UT99.org | Unreal Tournament Community

https://www.polygon.com/2019/4/23/18507 ... epic-games

Exploiting workers or money is the money, dunno if this its true or not, Epic games behind tencent I told earlier, bad idea attracting demanding investors to Epic. Too sad if its true, many people says this is usual in game computer world (but in anywhere does exists this same problem)

"Crunch time" has always been a euphemism to put a modest veil of acceptability on the reality of exploitation and unpaid overtime in the VG industry. The more successfull the game, the worse it is.

I find this part of the article quite alarming:
"“The younger people are especially vulnerable,” said one source. “I try to tell them to go home, but they say, ‘I want to get on and be promoted. I need to be here to do that.’ The competition is very high, they are ambitious, and they think it’s fine to work a 100-hour week. "

It's not only the gaming industry, this is happening almost everywhere, I personally experienced a situation like this in the past (at my place of work), some of my co-workers happened to be younger and they were always in this insane race to prove they were "very professional" by doing a lot of extra-work (and unpaid). Needless to say many blunders were made, but that was not the real issue, the older ones (my "team") ended up being regarded as "heartless jerks" who had no love for the company, when in actuality what we really wanted was to defend our rights as workers. The work environment got so toxic that I quit this job, this happened a couple of years ago.
For a while I was really mad at those people, but then I realized they were too young, immature and still had plenty to learn about life, and that the real shame goes on those companies that exploit and take advantage of the talent of these young dreamers.

Cool story bro, some might say, but this kind of repressive and abusive behavior is actually undermining important elements in life like job stability and the right to get a decent salary.

The story also explains why the new UT was abandoned. It now seems quite obvious that the team working on it - all senior members of Epic - were asked to put their efforts into Fortnite. Tim Sweeney has turned into a very disappointing old man.

Well, at least they're not abusing H1B program like other tech companies do, they really are overworking themselves on their own.
http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/ ... 181640.htm

(btw, H1B workers cannot leave to work for another company)

Disgusting.

When your workers are reaching the 60h weekly mark in a consistent basis, there's where you have to draw the line and admit you have a problem, and either take a step back and slow things down, or hire more.
Although unlike many similar companies, these workers are actually getting their overtime hours fairly paid, 80h+ weekly hours is just too damn aggressive on anyone's health, and the company should not even allow this to happen, you should hit the brakes before someone actually dies on your watch due to overwork, like it happens in countries like Japan which have a similarly disgusting working culture.

Because, the only reasons these workers are putting in the 80h, is not passion or love by the project, is peer pressure and low-key blackmail from those who don't work more than the usual 40h, lots of caffeine to fool their bodies they're still awake and good to keep working, and the monetary motivation to aggregate as much money as possible in a short timespan.

I still love their games, namely UT and Fortnite, despite their negligence and mediocrity as of the past year, however after this my respect for this company just took a nosedive.

This would never happen here in DK. I'm the "shop steward" at my place (google translate, don't know if it's the correct title to use?). But I am the spokes person that links the workplace, employees and union. We have 37 hours work week here in DK. We can at peaks work much longer, but I haven't seen/heard of anyone reaching 80+ hours yet. If we exceed 37 hours a week, we either work less hours the weeks shortly after or get paid for the over time.

I've personaly had 2 issues with young people working too many hours, one 50+ hours a week, on regular basis just to keep company happy and suck the bosses a**. These people destroys the job for us grown ups with a family who values the time off from work. but both incidents where stopped quickly, I simply just arranged a meeting with the company and union to have it stopped, both persons now works an average of 37 hours every week. Yes, the union is strong in DK, but it has to be!

Epic is showing bad ethics and disrespect to those who make it possible for them to earn those great piles of money so huge you can't count them. Here in DK they would be put to justice in short time, this could never happen here. But here, I also must accept paying what is for 5% of my income to the union, but I find that ammount of money acceptable, when ever I look outside our contries borders and see how people like me gets treated.

This happens when developers don't actually play the game themselves.

The fact is that UT'99 doesn't look like will ever have a maintenance or an update planned. And then, the story here has nothing with UT'99 anymore. We can consider them GONE, discussion from here to me does looks pointless - this won't change anything.
@Admins - Feel free to move such "charges" in OFF-Topic section.

sektor2111 wrote:@Admins - Feel free to move such "charges" in OFF-Topic section.

D'oh, just now noticed, thank you!
Moved!