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Jason Schreier: Naughty Dog enacts mandatory overtime for staff in order to finish Integalactic internal demo

ND have been wack, I'm sure the game will be good once it's released but they've been one of the worst studios this gen. The awful management thing seems to be a key with all these Sony studios, absolutely incompetent.
You don't know what you're talking about. Insomniac, SSM, Sucker Punch, PD, Team Asobi, and Housemarque don't have management issues. Only ND and Bend have had issues with management.
 
They "made their money back." But did they really, when the game loses relevance and impact, and fails to elevate the success of the IP?
The Rock Eye Roll GIF by WWE

Jason Schreier: Naughty Dog enacts mandatory overtime for staff in order to finish Integalactic internal demo


Uh?..... You understand that Sony is not only spending money on this game, right? They are INVESTING in the future of this NEW IP too. tech/code/system-mechanics etc..

What you call "goal post moving" is, in fact, very relevant: Anthem, Days Gone, Concord, Drive Club, The Order 1886, Redfall, to name a few.

We have games that "Bombed" so hard "across the board" that killed the IP and even the studio....Yotei is in that list, too, now (killed the IP). 🤷‍♂️ I'm sorry if that triggers you, but it's true. (Days Gone will probably remain with higher total sales than Yotei, btw.)

So, in the context of the conversation I was having with the other user:

Sony and Naughty Dog are not at the stage of "BioWare Magic" or "Bungie Sauce," or whatever you want to call it. Naughty Dog can't play the "we are the Naughty Gods" card anymore (intergalactic trailer reception made that clear). And PlayStation´s "Cinematic Formula" is losing its luster; graphics will not "save" a game like Intergalactic, even if it "makes its money back". This could very well be the only game released from this IP and Druckman's last game at ND/Sony.
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Majority of times, it is management and unrealistic expectations that result in overtime. Overtime crashes productivity. I have personally seen people with overtime of around 60hrs a week doing less work than they used to when it was 40hrs a week. Having an off week of overtime is okay, but continuous overtime just decreases efficiency and productivity.
 
Majority of times, it is management and unrealistic expectations that result in overtime. Overtime crashes productivity. I have personally seen people with overtime of around 60hrs a week doing less work than they used to when it was 40hrs a week. Having an off week of overtime is okay, but continuous overtime just decreases efficiency and productivity.
This, but corpo apologists in this thread will never get it. It's not only America though, France has also a big problem with Presenteism where leaving your office early is frowned upon.
 
Overtime in a comfy California tech company where you get to sit down all day with catering, woe is me it's literally a living nightmare

They wanna try 12 hour shifts lugging sacks of bird seed in a dusty warehouse full of mice before they complain
 
No way this makes their 2027 target if they are crunching already
Eh? This is due to an internal milestone they wanted to hit, they'll have a few of these, it's only news because Schreier made a post about it. Crunch now means nothing about the release date (and it's already over, milestone done)
 
I can't wait for this to flop. They won't be able to get sales off of a previous entry's renown this time.
How sad that you want a new IP to flop, we should be wanting them to be hits so that new IPs are made and not just the same IP regurgitated

If the game comes out and it's terrible in some firm or other then fair enough, but wanting a game to fail before we have ever even really seen it is, well, silly.

It's also baffling to me that people think this will flop, it seems to me like it will be quite Uncharted in space, which I think people will lap up. Regardless of what you think about NDs storylines the gameplay is always best in class as are the graphics which in itself is enough reason to buy their games (in my opinion)
 
No need for overtime. Just end the remote work and get people back in the office 5 days a week. You will see that pending taks will start to show up completed. People in remote work, work half the time.
 
How sad that you want a new IP to flop, we should be wanting them to be hits so that new IPs are made and not just the same IP regurgitated

If the game comes out and it's terrible in some firm or other then fair enough, but wanting a game to fail before we have ever even really seen it is, well, silly.

It's also baffling to me that people think this will flop, it seems to me like it will be quite Uncharted in space, which I think people will lap up. Regardless of what you think about NDs storylines the gameplay is always best in class as are the graphics which in itself is enough reason to buy their games (in my opinion)
I will always want games made by activists who use them as a way to push propaganda to fail, regardless of their technical quality.
 
No need for overtime. Just end the remote work and get people back in the office 5 days a week. You will see that pending taks will start to show up completed. People in remote work, work half the time.
Naughty Dog has had this problem for more than 2 decades; remote work has nothing to do with it.
 
No need for overtime. Just end the remote work and get people back in the office 5 days a week. You will see that pending taks will start to show up completed. People in remote work, work half the time.
It's not going to happen and meanwhile you're going to be stuck on the factory floor.
 
But do they get paid for those 8 extra hours during specific periods? Because at my job there are dozens of volunteers to work those extra hours and nothing happens.
 
Who would have fucking guessed, sometimes you need to stay late to get something finished in time, just like the rest of the worlds employees.
I'm sick and tired of listening to these crybabies.
 
No need for overtime. Just end the remote work and get people back in the office 5 days a week. You will see that pending taks will start to show up completed. People in remote work, work half the time.
I've found it to be the complete opposite in an office environment. There are people coming to my desk asking questions and people catching up in the kitchen, walking around having non work related conversations or just joking about with each other. I'm not saying any of those things are necessarily bad, but it's way less productive in the office.

Your post screams to me that you're the sort of person to not get stuff done remotely, or in another type of profession that doesn't allow for remote working.
 
Beyond tired of hearing these people complain about crunch. Im in my 30s and have worked for 16 straight years in all types of fields. Essentially EVERYWHERE has some type of crunch. And when it comes to something like a white collar job developing video games. You sit behind a desk, most likely in your own home, it's really not all that demanding.

I'm a plasterer/labourer. Getting that shit boarded out and spread on the walls and ceiling is a crunch everytime. 🤣
 
But do they get paid for those 8 extra hours during specific periods?

Dunno about anywhere else but here in the UK I've never heard of anyone not getting paid for overtime. In fact overtime hours typically come with a bonus, usually 50%.

If any workplace told me I had to work for free to keep my job I'd tell them to fuck off.
 
Dunno about anywhere else but here in the UK I've never heard of anyone not getting paid for overtime. In fact overtime hours typically come with a bonus, usually 50%.

If any workplace told me I had to work for free to keep my job I'd tell them to fuck off.

Overtime is pretty rare nowadays in the UK. They've just substituted it for TOIL instead.
 
...why is this "news"? Why are there 9 pages? Do I misunderstand something fundamentally? Isn't it normal that people crunch when deadlines loom? Why is Naughty Dog special? Every company does this.
 
First: I find it hard to be that sympathetic considering the job market sucks right now, you're making well above what most people make working a dream job and all that's happening is you have to work 60 hours a week and actually come into the office for a month and half. That's not that crazy. But maybe I'm missing something here.

Second: how fucking far behind are these guys? How long is this game going to take? For a goddamn demo? This seems like it's been SEVERELY mismanaged - this is obviously a cross gen ps6 game at this point Naughty Dog missed an entire generation
Naughty Dog seems to be a mismanaged studio but nobody in the business is allowed or able to criticize the top guy managing it.
 
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lol pathetic. A friend of mine used to work at ubisoft during the splinter cell and rainbow six golden era. They'd often work 16 hours a day and 7 days a week

boo hoo hoo
baby crying GIF
 
...why is this "news"? Why are there 9 pages? Do I misunderstand something fundamentally? Isn't it normal that people crunch when deadlines loom? Why is Naughty Dog special? Every company does this.

Because Sony is thinking about cancelling Intergalactic because of lack of progress/unhappy it's not further along.
 
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I do wonder how Sony is looking at Naughty Dog at this point. 7 years without a single game release is nuts. And i wouldn't be surprised if they delay to 2028...that would be...8 years which is simply not sustainable. A studio would never be able to have costs like this if it weren't for a parent company like Sony.

I mean, this is Naughty Dog's output:

Game(s)
Math Jam
Ski Crazed
Dream Zone
Keef the Thief
Rings of Power
Way of the Warrior
Crash Bandicoot
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Crash Bandicoot: Warped
Crash Team Racing
Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
Jak II
Jak 3
Jak X: Combat Racing
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
The Last of Us
The Last of Us: Left Behind (DLC)
The Last of Us Remastered (Remaster)
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
The Last of Us Part II
Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (Remaster)
The Last of Us Part I (Remake)
The Last of Us Part II Remastered (Remaster)
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet

This studio was crunching...but at least they were releasing games. Now crunching for a fucking internal demo to Sony, for a game releasing in 2027? They are already missing deadlines for this?
I'll just leave this here. The (eventual) 8 years from TLOU2 to Intergalactic is the same as this:

Game
Crash Bandicoot
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Crash Bandicoot: Warped
Crash Team Racing
Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
Jak II
Jak 3


"oh but that was many gens ago".

OK fine:

Game
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
The Last of Us
The Last of Us: Left Behind
The Last of Us Remastered
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
4 full games, one shorter game (Lost Legacy), one DLC and one remaster.

It's pretty clear they probably had almost the entire studio working on Factions 2 and when that didn't pan out, they had almost nothing. What a fucking waste.

Meanwhile Insomniac:

Game
Marvel's Spider-Man
Seedling
Stormland
Strangelets
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
Marvel's Spider-Man 2
Marvel's Wolverine

In 8 years they managed to:

- Start the Spiderman IP, release 3 full games from it, start the Wolverine IP, release another Ratchet & Clank game, one Spider-Man remaster and release 3 VR games, all from different new IPs lol. And supposedly they are internally already working on a Venom game already (and god knows what else).

I know Naughty Dog is important to Sony...but they are at a stage that, imagine if this new game flops...i don't see Sony keeping the studio opened. They have no reasons to in fact.
 
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A shame Neil didn't stick with his TV bollocks for a bit longer, as we might have had a decent game with him not being around.

Bruce and Amy should be running the show. ND was so much better with those.

I wonder if Amy will ever get any credit for TLoU. Neil will happily make out she wasn't involved, but we know she was early on as the sheer difference between the first and second games is massive. UC4 and TLoU 2 screams Neil. And that's a bad thing.
 
I do wonder how Sony is looking at Naughty Dog at this point. 7 years without a single game release is nuts. And i wouldn't be surprised if they delay to 2028...that would be...8 years which is simply not sustainable. A studio would never be able to have costs like this if it weren't for a parent company like Sony.

I mean, this is Naughty Dog's output:

Game(s)
Math Jam
Ski Crazed
Dream Zone
Keef the Thief
Rings of Power
Way of the Warrior
Crash Bandicoot
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Crash Bandicoot: Warped
Crash Team Racing
Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
Jak II
Jak 3
Jak X: Combat Racing
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
The Last of Us
The Last of Us: Left Behind (DLC)
The Last of Us Remastered (Remaster)
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
The Last of Us Part II
Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (Remaster)
The Last of Us Part I (Remake)
The Last of Us Part II Remastered (Remaster)
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet

This studio was crunching...but at least they were releasing games. Now crunching for a fucking internal demo to Sony, for a game releasing in 2027? They are already missing deadlines for this?
I'll just leave this here. The (eventual) 8 years from TLOU2 to Intergalactic is the same as this:

Game
Crash Bandicoot
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Crash Bandicoot: Warped
Crash Team Racing
Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
Jak II
Jak 3

[th]
Year​
[/th]
[td]
1996​
[/td]
[td]
1997​
[/td]
[td]
1998​
[/td]
[td]
1999​
[/td]
[td]
2001​
[/td]
[td]
2003​
[/td]
[td]
2004​
[/td]​


"oh but that was many gens ago".

OK fine:

Game
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
The Last of Us
The Last of Us: Left Behind
The Last of Us Remastered
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

[th]
Year​
[/th]
[td]
2009​
[/td]
[td]
2011​
[/td]
[td]
2013​
[/td]
[td]
2014​
[/td]
[td]
2014​
[/td]
[td]
2016​
[/td]
[td]
2017​
[/td]​


4 full games, one shorter game (Lost Legacy), one DLC and one remaster.

It's pretty clear they probably had almost the entire studio working on Factions 2 and when that didn't pan out, they had almost nothing. What a fucking waste.

Meanwhile Insomniac:

Game
Marvel's Spider-Man
Seedling
Stormland
Strangelets
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
Marvel's Spider-Man 2
Marvel's Wolverine


In 8 years they managed to:

- Start the Spiderman IP, release 3 full games from it, start the Wolverine IP, release another Ratchet & Clank game, one Spider-Man remaster and release 3 VR games, all from different new IPs lol. And supposedly they are internally already working on a Venom game already (and god knows what else).

I know Naughty Dog is important to Sony...but they are at a stage that, imagine if this new game flops...i don't see Sony keeping the studio opened. They have no reasons to in fact.
Hopefully they'll get the Japan Studio treatment soon, reduce size and increase productivity.
 
A shame Neil didn't stick with his TV bollocks for a bit longer, as we might have had a decent game with him not being around.

Bruce and Amy should be running the show. ND was so much better with those.

I wonder if Amy will ever get any credit for TLoU. Neil will happily make out she wasn't involved, but we know she was early on as the sheer difference between the first and second games is massive. UC4 and TLoU 2 screams Neil. And that's a bad thing.
Amy Hennig had zero to do with The Last of Us so why would she get credit?

And personally I think TLoU2 is the far better game (story is subjective but I enjoyed it, and I guess there could be an argument about pacing, but again, I didnt have an issue with it, other than that everything else is far superior in Part 2)

Same with UC4, I totally enjoyed it, much better than 1 & 3, only 2 was better but that is amongst the best games ever so hard to beat.

(And I shouldn't need to say this, but, my opinion, you are entitled to yours also)
 
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A shame Neil didn't stick with his TV bollocks for a bit longer, as we might have had a decent game with him not being around.

Bruce and Amy should be running the show. ND was so much better with those.

I wonder if Amy will ever get any credit for TLoU. Neil will happily make out she wasn't involved, but we know she was early on as the sheer difference between the first and second games is massive. UC4 and TLoU 2 screams Neil. And that's a bad thing.

Amy aint doing so hot either. A common theme we're seeing is that these iconic Industrt vets aren't ctually capable of managing games that require hundreds of devs, and they end up releasing inspite of them. They cruised along when only had to manage a fraction of what they are now
 
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Imagine owning two major studios like Naughty Dog and Santa Monica that haven't shown a damn thing for years, continuing to consume resources and money without any expectation of revenue... you don't need to be a genius to know that these studios are sucking Sony dry... and in the case of this game by ND... the expectation data doesn't look encouraging lol :messenger_poop:
 
They should take that anime sequence of the Intergalactic trailer and make it a real anime. That's the only thing ND have shown that was interesting.
 
You don't know what you're talking about. Insomniac, SSM, Sucker Punch, PD, Team Asobi, and Housemarque don't have management issues. Only ND and Bend have had issues with management.
Nothing leads to think ND or Bend have management issues, both studios have a great track record and history of doing a great job in their projects.

They happened to have a game cancellation, something that is normal in gaming and all teams always had, just that in most cases the public doesn't know about it.

Imagine owning two major studios like Naughty Dog and Santa Monica that haven't shown a damn thing for years
These are GOTY winner and record breaking Sony game sales level studios, there's absolutely nothing wrong with them other than wokism. AAA games nowdays take around 4-9 years to be made, a little more in case of new IPs, and Sony normally prefers to wait until relatively close to release to show their games. That's all.

And ND released remakes, remasters and ports since they released their most recent new game 5 years ago, plus last year shown a new game. SSM released their most recent game 3 years ago, which got a big DLC 2 years ago. Plus also got this game and the previous one ported in recent years.
 
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Nothing leads to think ND or Bend have management issues, both studios have a great track record and history of doing a great job in their projects.

They happened to have a game cancellation, something that is normal in gaming and all teams always had, just that in most cases the public doesn't know about it.


Bend has become a shitshow after its previous director's departure. They can't even agree on what game to develop next. Only Media Molecule is in a bigger disarray.
 
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