Jonathan Cooper is an animator who has worked in other franchises such as Uncharted, Assassin's Creed or Mass Effect.
Kotaku has done it again. The American media has opened the pandora's box and published an article in which it reveals the practices of labor exploitation in Naughty Dog, also known under the name of crunch in the video game industry. Jonathan Cooper, an animation veteran who has worked on games like The Last of Us Part 2, Uncharted 4: The Thief's End, Assassin's Creed 3 or the Mass Effect franchise, has charged the studio and uncovered his experience. According to their testimony, one of the workers was hospitalized due to the excessive workload to which he was subjected.
“For the demo that was shown in September, the gameplay animators did crunch for longer than I've ever seen, it took weeks to recover from that. A good friend of mine was hospitalized during that time due to overwork. He still has half a year left. There have been other cases since then, "stresses the developer.
According to Cooper, when he left the studio, they threatened to not pay him his last salary if he did not sign a clause by which he promised not to expose the bad production practices. Finally, they backed out after I informed them that these practices were illegal.
Not all Naughty Dog members are subjected to that level of crunch. “The 'storytellers', as we are known, worked on average about 46 hours a week when I left; I never got above 55. The script team is very organized and we react to anything they throw at us. That does not mean that others did not suffer. "
For the demo shown last September, the gameplay animators crunched more than I've ever seen and required weeks of recovery afterwards. One good friend of mine was hospitalized at that time due to overwork. He still had over half a year to go. There have been others since.
– Jonathan Cooper (@GameAnim) March 12, 2020
Cooper: "I abandoned Naughty Dog because they were no longer the best"
According to the former employee, he decided to leave Naughty Dog because "he only wanted to work with the best." Cooper believes that the Jak and Daxter study is no longer. "Its reputation with crunch in Los Angeles is so bad that it is almost impossible to hire entertainers seasonally," so the company made the decision to recruit movie professionals. Despite being "very talented", they were not versed in technical and design issues in video games. "All aspects at the time of finalizing this title took a long time due to the lack of experience about video games in the team." In addition, the ratio of seniors and juniors was unbalanced, which affected production.
Although he acknowledges that for fans of The Last of Us Part 2 it will surely be great (the quality of the product), he addresses the workers and warns: "I do not recommend anyone to work at Naughty Dog until they prioritize the retention of talent."
The title will be available on PlayStation 4 on May 29.
Source | Jonathan Cooper (Twitter)
