Mortal Kombat 11 Dev NetherRealm Studios Responds To Toxic Workplace Accusations

"Didn't happen" - NetherRealm Lawyers

Sucks if true. Unfortunately, it's difficult for me to just take criminal accusations reported in the MSM at their word since so many are made up these days.

$1 say's it's all true.
The games industry is a hole. Any developer who wants to have a life or work with adults avoids it. Look at all the big names that left as soon as they could.

I'd dread working as video game designer. It would suck all joy for gaming out of me. Kudos to those who do so!

you think it's bad there, they should work at the jobs of the people who buy these games.

Lots of people work 100+ hour weeks. Particularly when there is a public facing deadline like a launch of a game. This is heightened by being funded by a major publisher of course.

I worked in the industry for a few years and have experienced similarly toxic work environments, including one very well known company that rhymes with "Block Jar." I believe every word of these allegations.

@Dezzy
How does the color of her hair and/or her being a radical feminist (what is a RADICAL feminist by the way? someone who is EXTREMELY in favor of equal rights for men and women?) have anything to do with her telling the truth or not?

You can hardly go a week without hearing about a video game companies' toxic work environment, this really needs to be nipped in the bud, and soon, but as long as companies keep taking advantage of people that will never happen.

@Darth_Goomba "Block Jar" even a poet would'nt find a better rhyme. 😉

I don't buy this. At all.

@Tiefseemiez Usually they're only ok with equal rights FOR THEM, not for the rest of the people.

@Edu23XWiiU
That's prejudice.

@Laxeybobby Police can kill with impunity, heck of a fringe benefit.

They are also paid very well.

@StevenG @ryancraddock @frogopus
Taken on board and I will remove my post.
I wrongly thought that this industry made millions and developers were well paid as a result.
@StevenG
I’m in the UK and serving and we neither kill with impunity nor are we paid well compared to the tech, banking or any private industry.

@Laxeybobby Come to the USA, you can easily make more than a programmer and kill people for the heck of it. If they are a minority you probably won't even make it to trial.

The industry makes Billions. They fire the developers as soon as the game ships. The execs keep the money. This is why DLC is such a scam.

@frogopus Even talked to nurses about getting "mandated"?
That means you work or you get fired. So your 3 12s just became 4 18s.

@frogopus " 3 12 hour shifts, which is great if you have kids."
How is that great if you have kids? Where are the kids while the nurse is working?

@Dezzy how in the world does your comment have 19 upvotes? Damn community around here turning into the Fox News of gaming sites.

@Greenviolence it's a hyper-violent fighting game where you rip people to pieces. How on Earth can it be "woke" or is that some kind of creepy euphemism for "some characters are not white males"?

@Laxeybobby I'm positive he was talking about (many of) our officers in the US.

Really, the industry as a whole gets away with a lot simply because there is a never-ending supply of naive young men who think that making games is the coolest job in the world and will accept what is often abhorrent treatment for the privilege of having that job.

The only way to work in the industry and still have a life is to get in when you're young and unattached so that you can "pay your dues" and earn the respect of your peers when you're still willing and able to tolerate 80-100 hour work weeks. When you've been doing that for ten years, you won't necessarily tank your future with the studio by taking time off for things like having a child. Even then, there are thousands of people who desperately want a job making games, so ultimately you're still replaceable.

I left "Block Jar" about ten years ago and have never regretted it. Last year I made almost 3x as much money as I had been, I never have to work overtime, and my employer is very accommodating with taking time off for things like the kids' school events.

@YorkshireNed
The developers were outspoken about covering up all the female characters in tons of clothing in a game where a big theme is gruesomely detailed violence and gorey deaths where most of the male characters are topless.

@hihelloitsme It's wild how on the same page gamers can be over so many issues in the industry... until that issue is inherently sociopolitical.

There needs to be some thing like Poe's Law or Murphy's Law for gamers: If a gaming topic has a human element to it, a camp in the gaming community is guaranteed to let you down.

@Tiefseemiez

Dude radical feminists are not "extremely in favour of equality".
You're confusing the dictionary definition with the real-world behaviour.
They're basically female supremacists, who interpret sexism against women in every single thing they see, as a method of pushing for special treatment.

All I know is that gamers are the ones who will suffer if the games industry unionizes. Say goodbye to 3-5 year development cycles and we’d better get used to games taking 10 years to be released. People seem to overlook that when talking about the whole unionization conversation.

@frogopus Where?

@2legit2quit Citation please.
Otherwise you are just making stuff up.

@2legit2quit even if this were true, i'd gladly take a game taking longer over people slowly working themselves to death

@hihelloitsme

Why would someone have to be a Fox News fan to think that radical feminists tend to be incredibly dishonest?
Fox News is quite dishonest as well. Those aren't mutually exclusive positions. All political ideologues are ultimately quite dishonest, because they always disregard any facts that don't fit into their narratives.
If it was an extremely religious christian who was claiming religious discrimination, I'd also be advising caution. Because in both situations you're dealing with someone who is heavily primed to think they see something that might not be really happening.

I really enjoy their games and on one level I'm glad they are taking these accusations seriously to re-evaluate how they make games. But, I also think this is the fear that the IT industry will become unionized as these kind of reports are not unique to just gaming. Its why stories like these hit so close to home because as someone who works in IT this is not uncommon stories of overwork and burn-out on all levels from developers, to analysts to it looks like even game-designers. The entire industry needs a shake-up and wake up call as otherwise unions will become a more serious conversation within the workforce.

@Dezzy not in the slightest, no.

Lets not forget one thing: Big corporations are a DUMP workwise. Except very few exceptions working in a high-demand, high-profile, high-stress environment WILL take it's toll on the employees. It's not limited to the gaming industry. The whole world's production and capitalistic mechanisms will hit a brick wall in the near future. Everything is at it's peak...

@2legit2quit 10 years might be pushing it, but I agree. And to be honest, why not? Can ANYONE of us, who has something resembling a life really keep track on ALL the games that are being released? If it all would slow down, so what? I wouldn't even notice, since so many games a cookie-cutter-copies of one another these days anyways. Fortnite and Apex Legends are the only 2 battle royal games for 10 years? Fine with me!

While I'm sure the stuff like 100-hour work weeks and stuff like that is true, there's also a difference between Actual Problems and Perceived Problems. While an actual problem would be the easiest to see, a perceived problem can still be hugely damaging to the person who is perceiving it. Often it's caused by miscommunication, or a particular mindset that doesn't always mesh well with the work environment they're in. I'm not saying perceived problems aren't real problems, they're just a much more fickle thing to prove when it comes to allegations like these. I sincerely hope everyone's issues will be dealt with properly, so they can minimize the amount of undue stress to the workers.

@VoodooTrumpet Not if you make the game yourself and surround yourself with a great team. I would NEVER work for a game company with more than 10 employees though, small teams are better.

Pretty much indicates it happened.

It’s amazing the bad behaviour people want to dismiss just so they get their video games as quickly as possible. This isn’t just a video game industry problem, this is something that has gotten worse and worse in most sectors since the banking crash a number of years back. Corporations used that to dial back pay and hike up work hours under the disguise of ‘we all have to work together to get through this’ as the economy has improved conditions and pay haven’t. People have seen job benefits that used to be standard shaved away, sick pay, Christmas bonuses and parties etc. We should be grateful we have a job....yeah right.

@Dezzy
"Dude"? I'm not a "dude".
You are stereotyping people and your previous argument was not only invalid regarding its causality, but also a dangerous way of judging a potential victim you never even met and turning it into the culprit.

@Tiefseemiez

Stereotyping is completely fine as a first-approximation probability. Stereotyping is only bad when you use it as a definitive judgement of someone, as if it's a fact.
If you're walking down a dark street in a crime-ridden part of town, and you see a 20 year old man in a hoody on 1 side of the road, and an 80 year old woman on the other side, it's completely normal and rational to prefer to walk past the 80 year old woman, because she's less likely to mug you.
That's stereotyping. It's normal and rational, as long as you don't use it for definitive factual judgements.

@Dezzy I hate that such an ignorant, sexist comment has 31 likes on this site.

@hihelloitsme Just check any article on a japanese waifu game on this site. 'SJW' etc. gets thrown around constantly. The audience on this site IS the Fox News audience.

@Mr_Pepperami I think the problem for many in this community is that it's harder for them to sympathize with something that's not only systematic, but also doesnt directly impact them.

Going back to an earlier comment, many fellow gamers will absolutely die on the hill to fight against "anti-consumer" practices, whether they're high stake or not (Microtransactions, grindy games, less content, lazy devs, intentional shortages, localization/censorship, bad services, etc.). But as the degrees of separation increase, many seem to become more combative towards others' problems.

I still remember an article on here of a dude lamenting the fact that he will likely die of an illness he's been fighting before he gets a chance to play Smash Ultimate, and a social media attempt to give him that chance. And an unfortunate amount of folks got on him about "Why should he get special treatment?" or, "I have a cold. Can I play Smash early too?"

The gaming community can do a lot of good. But dang it, if there arent moments that make it hard to associate with sometimes...

@DTFaux I couldn’t agree with you more mate

@w00dm4n

Indeed! I work as a nurse and it's pretty messed up...

@DTFaux Like every other community...

@raven89 Depending on the community. Doesn't necessarily excuse it, though.

There's naturally terrible people in every fandom, but among entertainment industries, I'd argue that there's less shoulder shrugging among abusive practices in TV and film compared to gaming.

EDIT: I will say, if people don't care about certain issues, that's fair enough (though, there's something to say about empty centrism...). It's when folks act negative or mean towards issues they don't have much stake in that bugs me; It's just unnecessary noise when the issue can sometimes be as plain as day and old as time.

@raven89 i took a paycut to get away from the never ending overtime of a past job. Its harder to adjust to a slower work flow than the pay. I enjoy the extra 20 hours i get to enjoy and the Saturday i no longer sleep all through to recover.

@JEM

I agree. And I didn't mention anyone's name, nor did I say they were lying.
I simply added a fact that affects the likelihood that they're lying, that's not the same thing.
Someone who spends a lot of time seeing sexism everywhere is simply more likely to get false-positives, than someone who never complains about sexism. That's just how human psychology works.

You know some companies actually require you to do work including overtime, even holidays and 10 even 12 hours a day just to get a project done. Surprising I know! Quit complaining about long hours and crunch time it's everywhere get over it and move on.

@Peterjr1

"Radical feminists" aren't a sex. You can't be sexist against radical feminists. Less than 10% of women fall in this category.

@somebread @Scollurio I’m not saying this is a bad thing at all, I absolutely agree. I’m just saying, so many gamers are entitled folk so they’d better get used to longer development cycles. All these people jumping on me for my OP but what I said is common sense. Unionization would mean that all the 70+ hour weeks would stop, and it’s because of these insane work weeks that games are able to be developed to quickly! Funny tho cuz it’s also the same reason why games these days always seems to turn out half-baked and unpolished. Go figure right

@Dezzy But is she actually a "radical feminist" or is that just your presumption?

The fact that you had to bring in her hair color and her complaints about gender discrimination to surmise that she's a "radical feminist", and thus untrustworthy, is literally prejudice of the negative variety, even if that wasn't your intention.

It's also not helped that certain camps love to use those words (along with SJW, etc.) in such a negative context, that it's become a major red flag for everyone else who isn't entrenched in such biases.

@GameOtaku "Everybody does it, so quit complaining!" isn't a valid argument, though.

Some fields and industries, it makes sense: Emergency response, armed services, politics, high priority infrastructure, agriculture, news coverage, time sensitive events, etc...

Even still, in properly managed groups with a healthy workplace culture, crunch and overtime are finite; You only do it when absolutely necessary, because it's literally impossible to have infinite drive/energy/passion.

Heck, even in some of the mentioned fields that DO have 10-12 hour work days as the norm, they're not only decently paying, BUT folks get to pick their days, and likely don't have to work 5-7 days back-to-back. AND many have unions/oversight/whistle blower outlets to back them up.

Endless crunch and overtime should not be the norm for non-critical jobs. And job security (or hopes of attaining it) shouldn't be what drives it.

All the stories I've read about working in game dev and from a few discussions I've had with friends in and around this field of work, I don't think, even if I had the talent, that there would be enough money in the world to get me to join a studio. At least not one that produces the big, 'blockbuster' games.

@SalvorHardin If that comment is supposed to evoke some kind of empathy then I am afraid you've fallen a long way down some very creepy internet rabbit hole.

@DTFaux
I've worked on my current job once a solid month 12 hours a day 7 days a week. Jobs are hard to come by so even of management is being unreasonable (most of the time because of their own stupidity that things should run like it does in the land of make believe in paper and not irl)most of us suck it up and just do it so we are not unemployed. While that was an exception I do love my job but management can go suck an egg, afterall to be a member of management you have to forget common sense.

@DTFaux

I don't feel like I'm payed enough, I don't pick my free days (some maybe if you have something urgent) so I don't know where you saw that, and back to back working is very common. 5 -7 or 14 or 20 days...

@GameOtaku I completely understand your work ethic and willingness to suck it up for the job security.

But you doing so for the sake of keeping your job (rather than it being more of your own volition), and in spite of poor management, kinda makes my point; Things could always be a little less terrible.

That said, I do get that changing workplace culture or making management more efficient is no simple task. Especially when employees have so much to lose.

@Tiefseemiez More prejudice is the fact that if you're not in their line of thinking, you're wrong and you're evil. Instead of being highly inclusive, they're extremely exclusive.

@raven89 I mean, I did say some of those fields in regards to the particular benefits. Though in hindsight, I should've said "and/or", as just using "and" painted a wide brush.

The healthcare field is one of those areas I would put under "Critical", in where the hard working days make a lot more sense than the video game industry. And I'd be surprised if you were getting paid as little as $11-$12/hour (allegedly what these contractors were being paid in this article).

Still, all that doesnt mean whatever issues you face in your field arent worth addressing if you consider them problematic.

@DTFaux

I'll just tell you for the sake of it. My pay is 6,5 eur per hour without taxation so in the end I get a little over around 4,40 eur per hour. My pay is about 11.600 eur per year with paid taxes. It's a different system but still... you get the point.

@raven89 Oh wow, that's lower than I expected. Admittedly, I was thinking in the frame of the US economy and system, so my bad for assuming you also fell under than umbrella.

I dont have as much knowledge of the workplace culture on over there, but I do hope things can get better over there.

Funny thing, it's mostly ok. It could be better and we are slowly getting there. Surely not by the hands of journalists.

Why I commented on all this is that yes these are gaming sites but I still find it annoying they report these things as much and sooo dramatically like being a game developer is the hardest job on this planet... It pisses me off and resetera pisses me off. Bunch a crying nerds all over the internet.