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Funcom is breaking Norwegian law
Yucko55
Member Posts: 25
For those of you interested in what's going on behind the scenes in certain game companies, check this out:
Main case: (in norwegian)
www.dagbladet.no/2008/12/11/kultur/funcom/spill/conan/arbeidsmiljo/4003653/#comments_container
Follow-up case where an instance of the government ("Arbeidstilsynet", not sure how to translate that.)plans to check up on Funcom and if they are following Norwegian law or not: (in norwegian)
www.dagbladet.no/2008/12/11/kultur/spill/arbeidstilsynet/funcom/4010531/#comments_container
ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE MAIN ARTICLE:
boards.polycount.net/showthread.php
I'm Norwegian and can understand what people are saying in the comments beneath the articles in Dagbladet. There is a lot of ex-employees giving comments there, and they are mainly very negative and undiscovering lots of other stuff aswell.
Sounds like Funcom has not only been lying to their customers, but to their employees aswell.
Lets hope the management will be switched, because there is indeed a lot of talent amongst the employees and I only wish the best for them, people deserve better!
Comments
I noticed this one on the side of the article
Etter suksesslanseringen av «Age of Conan» tidligere i år, har mange spillere falt fra og aksjekursen er sunket til et historisk lavt nivå. Det antas nå at spillet har om lag 100000 aktive spillere.
---
Translated:
After the succesful launch of Age of Conan earlier this year, many players have resgined and the stockvalue has declined to an all time low. It is now estimated having around 100,000 active players.
No surprise here this article highlights alot of the problems I have personally said funcom has, bad management far over it's head. Another interesting dynamic is that they are the only global mmo maker out of their country which probably has them on a pedestal with alot of different people their which would go a long way in explaining how they can spew the nonsense they do and seemingly believe it themselves (which if you read the lies they spew it's obvious they either believe it themselves or expect us to)
I recalll AAvery telling us how well funcom employees are treated after he won a contest to visit I wonder what spin he has to add to this?
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
All i can say is its about time Funcom is looked at, They have and are still deceving the paying costemers with hype and not delevring what they promised. I hope some of these guys go to jail for awhile.
MAGA
They still try get new players with tits then the e-peen kids discover its not realy a big deal and quit:P
AoC have not much to offer and when the tits fail well its going down the drain:P
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Brings back memories of sigil....
RIP Orc Choppa
Foolish article actually. People in the gaming industry have worked under these conditions since it started, with long hours and lots of pressure. Its true everywhere in the world, and not just in the gaming industry I might add, in the financial world we routinely work 60+ hours a week, with no paid overtime. (and our colleges in Asia tend to work even more)
If you don't like it, you can always quit. They don't tie you to your desk and I cry shenanigans that people are collapsing at their desks and their health is permanently ruined. (gold farmers in China spend 16 hours a day sometimes).
Its not like working on a computer can be equated to life on the chain gang or 10 years in the salt mines.
In general, many Europeans are protected from working a lot of OT and have far more vacation than the rest of the world. As such, I think articles such as this are an exaggeration and taken way out of proportion.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
There is a big difference.
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was Sigil's first and last game.
Not to mention it was chaos and failure since the start of that company really. Microsoft as initial publisher bailed out so soon for a good reason.
Funcom has released 2 MMO's now and numerous Single Player games over the years.
They are around for quite some time. So you would have expected a bit better from them.
Cheers
If one thing is bad, why should we ignore another thing that is bad? I think the article is very good and it might shed some more light on an allready dodgy business. It won't get any better if we just ignore it.
Anyways this article is not just about overtime, it's about harassment and lots of other stuff. Is harassment also something we should just ignore since it is happening all over the world?
Nah, sorry, but if anything is a bit foolish here it is you.
i think we should try...
The judgement against EA a few years back should remind you labor laws exist still in the mmo industry in finance you work on what could be considered a commision base which can explain easily why these things are ok in the world of finance but trust me the lead graphical designer is not getting the biggest slice of the fc aoc pie which he/she should which is exactly why the law is here to protect the common worker
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Bunch of softies it s a high pressure long hour industry especially those months leading to launch and after launch.
Factor the awful launch it had with so much missing and it was always gonna be that way, as others have said dont like it move on.
As a fellow human, we should bring to light all these unsrcupulous method of business, and shouldn't tolerate or support them anymore.
No doubt there's still alot of business functioning this way out there, but 1 down is better than none at all...
AmazingAvery... pls, quit....
RIP Orc Choppa
No surprise here this article highlights alot of the problems I have personally said funcom has, bad management far over it's head. Another interesting dynamic is that they are the only global mmo maker out of their country which probably has them on a pedestal with alot of different people their which would go a long way in explaining how they can spew the nonsense they do and seemingly believe it themselves (which if you read the lies they spew it's obvious they either believe it themselves or expect us to)
I recalll AAvery telling us how well funcom employees are treated after he won a contest to visit I wonder what spin he has to add to this?
I suspect that AmazingAvery in fact works for Funcom's PR department so don't expect any truths to come out from his mouth.
LOL! Are you serious??
This article isn't taken out of proportion at all.
They deliberately hired people who just graduated from school, so they could be squeezed out and abused to the maximum.
I remember a position for a Senior System Engineer, wich required quite some years experience ....yet they just hired an IT boy directly from school, because they were appearently too afraid to hire someone with too much experience and knowledge about working conditions and rights.
As, someone graduated from school has no experience nor knowledge about working conditions and rights.
-----
I found this quote btw very interesting and proves the more how they scammed their paying customers:
every time a new member comes in, we have to go in and stamp out fires. the company is breaking norwegian law like a seasoned criminal. its very difficult to start working when you're standing knee deep in shit, Bråten says.
if you ask questions about management, you've gotten a big problem.
i'm also angry about what they've said to the public about age of conan.
they said that we were going to have things in the game that weren't in the game on launch, but was even written on the back of the casing in the stores, "theodore" says.
Pretty much says it all and how Funcom deserved to go down in flames like they did.
Cheers
I have to say that is the most narrow minded post i have read in a long time.
There is a reason there are employment laws and a maximum hours per week limit. It does not matter if one industry, or any industry consistently breaks these laws (or bends the rules), if the law is broken then workers are exploited. Just because chinese gold farmers "work" 16 hours per day does not mean a games developer has to do the same.
Of course you can say "if you don't like it, quitt" but one of the reasons Funcom got away with their horrid work poltics so long is that there is no other company like it in Norway. So many of the long term employees of Funcom had to stay if they wanted to progress in their career. There are many who have quitt (as the article and other articles and statements like it have mentioned in the past). But if you have a family and/or other responsibilities, then it might not be possible to leave Norway and move to another country - which effectively you would have to do if you wanted to stay in the industry.
Yes the games industry is full over overtime and crunch time - but really that only means that project management is poor (which is the case a lot in the games industry) - if you plan a project properly, and with good contingency, as well as proper monitoring, little to no overtime should be necessary. Many developers have realized this now and are working to new models - Funcom unfortunately is not one of them (and i doubt it ever will be).
I think our European employment laws as well as holiday allowances are spot on. There have been numerous studies as to the optimum working time before productivity peaks and the european working hours are very much in line with those studies.
If you routinely work 60 hours without paid overtime, i would wager a guess that you either get a bonus for deals you close or based on how well your company does - so it is in your own best interest to work extra. If you don't and you only work 60 hours+ a week out of the goodness of your heart, or in order to keep your job, then perhaps you are the one who should look into quitting. I don't mind working extra hours myself, if there is a good reason to work extra hours and if the fact that i put extra effort in is recognized and compensated for in some way (overtime in lieu, overtime pay).
Funcom had a maximum of 5 weeks of time in lieu for people working on Age of Conan. By the time the game launched some people had upward of 12 weeks (thats 400+ hours) of overtime accumulated in a 6 month period - this means they lost 7 weeks or more (no time in lieu, no pay) - can you honestly say that this is how it should be?
Shouldn't this be posted in the AoC forums as well? I would love to see how the AoC rabid fans spin this into a good thing.
I hope some charges/punishments are laid down in all this. Really gonna hurt 'FUNcom', which obviously ain't so much 'FUN' to work for.
Employees have rights too...but saying 'If ya don't like it, quit.' Only ppl who say that so easily are kids who are living under mom n dads roof. Getting a job is a necessity to life eh...gotta work to pay the bills. I have seen the managers that push ppl into working overtime...with the threat of 'Well I guess you really don't want this job then.' Management acting like bullies is not at all acceptable no matter what the situation is.
That's ridiculous.
You have no clue and have no way to gauge how these workers were treated at all. You didn't work at Funcom and probably never will.
You use completely unrelated assumptions of the average work hours of Europeans to justify an article of which you know nothing about.
Then you proceed to ignore the problem by suggesting "you can always quit".
What I find quite interesting is that there is all this talk about protecting woman's rights, but quite often when these subjects come up, it involves male jobs and their working conditions.
Maybe companies and executives have less trouble from a moral standpoint to mistreat men compared to women ?
Or are they less threatened by the thought of a male complaining to an authority compared to a woman?
Please, dont start the male female thing, we wouldn't want to go there....
Back to the topic, lets see how FC spin themselves out of this....
RIP Orc Choppa
I wonder if the real numbers are anywhere near this high. Wouldn't 100k subs put the game somewhere in the lower side of the top-10 by subscription?
Ken
Did anyone try? I bet it's gonna be removed in a heartbeat by the moderators..
Did anyone try? I bet it's gonna be removed in a heartbeat by the moderators..
Been posted there a while, correctly, as they haven't been proved to break any law yet.
Some people in this thread might want to head over there and see other news where FC staff themselves say things are proportional and enjoyed working there.
" I recalll AAvery telling us how well funcom employees are treated after he won a contest to visit I wonder what spin he has to add to this?" oh you mean other employee's telling it how it really is?
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/215762