Ask HN: Is this common in the gaming industry?

Crytek is a huge mess, even by game dev standards (Which has a lot of huge messes). They've recently gone through periods where they just stopped paying their employees, they have a 2.5 score on glassdoor (That's pretty low.)

yeah I read that as part of my research on them for my interview.

This is not common in the gaming industry, nor is it professional, nor would it likely be legal in the United States. Given that they're in Germany, though, I'm less sure of the laws there, so I can't speak to that.

Honestly, though, even if it were common, I would still not want to work on a team like that, and not just for idealistic reasons (if you allow things like that to happen you're just letting the industry continue to be racist, sexist, etc): that behaving from a team you'd be working with would reflect poorly on your career and your future, as the explicit racism would likely also exist implicitly in performance reviews, compensation, and future recommendations.

very true

totally agree

I'm not sure what you're looking for here.

Common or not, I would steer clear of any employer that behaves this way.

That might mean you have less options in the gaming industry if such behavior is more common.

The easiest way to influence change on this issue is to name names and make sure everyone avoids them like the plague.

Think about it this way, if the company you want to work for behaves this way -- then maybe you don't want to work for that company in the first place.

what I am looking for is feedback that whether such a thing is common or not. If it is, then I am simply making a big fuss out of it as this is my first such experience and I will not be as shocked to expect such a thing again and just keep trying.

Regardless of whether it's common or not, I'm sorry to hear you had this experience. I encourage you to not pursue a job with them if they contact you back. You deserve to be treated with respect.

thanks.

Regardless of whether it's a common occurrence or not, this behaviour shouldn't be tolerated. You should be making a fuss, otherwise people will continue to act in the same manner. If this is an entrenched issue, where people don't even realise its effect, then all the more reason for you to raise it with HR.

You got lucky and they failed the interview. Now you won't be posting a long entry at The Daily WTF this time next year.

I did not even know about DAILY WTF before you mentioned it.

read Daily WTF and http://clientsfromhell.net to prepare yourself for a career in consulting. Clients from Hell is a designer-centric site but it mirrors the IT side way too well.

Honestly, i'm curious as to what the jokes/taunts were. Maybe you just stumbled across something that's weird german humor? Since i am german i might be able to give you an inside perspective. (Or confirm they're asshats.)

In general, if you make jokes that a member of another race would perceive as racist, you've already done something wrong, even if you don't perceive it as racist, but just as some sort of "weird" humor.

If it made the interviewee feel unwelcome at the company, there is no possible explanation that would make this ok -- the simple fact that they feel excluded is what makes it not ok.

Making people feel excluded, or even doing or saying things behind closed doors that would make people feel excluded if they knew about them, is part of the problem that makes people who are not part of the majority feel unwelcome in a company's culture, and in the industry as a whole.

It's not the industry: it's the country. I worked with German suppliers and I can tell you that German culture is generally permeated by a strong "superiority complex". If you don't come from a Northern European country or UK or USA people will generally be very suspicious about your honesty, integrity and skills. You will have to prove yourself on the field to gain trust. The strange thing is that I found the same attitude also in foreign people that stayed in Germany for a long time and considered themselves German as well. Of course this is a rough generalization and I found also a lot of nice people without any prejudices however expect to be treated with distrust when you are in Germany.

In short: This happens because __in general__ engineering, __on average__, german work is superior. Mind, this is not due to something inherent to germans, but due to our social environment. In germany you tend to get paid more* for your work and have more time to complete your work because it's expected that you deliver quality. Meanwhile outsourced work is paid little and expected quickly, so foreign workers (especially east-european) have little incentive or reason to improve their work quality and even if they care, have little opportunity to do so. (No time to actually read "Perl Best Practices" when some german manager wants the work done 'now'.) Added to that there's also the fact that higher education in germany is for all intents and purposes free, adding just another early education edge for people here.

* higher wages all around, illegal to work without health insurance, law-mandated minimum paid vacation (24 days), all (real) sick days fully paid

This is the perfect example of the "it's not germans is that Germany is better" meme that permeates the German culture directly from the words of a German guy :). The hidden implication is that Germans engineers are better because they grow up in a better environment. I'll leave it to you to judge. Let me just add a small note: it's not uncommon to see IT companies in Germany employing a lot of people from Eastern European countries.

As i said, on average. For every company that tries to copy the american outsourcing model and ends up with a crap heap because they're too cheap to pay for good code, i've seen two that actually care.

Also, i don't get where you get the "hidden implication" bit from. I'm outright stating that it is a fact that while german engineers may not be better people, or developers, or engineers, they have a lot of advantages pushing them beyond peers from less fortunate countries.

Yet, they have Turkish founders and CEO.

Hi OP, I used to work for a big game company (that had great culture -- opposite of what you described!). I'm now working on indie games. Although it's not as glamorous as the "games industry", you can find a day job or do contracting in a more sensible industry.

The gaming industry is infamous for having killer 80 hour work weeks & sexist culture.. if this is your first exposure, I recommend working in a different industry that will appreciate and respect you then making some games on the side with your friends.

I know about the work hours but the industry is responsible for many great things and I do not want such an event to be a deciding factor to come out of it.

Moreover, the indie option has always been at the back of my mind.

I've been in the games industry for almost 20 years and have never heard of anything like this happening. Coding tests are a fairly standard thing (good or bad) and they may have had their reasons for switching up the timing - would give Crytek the benefit of the doubt there.

However as someone who has been on the other end of those calls I am saddened that you were treated to such an unprofessional and disgusting display. When you contacted HR to reschedule did you mention how the interviewers treated you with such disdain? I would hope that their HR and legal departments take such behaviour very seriously (and HR probably have no idea what happened).

Personally I would take this experience as a bad sign for this particular application and not pursue the job any further (would you want to risk dealing with that every day). BUT you should make sure HR and senior management at Crytek are aware of what happened - it sounds as though US law may well have been broken (and probably european law also). Hopefully they will respond to you in a positive way.

Despite the games industry getting a bad rap don't let this put you off. The hit driven and creative nature of the industry does mean that sometimes the wrong people get put in positions of power and responsibility, but there are many well run companies out there where you'll be able to contribute to exciting products and work with skilled and passionate peers.

When you get into the interview process remember that you are interviewing them as much as they are you. If the job or company feels wrong you can and should respectfully pass on them and keep looking for the perfect match.

Be persistent, be professional, sell yourself and you'll do great!

I'd like to echo some of the sentiments that whether or not this is common, you should probably just write this team off. It seems like they're assholes and even if they could suppress it long enough to hire you, you'd know that they really think shitty things about you because of your race.

However, the reason I'm bothering to reply here isn't that, it's to say that you may simply want to reconsider aiming for the games industry. I know working on games sounds sexy, and I wanted to do it once too, but I landed a gig in the games industry once, and it made me realize that developing games is not really any more fun than developing any number of other software products, but it has the huge drawback that there are a bazillion people who want to work on games bad enough that they will settle for a shitty salary with shitty working conditions working on a shitty game. These are the candidates you're competing against, so this is the candidate you will become.

It is terrible that someone did this. Nobody should have to put up with that bullshit.

I do not know anything about German law. But for reference, if this had happened in the US, I would recommend that you contact an employment law attorney, because as you described it you might have a basis for a lawsuit. (Only a lawyer could tell you for sure.)

What would one hope to gain from such a lawsuit?

Great stonking wads of cash?

Compliance with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. In the US, they would be breaking the law, and that's how these things get enforced.

I worked in the industry in California for four years before going indie. No, that is not normal. There are good teams out there; aim for them. You want to make friends in the industry more than you want a famous company on your resume, and the two aren't mutually exclusive.

This seems incredibly unprofessional to me. I'm an indie gamedev; my friends are mostly 4chan posters, perverts, and unemployable layabouts. WE know not to tell deliberately offensive jokes in a professional context, how can Crytek's staff not?

I don't have much experience looking for work with normal employers, so I can't give you anything firsthand about how pervasive this sort of thing is, but what you describe seems abnormally bad.

One thing to note: AAA development (at least in the US) is known for terrible working conditions. If you want to go into game development, make sure you get a good idea what the studio you're applying to will actually expect before you accept a job.

By the sounds of it you deserve better.

I definitely won't buy any games from them in the future.

Because of a single pseudonymous post on HN?

I don't play games period, just wanted to show my support.

I'm assuming you're a few years out of university?

No, run..not walk..run from the game industry.

You should make $80-90k fresh out of college

Big demand. If you're smart and you know you're smart, demand 120k

After that, be a hero! and not a zero!

$120k for a college grad?

Yes, after 6 mos..you demand $120k, if you're good, and you know you are. Demand $120k in St. Louis

For a college grad in St Louis? In what context? Webdev, or...?

Yes, St. Louis, a college grad..if you should demand at least 100k..and more if you're good. You should demand at least 90k in St. Louis right out of college. Demand is outrageous.

Senior devs in St. Louis should at least demand $75/hr..which ain't much on the coasts, but very good money here. You get it.

Unless you want to make games, then it's not such a bad idea. Get a few AAA titles under your belt and go hunt for the company that you want to work for.

Money isn't everything, some people just want to work in the gaming industry.

(edit: adding more)

That said, making any sort of racist joke (presuming it's properly racist) about the person you're ABOUT TO INTERVIEW and during the interview is just plain bad form. It's a good indicator that that company isn't the one you should be interested in anymore. My two cents.

I don't think it's "common" but unfortunately casual racism can turn up anywhere, even in software development companies.

I'm sorry that you had to experience that, but not surprised.

thanks, have you experienced something like this yourself?

The fact is when you are starting new in the industry (like me) such a thing can quite easily be very demoralizing and be a deciding factor to not continue in the industry.

If this is all it takes to demoralize you, don't go into gaming. I put it off for years myself because of the EA spouse scandal in 2004. When I graduated, I went into web development instead. Years later, I had a convenient opportunity to work at a gaming company and only stayed in the industry for 3 years.

When people say only work in gaming if you can't imagine doing anything else, they mean it. The work is hard, the hours are long, the people are "colorful" and most gaming companies are completely disorganized, even by startup standards. Read "masters of doom" and realize what is depicted in that book is practically industry standard, including the egos, yelling, screaming and off-color humor. Some see those things are a bonus. Some don't.

The upsides are the technical problems and the coolness factor. To a certain extent, gaming has ruined me for web development. After coding a solution to efficiently visualize an EXPLODING PLANET, it's hard to get excited about creating yet another social network.

Thanks for the advice and I did not know about the EA spounse scandal.

If you're Scandanavian then chill at home for a couple years and work on the Unreal4 engine.

There is nothing better.

Work on some cool level-of-detail streaming. How can we massive streaming worlds?

Think of Carmack when he was a pup!

There are many different companies. Very few hire regularly. In a company that is not hiring regularly the hiring process is not streamlined and the experience will be completely random.

Yes and no. Crytek is a very unusual company with its own distinct personality. If you're a graphics engine programmer or an artist, it would not hurt your resume to work at Crytek. They make beautiful, sexy shit. If you're just about anything else, there are a lot of good reasons not to work at Crytek. They've spent a lot of time and money without having seen commensurate returns.

Joking around in sometimes very non-politically-correct territory is not at all uncommon in the game industry, but it is also not that uncommon in lots of other industries. The things people say when they think they aren't being heard are generally very different from what they say when they know they're being watched/recorded. The typical butt of jokes in just about any industry is whoever isn't in the room.

To be honest, I wouldn't worry much about racism. I'm not saying it isn't an issue with some folks, but on the whole, if the game industry is anything, it's a meritocracy. If you've got a fucking cool demo, you can open just about any door with it. Many people of profoundly different colours, nationalities, sexes (including indeterminate), behaviours, and smells have paved the way for you.

It's very unlike film, for example, where there are strict hierarchies of who you are and aren't allowed to talk to, and contacting the right people is extremely difficult without the right introduction.

Actual talent and what you do with your time is so important to the game industry that it eclipses just about everything else, including professionalism. I'd definitely get used to that. They really don't want to interview you. They want to make games. They don't want you to do tests. They want to make games. They just want to know whether you're a fucking bad-ass coder, to see whether they want you to make games with them. If you can prove this in some other way (a great demo/game w/ source), you can also drop any pretense of professionalism and tell them you're not going to do their tests or interviews. Great coders with demonstrable proof of same are in such short supply that you will still be seriously considered at most places.

Don't worry about racism because the game industry is a meritocracy? I don't understand the logic here, can you elaborate?

People make racist, nationalist, sexist, and all other kinds of off-colour jokes in the game industry, particularly when they don't think they're in earshot of the butt of their jokes (obviously with some notable exceptions), but it doesn't have much effect on whether you'll get or keep a job as a coder. If you write sweet code, you write sweet code. End of story. People will want to hire you.

You know that's still pretty shitty right?

Yep. So is eavesdropping on people without telling them and then posting what was said to the Internet. Can't say I'd recommend either, but they both happen with surprising frequency.

The OP overheard this stuff because they were waiting for the conference call issues to get worked out. They couldn't exactly not listen.

All is not lost, though! Maybe OP can go back and apologize for telling people about the racist jokes the Crytek people made at their expense. Wait, no, that's entirely ridiculous.

When people unknowingly do things that upset you, the considerate thing to do is to tell them first, not the whole Internet. Give them a chance to explain, apologize, amend. If they don't to your satisfaction, then by all means go wide.

When people "unknowingly" out themselves as bigots, no, you don't have to be "considerate" and take it to them. That's terrible advice.

This only enhances my point. People should be worried about racism. Great coders can work anywhere. Why work amongst casual racists?

Some people believe that racial jokes make one a racist as much as cannibalism jokes make one a cannibal.

Yes. And those people are racists.

Sure. Everywhere I worked there had been people from all countries and continents but Antarctica, working together without any problems but they are, apparently, racists.

You know, I'd rather be with friendly "racists" who have not fired anyone over their alleged "racism" than anywhere in Tech, where one seems to have to be conforming to the party line even outside the work in order to keep the job (e.g. Adria Richards incident).

Because there is a general entitlement of superiority in the game industry; on average, they feel like they are a technically superior and way more fun form of programming compared to anything other job in the IT industry

> but it doesn't have much effect on whether you'll get or keep a job as a coder [citation needed]

Making racist jokes devalue a person. How can you respect them as an employee if you devalue them as a person?

git log

A meritocracy that cares more about work quality than race or sex or people skills sounds good, but that's not what Mr. Digital interviewed at. A telephone interview is a test of PEOPLE skills, not code skills. A meritocracy that cared about work quality should have managers who can stick to the deadlines they set - not arbitrarily move them up. A meritocracy that doesn't care what race or gender you are isn't going to tell the interviewers what race or gender you are. And I'd expect a meritocracy that cared about work quality to have someone in the typical set of four senior developers who can figure out the company's pet phone software.

What were the racial slurs?

Come to the US. The game industry is tough and pays shit, but if anyone actively makes racial slurs DURING AN INTERVIEW you're getting a payday via lawsuit.

Only people who are not members of minority groups think that someone saying something degrading to you is an easy path to riches. It simply doesn't work that way in real life.

First off, no one is going to believe you, and everyone will seek to explain it away and inpugn your credibility. But even if you somehow have audiovisual evidence that proves your claims conclusively and you have a slam dunk court case, there's zero chance that you're going to make enough money from it to cancel out the income you will lose from making yourself effectively unemployable to anyone who runs a background check on you. If you're on record as a troublemaker that sues their employer, no one will hire you.

Look, if you want to deal with racist jerks and bad telecom, you might as well just do web development. You'll get paid better anyways.

(games industry is worst industry)

I have been told about this so many times before...

There's a reason for that. :|