Fallout 76 Investigation Exposes Disastrous Development, Awful Management, & Mistreated Devs

[@YongYea]

16 times the mismanagement. PATREON: www.patreon.com/yongyea TWITTER: twitter.com/yongyea TOP PATRONS [CIPHER] - Joseph Lavoie - Mick [BIG BOSS] - Coopster - Devon B - Jonathan Ball - Sarano [BOSS] - Charlie Galvin - Gerardo Andrade - Michael Redmond - Peter Vrba - Time Dragonlord [LEGENDARY] - BattleBladeWar - D Kurtti - TacoBell Call911 - Theron Webb

[@helixmoss9957]

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[@Laith_Shahin]

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[@doubledeadcat7567]

Nskai

[@Flamester43]

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[@01SuperJared]

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[@JackFoxtrotEDM]

“A game company has been caught with horrible treatment and mismanagement of employees.” The sky is blue.

[@Peachrocks5]

Being caught is the deal here. I think most of us KNOW it happens by now but being caught in the act is something else... then consequences for this act is something else again.

[@Alex-bi9mk]

Blizzard just unionized, people are finally realizing they can change shitty working conditions...hope other companies wake up aswell

[@Droogie128]

This isn't industry specific, either. This is the norm for huge corporations

[@weafy6007]

10 hrs a day ain't shit

[@jcdenton41100]

@@weafy6007 It isn't just about 10 hours a day.

[@300IQPrower]

in 17+ years of playing video games and at least half that directly following the industry, I have never seen a technical disaster that was the actually the fault of the QA department. Every single time I have seen that stuff happen it's been management both overworking and completely ignoring the contributions of the QA team.

[@bottomlefto]

it's always been management when it comes to big companies like this. it just got more noticeable over the recent years, but even back then with vampire the masquerade, arcanum, might and magic, and new vegas. good games with good devs trounced upon by the corporate types. same story with cyberpunk and many other games today.

[@NocnaGlizda]

And today this game on steam has very positive opinions (reviews is wrong word imo)

[@Rokabur]

17+ years? I've been a gamer since 1990 when I got the original NES with Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt combo cart with light gun.

[@pjavilla]

Tech lead checking in, can confirm. Manglement has the final say on which issues should be addressed. That said, I work in corporate software, not entertainment, so they generally listen to us because if customers encounter issues with the product it will result in monetary loss (e.g. penalties for not meeting contract requirements). Videogames though? Yeah they don't give a fuck if customers have problems - they already got your money, you're already dead to them. If you preorder you're the fucking problem. Stop giving them money before they have a product.

[@BlueV205]

@@NocnaGlizda reviews are supposed to be opinions tho.

[@Buckdodgers]

In QA, we are VERY good at finding bugs. The problem is Management saying that major bugs will not be fixed and are "Out of Scope" and the Developers will focus on other aspects the code to get the project out. I've seen that more than once. It makes you want to hate your job.

[@madjoe8622]

I think the problem is more their engine. It seems so rotten that when they fix a bug, they create one or more new bugs.

[@hyperrustynail]

Their reliance on a engine that is almost as old as I am is one of the reasons I don’t have much hope for their newest game.

[@nas1002]

-random guy on the internet

[@cafelatte1124]

@@madjoe8622 They know it sucks but won't make a new engine because it actually takes a lot of time and money. And they will never move to a 3rd party engine like Unreal Engine because having a native engine and letting people have mods in their games is the main selling point. Plus, they also don't want to leak any $$ for royalties.

[@paul.9828]

@@madjoe8622 It's not a Bethesda game unless there is a massive list of bugs on Day 1. It's part of the experience. If you're lucky, it's something entertaining like dragons flying backwards. If you're unlucky, it's a game-stopping bug that corrupts your save file.

[@cactusman8980]

At this point with the stories that come from this, we should stop thinking ",What were the devs thinking of doing?" Instead, we need to think, "What happened to the management?" This is the common occurrence, the management was hell behind the scenes.

[@thomasneal9291]

management is no longer thought to need training, at all. I see it everywhere, in every country. people are promoted to management... and then never given training in what it means to be a manager. they get defensive then, trying to protect their new job, and blame everything but their own lack of training. it's a vicious cycle. being a manager needs not to be treated as if it was just a simple promotion with the reward of more money. it needs to be taken as if you now have an entirely new job, and new responsibilities, with weeks of training provided to understand that new job properly. until that happens, the corporate structure will inevitably be inefficient, and a source of weakness.

[@hoppa_2184]

Hubris. Those are big companies we are talking about. They think they can do no wrong and simply have no idea what they are doing. They assume throwing "bodies" at a problem will solve it, not realizing they actually need a plan first and foremost.

[@TheChibiGingi]

I remember working as a QA Tester for EA. I was on the way home one day and was nearly crushed by a semi that lost control. I swerved out the way and the semi slammed into the guardrail. I remember looking at it and thinking 'damn, if they had killed me I wouldn't have to go in to work tomorrow, or ever again, what a relief that would've been.' So, I can really sympathize with that QA Tester (and recommend therapy because that's immediately what I did after having that moment. No job is worth having those thoughts, man. It ain't right.)

[@crapshot321]

I hope you are in a better place, and a better frame of mind, peace.

[@TheChibiGingi]

@@crapshot321 I am, both in a better place and a better frame of mind now. Thank you.

[@luciebaha9436]

@@TheChibiGingi I think it would be better for you if you work for an independent studio.

[@TheChibiGingi]

@@luciebaha9436 I've left the field altogether, though if I do go back, I'll keep that suggestion in mind.

[@jokeyhokeypokey]

As a fellow tester who has worked with Baton Rogue EA testers that came to AZ for tester jobs, I can empathize. I’ve been told war stories about the mistreatment of QA testers, one of them was how QA would be ALLOWED to eat the left over food/scraps from a launch party after the dev staff got their fill. I haven’t really encountered any issues from my workplace aside from lower pay and insurance that barely covers anything, but that’s an issue with the contractor. It’s pretty inclusive, diverse, and overtime isn’t mandatory for the most part.

[@dillonc7955]

The worst part is that game publishers won't cut their devs some slack despite their game reviews turning worse than sour. There's still braindead consumers who pay money in the shops of these unfinished games, giving Bethe$da and other publishers exactly what they're after: money

[@cafelatte1124]

It's made all the more worse when you actually think about Todd Howard's PR moves in retrospect. He basically made bunch of ridiculous "too good to be true" statements about the game to the public and Devs are even more pressured to dish out something impossible.

[@matthewmccoy7437]

i agree. there are people who, despite the 76 launch being so bad, still bought the higher editions of the game and fallout 1st (or whatever that private server thing was called). i wouldn’t call them brain dead, i would just say they’re such ridiculously big fans of bethesda that it doesn’t matter how shit the product is they’ll still buy it.

[@bjcantrell1990]

@@matthewmccoy7437 so braindead, then.

[@davidempey8980]

i'm more convinced microsoft put itself in a bad and un winnable situation. investing in rotten apples. i'm more convinced the only thing that will keep xbox going is the billions of dollars microsoft has. they can't get there crap together with the series x. maybe they should hand all there devs over to sony and back out of the gaming space.

[@Mr.Grumps565]

Should have looked into the industry you joined into. Lmao its not like these practices are new news.

[@ikikaera3402]

The animated scene from Internet Historian's video about FO76 where Todd kept telling an employee those famous lines like "16 times the detail" in a threatening manner seems to have been terrifyingly accurate, huh.

[@dream6562]

Exactly, we need to relax ours standards so they can relax on their workers

[@mkuhnactual]

@@dream6562 or just not buy their games. I reject the notion that I have to accept a low quality product in order for a company to treat their employees well.

[@rubyy.7374]

@@dream6562 Stop redirecting the blame to us. It’s not our fault they treat their employees like crap, and it should never be. I can’t believe I have to say that. 😂

[@ProsecutorValentine]

@@dream6562 You do know that's what actually created that kind of problem, right? Hell, gamers used to be so chillax in the mid 2000s to 2010s, it caused its birth on a wider scale for every triple A that weren't already doing it.

[@dream6562]

@@rubyy.7374 just a little bit of redirection then?

[@gasaiyuno6021]

That one developer really screamed " Why are we here? Just to suffer? ", it's really that bad. Holy shit, heart goes out to them.

[@lorenzolyleabadia1669]

I read that quote in Kaz's voice.

[@isgodreal1337]

@@lorenzolyleabadia1669 Impossible and illegal to not to

[@tomgu2285]

It's realy not. I mean I also want kill my self when I think about work. But that's because I have depression and social anxiety. Maybe they have the same.

[@TrazynGoesDumb]

not a developer- a tester

[@MerlosTheMad]

reminds me of 90% of my time in the army. lol

[@251TheMechanizedSingfantry]

The mentality in creative industries is "You should be grateful that you're even allowed to be here, let alone being paid to be here". I once did some script editing for free for an indie director....not only was he ungrateful for the 'free' work I was doing for him, he also made it clear that it was I who should feel grateful for being allowed to do that free work for him!

[@Kleavers]

"I'm paying you in exposure!"

[@CarbonRollerCaco]

@@Kleavers I'm sure Cockdick was.

[@CarbonRollerCaco]

When creatives do that, it's usually an ego problem. It's understandable that they want their products to be just right and may even have pretty much the whole thing already made in their heads, but credit for that is no reason to be ungrateful for especially under-the-hood help.

[@gildardorivasvalles6368]

Sounds exactly like academic work at many universities or research institutions -- I'm a prof at a university, and they don't count all the necessary hours you put in as part of your work, and on top of that they want you to do research, and administrative things to prove you are actually teaching and researching. Fun all around

[@ashharkausar413]

Absurd

[@hansofaxalia]

I’ve never heard someone say “yeah fallout is good, but I wish there weren’t any npc’s” in a game where the characters and factions were vital to the story. It was so jarring slogging through a barren map with corpses and notes driving the narrative forward. I don’t know how much wastelanders costs but it is too much for a “feature” that should’ve been in day one.

[@duncanlutz3698]

That's basically sums up the most damning praise I heard about Wastelanders: After all this time, F76 is finally in the state it should have launched in two years ago.

[@m33ddyhv]

none of the dlcs have cost a penny and the game is not pay 2 win in any way. Atoms can be earned easily for free. 76 is far from a great game but its decent as a online looting game.

[@tristanskywalker1998]

The game is free. Wastelanders was a relaunch, not a DLC.

[@jaisummons2304]

I would agree to disagree facts over gaming Facts: No food from out side you got to make your own, no water bottles, no medical, or chems you only find empty bottles and cans. No Body around everyone starved or died to diseases. The human body needs vitamin A: nutrients vitamin C: anti bodies vitamin D: both antibodies and extra energy vitamin E: fiber Everyone outside the vault used everything and survive form the creators. You have to build a settlement yourself it would be a good game if they implement the rest of the code. It's like playing fallout on hard code with nothing outside, high radioactive, and time to build with nothing and try not to die. Drink highly radioactive water Eat highly radioactive meat from creatures And sleep in rads or don't sleep.

[@OCTO358]

​@@tristanskywalker1998 Fallout 76 isn't free.

[@davidpliskin3330]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this isn’t exclusive to the gaming industry. This is 99% of big name companies now. They shit all over their employees while they roll in the riches of their suffering.

[@davidpliskin3330]

@Frumentarii there should be a global reform, but unfortunately it just seems these companies are better at hiding it and protecting themselves than actually enacting change.

[@Bazerk101]

Yes

[@brandonnelson7314]

It’s called capitalism 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@CalculatorTI89]

@@brandonnelson7314 corporatism

[@setcheck67]

@Frumentarii They get coverage, just not from youtubers.

[@Cyberbyte_010]

U know, all this reminds me of something a friend told me once. "When u run a restaurant, u trust ur chefs, not the accountants. Bc if u trust the accountant more than the chefs, you'll end up serving frozen food". Fallout 76 was a game, made solely, FOR the management, to make money, not for the developers, to make a game they are proud of, and certainly NOT for the fans of the games. In my eyes, Bethesda/Zenimax is just as bad as EA and Activision now. So glad I didn't buy 76.

[@quickdrawmcgraw3567]

I absolutely agree with this, and the days of rockstar devs and leaders being the creative force in a studio died with id Software in the 90's lmao

[@00yiggdrasill00]

And this is why I both expect a games crash and why I didn't fear it. The "accountants" end up out if a job with a bad rep and no skills to repair it. Meanwhile the "chefs" go on to make the things they want to and build themselves up. Everyone who isn't the most absolute casual knows Todd Howard is a pile of living shit holding those Devs back same as actibliz, EA and Ubisoft and the Devs do eventually get sick of it. It's happened several times before. Honestly if they want to understand how to REALLY make money money outside crass short term gambling the upper management need to sit down and have a weekly play session so they understand why we play games.

[@studabakers4507]

Fallout 76 was the first game I bought in a while that I was actually actively trying to figure out how to get a refund. Was going to play it with my teenage kid, and neither of us could stand it. Game was awful!!

[@Jetiix]

I bought it for 2 dollars and I still didn’t like it.

[@studabakers4507]

@@Jetiix that’s rough. I actually thought the concept was good. But was just poorly executed!

[@Dracolichizm]

I've worked in QA for almost 30 years including game development and can say I can't recall a single time I did not have direct access to developers at any level. If this is how the QA and Dev managers act damn no wonder they have had such a slew of issues over the years...

[@leowatley]

when i was in qa (at multiple companies), i was encouraged to talk to anyone i needed to, at any level of the company, about any problems that came up if i felt i needed to. after talking to many people, i found out i had just worked at good game companies and that it was nowhere near the standard in the industry.

[@Jukantos]

Same here. Not quite 30 years of experience yet, but as a former dev currently working as a designer/project-manager/QAtester i can only second this. It'd be literally impossible to do my job at any reasonable pace if i couldn't have back and forth communications with my team, which combines Devs, QA and Support :)

[@NMG.11]

For a Fallout Online, Bethesda should've made a team of devs from Zenimax (to use their experience with ESO) and the people from Obsidian Entertainment (the guys who made Fallout New Vegas). Yeah, maybe the project would've taken longer to launch with a new/adapted engine like the one used for ESO but the final product would've been much higher quality.

[@Elianae]

I've worked only once in game development and the things were exactly as described in this video: communication between QA and devs was forbidden, only through team leads. We were even intentionally physically separated. Man was i reborn after i moved on to other companies and actually discovered teamwork.

[@TheExecutorr]

I only once worked in QA as an intern in a small software company, and I always had access to the devs who's stuff I was testing. But even without that much experience I couldn't even imagine having to go a roundabout way for that. I mean, it would take days to get a problem fixed and then test the fix and give feedback about the fix, wouldn't it? The dev needs time to fix an error, so I feel like communicating it immediately is vital. Otherwise the dev might work based on flawed code and may have to redo everything after a fix. It seems so frustrating and inefficient to me.

[@TrueTechno]

im part of the animation industry. we once got an outsourced project on our hands which had us work grueling hours for a whole year. my record was clocking more than 100 hours a week for several weeks working. no overtime pay because the industry in my country is taken advantage of. there are nights where i drive home speeding, hoping i would just get into an accident small enough to take me out of work. the worst part was all those hours of hard work, most of the product was useless because client wanted a finalized product before anything was even finalized. imagine mass producing a car whose design and features were not complete, just to then make changes and mass produce it again. fuck this industry.

[@liaminator4950]

I hope youre doing better, man :(

[@TrueTechno]

@@liaminator4950 thank you. def doing better. it's a popular english kids show ran by a brain dead client. the company just never knew it was this atrocious to work on this show.

[@liaminator4950]

@@TrueTechno great to hear, hope everything turns out better for everyone involved! :D have a great day

[@d_all_in]

That's on you for accepting those conditions dude

[@TrueTechno]

ah yes. it's the little guy's fault for doing a job which he has no real power to decline because he needs money to live.

[@Esitaro3670]

Question: Has the situation in the industry becoming so bad that hearing/reading this type of news has becoming like...normal?

[@thomashutchings1122]

essentially, yes.

[@Bozogumps]

Yes

[@3dness449]

Feels like that.

[@CarbonRollerCaco]

Not just that, but the situation treated like a set fact of life. Like a scientific law. Neither good nor bad, just there and something to take into account if one goes into game development.

[@jackstraw4222]

yea ,and in my view this is why video gaming is in decline , the egos of top companies is a joke...AAA games are boring and repetitive with zero imagination ,and the buy up of these other companies is the beginning of the end for gaming as you currently know it....

[@Buckdodgers]

Being a QA Engineer at a Cloud Computing Company, I would NEVER want to work in QA at a gaming developer. The pay is TRASH, the work hours are TRASH, and the benefits are TRASH. It's a thankless job. I love gaming as a hobby. I would NEVER want to make a living Testing Video Games. It is an Open Secret that doing QA at a game developer is akin to be a Roman Galley Slave.

[@JuniperBrew]

so you work for amazon lol

[@gabeskai]

@@JuniperBrew its cloud computing. There are more tech companies than amazon that use the tech🙄

[@TheRiquelmeONE]

i remember when professors told us that working in software is a great job, just never go into game development :D

[@JuniperBrew]

@@gabeskai clearly you missed my joke

[@richardpowell1425]

And they get mad at you if you do your job well. Worst managers ever.

[@uhhhh9229]

I never for a second thought this was a QA issue. All you needed to do was turn the game on and the bugs would appear. You didn’t need a QA tester to show you the horrendous state Fallout 76 launched in.

[@clearcat7296]

I guarantee you, almost all of the bugs were found and reported by QA before the launch and nothing was done.

[@WaryObserver]

Or you know, Beta Testers, Real ones, not this Beta Access bull crap. People that are actually paid to test it and also give feedback to gameplay. But those cost money, not generate one. Beta/Early Access is the worst thing happened to gaming, along DLCs and Microtransactions.

[@Carnax6969]

Before anyone thinks to themselves "Was this game tested?" with ignorance towards QA teams, yes, it was tested. But the issues and bugs that was reported has fallen on deaf ears from the dev team and/or the management. Do you really think, especially in an AAA studio, that they wouldn't have a QA team? A lot of people I know used QA as a gateway into working in the games industry, some carried on and got to where they want, but others had their passion for games destroyed by the terrible working conditions and fake promises.

[@NicholasBrakespear]

The problem is the term QA - people naturally assume that QA means what it claims to mean - quality assurance. That QA isn't just testing... but actually fixing; when people lament a lack of "testing", it's because they reasonably assume that testing = fixing. Because that's how it's supposed to work on a well-managed project; if a bug is found by a tester, it gets fixed. But of course, in reality there's a division between "QA" and the actual development team, and because testing involves telling the overworked developer that there's another hundred things to fix that might not be fixable, the developer learns to begrudge the testers and not want to hear from them, and the testers feel scorned and dismissed by the developers in turn. So the customer is right in the end - there was a lack of QA. Not a lack of testing, not a bad job done by the testers, but a breakdown in the way the QA system should function in the first place, brought on by bad management.

[@mistahjenkins4826]

Right, because this came was *totally* tested. Bitch please, you can't turn the game on without it bugging out to fuck, how in the hell can you say this was tested when it clearly shows that it hasn't been?

[@Alloveck]

@@NicholasBrakespear Yeah, you've got it right. I have personally complained about insufficient "testing" before, but that broad term is absolutely NOT aimed at the play testers specifically. The word "testing" is used as a short way to refer to every level problems could conceivably be noticed and fixed. To be painfully clear instead of short and sweet, the long-winded version of the "testing" complaint would be that the game has seemingly very obvious problems ranging anywhere from game-breaking crashes to really unfun design choices that aren't fixed, and while I don't know what went wrong or where it went wrong, something somewhere in the development process failed. I myself was actually a game tester once believe it or not, I fully understand how horribly tedious it is, and that reporting problems from the bottom of the chain and actually getting results from higher up the chain are two entirely different things. I absolutely don't want to unfairly blame the poor testers themselves, but what's the alternative, not pointing out lack of quality control at all? Better to complain imprecisely than have silence regarding broken, buggy, and/or badly designed games be mistaken for approval. So yeah, it's important to keep in mind that complaints such as "was this game even tested" aren't necessarily aimed at the testers themselves. It's a broad, imprecise reference to every way a game should have avoided screwing up. With that said, if there is a more precise term for making sure games don't screw up that doesn't unintentionally seem to focus on play testers specifically, I'd be glad to use it instead of just blaming "testing" or QA.

[@NicholasBrakespear]

@@mistahjenkins4826 Would recommend you read this particular thread again - you're missing the point.

[@Carnax6969]

@@NicholasBrakespear It would seem that reading comprehension isn't Jenkins' strong suits, and one of those who solely blames QA teams for a game's launch failure.

[@sgtkeebler]

"A wild wild west of insane people" defines the entire gaming community. Yong is like Morgan Freeman in the way he explains things. I look forward to Yong's reading and explanation of articles daily.

[@werefox85]

The mentality of rather getting hurt than going into work is something I can understand. I worked as a grocery stocker for a large chain store during the 1st 2 years of the pandemic, and it was commonplace to hear my co-workers sarcastically ask to have 1-ton pallets of goods dropped on them. Between being short staffed and the 55-60 hour weeks we working just to keep up with demand... the amazing amount of money were making wasn't worth the mental and physical stress. One co-worker was forced into a medical facility by his family because he had a mental break down, from stress and sleep depervation, and kept trying to call his dad who had been passed away for many years. Another co-worker fell asleep at the wheel of car on his way home and went off the road, he lived but broke both his legs collarbone and had severe whiplash. In fact, I personally now need surgery to repair my left hip and knee, my neck and lower back because of those 2yrs of basically non stop running and lifting and the mental stress of staying sanitary not to get sick from Covid.

[@DedAlexFive]

Sorry to hear that, man. I did your same job in the same enviroment and always thought we got absurdly lucky during that period, because we never had understaffing issues and never went overtime. In fact, the company had so many employees I had extra days at home lol. Thinking back, I did hear good stuff about the company and remember being genuinely surprised at how not awful the ex workers made it sound. Hope you and your colleagues are better now 👍

[@jackstraw4222]

thats terrible...but the gaming industry is in decline...it has been for a few yrs and game franchises like call of duty ,battlefield,assassins creed...are to blame for being generic and boring and trash ....

[@EonTheAien]

You may not be war veterans, but all you guys deserve Purple Heart awards. Thank you for your service.

[@nojuanatall3281]

Everyone got played so hard and still is.

[@Pop013]

Working in oil rafinery, shift worker. First wave of pandemic we were working as sht. All others non crucial workers were siting home and getting paycheck same as we who were in fsctoey. Than managment decide to give nice bonuses for ppl who were at home and we who were "risking" didnt get even tap on the back... Excuse was they were helping not spreading 'rona....

[@ianmoriarty2199]

I'm impressed at the level of skill Todd Howard has developed when it comes to lying about his products over the years, able to spin even the worst press into something seemingly positive. If only his games were as developed as his talent at bullshitting.

[@AxisChurchDevotee]

He has max charisma.

[@michaeltheundeadmariachi4494]

"It just works" -Todd Howard

[@LoganHunter82]

Have you ever heard of Peter Molyneux?

[@akmal94ibrahim]

The moment he said "create your own story" about Starfield, I got ptsd from Fallout76 (eventhough I've never played it)

[@kamurotetsu4860]

People have already fallen for his bullshit again with Starfield "You can land anywhere on a planet" despite the trailer showing fucking sloped rocky mountains impossible to land on.

[@SkyeBerryJam]

A lot of people don't understand how mistreated QA testers are, they're underpaid and overworked of course like most people in the industry, but they also take the blame when a game doesn't come out up to par, when it's really mainly the executives forcing the devs to push out a sub par game without many of the fixes the QA team actually tells them that they need. I attempted to do QA testing, (companies like the ones in my area ((EA mainly bleh)) mainly hire QA testers from 3rd parties on a contract basis) and holy shit, I could not do it despite how badly I want to work in the industry. I'd genuinely rather work retail with all the bullshit that comes with, than work QA for EA

[@mkuhnactual]

Yeah I don't know why people blame QA so much. My general goto for blame if game is bad is the publishing company and or the producers. From what I can tell, a bad AAA game is usually caused by decisions coming down from on high.

[@NicholasBrakespear]

@@mkuhnactual The thing is, most people naturally assume that "QA" is an integrated part of the bug-fixing process; that QA includes the people who actually follow up on the bug reports, not just the people testing. This is how it actually should work; there should be direct communication between the people testing, and the people fixing stuff, because that's how you actually get stuff fixed. But the projects are too big and badly managed now, so you end up with an overworked programmer who is struggling to keep thousands of lines of code in his head without his brain trickling out his nostrils (which isn't aided by the fact that multiple other programmers with other programming styles have worked on the same code), receiving a hundred new bug reports right after he fixed something. And the thing with bug reports is - even if you know exactly how to reproduce the bug? That doesn't necessarily mean that the solution is forthcoming, as it might be the product of multiple systems interacting, some of which might not be under your jurisdiction at all. At which point, the programmer develops a grudge against the QA team, because the QA team is literally the source of the incoming stress - it's not their fault, but they're the bearers of bad news. So the programmer doesn't really want to talk directly to the QA team, because the programmer is overworked and stressed and instinctively recoiling from the source of more stress. Which leads the QA team getting stressed because they're trying to do their job, but whenever they do, they seem to get punished for it. End result - everyone hates each other, and the customer has no idea that QA does not necessarily mean developer, and blames a lack of "QA" - not the actual QA team, but rather, the concept of quality assurance - quality was not assured.

[@mkuhnactual]

@@NicholasBrakespear All of which could probably be alleviated by upper management providing a more realistic time frame for putting out their game and giving developers enough time to actually do their bug fixing so they don't feel like they're racing against the clock with stuff piling up.

[@NicholasBrakespear]

@@mkuhnactual That's the thing though - that'll never happen. Because once you get to that scale of production, you're in the realms of big business; of stock prices, and bosses who don't know what the product is, just how much they can sell it for. The product, to them, is money. No big business will allow "realistic" time frames; they will always try to push out as little as possible for as much as possible, because that's how incompetent modern business practices are taught. The real solution is for all of gaming to migrate back to the optimal size of development - like the greatest works of the 90s and early 2000s. There were epic games, there were games that pushed new technology... but none of the teams were particularly large. The end result was people suffered for their art, as always, but it was art they were suffering for; you can get someone to sacrifice a lot and not begrudge it, if they're close to the project; if it's THEIR project. And they'll care about it, and the smaller team will be easier to manage, and the lines of communication will be easier to maintain. Put simply, there is nothing but toxicity to be found in the big business model; there is no redeeming it, no alleviating its poison, because it fundamentally operates from a stance of employees being fuel for its fire.

[@TakumiJoyconBoyz]

One thing that's important to say is that QA testers have usually seen all the bugs that crop up and dozens you haven't seen. The issue is that the development team is forced to decide which bugs they can fix in time before launch while a producer shouts at them that the deadline is approaching and won't be moved.

[@steverogers6572]

WERE GOING TO NEED.... 16x the quality

[@SubfeedSub]

Exactly, finding the bugs is only half the battle.

[@Stop_Gooning]

From my limited programming experience there is a HUGE difference between finding a bug and figuring out how to fix it.

[@MempoEdits]

@@Stop_Gooning and then there's also the difference between finding an actual solution to the bug, or simply applying a bandaid fix/workaround. Some bugs that may seem simple can take weeks if not months of A. investigation to find the cause or B. programming work to re-write some larger system

[@skupipup]

Yeah that about checks out. Heart-breaking to hear these stories of passionate people mismanaged and ground to dust.

[@eliotyoung3687]

I remember I used to really respect Todd Howard, when I was younger after having played oblivion for the first time it was my dream to become a video game developer. But as the industry has evolved and more about it has come to light I gave up on that dream because the industry looks like a nightmare to work in. Todd used to be the reason I wanted to make video games and now he's the reason I avoided a career in video games like the plague. How the mighty have fallen.

[@ScáthachAssassin]

I am the exact same. I used to be so excited to be a game dev but i feel all my idols fell from grace and betrayed me so i dropped that dream.

[@MegaInsaneMC]

Thing is, I still want to work in game dev, even after hearing all the shit. Just going to be super careful about who I work for or say fuck it and make my own studio with blackjack, hookers and puppies.

[@Skarry]

@@MegaInsaneMC I've seen a painting involving two of these things. In case you need inspiration.

[@mysticolored]

Just be an indie developer

[@MrDoggo23]

To be honest, Todd is probably not "The On"e making every decisions. He is just the face guy. Zenimax, who owns Bethesda, now that's a good start. Edit: Not apologizing the lies, just something to consider.

[@AnimatedAndrew]

Fallout 76: Made by a AAA studio with millions of dollars. Mandatory crunch on all their employees and a hostile work environment where breaks were monitored. Ended up being one of the biggest jokes in gaming Hades: Made by an indie dev No forced crunch. Vacation days and time off were actively encouraged Ended up being one of the most beloved games in recent years

[@frostthron8009]

The scope was vastly different. Fallout 76 was such a huge undertaking that it can't be compared.

[@Ealsante]

@@frostthron8009 We don't want big games. We want GOOD games. Much better a game that's small and good, than one that's big and fucked up like FO76.

[@frostthron8009]

@@Ealsante people absolutely want big games. You just follow games too seriously and aren't familiar with average dudebro consumer. I've seen these type of people trashing God of War and cyberpunk graphics let alone any other game. The average ps and Xbox owner wants massive AAA games with extremely expensive visuals and publishers intentionally feed into this insane obsession by creating all these fake impressive demos

[@AnimatedAndrew]

@@frostthron8009 You're absolutely right. But I was referring to less about the scope of the game and more about the treatment of the employees and how the final product turned out as a result. Then again, maybe FO76 wasn't the best example for the comparison. XD

[@frostthron8009]

@@AnimatedAndrew there is a reason why every one of these big games goes through insane crunches. AAA development is just unsustainable at this point. If Bethesda wanted to make games the same way indie studios do, they probably would have released one game per decade.

[@cartwright1348]

Your shock at someone fantasizing about injury to escape work is surprising to me. Anyone who has worked a low paying job to pay bills has felt this, guaranteed.

[@PlusOne2Crit]

I've worked low paying jobs before and couldn't disagree more with this take. I was too busy worrying about losing the money I needed for a roof over my head or the food I needed to survive.

[@lasarousi]

He's here to rattle people feelings and get engagement, he doesn't care because he has never worked office Jobs more than a couple months in school but that's what he sees in other articles, acting shocked something this common happens He's here to be a provocateur and get clicks, specially with fallout 76 being a dead horse.

[@kagemarushun7378]

@@lasarousi ok, and? Everything said here is facts.

[@dianaburn2474]

@@PlusOne2Crit Yeah, but the key thing here was the worker in question had that thought about GOING to work. It wasn't during work; could've literally been in the car or on a bus. Additionally, you also have to remember there are a LOT of different ways people cope with stress, and that a common maladaptive coping mechanism is to imagine self-harm. It's not that uncommon. Also, not everyone is like you. :)

[@PlusOne2Crit]

@@dianaburn2474 A.) I was ALSO talking about the thought of going to work. as that was what the original comment was about. Fantasizing. AKA, thinking. B.) I know not everyone is me. But seeing as I was answering someone who said "Anyone working a low paying job does this" maybe you should be directing that comment toward the op, and not me, seeing as you and I are effectively saying the same thing there. tl;dr try reading what the person you're failing to argue with was originally replying to before you make comments that add nothing.

[@Ashaira]

As a dev who started as a qa let me tell you that in 99% of the cases qa is more frustrated with a bad launch than consumers. Consumers spend 60$ and get disappointed. QA spend hundreds to thousands of hours and are still disappointed. In my experience bugs are ignored in one of 2 cases. Devs/manager who don't give a shit or a qa lead who want to look good by not passing on a lot of bugs when close to launch (despite that being his/her dam job).

[@fernandobanda5734]

Devs not giving a shit? Where do you find that? What's most likely is they have to pick the bugs they fix with the time running out.

[@sytherwusky]

this story is another case for a game union

[@muizzsiddique]

@@fernandobanda5734 You answered your own question.

[@fernandobanda5734]

@@muizzsiddique What?

[@akmal94ibrahim]

@@fernandobanda5734 That's what he meant. Managers/developers ignoring (ie: not giving a crap about) certain bugs because they have to prioritize other things or they don't have the time or skill to solve it. You answered your own question.

[@gameroxi]

I often think about something that my manager told me, that hard deadlines in software development aren't anywhere near as apocalyptic as what upper management make it out to be. Like, we're not working in the ER. None of what we're doing is life or death. Don't kill your developers just so patch 0.69 can make it out on time

[@someguy6152]

Man I cannot belive they had to crunch. **looking at my office job** I could never imagine such a thing. **looking at my boss** Who would gas light their employees to get them to work to the bone until they break. On a serious note, this is unfortunately a standard to pretty much any office job at lower levels, it is far from exclusive to the games industry and is a big problem everywhere, it shouldn't be like that, but it is, and honestly hearing people being shocked about this is kinda disheartening, people are so disconnected from one another that some see this and think this is the usual day at work, and others think it's horrific, this will not change, because it is tackled at an individual level, specific companies, specific industries, it should be addressed all at once and changed as a norm across the board, if it won't it will continue like this, every case will have to explode individually in order for it to change.

[@buckrodgers1162]

"War, war never changes." Yeah, well, neither does the games industry. Not when there is no oversight or regulations making sure that: A: The consumer isn't blatantly ripped off. B: The ground floor staff isn't treated as 'disposable' or 'expendable'. C: CEOs aren't allowed to take exorbitant wages wile breaking the law and getting a slap on the wrist when exposed. And the list goes on, and on, and on.

[@Krysnha]

You know, in the past, i didint want to have goverment, intervention, once the goverment enter, they want came out, they want more and more power, but now, as how things are, it is sad to said, we need the govverment, the consumer not being ripp off, to pay astronomical prices for a product that sometimes barely functions, , the staff being treated under the guides of labor laws and have a dedicated union, and with the exception of nintendo the only companie that apearnatly is capable of producing, stuff wiouth crunching or trating employs like crap, each and every single videogame companie must be investigated and must have punishment and repercutions

[@WebHead18]

My friend's wife was a tester for this game. She gave me a nice long earful about this lmao. I'm glad her and her coworkers voices are being heard now.

[@georgejones5019]

@Goofy Yeah. Everything online is fake.

[@id1550]

My friends dog’s wife told me about this, a shame, really.

[@TheGhostFart]

@@id1550 my dog's butler that works at nintendo as the head boss of the president of sega said otherwise

[@suzy.crabgrass]

More than 3 years after 76’s launch and we are STILL hearing about how atrocious that game was.

[@mikewade777]

Online games that force you to play with randoms are just shit and there's a lot.

[@Th3z4cK]

@@mikewade777 not really forced you can play all the quest alone , only public events you have to okay with others as they all jump in

[@alcoyot]

My prediction is that in gaming, with unreal engine 5 coming and these “next gen” graphics everyone is expecting, we are going to see much more of these disasters. The scope of games is just too big. Expecting everything to be huge open world, multiplayer, next gen graphic… no amount of budget can achieve something so complicated. Elden ring had it right. They used last gen graphics, hardly bothered with useable multiplayer, and in the end they were just able to make something great. Fromsoft is one of the most well run companies out there with their president involved in every aspect. If that’s the best they can do, how can we expect corrupt triple A companies to be able to accomplish any better? These companies will continue to bite off way more than they can chew with yes men surround the bloated CEOs who could care less about making actual good games.

[@gman7497]

I mean the hope is that UE5 will make make game dev easier coz the tools supposedly streamline the process. Also making next gen graphics available to smaller developers with less budget. We will see if that's how it works out though.

[@hex1233]

Fromsoft is the GOAT. Along with other JRPG companies like Falcom and Atlus. Hopefully they treat their employees well. I've given up on various western devs and bigger fish like Nintendo on treating their workers well.

[@Skarry]

Unfortunately Unreal has decided to squeeze indie creators now.

[@ringtail99]

@@hex1233 Falcom um Nintendo is in Japan

[@jacobreveles7222]

If Elden Ring is the best that gaming has to offer, then the gaming industry is screwed

[@joncarter3761]

It's AAA development by the looks of it or working under a AAA publisher if you're indie. The whole industry seems to be built on working passionate young/inexperienced people into the ground and when they quit from burnout, hire someone new. Commercial programming with a clear path towards getting a managerial, then consultant role is the better path to go. There just isn't the exploitable passion that there is surrounding gaming so they have to treat employees better to keep staff around.

[@SeanMarshallSM]

It's pretty sad how horrible the working conditions can be for game developers, or any job for that matter. I always feel for those who have to endure these situations.

[@bensadfleck9972]

and then they get all the hate from players while people praise todd howard whenever he shows up.

[@mkuhnactual]

@@bensadfleck9972 I always though he was a bit of a tool and everything I'm hearing about him now just makes him sound like another Kotick. How do these horrible people keep ending up in charge?

[@Danny-kk4nj]

Yeah as a student game dev I feel like a lobster sitting outside the pot waiting to be boiled

[@mkuhnactual]

@Frumentarii I actually feel sorry for all exploited workers, but way to assume I only care about those with degrees and good attempt at turning exploited workers with degrees and without degrees against each other instead of the management exploiting them.

[@brandonnelson7314]

@@mkuhnactual making others money that’s how, it’s atrocious

[@nonAehT]

In other breaking news: The night is still dark, Rain is still wet, Gravity Still works!

[@gameuniverse5973]

Oh no why did you say rain is wet now people are gonna argue is water wet

[@emma6648]

Rain isn’t wet

[@flamewolfscout3978]

And people die if they are killed.

[@samuelfrank4787]

​@@flamewolfscout3978 Isekai has entered the chat.

[@samuelfrank4787]

​@@flamewolfscout3978 Truck kun has entered the chat.

[@Noxis07]

This is starting to sound a lot like Activision. Company drives morale to the ground, suffers financially, and gets gobbled up by the big Microsoft fish at a discounted price.

[@DeadlyAlpha]

Only difference is that the atvi blizz buyout hasn't completed yet & Bethesda's buyout has...

[@vargrhelsing8042]

More like Bioware, without EA. "One prominent reason the higher-ups at Bethesda decided to use the Creation Engine was that developers at Rockville primarily had experience using this traditionally single-player engine. According to a 2021 survey by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), only a fifth of respondents expected to remain with their current employer for more than six years. In an industry that regularly lays off large numbers of employees, Bethesda was unusual in how frequently it was able to retain staff for over a decade. It would cost a significant amount of time and money to re-train senior employees in new scripting languages." "There’s a story that some Bethesda developers believe: That it is special among big-budget studios. That its scrappiness can overcome any major creative challenge. Compared to Ubisoft Montreal with over 3,500 employees, Bethesda Game Studios only has around 400 employees at the time of publication. And when you consider that Fallout 4 and Skyrim, both games that have gone on to sell millions of copies, were made with only around 100 people at the same time, the self-mythologizing becomes easy to believe. Some developers, who were used to crunching with relatively small teams, were convinced that they could make the same magic happen on Fallout 76. Nevertheless, Bethesda is hardly an indie studio. One source said, “Bethesda is a big company that thinks it’s a small company,” with a mentality of “well, this worked in the ‘90s, so we’re just gonna keep doing it.” A former tester said: “Apparently it used to be much worse. [Senior developers told us that] we don’t hear all about the good old days, where people were sleeping in the office for Fallout 4… [management] wants to run it like a ten [person] QA department from the 80s. And that’s just not how [testing] works.”"

[@jaywu2856]

no worries, as usual the CEO will get a nice fat golden parachute for handing over all the IP at a discount due to incompetence LOL

[@cafelatte1124]

Nah~ It would actually require the addition of cube crawls, sexual harassments, and female employee suicide for Bethesda to stoop down to Activision level.

[@goofed86]

Microsoft are no different

[@alessandricedric1995]

I mean... Seeing how big of a chore it is to PLAY this game, I can't imagine the nightmare QA testers and developers went through

[@edwardelric4975]

I could have sworn I heard from one of Zaric Zhakaron's videos that Fallout 76 was outsourced to a fresh new studio, that wasn't connected to the primary Bethesda studios from previous games. So saying Todd was torturing all the original singleplayer developers for making a multiplayer game is a bit of a click bait statement.

[@masterofthefirstraceoftheu8608]

Why does studio management always get satisfaction from harassing employees. They are sick in the head.

[@MrTalithan]

power, it always boils down to power.

[@SJ-vc6zn]

Capitalisim. Its got pros and cons. Generally speaking unless you are actually sick in the head its the quotas and whatnot that force management to force the workers to work harder and longer. Im in management, from everything I've seen, the problem almost always is higher up.

[@Scaevola9449]

Because they're universally subhuman sociopaths that deserve to be strung up from street lamps by their their entrails. That's the kind of """person""" that succeeds in corpo culture.

[@vindicatelol]

It has a lot to do with the human psyche, when you are granted power that lets you control 99% of the other employees, you stop seeing them as people and just see them as tools. You can still be a good person, you just won't remember that those are real people with feelings. Then of course there are sick people that become even sicker after receiving this power and more bobby koticks keep rising.

[@Bazerk101]

Having worked in different industries. I can say with 100% certainty that management in all industries are psychopaths and possibly a dash of sociopaths.

[@palodus2]

QA is like retail. Every gamer needs to experience it to truly know how crappy it can be

[@cmdraftbrn]

i'll never do retail ever again.

[@solblackguy]

Development is retail, Q&A is food service

[@mleeneg]

I used to be in QA and I did automation and found out that the app that I was testing was failing all the time and found out that the app was originally in British English that was converted to American English and that the test automation was still in British English so I had to go into it and convert it all to American English. Mostly changing S's to the Z's and removing U's. Also one programmer came to one of my QA coworkers yelling at them to stop failing their code.

[@dysartes]

...I do hope the QA person pointed out that if the developer wrote better code, they wouldn't get failed by QA so often.

[@BuryTomorrow12]

As a current player, can confirm that every single update breaks the game in some way or form. Not a single one, not even the one released a week ago, has gone by without noticeable bugs, new exploits or crashes.

[@notalanrogers3173]

What yuppies consider "hard work" will never cease to amaze me.

[@SonofStormblessed]

This is why I'm always amazed at what we accomplish in this country. This is how allot of most industries work. Just imagine what we could accomplish if this shit stopped becoming the accepted norm in all industries.

[@JarofMayonaise]

You vote for the people that let it happen. Not that any politician has rallied for what their constituents actually wanted instead of their own 'agenda' in many years. That's not how it's supposed to work. Everything is broken and the common denominator in all of it is $$$$.

[@Delt4_Cr4wfish]

Stop going to Walmart on a stat or Sunday. Stop going out to eat on the weekends. Ect. Every company has hiccups. Its annoying to work on a sat but it happens. O well.

[@lasarousi]

No politician wants to change this system because it works. For them. They have never worked a single day in retail or treated with the average folk for any reason. They just see a paid job being completed, regardless of how that insignificant, replaceable, irrelevant little cog feels. For them this is proof that the system works lmao

[@Krysnha]

People vote for what they want, people have been voting for lefti politicians that allow these thing to go on and on, come on i watch people, vote against theyre own intrest, theyre country colapsing on theyre feet, being replaced and yet they vote for more, there is nothing to do, unless people change its mind, come on returning to gaming, diablo inmortal is the worst rated game ever and it still win 24 million dollards in less than two weeks

[@todd5purlock497]

@@JarofMayonaise you know who this person voted for? So insightful

[@ekzsuncz7610]

Damn. Someone just said, in their job, "Why are we still here....? Just to suffer?" I'm glad that many employee start to complain and show bad treatments they are getting.

[@RushGarcia]

Elder scrolls 6 better be like the 2nd coming of sliced bread. Of all of the stupid I still remember praising Bethesda for fueling the fire of my videogame addiction with Skyrim and New Vegas. I don't think they've pleased me once since then. I shall remain optimistic although critical.

[@setcheck67]

Bethesda had absolutely nothing to do with New Vegas. Obsidian made New Vegas and Bethesda refused to even pay them the full amount for it. I would argue Bethesda has just about always been a garbage game company. Their flagship products are all massively broken in many ways and fallout was a smash hit created by a different company with the most beloved version of Fallout(New Vegas) created by an entirely other different company.

[@ragglefraggle5307]

Obsidian Studios made New Vegas and Bethesda completely shafted them. Bethesda has always been a garbage company and I pirate any games with their name or Zenimax have anything to do with a game.

[@aahzmandiaz2767]

I bet, it will have no free modding. And without free mods Elder Scrolls 6 is already dead by design. We all know that BUGthesda is only able to make a promising, but incomplete framework.

[@Zyrodil]

" I don't think they've pleased me once since then." I mean, they've released fuck all the last +11 years so I can see how this makes sense.

[@WaryObserver]

Let us be honest here, while I love some Bethesda games myself, most are, "Get it out, let Modder fix it". Unpopular opinion, And you can eat me for this, Skyrim is amazing, but only due to what people made of it, the only thing making Bethesda games good is, how open they are to Mods. Without, they would be generic and partly not working even. I not look forward to Elder Scrolls 6 or Starfield, they are like any other publisher today and need to crash and burn. Another opinion, I prefer Oblivion over Skyrim. Call it nostalgic and as said Skyrim is still good, it started this trend of Bigger Map is better game somehow. Something I hate in Open World games, in general.

[@YaraUwU]

QA testers job is to find the broken shit not fix it.

[@George_M_]

Anyone who hears this and doesn't think Starfield is going to have a disasterous launch is fooling themselves. This is the same nonsense management team.

[@blancodiablo8788]

Every job I’ve ever had was similar to the way they describe their experiences. All the OT you could stomach. Occasional free food. Working weekends for nothing. At some point the OT, food and the people you work for aren’t worth the life you give up. You realize you’re being exploited. I’ve never looked back at any of my jobs and missed them. What these guys bring to light is nothing different from any other high stress job. Its all bad management, unrealistic deadlines, cutting corners and a plain disrespect for the people who actually iron out the wrinkles for the product that’s suppose to be delivered

[@gavingreensmith1110]

I would never work for nothing. I have had companies try and I just say no. If they ain't happy about I find a new job. No chance I'll get exploited by anyone.

[@setcheck67]

My experience has been the same except I add deadlines for things about myself. This is a strategy that has worked every single time too so you'd think more people would do it or something. When I believed I was deserving of a raise or a promotion I just told them that "I need more money if I'm going to be able to keep up my bills in a couple months". If I need time off, "I have to be INSERT next month". If I want to dial back my overtime, "I'm neglecting too much in my life, I need to stop my overtime for a couple weeks to catch up." I haven't even always worked for good companies, some of them were hilariously terrible with massive turnover. However ALL of them responded the exact same way about my statements. I like to think it's because giving a time goal with enough breathing room to let them come up with a plan to manage the situation is very reasonable to the usual, "Hey this concert I like that I knew about for 3 months is happening next Saturday, Tomorrow, I need the day off". I've even had situations where something was sprung upon me and it was still accepted because it's actually reasonable. Usually phrased like, "I got surprised by x, I can get things to a good point but I won't be able to be here in 3 days. If I need to call off I can or if there is anything I can do to help make the situation better let me know." All but 2 companies just changed one of my days off to that or gave me the day off.

[@Stop_Gooning]

Never ever take a salary, it's never worth it. I was a chef for 10 years and I've been conditioned to think of Wednesday Afternoon as "the weekend"

[@kagemarushun7378]

@@gavingreensmith1110 you'll be exploited eventually in modern times

[@kagemarushun7378]

@@Stop_Gooning people need salaries you know

[@SarimFaruque]

this should serve as a warning for those who strive to work in the gaming industry

[@bendynamic2150]

It absolutely does. At one point I literally thought about going to school learning computer programming and whatnot and honestly one of my dream jobs was to work in Bethesda because I loved Oblivion I loved Fallout 3 and whatnot and wanted to make roleplaying games but after rumors are heard and now all this came out I literally dropped that and went into the trades industry.

[@Yarharsuperpirate]

If your planning to work in the game industry. Aim for a smaller studio or indie dev group. Atleast they will treat you like a human being. Unlike bethesda, activision, and EA

[@xTheMenaceHimselfx]

I firmly believe MM's Dreams should be recognized as an actual engine. The stuff that's on there is LEAGUES better than most AAA games released in recent years.

[@darkav3nger42]

@@Yarharsuperpirate Yeah until the money goes to their head and they end up on the same path as Rockstar, Bethesda, EA, Activision, 343, Bungie etc After they all made money and got bigger they changed and it was only about the money and not about the passion of making games or the customers. I fear indie developers will get greedy too and do the same but hopefully im wrong.

[@landotucker]

I was strongly considering it when I was younger, but now I feel like I'd rather do a job that I'm not passionate about as long as I'm paid decently and not treated like shit

[@willwunsche6940]

Thought I was looking at an old video at first. This is extremely unsurprising judging by how they treated their customers and decided to release the game and the dozens of massive controversies

[@funnyanimalworld7579]

If dews are mistreated why dont they just quit and find a new job?

[@JacoBecker]

Fallout 4 already showed signs of being an empty shell and 76 was just the nail in the coffin.

[@King0nyx]

The ONLY reason Todd made that statement, and I guarantee you this, is because there were so many people begging for a multiplayer fallout title. I myself never understood why since I've always seen fallout as a single player experience and I appreciate it being just that.

[@karisasani7006]

At most it should've been a co-op where the Co-op felt like that of the Borderlands style Co-op where up to 4 people can play together in a session, not be a MMORPG type game!

[@ProjectChaos77]

It was meant to be single from the start. Not every video game needs multiplayer or co-op to be successful. I appreciate fallout for that very reason, a single player experience.

[@King0nyx]

@@ProjectChaos77 that's what I'm saying. That's one of the big reasons I enjoy fallout is for its single player experience.

[@dirtylizardneck3890]

What still angers me is that they decided to do this while they already introducing a new ip into the mix knowing that Elder Scrolls and Fallout were already being pushed they actually thought that crapping out this abomination would help and keep Fallout fans playing til Fallout 5 but all it did was anger everyone and screwd Fallout fans even further.. and it wasn’t just Austin cause there are 8 years bet Fallout 4 and Starfield it obviously took alot from them..

[@Dishyg]

You know ESO, F76 is a different studio than ES, Fallout, and Starfield?

[@dirtylizardneck3890]

@@Dishyg if you actually read the comment you see that I do know and I don’t believe it because it took 8 years out of them.. Who is Austin to work on a Fallout game ? they knew nothing about it it was obviously BGS hand in hand then shifted all the blame on Austin when sht hit the fan..

[@brandonclelland8091]

Starfield the new fallout 76 should of shifted all development on elder scrolls and fallout

[@falldamage3446]

The gaming industry(sadly) has become akin to factory jobs nowadays. It's "always" about the work. That "bottom line" that needs to be met while giving the middle finger to the employees that end up having to suffer through the aftermath of the decisions made by management. Sounds WAY to much like my job.....

[@ShannonLynn21]

There's one thing Todd Howard has done that I 100% stand by and support. And that was the implementation of the option to kill Cicero in Skyrim. Thank you Todd Howard, I hated that jester.

[@jovemgo]

I used to work in a company that promissed us workers with improvements in the work envirorment and promotions, so me being a greenhorn and enjoying the job i worked my ass off for 3 whole years doing almost 16 hours per day from 7am to 22pm with only about 6 hours of sleep with a single day off because i asked for an extra day of work for that extra pay, you know what me and my whole team got for that extra effort? COVID restrictions hit, me and all my team (about 30 people) were laid off because and i quote "you aren't doing enought for the company to continue hiring you" they promissed everyone they would be a permanent employee and have all benefits after 2-3 years of employement. They fucked up we sued them (basically with the help of our union) we kept all comunications and presented them as evidence of the blind promisses, they were forced to compensate everyone that was fired for that quote, an investigation was launched and found that a lot of my team and other teams were not paid the extra hours with the promisse of promotions and benefits or givin like food coupons or discounts in stores as payment. It was a mess the company that was once one of the biggest Tourism and Transportation company had to lay off about 2/3 of the whole fleet and was bought 3 years ago by some other company and its now almost gone in terms of name. Unions help everyone i cant emphasize this enough unions are not just a bunch of people gathered, companies that allow unions are better off in the long run because both the company and the workers benefit, if the company is not at fault the union helps them, if the worker did nothing wrong they will help you to their fullest and talk to the company Strikes can be issued and legally they can hire someone for a third of the cost because all the union give off a small ammount of money for that issue. The people at Bethesda that had to go throught all that shit and still get fucked in the end should just leave that shitty company and sue them for misleading people and the fucking death threats thats not how you deal with your workers and certainly not legal in any way or form. I wish only good things for the workers at bethesda and hopefully they get everything they deserve in their next job.

[@ernestlemmingway1124]

Almost five years later the game is still 💩. Meaningless road maps, lackluster updates that are always "too little, too late," and a game that is still riddled with exploits and management-side bugs.

[@zetetsu7169]

You clearly can't count time. Since it hasn't even been 4 years. But the game is at least a decent buggy mess now. On launch as someone who bought it for the co-op aspect it was just a completely shitty mess.

[@marybdrake1472]

When things like this happen it is always the management that brings about these messes. Never the ground floor developers, and certainly not the Q.A. department. People need to stop and think before they arbitrarily assign blame.

[@fernandobanda5734]

Thinking will get you nowhere if you don't know. People need information.

[@marybdrake1472]

@@fernandobanda5734 True enough, but, since this is so frequently proven to be the case, it's best to realize that it's a default state.

[@brandonnelson7314]

Exactly, these lower scale workers get no say on anything, just to do what their told or get out. It’s the top 1% that’s the problem. American Capitalism at its finest, works for a few and screws the other 99%

[@JeremyBX]

14 yo me: "when I grow up, I wanna be a game designer at Ubisoft so I can help work on the next Driver & Rayman game" Me now: "boi... _you better dream somewhere else"_

[@kevinbetts2720]

Early on in my career I worked as a dev on a 90 hour per week crunch (not a game project) and it gets to the point if you decide to cut back to 60 hours you are frowned on and actually start getting bad reviews because you are "not working as hard as everyone else". Yes but even 60 hours a week is ridiculous when it comes down to it and no developer can sustain that kind of load for more than a week or two before their health and mental well-being start to suffer. Luckily I have worked for companies since that staff appropriately for the work required that working nights or weekends in a crunch is an extremely rare occurrence. It absolutely shocks me that Microsoft would not extend benefits to employees at these companies. How can you work at a job that you know is detrimental to your health and yet not get healthcare benefits. These companies need to realize that HR should be more about the humans and less about the resources.

[@dawndishsoap3398]

This is what happens when your design philosophy is "Lets just make sure this thing doesn't burst into flames when you make it to the main menu, moders will do all the heavy lifting for us anyway lol" While also making mods inaccessible. You end up getting a full look at just how incompetent and lazy Bethesda has become

[@whylekat]

"It just works." -Todd Howard, Fallout 76

[@AuroDHikoshi]

Missing "... Barely"

[@jdesantiago100895]

Absolutely disgusting that this is becoming the standard in the AAA gaming industry

[@neon13602]

But does it surprise you

[@ricardohoang8452]

Thanks Todd for that 16 times

[@mirrorslash028]

This is standard in every industry.

[@300IQPrower]

"becoming"

[@willmckay8172]

I thought this had always been the standard?

[@Calbeck]

"Here is a Kotaku article which investigated - " *close tab*

[@Ivotas]

I honestly don't get how people actually always defend managment when something goes wrong. Having worked in managment myself I can asssure that a manager that actually gives a fuck knows that in the end it is always their responsibility. It doesn't even matter if employees are doing a good or a bad job, it ends up for the management to, well manage things. If in this case the developers are doing a good job but the management makes stupid decisions that mess things up it's the managements fault. However if the developers would all do terrible work not because of management decisions but because they literally are unqualified to do so or are difficult to work with it would still be the managers responsibility. The leadership has to make sure that the employees are actually doing a good job. And that requires a lot more work then just ordering people around like a bully. There originally was a reason why managers get a higher payment as they are carrying many more responsibilites on their shoulders and have to take care that everything is working well. If they can't accomplish this they fail at their job. Yet there's still people giving such managers a free pass.

[@draconicfeline6177]

its because the ones at these companies didn't get there through competence

[@Ivotas]

@@draconicfeline6177 That doesn't explain though why people blame developers/lower ranked employees first.

[@kingsleycy3450]

The AAA scene is already unsustainable, and now they are scaring away young talents...

[@frostthron8009]

There are millions of people in India, Middle East and even European countries that would do absolutely anything to get into these jobs. Scaring away domestic talent doesn't matter especially when they have higher expectations and try to unionize whenever possible.

[@brendanmewburn1056]

In regards to trying to slap multiplayer compatibility onto the creation engine Joseph Anderson has a fantastic video called “The 1001 glitches of fallout 76”. One of the glitches featured was when the server him and another youtuber were playing on stopped adding new players to the instance. He describes in the video how the game became more and more stable with many nonsensical bugs and oddities that had occurred became rarer and how many quests had additional features that wouldn’t normally appear. Really goes to show how the use of the creation engine for the development of Fallout 76 was a really poorly thought out decision.

[@ashumon23]

same thing happened with Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, as I recall. QA was well aware of all the problems with the game, but management didn't listen and pushed out the game knowing it wasn't ready.

[@solblackguy]

Same thing is going to happen with Sonic Frontiers

[@metazare]

This article ultimately make no difference. It does not matter that bethesda lies, engaged in illegal business practices, or abuses their employees. At the end of the day people will continue to play and pay them money for fallout 76, they will still buy starfield, the next elder scrolls, so on and so forth. I have a laundry list of devs and publishers I don't buy things from, but I'm just one man, and the overwhelming majority of people won't take a stand against this stuff. The whole debacle with actilizzard has proven that not even one of your employees minecrafting themselves is enough to stop people from buying your products. The companies aren't the problem, the players are, because the players don't care what happens as long as they get to play the latest title.

[@edwardesquivel1898]

6, 10 hr days? Most likely on a AC room. Free food, what more do you want?

[@icealchemist250]

Your audio is gone for me. Let me reload.

[@RovixGR]

Same

[@misterghoul9457]

Nope same here

[@DmanDominate]

Yeah its not there for me

[@izaacpitt-gill1825]

Same

[@Xayjohns]

On my phone I don't have any sound but watching it on TV I do have sound

[@DMBLaan]

I think Yahtzee said it best about the no "human npc" thing, to paraphrase- There are NPCs that serve the same function, their just not "human" but robots. It's like it was a self imposed restriction.

[@EdMeares]

I'm just writing to express my appreciation for all the effort and detail you put into each one of these videos. Especially in regard to the contrast & comparison between single-player and mulri-player game you spoke on. Several times now I find myself learning things about the intricacies of game development when viewing your postings, and thus time was no exception. Again, thank you for being so diligent in the care you take at constructing your vids.

[@NickGarrott]

Hi Yong, I'm a former banker and civil servant. I've run both sides of the market. I'm sorry but I'm yet to hear a single compelling story from any games development team that puts them within touching distance of what any junior financial services professional works under (quite likely for less pay pre license) and it doesn't seem much worse than civil service work when you just have to get the job done at times and that's an incredibly highly unionised industry. Happy to go on camera for an interview but the narrative that games industry employment is not particularly hard or onerous. It's just a job filled by highly skilled social manipulators with very low levels of recourse by management. You continnue to ignore how little the market cares for labour disputes. Rest of your work is great.

[@josefinarivia]

@@NickGarrott you should make a separate comment for this and not as a reply to one :) also, im not sure why you feel the need to compare it to other markets. it doesn't have to be worse for it to be bad and it shouldn't be like this. it could also be difficult in other ways than your type of work.

[@elvancor]

Isn't it thoroughly documented by now that crunch like this isn't even effective and net productivity goes down? It's like people in management can't bring themselves to treat workers like humans even if it would benefit their profits.

[@Idazmi7]

For management types, it's less about profit, and more about enjoying the control.

[@calebbarnhouse496]

Well it's because management doesn't care about reality and decide what they think is best, particularly when it makes sense intuitively, like yea working more would seem like a good way to get more done

[@blumars8000]

As an indie studio. I deal with lazy people and workers all the time. I hire people who can work with me. If they can;t work with me they don;t get a job. We are small. I work like 8 hours day but I don't get paid but I love creating, writing, and doing what i enjoy. I had to work shitty jobs before where I am at now. I think works are lazy, brats, sensitive, and immature. They are just out of college. Video Game making is basically an easy and a privilege job if you can get it. Try cleaning up shit, people spit at you, and mock you. Getting a job out of college is a privilege if you ask me. Hurting yourself over a job sound like mental issues. I am disabled and deaf by the way and come from a family of mental health. Don't play that game.

[@kunmppari6674]

Dev Team: This crunch is literally causing physical and mental trauma, shouldn't we delay and rework this mess?! Todd: Pizza Time ( ͡• ͜ʖ ͡• )

[@czaczaczar]

Bully Todd: "I miss the part where that's my problem."

[@DKPGames]

Youngyea covering Fallout76 feels so nostalgic

[@adamlannerd1408]

I worked as a QA tester for Sony, EA/Maxsis and 3D0 in the 90's. That job was mad fun with great pay and all the overtime you could ever want. EA didnt want us to leave, we had a 24 hour cafeteria and places to sleep. Still trips me out I used to get paid to play Socom 2 with my buddies for Sony....

[@JuniperBrew]

i miss 3DO and the days of when things like Heroes of Might and Magic 3 were made

[@JL-rj9fl]

@@JuniperBrew Those were the days indeed!

[@nightowl3582]

Some day Bethesda is gonna need to take the Creation Engine out back.

[@Reknilador]

They've all been releasing shit games for two reasons: 1. They know you're going to pay for them regardless of what they do 2. They created a trend where releasing crap games is starting to be the new standard, that way they lower everyone's expectations to 0 and if they release something even half baked people will praise it, because it's not a trainwreck like before.

[@draconicfeline6177]

I feel this. Legends Arceus did this for me - I've gotten so used to Nintendo games being crappy (and I heard the mess that was BDSP) that a game that was decent and interesting and had features that frankly I think should always be in pokemon made me fall in love... even though it is BLATANTLY INFERIOR to straight up DS Pokemon DPPT. This isn't nostalgia talking - I am playing a diamond nuzlocke right now, right next to legends arceus (and I started it right next to pokemon moon,) and it is OBJECTIVELY better. Is it missing some quality of life things like reusable tms and ride pokemon/summonable bidoof? Yes. Do I love the gameplay loop of legends arceus better (catch the mons, research the mons, walk around the overworld and explore?) yes, I feel like I'm actually researching these lil guys and I'm growing to know and love these pokemon and the world in ways I never did before... but Diamond still outclasses both of them.

[@johnlinton6118]

I picked up FO76 6 months after release and I thought it completely sucked. The only thing that it had 16 times of was boredom. Finally after the wasteland update it started getting to the point it was at least playable. Granted it still has a TON of issues, at least now I can say I enjoy playing it. This article explains a lot.

[@zetetsu7169]

Agreed I bought it because the concept seemed nice. But 3 months into the launch none of the bugs ever got fixed and they never added anything new to the game. So I stopped playing it. I only recently got back into it and it's a decent game now still a buggy mess though.

[@weird-manYT]

I know most will disagree with me here. Fallout 76 should never have had a story or NPCs. The only story it should have had was that Vault-Tec released Vault 76's inhabitants into a dead wasteland to see how they fare. Would they group into factions? Would they instantly kill each other over resources? Or would they rebuild America? The rest of the story would be made by the players and how they play. This game should have been an Ark/Rust copycat but in the Fallout universe. This was not meant to be a typical Fallout experience. This was something completely new for the franchise. Bethesda should have hired new employees that were experienced with the online survival genre instead of giving the project to employees that only knew single player experiences.

[@phuklyyve8941]

@@weird-manYT therefore it should never have been made in the first place, thats not fallout, thats rust/conan

[@weird-manYT]

@@phuklyyve8941 yes but then the same could be said for Fallout Shelter since Fallout isn't a mobile franchise. and look how well received that game was.

[@phuklyyve8941]

​@@weird-manYT received by who? critics? The game was trash, praying on the addictive and fools with more money than sense.

[@ozzcoremidmx8287]

And yet people are still trusting in Bethesda (I'm watching you, Starfield)

[@jamiehughes5573]

no man's skyrim

[@rosesareredbutzerglingssti9290]

Yeah. Like you, I'm hoping for the best while being prepared for the worst -- and with Bugthesda, the worst is always guaranteed

[@gameuniverse5973]

No man anthem 77 you mean

[@ozzcoremidmx8287]

@@rosesareredbutzerglingssti9290 It's ridiculous,people bash companies like Bethesda and fools lile Todd Howard, yet they are still waiting for their games...

[@frostyfilmwatcher2148]

I'm not buying starfield. Looks like crap anyways.

[@TheRaziel08]

maybe i am just getting old and cynical, but nothing in this article is surprising or shocking to me. this is almost excactly what i was expecting to hear from an insider. lmao

[@parabr]

Hey Yong, I love your content and I'm absolutely floored by the way you structure your articles. Of late, most of your content comes through as bashing (I'm using the word loosely) bad management, stressed out dev's, etc. and talking about crunch horror stories. Could you perhaps, do a few stories on games that went right? Maybe if you highlight those practices, you could, in your own small way, contribute to ushering in best practices in the gaming industry. Something that's sorely needed at the moment.

[@nobuzzlitebeer7258]

Agreed,some feel good news could do wonders for the gaming community.

[@draconicfeline6177]

@@nobuzzlitebeer7258 Yeah it would be nice to hear about. We should highlight and celebrate the people that are doing it right.

[@Mamiya645]

Late 00's I heard directly from QA workers, stories of spotting, tracking down, hard confirming and showing how to repeat bugs and glitcehs and crashes, forwarding it only for nothing to happen. Management powdered their noses, ate pizza and drank at work, lived in quite the luxury off-work and had a lot of time off-work, barely did work when at-work. Late 2000's! [Corrupt rotten game developers, corrupt rotten game developers never change.]

[@The_Albraskan]

Having to work on Fallout 76 sounds like a vault experiment that would make Vault Tec blush.

[@wafflecone6968]

Sequel video be like Starfeild Investigation Exposes Disastrous Development, Awful Management, & Mistreated Devs

[@firebornliger]

I still find it absolutely hilarious that people thought a company that can't even make a functional single-player game could make a multiplayer game.

[@Bazerk101]

ESO?

[@shalindelta7]

That's not how i remember it. No one wanted this, the expectation was fallout 5. I still remember the reveal, the song Country Roads was more hype than the game itself and i don't recall any excitement for it after we found out it was MP. People just went with it and hoped for the best in the end.

[@michaelh878]

@@Bazerk101 ESO was trash at launch. It allegedly improved over the years but I found it extremely boring on retrying it recently. Not sure what people like about it.

[@Bazerk101]

@@michaelh878 Because your opinion is subjective. Based entirely on your personal opinion. Which clearly differs from others.

[@michaelh878]

@@Bazerk101 A couple hundred thousand people play it. close to 7 billion don't so I guess I am in the majority.

[@akisakis7980]

The most funny part is that you see the hardcore fans defending SHITHESDA and they saying "they didn't had enough time for such a big game like this, it's their first time, it's fun"

[@the_swordman1]

Heck, i still remember the stories about players manage to get into the "dev room" or manage to spawn entities from the other games.

[@Kinoksis]

Now that Raven Software was successful in creating an union within Activision, hopefully that'll embolden these employees in pursuing the same. They're already leaving Bethesda at droves, the company can't afford to exploit these people forever.

[@JoysGameRoom]

Hey, I think there's an upload error. No audio.

[@misterghoul9457]

Thanks I thought I was the only one. Going crazy

[@NetBattler]

Or maybe it was your phone because the video audio is fine

[@JoysGameRoom]

@@NetBattler, there's a lot of people reporting that the audio isn't working. Not just me.

[@Zvrra]

Huh I hear it im watching the video now

[@neon13602]

Ok and we're back to normal

[@Duchu26]

This is the wrong report. You should read the one made by Bethesda Softworks executives. They made a thorough investigation of Bethesda Softworks and found out that Bethesda Softworks executives are completely not at fault here. I mean if we cannot trust Todd Howard, who can we trust?

[@AuroDHikoshi]

"it just works"

[@rosesareredbutzerglingssti9290]

No one?

[@raider_reaper_4194]

This is sarcasm right ?

[@bensadfleck9972]

good one lmao

[@edtExodus]

16 times the investigation.

[@All0Mighty0Power]

This sums up what I first thought when I saw this game. Upper management saw the multipler skyrim mods an how popular it was an went, ya we can copy paste into Fallout franchise using the single player engine we made an sell it for money. No developer wanted to touch this disaster of an idea with a 20 foot pole an who can blame them really.

[@jumpingman6612]

What bothers me, is that they seem to think that we are stupid. That we don't understand that they release games that needs more time. And then throws their OWN QA under the buss.. We saw this with BF2042 and Cyberpunk among others.. Absolute despicable.