Two More Ex-Naughty Dog Talents Join New Xbox Studio The Initiative

Interesting, how many ex Naughty-dog now work at Initiative?

If you can't beat them, buy them

I think it's safe to say that Microsoft is going after Sony's biggest strength and creating some narrative driven third person adventure games.

Good recruitment drive, this is a good tactic, I'm glad they aren't just buying studios, but creating their own. Much more sustainable and should create a good working environment.

In case people are wondering why there are so many ex-Naughty Dog employees joining other companies:

"There were a number of reasons for attrition in the design department, including various individuals’ unhappiness with leads, lack of promotion opportunities, and Bruce Straley’s departure. But the main reason, current and former employees say, is that Naughty Dog’s culture of crunch has burned many of them out. The art department has also lost a number of people since Uncharted 4, including leads and art directors."

While Naughty Dog is regarded as one of Sony's best first-party studios, it has come at a severe and unethical cost.

If you want to read more:

https://kotaku.com/as-naughty-dog-crunches-on-the-last-of-us-ii-developer-1842289962

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-03-14-crunch-once-again-in-the-spotlight-after-damning-report-on-the-last-of-us-2-developer-naughty-dog

In other words, I'm glad more people are leaving Naughty Dog. Absolutely horrible company!

@StonyKL Some of Naughty Dog's workers were very unhappy and both companies are based in California and that's why many of them have joined The Initiative. Of course, Microsoft and The Initiative will only hire talents but what you said is unfair.

@LtSarge Unfortunately that is the industry as a whole in general. You hear about this so many times across so many companies. Rockstar at one point was reported as shocking working conditions. Just got to hope its not out of the frying pan and into the fire!

Interesting. These are skilled people and should bring some great experience to the initiative.

I think there are obviously internal problems at Naughty dog, crunch being one of them. I did not like TLOU2 but from a technical stand point it is great, if that makes sense. If these people are leaving and want a new challenge MS would be silly to not grab some of them as they are excellent at what they do.

@BlueOcean that was a joke based on MS strategy of using their unlimited funds to buy everything and everyone out there.

Its a tough one because I agree working conditions on the industry is generally shocking with many studios reporting long stressful working hours and as I mention above, as its an industry wide problem, leaving one company doesn't mean it won't be the same problem elsewhere, but to some extent it does feel like these smaller dev companies that rely so heavily on success in small teams will have it more pressured. Moving to MS will such unlimited funds does give breathing room on success and workload.
If a small studio has workers working at 100% for 10 people, MS can just employ 15 people at 75% (more realistic work rate) and the cost doesn't really affect them.

@StonyKL I think Initiative has someone from Rockstar too.

@StonyKL Yeah I know it was some kind of joke but it sounded harsh. If Microsoft had bought the full studio, it probably wouldn't have solved the studio's problems but I'm sure that those people were very happy to leave Naughty Dog and join The Initiative.

I don't think that Microsoft wants to buy every other studio but to create "new" studios with good working conditions. ZeniMax/Bethesda's acquisition was agreed, they basically have achieved fund for their beloved projects and IPs and a QA department. Some of the acquired studios have said that they were relieved to hear that they could do their thing (Double Fine) and not be forced into creating what they are not comfortable with. Even Rare, acquired a long time ago, has admitted that they feel better working under Microsoft's umbrella.

If anything, I think Microsoft is too soft towards their studios. Look at 343 Industries, a huge team, unlimited budget for Halo Infinite and still delaying the game, needing additional assistance and hiring some old Halo experts just a month ago.

@LtSarge Thank you for reminding people of this. People forget too quickly when stuff like this comes to light.

I'm actually impressed that I've not heard anything out of the Xbox studios. Mistreatment of staff seems to be pretty common place across the industry, but for all the talk of how evil MS are, mistreating their devs doesn't seem to be something MS does.

Also "head of melee animation". That is crazy that these teams are so large now that they have a lead and an entire team just to animate punches.

@LtSarge Some more pieces,

"As a result of these problems, Naughty Dog has seen a steady trickle of departures over the past five years. That kind of attrition can be crushing, not just because people are forced to say goodbye to dear friends but because those friends leave holes that make all of these problems even worse.

After the brutal development cycles of Uncharted 4 and Uncharted Lost Legacy, Naughty Dog has found itself with little choice but to hire a disproportionately high number of juniors and contractors for The Last of Us II, even if that perpetuates many of the problems that caused senior staff to leave.

Some at Naughty Dog who spoke to me for this story said they expect more people to quit, or that they plan to leave themselves, once The Last of Us II has shipped and bonuses come in (which is usually six months after release). And so the cycle will continue".

Hell yeah, Welcome to the team..

Wouldn't be surprised if they are working on a couple of games.

Glad that they are hiring to talent, and also glad that those people can shift to a more 'humane' workplace

Some serious talent in this new studio.
Will be very interesting when we can finally see what they are cooking up.

@BlueOcean Yeah, those pieces stood out to me as well. Here's another one from the Eurogamer article:

"Cooper then claimed Naughty Dog's success "is due in large part to Sony's deep pockets funding delays rather than skill alone. A more senior team would have shipped TLOU2 a year ago"".

I genuinely wonder how long they'll be able to keep this up. I mean, how long is it going to take before their next game is released if they keep hiring more inexperienced employees and losing all their experienced ones?

Another piece that I found interesting from the Kotaku article:

"After Uncharted 4 and Uncharted Lost Legacy, even some of the designers and artists who had been at Naughty Dog for more than a decade decided to call it quits. One developer told me that toward the end of 2017 and into 2018, it felt like they were getting new farewell emails every week."

That's just crazy.

@LtSarge Many people work hard but what they are describing is unhealthy and 70% of the designers crowd and key people leaving is not normal. By doing that both Sony and Naughty Dog, because Sony knows very well what has been happening, everyone knows, have a studio that has become a factory where people get worn out and leave, new people come and they need more time in spite of working even harder to achieve the quality goals.

It's nice to see that these talents will not only work on Xbox games that we'll enjoy but also will be able to be happier with Microsoft.

The initiative are building a great team. For me, Xbox could do with some uncharted/Last of us type games. So the signs are looking good with these hires. Let’s see how the usual fanboys on here will twist this news & complain about them being from Naughty Dogs. Wonder if the usual fanboys would dare even play it?

Deadlines create crunch and pressure. The more 'over' deadline you go, the more pressure there is and increase in stress too. I worked in the Media as a Graphic Designer (not games) and the lead up to deadline is a lot of stress and pressure and every minute over, the pressure builds.

Games are different of course - you don't have pressure of pushing on as soon as the 'deadline' is upon you and people waiting to go to press as soon as you finish to get your magazine/paper out on time - you usually get 'months' extensions but that still puts pressure on to make the next deadline, and even more to make the next deadline if it again gets delayed.

Its not helped by putting release dates on games and knowing that all the fans will be 'disappointed' with a delay. You have pressure from more than just the 'boss' - you have pressure from investors, from the public etc all wanting you to meet the next deadline - even if you know its unrealistic and know that you will no doubt either be releasing a mess or having to disappoint again with another delay.

How your company handles that though is what will separate the Studio's. Being made to feel appreciated for any 'extra' hours you do, feeling 'valued' and even 'rewarded' for your efforts etc can make those tough times a lot easier to cope with and 'worth it' in the end. I bet EVERY studio has deadlines, has pressure to meet those, has 'expectation' that staff will 'crunch' when required etc but not every studio will make their staff feel valued or rewarded by the company and that leads to resentment and burn out...

I really recommend people to read Kotaku's article to know what the problem is.

Microsoft still hiring talent away away from Sony & Naughty Dog tells me that The Initiative is probably working on multiple games.

And good for the people leaving Naughty Dog! They shouldn’t have to put up with that crunch garbage. Hopefully, Microsoft treats them better than Sony did.

This game from the initiative is getting higher expectations every time they sign a big name, hopefully people don't get to a point where they expect the impossible and are disappointed with a potentially great game. Hopefully they announce something at fan fest.

Likely almost every video game developer: crunch crunch crunch

People on the internet: silence

Naughty Dog, Rockstar, CDProject: crunch

People on the internet: “How dare they” “death to them” “#cancel...” “disgusting company”

Give your heads a wobble ya bunch of babies. Nobody talking and crying about suicide sweat shops making your precious next-gen consoles throughout covid season though right? Pick your battles ay?

Anyway, super big win for The Initiative. Very interested to see what they are working on.

@BlueOcean link me if you please:)

@mousieone Here 😁.

https://kotaku.com/as-naughty-dog-crunches-on-the-last-of-us-ii-developer-1842289962

@BlueOcean thanks

I think crunch is part of the business nowadays. Not only game dev, as well. In my workplace there's a constant influx of jobs to do, most of which are expected to be done within 2-3 days.

@gollumb82 Sure, many people work hard but read that article.

@gollumb82 The situation with Naughty Dog is not normal though. If you read the Kotaku article, you'll find out that people are skipping meals, not showering, working from morning until midnight, working on weekends, don't have any time for family at all etc. Like this is serious. This is not a good workplace at all if you pressure your workers like this and put unrealistic expectations on them.

@LtSarge @BlueOcean
Ok guys. I've read the Kotaku article and I agree that the crunch at ND they described is horrible. My initial thought still stands, though. It's part of the business. Greatness demands sacrifices. You'll read the same in a couple of months about Cyberpunk 2077 and CD Projekt Red who are considered the White Knights of the gaming industry. You have to wonder if gamers would be ok with it if The Last of Us 2 took at least one more year to be developed (or shareholders in the case of CDPR)? Same with Cyberpunk.

@gollumb82 The funny thing is that The Last of Us II was delayed because of people leaving and inexperienced people joining the studio. It's explained there. It's so serious that it backfired.

CD Projekt publicly admitted that they'll work extra hours for some weeks before release, at Naughty Dog they do it every single day until people get so worn out that they wait for the project bonuses -most of them don't get paid for extra hours- and leave.

@gollumb82 But the situation with CDPR is only temporary. They're only crunching now during the weeks leading up to the release of Cyberpunk. The way I understand it, crunching is always going on at Naughty Dog until the game is released.

@LtSarge @BlueOcean
Yup, read about the employee flux at ND. Makes sense that it would backfire. As for CDPR, I'm not calling them out (not only because I'm Polish) but I'm pretty sure there were earlier reports of crunch that were dismissed. We'll probably never know the real extent of this issue, unless disgruntled workers speak out or devs themselves admit to this (like CDPR). Bottom line, though, is that it is unethical to ride your employees to the ground like ND have been doing.

The Initiative working on a walking simulator based in the Perfect Dark universe, confirmed?

@abe_hikura
I'd be jumping off the Naughty Dog ship too, and this is from a big PlayStation guy. Isn't the same company.

@BlueOcean
343 and Rare have been mismanaged, beyond that I'd say MS isn't as terrible as people act. And hell some independent companies like Bungie and Bioware did their best work either as part of MS, in the case of Bungie, or with MS serving as publisher as was the case for several big Bioware releases.

When you buy the studio and the "name" but the talent leaves. Keep the talent happy, to achieve consistent quality.

@Gamer83 I don't think that Microsoft have mismanaged any studio but perhaps they have given them too much freedom. The new boss of Rare, Craig Duncan, is a tragic choice but the studio has great ideas and does fantastic things except, well, a much-needed Banjo-Kazooie game. Microsoft, you should know that you lack 3D platformers.

I don't know 343 Industries as well as I know Rare but it seems that Microsoft has given them unlimited fund and time and still they asked for Halo experts one month ago.

I love Microsoft's friendly philosophy, I really do but I'd ask the studios what's wrong and replace people if necessary if I was Phil Spencer. Craig Duncan doesn't deserve to be Rare's director and something is not right at 343 Industries. Healthy work conditions? I'm in!