Call of Duty Kills Game Dev Work/Life Balance | Games ReCAP Episode 011

Oh everybody welcome to another episode of games recap morning how's everybody doing thanks for joining us thanks for taking time out of your day to hear what's been going on in the game industry coming by way of myself Larry Charles and Brenna Pham yes before we get started again thankful for anyone that is joining us live on Twitch which is our twitch TV four slash loser store champs if you're watching this on youtube and you are watching of course from youtube.com forward slash blue champs and we have been being reached out and recently about how you can support us because they like this format we get into getting a lot of compliments they said well there you go patreon.com for slap blue champs awesome and if you have that free twitch Prime

membership and you don't know who to give it to you could you could help a brother out so to speak yeah Amazon Prime members out there did you not know yeah you get a free $5 to kind of give your Twitter's every month that could be us yeah that can be us that's a that's a $5 footlong man I like that you know that's free lunch one day that free my mouth anyways so that we have a lot of we have two main topics that we want to talk to you guys about and both are somewhat related to Call of Duty okay this would be a good episode a really good episode those who don't know we used to work on Call of Duty yeah we worked on advanced warfare course advanced warfare I worked on World War two oh you did oh I did you left before let me before you went on with your life I was there on the idea phase for world war ii like initial level pitches but yeah i was in a good year on that before I left myself but

let's go ahead and move on to the topics so let me throw up some graphics here all right let me change this title now so this is about the sacrificial lambs working on call of duty modern warfare 4 yeah Call of Duty kills alright oh there we go let's push that Kabam so what are the details here what are we oh okay yeah yeah the human cost of call of duty black ops for before we even go into the details or what this means all right do you did you see this on the front lines while we were working there like did you see the human cost of working on a game like this not to the extent that I it sounds like Treyarch is dealing with between like the QA and developer part because actually QA I

mean was like the next cubicle over yeah and obviously we all knew each other we all went to the same parties or you know I guess we're more or less treated like we were all part of the same company so I'll give sledgehammer 100% credit on that I didn't feel like there was a second-class system sure they work their asses off but like so did the developers at some points and times where Dave's had to really crunch but I definitely know that QA always is like they're your infantry you know ii mean they're the last line of defense and first line of defense at the same time so I always say big shout out to QA yeah I think unfortunately we were at sledgehammer where I at least felt we didn't crunch as much as the other two Studios right so we're talking about Infinity Ward and well of course talking about Treyarch and these ecology D games are very synonymous with crunching in at least a year before release yeah and Treyarch especially because internally at least words in sledgehammer has been that they

I will give them the benefit of saying that they're they're the most experimental out of the three studios they created their own radiant engine but basically improving all the tools and techniques that we hated about that engine yeah they actually were very innovative and and move it forward and they're tools that was the highest favorite internally by extension and I think that that their engine unfortunately got reduced in terms of use by the time I left because there were rumors about kind of making infinity ward's radiant version as like the premiere version overall tools yeah because there were a lot of it I don't know if it's hearsay but at least in in the in studio they were saying that because they [ __ ] around with their engine experiments so much that becomes

unstable most of the time but I remember using it when we were helping out with it was a blackout girls three three right when they were making the current-gen us a lot of sledgehammer people that were working on World War two we're still at the beginnings of it and so they actually shipped us over to high Moon Studios to kind of help with the current chin of black ops three okay and got a chance to work on there too so yeah Treyarch tool set and it was great it was actually solved a lot of the problems that I had with our engine at sledgehammer the rate that radiant version because they actually tried to kind of modernize the tool set to what you would be familiar with with Unreal and unity right and so but the thing that always happens at least at sledgehammer and this is where it gets kind of muddled you know were the details is because when I talked to

other departments about their experiences sledgehammer they're like yeah we cringed a lot what you talked about I was like well I didn't crash at all only once in a few often and it felt like it boiled down to personal choice at least a sledgehammer but when you talk about Treyarch that was not it's it's crunch it was like crunch like time I remember when we were at section we had our friend who was like a rig lead over a Treyarch for a long time but went back to kind of help in his free time in his free time but extra contract work basically and they were really talking about a year and a half before release that it's it's crunch time yeah meaning seven days a week at least full working hours and maybe Sunday sometimes like that said miss Farrell yeah and that's the type of things that I would hear throughout the Infinity Ward's kind of the same in the same shoes they've went through a halts for memorial obviously after respawn kind of respawn off to

their new studio and so the leadership was all gone right and a lot of people have to step up and they had to go I'll deliver that call Duty ghosts and they wasn't there like I never soft absorb yeah never soft to kind of alleviate that pressure a lot of never saw leadership came over to help with the game take kind of control of the game and of course ghosts didn't work out and of course they kind of regrouped they hired a bunch of outside help from Naughty Dog and like a lot of good people over there and then infinity infinity warfare and finishing with infinite warfare the commander called this space call duty warfare game didn't do well and so they have a lot to prove after two failures basically and which is what the non and warfare for so those two studios I've always had wealth for two different reasons Treyarch is always about experimenting until it doesn't work and so that would happen in the

last year and a half of progress where they would have to really pep up and finish it the game which is really one of the reasons why black ops for in my opinion and my informed opinion that the last call duty black ops didn't have single-player because they were just they ran out of time completely they miss planned mismanaged and that that moment of brilliance at the end didn't come for the first time for them at the end of the game cycle and they just completely abandoned the first call of duty without a single-player campaign I was always worried about that day to be honest that uh you know from working on Call of Duty being a single-player level designer primarily I've always enjoyed the big blockbuster you're a soldier who goes through this epic campaign to save earth once again from whoever however went and I was always worried that like if ever Activision saw like a profitable Call of Duty that didn't have single-player they're like wow we can save like a hundred ninety two hundred three hundred million dollars by not

developing that half of the game and just doubling down on the multiplayer I was just worried that that precedent set could potentially work out and then they'd be like all whoa fans don't want single-player you know to me I didn't want that to come out out of Activision's camp I always wanted them to have single-player Call of Duty so you know yeah but now they have a test case now they have data to say like Hill well should we continue this practice or not is it worth it Wow it's how many billions did we lose or not you know yeah well I'm gonna read this article at least a highlight I go read it because the viewers need to know yeah and of course this is again Kotaku interview that came out today fresh what we're bumpers who's living off the press who wrote the article it was adjacent super sleuth you see Jason in your studio make sure you know everything's good this dude like he can

dig man he gets that he gets the scoops - yeah so we know this issue internally as developers for a while I think for gamers it's kind of new but it's kind of good to have this kind of exposure because the whole last year and a half has been about exposing these guys all right so most of developers in the first obsessive it or not they're told not to speak on risks of out of fear of getting fired testers have parked their cars in a different parking lot other than employees one less is que tu casa it so that through this downstairs I mean that's kind of I'll say this I've heard other studios as well kind of having that light it's pretty standard yeah hierarchy the yeah the cast system of testers are oh you're a $10 an hour employee and you don't even add to the game like I'm not saying this for me like that attitude that air of superiority there's a couple other big studios as well that I they did have a and you're talking about studios that are three four hundred plus right and

Treyarch is are one of those studios and when they're trying to alleviate too much people in once particular room that's one way to do is like separate departments you know development team and then QA team it's it's not so bad that you know where it's like this is atrocious everyone should eat I mean there should be a rule where like a room is max capacity and that's the way that exactly but you know I mean by a QA hey yeah we're at capacity yeah yeah but randomly in there like oh yeah you're first in line you're in that room to kind of completely say no QA allowed i or it be at least a step removed from that being i'm half half on it and it sucks to even hear me say it because I'm usually the like champion of like for the people always but I understand there are some scenarios that have probably happened often that create these these boundaries but then it's once those

boundaries are created that's when the caste system really starts to take place where you then get looked at a second class yeah as a developer working instituted with a lot of QA depending on the project you're working on or the studio that you work for you might have some superfans you know like your colleagues who they themselves may not ever become game developers but they love and live in brief games enough that they're like excellent at finding bugs playing bugs and enjoying themselves while beating their heads against the same two or three issues for eight hours straight or more there are scenarios where you'll have individuals who like and now go to an extreme here but like that example starts to paint a picture of like there are times where I do know that some people I don't want to say there's like social issues but a lot of some some people out there don't have all of their social cues they haven't had a lot of the you know the understandings of like just hey what's up dude oh cool you're busy alright no problem yeah right like I don't know what it is

where I find it I find sometimes I see it in a but no but it's but I guess what I'm saying it is and this is I'm trying really trying to dance to the point because I know it's one of those things where like I'm gonna get burnt 10 years from low is not a bunch of mouth-breathing yada I've seen plenty of times where you'll have people who are superfan and not so much super employee and so when you have super fandom it creates conflicts you know and there's a lot of developers who don't necessarily want to deal with that who don't want to I guess be subjected to that kind of experience I actually don't mind it I can deal with I don't think I have ever personally experienced the key to a department like I've seen bothering me I've seen it I've seen it yeah and so I think well again this is the Environment Department where's the designer enjoyment and I think most QA would like to be designers yeah and that used to be like a in some place is an actual track for a lot of QA to actually

become designers so it makes sense that they bother you guys more sure and it's also like with what you said then wanting to be designers I think another thing that I've seen a lot is like a lot of QA don't want to be QA and I'm not saying all and I don't actually know the percentage but enough that I can use the word a lot and not feel like I need to know they had the option yeah they're like I'm here I want to step up I want to move out so there's a lot of like I want to prove myself or I want to talk and connect with these people or I want to like really really like brute force my way out of this and into that and that gets a little overbearing you know sometimes and so I understand why they're like look okay guys can you just focus on your job and let them focus on their job I think I understand sometimes why companies will set up those kind of rules but once those boundaries are created that's when it becomes the F out of here your QA you only get 20 minutes to socialize you don't get food until four thousand I hate that no matter who you hire super fans super brute force want to get out

of QA or not yeah they're all people who are help contributing to make your product good yeah everybody needs to be treated the same yes and there's you already pay them differently yes so that's it's a tricky area too because a lot of con QA are contractors you know very temporary yeah and that job is only having a few permanent spots that we keep around for the full cycle of game but for the next game onwards and so I that probably plays a part too into like alright you're only here for five months yeah you keep getting attached to developers or the developers keep getting attached to QA and keep getting their heart broken when oh hey max is gone oh geez it's an issue that we had it with the secretaries at sledgehammer like I mean like it's that place in particular like I had a thing about just hiring temporary Asians secretary yeah the rotation was every six months on the dot and for being the

first person that you see if they were trying to avoid that type of thing yeah that wouldn't be the person you you would be able to you would want to constantly rotate right because what's the point yeah because you you are but that's the first that's the first thing in some cases the only person you interact with there on your work day and you see the new face every six months and you know I think out of 80 for everybody I was most attached to all the the front desk people yeah in that I I don't know why what does it cost that much to pay for the health benefits to keep them around no I mean it was a weird yeah that's it just yeah I didn't I didn't understand that yeah and that's been the only place that actually I've seen that kind of rotation yeah and I can imagine the QA can have that effect if you're a designer and you're constantly getting bugs back and everything it might be kind of weird yeah it's I know that QA is a tough role

for a lot of people I mean it's the amount of work that's expected of you the amount of time that you're expected to put in and the amount of compensation that you normally get plus the fringe benefits that you see other people get right in front of you and you don't I I don't envy anybody I know that it's tough I did my time in QA and I'm glad I'm not there anymore I don't mean that disrespectfully to anybody that's in QA it's it's it's not what I wanted career-wise so I understand that it's like tough a lot of times it's very tough and it is hard work and it takes the right type of person to like really be effective to always be chin up especially when you see like man guys they're only letting us down there minutes after the devs have already eaten and drank everything and we get the scraps right yeah you know how that feels you know to mean god that sucks well no I don't I never been in QA but I can imagine maybe how horrible that yeah I mean part being part of a team is feeling like you were far today and a

lot of the depression or anything associated with that is affected by how you perform at work and if the people at work respects you and that can happen really fast if you're not invited to like the launch party yeah that you spent probably more hours anybody right QA department is easily one of the departments that are underpaid and over crunch so in the game industry by far yeah and no one's speaking up for them they know the product better than anybody you know the product better than anybody but to to go through all that and be be told that you can't even be surprised like in this article be surprised to be even be invited to certain parties hurts dude I mean you can't you can't help but take that personally you can't you can't buy you know an extra fifty pack of hot dogs so the QA can have food too you can't buy and I'm not saying that everyone else could sell the food I'm saying how does a bad example because it sounds like I'm

saying look the meat hotdogs I just mean whatever you're buying you can try of like D to a hundred more sliders you know what I mean like you're doing a taco cookout day like oh sorry QA yes wait till the devs eat we don't have enough taco meat for everyone we knew fully how many people we had employed here yeah at the party especially when we're eating caviar let them have to tackle the next paragraph so that's the QA I'm half an F on that I mean it is happening with all the other Studios it's not a surprise to me is it right or wrong it's half and a half like I can see a 300 plus team and if you're having freaking problems where they're trying to move up in the ladder that does happen the interaction right he times that by 10 the amount of people they actually have in this you know you can get distracting right and that's the problem they're trying to do to avoid so again they're talking about how black ops for me unsub

money yes we know about that we never see any of that and perpetual crunch we talked about that as well with Q I hate being hit the hardest yes yeah facts yeah Glassdoor blaster testimony knows you know $13 an hour for QA that sounds about right well not right as in well is that the minimum wage in California I it's around thirteen thirteen fifty years old yeah it's the minimum wage right so many hours a week yeah I believe that they're always in first and last in every studio I've been at Oh especially the good ones too and then comparing that to the publisher in stock bonuses to the chief financial officer fifteen million they didn't even qualify for a fifteen dollar bonus they're like am I reading that right from here the game qualify for $15

$15 bonus what is that like an overall bonus for me that's like that's like asking one dev if they want to pull a for dinner tonight or not for free they like they don't even get that holy [ __ ] this is where I kind of stand on the fence with media where they comparing the CEO of a company to the lowest wage earners right which is QA like come on like obviously the needs and qualifications for both jobs are completely different yet you can't compare the highest to the lowest like that a lot of people have a problem with that a lot of people have them and if they get them it doesn't need to be political it's like oh there there are work and qualifications in a competitive field no one's stopping that QA guy become a CEO right it's an equal opportunity type of country yeah right competition is fair so free market to say that yeah to say that this cute I

guess stuck at that job while this I gets 15 billion dollars if you have the skills and the networking you can do that yeah so I I never liked the fact that when they point out this let me let me move our faces down a little so keywords I never liked that point that they're trying to make especially this is where I don't think it helps especially when the hot topic now is unionizing game developers and being paid fairly and bonuses in or at least in time right I think this hurts us because it divides people and it divides me because no that's not don't you don't need all that just say people are being crunched and underpaid yeah I've just compared the CEO to kind of make a point and then the connect the comparison is like it's villainizing people who don't necessarily have anything to do with that fight yeah and it's take QA as a whole and say like okay what do we feel like is fair compensation for this job

and what is a fair work environment now okay now let's address if that is or is not the case at a company not to sale this guy makes twenty two million dollars and you only pay QA $15 an hour you know what I mean that's that's not it's not the CEOs position to be like oh let me buy my bonus so that everybody in QA will have a higher whistle right like I've shined the brass show off the star that's awesome that's a great man there's a great move but it's it's it's it's like that whole whenever you're on the internet and you see people like teachers don't even get $35,000 but people in the NBA are complaining that they get twenty three million shut up and play basketball like do you know how many teachers in America there are compared to how many twenty million dollar basketball players and the industry is completely different people tune in the watch basketball they don't watch teacher spas it's exactly like I've always hated those kind of monies because yeah people are vilifying to

people who are unrelated in a way that surely I get it teachers should make more money that's one case yeah that doesn't have anything to do with NBA players are overvalued or being paid way more because like now it's a totally different you're just complaining to complain yes you bet you still watch sports you I know I know now are you still watching sports that's probably type in that comment in your Jersey yeah so uh so Jason we don't agree with you there I know he's just being dramatic so that broke a lot of people said it's Esther we're getting paid these minimal amounts with ridiculous a yes while these people are getting paid absurd amounts money come on now well you know what the same I'll say this though yeah how much does it actually cost you till I give a QA person like a substantial bonus at their level where they've like man that is dope right like I remember my Call of Duty bonus I'm not gonna disclose exact numbers but if a thousand dollars was missing from my bonus I probably would have felt the same like

if I get paid my bonus or if I got paid my bonus - a thousand well we did paid we felt the same issue like we need like they were so secretive about the amount of copy sold like the fact I know the system's brilliant wanna see what developers have to go to that website what does that was an industry that business or no no vgg game charts yeah which was again 20 percent accurate and we know that going in but we wanted some substance of note of a number to kind of be on steam accounts online like sold over 20 million at the very least right sledgehammer and in partnership with a couple they made smaller studios they even delivered the game we know the cut was 10 percent right of the overall earnings because you know headquarters knew that ninety percent to be three quarters for business reasons buying right but even with that 10 percent we look at our bonuses 10 percent like what

the foot shouldn't be a monumental amount so I'm gonna unpack that no I will say this I just meant that like if I had a thousand less dollars in my bonus I probably would have felt the same yeah right cuz it's there's tears right now I my bonus would still been in the same tier which would have garnered the same reaction that it would have yeah now if someone who was making $13 an hour was just like hey you know what we're doing bonuses for you guys this year here's an extra $1,000 just because you know that's a huge gesture yeah exactly it's way different the scale is way different and I imagined Larry Charles in QA who never got any bonuses it'll be nice even though I felt overworked already even though I felt like you know compensation was nowhere near what it should have been yeah to see you like an extra thousand dollars to know Trish it's it's it's a step right like it's it's something so it's it's not very expensive I would say as a business owner to like take care of the small guy because the scale for what it

requires to take care of the small guy is a lot different than what it takes to take care of the CEO or the creative director or the leads or the seniors or the associates it's I mean it all is relative yeah a word of advice for anybody wanting to work in the industry or any industry bonuses should be treated as such just boom addition in addition to exactly the only part of the game that you should worry about is the compensation and that is somewhat in your control at the beginning stage how much you're gonna pay me per hour that's all I care about because all of these studios to try to like court you in and I got that spiel which is illegal now by the way you can't you can't throw bonuses as an incentive anymore right it has to be what is the money amount because I didn't care whatever yeah if it's nice it's nice savings account that you guys put aside that have no controller that I may or may not get it's like I'm not gonna rely on that what are you paying me hourly all right and if we if we as an employee

to me if you decided on that number that's on you right so these QA guys hat I'm half in half because I understand what they're saying where they're working seventy plus hours hopefully they're being paid overtime which contractors most consciousness do sure this time right and under a certain salary cap you still get paid overtime under a certain salary so they should be being paid overtime but that dollar amount per hour is completely on you as a negotiator and you just gotta be bringing that to the next job with more wisdom and be like you know what I know the amount of work it and I am only okay with this amount but at the end of the week well you have to go in like that or else you're gonna be burn out like most QA guys and and you complaining about CEO making more money of you then he was like come on man well there's there's there's the other side

too though that like if you're like let's just say with all due respect the lowest on the totem pole you have the least amount of leverage because you're looked at as bringing the least to the table as far as individual value so like the scale at which you can negotiate is they're expecting to pay thirteen you might get fourteen yeah you know what I mean you might get fourteen fifty but you're not gonna get twenty no because they're like I've got nine hundred QA resumes for people who want to come work out fortnight yeah get the hell out of here like bring in the next thirteen dollar guy he wanted thirteen fifty okay thirteen exam you know what it means is there's a slide demand market you gotta know what you're dealing with yeah and it's always good to kind of put yourself in the employers shoes can they do this without you probably can they do it probably less than you well you know think about your number yeah and you got to be competitive with that and it's just like anybody applying for a job you got to know your worth you can't go in there knowing like this is how much I feel like I should it's like I'm this is how much surveying the industry you

should be paying and I think because of these reasons you probably will pay me further but arguing after the fact is just come on get in line dude I like we need to unionize that's the only way you can set standards to this stuff otherwise you're going to individually complaining after the fact you don't Bobby isn't reading this article and be like you know right these guys have a point you know I can see unionization being a huge benefit especially to the turnover churn there's only one hue a entry level internal developers yeah right so everyone everyone is calling the shots per employer and you know we don't have any control over that they broke a lot of people just reading that sense hurts my heart man of course it's hard work hard work creativity fans are playing today everyone's happy everyone extremely plowed so 2018 two years instead of Ellen and for some bad news is actually pretty

cool so this is what we've heard internally right about the single player being being cut and turning it into more of a multiplayer mechanic well even they're 2 versus 2 multiplayer mechanic that the experiments with was was cut again so this is this is just a really old recycle story with Jerry where they try a lot of things that get cut and then go back to relying on tech from the previous studio in our case sledgehammer was - usually the game before Treyarch delivers and they kind of innovate from that and that's the only thing you could do with a year and a half letting and so for the lot of veterans it felt like history repeating itself of course because black ops through they wanted to open world but then it turned into a more traditional linear campaign led to

a different crunch for a lot of employees yes come on guys how do you not see this coming that I couldn't imagine crunching on something and then like just seeing it just evaporate I would have to be getting paid for sure exactly what I wanted cuz that would be such a blow all I mean like that that's why it designers and veterans the core team being together for repeats is so important that's the only way I've seen this work where they can avoid issues like this because the pride and ego that you have to set aside and the creative differences and being able to constantly innovate and work through those issues if you're constantly doing with the new Avenger team look it's a First Avenger yeah before they assemble they were in fighting you got to deal with that with every game cycle yeah and that's just the reality of it and it's sad because that's fastly disappearing like veterans

are constantly broken apart through personal circumstances or whatever and teams are always forming and there's very rare amount of people like valve like Blizzard like respawn that have been together for 10 plus years and have made games together whose retaining the knowledge you know if everyone's leaving and you think you're excited about wow look at this great portfolio from this young kid they're gonna come in here and do brilliant idiots that perfect there's still a ramp-up period for every new person that you bring on they're still gonna be lessons that they tried-and-true developer from the studio culture or just from working in that engine we'll know to avoid or know just from experience right like hey this is how this type of things should be handled this how I should investigate this type of thing this is likely not going to work in our system yada yada whereas someone without those lessons might be inclined to repeat the same mistakes like oh I wonder if this engine can handle this idea oh no we figured

out that no that's probably not going to work that can be as simple as a conversation between senior to lead level developers who have probably had those conversations previously I'd be like nah man remember this and we did that it didn't work man either tell me how technology has changed enough so that we can do it or we're not going to we're not even gonna waste the time to explore because we I mean for all intents and purposes know that it's just not going to be possible an expert is an expert for a reason they have the most experience both practical and theoretical exactly and that's the culture that's disappearing I think this that culture was the strongest at the ps2 days and in my memory maybe I'm biased ps2 era had like the greatest hits like the it was so many hits that they had to bring it back as the greatest hits at ps2 because there was so many good games that were so solid from beginning to end ps3 days that's you know started to diminish of all the closures of the studios and ps4 days there's only a few

first party exclusives that you can really bring up and rely on and even Xbox as we taught talked about yesterday where the first party exclusives weren't home runs as it used to be right and PlayStation was the only one in the tendon were the only ones that still had the magic in the bottle with their intern team's gonna make it make it work so uh I'm gonna fastly go through this maybe we'll save the topic for tomorrow but there's a lot to unravel here yeah it's I I can kind of do my wizard wand waving thing in one again shout out to queue a shout out to any marginalized are underprivileged or underappreciated I guess developers at any studio not just you know the big studios that we kind of shine spotlights on we as developers ourselves we feel you I personally know the QA struggle don't believe Brandon if he says like all event I see this I just kidding but we honestly we salute you guys we know the

hard work that you put in and we appreciate you being frontline and last line yeah making sure that our products are as best as they possibly can definitely the hardest workouts yeah helping the developers identify the issues that need to be fixed solved and coming up with creative solutions sometimes so yeah yeah so I'm gonna paraphrase this basically 2017 they had their Las Vegas party now I think sledgehammer was the only one that never had like Las Vegas Christmas parties so this is an annual this is the best biggest part in standing Oh happening right now I think the biggest good yeah we were having our like release like celebration party on a hotel rooftop but we were laughing brain and I because we looked up at a bigger skyscraper and we saw a bigger better party party of the night I don't know why that was so funny

the time it was hilarious I think that could've been a bank that could have been you know to mean no it was a light people were dancing we saw silhouettes they were taking it like it could have been a banks like you know I mean like Bank of America's party what he said and what we saw didn't many ways they had a great party at 2017 but saying that you know we worked hard we're gonna pay it off but then I I guess it fastly shifted because it's the year that they had to ship and that's when things got real alright so obviously they were it's starting to have technical turns timing issues and a lot of bad negative feedback from place testers saying they didn't like the new stuff you know its unpolished and so this that they maybe will see the idea was what if we screw it up put more explosions in another

cabinet and grab that Michael Bay yeah start sprinkling it over here over your product so it basically but you have to pivot right that I mean fewer months and they thought how can we do this create an entire new campaign take everything in the mode that was unsuccessful but still be able to tell her story everyone finally realized that that moment of brilliance that they've always looked out with isn't coming all right harsh reality where it is impossible to finish right and then you know this is when we heard where they're going double down multiplier tripling the zombie mode and adding a battle royale system out of the blue which in the end Treyarch the most impressive thing about Treyarch is that they have been the most reliant studio out of the three affinity ward of course went through their their

turmoil where the the leads left and so they had to rebuild and then sledgehammer was consistent I felt like in terms of production schedules and delivery we were the best for sure like my experience not having to crunch as much I know I'm not the only one I still love that story I don't want to expose you actually it's not an exposure story it was just like a there was a moment where you kind of like it all clicked like hey it was like I was doing everything done on time I was getting my work done everything was great I had my one-on-one even told my exec or my producer is like you know Brandon man yeah thank you so much for doing all this hard work so this other artist is behind we're gonna need you to take some of that person's work and you're like this other person is not working as hard and now I'm taking on their work because I worked harder and I playing better yeah that's what I learned that's what he had a chin scratch that's

when I learned crunching and finishing on time isn't worth it that's what you learn this is people having panic attacks burnout disassociation let me switch to that if you like Downers are being violated you lose all passion for what you're doing and forget why you're doing it in the first place it's a nightmare man that is somebody said that about their life experience right and this is a life experience that's gonna repeat for them every day I'm assuming at least five days a week for at least eight hours a day could you imagine yeah even with people being paid overtime double time you know for the months that they sustain through crunch wasn't enough to make up for it right people with sleep in the office it

would people describing about colleagues and the culture is drinking to cope with their crunch for a week straight work I was not taking weekends I mean come home and this is what we're seeing with the big studios they're okay with this parent because and this is the price of always delivering on time no matter what right there's a there's a there's an art to it where every year they have a call to yell and everyone makes fun about how call duty always comes out every year and and they pick on the leader right where they're you're successful at it enough to do so but this is the price underneath it's like you this is what everybody has to do to make sure that hit the three three-year schedule and be innovative anything every game that comes out has to have a competitive edge and that competitive edge means it hasn't been done before and to put a time stamp on that and

saying it hasn't been done before but it has to be done by this by this year or so it's a monumental task because you're relying on experiences from other games to come up with something that never been done before right it's very hard to kind of tackle and be able to kind of at best guesstimate what's a realistic timeline to get everything going right what this may be like a stretch of an example but based on the stuff I'm reading I feel like America is finally getting out I want to say finally America is getting like a taste of like the foxconn articles that we get yeah from China where we have these people talking about man whole groups of these you know manufacturing people laborers are going and jumping off a roof you know sleeping two three people under a desk and just the worst working

conditions I think Amazon actually was starting to get a taste as well with the conditions just being so critically depressing and taxing on everyone who was like making sure that all the packages get sorted and routed and put on trucks and how how shittily their job experiences are but the consumer if you ask them like are you willing to pay more for Amazon Prime or are you willing to pay more for your iPhone are you willing to wait longer for Amazon deliveries the answer is no they know they want their stuff and they they feel bad you know I mean that the workers have to go through what they go through but they still don't want to change their lifestyle they look the other way because they want their iPhone they want their call of duty you know what I mean so I'm very happy to see these types of articles coming out and I hope that you know some changes get made so that people have better quality of life but I also know that Activision knows that people want their call of duty you know people want their iPhone people want their was on prime to day shipping no matter what yes and I don't think I don't think

I don't think it's Activision's fault because Elise I'm like five steps removed from headquarters right when we develop these games they've been pretty cordial like they don't step in until you [ __ ] up so we talked about blizzard and all this stuff like them or not be [ __ ] up I mean the last year and a half has been like a downward spiral in terms of sales and everything the numbers haven't been strong yeah and that's when Activision finally rolled up the sleeves they let us do our [ __ ] to turn this [ __ ] around because we've seen this trend many times before and if Activision headquarters are getting anything they're looking and they're good at stats and be able to do something about it right so that's the cool thing about our division where you're succeeding they leave you alone yeah creative freedom everything they actually push you to be innovative yeah I I agree with that on in case like

Infinity Ward like again modern warfare 4 or call of duty 4 modern warfare or whatever I forget which version of the title 1 over 3 no the new modern warfare oh it's back to modern warfare it's busy is it call duty 4 modern warfare that was the original ones this is called a modern warfare 4 right yeah but they're just calling mono oh okay whatever anyway yeah whatever that is telltale signs of like no no space [ __ ] no ghosts neither one of those words we're not going to do a part two of either one of those games basics yeah Old Yeller simple that is gonna sell yeah we don't you yeah yeah Focker ideas and it didn't work yeah go back take this yeah do modern warfare like what you're good at I I think that that was the right move anyway that was a right I think this is what I'm saying is like yeah I don't I don't roll this up to Activision sir it's fall this is a baby army the

culture they didn't create yeah Treyarch created this culture and this is where I feel when you give too much power to creative especially with me go with like a track full of success like train where you like leave them alone too much this is what happens yeah and this is where I feel having a responsible producer having equal say I have to say I have to say it is the same oh man all the days that I've been podcasting with you yeah what's the date in the team okay I have a constant role of like [ __ ] on producers but they serve a purpose obviously because we are an entertainment business we're not here to create any world even Andy Warhol was a business right we're not here just create art to kind of hang out in our own garage and admire it's for the masses and so there's a certain responsibility to get it out in time we are you know a three year date for a game is very reasonable but it gets

fluffy and [ __ ] up is when the creatives get too creative and they have no idea what they're doing and you roll in the ego stuff we're not taking any advice from their 200 or 300 plus developers seniors right and then they just roll with it and then hope that some brilliance at the end because it's always worked out that way just leaving it to look right so this is to me more of a Treyarch issue you know that's why I kind of I don't like the fact when they always compare the CEO is like silent compared to the Treyarch people right this is all a culture within that studio that is constantly relying on crunch to figure things out instead of just being good developers and test things out and be able to space space the workload so that at a certain date we can [ __ ] around but after that

periods done we got a whittled down to what is working best and not extend that to two plus years and saying like oh [ __ ] this is definitely not working out what can we do let's ax our single-player campaign but the thing was Treyarch is even with this expose and even with the the do trouble they went through with blackouts for they had a success yeah right actually quality we're still a darling company yeah there's still a darling company because they were still able to go through all these troubles and and be able to pump out black ops for it's a critical success people love the battle royale mode and it did really well and Activision again is like well I mean you guys [ __ ] around a lot and you go through you put us through a lot of stress but somehow you always make it out the other end and make us happy so keep doing what you're doing yeah and that's the type of attitude that is happening and now that they're switching back to the 2 year model which is ridiculous and that's where I feel

like the wrong year to switch to the true this is the wrong time because we're talking about two major consoles coming out it's gonna be increasing work and you if you think this is gonna stop crunching hahaha like black ops for crunch is gonna look like babies compared to black ops 5 right crunch 2 years 2 years and people by that time are gonna expect PS 5 quality graphics and explosion and because you know being a launch that's monitoring the reasons why he's gonna be a launch title for those new system Call of Duty because of its prestige you can never be we're gonna figure it out and get better approach title right like I bring up squaresoft yeah when you look at Final Fantasy 7 s graphics compared to what they do on Final Fantasy 8 or Final Fantasy 9 before getting off of that platform yeah right the level of detail that they were willing to use with the characters is like polygon Square man

when they're first on there trying to figure it out and they only give you good graphics in like the FMV yeah so then actually like no we can actually do a little better let's this is our new art style this is our pipeline we've got it figured out we know how to handle you know our draw cows we know how to handle like the memory we know we've got it all call duty has to be like a shining example of this both systems best graphical guys know when you're watching each system no one is ever gonna allow them to get away with just trying to figure it out or like yeah hey you know what we're gonna we're gonna figure out ways to push if they didn't push on the first one for a PS 5 and X next box I'm just gonna call it next box yeah scarlet or whatever ain't gonna be good man yeah so that's you know this the rest of the article is terrible in terms of not not the journalism but in terms of the studio : yes it's terrible it's horrible and b-bar crunching they're gonna be crunching more right that's just a story being a launch title for next year for the new system always 131 right black ops 5 is a launch it's

gonna be a crossbreed it's gonna be for ps4 so they're gonna upgrade the graph is for the PS 5 but the two-year cycle alright you best what a nightmare you best no it's a worser nightmare now for anybody that it's that Treyarch know that and that's the game developers perspective because we know how those three years work do their crunching right now already here's two years and they're doing both SKUs yeah of course Xbox one ps4 and PS 5vs5 is coming out Nick 2020 right that's the Call of Duty launch window and they already made deals with PlayStation Xbox to make sure that they make a presence maybe an exclusive on PS 5 whoever went to them first no way I don't never see college-going exclusive what they've been they've done they timed it's time economy head start yes so the Sony has always it was xbox360 first ps4 lately has been getting a lot of Call of Duty time exclusives I would believe that relationship would extend otherwise other unless Phil Spencer's really

sweeten up the deal over there but I think Sony has more money to waste so I mean that that's pretty much that we didn't even get to our another topic it calls it he kills yeah and it's gonna kill even more and it's impressive that they've been lasting 10 plus years and they will continue to have that dominance I would I want to kind of wrap my I guess my last statement on this is like I loved actually that Ubisoft took a step back with Assassin's Creed and was like you know what we could push out a new one every year we feel like the brand is strong we feel like people like really do enjoy Assassin's Creed we feel like our artists and our developers are quite quality life isn't where it should be quality of product isn't where it should be both of those things can be improved if maybe we just add just a little bit more breath to our development cycle sure it may cost us more money it may cost us more parties more overtimes more

not necessarily more overtime but more of those nights that they were paying for people's foods happen in two years versus one year all those expenses go up but we're gonna make sure that you guys get a huge Assassin's Creed product that can actually just sustain you two years worth of play time before the next one comes out you have much more time to consume the content I would love to see Activision at least take that kind of approach like yeah you might spend some more money Activision yeah but your teams are gonna be intact they're gonna have better quality of life and when Call of Duty isn't the gravy train anymore at some point it will be and these studios need to make new games you know you're not gonna have a bloated studio full of people who now lost the gravy train so what are they gonna drum up immediately to then replace it because that's what's that's your attitude right you're gonna want immediately to replace that however many 20 million copies sold right away like that's gonna be the expectation because it's always been the expectation you know good luck good luck

I said that concludes it for games we can't do and tomorrow I guess we'll time finally talked about Glen Schofield your old boss shout out to Glen yeah we just really vented our call of duty was and a lot of personal wasn't so surprising to us because we've been through it we know how they work I know we know how the engine in gravy chain gets prepped every year and so hopefully that gives you a little insight about what is going on and don't think that it's gone better hey it's got a lot worse to everyone that Troy you know all the developers we really hope things get better for you guys QA included because I consider QA to be part of the development team yeah so yeah good luck everybody good luck everybody and this is games recap if your ending well we took off the camera lens cap to film it now much like the camera when we're done with the show consider yourselves recapped

[Music]