> Ubisoft had built an organisation optimised for treating developers like fools
I think this whole write up really says more about how video game developers treat entry and mid-level career developers/programmers/graphic artists.
Because there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of young idealistic naive persons who will take any salary offered and work for 80 hours a week, because they've been offered a job at a big name video game company.
>>Because there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of young idealistic naive persons who will take any salary offered and work for 80 hours a week
As someone who also works at ubisoft(and I have actually worked with the author), I want to point out that for all the failings of Ubisoft, our work life culture is top notch and there is an incredibly strong focus on avoiding overtime**. It's drilled into our heads constantly that it's NOT normal to work more than the contracted 7.5h a day, if you as much as send someone an email at 8pm someone will talk to you to make sure you aren't working late(and will tell you to avoid doing that in the future, because it makes it look like reading and sending work emails at 8pm is a normal thing). In my 9 years here I have worked overtime only a very small handful of times, usually around launches of our project - for a week or two. I haven't logged more than my standard 37.5h/week on any project for literally years now. I manage juniors now and I wouldn't let them work more than that even if they wanted to.
** at least in the studio where I work and the studios I have interacted with - Ubisoft has 40(?) studios across the world and I cannot possibly comment on every single one of them. But it does certainly seem to be the company policy worldwide.
I think this whole write up really says more about how video game developers treat entry and mid-level career developers/programmers/graphic artists.
Because there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of young idealistic naive persons who will take any salary offered and work for 80 hours a week, because they've been offered a job at a big name video game company.
Film/VFX industry not much different.