Published right alongside the new gameplay overview trailer and release date announcement for LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, Polygon has a report with both current and former employees saying that TT Games has suffered years of extensive crunch, ever since the start of the popular franchise in 2005. Change has come in recent years, but has been slow and not addressed some of the fundamental issues with long working hours at the studio.
The issue stems from the original workplace culture under co-founder Jon Burton who would reportedly “yell at staff to return to their desks if they tried to leave work on time, and that he regularly expected employees to put in extra hours.” Those expectations continued after he was replaced in the day-to-day by studio manager David Dootson (2013-18) and Paul Flanagan (2018-20), both “maintaining an atmosphere where overtime was expected.”
The LEGO series from TT Games has leant heavily on overtime and ‘crunch’, say former and current employees.
While overtime was presented as being voluntary, employees were split into overtime and flexitime. While the former could exchange for extra pay or time off, flexitime could only be exchanged for late starts or holidays, and came with a 40-hour cap that meant those who were led to working more time were not rewarded for their efforts.
When low morale was a concern in late 2017, and following meetings in which staff could air their complaints freely, new contracts were offered to give more holiday time and larger bonuses. Sadly, both current and former employees say that little else complained.
Some sources highlight that TT Games has been a hostile workplace for women, who would endure bullying, derogatory comments and lacked opportunities for promotions. In a 2020 report on gender pay gap, women have only 2.4% of the highest-paid employee pay quarter and 8.7% in upper-middle pay quarter.
Former managing director Tom Stone organised the staff feedback meetings, but asserts that he never heard complaints of bullying or harassment.
Management changes came in 2020, when former Sony Worldwide Studios VP Michael Denny came in as studio head. Opinions on his leadership are split, with some sources saying he is addressing issues regarding excessive crunch and lack of diversity, while others point to his hiring of former Sony colleagues Eric Matthews and Mark Green to senior roles as cronyism. Their positions as director of game development and head of game were not widely advertised internally.
In general, The Skywalker Saga has suffered from choices made by upper management. This includes choosing to go with the internally developed and incomplete NTT game engine instead of switching to Unreal Engine – this led to instability for development tools, unfamiliarity for new hires and a lot of lost time as work had to be restarted – and feature creep as management coined the phrase “strive for 85” to try and get a metacritic rating of 85 for the first time. This has actively fed into the gameplay overhaul for The Skywalker Saga, hoping to address common complaints from reviews regarding the camera, online co-op and platforming. “Let’s add a God of War-style combat tree! 5-year-olds will love it,” one former developer said. You can hear their eyes rolling. There was also the baffling decision in early 2020 to move staff from this game to another project, leaving Skywalker Saga seriously short of staff and potentially exacerbating delays.
Skywalker Saga looks very pretty, but the new NTT engine has led to tricky development for TT Games.
A spokesperson for TT Games provided Polygon with the following statement about its current work culture: “TT Games is committed to creating a respectful, fair and inclusive workplace for every employee. There have been many efforts in recent years, with new studio leadership and the support of Warner Bros. Games, to nurture a collaborative culture and work-life balance our employees can be proud of. Our legacy of delighting fans with the games we have created over the years is very important to us. We recognize our continued and future success relies on sustaining the momentum of the positive changes we have made to date, ensuring every employee feels supported, appreciated and experiences a true sense of belonging.”
Thankfully it does sound as though some things will improve following the release of The Skywalker Saga. Sources say that TT Games will no longer use NTT on future games and will switch to Unreal Engine, and the company has started to be more aware of and limit the amount of overtime that staff can work.
Source: Polygon