The traumatic culture of crunch in the development studio of the Mortal Kombat series

At the end of April last year, when NetherRealm Studios celebrated the release of Mortal Kombat 11, the company's former contract employees shared stories about crunches and stressful working conditions on social networks. This was especially true for temporary contract employees. Our investigation into these allegations revealed a long-standing NetherRealm temporary worker exploitation culture created by full-time employees and management.

About a week I talked with four former employees of the NetherRealm contract team who worked on games such as Mortal Kombat 9, 10 and Injustice 2. Although none of them worked on Mortal Kombat 11, some of them worked with NetherRealm on a contract for several years. They talked about how NetherRealm Studios cultivates a particularly stressful and sometimes hostile work environment for contracted employees. All four of my interlocutors said that they felt themselves to be "second-class people."

Our sources, who spoke with us on condition of maintaining anonymity due to the risk of their careers, report that the company regularly operates contracted employees. Many of them are young graduates from nearby Chicago game design schools, where NetherRealm Studios is located. For many of them, working at NetherRealm was the first experience in developing AAA games.

Carrot Beckon

Former NetherRealm contract artist Beck Hallstedt tweeted about how NetherRealm handles contractors: minimal pay, crunch, and a hostile work environment. In his tweets, he talked about how managers and staff members exploit temporary employees who are desperate to get a permanent job at NetherRealm.

After these tweets, PC Gamer also reported "cruel crunches" that many NetherRealm employees had to deal with, both temporary and permanent. However, our investigation revealed the history of the studio, regularly underestimating its employees.

Our sources confirmed that under the contract with NetherRealm they worked for $ 12 per hour. For reference: the minimum wage in Chicago today is $ 12 per hour, but only after raising the minimum wage that occurred in July 2018. Many sources also tell us that NetherRealm offered artists $ 11 per hour.

“I can say that everything Beck Halstedt talked about is absolutely true,” said another anonymous source working for hire at NetherRealm. "NetherRealm Studios Creative Director Ed Boone boasted that he would never fire his full-time employees." But two sources believe that this statement is hypocritical.

“Boone says that he was lucky and he never fired people, but despite this, the company regularly and systematically terminates the contracts of dozens of people,” says one former contractor. “People are never hired,” another source told us bluntly. According to LinkedIn, NetherRealm currently employs a little less than 200 employees, but since the studio does not disclose its internal data, it is difficult to understand which of them are in the state and who is on contract.

“Many of us first worked here on an AAA-level game,” says the former contractor. “We all hoped we would be hired after the contract was completed,” says another former contractor. "Spoilers: none of us were hired immediately after the completion of the contract."

The desperate hope of gaining a full-time position in NetherRealm, that is, in fact, a protected status, was constantly used as a carrot for "young and hungry" developers. The executives said that the vacancies at NetherRealm will open "in the near future", and that they "are doing fine, you need to continue to work."

For some developers, Injustice 2 was the first AAA game.

To a large extent, NetherRealm was able to pursue such a policy thanks to the composition of the contractors. One source said that approximately 75 percent of the contractors were newcomers trying to take the first step in the video game industry. “Some people from NetherRealm misled temporary staff just to complete the project. “I know two cases when people were frustrated, unable to keep up with the pace.”

“The bulk of the quality control department consists of temporary employees, that is, about 40-50 people in the QA departments for consoles and mobile devices in the NetherRealm office. There are also about 15 modelers, animators, designers. Estimates are approximate, but the number of temporary workers in the studio is large, and the competition is fierce. " Another source said that “the lowest level of the contractors was placed in one windowless room” - a box-remodeled garage that was often filled to the brim with temporary workers.

Some might say that contractors, interns, and temporary employees correspond to such working conditions, especially in areas such as quality control, which are not as glamorous as higher positions. But two former contract soldiers told us that temporary workers were sometimes asked to participate in work on more serious parts of NetherRealm projects, for example, “fatality” in Mortal Kombat or “supers” in Injustice 2.

“Some of these players-favorite fatalities were created by temporary workers,” one source acknowledges. “In the early stages of development, NetherRealm sent out letters asking them to share ideas for fatality. Of course, this was also offered to temporary employees, because they could just lay out a terrific idea, for which you do not need to pay too much. One QA employee made storyboards on his storyboards for his fatality. His idea got into the game, but he never got the full-time position he was striving for. ”

Moreover, a hierarchy has become an integral part of the company’s culture, in which management and staff are at the top, and contractors have no power. When we asked our source if the full-time employees knew what power they had over the contractors, he replied: “They knew for sure. And used it. I know full-time employees who extended their lunch break and told contractors when they could have lunch or take a break. They did our micromanagement. ” A source compared the work of a contractor with a "contest in popularity."

Presumably, some full-time employees created groups in NetherRealm and sometimes scoffed at contractors behind their backs. “They gave us nicknames, very frivolous, and especially for women. Many female nicknames were perverted and disgusting. " Other sources say they only heard second-hand names.

Crunch for survival

As many reports say, in the gaming industry as a whole, it is also expected that contractors will take part in crunches - a practice common in the field of game development in which employees process many hours, sometimes even whole weeks.

“Last year, I worked for about 220-odd hours a month, with continuous weeks of processing,” says one source. "Everyone knew that history would repeat itself when creating updates and DLC, the crunch is almost endless."

Attitudes towards contracting at NetherRealm have not changed for many years.

Partly the willingness of NetherRealm contractors to participate in the crunches was caused by low salaries. “It was also important that we were paid so little. “I could barely live on my salary, so I used crunch just to get a little more.”

“We all participated in crunches to make more money,” says another. "We were at work all day and sometimes almost did not see sunlight, we came home very late, and in some areas of the city it is quite dangerous."

“Most contractors were desperate for at least the slightest hint of a full-time position,” one source said. “Add to this the fact that contract workers were not entitled to any compensation. Some people fell ill or had chronic illnesses, but could not afford even the simplest medical care, at least through the Affordable Care system [approx. trans.: also called Obamacare]. And the leadership knew about it. ”

Compounding the situation for those who wanted to work in the gaming industry was the fact that we lived in the Midwest, where there are fewer vacancies than in large video game centers like San Francisco and the East Coast. “NetherRealm is one of the largest AAA studios in Chicago. Our industry is very small and closely related; everyone here knows everyone. This increases the pressure: you need to maintain a reputation and remain silent about violations, because rumors are spreading fast. "

Data Leak and Meeting

At NetherRealm, contractors were given a large share of the load, and sometimes a large share of anger. In the course of our investigation, we often heard one story about a meeting gathered during the development of Injustice 2. In the couple of months before the release of the game on the Internet, there was a serious data leakage of Injustice 2, and, according to our sources, NetherRealm president Sean Himmerik convened an emergency meeting for contractors dedicated to this leak.

“This meeting was intimidating,” said one of the sources present at it. “We were unfairly accused, almost by force dragged from our chairs to the“ immediate meeting about NDA problems ”. The tone of the director was completely unprofessional. " Another source called the meeting "demoralizing."

“It was just awful. It seemed to me that they had driven me into the hall only to yell. This was hard. People were upset and cried, and I shocked what happened. ”

“In the hall, arms crossed, several angry executives and staffers stood, and the head of the studio yelled at us about these leaks and essentially told us that the company suffered millions of dollars in marketing losses.” Our sources, who were also present at the meeting, recall that Khimmerik “pitted us with each other, essentially saying:“ You need to figure this out, you know that one of you did it ”.” Another source recalls that Khimmerik told the group: “One of your colleagues in this room now literally has all of you.”

“We were gathered in the office and the head of the studio, Shawn Khimmerik, was yelling at us, it was humiliating,” recalls the third source. “We were threatened with prosecution and blacklisted gaming studios.” Two other sources claim that Khimmerik threatened that the leak would be investigated by a security service made up of FBI agents - it was probably a scare tactic.

“What upset me most about the meeting was that the NRS full-time employees didn’t get anything like that. “Scapegoats were made by temporary employees, they treated us like second-class people.”

The meeting, dedicated to the leak, became known even among the contractors who did not take part in it.

Pay

Before publishing the story, we turned to NetherRealm and Warner Bros. indicating the details of our findings and asking them to comment. In particular, we asked if they could somehow comment on the treatment of contracted employees and crunch in general. We received no response.

Similar stories from studios such as Epic Games , Rockstar, and Telltale Games have spurred our sources to share this . “It’s sad that this is happening throughout the industry,” one former NetherRealm contractor said mournfully. "The situation with Epic Games, Fortnite and Rockstar seems even more nightmare, although the" optional processing "that arose when creating Red Dead Redemption is very familiar to us."

“I think for many young people working in the industry, being in a cool studio is becoming an important aspect of self-esteem,” says one source. “Therefore, when this happened to me after the completion of the contract, I realized how bad it was for my mental health. It seemed to me that I had lost a part of myself. ”

“I believe that it is important that people studying in the courses and job seekers know what they are contacting, understand that this is not normal, and can stand up for themselves. Because otherwise companies will get away with it, and get away with it. ”

See also: “ Rockstar employees stood up for the company after being criticized for 100-hour work weeks. ”