Jason Schreier's saved articles

I love me some vidja gaems as much as the next person, but “essential retail”? Hahahaha no. Hope they go over the coals for this. Read more

They can’t even get the BO smell out of the stores what the heck do they think they can do with coronavirus?   Read more

I’m going to enjoy the resulting fallout when Gamestop Corporate get the big lawsuit at the end of this. Read more

Are they seriously asking their on-the-ground employees to confront law enforcement and defy a lockdown order?
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In recent months I’ve been researching effective team management and communication strategies in preparation for a career change, and this letter is a really fine example of the type of communication that makes people believe in their work and treat their coworkers as family.
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See, this is the thing. Ubisoft has over the years borne the brunt of accusations that they’ve completely retreated into safe, nonthreatening, bland, ‘four-quadrants’ blockbuster design, and of course ‘The Ubisoft Game’ is a running joke. Their microtransactions are as bad or worse than many other companies. Read more

One of the only silver linings in all of this chaos is that there may be some long needed changes being made to some of our most antiquated and drakonian laws, concerning things like paid sick leave, ISP’s and their data caps, and Healthcare. Read more

One complaint I have about the “working from home” in this industry is that it feels like I’m perpetually on the clock. Read more

Compare to my boss who said, in summary, “we’re totally fine! I can’t name any names but we definitely have new clients lined up right now. Be sure come to the office unless you’re super sick. Byeeee” Read more

I’m honestly really (pleasantly) surprised by the care I’ve seen so far in responding to this pandemic. If we could all take these attitudes with us once this passes, the world would be a better place. Read more

He always striked me as a very genuine personality. I am so happy they retained their independence.  Ubisoft seems to me a company that really tries to learn and do better. Read more

I interned at Naughty Dog for a summer years ago during college, and yep, I crunched 12 hour days Monday-Saturday, with an 8 hour day on Sunday. While I loved working at one of my favorite studios and on an awesome game, it was this experience along with the ND salaried staff that told me to take a different direction… Read more

There’s a video on youtube where their culture is explored. It mentions the lack of producers and other things. It seemed disturbing too me.

I’ve been through crunches like this (you can work over 100 hours a week, it turns out!). And seriously, we do crunch because we love the game and we want to make it better.
 But sometimes we crunch way more because of bad decisions, and what’s weird is that the worst crunches are always at the companies with the… Read more

I feel like the argument against producers is always “but bureaucracy!” And that’s fair up to a point. You get too many producers and layer on too many processes and it can slow things down—there’s really no perfect solution. It’s kind of a spectrum where you have Naughty Dog on one end, and something like working in… Read more

Holy shit, the no producers part explains so much of what came before (terrible communication, and no one thereto say no to unreasonable requests). It’s a friggin full-time job, you can’t just put that work on people who already have other stuff to do. Sure everyone should show initiative and self-management, but… Read more

Fucks sake, HIRE A PRODUCTION TEAM. Read more

It’s very frustrating to read about this sort of thing, because on the one hand, you always want to see quality studios and games thrive. On the other hand, is it really thriving if a fair amount of their workforce sounds constantly miserable? Being in a work environment where peer pressure is the reason you don’t… Read more

Some who work or worked for Naughty Dog say they believe that if the company doesn’t find a way to solve the crunch problem, it’ll solve itself through attrition. Read more