They look pretty bad to me, and I skipped most of Kotaku's commentary and analysis. FWIW, I've done 10 years in games, gone through 5 games crunches that were longer than 6 months each.
"Coding is NOT WORK. People who think it is aren't real software engineers."
That's some highly macho driven bullshit that is untrue and somewhat meaningless to boot. People who think coding is not real work should be able to easily hire a AAA title producing team without paying them anything. Yeah, good luck.
Same slide "High expectations, long hours, new challenges and a customer/market driven mission are motivating for real engineers."
There's no reason that "long hours" needs to be in that sentence, and no evidence that it's true. These sentences on this slide are working to rationalize uncompensated hours of work.
"The Young the Old and the Useless" is downright inflammatory, even if there are elements of truth. It's negative stereotyping to suggest good engineers have no social skills, can't make eye contact, and will marry the first girl they can. The last sentence suggest's their value is high because they will keep a job regardless of the working conditions. If that's true, it's immoral to exploit.
There are some people who aren't good communicators and who won't quit a bad job unless it's really extremely bad. But personally, I don't believe that the best hires are the antisocial engineers that won't stick up for themselves. The best hires are the people that have both good engineering and good communication skills. The best hires are the ones that are hard to keep because they have good options and aren't afraid to take them.
The only reason to prefer people who don't change jobs and don't stick up for themselves is because it's easier than being a good manager. The stuff on these slides is perpetuating the problems that are causing crunch times in the games industry. These ideas aren't forward looking, they aren't setting goals for being better at making games or building healthy companies. These slides are making excuses for taking the cheap way out by exploiting engineers. This isn't just bad in the unethical way, it's also deeply lazy.
"Coding is NOT WORK. People who think it is aren't real software engineers."
That's some highly macho driven bullshit that is untrue and somewhat meaningless to boot. People who think coding is not real work should be able to easily hire a AAA title producing team without paying them anything. Yeah, good luck.
Same slide "High expectations, long hours, new challenges and a customer/market driven mission are motivating for real engineers."
There's no reason that "long hours" needs to be in that sentence, and no evidence that it's true. These sentences on this slide are working to rationalize uncompensated hours of work.
"The Young the Old and the Useless" is downright inflammatory, even if there are elements of truth. It's negative stereotyping to suggest good engineers have no social skills, can't make eye contact, and will marry the first girl they can. The last sentence suggest's their value is high because they will keep a job regardless of the working conditions. If that's true, it's immoral to exploit.
There are some people who aren't good communicators and who won't quit a bad job unless it's really extremely bad. But personally, I don't believe that the best hires are the antisocial engineers that won't stick up for themselves. The best hires are the people that have both good engineering and good communication skills. The best hires are the ones that are hard to keep because they have good options and aren't afraid to take them.
The only reason to prefer people who don't change jobs and don't stick up for themselves is because it's easier than being a good manager. The stuff on these slides is perpetuating the problems that are causing crunch times in the games industry. These ideas aren't forward looking, they aren't setting goals for being better at making games or building healthy companies. These slides are making excuses for taking the cheap way out by exploiting engineers. This isn't just bad in the unethical way, it's also deeply lazy.