Rockstar Responds To Rilied Up Spouses
To say that Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar is controversial is like calling the sky blue, it's obvious, but it misses the finer details. It seems as though no matter what they do, Rockstar is always ruffling feathers and causing a stir. Their most recent commotion centers on the development team of their upcoming title Red Dead Redemption. According to an anonymous blog entry supposedly drafted by some of the development team's spouses (found here), the "Determined Devoted Wives of Rockstar" got fed up with poor working conditions they observed at the San Diego studio and sent the office an ultimatum demanding immediate changes or else they would take legal action against the company. In the past two weeks we haven't heard an official public statement from Rockstar on the issue aside from a cheeky set of wallpaper graphics that allude to the blog, but that all changed with the most recent entry in the Asked & Answered column on the company's website when worried fans wrote in inquiring for a reaction. This is the response they were given...
...Unfortunately, this is a case of people taking the opinions of a few anonymous posters on message boards as fact. No business is ever perfect, but Rockstar Games is a tight knit team made up of around 900 supremely talented and motivated professionals, many of whom have worked here for a very long time. We're saddened if any former members of any studio did not find their time here enjoyable or creatively fulfilling and wish them well with finding an environment more suitable to their temperaments and needs, but the vast majority of our company are focused solely on delivering cutting edge interactive entertainment. We've always cared passionately about the people working here, and have always tried to maintain a supportive creative environment. There is simply no way Rockstar could continue to produce such large scale, high quality games without this. That being said, making great games is very challenging, which is why we have and will continue to try to keep hold of some of the best talent in the industry and support them in every way we can.
Talk about he-said-she-said! It doesn't sound like we're going to hear the definitive answer on this until either party is willing to disclose more details but at least we're hearing something.
In a post-EA Spouse world, it's a troubling trend that writing anonymous blogs to vilify faceless companies is the only way to get attention. Just as the statement above mentions, many people are taking the manifesto as fact without any kind of proof to back up its claims. Rockstar may or may not be blameless, but we should all be firm believers that people are innocent until proven guilty. Let's just hope that both parties can come to an agreeable compromise in the near future.
Oh, in other Rockstar-related news, we should expect to see something on their mysterious L.A. Noire title next month with a "big cover story." It may not be the media blitz for a Bully sequel I'm hoping for, but I'm still jazzed.
[Asked & Answered - Re: Red Dead Redemption, L.A. Noire, Rockstar San Diego and More] Rockstar.com
Game-Boy
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 22 January 2010
· Comments (1)
Other stuff like this: blogs, business practices, controversy, rockstar, spouse
After reading the supposed blog post, I have no doubt that some of the things mentioned are entirely true. Frankly, however, this seems like an obvious copy-cat of the "EA Spouses" letter ghostwritten by one or more employees.
Details like "the manager who drops the F-bomb and won't look at us in the face in the hall" would not be known to the spouse of an employee. Even I don't go into that much detail of my daily work life with my partner, and we share lots of info about our daily work with each other.
All I can say is, anyone going into game or simulation design knows these are the conditions they are going into in those fields. Honestly some of the complaints are simply asinine. "Losing the free week of vacation between New Year's and Christmas" - I work for a company that is generous with company holidays and vacation time, and even they don't give that whole week free. "Wages have not risen with inflation for years" - be very thankful you don't work in a field that has actually RESCINDED merit and performance raises as too costly; both my parents have had their salaries rolled back to the level of 4 or 5 years ago.