Former NetherRealm Software Engineer (James Longstreet), concept artist (Beck Hallstedt) and Quality Analyst (Rebecca Rothschild) rocked the gaming industry with a report of poor working conditions and attitude towards employees in the studio.
The PC Gamer portal spoke to them and other employees of NetherRealm Studios. All ex-employees report a prolonged extreme crisis of working weeks of up to 100 hours and over-reliance on contractors who were paid as little as $12 an hour with no benefits or job security after contracts expired.
“I worked 90-100 hours a week [when developing и ], said Rebecca Rothschild. — I can personally say that nothing has improved from MKX to Injustice 2. Everything was done at the last moment. Everything was bad. [The contractors] were second-class citizens, and it was clear in many details. [Overtime money] is great, but if I don't have a life and I'm working to death, what good is that money?"
At the same time, Hallstedt claims that gender discrimination and inappropriate behavior were common at NetherRealm Studios. Women were not included in some meetings, were called derogatory nicknames, and were forced to use a shared toilet. According to an anonymous source who also spoke to PC Gamer, a complaint was once filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The studio has not yet responded to the accusations of former employees. The issue of processing in the gaming industry has long been acute. People are forced to work overtime to meet deadlines set by the publisher. And often this takes much more time than the standard schedule from 9:00 to 17:00 suggests.
Source: 3dnews.ru