Managing the Multinational Enterprise

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The perils of project-based work:

Attempting resistance to extreme work practices in video game development

Amanda Peticca-Harris, York University

Johanna Weststar, Western University

Steve McKenna, York University

A fully edited, peer-reviewed version of this article is available from Organization. Please cite

as follows:

Peticca-Harris, A, Weststar, J. and McKenna, S. (2015). The perils of project-based work:

Attempting resistance to extreme work practices in video game development.

Organization, 22(4): 570-587. DOI 10.1177/1350508415572509.

Abstract

This article examines two blogs written by the spouses of game developers about extreme

and exploitative working conditions in the video game industry and the associated reader

comments. The wives of these video game developers and members of the game community

decry these working conditions and challenge dominant ideologies about making games. This

article contributes to the work intensification literature by challenging the belief that long hours

are necessary and inevitable to make successful games, discussing the negative toll of extreme

work on workers and their families, and by highlighting that the project-based structure of game

development both creates extreme work conditions and inhibits resistance. It considers how

extreme work practices are legitimized through neo-normative control mechanisms made

possible through project-based work structures and the perceived imperative of a race or 'crunch'

to meet project deadlines. The findings show that neo-normative control mechanisms create an

insularity within project teams and can make it difficult for workers to resist their own extreme

working conditions, and at times to even understand them as extreme.

Keywords: extreme work, project-based work, viedo game development, work-life

balance, normative control

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Introduction

The global video game industry is booming. Successful games are highly lucrative, with

examples such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, grossing more than US$775 million in its

first week on the market (Rose, 2011). High-profile successes along with a culture of fun,

innovation and creativity generate an industry stereotype that suggests that video game

developers get paid to play (de Peuter and Dyer-Witheford, 2005; Deuze, Martin and Allen,

2007). This stereotype overshadows a different reality; the game industry is faced with intense

and extreme working conditions.

This paper highlights the 'dark side' of the game industry by examining two online

whistleblowing web logs (blogs) written by the spouses of video game developers, as well as

their accompanying reader comments. In particular, we bring attention to the extreme work

conditions that prevail in the industry, but also examine how people other than the workers are

challenging them. The first blog, ‘The Human Story’ (posted under the tagline ‘ea_spouse’),

discusses the working environment at the Electronic Arts Los Angeles studio during the making

of the Lord of the Rings video games in 2004. The second blog, ‘Wives of Rockstar San Diego

employees have collected themselves’ (posted under the tagline ‘Rockstar Spouse’), discusses

the working environment at Rockstar San Diego during the making of Red Dead Redemption in

2010.1

Extant studies on work intensification have attempted to quantify the nature of work

intensification by measuring the increase or decrease of work hours and have also sought to

identify the associated consequences of intense work conditions (see Brett and Stroh, 2003;

1 In the case of both data sources, the full, original blogs and comments can be accessed online as follows: EA Spouse: http://ea- spouse.livejournal.com/274.html; Rockstar Spouse

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RockstarSpouse/20100107/4032/Wives_of_Rockstar_San_Diego_employees_have_collected_themselves.p hp A summary of the episodes and surrounding media coverage can be found at the Game Quality of Life website created by one of the authors: http://gameqol.org/category/archives/

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Burchull and Fagan, 2004; Green, 2001; Hewitt and Luce, 2006). This paper extends the

discussion of work intensification by examining some of the mechanisms that perpetuate and

normalize work intensification. We also consider how worker's families resist these working

conditions, and explore the impact of this resistance at an industry level. We specifically

contribute to the work intensification literature in three ways. First, we add to the literature

concerning the negative toll of extreme work on workers and, more importantly, on the families

of workers (Dembe et al., 2005). Second, we consider an alternative view of the game industry

that challenges two myths: the façade that ‘work is play’ and that long hours are necessary and

inevitable to make successful games. Third, we argue that the project-based nature of video game

development acts as a mechanism of control that both creates extreme working conditions and

also inhibits sustained resistance to those conditions among those experiencing them. As such,

we illustrate how peripheral voices (Westecott, 2013) might be necessary to challenge the

dominant norms of working conditions in game development.

The paper begins with an overview of the work intensification literature. We introduce

here the context within which work intensification is taking place, where the ‘intelligent’ North

American middle class is under increasing pressure to perform against a backdrop of precarious

employment (see Beck, 2000; Kalleberg, 2009; Vosko, 2000). We expand on the notion that the

project-based management system that dictates the daily experiences of game workers, acts as a

neo-normative control mechanism that harnesses passion and positions work as play, in order to

leverage worker energy for the good of the project and the team (and organization) (Sturdy et al.,

2010). This is followed by an overview of the data and methodology and a discussion of key

findings in the form of blog and comment excerpts.

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Work intensification and Video Games

Issues related to extreme work, including long hours and work intensity, have attracted

considerable attention from researchers with respect to the origins, prevalence, causes and

consequences (both positive and negative) of such work practices (Burchell and Fagan, 2004;

Burke, 2007; Burke and Cooper, 2008; Burke et al., 2010; Eastman, 1998; Green, 2001, 2004,

2008; Feldman, 2002; Felstead et al., 2013; Fiksenbaum et al., 2001). “Working hard” is

conceptualized as having both a time component (e.g. the number of hours required to do a job)

and an intensity component (e.g. the level of intensity or effort required to do a job) (Green,

2001). Work intensity, therefore, encompasses both the extensive component of hours worked as

well as the intensive component of pace and/or effort required to do the work. While these

studies provide a foundation to understand work intensification, they refer to working conditions

and work context of 10-15 years ago. Our paper further explores how long hours have come to

be normalized and legitimized, but also examines how they are simultaneously challenged and

resisted in the current working context, specifically in the game industry.

A central question in the work intensification literature seems to be whether individuals

are working long hours, or being tolerant of intense work environments due to personal choice

and love of their work (Campbell and van Wanrooy 2013; Sturges, 2013) or if they are

"conscripts" (Drago et al., 2009), working long hours due to external forces. In their mixed

method study about long work hours and preferences among professionals and managers,

Campbell and van Wanrooy (2013: 1149) found significant ambivalence and uncertainty in

workers’ attitudes toward their long hours. The authors conclude that workers hold multiple

conflicting views that are often connected to workers’ sense of the feasibility of another option

(fewer hours) and workers’ difficulty in “identifying indirect pressures” that keep them at work.

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When direct command or control was absent, workers attributed their long hours to personal

choice.

Similarly, Sturges (2013: 349-352) explores the indirect pressures that compel workers to

work long hours. Drawing from interviews with a sample of young architects and construction

engineers, Sturges suggests that workers may be ambivalent and/or tolerant of working long

hours because of the meaning and intrinsic value that they have ascribed to their work. Some

workers suggested that the extra effort and long hours were necessary to become part of the

“work family,” be able to work on interesting projects, or to learn and advance in a field that

goes “hard and fast”.

In the context of this study, video game developers almost universally love their work

(Legault and Weststar, 2012), yet there are a growing number of reports about long,

uncompensated working hours under ‘make it or break it’ conditions. According to recent

survey data from the International Game Developers Association (Legault and Weststar, 2012;

Weststar and Legault, 2012), the average game developer works between 35-50 hours in a

regular week and 45-70 hours when in a period of crunch or race to project completion.

However, many game developers seem to accept these conditions and are often very positive

about the work that they do. A majority surveyed felt that their career in game development was

‘their life’ or a large part of it. A quarter of the sample reported that any sacrifices that they

make for their job are worth it; 35% felt that crunch is a necessary part of game development and

see it as a normal part of scheduling.

Moreover, the product ‘cool-factor’ of big budget video games conceals a highly

secretive, competitive, and largely risk-averse industry (O’Donnell, 2009). Top tier console

games can cost over US$30 million to produce, yet less than 10% of video games shipped break

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even (IGDA, 2004: 42). While some survey evidence shows a high degree of satisfaction among

game developers, research into the relationship between intense work and satisfaction has

produced conflicting results. For instance, work intensity has been associated with negative

consequences such as physical exhaustion and mental stress (Green and McIntosh, 2001). Video

game workers in particular face issues of unlimited and unpaid overtime, poor work-life balance,

musculoskeletal disorders, burnout, non-compete and non-disclosure agreements, and limited or

unsupported training opportunities (Deuze, Martin and Allen, 2007; Dyer-Witheford and de

Peuter, 2006; Legault and Weststar, 2014)

'Crunch' as a neo-normative control mechanism

The indirect pressures that elicit and sustain long work hours among technical,

professional and managerial employees, ostensibly through personal choice, can also be

understood as a neo-normative control mechanism (Fleming and Sturdy, 2009). As an extension

of normative control, where workers are encouraged to conform to a rigid organizational culture

and structure, through neo-normative control, workers are also now extolled to “be themselves”

and bring more of their “authentic selves” to the workplace (Fleming and Sturdy, 2009: 570).

The exhortation for workers to be individuals and authentic selves at work goes hand in hand

with the expectations for workers to be individuals in the market, to be self-reliant and shoulder

the risk of maintaining their own employability (Webb, 2004). Within this context, having ‘real’

fun at work so as to build authentic positive social networks while individually interpreting and

enacting the professional norms of one’s occupation are key signals of careerism and drivers of

career progression (Neff, 2012).

At one level, the success of neo-normative control mechanisms can be explained through

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Schor’s (1991) theory of positional competition. This theory suggested that employees might be

caught in a competitive ‘rat race’, striving for organizational advancement and material success

by working long hours. In striving for advancement and material gain they are often frustrated

and unhappy because of a lack of balance in their lives, while being committed to their career

and satisfaction at work (Peticca-Harris and McKenna, 2013; Schor, 1991). However, while

helpful, the idea of the ‘rat race’ is not in itself enough to understand the power of neo-normative

control mechanisms. Competition among the aspirational middle class is a requirement for

“capital’s circuit of control” (Willmott, 1997: 1354) and an organizing principle in the cultural

market of immaterial labour (Lazzarato, 2006). Here, the precarious nature of project-based work

masks the neoliberal discourse and shifts expectations of loyalty and responsibility from the

organization towards personal responsibility for one's own job stability and career (Dardot and

Laval, 2013; Sennet, 2011).

Unlike typical operations-based management carried out by a consistent and stable set of

employees, project-based organizations (or project management departments within

organizations) engage in cycles of hiring, firing and reallocation that correspond to stages of

finite projects. In this environment firms bring on workers in a variety of employment

relationships for various purposes at various times that are all dictated by the specifications of

the project (Cicmil and Hodgson, 2006; Hodgson, 2004). Within this environment, the iron-

triangle of resource constraints (budget, schedule, scope) are paramount drivers in the lives of

project team members (Chasserio and Legault, 2009; Legault and Bellemare, 2008; Zackariasson

et al., 2006). These constraints lift the project, and the client, to a position of an all-powerful

entity (Cicmil et al., 2006; Hodgson, 2002; Hodgson and Cicmil, 2007). The workers’ task is to

complete the project to the client’s satisfaction by any means necessary (whether that is a game

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publisher, a movie producer, an external organization, etc.). As a consequence of such features,

project-based work is inherently precarious (Hodgson, 2004). So-called ‘permanent workers’

have no guarantee that they will be retained or reassigned following the end of a particular

project stage, and contract workers are hired only for specific components of a project with no

promises of renewal or permanence. In such an environment, the individual employee is always

sensitive to the need to maintain employability.

Neff (2012) argues that increased job insecurity in project-based ‘creative’ or

‘knowledge’ industries, encourages employees to make venture labor investments; that is

personal investments of their time, energy, human capital, and other personal resources. In turn,

dependent wage earners come to act like entrepreneurs or business owners, though they are not.

In this context employers feed off workers’ fear of failing and fear of falling (Ehrenreich, 1989).

This enables greater control and exploitation of workers who are “rendered anxious” by their

career prospects and are “obsessively concerned about their individual performance, job security,

career prospects” (Willmott, 1997: 1347; also Peticca-Harris and McKenna, 2013) as their peer

and portfolio-based reputations are a critical factor in their career success.

In video game development, work can be perceived as precarious because it operates

under project-cycles and portfolio-based mobility (Weststar and Legault, 2012). The "circuit of

control" may be intensified in an industry where primarily young workers willingly invest their

venture labor into game development because of their passion and their love of games and game

making (O'Donnell, 2009). As a consequence of the blurring of work and play (Kane, 2004) and

the vague idea to answer your calling, 'follow your heart', and 'do what you love', managers may

be better able to capitalize on and exploit employee's private hobbies and passions. Sturdy et al.,

(2010) argue that harnessing passion for the purposes of exploitation works in combination with

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traditional forms of control such as surveillance, participation, autonomy, and shared interests

(Barker, 1993; Burawoy, 1985; Delbridge and Ezzamel, 2005; Sewell, 2007). They suggest that

there is an "elaboration rather than reversal of bureaucratization" (Sturdy et al., 2010: 115) at an

industry level.

With this rise in the entrepreneurialization of work, employees expect to receive little

from their organizations other than remuneration and the opportunity to develop their skills and

portfolios for subsequent use in competitive markets (Sturdy et al., 2010). Even then, industry

workers may take the bait and invest in their studios by deferring aspects of compensation in

exchange for potentially lucrative rewards in the future and promote products/services in their

off-hours (e.g. playing games) to support company goals and generate new demands (Neff,

2012).

Game development as part of this discourse, has been called a "soft coercive system"

(Whitson, 2013: 124). Both Whitson (2013) and O’Donnell (2009) suggest that video game

developers come to their work with the idealized desire to ‘play’ – to solve the puzzles of game

making and to push the genre they love to new heights. However, both also conclude that

capitalist drivers - “monetization, marketing and advertising needs” (Whitson, 2013: 125) create

an environment that turns this very desire against game developers. As such, the capitalist

constraints are shared in both mainstream and independent/indie studios with independent game

studios competing with the large-scale publishers and manufacturers that dominate the industry

(Consalvo, 2006; Johns, 2006, Kerr, 2006; Williams, 2002) and increasingly with each other in a

crowded marketplace. Indie studios are not shielded from the exploitation and precarious nature

of work as they too operate under the project-management regime and encounter the same churn

of talent associated with the completion of project cycles and creation of new titles. As Westecott

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(2013) wrote and blog commentators in our study also noted, cross-fertilization between indies

and ‘AAA’ studios risks that the dominant normative practices – how people were taught to

make games in the large studios – colonize the new space.

As Lazzarato (1996: 136) wrote, “precariousness, hyperexploitation, mobility, and

hierarchy are the most obvious characteristics” of the immaterial labour that includes video game

development. Though Lazzarato (1996) wrote with contract or temporary labour in mind, the

arguments presented above show that dependent wage labourers might be included in this group

of precarious intellectual workers. This is particularly so because of the high mobility of project-

based work (see O’Riain, 2001 for a description of software developers). The flexible, short-

term, project-based cycles and the utmost need for successful project outcomes, due to

reputation-based mobility, shift managerial responsibilities onto employees. Under the illusion

of empowerment employees monitor themselves and their peers (Neff, 2012) as they bend to

accommodate the inflexibility of project deadlines. As O’Riain (2001) describes, as the deadline

for the project milestones approaches, the team becomes insular - singularly focused on

satisfying the project at all costs. Rather than issuing overt managerial dictates, management

appeals to the needs of the project, channeling and accentuating the latent professional norms

and intrinsic commitments to the work. In other words, management need not say "I need you to

work late tonight" but rather "The project requires you to work late." Workers wish to be a strong

team member within their ‘work family’ (Sturges, 2013), and earn client esteem by producing a

quality project within the iron triangle of constraints. While there remains reliance on intra-

organizational regimes such as corporate culture policing, project "crunch" acts as an inter-

organizational governance structure or value-based control that is market-based and

decentralized throughout the industry (Thomas, 2003).

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In summary, video game developers are project-based workers who may love their work,

but are controlled by the neo-normative control mechanisms of the deadline and individualized

angst about career prospects and employability. While there is very little resistance to extreme

working conditions among game developers, aside from quitting (Legault and Weststar, 2013),

there has been significant albeit "decaf resistance" (Contu, 2008: 370) on the part of others in the

game community. Here, Contu refers to a form of safe resistance that can be practiced without

paying the full cost of the risks to whistle blow. In the remainder of this paper we illustrate how

the developer's spouses and broader game community challenge the extreme working conditions

with our analysis of two impactful blogs and their associated reader comments. While this

resistance does not come from a place of duty or radical freedom but rather, self-interest and

utility (Contu, 2008: 375), we highlight how even 'decaf resistance' can garner legal attention and

spark industry change.

Methodology

Data Collection

The data for this study consists of two blogs and additional comments posted

anonymously on the Internet by their authors (EA Spouse and Rockstar Spouse). Blogs are

generally defined as frequently updated websites consisting of dated entries arranged in reverse

chronological order (Walker Rettberg, 2008). Blogs allow dialogue or co-production between

authors and readers in the form of comments, while the author retains ownership of and, ultimate

control over, the blog’s content (Hookway, 2008). Blogs offer an unadulterated first-person

perspective and that often has a confessional quality or represents alternative voices on the

subjects/topics addressed (Hookway, 2008).

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The first blog is entitled ‘The Human Story’ and was posted using the free blogging

software Live Journal under the tagline ‘ea_spouse’ on November 10, 2004. The blog discussed

the working environment at an Electronic Arts studio in Los Angeles during the making of the

Lord of the Rings video games. EA Spouse was the first major exposé of the game industry and

targeted one of the largest developer-publishers. The blog went live in the middle of a class

action lawsuit by programmers against Electronic Arts where the plaintiffs were ultimately

awarded US$15.6 million in unpaid overtime (Surette, 2006). It was revealed later that EA

Spouse is Erin Hoffman, the wife of one of the lead plaintiffs in the class action suit. While

game developers were the plaintiffs in the class action suit, Erin Hoffman is credited with

initiating a ‘Quality of Life’ movement in the industry (Remo, 2010).

The second blog is entitled ‘Wives of Rockstar San Diego employees have collected

themselves’ and was posted on January 7th, 2010 on the Gamasutra Blogs webpage (the premier

electronic magazine for the game industry) under the tagline ‘Rockstar Spouse’. This blog

mimics the format and messaging of EA Spouse and discusses the working environment at

Rockstar San Diego during the making of Red Dead Redemption. It spurred the International

Game Developers Association to issue a statement to Rockstar San Diego Studios about

‘appropriate’ balance in working hours (IGDA, 2010).

These blogs were selected for two reasons; first, each blog ‘went viral’ in the video game

community and then spread to other media outlets. Second, both blogs represent an oppositional

and alternative voice to the rhetoric surrounding the game industry's ‘cool factor’. The blogs

present another side of the game industry, including worker and family frustrations as they

highlight some of the extreme practices in which the industry engages. The blogs act as a subtle

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form of resistance, albeit one that has ignited discussions about industry-wide changes to

working practices.

Analysis

The blogs were analyzed to locate the narrator's perception of the situation within a wider

structural and discursive context (McKenna, 2010). Here, blogs act as a forum through which

the narrator (the blog writer) can express emotions and feelings about their lives (Boudens, 2005;

McKenna, 2007). . Blogs as a narrative, not only represent things in the world; they also have an

interactional function and position the writer in a web of voices and relationships with others.

While a blog may describe a situation, it also introduces alternative voices, discourses and

narratives. In the case of these two blogs, the writers engage with a broader context in such a

way as to raise questions about injustice and exploitation in a particular aspect of organizational

or social life.

The blogs were analyzed thematically (King, 1998; Riessman, 1993) using NVIVO

qualitative data management software. The researchers independently coded the data for main

sub-themes within the over-arching narrative of extreme work, and then collectively reconciled

the list of themes. This process resulted in the identification of four dominant sub-themes:

quality games, crunch (sustained overtime), project-based control, health issues and family

conflict. These themes were then applied to the categorization and classification of the blog

comments. Due to their volume, only a portion of the 4811 comments was formally coded. All

of the 152 Rockstar Spouse comments were coded and approximately 10% of the EA Spouse

comments were coded beginning on page 1. For the latter, coding continued until a point of

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saturation for the identified central themes was reached. In addition to the sub-themes listed

above, the comments were also categorized as being ‘supportive’ or ‘unsupportive’ of the tenor

of the respective blog. From here, we bundled sub-themes into three parent nodes: project-based

work regimes, game quality and crunch, and health issues and family conflict. The intent of the

analysis and its resulting presentation below is not to provide an objective count of people who

experienced certain conditions, but rather to provide excerpts that exemplify and support the

various positions within the debate. Given the public nature of the blogs and comments, all

names have been kept in the format as they appear on the blog post and comments. Inherent in

blogging is the paradox that people are able to write for an audience but remain as anonymous as

they desire (Hookway, 2008).

Findings and Discussion

Project-based Work Regimes

The blogs and comments illustrate that the dominance of extreme work within the game

industry is shaped and perpetuated by the project-based structure of the work. As discussed by

Hodgson (2002, 2004) and Cicmil et al. (2006) and described with respect to software designers

by O’Riain (2001), workers are controlled both structurally and normatively under project-

management regimes. Due to the inherent mobility of project-based work, workers must rely on

their portfolios and their reputations to maintain employability. As such, a worker's personal

choice to work long hours is often constrained by the social context, institutional conditions and

social rights involved (Crompton and Harris, 1998; McRae, 2003). As Sturges notes, “working

long hours was the time when people felt closest to their work ‘family’” (2013: 354); yet the

development of a family atmosphere that blurred the boundary between work and play was “a

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deliberate attempt by the firm founder to … encourage employees to work long hours when

required” (2013: 353). This elevates the power of reputation-based norms such as being part of

the team or work family (Sturges, 2013) and, as illustrated in numerous comments to both the

EA and Rockstar Spouse blogs, making sacrifices to have a successful game on your resume:

From a spouse of a RSSD [Rockstar San Diego] employee: …To our potential

consumers: DO NOT BOYCOTT THIS GAME! If you do, all their hard work

would have been for nothing. Support your fellow artists and buy their game.

Thank you. (will’s mom, 2010-01-12, 12:05pm, Rockstar Spouse)

The power of the project and the ability for management to subsume their demands in the

supposed needs of the project is also an important form of control. The parameters of budget,

deadline and scope are understood to be written in a contract from the beginning of the project,

yet the blogs and comments indicate that the front line workers are often unaware of the true big

picture of the game; they face externally imposed changes in the scope throughout the

development process, and they are often threatened with cancellation of the contract due to

budgetary constraints or insufficient progress at milestone check-points. This creates a

downward pressure on the team where the only outlet is to work longer and harder. EA Spouse

and Rockstar Spouse reject this and argue that project crunch is not a natural phenomenon

associated with this type of work, but a product of poor and exploitative management. As

described by Rockstar Spouse, “The managers at Rockstar San Diego continue in their

dishonesty, pushing their employees to the brink promising temporariness fully equipped with

the knowledge of another deadline just around the corner.” And by EA Spouse, “Crunching

neither accelerated [the schedule] nor slowed it down; its effect on the actual product was not

measureable. The extended hours were deliberate and planned; the management knew what they

were doing as they did it.”

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Yet, as O’Riain (2001) argued, the power of the deadline directs the project team to the

singular purpose of completing the project in the face of all challenges:

It is too late to change anything now. The game has to ship on the ship date, this

can’t be changed. It will need more than 40 hours/week by everybody to finish.

All I can ask: Please stop adding more features. We need to ship the game.

Please stop making more big changes. We need to ship the game. (John Marston,

2010-01-10 9:22 pm to Rockstar Spouse)

One commentator critiques the insularity and inevitability of these control mechanisms and

raises the issue of resistance:

The problem here really is: is anyone in the team willing to step forward and say:

whatever we've been working on for so long, so hard which is finally coming

together quite nicely - let's just throw it away and call it off. It's not worth the

sacrifice. That person would be looked upon as an outcast. How could he ever

think that? And quit now? Yes, the conditions aren't the best BUT the game is

almost finished and looking really cool now...There's a very strong reinforcement

/ influence cycle going on in situations and teams like these. Which is why, after

all, the spouses are the ones crying out for help in favor of their beloved ones!

That should tell (all of us) something! (Steffen Itterheim, 2010-01-12, 3:07pm,

Rockstar Spouse)

This excerpt draws attention to the notion that the structural and normative control mechanisms

of project-based regimes inhibit resistance by the workers within those regimes and requires the

actions of outsiders (in this case the spouses). Some workers do resist in individual ways:

I remember very clearly the day the game shipped...I broke down because it felt

like I had just been released from prison. After shipping that game, I resolved to

never EVER let any company abuse my willingness to be a good employee (John

Nagle, 2010-01-24, 9:02am, Rockstar Spouse).

Post-project catharsis and the feeling of having survived and solved all the creative

puzzles is also a powerful influence in the overall control mechanism of project-based work,

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particularly when the project is a success (O’Riain, 2001). A particularly active commentator on

the Rockstar Spouse blog was clearly a current employee of Rockstar. His early posts said much

about the challenges the team faced and he criticized the role of management. However, in posts

made after the game had shipped, he was conciliatory, citing the promises management had

made that this would never happen again, describing the time off that was given, and apologizing

for his earlier comments.

Another commentator asked the critical, yet perhaps rhetorical, question, “So RDR came

out and Metacritic'ked at 952. Does this mean R* are vindicated for their production culture?”

(Emmeline Dobson, 2010-05-21, 2:47am, Rockstar Spouse) In the face of project completion

and success, the cycle of exploitation continues; the investment of time and resources acts as a

form of manufactured consent (Burawoy, 1979; Jacques, 1996). While workers derive

satisfaction from what they do, they are caught in the bind of having to continue to do it under

pressurized and exploitative conditions because their advancement and recognition depends on

their exploitation – this is “capital’s circuit of control”. According to Neff (2012) this venture

labor investment of personal time and resources into the project-work career binds workers

closer to the organization and industry. As one developer warns, “The light at the end of the

tunnel may end up being a train... especially if they [management] fall over themselves to

promise otherwise.” (Ted Brown, 2010-01-08, 3:17pm, Rockstar Spouse) In the context of these

blogs, it is important to note that the families and friends of these exploited workers do not

experience the catharsis and team-building; they remember better the bad times and are in a

better position to label the cycle of exploitation for what it is.

2 Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews for film, television and games to assign an overall percentage score. A score of 90-100 for games indicates universal acclaim. http://www.metacritic.com/

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Game Quality and Crunch

EA Spouse and Rockstar Spouse did not write their blogs to simply tell a story about poor

working conditions and their impact. Rather, the narrators position their blogs as a challenge

against the dominant discourse and assumed norms of how video games are made; challenging

the notion that crunch is required to create good games. In doing so they each create a rare

moment, particularly at the time of EA Spouse, to allow the multivocality or multi-voicedness of

industry actors to come forward and present alternative viewpoints (Bakhtin, 1981; Wortham,

2001). For instance, the Rockstar Spouse authors demand a “necessary rejoinder, in the form of

an immediate action to ameliorate conditions of employees” from management and voice the

exploitation and manipulation of employees by “certain hands that wield the reigns [sic] of

power in Rockstar San Diego.” EA Spouse explicitly engages in a dialogue with the executive

team of Electronic Arts: “To any EA executive that happens to read this, I have a good challenge

for you: how about safe and sane labor practices for the people whose backs you walk for your

millions.”

The prevailing industry perspective is that extreme and intense working conditions are

justified and required to ship a title. The blogs demonstrate the search for an alternative truth and

attempt to refute the existence of extreme or intense working conditions, but more specifically,

they question the inevitability and the necessity of these conditions to make successful,

innovative games. This debate garners ample attention in the reader comments. The dominant

voice is readily apparent in the comments that we coded as ‘unsupportive’ of or ‘unsympathetic’

to the EA Spouse and Rockstar Spouse blogs. These comments tended to fall into three groups.

The first were those who said that they worked in hard jobs too and therefore had no sympathy

for game developers:

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Here's the deal. I'll take your position. I served in the military, and I know about

long hours. And I'll do better work than you do. I won't complain. I'll push myself

as hard as humanly possible until I break, because I'm very aware of my breaking

point. Once I've reached that point, I'll move on to another position or company. I

live to take jobs from people like your spouse… Please, please keep on whining.

It keeps me gainfully employed. (Anonymous, 2005-03-17, 02:40am, EA Spouse)

You babies have to stop crying and live in the real world. It's a dog eat dog world

and we all need to just deal and if you can't deal, then get out of that type of

business period. (Anonymous, 2004-11-30, 7:04pm, EA Spouse)

A second group of reader comments was comprised of those who generally felt that this was the

state of the game industry and those who did not like it could find another studio to work for or

leave the industry entirely.

“You're highly-skilled and feel your company is taking advantage of you? Leave.

or better yet, make yourself better first and then move on”

I used to get emotionally stirred by the attitude of corporations and the treatment

of their labor force, but nowadays, I employ the above quoted attitude. I give my

employer what he wants, I take what I want, I find ways to take even more, then

leave that employer for better opportunities elsewhere with the experience,

knowledge and benefits I gained at my last job. Sure a lot of people aren't in the

position I'm in (no children), but for those of you who are, don't hesitate to look

elsewhere while you are still employed (just don't get caught, trust me!!! :0)

(Anonymous, 2005-04-26, 5:46pm, EA Spouse)

Long hours is nothing new. I am a programmer @ well know fps [first person

shooter] gaming house. We work on average 15 hours a day including weekends.

I'm sorry to say it but there is no getting away from this reality - if you wanna

work in the gaming industy you have to "suck it down". Hey think of it like this -

get that office with a window & you can gaze down on your red in the parkinglot

:-). (Anonymous, 2004-11-20, 09:44:29, EA Spouse)

A third group of reader comments was comprised of voices with messages cautioning against

resistance.

…unless you think you have a guaranteed win, you might want to reconsider

challenging the guys with the big, expensive legal team. They are more than

willing to spend more money than it would take to settle because it will prevent

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other teams in other branches from repeating the attempt to rebel. (Anonymous,

2004-11-15, 6:11pm, EA Spouse)

Game Developers: I caution you on posting details of internal affairs at your

studio... If you bad mouth your employer in public, and your identity becomes

public, not only will they fire you, but you will now have a reputation as a loose

cannon that cant keep dirty laundry in house. If you ever get branded with this,

NOBODY will ever hire you again. I have seen this happen on two occasions and

in both cases, they never worked again in the game industry. (J T, 2010-01-12,

8:41pm, Rockstar Spouse)

In the first group, workers must pit themselves against each other in a contest for jobs and

internalize the assumption that if they are struggling in a particular context, they don’t deserve to

be there. In the second group, workers must be ruthless entrepreneurs of the self and take all

responsibility for their employability (Neff, 2012); they must take ownership of their choice to

do certain jobs, accept the personal sacrifices and relish the material gains. In the third case,

workers should be grateful for what they have, they should be fearful of the consequences of

resisting and assume they are powerless if they try. The clustering of these ‘unsupportive’

categories into three groups serves to distinguish their arguments; however, they all serve to

illustrate the strength of individualized employment relations that isolates the game developer as

the problem.

Health Issues and Family Conflict

Supporting other research, an important sub-theme in the data was the negative impact of

long hours on physical and psychological health (Burke and Cooper, 2008). EA Spouse and

Rockstar Spouse document the toll paid by the development teams and these details are

confirmed and expanded throughout the comment sections. Stress, burnout, depression,

frustration, irritability, exhaustion, alcoholism, and suicidal tendencies were repeated themes.

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Rockstar Spouse criticizes the use of superficial techniques of ‘stress management’

saying, “[health problems] will not be ameliorated with a full time masseuse and will only

worsen if no change to improve conditions take place and managers continue with their

dishonesty of deadlines.” The blog authors and other commentators seem to see this weak

‘welfarism’ response as insulting and voice management as dishonest in their concern,

particularly when management belittles and resents the use of the health system in place (i.e., use

of sick days). As noted in one comment:

The horrible part was, if you missed a day due to illness (even Saturday or

Sunday), it would count against your TOPS time (time off pool.) (John Nagle,

2010-01-24, 9:02am, Rockstar Spouse).

The blog comments were also replete with references to the ‘perks’ that developers receive; they

are provided with breakfast, lunch and dinner and “an endless supply of pop tarts and other

sugar-laden coding fuels.” (John Nagle, 2010-01-24, 9:02am, Rockstar Spouse). These perks

become important to the workers of the industry and eclipse management's responsibility for

skirting health issues associated with sustained crunch. Perks act as a selling point to work in

the industry because a company that buys you pizza and Gatorade and has donut Fridays is

considered a 'cool' company. These perks are normative control tactics that lead workers to

believe that the company cares about them and they act as a self-serving veil to the structural and

managerial issues at the core of the intense work problem. As an ingrained norm, no one seems

to question why workers are working so many hours in a day that the company would need to

provide them dinner. And, in any case, pizza, donuts and Gatorade hardly qualify as a concern

for the health of employees.

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The final theme of family conflict is not surprising, given that female spouses of game

developers wrote both blogs. In the comments women reported and seconded the following:

receiving flowers from studio management as appeasement for their husband’s absence; eating

dinner with their spouses at the studio to grab some quality time; and hearing their husbands

apologize yet again for missing a family event. Numerous developer or ex-developer comments

were punctuated with the confession of broken agreements with ‘SOs’ (significant others) around

working hours and ultimately, broken relationships.

First, I made an agreement w/my SO that I would put in whatever hours I had to

during the week so that I would not have to work weekends (this is before they

started instituting mandatory 6-7 day work weeks). I got used to sleeping 5 to 6

hours a night so I could put in 14-16 hour days during crunch time. (Atomatom,

2004-11-12, 11:18am, EA Spouse)

It almost cost me my marriage, and I will never be in that position again if I can

help it, so I am out of that line of work for good. I miss it on a certain level, but will

never miss the massive amount of abuse I went through. (Christopher Spencer,

2010-01-20, 12:25am, Rockstar Spouse)

There's a reason to why games companies prefer to hire really young people

without attached girl friends/wifes, I'm sure you can figure it out...(Anonymous,

2004-11-17, 5:43am, EA Spouse)

In addition, EA Spouse is explicit in the critique she directs towards the then CEO of Electronic

Arts:

Larry, you do realize what you are doing, right? And you do realize that they ARE

people, with physical limits, emotional lives and families right? Voices and talents and

senses of humor and all that? That when you keep our husbands and wives and children

in the office for 90 hours a week, sending them home exhausted and numb and frustrated

with their lives, it’s not just them you’re hurting, but everyone who loves them? When

you make your profit calculations and your cost analyses, you know that a great measure

of that cost is being paid in raw human dignity, right? (EA Spouse)

Though EA Spouse is inclusive in her challenge by referring to husbands and wives, the impact

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of long work hours on the families of game developers is gendered. With male representation in

core development roles (i.e., programming) at 85-90%, it is overwhelmingly women who are

performing the emotional and reproductive labour required to maintain the productivity of each

male game developer (Westecott, 2013; see also Sturges, 2013). Numerous references to young

workforces and having no children also show that success in this industry is built for a particular

type of worker who has no other commitments. Despite their initial or on-going levels of

support, unlike the game developers, the spouses and families do not experience a post-project

catharsis (O’Riain, 2001) when the game ships and do benefit from the same intrinsic

satisfaction from the work (Sturges, 2013). As such, the spouses and families may experience

greater long-term damage from this type of work and, as seen in these two blogs, may be more

inclined and able to resist and challenge industry standards.

Concluding Remarks

The dominant ideology and discourse of the game industry is a “no collar”, post-

bureaucratic, high-tech bohemia (Ross, 2003) where game developers are able to follow their

passion to produce successful games. However, extreme working conditions are a core feature

of the game industry and have an immense impact on workers and their families. In this paper

we surfaced alternative truths by examining two blogs written by the spouses of game developers

in 2004 and 2010, and their associated reader comments.

At a micro level, the blogs are acts of whistleblowing that expose extreme working

conditions at specific studios at specific times. At a more macro level, the blogs represent a

conduit through which the spouses of game developers give voice to a fearful and exploited

group of ‘knowledge workers’ who are caught in “capital’s circuit of control” (Willmott, 1994)

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and unable or unwilling to speak for themselves (Contu, 2008). Taken together, the range of

comments provides various alternative perspectives that challenge the broader context of the

game industry. That said, while the blogs and comments do act as a safe forum to protest the

extreme working conditions, they also provide space for the reiteration of dominant voices that

protect the status quo. As noted above, these ‘unsupportive’ comments exemplify the argument

that employment challenges have become individualized. They suggest that if a developer is

struggling they are not working hard enough, or not cutout for the work. They shift blame for

and normalize the working conditions by saying that it is a personal choice to do this type of

work. And they disempower individuals by voicing the negative side effects of speaking out.

These are the normative messages that workers face in their employment settings each day and

further act to downplay resistance.

Capitalism has shown itself to be adept at manufacturing the compliance of workforces

even under conditions where working life is precarious, uncertain, and insecure (Lazzarato,

2006, 2009). This insecurity of much of the current employment of project-based ‘knowledge

workers’ or immaterial laborers is achieved through the neo-liberal promise of individual success

and glory (Lazzarato, 2006, 2009). Here all hope of success and advancement in the marketplace

is tied to the ability to compete and remain employable and this is tied to compliance. It is

precisely this insecurity, this anxiety about employment and ‘career’ that allows exploitation

through extreme work situations (Bradley et al., 2000). Real resistance and radical freedom

(Contu, 2008) in this industry might mean workers lose their job with perhaps little hope of

finding another.

Instead, a "softer resistance" (Contu, 2008: 375) is generated by the blogs and comments

from outside of the workplace itself, from those impacted by these conditions and close to the

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game developers – spouses and members of the broader game community. Here, not only do the

blogs act as a form of resistance, it is resistance that is articulated on behalf of another, their

spouse. In this way, game developers are able to maintain their position in the rat race while

improvements to working conditions are still being fought for and consciousness toward greater

or more lasting change is being raised.

The challenges of extreme work in the game industry were not fixed by EA Spouse’s

outcry. This is clear given the emergence of the Rockstar Spouse blog eight years later. Indeed,

online whistleblowing similar to EA and Rockstar Spouse has continued through journalistic

exposés of the work practices at Team Bondi Studios in 2011 during the making of L.A. Noire

and Trendy Entertainment in 2013 with the making of Dungeon Defenders II. As well, in 2012

“38 Studios Spouse” posted a blog about the mistreatment of her husband at 38 Studios when the

studio went bankrupt shortly after releasing Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. However, it can be

argued that the blogs have both directly and indirectly contributed to material gains for

developers.

The EA Spouse blog brought these issues to the public consciousness for the first time

and subsequent outbursts fuel the debate and continue to promote material change within the

industry. As noted above, the blog was published in conjunction with class action lawsuits

regarding unpaid overtime in which Erin Hoffman (EA Spouse) was intimately involved. As

such, the blog likely helped to surface additional claimants as well as increase the profile of the

cases and bolster support from the game community. On numerous occasions, Hoffman replied

to comments on her own blog inviting other EA employees to contact her directly, presumably to

join the class action. The two suits, one for graphic artists and one for computer programmers

(the latter led by Hoffman’s fiancé Leander Hasty) challenged Californian law that exempted

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certain professionals employed in the software business from being paid time and a half for

overtime hours. In both cases, the employees were successful; graphic artists received a

settlement of $15.6 million and programmers received $14.9 million and many were reclassified.

(Legault and Weststar, 2012). There is no available evidence of direct policy change at Rockstar,

though posts to the blog following the release of the game speak of promises made and time-off

(Legault and Weststar, 2013). Hoffman posted on the Rockstar Spouse blog asking anyone who

had been reclassified as exempt from overtime, or who had seen reductions in pay or benefits to

contact her, but no lawsuits materialized.

In a more indirect way, Hoffman remains a commentator on quality of life issues. For a

time she maintained Gamewatch.org which was an online discussion forum to promote the self-

policing of studio practices and her praise of studios which have undergone positive change also

makes the game industry news. For instance, she applauded EA Tiburon for the studios

improved working conditions during the making of NCAA and Madden NFL games and is now

herself employed by an EA subsidiary (Sinclair, 2013).

In conclusion, the issue of extreme work remains a systemic problem in the game

industry because of the structural and neo-normative control systems of competitive project-

based regimes. As demonstrated throughout our analysis, and in line with the work of Prasad and

Prasad (1998, 2000) this socio-political context requires that resistance be often covert, informal,

and mundane (Prasad and Prasad, 2000 as cited in Contu, 2008: 366). Social media has created a

covert and informal space for game developers, their families, and consumers to be skeptical and

cynical, to raise awareness, and give voice to the negative relationships between work and home,

and about the nature of project-based work regimes. In this way, social media continues to show

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potential to be a tool in resisting the exploitative, extreme work conditions in the game industry -

"decaf" or not.

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