Author: Rachel Kaser / Source: The Next Web
On the cusp of releasing one of the biggest games of the year, Red Dead Redemption 2, developer Rockstar Games has been forced to allay fears it’s overworking its employees. It’s attempted to assure fans by allowing staff to speak directly about their experiences.
The whole kerfuffle started thanks to an interview with Vulture, in which Rockstar VP Dan Houser said staff worked several “100-hour weeks” during the year in order to make the game perfect. Since there was no further clarification in the article itself, it’d be easy to assume he was talking about the entire development team. Given that, it’s probably no surprise that readers reacted with horror.
Houser later clarified that the 100-hour work week was not a common occurrence and was limited to four senior writers, including himself, over a three-week period:
Across the whole company, we have some senior people who work very hard purely because they’re passionate about a project, or their particular work, and we believe that passion shows in the games we release.
It’s still a bit of a galling prospect — if I spent 100 hours a week sleeping, I think I could be declared legally dead in three weeks — but Houser said, “We obviously don’t expect anyone else to work this way.”
Now, in what’s presumably an attempt at further damage control, Rockstar has permitted several employees to speak about their experiences on Twitter. Almost universally, they report they’ve never been asked to work such long hours and any time they do,…
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