Fear & Fury: How The Rockstar Sausage Is Made (The Jimquisition)

I posted my gut emotional response to this on YouTube, because I imagine my post would rapidly disappear from Patreon. I'm sorry I can't offer a more articulate response to this Jim. I'm almost <i>inarticulate</i> with quite genuine anger directed towards the Houser brothers and Barrera. Thank you bringing to this to light, and thanks to the people (anonymously or otherwise) sharing their experiences working in the gaming industry.

Freakish Uproar

A Jimquisition where it doesn't end with "Thank god for me."? That's how you know Jim's s'r'ous.

Naterkix

Their games always made me feel icky. They all came across as being written by teenagers trying to be edgy.

Twit In A Hat

Jim, love the video! However, we, the people, need more Chunky Grumbler in our lives. I sincerely hope the god-hating fiend makes another appearance.

Antonio Lyon

Wow... just wow. Poor Devs, I feel bad for their families. Great report however.

kesseldarkfire

IIRC he answered this in a recent Ask Sterling podcast, basically he doesn't personally advocate boycotting as he doesn't think it actually works (people don't stick to them and they're never big enough to impact AAA) but he's not opposed to the idea of boycotting itself

Snizzbut

For someone who worked in game industry for almost 4 years (and still counting), I was lucky to find a company where my concerns and opinions actually held some weight. In most companies, concerns and opinions of employees are nothing more than farts in the wind. These things are not just done by the owners or founders of the companies. There are companies where they actively encourages shit-behavior that has been introduced in this video to their PMs,(if you want to get promotion, that is) all in the name of "better productivity". Plus, it is some-what natural for someone who worked in certain field for a long time to become complacent and arrogant, which is dangerous for any project which you have to work with other people. There needs to be a major attitudinal-shift in game industry where people in charge need to be reminded of that just because they know more things than their employees, doesn't give them rights to treat employees like shit. (which is something I should be aware of as well, since I'm turning into one of the senior-workers)

Another brilliant Jimquisition. From now on I will only buy Rockstar games second hand, if at all. It's ironic that the themes their games carry are so contrary to environmental the games are made in.

Gage

More reporting like this has to get out there. As much as Rockstar and the other companies hate bad press, their real source of their power is the endless stream of fresh victims to replace the people they fire with abandon or abuse out of the industry. Enough material like this may help those would-be devs look at companies with more scrutiny than the companies do them. Imagine the impact on these companies if they knew fresh meat wasn't guaranteed anymore with rumblings of unionizing in the distance.

shadowscribble

Can you imagine the ego of preferring your employees show up and do LITERALLY NOTHING just to be seen by you rather than having them go home and recharge? It's incredible how businesses seem to think a worker is just as productive hour 1 of a week as they are hour 73. Because once you remove context, it's all just hours. Like how a machine works.

Dr. Judge, Private Eye

Jim, with all of these videos about corrupt corporate practices in AAA companies, I'd like to hear your take on boycotting. Not which games or publishers we should boycott, but just your thoughts on the approach as a whole.

Ben L.

Did not expect Rockstar executives to actually live up to the name, however with none of the good parts to it. Shit like this I could never see myself pursuing game development as a career. That work environment would just kill me on all facets.

noxamillion

I definitely do not want to buy a Rockstar game in the future. I just have a hard time supporting most AAA publishers and terrible developer studios. There are developers that do make good games. It is just that they are rarely AAA.

noxamillion

It's funny, I used to pirate media (including games) when I was semi-poor (to be fair I was also an ass who felt entitled). When I started regularly paying for my games I felt good for supporting the artists making these games. All these stories, though, are starting to make me feel like a sap for ever thinking that.

Tommy Laukkanen

Fantastic video. And I'll say it: I'm so surprised a developer that makes games where the straight, male protagonist can murder sex workers without consequence has such an atmosphere. By the way, that was sarcasm. Now, I'm not saying the Howsers or Jeronimo have murdered sex workers but I also saying they've probably thought about it and thought it should be okay to do so. What's the saying? "Write what you know?"

Perpetual Noob