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c/gaming · by GamingBot@lemmy.zip · 8d

"They often don’t make it in the door": Wardogs studio Bulkhead check for "anti-crunch messaging" on prospective hires' social media, CEO says

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/they-often-dont-make-it-in-the-door-wardogs-studio-bulkhead-check-for-anti-crunch-messaging-on-prospective-hires-social-media-ceo-says

89 points · 20 comments · view on lemmy.world

20 Comments

TheJesusaurus@piefed.ca · 70 pts · 8d

So, don't buy from you. Got it

Blibly@lemmy.world · 60 pts · 8d

"We avoid hiring people with a sense of self-worth so we can exploit them."

raman_klogius@ani.social · 60 pts · 8d

"Alright then, keep your slave shop."

IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.wtf · 38 pts · 8d

Good to know they're only interested in hiring people who are willing to be exploited.

Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 33 pts · 8d

🙄 fucking capitalists

AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works · 23 pts · 8d (1 reply)

They're saying the quiet part out loud, but does anybody really think the other studios that practice crunch don't filter applicants the same way?

Support indies.

arules@retrofed.com · 9 pts · 8d

cooperatives*, syndicates, guilds, workers.

indies are not immune employee abuse.

JokeDeity@sh.itjust.works · 17 pts · 8d (3 replies)

I have seen this games name but know nothing about it, now I don't have to.

warm@kbin.earth · 8 pts · 8d (2 replies)

It's UE5 slop, nothing special about it except for the marketing campaign. It will be irrelevant sooner rather than later.

JokeDeity@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 7d (1 reply)

The only reason I have seen the name is because someone on my friends list keeps playing it and he's THE target for advertising, he buys every trend, lol. So that all makes perfect sense. I ended up looking it up and while I like the idea of big battlefields, they're not the only game offering that (even though they pretend they are in their ads), and that was all that was appealing, the animations looked god awful in the trailer and you could tell they were cutting every clip short to hide jank.

warm@kbin.earth · 2 pts · 7d

It is very jank. But people are blind to all that these days.

Beyond all the technical woes... It's just a tower camping simulator. Teams huddle on towers, build mortars, get sniped at. The big battlefield is a facade, 80% of the map is used as a respawn timer, area you have to cover to get back to the action. There's no front, so you are constantly shot in the back. Once the streamers are bored it will die, it's already bleeding players.

kyTdKZx9PtDQ9e56u06@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 13 pts · 8d

Nice. Now I can fully ignore Wardogs.

DupaCycki@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 7d

A quick list of their games, so you can easily add them to your blacklist, as per their own website and Steam developer page.

  • Wardogs
  • Killrun
  • Battalion 1944
  • Battalion: Legacy
  • The Turing Test
  • Pneuma: Breath of Life

When you open their website, the text 'Be the change you want to see' shows up before loading the rest of the page. Very interesting.

Also interesting is some history behind their Battalion 1944 game. From Wikipedia:

The project ended up being very controversial after the developers failed to launch the promised console versions despite selling keys for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One digital copies during the Kickstarter campaign. The development focused fully on the PC version and thousands of console gamers were left out of pocket with no game and no communication from Bulkhead.[10] The console version was officially cancelled on August 9, 2022, with the PC version going free to play.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battalion_1944

Looks like an absolute piece of shit of a studio.

Malica@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 8d (1 reply)

I kept reading it as "anti-church messaging" and was so confused

fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 7d

I was too. Reading comments here I was like "damn I know it's a common critique of Christian churches discouraging critical thinking and independence but damn we have some militent atheist in this thread".

Thank you for the comment I was just full going with the wrong info

givesomefucks@lemmy.world · -14 pts · 8d (4 replies)

"A lot of people that may have an issue with crunch - rightly so, I understand that issue, we always try and avoid it, but we don’t hide that this is going to happen at some point - they often don’t make it in the door," he said.

Brammer painted this as being down to Bulkhead seeking to be known as "a place you come to work hard". "If you care about the work you’re making and the result of what you make here, you’ll feel really valued," he continued. "If you don’t, you will feel slave-driven. We check people’s socials, and if you’re constantly tweeting anti-crunch messaging: 'This should never ever be a thing', we know that and go, 'Look, you’re not going to be happy here, so we’re not going to go with you'."

So...

They don't interview people who constantly complain about a shitty but unavoidable part of the job.

They just had a massive launch, it's not even a week in and they already had a crunch.

If a potential employee doesn't want that, what the fuck do people want them to do?

Hire them anyway and then fire them when they can't handle a crunch? Just lie to employees and then toss them away later?

How is a company being honest a bad thing?

SPRUNTnsfw@fedinsfw.app · 17 pts · 8d (1 reply)

You seem to think that crunch is mandatory in the industry. Crunch is the result of poorly-managed products and c-suite deadlines. Any bonus or incentive to meet those deadlines never filters down to the worker. If the product ships on time and meets goals, management will be rewarded and the workers will reach the ends of their contracts and be shown the door.

givesomefucks@lemmy.world · -6 pts · 8d

You seem to think that crunch is mandatory in the industry. Crunch is the result of poorly-managed products and c-suite deadlines

Explain their launch then...

But did you even read that quote?

A lot of people that may have an issue with crunch - rightly so, I understand that issue, we always try and avoid it, but we don’t hide that this is going to happen at some point

They didn't say a crunch was "mandatory" it's not part of the planned process.

But (just like the launch) things will go badly and there will be a rush to fix it. That is a crunch.

The game is not finished, there's up to two years of early access and a shit ton of stuff to be added. If the Devs promised there would be zero crunches, they would be lying.

Acknowledging that not everything will be perfect is the most important step in limiting how much goes wrong.

I don't know how average adults don't understand that.

Quick edit:

Now that I think about it, every post in this community is from the bot mod, and the only time there's comments it's always terrible takes. And mods apparently ban people for downvoting the bot spam...

I'm out.

noxypaws@pawb.social · 7 pts · 7d

crunch is avoidable.

arules@retrofed.com · 2 pts · 8d

you will feel slave-driven

How did you ignore the blatant red flag Wardogs studio doesn't have employees, but slaves crunching for Joe Brammer‽