A couple of months ago, we published a video for People Make Games that investigated working conditions at two outsourcing studios in Southeast Asia. These companies, Lemon Sky Studios from Malaysia and Brandoville Studios from Indonesia, are both routinely hired by AAA publishers to create huge amounts of art assets for some of the biggest video games in the business, from Gears of War 5 to The Last of Us 2.
And according to that investigation, these studios are also relying heavily on excessive overtime, or crunch, in order to get this work done. Based on the accounts of 19 current and former employees, the video details working environments in which artists have little choice but to for unpaid overtime in order to meet unrealistic deadlines.
“That’s the thing, the company never asked for it,” said one anonymous former Lemon Sky employee. “Therefore, they do not have to pay for our OT (overtime). But we weren’t given enough time to complete our task.”
Although we focused on just a couple of studios in our reporting, it became clear that this was a much more widespread issue across the outsourcing industry. As one senior source explained, if a company like Lemon Sky or Brandoville was to demand a more substantial budget, or a longer deadline, in order to prioritise its employees’ wellbeing, it then ran the risk of being undercut by another outsourcing studio that wouldn’t.
That’s not meant to downplay the role of mismanagement at these two companies, but it’s important to realise that these problems are not only the responsibility of the outsourcing studios themselves, but also of their AAA clients.
Which is why I was delighted to see the External Development Summit host a panel on Tuesday in response to our reporting, titled “Let’s Talk About Crunch”.
With voices from both sides of this relationship, panelists included management from Microsoft, Gearbox and The Coalition, as well as outsourcing teams like California-based Blind Squirrel Games and even Brandoville Studios, one of the two companies we’d examined in our video.
Things didn’t get off to a great start.
After being asked if he believed game developers were really “outsourcing crunch”, Brandoville CEO Ken Lai told the panel he didn’t agree and that, in fact, these relationships had led to “more opportunities and careers” for game developers in countries like Indonesia.
This is not an answer to the question he was being asked.
Earlier this year, we spoke to eight current and former Brandoville employees who described a workplace culture in which unpaid overtime during their evenings and weekends was considered the norm.
Of the seven people involved in this discussion, all seven held either management or executive positions at their respective companies. Five of them lived in the United States (almost half of the panelists lived in California specifically), one was based out of the UK and only Ken Lai lives and works in Southeast Asia.
I sent a recording of this panel to one of Brandoville’s former employees and asked for their perspective on the conversation, under the condition of anonymity.
“Ken’s views on overtime effectively pin the blame on the artists’ lack of abilities or the client’s underestimation of the workload,” said the employee. “Both things which should be monitored by the project management, client/marketing and higher ups. Instead, he uses this talk as a chance to try and further promote Brandoville and dispel what the video has exposed of the company’s culture and working conditions.”