Exposing Cyberpunk 2077 QA: Rotten Side of Gaming | A͏s͏mongold Reacts to Upper Echelon Gamers

Asmongold Reacts to Exposing Quantic Lab - A Rotten Side of Gaming, by Upper Echelon Gamers
Original Video by Upper Echelon Gamers: • Exposing Quantic Lab -...
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[@GothPaoki]

Kudos to Upper Echelons, he's been very vocal about companies like that. Deserves more recognition for his work. He even rejected mobile games sponsors cause he considers them unethical.

[@nicktheparanoid6282]

Idk man, he used to get a ton of shit wrong and kinda still does a bit of half assed research posing as video essays.

[@BOSSYC4NDY]

@@nicktheparanoid6282 Want to add some actual context and/or evidence instead of vaguely saying he does a shit job

[@GothPaoki]

@@nicktheparanoid6282 I don't say he does everything right but most importantly he practices what he preached and his videos are devoid of personal biases. Now I'd really like to know what you mean by half assed research because I've seen dozens of his videos and i really can't understand where is this coming from.

[@timothysoh9102]

Companies are paying KZbin to suppress the most vocal like Echelon as a "fuck you for exposing us, you motherf*ckin douchebag.. even if I am the douche.. wutever at least I ain't a Nazi?"

[@duongquan4986]

@@nicktheparanoid6282 Yeah kinda you throwing a half assed comment without any proof/context undermining his works

[@iVETAnsolini]

I’ve been watching upper echelon for awhile now, and seeing him blow up like this…. Nice, dude does good work

[@fpvx3922]

Yeah, love his channel.

[@Alberio1]

Upper Echelon has easily become one of the best games journalists out there by a mile. Watching him grow as a long time fan has been such a ride.

[@danielharbison5831]

3 videos on this today. I think it is fair to say this guy is going all in.

[@danielharbison5831]

I just realized he probably didn't release them all today.

[@shungite8240]

No he’s been releasing them daily

[@avrax3497]

As an outsourced QA Lead I find it very concerning that a company can get away with such practices. Where I work, we take pride in the confidence our clients are showing us and we're helping them the best we can every steps of the way.

[@CyrusRiffs]

As someone who worked 8 years in Publisher and Dev QA, and now works in a more high-level role, I can say I'm shocked these guys were allowed to be so useless. Outsource QA can be great, but it can be bad. It's the job of someone at CD Project Red to know if they're doing a good job or not, and they massively failed here. Good outsource QA gets noticed far more than it doesn't! (It should always be noticed though, the difference of good vs bad is huge)

[@octain]

Unrelated, what study/training is needed to get into QA?

[@HoriTheRed]

I don't really have any current info, since my "career" in QA ended a decade ago. But back then I was QA in Warsaw, Poland (same as CDPR) and we had people moving from CDPR to our OUTSOURCING QA company. From what they told me because QA'ing for them was brutal, devs were supper mean a treated them like shit, salaries were as low as the law allowed (we had like 30% above them), overtime was constant. So they had huge rotation on QA. In my company that was doing outsourcing QA, but not for CDPR (we had a lot of ex red's though). The experience thing was an issue, since if the company had trouble getting enough projects, they often fired a 90%+ of the testers on projects that ended, so 2 years of experience was already an "Ultra Veteran". Also, we didn't have an official quota to find X bugs, but low management had a talk with you if you found less than team's average, so people kinda... You know, mass submitted bullshit to not have to deal with this. Also, the people with the biggest raw numbers of bugs had a chance to stick around after the project ended. So spamming borderline duplicate was beneficial to your career. Obviously people wanted to do a good job, but if you have no idea what you should do you need at least a month training and time of more experienced people to be anything but a resource drain, and nobody planned to stick around, they left as soon as they got accepted anywhere else, since salaries were shit and job safety was non-existent, this was were passion for game went to die. Personally, I stopped playing games for like 2 years after that job.

[@CyrusRiffs]

@@octain None really, just a big interest in games. Publisher QA / OS QA is easier to get your foot in, but it's possible to get into Dev QA with no experience. Experience is key for Dev QA though.

[@asparagus2111]

@@CyrusRiffs i worked at this exact company for a few months. After that I moved to software QA and about 2 years later into backend development. Most people with no experience or IT education start as game testers before moving to software QA.

[@neoengsheng]

I used to work in outsource QA many years ago. Many issues that was mentioned in this video happens world wide. I was given a promotion that gives me more responsibilities but with no increase in pay, my team goes on 24 hours shift to meet deadline only with 1 hour break time for each meal. One of my colleague was having a dispute with a manager that harrassed my colleague due to issues that stem from the manager's poor planning and management, he was fires the next day. Me and my colleague is based at client location, we are not allowed to use the same car park as the company employee, we are told to use a different entrance, we are not allowed to use the same table as the employee in cafeteria, the employees, mostly developers, would not even talk to us and constantly look down on us because we are not developers, we are being paid minimum wage about the same as fast food restaurant worker, our bug report are constantly being ignored by the developers and project manager. My supervisor has his contract terminated due to a dispute with the project manager that try to blame us for a project under him that released with multiple major bug that was already reported by us early in the development.

[@privatefrizz8627]

The irony of it all is that they very VERY much rely on QA people to make sure their projects actually work correctly. My friends that do dev work very much appreciate it when they have good QA. Cuz it’s less idiotic stuff they have to deal with. Even though their higher-ups don’t see it that way.

[@JungleRAT]

This is very true as I am currently in QA. This happens everywhere and no matter where I go. Microsoft Blue badges (FTE) treated Orange badges (vendor) with minimal respect- be it condescending or "don't look my way"/"you're a waste of my time" kind of attitudes. Can't go to the same events, can't eat where they eat, don't have the same lingo, or don't want to associate with "dirty Oranges." All the works. I'm a sociable guy who enjoys making connections because that's how you move up in the world. Always be kind and treat everyone with the same respect. It's about who you know, not what you know. But, FTEs would glance at me to check my badge then associate somewhere else/close off the conversation than give insight when asked. That's why I always kept my badge in my wallet/pocket. This is how I noticed behaviors were different between FTE FTE vs. FTE Vendor.

[@plank3947]

The “get it out, make it cheap, get me money, don’t care if it works” mindset in gaming is just so frustrating

[@BillyLemonZest]

Had a similar story with a previous company in my youth. It was a famous game company. I had been working there for 5 months. Showed up one morning and the overhead lights were turned on to max. All of the computers were gone. An HR lady said "If you showed up today, you are fired. Form a line for exit interviews." Honestly one of the better companies I've worked for.

[@dallashill23]

Holy shit, sounds dystopian

[@behemoth9543]

American labour protection is beyond fucked. You need unions and more restrictive laws, badly. Get over the idea that unions are communist and realise that the only way to make sure your employees are treated properly is by combining their power over the profits of the company to use as leverage against the management and by having the laws of the country prevent anti-union measures by the company.

[@greenergrassgames]

exit interview? bitch i'm going home if i'm fired

[@ML-yn9yu]

You know you can say the company. You don't work there anymore, lol I never get it when people try to be vague about their former employers but still try to keep how "big or important" the standing of said company is. Boggles my mind.

[@PsychKingler]

@@ML-yn9yubecause it never happened.

[@xyz_xyz575]

As a romanian, this 100% sounds like the classic "skillful" type of a$$hole boss. And oh, the exploitation of young staff is definitely cheff's kiss 😘 in the romanian douchebag boss starter pack. If all those things are true, o hope they go under, as fast and deep and possible. But imagine having another quantum tv situation, having upper echelon being punished for exposing this behavior.

[@shaquiberaihan6212]

Nah, this is a white company, Quantum was a black guy which is why he won despite all the evidence against him. In America they're going through a psychosis right now where even if a black guy kills someone and yells 'I'm being oppressed' it's the murdered victim who gets shitted on.

[@chrissears5482]

Well quantic (the company) isnt a black youtuber so they might not be as protected

[@kirilmitrev8391]

@@chrissears5482 na! they don't need to hope for protection they will just buy it from some corrupt employ or if that not work they will just buy a politic and made the low to be protected by technicality

[@PinkMarshmallows]

What happened with this quantum tv person? What did he do?

[@chrissears5482]

@@PinkMarshmallows nothing as far as i know. He broke every single rule on the KZbin guidelines including fake copywrite striking every video that even mentioned his name, wishing that all gay people got shot in the Pulse shootings plus a metric more fuckton of just super hateful things, ripping people off for money, he called another KZbinrs mother after doxxing her info and threatened her because her son made a video about him, he has been banned on other accounts before so is ban evading and still has his channel monetized.. Should i keep going? Theres literally a list of like 50 things and instead of KZbin removing him, they started removing people that were bringing all the stuff he has done wrong up

[@mrkennady]

Jesus wept. This is what I’ve been preaching to people for years now. These executives at the top of these corporations they just jump around to different corporations. They show up, gut the company, give themselves and other board members big bonuses and then leave after the eventual social media meltdown after they produce a terrible product. Then they’re off to the next company to repeat the cycle.

[@ereoleon]

This is why Final fantasy 7 remake restarted production at Square enix, the company hired a third party developer and they had a horrible trailer to show( go back to the first time the game was announced and you'll see the quality compared to the release product)

[@VoidEternal]

I'm glad they switched to 100% in-house development. Not only because the quality of the game clearly increased by miles, but also they get to (hopefully) retain all the experience that went into it's creation to have their devs and testers move on to projects and be able to work more efficiently, and produce better games with less bugs. I don't understand how so many businesses end up getting run by people who don't understand the simple concept of "You get what you pay for."

[@seanbailey8545]

It used to be all large companies and even indie companies did all QA in house just to make sure everything was spot on. But I guess they just found cost cutting better for profit margins.

[@kgjung2310]

As stated elsewhere, none of this absolves CDPR from releasing a game that clearly wasn't ready and they paid and are still paying the price. Any further games from them will be met with crap ton more skepticism and probably a lot less preorders. Even if 3rd party QA were lying frauds, anyone playing the game can see the problems. They oversaw everything and decided to let the game out anyway. They prevented reviewers from using their own gameplay footage and only allowed the PC version to be initially reviewed. What's even more ridiculous was how CDPR was grandstanding about how they were better than other developers in keeping things like monetization down, making better games, and putting players first. We also conveniently looked the other way when it came to CDPR's own employment practices that had their devs under constant crunch which led to high turnover. When they are all swimming in a toilet bowl of crap, they don't get to point to the other one and claim they are all dirty and smelly.

[@Kooaid-9]

2 years later, I think they have redeemed themselves at least a little bit the game is insanely better than it was on initial release

[@StarlightSoda]

Outsourcing already outsourced work is common in a lot of different fields, and ultimately it leads to lots of issues and cut corners, however it's very hard to really say or do anything about it, because it could get you, or your company blacklisted. It really does suck, but I'm glad there's still journalists that expose these sort of things. Hopefully the video goes viral and causes the Romanian government to step in and investigate.

[@greenbean4422]

Once there's an NDA involved you're not allowed to outsource your work anymore - thats the entire point of an NDA CD Project Red can 1000% litigate their QA company for every instance that their NDA was broken by the company. Sure, the work being done under the NDA was criminal and in a way that voids the NDA, but there's 2 different NDAs here. One from CD Project Red that says "don't share our work about our game" and one from the QA company that says "don't talk about the work you do here at all" I guarantee you that the QA company has contracts or signed an NDA with CD Project Red that makes them hush about specifics before a game is released.

[@greenbean4422]

@@Taktical I don't think it matters what is legal in Romania and what isn't because I think international law could be applied here. Youre talking about the value of the cyberpunk IP and how that was diminished by the work of one of their contractors, intellectual property being protected by international courts. It could stand to reason that divulging information that is damaging to a company's IP could warrant litigation in an international court

[@cboyslim5490]

that story about his dad's company is crazy. i work at a johnson & johnson plant and they brought in armed cops in street clothes to stand among the crowd when they announced the plant being shut down lol

[@Scottx125Productions]

QA is actually complicated. in most cases you have to write test cases and unit tests for code. QA isn't just playing a game and noting bugs. It's literally testing sections of code and resolving bugs in code bases.

[@anastasyavie6236]

Yeah, also test for negative and all the cases that is identified and possibility. QA is always gonna be responsible for any launch but we also have to point out the original pitch and how the test cases is accepted. Before something launch, there is definitely discussion about how many active problems are still exist and how they gonna solve it.

[@robertdarie4192]

QA is not that complicated man, i've been doint it for 8 years. The problem here is the greed of companies where they a worker less than it should by doing the job of 3-4 QA. Also, unit tests are not performed by the qa generally, especially in the gaming area.

[@matthewbickley4289]

That man is a true muk raker in every sense of the term. He does his research.

[@tessa8484]

For me I feel like the "bugs" were used as a convenient shield by CDPR to deflect blame from everything else that was wrong. Bugs didn't keep it from being literally unplayable on last gen systems even though they charged full price, bugs didn't keep most of the game that was promised from actually existing.

[@Numb_]

Fixing bugs is the same as optimization. So I'm not really sure what you're going on about

[@woaddragon]

I dont think so. In this very video, like 2:20, UEG say that CPDR refuted this claims, and in other place state that Quatum labs had "litfle impact" But as Upper Echelon Gamer also say... Make rhem.look real stupid.

[@exysa2798]

Cyberpunk was made by inexperienced amateurs and scammers

[@seanbailey8545]

Our products was garbage.....let's blame the poor Outsource guys to take the heat off us.

[@johnsnow9899]

That last sentence sums up Romania (and the politicians).

[@skycatlive1576]

This thing you said about Scarcity, rather than greed? Man, it's one of the more deeper statements I've ever heard. I'll never forget it, thank you.

[@Marassandar]

if it was just about scarcity, you wouldn't have billionaires. It's about greed. Scarcity is about need, when you need things you don't really need (billions of dollars, just because) it's then greed. That greed will create scarcity for those in need tho.

[@DecadeMinato]

If you think being a outsource QA worker in Romania a western European country is bad, think how worse it will be for a SEA QC worker. Emphasis on the "worker". That is our actual job not fancy word like "Quality Assurance Engineer"

[@Martin-jm8wi]

Romania is more like Eastern Europe. Which in general is less developed. Not hating on them or anything, they're great people, but due to historical reasons there a gap between western and eastern Europe

[@danipatac7210]

@@Martin-jm8wi As a Romanian bro ... Fuck Romania! And heck, we could be at the top of the tech industry if our country wasn't so shit....

[@datemasamune2904]

"Exposing Quan-" For a moment, I thought it was gonna be about a certain KZbinr.

[@anarky1989]

in Romanian Labor Law you can get paid from 25% up to 200% - 200% usually means Sundays or Holidays but each company has separate %

[@Tawn_Duek]

This guy will be okay if they sue him. Just hire Camille.

[@misterbeach8826]

I own a game studio that has the biggest game company as an investor. But I have also experience in other industries. Now, what I can tell is that this case is very, very common in not only gaming but all industries. For instance, GM, Ford and Coca-Cola, rely heavily on external team members. Not only testers but coders, designers. So, how do they do that, since they are bigger? They "rent" hundreds of people in bulks from so-called "services and consulting companies" (of which some have > 300k employees). As you can imagine, those service and consulting companies are so international that they try to get the cheapest workers in lower-income countries. Which is a good idea because universities exist in other countries too. But the issue is that those workers then are called "senior", "lead" and whatnot, while in reality, they are either at university, ex-students, or merely some juniors. The typical professional to this issue is to be either in direct contact with these workers, to avoid fake workers and to check their CV, or to get lists of team members with their CVs and weekly calls. But, yes, it is a nasty business and ... all because of outsourcing, price dumping.

[@SlashRfnR]

As a Romanian gamer dude, this breaks my heart. I did work for a firm that works in outsourcing different services, and when they were asked by the client if they could manage a different language for the same project, they stated that "they are ready for anything" but actually they had no staff that spoke that specific required language..... Oh and BTW, the law at 17:37 is indeed correct 100%. Just because we're in the (almost) eastern block, that doesn't mean our laws are that bad. This ain't the 3rd world.

[@alexderek5233]

If they “make” you resign dont. Do not voluntarily resign if you do not want to.

[@VeteranLekgolo]

We even have a term "post scarcity" for a society with enough technology and physical reach to make scarcity disappear. Usually requires things like nanotechnology and crazy advanced 3d printers and stuff

[@Th3DadGam3r]

i’m a software developer and everywhere i work has in house qa. they are invaluable and always spot things we break.

[@robertdarie4192]

As a Romanian QA, working for several companies that offer QA services, it's the same bullshit that happens everywhere. Management treats QA as shit, even if they don't show it, that's what they think, because technically QA is the lowest position in a development project. You can be easily replaced, if you don't agree with something, tough luck, and so on. The only fact that i'm quite distressed about is that Romanians are one of the best QA's in the world, in my experience in 8 years working in multicultural environments, there are so many fcking stupid QA's out there, but the Romanian QA's don't have high salaries, so there you go. That's why every other company that hire Romanian QA services purpose is, quality QA and low cost.

[@danipatac7210]

Romania în general nu are salarii mari, dasta toți plecăm bro🤣🤣

[@incognitotamizhan9679]

What to do you mean romanians being the best qa? Thats a load of bull if ever heard one. It has nothing to do with race, if you met stupid QAs throughout 8 years of service then maybe you are shit as well and working in companies which would hire shit QAs

[@koi3889]

Oare ai putea sa imi spui de care firme sa ma feresc si dupa care sa ma uit? Chiar vreau sa fac QA si eram aproape sa ma angajez aici acum cateva zile (thank god I didn't).

[@robertdarie4192]

@@koi3889 Fereste-te de orice a QA in domeniul de gaming. Prost platit, multa munca degeaba dar pe de alta parte, sunt rampe de plecare in domeniul de qa.

[@koi3889]

@@robertdarie4192 Multumesc!!

[@woodys1670]

I have worked in outsourced FQA for games from Square, bethesda or paradox and I agree with most of the things that were said. Outsourced FQA is a disaster of a workspace, they treat you like dogshit, expect high results with no training amd if the results are not there you are just disposed of. It comes to a moment where you start creating all sorts of trash bug reports just to get something out so you get your daily bug amount. I'm happy that I moved to the Player Support field out of that shit.

[@shaneomax2296]

This is a big issue in almost all tech industries right now. All big companies are looking to outsource in order to have less liabilities but also not have to pay incentives etc. It's a huge problem of the new 'CEO model' as I call it.

[@stevenalvarez2924]

It's not limited to video games, this criteria. A lot of grocery chains do this too with how much product needs to be out on the sales floor. It's never about making money but truly about ego. Someone on top creates the system and wants to prove the store improves because of the system. If something goes wrong it isn't the systems fault but the people not following the system to a "T". Never mind a person on the actual floor who has to put the stuff out that needs to be sold can point out multiple flaws to the system. The assumption is that the people on the bottom, the workers, are too stupid or uneducated to know what they are talking about when it comes to productivity. All this has nothing to do with making money but has everything to do with the creator or enforcer of the system. Those people love their ego to be stroked over anything else.

[@Gumbatron01]

Interesting. I use RocketChat at work, but the culture of my workplace is dramatically different by the sounds of it. Where I work, there are no issues relating to what you can talk about, it is a very small company that has a very shallow management structure and very open communication. If you're worried about your employer spying on your messages at work, there are much deeper issues at play than the specific communications platform. The company does not trust their employees, and the employees don't trust their company.

[@nukedispenser349]

Nah, your situation is just different and you have no idea what you are talking about.

[@samanthaquinn3003]

I worked in QA for a couple of the major publishers in CA and it was exactly the opposite. If you found a game breaking bug you would often have developers come down to talk to you about what you found. I remember showing off one where cars were driving under a bridge after doing something fairly simple and the guy was really upset but thankful for us finding it.

[@Arrowed_Sparrow]

I worked at Verizon for about 2 months and part of that job is to cold call local customers and try to get them to upgrade. If we called someone and they were still in their 2 year contract and kind of on the fence for an upgrade. We were taught to call our customer care number, tell them that the person has passed away, which didn't require proof. Then, with their phone no longer working, they would come into the store and we would sell them on the new device payment plan. I did it once and after being pressured to keep doing it, I just walked out.

[@tamix9]

Bettering a QA testing company isn't as simple as "hiring and keeping more experienced people". I've worked in one of these companies and I'm very skilled at what most would consider good QA testing, but from everything I've seen, testers who work years at the job only get better at quickly finding and filling a lot of useless bugs. There's not much you can do to find people skilled at QA; the test they gave me in the hiring process literally had a children's "find the differences in the mirror images" puzzle, and a question about which company made which game. I'm not joking. Not only is there no education available, you undeniably get tons of young people going in thinking they can just get paid to play videogames, so naturally companies tend to take advantage of the situation instead of tackling the complicated issue of finding and promoting people who can improve the game the most (that's another company's game anyway so it doesn't really benefit them). It's not like it can't be done though, I'm sure game companies that care about it have great internal QA teams, but I have little hope that QA testing at large will ever leave the expendable and exploitable job category.

[@wampiroindoril]

I lived in Romania quite some time and I left because almost every company does this! The get people without experience and when they get a couple of years like 3-5 they fire them to get new people so they save money. Quantity is always above quality! Crunching is a constant so they can get money from foreign company because their money and wages are higher compare Romania's. Much-much higher, meaning more money for them, but same minimum wages for the workers.

[@MarcVoiceovers]

Working in Quality now and being a life long gamer... just wanna say thank you to these 2 videos.. m lot of sense..to sum it up...Quality is like going out of your way to the hidden shop to buy the only advertised consumable that can affect the luck stat.End of the day..sucks that might have not needed it..but it sucks way more than needing it in the moment, and not having it.

[@SoulGriever13]

Echelon is slowly evolving into Hunter Thompson.

[@СмертьВорогам-ш2б]

I called CDPR's inevitable downfall when they started pushing the in-game shop for Gwent:Online.

[@RavenHeavenForever]

In my company, QA is not even a standalone job. Business Consultant have to do this as well.

[@aw3s0me12]

In Germany, we have *Worker Rights,* pretty much in all EU countries as well. • Can not be fired today. 1 month delay before taken effect. The more years you work for the same comp, the more months of delay is added one by one. Ofc if one of both sides did cause dmg to the other side you can still be fired or after both side agreeing to it. • 24 normal + 13 puplic holidays *paid, minimum, as right!* You never lose it even switching comps! • 13th month pay, Nov/Dez workers get instead 1, 2x their income. Manatory pay in agreement by industry *once.* • Holiday money, is a bonus payment, to your already 100% payed vacation days, which is 50% of your regular income *once.* • At average, a german worker pays 3% less income tax then the average US worker. A german worker *buys* at average for His HC 100% premium insurance with: 7% His State Insurance with: 12% >> So a german worker buys smt over the path of taxes, what he would buy other wise with less content & higher costs from private comps, from Germany. 7+12= 19%, with this 19% a german worker is present & future 100% secured and has freedom. *But* It says average german tax is 38% ?!! ~> 19% tax + 19% insurances buying = 38% *a 50/50 ratio, fair* • Note, Germanys HC System made 22 Billion Surplus! _pre covid_ If you compare average income US vs Germany, after tax, you can *not compare those numbers!* The US worker did not buy anything yet, the German did buy HC and Retirement security. At average, silver premium, 70% covering, cost a single US worker 510€/month. 7% by 3k income, costs a german: 210€ but has 100% covering. After all, the german worker has at average *390€ to 930€ (if we count in 13th month pay and holiday money, while Christmas bonus money we leave away ;))* more free money per month as a US worker. Has more rights and freedom Earns more money *Cost of living* is 49,77% higher in the US on top, by lower standarts & quality... Its a privelege to be a worker in germany if you look behind the curtains.

[@danipatac7210]

Man you compare Germany (a country that's EDUCATED and with people that actually respect rules) with Romania (my country is literally a whole fucking scheme, full with liers and corruption literally everywhere 🤣)

[@aw3s0me12]

@@danipatac7210 no buddy. I did compare Ger/EU vs US as my 1st sentence says "...we have worker rights, pretty much in *all EU countries* as well. • the *49,77%* higher *costs of living,* can only be true in the US vs Germany ;) EU has average Inflation rate of 7,8% Germamy 7,4% and the US 8,6% *Asmondgold*was visual shocked, bc of lack of understanding outside US borders, how some systems are run. Esp. when *heared about the delay of fireing a employee.* You must know, in the US, they do not have holiday as right as we have, nore paid. Nore paid sick days nore can every US worker go to any doctor or hospital in his state, only to a limited amount, listed up by a "privat" hc insurances. Nore nation wide/EU wide as we do. At average, a *minority* of US workers get *after 5 years* 7,8 (8) *puplic* holidays paid,* not as right, no normal holidays paid,.. US comps "give it or not as they want," and still US worker lose it all after getting fired,... also his healtcare insurance do they lose jobless and if they US comp. wants to fire the US worker, they can do it right now, directly without warning to the US worker. They also do not have 100% healthcare covering insurances, only 4 typs which are: bronze (60% cost covering 40% you), silver (70% cost covering 30% you, majority US workers use this), gold (80% covering 20% you), and platium which only very old or/and rich US workers can get (90% cost covering 10% you) premium. Abulance cost a US worker arround 950€, to understand why most US workers are scared to use it and rather drive by car or family/friends pick up... 1 day at average in a US hospital, just using the bed, costs $1.000. In Germany 10€. Etc. etc. etc. Jam (Marmelade), costs at this moment, in the US, a normal one, no expensive one, between 8 to 12$ vs 1,5€ in Germany. Rent is 39% more expensive in the US. Restaurants are 19% more expensive in the US. ... Lowest to expected age from all devoped Countries, in the US *UN reports 3rd world condition of the absolut poor in Virginia.* Los Angels has Tent town just like in Afrika or Brazil... The US has the highest infant death rate of all dev. countries, all. ... *1/3 of GoFundMe, is* just related to *US pop begging for money, for Heathcare bills they can not pay Xxx.xxx$ bill wtf. Texas, same size as Germany, 2,8 times less pop, has almost *double traffic deaths,* while on top, germany has partly no speed limits. The US has per capita, 1/3 less policemen as Germany with 339 Ger vs 239 in the US. While a US policemen needs less then a US Barber (Haircutter) training to be one, doesva german policmen train 3 years, to wear title of a policemen. This is just ment, to allow Asmond or a person knowing him, share this info. Cheers buddy

[@danipatac7210]

@@aw3s0me12 There's a HUGE difference between the Easter European countries and the Western European Countries, I've lived all my life in Romania, we have rules, but the people in power don't respect them, that's why so many people leave...

[@aw3s0me12]

@@danipatac7210 i understand you.

[@danipatac7210]

@@aw3s0me12 i understand, have a great day mate!

[@kaijuultimax9407]

Happened to me when I was just an intern in the industry. Got an internship that was mostly QA, I was put on a team and things were going well until the company merged with a holdings company and new management decided that they wanted to get rid of us. They couldn't though because my internship was through a contract with the college I was attending that the company had to honor. So they kept just the team manager on and fired everyone that they could from the team. The company also revoked all of our credentials when the layoff happened and didn't reinstate them until the last week so for a month of my internship, I was literally sitting around doing absolutely nothing but keeping the company laptop open so the company spyware wouldn't report me as doing no work. There's a reason why a QA studio was the first game development studio to unionize in the U.S., it's because they ALWAYS get shafted by upper management.

[@Martin-jm8wi]

On a positive note: You learned a lot about the business of QA during that internship /s

[@Anonymous-wr8hs]

For everyone watching this, please give Upper Echelon Gaming a subscribe and up vote. The content there is premium and well thought out. It's actual journalism in a world of shills.

[@CadrienEverglade]

You know? I can almost imagine when some one says UEG doesnt know about something, he will go get a masters degree on the subject and come back to report on it.

[@guskinmaypho174]

As someone who wanted to be game tester, I am so happy I choose a different career path...

[@sleepyproduction7166]

I feel like they did that with nurses, got a bunch of people to go to school, and now they don’t get paid shit because there’s people lined up to use their certificate

[@Necozuki_III]

Sounds like Romania alright, I worked in QA at 2 companies here, Gameloft and Revo Solutions which was outsourced by Ubisoft. At Revo, things weren't that bad, at Gameloft tho, i got fired the 1'st day after finishing my training for not finishing my quota, the person who was supposed to be supervising me didn't really care that I was having trouble and that the actual training they gave me was finding and submitting bugs, but they put me to work on benchmarking, with software i didn't use before... yeah, i'm not really surprised in the slightest that CBPNK was QA tested here...

[@Devoidofeyes]

The concept of getting a meal if you are asked to work overtime in the evening or night is a bit foreign in most countries I've been to, mainly in the EU. But promising something and then not delivering is just foul.

[@Sharkcomet]

Chat saying EU country when Romania is one of if not the poorest country in the EU

[@kiragi17]

I was an outsourced QA agent working on a contract for a major telecom's billing department. Eventually my company that was the outsourcer, outsourced me and 2 colleagues to an overseas group to fulfill their QA portion of their contract... funny how the world works.

[@franklinturtleton6525]

It never gets old when Asmon tries to sell the idea that he understands employment.

[@qpadre380]

He’s had normal jobs. His understanding of employment is probably why he became a streamer. Not trying to brown nose but this is the case for most streamers. They know being employed sucks a donkey dick that’s why they start streaming.

[@lafatyfej1]

Illegal and bad workplace treatment? what,that never happens in corporations...

[@trouty7947]

I like how Asmon's "scam" was actually just extreme effeciency lmao

[@jaridhope9224]

This one was relevant to my interests

[@CrimWorld9]

Those Outsourcers were Outsourcing to another team that was Outsourcing the work that was Outsourcing that work. Long Story Short... All work was done by a single person named Wei

[@K-norr]

I just got done watching the other videos you made. I never clicked on a video this fast in my life.

[@wampiroindoril]

No, the grace period is an interwall, it can be around 3 months, and the time depends on the company and their policy.

[@Zzonkers]

Worked for a 3rd party call center that sold DirecTV and team leads what constantly tell you to say WHATEVER you need to to get the sale. Fuckers made me and my team work until 10pm on Christmas too. I noped out a week later.

[@GreatChicken2]

Yes, NDAs of this sort are doomed to fail in court but these are the people who have found its cheaper for them to drag the legal process (at the expense of their workers) than it is to have honest practices.

[@Dchealz]

I don’t know how they could fix this cause bigger companies won’t hire game testers just so they can keep producing there game fast at a lower cost and even if they don’t and use the team they lose productivity and I’m sure blizzard would like to get the next covenant update out over actually testing it .

[@lucylucian2564]

some of the developers came forward and said they knew the game needed like 3 more years of polishing,but the board of directors literally forced them to release the game early,so im not gonna sit here and blame them for something they didnt want released early.

[@yelixir]

It’s amazing that video games come out at all

[@d.s.dathaniel7552]

Lost Ark is like a recipe for disaster honestly, not just the localisation is in terrible condition, it's on top of the incomplete storytelling because the devs think it's wise to cut down the length of the story without making it make any sense after the cut.

[@XperimentorEES]

Reminds me a lot of Sinking City, an open world lovecraft detective game developed by Frogware and published by Nacon (subsidiary of Bigben Interactive), its availability has been yo-yo-ed thanks to a legal dispute going on since 2019. Long story short Frogware claims Nacon stole their work to sell it without splitting the profit as previously agreed, while Nacon claimed Frogware didn't provide complete source-code. SidAlpha did a similar though quick dive into this story last year and a follow up but it's like a halfhour in total. However Nacon has significantly deeper pockets and has been stalling the legal system, yet Valve has been subtly profiting off both versions by repeatedly putting one on sale for a brief time then pulling it from the storefront just as suddenly for artificial disparity under the guise of legal obligation.

[@philipeanthonybattung3860]

So basically a cost plus contract without the client's knowledge.

[@dudemaster7744]

I worked for a similar company as a software dev. Toxic management and atmosphere all around, with a particularly big asshole ceo, announcing his arrival, and leaving of office by revving up his Porsche GT2 RS (with Supreme stickers on it).

[@NinjaGabe11B]

this is literally how businesses operate. My company says I work on a team of people when really it's just me. Pisses me off because I have these dealers emailing me upset thinking there's multiple people working and we're just slow...nope it's just me dealing with thousands of orders by myself

[@dimasfazlur5926]

so basically uncle mccool here is a QA for our boy asmon 🤣

[@victorsenaxD]

Ohh so this is like real journalism looks like

[@ducvipbds]

Unless games starting to cost $180 - $240. Game company will never put quality assurance as their priority.

[@philipenogueira]

Upper Echelon never forgets the giraffe. He leaves it out when the topic is serious. He is VERY good dude to follow on YT. Very based most, if not all, times. And going for bigger challenges!

[@graybushgamer130]

I worked for Blizzard for 3 years, they used to tell us.. "you dont like the environment" there are 1000 ppl who want to work for a video game company. This was in 2010-213, when we brought up that the median wage for our job at that time was around 13 an hour and they were only paying us 9 and then 10 if you made it past 3 months, they told us well yea but you get work for a video game company. I was in the top 10 of over 300 reps for 2 years straight, not only did it take my "manager" a year and a half to notice my performance I ended up getting a total of 27c in raises over 3 years, all the while they are bragging about buying the Pittsburgh Steelers and how they bought a huge jumbo jet that they painted like Starcraft for the corporate ppl. The work environment was absolutely atrocious for the CS department (we had to "hotseat" which means 3 different ppl used the same cubicle on different shifts, imagine coming to work and 2 massive "gamers" had been working before you) all the while showing us these full cafeteria's, state of the art gamerooms and catered lunches everyday if you worked in California. I actually got swine flu from working there being the only one to wipe down the station and they almost fired me because it was within the 3 month probationary period where you were absolutely not allowed to miss any shifts, the only thing that saved me is that I was kicking so much ass my boss rolled me over early. Dont forget that first 6 months of MANDATORY overtime or else you were let go.

[@rexila]

Hold up. Quitting without notice is a thing?? I thought it was world wide to have a grace peariod and notice. Thats crazy man

[@mgn19xx31]

22 minutes in is pretty much how apartheid was modeled. PS: recently discovered asmon through linus tech tips. Love the content sir

[@illuvialpink]

QA work isn't some sort of low level, unqualified labor, hell no, as a former QA and currently a developer i could tell that yes, there are several levels of QA's and its just a fraction of them are like that, we call them clickers, who just manually click stuff and doesn't go into depths to debug it. But there are automation QA's which codes and does UI and integration tests, there are security testers, who goes and does the "ethical hacking" stuff and so on. Its not some sort of braindead job. If you are a technical QA and you know your shit properly, you can earn a lot.

[@ethun6563]

All I gotta say is they better not mess up the Witcher 4

[@Ancientreapers]

Forgot to mention and just want to put it out there I've been subbed to Upper Echelon gaming for a long time now along with Coffeezilla. Who are both really good at what they do.

[@LethalShadow]

The biggest problem in video game QA is very simple: The pay is shit. How can you expect quality when you pay minimum wage or barely more than minimum wage regardless of performance or experience? You get an industry almost entirely filled with people fresh out of high school who are either there temporarily before moving on to a real career, or those who stay because they can't get a better job (which should worry you). Video games make dirty amounts of money, but the QA still gets paid like crap despite having such an important role to play. And this is unlikely to change.

[@songwriterhodge]

The localization branch, which was mentioned a bit, is pretty much the same. Zero passion in the industry. Outsourcing an outsourced project. Me and my friend got sick of this and went freelance and began approaching smaller game companies (or translation companies that understood our vision) and increased our rates by up to 40% which was still charging about 40% less than what localization companies were charging. We then started playing the games for about 10 to 40 hours per project (Sk** and Dun***** were games we played for more than 80 hours before translating them), fully understanding the game before we began the project. This gave us a 0% return rate (Projects are normally returned to translators and editors to fix after they have been applied and QAed, since most translators only see the text with no reference to what game they are translating to begin with.) I really believe that games are a form of art and entertainment, and it's sad that large companies are giving these projects to anybody or company that offers a cheaper rate. Quality comes at a price.

[@privatefrizz8627]

Why am I not surprised? corporate business treats gaming as just a money scheme? Wow. Much astonished.

[@AlleonoriCat]

20:02 fucking Wreckfwest was indeed, a wreckfest for devs, who, apparently, did nothing by themselves, as I was a part of an outsource team of 3D artists in Ukraine who were paid absolutely fucking abysmal. And were not allowed any national holidays as we were "behind the schedule" all the time no matter how much we did. Team consisted of 90% students and like a couple superiors. I am not surprised to hear that outsource is shady as fuck worldwide.

[@kaesi6118]

"scarcity causes greed" right thats why people take way more than they need, or accumulate billions and continue to screw everyone

[@LiesExposedTR]

I am South African and here if you work at a company for 3 months you are considered permanent...

[@Cortanis001]

The sad part is that I said in the comments in the original video that this was all unsurprising because we've seen so much of these kinds of antics in the industry get outed here in about the last 10 years. Wouldn't you know it, Az knew the game being played well before EU even explained it. I'm fairly sure I heard about EA and Activision getting publicly dragged through the mud for similar antics as well.

[@itsmelukario5969]

Yeah I worked in a company like this

[@Hersatz]

8:25 Reminds me of my days in the construction field. Lots of subcontracting for small companies where the main guy takes a cut of the profit yet does nothing because he can't do shit with the job he's been asked to do.

[@garcipat]

Sometimes employees advertise themself with more experience then they actually have to get a higher sallary. So it could be the other way around too.

[@Kastellium]

If it comes from Romania its probably giga sketchy business

[@frozenbinarystudio]

And I thought business enterprise QA took the piss...

[@TheHordeQ]

Scarcity is the root for sure. The issue really is that scarcity has to be artificially increased in order for capitalism to function. Planned obsolescence is a great example of this and has been going on for many years. There's enough food, medicine, technology, housing, and functional careers for every person on the planet that needs or wants it. Power is the root of scarcity still existing.

[@SupremeRTS]

Was literally just finishing the last one

[@ryanr4361]

QA in games only hires their friends, its a super tight knit community and in my experience they spend more time complaining about wage/hours than debugging.

[@mikaeleriksson144]

15:00 clever man :D

[@TheRico725]

"I scammed them a lil bit" Bruh what

[@SoulGriever13]

Also, hey, we found one source of the Dying Light 2 delays.

[@MarianoGianni1]

Not uncommon at all. I've worked in similar conditions where the staff would tell the client that we had 10 senior developers, but we only had 2 seniors and 4 juniors.

[@TheRealRealMClovin]

That this company was doing Witcher 3 too now explains why Witcher 3 was very glitched at launch. Nowhere near as Cyberpunk ofcourse, that is like one of the biggest failed launch ever. But I remember when witcher 3 got out, many people and review sites gave witcher 3 like 9 or 8/10 because of the the amount of glitches the game had.

[@mekilla1788]

Federal labor laws are similar here. We can terminate people without cause within first 90 days in the US

[@thesquirrel6141]

Gotta disagree with the greed thing. I know people who horde shit that's free. Greed is self perpetuating.