Dear Halo 4 QA tester: We don’t need to strike | Hacker News Reader

Dear Halo 4 QA tester: We don’t need to strike

penny-arcade.com

34 pointsJhsto28 comments

This is a hack piece.

The paragraph most indicative of this?

"This guy failed to make a major dent in music, and then moved into gaming because he thought he was good at Battlefield. He knew, KNEW, that he would be a valued member of any team, and he would rapidly move up to the ranks. He gets angry that he has to do many different tasks, although that's often part of the job. He gets mad that management doesn't allow them to be unprofessional on chat programs. He gets mad that he doesn't get the raise he thinks he so honestly deserves. He stops coming into work during his last two weeks. He seems to think that someone liking an idea puts him on the path to being a designer."

I know that Ben has made his living being an enraged mouth-breather on the 'net for many years now (before Penny Arcade, he was a resident ragemonger at Ars Technica), but really the sad thing here is that he'd still write this.

Do we really want to mock people for the audacity of trying to contribute to a team? For asking for a raise after doing work, only to have it bounce through two or three layers of bureaucracy? For trying to succeed doing something they love, making a go of it for years, and then trying something else?

This is just mean-spirited, this is just cruel. This surely cannot be the type of sentiment we'd like to see in the games industry, and even though we can't ignore it we ought not endorse it.

Then again, what do I know? I don't get payed to be an angry asshole on the internet making fun of other people who are actually trying to do cool things.

(I have to do it for free.)

Both pieces feel hackish to me.

In the valley, the monoculture here suggests that this man in the QA environment did not do enough to succeed. In other cultures, it might be said that he wasn't given an opportunity to succeed. I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle.

What do we know about big gaming companies? AAA titles are expensive and if you pay people a lot of money to test your games, that lowers your margins.

OP should concentrate on getting some marketable skills and the replying author should consider not wasting his breath. Both of these articles would be better off never having been written.

Mean-spirited indeed. I don't really see what rebutting in such a venomous tone is meant to inspire in readers, besides more vitriol and less constructive discussion. It's a shame that this sort of writing is broadcast with such a high profile.

In defense of Ben though, I feel the original piece is pretty crass. That is, the author, Nathan, assumes so much self-importance that he feels justified in trying to incite an industry-wide strike of QA contractors. I suspect his experience, or at least his attitude towards working in QA, is pretty common among QA contractors.

I seriously feel like if the average Ruby Tuesday's waiter had an outlet like Kotaku to vet his/her frustrations about unresponsive management and lack of respect, they'd say something similar. Not to completely disqualify the Nathan's feelings, there certainly may be systemic organizational and operational issues with QA and other parts of the games industry, but there's nothing outrageous about it.

> That is, the author, Nathan, assumes so much self-importance that he feels justified in trying to incite an industry-wide strike of QA contractors.

I see some parallels with the world of customer service call centers and the hospitality industry. The much of industry and management see the job as low skilled and the employees as disposable. If you look closer, there's actually a big difference between the crappy employees and the good ones, it's just that direct measures are difficult and there's a culture of looking down on those professions.

> if the average Ruby Tuesday's waiter had an outlet like Kotaku to vet his/her frustrations about unresponsive management and lack of respect, they'd say something similar.

They do - it's at http://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromYourServer and honestly, I have a lot more sympathy for what most of the people telling their stories there go through.

Fast food servers in Seattle are on strike for higher wags right now, so, your analogy is... interesting.

>>I know that Ben has made his living being an enraged mouth-breather on the 'net for many years now (before Penny Arcade, he was a resident ragemonger at Ars Technica), but really the sad thing here is that he'd still write this.

His ragemongering is what made him successful. He's an immature douchebag and he writes for an immature, douchebaggy audience. It makes complete sense that he would write a piece like this.

I was very disappointed when he was hired by Penny-Arcade. Character-wise, he really, really does not fit in with Mike and Jerry.

This is exactly when strikes are called for:

"Every job in video gaming has a line of people waiting to take it, and you will be abused at the lower end of the spectrum. Hell, you'll be abused at the higher end of the spectrum. Make peace with that idea"

That is the philosophy of a predator, and anyone that expresses that sentiment to you is dangerous and not to be trusted.

This Ben Kuchera is now a pariah in my eyes.

Read down in the comments and you will see the abuse continue:

"Ben, we've been tearing this jerk a new one for over an hour over at Kotaku even before your excellent article came out. He refuses to answer any criticism at all, it's really pathetic. Come over and join the fun!"

How fun! The original article was authored by a 32 year old man that was working as a contractor for $11 an hour and made to work unpaid weekends and treated in such a way that Ben calls it abuse, and Ben is defending the employers.

For $11 an hour the man has no protections, no safety net and no health care.

And if you read the article you will see that he really tried to put in his best effort, to go above and beyond, and this is what he is met with.

Then Ben Kuchera has the nerve to say "If you don't like it try to do something about it" after he is eviscerating this man for trying to do something about it.

The machines/networks/technology are coming for all of our jobs. In 100 years (assuming strong AI) there will probably be no job a human can do better than a machine.

Are we going to mock, belittle and make homeless other humans the entire ride down?

Ben Kuchera should be ashamed of himself.

Just because there are plenty of kids willing to be abused for a job in the video game industry doesn't make it right, because your still abusing kids.

This is purely shocking to me... How on earth is it this practice acceptable? Why the hell should anyone make peace with the idea of abuse by your employer? Why shouldn't someone strive to make this better instead of accepting this shit?

This is exactly why labor unions were formed in the first place, and why we as workers have rights. To say we need to accept this is bullshit. Pure bullshit.

Oh well, trolls will be trolls... c'est la vie.

While I can sympathize with both points of view, my default position is to try to relate to the injured party. The original author brings up several valid points about the nonchalance of the video game industry and effectively points out that no matter how much skill or experience one acquires, it's often written off by people who are perhaps too brazen to be in positions of power.

Something else to consider is that the job market in Texas is almost certainly less fair than the one in Silicon Valley. Living in Idaho, I've encountered an amazing level of distrust and incredulousness in the jobs I've held. My bosses just didn't expect that a local kid would actually know what he's talking about. Low wages, no benefits, no time off and no job security is what you'll generally find in red states.

Churning up and spitting out people who could potentially make the industry better is not something to be proud of. Articles like this are symptomatic of structural problems in the tech world, mostly vast wealth inequality and disenfranchisement from the decision making process. I don't see it changing any time soon until IT workers organize.

Maybe that's not the most popular view among some of the nouveau riche libertarians who are on the rise, but I wouldn't expect it to be. The largest found pain in 'Merika right now is the dysfunctional economic system. When that's fixed (and it will be) the profits for the general population will pay out in ways that are difficult to imagine right now. It's going to start with democratization of the workplace. I hope the original author keeps applying his talent to evangelizing what's wrong with the status quo.

As someone who got their first big break out of college doing QA as an FTE at Microsoft, albeit not in game development, I take some offence with the second to last paragraph suggesting that QA is the lowest rung. While it is true that much of the software industry treats QA as such, that perspective really needs to change. QA can make or break a company, and depending on your skill level, should be treated as peers with other disciplines. I know that I came to the industry with more knowledge than many of my QA peers, but what was often overlooked was where I was sometimes more knowledgeable than most of the Devs and PMs I worked alongside. I am a consultant today, and after 10 years of hard work, have demonstrated my capabilities in other roles, but it has been very difficult to find the right projects to bring these other skills to light. For the past 3 or 4 years, I've been working in Dev and PM capacities, but my inbox is still filled with recruiters that only see me as possessing QA abilities; this is because finding highly skilled and qualified SDETs, or even STEs, is hard. As long as QA work is regarded as starting in the mail room, this won't change and the good QA employees, like moths to the flame, will leave those roles to less qualified workers. This practice perpetuates the idea that QA is only entry level work and drains the talent pool. As a result, software development suffers.

Amen. That original article wasn't even worth a rebuttal.

I started in QA (on EverQuest) when I was 20. No degree, just a couple level 60 characters. After 2 years of overtime, hard work, and taking programming classes at the community college I got a junior programmer job in another department. 12 years later I'm a cofounder and CTO at my own indie game startup. The system works!

"The system works" does not follow from your anecdote. "It did not suck horribly for me" would be a more apt conclusion; personally I don't believe it's intended to do what it did for you. Gaming QA is intended to QA games. Corporations are intended to serve their purpose and use their assets effectively, not to groom them to start their own companies.

Don't get me wrong -- good work! I'm glad good things came out of it for you. I just don't think this generalization is valid.

I don't disagree with your first statement. QA is not supposed to be a training ground, but it does kind of turn in to one since that is the only entry level job you can get in the gaming industry without a degree / experience. Most of QA is trying to get promoted up to an artist, designer, programmer, or producer. I've worked at multiple game companies now and every one was like that.

Plus, you can make your argument for any job/company where you are learning new skills and getting better- which should be every job for a professional. Why would any company promote that? And yet, any company worth working at does.

While socialist_coder does have a valid anecdote that counters the disgruntled QA guy's anecdote, it is quite incomprehensible to see someone named socialist_coder oppose someone advocating for organized labor.

My take on the whole affair: it is a rough-and-tumble branch of the tech industry, where degrees and methodology don't count for as much, and that some people can't stomach for too long even if they think they want to. Given the persistence of abusive practices by employers, employees would probably benefit from some sort of labor organization, but it just doesn't seem like that will happen in the US.

As a talented and recognized musician, I didn't understand why the disgruntled QA guy tried to work his way up that way. I can only assume he tried to enter the industry as a musician and was rebuffed.

This evokes images of an apprenticeship program from the trades of yesteryear, which while having its own share of flaws, certainly worked for many.

Context worth noting: Penny Arcade also runs a webcomic about gaming QA: http://trenchescomic.com (humor style is consistent with that of normal PA webcomics, so it's love-it-or-hate-it.)

More noteworthy is the "Tales From The Trenches" section, with horror stories about gaming QA: http://trenchescomic.com/tales/post/14999

You're upset about the culture? Do something about it. Speak out.

Kuchera has got a point here, this tester needs to speak out. I hear Totilo has a popular video game blog these days. Maybe Totilo could give this tester a platform to tell his story.

We don’t need to strike

Every job in video gaming has a line of people waiting to take it, and you will be abused at the lower end of the spectrum. Hell, you'll be abused at the higher end of the spectrum. Make peace with that idea

If true, that's certainly interesting food for thought. There are reasons that workers in project/event-based careers (where jobs come in waves that each require intense labor) have organized their workforces.

It's always sad to see people encouraging others to just accept abuse. We have so many tools at hand; surely we can do better.

I'd thought the Penny Arcade Report a worthwhile read, but this just forced me to reevaluate that.

Pushing this lousy ad-hominem attack when this is absolutely not the first article complaining about poor treatment in the games industry?

I thought the Penny Arcade report was better than that.

Guess not.

Sorry but I'm still on Mr. Peter's side. I had a room-mate who did QA at EA and would come home with the same complaints, and similar stories. This is a re-occuring problem in the Video Game Industry. Maybe Mr. Peters' expectations were set way too high but there's a reason why QA has such extremely high turnover. Generally people don't quit good paying jobs, they quit mentally disengaging low paid crappy ones.

And don't think that $11/hour somehow fixes everything.

Another room-mate worked at a defense contractor as a "geospatial technician" aka sit in front of a PC and do mind numbing easy work. The work and hours so mind dulling that they had an extreme turnover despite paying their employees well. The ones that stayed were miserable as hell and new employees stayed away from them.

If there's a problem with the job or with the treatment, increasing pay doesn't fix the original problem. You can't keep putting new bandages on a wound that won't heal and keeps bleeding. You can't keep filling up your tires with air and ignoring the hole that needs to be patched.

This is a hilariously fantastic response to the original article. The author does a great job of cutting through the self-congratulatory bullshit of the original post while simultaneously giving an accurate picture on the current climate in the industry.

Kudos, Ben Kuchera

I dunno. I'm getting kind of tired of the frequency Kuchera's opinion pieces are condescending "hard truth"-telling. Regardless of if I agree or disagree with his broader points, reading his posts feels like a slog. I guess that's his shtick, but I can't stomach it.

edit: I removed a criticism of a particular bit of his post, it struck me as really silly but was a tangent.

This doesn't actually have anything to do with QA, it's about abusing the definition of "contractor" so you can lower costs, deny benefits, and lure them to this jobs with promises of getting their foot in the door. This is really common, and it's bad behavior. Most companies do this with no intention to hire full-time. Also known as "permatemps".

> They will work you to death and they will promise you potential, but it is for nothing. You will never truly be a part of anything. It is time to seriously consider unionizing, or organizing a major strike.

Is it a shock that no one will take an $11 an hour [temporary] video game tester seriously? He overestimated his value (there are a ton of other guys who would also take a shot at playing video games for little money) and was just another temp who ended up quitting. If you're being paid $11 an hour and think you're key to a multi billion dollar franchise, you should probably reconsider.

yeah, there's a long line for any job in the game industry, and a long line for people trying to get out.

Kicking a man while he's down and trying to affect positive change? Heartless Penny Arcade. Absolutely heartless.

I think that's a bit extreme. It's not as though Penny Arcade sold people a bad service or product.

They have a right to their opinions, and they have a right to use their platform as a soapbox to broadcast them. Nothing wrong there. If you disagree, you disagree.

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