Mom]

I am very wary of all these "insiders".

It's too easy to twist stuff into something that fits your warrior camps' view.

 

[Shmunter]

"Destroys"? Are we really that far down the clickbait hell-hole? Soon it'll be in capitals and bolded...

Anyway, Pachter has been around the industry a lot longer, so his words carry some weight. With that said, I do wonder if that means he's less in touch with, say, a number of junior animators stuck working 16 hour days for 9 months on animating the same mo-capped cut-scene, and perhaps more connected to the lead animation department supervisor who is heavily invested in the company, and who may have a personal reward bonus attached the success of the game? Because if it's the later, that feedback might be different.

Very astute. However you miss that it’s a deliberate use of the term to reflect the underlying point made within the address. Self reference, irony.

 

[Virex]

Xbox fanboys & anti-SJWs coming into this thread thinking it's going to validate their TLOU2 leak conspiracy theories by debunking what Jason found out:

If Jason is a shill and he was lying about ND like Patcher is suggesting, who was he shilling for? Microsoft? Nintendo?

Fuck off with you console war bullshit

 

[UnNamed]

PRESS X TO JASON

 

[Optimistic Gamer]

"Destroys"? Are we really that far down the clickbait hell-hole? Soon it'll be in capitals and bolded...

[NO CLICKBAIT] TOP 10 weird Lifehacks to DESTROY any Schreier FOREVER that THEY don't want YOU to know about. Number 7 will SHOCK you.

Spoiler: Spoiler

If you liked this comment please like, comment and follow so you don't miss out on future lifehacks. The support's been great; I couldn't do this without you guys.

 

[Geki-D]

Fuck off with you console war bullshit

Maybe if you weren't a fucking idiot who does nothing on GAF but do one sentence drive-by shit posting all the time, you'd notice that what I said has nothing to do with console warring.

Who was Jason shilling for when he penned the article about crunch at ND?

 

[Shmunter]

If Jason is a shill and he was lying about ND like Patcher is suggesting, who was he shilling for? Microsoft? Nintendo?

Non binary

 

[Cert.in.Death]

Been awhile since I’ve seen Pachter stories circulate the boards. Kinda has me feeling nostalgic.

Quite weird of him to chime in on Schrier’s scoops but okay. Ima head out.

 

[Lanrutcon]

How soon folks forget.

Michael Pachter would sell your organs in a split second if he could find a loophole that allowed it. He doesn't give a shit about people. Doesn't surprise me that he's never heard the claims, because who'd voice them to him? You'd need to pay him a buck just to get him to make eye contact, much less pay attention.

Schreier is a weasel, but at least he has a pulse.

 

[Geki-D]

Quite weird of him to chime in on Schrier’s scoops but okay. Ima head out.

He's answering a question so that's why he's talking about it. That said, Patcher has said some dumb stuff about crunch in the past, that was so silly he had to walk it back. Really though, I think Patcher just doesn't think crunch is really bad and is necessary.

He says in this video, btw, that he doesn't know if there is crunch at ND.

 

[Agnostic2020]

Fuck off with you console war bullshit

Wtf ? Lol u started it and even didn't bother to read the thread. Troll better next time

 

[Soodanim]

Title is hyperbole/clickbait.
I’m under the impression that Pachter isn’t the most reliable person in the world. Is “Man with less than stellar reputation responds to questionable article” a more accurate title?

 

[Panajev2001a]

He's answering a question so that's why he's talking about it. That said, Patcher has said some dumb stuff about crunch in the past, that was so silly he had to walk it back. Really though, I think Patcher just doesn't think crunch is really bad and is necessary.

He says in this video, btw, that he doesn't know if there is crunch at ND.

His first out of his gut assessment of Team Bondi’s situation was embarrassing and only after he saw the response to his thoughts he walked it back a bit. I remembered other comments, I think about crunch in either BioWare or Rockstar, so it is definitely how he feels/a pattern. Not surprising he is defending the studio’s crunch glorifying culture here too.

 

[SuperLupeRap]

Been saying this Jason guy is a total tool.

 

[autoduelist]

Crunch is part of any serious project, but especially a software project. Given you can endlessly add new features, optimize existing ones, add content, and squash bugs there is never a clear finish line, only a deadline which will inevitably result in trying to finish every last thing at the last second. If you can't handle crunch, you should not work in the industry.

Yes, it helps to have a good project manager, and a skilled go between to manage marketing and executive pressure. But even with all of that, even if you are ahead of schedule and properly overestimated your finish date to give yourself some breathing room, the crunch will come because at some point time and money meet head on and the finished project must be as close to perfect as possible. Marketing sets hard deadlines, unexpected bugs cause meltdowns, adding a new feature you thought would be simple caused an unexplainable slowdown.

This is not to say there aren't bad practices, and like I said, skillful leaders can reduce strain. But there is still crunch.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Crunch is part of any serious project, but especially a software project. Given you can endlessly add new features, optimize existing ones, add content, and squash bugs there is never a clear finish line, only a deadline which will inevitably result in trying to finish every last thing at the last second. If you can't handle crunch, you should not work in the industry.

Yes, it helps to have a good project manager, and a skilled go between to manage marketing and executive pressure. But even with all of that, even if you are ahead of schedule and properly overestimated your finish date to give yourself some breathing room, the crunch will come because at some point time and money meet head on and the finished project must be as close to perfect as possible. Marketing sets hard deadlines, unexpected bugs cause meltdowns, adding a new feature you thought would be simple caused an unexplainable slowdown.

This is not to say there aren't bad practices, and like I said, skillful leaders can reduce strain. But there is still crunch.

I think the bar for product managers, marketing, and leads (the people that get the biggest bonuses) is lower than the devs that get constantly hammered for being lazy if what they produce is not perfect or more.

A few days or weeks of extra hours here and there or weeks at 10-12 hours a day is one thing, but let’s not be disingenuous another is essentially to plan around months of this as natural part of development (which then turns out to require even more extreme crunch at the end for the work you failed to plan, crunch for the crunch) and glorify crunch / hero culture to ensure/allow employees to essentially mob each other into working more.
I have been at both ends of this myself, I understand the drive to get something completed and business needs in software development.

 

[autoduelist]

I think the bar for product managers, marketing, and leads (the people that get the biggest bonuses) is lower than the devs that get constantly hammered for being lazy if what they produce is not perfect or more.

A few days or weeks of extra hours here and there or weeks at 10-12 hours a day is one thing, but let’s not be disingenuous another is essentially to plan around months of this as natural part of development (which then turns out to require even more extreme crunch at the end for the work you failed to plan, crunch for the crunch) and glorify crunch / hero culture to ensure/allow employees to essentially mob each other into working more.
I have been at both ends of this myself, I understand the drive to get something completed and business needs in software development.

My point is that as a software project nears its end, it will inevitably crunch. Even if, magically, the team finishes their to do list 3 weeks early, that just means their todo list was too short - there is always, always more to do, and it is human nature to see that deadline approaching and crunch. The idea of someone not crunching in the weeks before a game goes gold is a unicorn... of course they're going to try to get 10 more things done. Anyone worth their salt, at least.

Careful planning, avoiding feature creep, and good management only goes so far - when your baby that you've been working on for 3 years is about to go gold, and you have 3 weeks left, the team is going to push to check off as many nice to haves [or squash as many bugs] as possible.

If I am making a burger, it's done when it is done. If I am coding, the only reason it is ever done is because time and/or money ran out.

 

[Panajev2001a]

My point is that as a software project nears its end, it will inevitably crunch. Even if, magically, the team finishes their to do list 3 weeks early, that just means their todo list was too short - there is always, always more to do, and it is human nature to see that deadline approaching and crunch. The idea of someone not crunching in the weeks before a game goes gold is a unicorn... of course they're going to try to get 10 more things done. Anyone worth their salt, at least.

Careful planning, avoiding feature creep, and good management only goes so far - when your baby that you've been working on for 3 years is about to go gold, and you have 3 weeks left, the team is going to push to check off as many nice to have [or squash as many bugs] as possible.

If I am making a burger, it's done when it is done. If I am coding, the only reason it is ever done is because time and/or money ran out.

This is what I mean by trying not to be disingenuous though, no offence, the issue is not “last two to three weeks of extra hours”. You know that...

The “finishing todo list a week early meaning you did not have enough” issue is a complex one that cannot just be hand waved away in a short post... personally I feel it is a slippery slope into overburdening a team and a push against quality (and tech debt... as well as inability to respond to live issues and changing conditions).

 

[Scotty W]

Jason Schreier is a shill. If you need someone to shill for you. He's your man.

Not just a shill; a talented, formidable shill!

 

[OutrageousFacts]

"PACHTER DESTROYS SCHREIER!!1"

*watches Video*
*Pachter politely stating a slightly differing opinion*

:/

 

[martino]

If I am making a burger, it's done when it is done. If I am coding, the only reason it is ever done is because time and/or money ran out.

where did that idea comes from, as a dev myself I'm really curious ?

 

[Tesseract]

rekt

 

[Wolfgang Jr]

Naught Dog, Naught, Dog, whatcha gonna do?!

 

[Makoto-Yuki]

Jason is a donkey. I don't like Pachter but just can't stand that Jason character.

 

[jts]

I knew Jason had lost it when he said tflops don't matter.

 

[Radical_3d]

How soon folks forget.

Michael Pachter would sell your organs in a split second if he could find a loophole that allowed it. He doesn't give a shit about people. Doesn't surprise me that he's never heard the claims, because who'd voice them to him? You'd need to pay him a buck just to get him to make eye contact, much less pay attention.

Schreier is a weasel, but at least he has a pulse.

And he is a democrat XDDDD Being European I’m always curious how a republican must think about these labour rights things.

Team Pachter, btw.

 

[Shmunter]

"PACHTER DESTROYS SCHREIER!!1"

*watches Video*
*Pachter politely stating a slightly differing opinion*

:/

It’s like you’ve never been on the internet.

Also diplomacy destroys much more effectively than rage.

 

[Clear]

Gonna keep restating this until the penny drops:

That 90 min compilation of leaked TLOU2 footage contains single clips from over 20 different builds of the game.

Its an easily verifiable fact that flies in the face of both versions of how the footage got out. It absolutely refutes the idea that hackers somewhow got hold of a build (like 20 odd times, and then only released a single video from each, not likely) whilst also making it look extremely unlikely to be an inside job due to the names of several employees being clearly visible on the ver# overlays.

 

[Virex]

Maybe if you weren't a fucking idiot who does nothing on GAF but do one sentence drive-by shit posting all the time, you'd notice that what I said has nothing to do with console warring.

Who was Jason shilling for when he penned the article about crunch at ND?

Go screw yourself your fucking retard. What exactly do you do for GAF? Just copy paste shit from one site to another?

 

[Blancka]

My point is that as a software project nears its end, it will inevitably crunch. Even if, magically, the team finishes their to do list 3 weeks early, that just means their todo list was too short - there is always, always more to do, and it is human nature to see that deadline approaching and crunch. The idea of someone not crunching in the weeks before a game goes gold is a unicorn... of course they're going to try to get 10 more things done. Anyone worth their salt, at least.

Careful planning, avoiding feature creep, and good management only goes so far - when your baby that you've been working on for 3 years is about to go gold, and you have 3 weeks left, the team is going to push to check off as many nice to haves [or squash as many bugs] as possible.

If I am making a burger, it's done when it is done. If I am coding, the only reason it is ever done is because time and/or money ran out.

Excuse my potential ignorance here. I'll frontload this by stating that I haven't worked in game or software development here, but I don't really understand what makes crunch a complete inevitability.

For examples sake, lets say a team works 1000 hours on a project prior to crunch, and then an additional 300 crunch hours, how is that different from working the total 1300 hours entirely in a non-crunch environment? Especially given the nature of crunch (or heavy overtime in any job for that matter) leading to burnout and making additional hours less productive than regular hours.

From my understanding of what I've read of crunch in the industry, a lot of it boils down to the same aspects as overtime in any competitive industry, in that even if it's not "forced" by contract, the competitive nature of jobs in the industry means that anyone looking to climb the ladder absolutely has to put in all the extra hours possible to have any chance at all of moving up, as there will always be others willing to put in those hours, and those people will get preferential treatment.

 

[Optimistic Gamer]

Go screw yourself your fucking retard. What exactly do you do for GAF? Just copy paste shit from one site to another?

Ad hominem arguments are not really the best reaction when being called out on not contributing to the thread.

Copying news and information to this board is actually really valuable and keeps users like me coming back for news.

 

[Shmunter]

Excuse my potential ignorance here. I'll frontload this by stating that I haven't worked in game or software development here, but I don't really understand what makes crunch a complete inevitability.

For examples sake, lets say a team works 1000 hours on a project prior to crunch, and then an additional 300 crunch hours, how is that different from working the total 1300 hours entirely in a non-crunch environment? Especially given the nature of crunch (or heavy overtime in any job for that matter) leading to burnout and making additional hours less productive than regular hours.

From my understanding of what I've read of crunch in the industry, a lot of it boils down to the same aspects as overtime in any competitive industry, in that even if it's not "forced" by contract, the competitive nature of jobs in the industry means that anyone looking to climb the ladder absolutely has to put in all the extra hours possible to have any chance at all of moving up, as there will always be others willing to put in those hours, and those people will get preferential treatment.

That’s why there are calls to unionise. Negotiations become collective, scabs unwelcome.

BUT, projects that are commercial, creative and technical all in one, are rife for creep & unforeseen circumstances. Good management and lots of contingency planning can help. But it’s naive to consider there is some magic bullet and that managers are omnipotent and perfect. It will always happen in such an industry because the best laid plans of mice and men are just that.

Unions would inevitably lead to dead wood coasting by, putting more pressure on those that are highly capable. Higher costs, longer timeframes & inferior results guaranteed. It protects the weak primarily.

 

[ZehDon]

Very astute. However you miss that it’s a deliberate use of the term to reflect the underlying point made within the address. Self reference, irony.

I guess I did miss it - perhaps a touch too subtle for these parts, friend.

 

[Geki-D]

Go screw yourself your fucking retard. What exactly do you do for GAF? Just copy paste shit from one site to another?

lol Dude your post history on GAF is embarrassing and I'd recommend anyone check it out if they want to see a completely worthless member of this site and cringe at the 12 year old edginess on display.

You still haven't answered my question, btw. For who was Jason shilling when he wrote the ND crunch piece?

Its an easily verifiable fact that flies in the face of both versions of how the footage got out. It absolutely refutes the idea that hackers somewhow got hold of a build (like 20 odd times, and then only released a single video from each, not likely) whilst also making it look extremely unlikely to be an inside job due to the names of several employees being clearly visible on the ver# overlays.

To my understanding the hackers didn't actually get a build but something akin to videos of the devs playing. A collection of videos over a large amount of time being on the server would account for why there's so much variation in the builds. You can bet that if the hackers did get their hands on an actual build they would have just uploaded a video with every key moment of the game rather than a select few. To my understanding the end hasn't been leaked but that would be something anyone with an actual build would be looking to leak, be it hacker or disgruntled ND employee.

 

[Hans Bubby]

Go screw yourself your fucking retard. What exactly do you do for GAF? Just copy paste shit from one site to another?

How do you keep messing up “you” and “your”?

 

[Clear]

To my understanding the hackers didn't actually get a build but something akin to videos of the devs playing. A collection of videos over a large amount of time being on the server would account for why there's so much variation in the builds. You can bet that if the hackers did get their hands on an actual build they would have just uploaded a video with every key moment of the game rather than a select few. To my understanding the end hasn't been leaked but that would be something anyone with an actual build would be looking to leak, be it hacker or disgruntled ND employee.

I think the "tell" is the single piece of Factions MP footage mixed in with the rest of the stuff, its dated march 27, but that date in 2018 unlikw 2020 for the rest of the stuff. This suggests to me that they got access to a repository of QA videos and simply pulled everything they could get dated between the end of feb and the start of april.

 

[Geki-D]

I think the "tell" is the single piece of Factions MP footage mixed in with the rest of the stuff, its dated march 27, but that date in 2018 unlikw 2020 for the rest of the stuff. This suggests to me that they got access to a repository of QA videos and simply pulled everything they could get dated between the end of feb and the start of april.

Yeah. Jason said that it was the devs playing the game, so I'm pretty sure they are indeed QA videos.

Although this isn't really relevant to this thread.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

Jason Schreier is a shill. If you need someone to shill for you. He's your man.

To be fair, Pachter is a shill, too. He is a successful marketing analyst who gives his "advice" away for free on videogame shows. He has his "brand". Pachter says things publicly which are intended to benefit the companies that he works with privately.

 

[Journey]

Not news, Pachter mentioned multiple times that he does not think crunch is a problem, unions are needed, etc... company does not need to take Schreier seriously, but bleeding talent and seeing the one inside burning out should be a wake up call one day.

I guess you didn't watch the video. I don't like Pacther, but what he said makes perfect sense, I can't fault any of it, it's plain common sense. Watch the video.

 

[M1chl]

Imagine guys over at Sony, looking at this Jason speciment:

 

[VAVA Mk2]

I don't like Jason Schrier, but when has Michael Pachter accurately EVER predicted something in the industry?

 

[Geki-D]

I guess you didn't watch the video. I don't like Pacther, but what he said makes perfect sense, I can't fault any of it, it's plain common sense. Watch the video.

He starts the segment off by saying that he thinks crunch is bad but then goes on to say that if employees don't like it they should move. That's not very realistic, you can't just change job on a whim and ND is a massive name in gaming so working there for a long time would bring some pretty good rep to someone's CV. That doesn't really justify having to endure crunch though. For the first part of the video Pachter is blatantly defending crunch and placing the onus on the employees rather than the company.

As to why ND hasn't changed, he makes some better points. It is perfectly possible that ND looked into it and did indeed find that there wasn't a problem so they don't take Jason seriously. Ex employees are always going to a minefield because you can always find some who feel they were wronged and as Pachter says, if Jason heard those disgruntled employees and thought it was unacceptable, that's how he's going to write his article. Of course it's also possible that ND find that crunch is just more beneficial to getting stuff done even with a high turnover rate, or that seeing as they're already deep in making TLOU2, they can't really switch things up at this point for that project but might for the next one coming.

I don't quite get his rant about the time it takes to make games. I don't really see how that's relevant and I'm not sure people are saying crunch makes stuff take longer to come out. His chandelier analogy... I mean, lol, you ok Pachter? He's just rambling.

Ultimately he is pretty level-headed. He can at least bring up alternate theories as to why things might be happening the way they are (like high turnover because they're in an area packed with other studios and having ND on your CV helps) and he even says he'll have to wait and see what happens to be sure because he just doesn't know. I think even Jason said that working at ND isn't bad besides the crunch and Pachter says he's heard the same.

The thing is though he still is very hand wavy about crunch. He would have seemed more unbiased if it wasn't for that first half where he more or less says employees have to deal with it or move out.

but when has Michael Pachter accurately EVER predicted something in the industry?

He outright leaked Twisted Metal PS3 and ruined Jaffe's surprise who was at that point lying and saying there was no new TM. Pachter even said something to the tune of "David's gonna kill me for this".

 

[TheSHEEEP]

That's not very realistic, you can't just change job on a whim

Yes, you can. Nobody forces you to work at a company during crunch. Absolutely nobody.
Is it easy to change jobs? No.
Is it possible you have to move to a different area to change jobs? Yes.
Will you have to deal with the crunch while you look for new things? Yes.
Is it possible you won't find another similar job and might have to change into a different kind of job? Certainly.

Rep on a CV is also horribly overrated. Most people who actually know what they are doing will look at a person's capabilities, not who their last employers were.
Admittedly, HR people often have no clue what they are actually doing/recruiting for, so those might actually just look at big names on a CV...

Nobody says it's easy, but people are all too eager to claim that somehow people are forced to endure months-years-long crunch, and that's just nonsense.
People are often simply not willing to move out of their comfort zones to find a better job. That's a conscious decision on their part, not something that is forced upon them from above.
"But all my friends live here!" - well, tough luck, live isn't fair. Deal with it.

All of that said, I fully agree with the sentiment that prolonged periods of crunch are 100% a management failure. Some short crunch times are pretty much unavoidable in most projects no matter how well you plan. But when it reaches "for weeks" or "for months" levels, the people in charge should be fired.