Microsoft and their 18-6 rule. Devs are usually not full time hires, they’re contracted for 18 months and then have to wait for 6 months before they can accept another contract.
So what this means for devs on the project is that they have to learn the engine, all the tricks etc in a very short period of time- and at the end of their contracts if they want to continue on with the project, have 6 months of forced unemployment.
You can kinda see might cause issues. It basically mandates that instead of the devs and artists don’t stick around to see the project through, and instead of the studio as a whole having 6yrs development time into the game, what they really have is 18 months development, four times.
Corporate stupidity at its finest. The devs lose, the players lose, and Turn10/ Microsoft lose in the end due to development taking much longer (due to new people having to relearn things etc) and and having almost no one on staff at the end who actually did any development work on the game to fix issues.
This is most excellent and it really does help understand why this game is the way it is.
Getting rid of the knowledge and experience of devs on a rotating cycle like that, especially people who grew up playing forza. Its the opposite of what this game needs
The thread about ashamed developers is off base
It’s the executives who should be ashamed, not these devs.
It’s an insightful video, but it’s also comes from one particular perspective, and not one that should be criticized.
As I noted to a commenter on that video who pushed back on the idea that Esaki and Greenawalt should be gone, someone signed off on CarPG. Someone signed off on the Career mode. Someone signed off on every questionable and idiotic decision made to form the fatally-flawed foundation that this game rides on. This guy, however high up he made it to before he left, didn’t make the call to have the same inaccurate track models and details - one of the directors did. That whole crew of directors and managers all need to be gone, across the board.
I agree. For the “big ticket stupidity” the directors need to be gone, but it does explain why the game, given its lengthy development schedule, came out as bad as it did. By the end of development, they had turned most of the staff over at least twice (if there was anyone who could do the forced 6 months with no employment thing) so the number of people with working knowledge of the “hows and why’s” on staff was ALWAYS low, and by the time they got it figured out, “sorry bud, your contract is up”.
It would seem that the only people who are actually on the turn10/ microsoft payroll are upper management (aka- the people who have no clue how things actually happen or how their product works).
To put it another way, If you were to order a meal at a restaurant and they turned over their entire staff four times during the preparation of that meal. how do you think it’s going to taste? Firing the waiter ain’t gonna fix it at this point- Microsoft would likely just replace him with some other corporate “yes man” and the franchise will just continue sliding faster down the drain.
I’ve suspected this practice since launch because Halo Infinite fell victim to this with 343. So, I suspect this process is being pushed from higher up than the studio heads.
This system has been in place for a while now, the problem is that games are taking longer to make than they used to so this form of employment is obviously having a detrimental effect on the products. It also likely leads to delays which extends development time as well as more bugs which in turn are then worked on by people who likely weren’t around when certain assets were made, which leads to even more time being spent on fixing them.
Unfortunately i don’t see these practices changing and only expect things to get worse in the future. Its kind of stupid if you think about it though because the margin for success is so small that i don’t know how they think its worth doing it this way.
Yeah, Microsoft’s insistence on contractors for big games like Halo Infinite or FM 2023 really hurts them in the long run. Besides taking a while to learn the tools and everything, I doubt people that are working somewhere temporarily will care about the end product as much either.
There’s obviously been mistakes made from the higher ups with the direction of the game, but I don’t think they can be blamed for all the technical issues either.
This practice created the lions share of the problem. No wonder the game is riddled with bugs, questionable design choices and optimization issues. Its the fast food model of game development. Order a product from the lowest paid and most uncommitted work force, and then wonder why its continuously getting lambasted by darn near everyone.
Basically the source of Microsoft’s quality issue, across the entire company.
This is what happens when people with no actual experience with the end product are installed into positions which are supposed to facilitate the production of said product.
They have no passion for the product, no idea of the complexity involved, and real knowledge of the end users, beyond spreadsheets. They begin to see themselves and their continued employment as the most important thing at the company- not the products that made the company successful to begin with. They view their positions as the only truly important ones, because “anyone can (insert valuable skilled position here)”.
So they begin to cut corners on the skilled production labor, believing that their “processes” can eliminate the problems caused by their decisions- and it never works.
Quality goes down, projects take longer, and costs go up- how do they fix that? By doubling down on their previous stupidity and trying to go even cheaper on the skill positions to “cut costs”… and the spiral continues until the business fails.
Anyone who has ever worked as a skilled laborer in a production shop has dealt with this, or will eventually. Sales, marketing, management, and engineering all begin to lose sight of both what is being made, and how that happens. The larger the company, the more disconnected the “leadership” is- and the dumber the decisions get.
This is why smaller studios tend to make much better products. No middle management class whose only function seems to be the perpetuation of their own employment at all costs.
Well if you watch the video he said he did the best job he could because he thought he could secure a full time position when in reality it was never going to happen. Im sure this deceptive practice is used with every new employee.
While this is only one persons experience, im sure most can assume this was prevalent throughout the development of this game. New people come in, full time position dangled in front of them if they do a good job, dont receive proper training as the trainer leaves, person does the best they can hoping theyll get health care, trains a bunch of new people, crunch to finish for release, get an email saying thanks for the help leave your id card with security and see yourself out.
I know business is business but you cant expect a successful release with this kind of structure. Like i said in the past when sequels were made every 2 years this wasnt as much of an issue, as there was probably more overlap from one game to the next. But to “build from the ground up”, where new tools and assets need to be created and used a year and a half is not enough.
I think with this release its obvious the blame for what happened starts from the top down. Unfortunately the people out of a job had little to do with it. I just really cant believe they gave turn 10 studios an award for this game.
Sounds just like the reports about Halo Infinite. Horrible policy by MS. I hope the realize that they are destroying their brands and all the loyalty of Xbox fans.
Its kind of an everyone policy not just in gaming. But it is quite telling that 2 of their 1st party studios, both attempting a reimaging of sorts, both with around 6ish years of development end up having extremely similiar results. Its funny they spent 69 billion on activision but can’t afford to hire full time employees with benefits for a few of their own studios.
They can afford it, but the metrics they probably care most about have nothing to do with treating workers well or delivering quality to customers.
Yes, it’s a widespread/systemic issue: decision-makers who make bad decisions that set endeavors up to fail are usually insulated/protected from the bad consequences of their bad decisions (and rewarded more), while the workers who do what the decision-makers tell them to do get worse pay, worse working conditions, & worse job security while having to hear garbage like “nObOdY wAnTs To WoRk.”
“Bureaucracy is designed to maximize the distance between a decision-maker and the risks of the decision.”
- N. N. Taleb
Well kids, let this be a lesson should you ever happen to stumble into a voting booth. Corporate America is the problem, the Billionaire Class are the enemy. That’s it. That’s all you need to know. Everything else is a distraction.
I’m surprised this post stayed up at the rate they delete stuff here. Greedy company has no heart and made a game with no soul, par for the course these days. They are leaving a huge gap in the market and I can’t wait to see what fills the void, Then this greedy company can fade away as people remember fm4 glory days
