Bad Dealings in Kiwiland

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Bad things are going down in the Australasian games industry. Overworked and underpaid appears to be the ongoing pattern. Not only have we had ex-employees come forward from Team Bondi in Sydney, but now other developers have come out of the woodwork. One such disgruntled employee comes from a relatively new Gameloft studio, based in our very own city of Auckland. Some weeks ex-employee Glenn Watson would be working 100-120 hours in a never-ending crunch mode. He even cites an instance where a junior programmer worked for 24-hours straight.

Read the Games On Net article where former Head Studio Programmer, Glenn Watson describes his harrowing experience working for Gameloft Auckland, and why he decided to leave. It’s a sad state of affairs for the games industry that’s for sure. Let’s hope that by informing the public and bringing these issues to light, game producers will finally begin to clean up their acts.

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