Yeah, like the music or movie industry, it’s rife with abuse because there are so many young people who dream of working in it that there’s always fresh meat for the grinder.

And selection pressure means the industry veterans in charge are people who somehow thrived in this environment, so they’re unlikely to change things.

I have a friend who worked in vfx on some very high-profile movies and shows, stuff you have definitely seen. And that industry actually seems even worse! Everyone is a contractor, so you work on one project, and then you don’t have a job anymore, and you better make the bosses happy if you want to get another contract ever again. Everything is stunningly poorly planned, with deadlines that are impossible to meet without working all night, constant last-minute changes from fickle directors and incredible amounts of nitpicking and demands of perfectionism.

This is likely exactly the type of industry they are turning game development into. Because it’s maximum profit with minimum responsibility. Hire the best in the world, squeeze the most work in the shortest time you can out of them, and then toss them to the wind when they’re spent.

Many years ago. But as you said, it’s a big industry, and the US is not an easy place to unionize in.

I have no idea if this is true, but it certainly fits the very strange vibe of the game.

It’s like how I would imagine the most violent cops see the world.

All people are awful. Every criminal is a heavily armed, highly trained, fearless lunatic, who does not care if they live or die, as long as there’s a tiny chance they can hurt more people. Civilians are uncooperative, ungrateful, and suicidal.

Every deployment, no matter how routine, will likely lead you into an ambush by dudes with assault rifles.

Avoiding bloodshed is almost impossible and even trying is likely to get you killed.

The game has some of the strangest bugs.

The last time I tried to play, I had no UI at all, but only in multiplayer. It worked fine in single player, but if I joined or created a multiplayer game, the whole HUD was just gone and nothing could make it appear.

That’s really the only time I’ve tried to play it since 1.0, and I’m not going to blame them for bugs in early access. But loosing the mission after the last civilian (Daniella Voll) managed to trap two officers in a bugged closed and slap us to death was as infuriating as it was hilarious.