26 Days ago, around the time the Sacred Hunt was stealth removed and the Witch Hunt was enabled, we were told there was a known issue with the Witch Hunt and we would be informed when more was known.
It’s a “live service” game.
But we all know there is at best a skeleton crew in July.
This one repeats the belief that everyone deserves a vacation.
That having been said, in a business that wants to bill itself as live service, those vacations should probably be staggered just a bit.
Doesn’t something like this happen most every year?
An update drops near about to July, riddled with problems that don’t get addressed for a month or so?
There’s some apology later, maybe, and then a promise not to do it again, the hollowness of which compromises the sincerity of the apology and the community’s collective antipathy and resentment continue to grow?
By now, isn’t this what should be expected from Funcom?
Why is this acceptable and just considered normal? We are talking about a multi-nation corporation now. This screams of management without teeth or of the time where tech jobs were luxury brands that just doesn’t exist anymore. I would put it out there that you get the month off when you release something without bugs. Until then you working 40’s if not 60’s to get us back on track with our customers.
There are many things which this one finds unacceptable that are now well entrenched in what is considered normal.
Beyound the legality aspect, we must wonder exactly how much of their staff in their non-Norwegian offices are of the type of employee who could do anything about these issues.
No such thing as “bug free” anymore. It’s sad, but true.
As for “working 60s to get us back on track with our customers”, I hope that our society will some day reach a point where everyone realizes just how abhorrent this attitude is when we’re talking about anything that isn’t life-critical. (Well, some societies do realize that, but others have to catch up still.)
Let’s not pretend that the state of this game is something that happened overnight and the only way to fix it is to treat workers like shіt. Especially because the responsibility for this lies less with the workers you want to exploit and more with those who decide how to run the company.
If anyone imagines there is a game that doesn’t have heaps of bugs, just look up speedruns for that game and (assuming it is popular enough to actually have speedrunners) you’ll see that it is a buggy mess too.
If this is true, then we need to stop complaining about it and saying we won’t buy into FC revenue channels until it’s completed.
Dev is just one team and if this one team’s errors are affecting all aspects of the company, then yes I expect someone to fix it and fix it quickly else this risks anyone’s jobs. Whether you agree with it or not, spice must flow. Tencent must get paid for their investment and that means it could costs someone’s position until solvency is reached again. Yeah I know it sounds horrid but when you are looking at over 200 employees and potentially a % are at risk to lose their jobs for failures of 5-10…yeah I fully expect some overtime to correct. Just like I would expect a sales team to be on call to get the sales on Beijing time if that contract is needed to ensure bonuses can get paid. Quality culture means getting the job right and if it’s not right, you must spend more time and resources to make it right. That isn’t just an employer responsibility but an employee’s one as well…at least one that still wants to be employed.
Yep it’s abhorrent…and yet this is the expectation the consumer demands out of the product so it needs to be funneled throughout the culture of the company that makes it. You want perfection? It comes at a cost.
Why? Because there can be only two extremes and nothing in between? Because Funcom can either bungle quality assurance consistently for years on end or make their employees work 60-hour weeks?
Please.
You can spend more time and resources without making people work unhealthy overtime hours.
Yeah, I’m aware that’s how things are here in the United States, where “employer responsibility” is towards shareholders, “employees’ responsibility” is towards whatever the hell employer mandates, and “employees’ rights” is a shameful, un-American thing to bring up
In places where there’s more social awareness, consumers don’t demand exploitation, because they know damn well if they demand others to be exploited, it will be their turn sooner or later.
I’m tired of the pretense that we can’t demand quality without exploitation.
No, I don’t. As a worker, I strive for perfection, but as a consumer I don’t demand it. When things are bad, I ask for them to get better. Like I said, let’s not pretend that “better than this” requires treating people like crap.
Yes they do. With their price points and their expectations for both customer service and quality of product, they want it all but they just don’t want to know how it’s done. It’s the old sausage making analogy. Everyone loves it, no one wants to see it made. Everyone wants Walmart pricing but they don’t want to drop the quality.
Not exactly right. Yes everyone wants what benefits them the most but if you don’t want the rat race lifestyle and just have good quality time with your family, by all means go 4 it. Just don’t expect to have the same luxuries as someone that has to do more…sacrifice to make these luxuries happen. I don’t expect line workers to have to deal with the ins and outs of navigating new system development. My team has that responsibility and it just needs to work for the line workers and make their work better. If it isn’t, then it’s a failure and it gets corrected within a timeframe to minimize the effect on the line. If that means staying overnight, OK. If that is unacceptable. Tell me about why this system just squeaked by at the deadline vs having a week or two trial period prior. Mistakes happen but someone has to correct it in a manner that doesn’t affect the goal. If that can’t happen, then there clearly needs to be a price of blood (HR action) that must be fulfilled. Every single customer agrees to this in principle when they set expectations that cater towards their own purchasing power over a fair price so I can pay a fair wage.
My point is that an accountable business is one that is just as effective as a sweatshop but also as tolerant as a tech start up. You can literally have the best of both worlds IF you hold people accountable and have the authority to enforce that and that is all aspects of the company top/down. It fails miserably if this isn’t there and the effects become evident as the business continues. If my team does their best, then it was my planning and leadership that failed and I deserve the full brunt of the accountability on me.
But the data isn’t showing that.
I agree that fixes are important but this game was buggy since I’ve been playing it. When they started announcing slow downs on the new content (with the 4 chapters/age and immediately following with a complete redesign of the age release system and removal of the battlepass), the number of players have been trending down to now late 2019 numbers.
But it was the new Age system that made game breaking bugs a near constant.
I loved the old DLC system. I am less enamored with the Bazaar and I despise this decision to rewrite working systems because they don’t play the game in standard mode and don’t understand how we interact with the game.
This conversation is twitching my nerves so much I would love to tell you all what exactly I think as an employee driven thinker but is going to get me in a lot of ■■■■■■■ trouble.
#INSOLIDARITY
We can have both good communication and employee health.
